More Adventures

I seem to be getting worse and worse about posting on this. I can´t even remember what I did this past week anymore :) I really enjoyed my four day vacation. It was well needed. On Friday, Emely, Amanda, Emely´s parents, and I went to Tequila which is a town about an hour away by bus to see the Jose Cuervo Tequila plant. It was very interesting as the whole town works for Jose Cuervo. It is kind of sad because will all the money that the Jose Cuervo family has you would think that the people could get paid more but they don´t. The plant was actually going through repairs so we didn´t get to see it up and running but it was still interesting. We got to try tequila that was illegal to sell because it was too strong ( the tequila that you get only after one session of distilation). It literally feels like your entire throat, mouth, stomach, is on fire. The plants that they make tequila from remind me of aloe vera plants. There are fields and fields of the plants. I forgot their name, maybe Tequila plant :) Emely´s parents enjoyed the tour and I think they enjoyed their stay in Guadalajara. They left on Saturday. Saturday we had some errands to run like go change travelers checks, go to Wal-Mart which by the way are really nice down here. They have free samples of EVERYTHING, EVERYDAY. Basically we go there to eat :) We then had planned to go to a Mexican food show and then go to the grito del noche in Talaquepaque but once we got back from Wal-Mart we were tired so we relaxed and then went to the food expo and skipped el noche del grito. It was basically the same thing we went to last Friday but in a different part of town. Each section has their noche del grito on different weekends. The food expo was interesting and I bought some really good Mexican cookies!!! On Sunday we went to Tonala, yeah the place we went to the first weekend when we got on the wrong bus. This time we went to the marketplace. On Sundays and Thursday there is a huge handicraft market and everything is really cheap. It is overwhelming but it was a lot of fun and we now appreciate Tonala a lot more than our first visit. On Monday we didn´t have school because the new kids were having orientation. I didn´t get a roommate which means that I have my big room all to myself for the next five weeks! We got a lot of new kids though. A lot from Europe. A friend of my family Freddie thought that I needed to work on speaking more, which is true, so I went with him and toured a bunch of schools in Guadalajara. First we went to the poorest school which is in the section called Guadalupe. There are about 14,000 10-14 year olds in that area and only about 150 go to school. Out of that 150 60% live with a single mother because the bandas, or gangs there are really bad and the women hang out with all the gang members and when they get pregnant they don´t know who the dad is. It is really sad. There is no way I can describe the living conditions. I would never guess that people actually live in some of those houses. There is garbage all over in huge piles similar to piles that we would go sledding down. After that we went to the complete opposite. We went to the richest school in town. Basically it is just like the schools in the US. After that we went to the school where Vero and Terry teach at. Freddie used to teach there and he was basically a celebrity when we got there. He told all the kids I was his wife and they thought that Freddie was pretty lucky. Haha. That school is in between. The number of kids that go onto college around here is really low. Out of 100 students five will go on to college and 2 will graduate and when they graduate they usually have a hard time finding a job. So the education system here needs some help. On Tuesday it was back to classes. I am now in a culture class and another grammer class. I really like my classes a lot. I don´t even have homework this weekend :) Wednesday I woke up with a stomach ache but by the middle of the day it wasn´t too bad so I continued to do everything I normally do. That night we went bowling because our friend Louisa from Italy is leaving today to go back so we were saying our goodbye. It was Phillip, Emely, Amanda, Louisa, Oscar, and I. Oscar lives here and has a car so we all shoved into his little car and it was tight. He claims that he has gotten 8 people in it but I find that hard to believe. Thursday I woke up really sick but I still came to school. My friend Nicolas was sick on Monday and Tuesday and he said he had the flu and a girl in my class got the flu on Wednesday and my teacher hasn´t been here today or yesterday so I think I got the Mexican flu because I didn´t eat or drink anything that would have made me sick. I did luck out because on Thursday our teacher didn´t show up so we sat there and I relaxed for like almost an hour before one of the students in our class decided that she wanted to be taught so she went and asked the head lady to come teach us for the next 45 minutes. I was so mad. Who does that. There is only seven of us in that class and two of us were sick and the others wouldn´t have minded sitting there. Well then I had to concentrate which was really hard. My second class is just lecture so that wasn´t too bad. I went straight home and went to bed. My friend Leo got my a bunch of medicine and my senora made me a bunch of tea and this morning I woke up and didn´t feel all that bad so hopefully I am over it. I really don´t know what I am doing this weekend but am sure I will find something to do. One big difference between here and the states is that people never plan very far in advance and people hardly ever talk about what they are going to do and if they do they always say if god allows me to. It has to do with their religious beliefs. So I have learned not to tell all my plans to the locals because they think I am crazy.