I am supposed to be here to work with kids in an orphanage. We went to the place the other day and I am impressed. It is huge, consisting of many sparkling white buildings, a pool, playground, and many vans for transportation. I have brought a number of things from my playroom for the young ones and now find out that I will be working with teens as well. Oh, but I won't. there is a plague of measles and the place is quarantined!
So the organizer of this jaunt, who drives a taxi on the side, and who failed to pick me up at the airport, drives me around and around Cuernavaca to meet Rosa's family and friends. Alfredo is his name. He had two groups of people to pick up at the airport, one being Rosa's uncle and aunt, the other me. Well I waited 2 hours and finally took a taxi and got 6 hours sleep at a decent but cheap hotel. We finally made contact via email and he picked me up the next morning. Seems he was late because of having to deposit the one group and returning to get me.....whatever.
I am living with Rosa and her 11 year old daughter. Neither speak a word of English, so here I am immersed. She has been wonderful in dragging me around all weekend. We have had breakfast at her mother's little restaurant, if one can call it that. It consists of one room, the size of a large bathroom, and a table outside. But boy, the food is great! I now have met all the family, including the group picked up from the airport, They have come in from Chicago and turn out to be Rosa's uncle and aunt. Since no one else speaks English, it was nice to talk Trump with someone who spoke English.
I have now also had breakfast at Rosa's brother's place as well as a BBQ at a friend's birthday party. That brings me to the topic of food. We seem to eat 2 meals a day, both consisting of about the same thing. It's good, but very much the same, consisting of tortillas, into which or around which could be beans, a mix of onions, tomatoes, cactus, green beans, apa, and sometimes meat. Everyone shouts at me when I go for some salsa or onion combination, saying "picante"! They are very aware of my response to such concoctions when I dipped a radish into what I thought was guacamole. Gad!! I thought my mouth was on fire! Yet this is common fare.
The house I am living in could fit into my living room and dinning room. And I have the only bedroom. Rosa and Angelica sleep in beds that are part of the rest of the house. The house is part of a series of boxes all around a minuscule pool. The whole place is gated. In fact gates, metal doors, iron bars and 10 to 20 foot cement walls iare the norm every where. I pointed it out to Alfredo and he replied that there were a lot of criminals around. I wonder at the open spaces in the rest of north America and all the violence in the U.S. We should be building walls???
Since I am not working at present, I am concentrating on my Spanish. I am getting 2 hours of lessons every day. Alfredo is a good teacher and he presents interesting topics. I have only had 2 days of lessons, the first based on Mexican sayings and the second on jokes told by a Spanish Kermit. Alfredo is quite dramatic, so our discussions are fun. Everything is in Spanish. I have not spoken English since seeing the folks from Chicago. Hope that means I will get better. I still cannot understand anything on T.V. nor when people are nattering to each other. Yet, I do converse with Rosa and Alfredo. Maybe time will tell.
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