So I returned from my FANTASTIC weekend in Monterrey with the other exchange students at night on Monday, June 11. I went into the swing of things.
As it turns out, I had been spoiled all year long. I had a maid to clean, do my laundry, make me my food, make my bed. Pretty much anything I had wanted. Before I left on my two week trip in May, I had some clothes that had to be specially cleaned, a swimming suit that had to be washed my hand, things to be ironed and a button to be sewed on. The lady who worked in the house kept asking and asking me if there was anything she could do to help. She wanted to pack my things, get everything ready, and I said told her that I could do it myself. Until I finally said that she could help me with my 'special' clothes. She happily took them and within two hours I had everything back and done the way I had asked. I thought it was funny.
Anyway, back to the point of the story. I got back from Monterrey and my host mom was extremely stressed because one of the girls had borrowed $80 and then quit which really stressed out the other lady (she had been working for them for six years, that's an extremely long time to work as a maid for one family) so she up and quit, and that left a lot of work for the mom who goes to school and works full time.
So my host mom was just relaxing one morning before going to work and she was telling me how awful it was to find people to work in the summer. She didn't like the fact that the house didn't look as clean as it usually does. I asked if there was anything I could do to help her and she said no. She was upset that the beds weren't made and I said "just shut the door, no one will notice." I'm not entirely sure she appreciated my input in the situation. At which point I went into the room that my host sister and I shared and I made our beds.
I usually stayed up late and woke up late. Since my family had a big screen in the basement, it was really nice to watch movies at night when I wouldn't be bothered and I wouldn't bother anyone else and I could watch what I wanted. My normal pattern for a few days was to go to bed between 3 and 4 and wake up between 12 and 1. I was literally alone in the house until 3 when the family came home to eat and the kids got off school. It worked out well, although, I wonder what they thought about my sleep habits.
Tuesday I went to hand out invitations to the going away party for Lieke and me to my aerobics class. There, I found out that there would be no aerobics this week because the CD player broke in the exercise room. I was a little disappointed because I wouldn't get to say goodbye to the girls from the class. While there I went to talk to Edgar, the instructor, who was talking to another lady, Cici, a girl who I had met the first weekend I was there and then Martita (a Rotarian's daughter) and her friend (who I also know. I invited them all to the party and we talked for a bit. The one lady was absolutely shocked I could speak Spanish because I had never spoken in Spanish to her before (because she had never spoken to me in Spanish before, always English, and I feel stupid responding to someone in a different language). Cici ended up inviting me to go for a walk with her and she talked about how sad she was that I was going and that she had always wanted to invite me out (I don't know why she never did) we talked about my family and that I had a 22-year-old brother, and she wants to be introduced to him. I said good bye to her and that was the last time I saw her.
Wednesday night I played in my final basketball game for my school. Since it as the final game, the coach decided to show up. I played hard and got a few points and a few rebounds. In the end we won the game, but got second place in the tournament (of three teams) They let me keep the team trophy.
My team after our game, I was a little hot, as you can see.
Thursday Vanessa invited me to go swimming with Tanya, a girl from school, and another friend of hers. I accepted and despite my dislike of water, I went and it was nice, it was a bit cold outside and so the water was a little cooler than I would have liked. Other kids from my school were there and didn't seem to care that I was there as well.
Thursday night I went to my first men's Rotary meeting. It was so cool. So much better than the women's meetings. They fight, but it's not bickering and it's not about stupid things like if they should wear black or khaki pants in the parade in July. The men don't get as much done as the women, but they eat, talk about different happenings in Sabinas and other levels, and drink beer or mineral water and whisky.
We started to talk about the differences between Europe, the United States and Mexico. When discussing the topics, you're bound to hit a few sore spots, and boy did we hit them! It was extremely interesting to see the diversity of the group, as in the way they all think. Some are very conservative and homebodies and some know a lot about the world and are very open to a lot of different ideas.
My three host dads and me. Fernando, Martin and Pedro at the meeting.
I was very happy to hear my first host dad say something about my friend Mike. In the Mexican culture, It's not so common for a boy and a girl to be just friends and the way I talked about Mike he thought that I was just saying Mike was a friend and really my boyfriend, so he could come and visit me. He talked about the differences in cultures that I really did see Mike as only a friend and that in general Americans are more accepting of all people. I was very happy to hear that.
I came away from the meeting a little peeved at a few people who insisted that I was a very conservative person, which I don't think of myself at all. Lieke also made a few people mad because of her speech about it's better to live together before you're married. That pushes A LOT of button in Mexico. In general, the country is very conservative and I don't think anyone in that room agreed with her, but she's very head-strong and was insistent that it's the best way to go no matter what.
Friday I made cookies. I had invited a few girls over and they kind of blew me off. I had told the girls 2. At 3, I finally called Vanessa and asked her where she was. Apparently, she was not aware that I wanted her to come at 2. Hmmmm. I don't know. So eventually she comes and we make cookies and then she had to leave for some odd reason, but would be back by 7. So she came back at 7:30 to pick up cookies and then left again. Then I got ready to go out and do my last bout of going around and around and around. I went with Mariana and Daniela. It was nice to talk to and the weather was absolutely perfect. I was happy to have gone out with them.
Saturday I slept in and in the afternoon I finished making my cookies. My host mom's mom came over to go take care of their plot in the cemetery. Since Father's Day was on Sunday, everyone was going to the cemetery. This culture really values the dead and the spirits of their ancestors. I went with them to look at the cemetery and I was absolutely shocked. I've never seen anything like it. They are these huge monuments to each family and the members are buried one of top of the other in the caskets and go about 6-8 in one 10x area.
This is the stone of a wealthy family. It's acually relatively small some of the ones that I saw. Some of them had little houses in the cemetery.
These are the burial plots of poor people. The one on the right has a little bit of money, and the guy on the left has no money.
One of my host mom's brother's birthdays was Saturday night, so the family came over to eat tacos and I got ready to go out and then Mariana and Anahi came to pick me up. They gave me a pink teddy bear and pictures as a going away present. It was really nice. We picked up Lieke and then headed to the disco.
Mariana and Daniela and me at the disco.
I had anticipated this fantastic weekend, and an absolute blast at the disco. I'm sad to say that I was very disappointed with the disco. We passed out about 100 invitations to the going away party (that was going to be the next day) and then we kept telling people that it was our last night at the disco, and no one really cared. They were all pretty wrapped up in each other. Now, I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I was not expecting a huge goodbye, or people to bend over backwards to do something with us. At that moment I became excited to go home. I looked at everyone dancing in the hot, sweaty, smokey disco and just realized that this is what everyone there lives for. They live for the weekends of going around and around and around, seeing the same people over and over again, going to the same disco with the same people. It's the same thing every weekend. I realized while they are happy and content with the fact that that's all their weekends are, I'm happy that I don't know what every weekend will be like for me. I'm happy to look forward to new things and new people.
Sunday was our going away party. It was less than what I had expected. I had a call of panic from Lieke at 1:15 that I wasn't there yet and they were waiting for me to go shopping. So I left and went to the great house where we were having the party. We went to the super market and we were deciding how much to get of everything. Lieke said that about 50 people would be coming. I told her that we had handed out more than 150 invitation and invited all the kids from school and that I thought more people would come. We bought stuff for 100 and I still didn't think that would be enough.
The party was supposed to start at 2. By 3:30 we were still the only ones there. At 4, Lieke's first host sister came with her friends. Diego, a friend from Sabinas who goes to college in Monterrey, came and at 5 Vanessa came. To say the least I was very disappointed and embarrassed. I guess I thought that some people would have come. At 6 some of the Rotarians came for the dinner, Lieke and I gave a presentation and we had a good time after that. My first host dad and Lieke's host dad started Karaoke, without equipment. It also happened to be Father's Day so Lieke congratulated all the father's by spreading cake frosting on their faces.
Happy Father's Day
Beer-induced Karaoke
Monday Lieke and I went with Martin to check out his ranch. It was pretty disgusting. he owns a ranch with 6,000 cows. It's pretty much a factory farm where they feed and feed and feed the cows and then kill them for meat and leather and whatever else dead cows are used for. It smelled really bad.
Martin's Ranch. It's much bigger and smellier than it appears to be in the photo.
In the afternoon I packed and got ready to go, trying to figure out how to put things so everything fit, while trying not to be over 50 pounds in either suitcase.
At night we wanted all the host families to eat together. So they said to go out to El Rancho on the autopista. I didn't realize that was the one way out in the boonies. So Adolfo and Anna Laura were late, as usual, Elena and my host parents couldn't come. So it was Nathalio, Gloria, Pedro, Susy, Cristy, David, Adolfo, Anna Laura, Lieke and me. We had a nice dinner and it was nice to talk.
The last supper.
It was sad to say good bye to everyone at night, but we got back very late and I walked in my house at 12:45. I moved all my stuff into the kitchen and rearranged my stuff one more time. I stayed up until two, then took a two hour nap and took a shower and finished getting ready to go. I left the house at 5:05 a.m.
It was an awkward ride there, they didn't seem too talkative. We arrived at the airport and my bags were slightly overweight, so I had to pay and then they told me my flight was 2 hours late and then I was worried because I would for sure miss my second flight in Houston. I just stopped listening to him talk and he said that if I hurried I could catch the plane leaving in 20 minutes. So I hurried and said goodbye to my host parents and left running. I finally found the place and told me not to worry and calm down because the plane was having mechanical trouble and we'd be leaving late. So I had about 20 minutes waiting in the bus to take me to my plane and then another 25 minutes on the plane before we took off.
I had an interesting experience on the plane when ordering a drink. I ordered it in Spanish, because I had heard her talking to the other guy in Spanish and I figured I might as well speak in Spanish as long as I could, so I order and she looks at me and in a very upset tone says, "speak to me in English, because I don't speak Spanish." OK, wow.
I arrived in Houston and with my filled out customs card I walked up to the customs officer (no line!) and gave him my passport and my sheet and he told me welcome back. I then went to pick up my 120 pounds of luggage picked it up off the carousel, got a carrier thing (free!) and pushed it about 100 yards to another carousel, gave my customs sheet to the officer and he pointed me through the doors and then I went through security again. That was the extent of my customs.
I walked in to the domestic part of the Houston airport and the first thing I saw was a Borders! I was so excited, because Borders means books and coffee, two of my favorite things. I ordered coffee and walked around the book store and then went to Wendys and ordered some chicken nuggets and then sat and waited for my next plane, which was delayed twice.
Then on my plane from Houston to Chicago I was in row 8. I had never been so close to the front of the plane before. Then I got to move up to the first row because some kid was having respiratory problems and the doctor in the front needed my whole row of seats and she had been sitting in the front, so I took her seat. I don't think the two men I was sitting in between appreciated it so much, but that's ok.
I finally arrived in Chicago 10 months and 15 days after I had left. I was greeted by my parents (Mom cried, of course) and then Vincent and Lieke who had arrived about an hour before I did. I got to see our new van. We stopped at CuppaJava in Winnebago. Then we stopped at Grandma and Grandpa's and then went to Los Aztecas, because where else would you go after spending a year in Mexico?
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