Having class for only three hours a day gives a person a lot of free time. I have spent a fair amount of that time exploring the city. My house is conveniently located a few blocks from the downtown area, so everything is within walking distance.

Cuernavaca, like a lot of cities in this area, is steeped in history. One day for a class fieldtrip (not associated with my language study) we went downtown to the Palace of Cortez, which now functions as a museum, and in its center has a huge beautiful mural of its history, painted by Diego Rivera. The school I am attending has excellent historians that explain this fascinating history of the Spaniard conquest of the area. From the palace you can see the magnificent city cathedral, also built during the time of Cortez.

But the city’s history and architecture is only part of its appeal. What is exciting to me is simply walking around and seeing how a Mexican city functions day to day.

Take stores for example. Small family owned stores are a part of the culture here. Laundromats, butchers, restaurants, repair shops of all sorts, toy stores, electronic stores, school supplies stores, internet cafes, and many more. They are all very specialized, which causes problems for me. For example, I now need a fingernail clipper and have no idea what type of store would carry such a thing.

Alongside these permanent stores are booths that sell almost everything. These are often under tents in the city square. Some sell beautiful crafts, clothes and jewelry, but mostly loads of junk to gullible tourists. Some items represent Mexican culture, but it is amazing how much of it is plastic guns, posters of professional wrestlers and Disney pop stars, and shirts of American rock bands like Nirvana, Metallica, and Megadeath. Western consumerism spreads like a disease.

Almost just as easy to find are black market vendors. If you’re willing to take a chance, you can find electronics for the fraction of the cost, but like I said, you take a chance, because I doubt you get a receipt or the right to return it. These booths also specialize in music and movies. You can buy a burned cd of 250 of last year’s American hip-hop hits, or for $1.50, you buy 2 DVDs of movies that are still in the theatre in the US.

Beyond the family owned stores and the booths are the department stores. Often catering to the wealthy of Cuernavaca, these stores carry upper end electronics, furniture, etc. and are very similar to US department stores. Scattered around are also MEGA stores, the evil Wal-Mart’s younger Mexican brother. I am sad to see them amongst a culture so rich and personal in the way it does business. I have to wonder how long family businesses can last next to corporations until they get swallowed up.

But stepping away from consumerism, I’d like to say a few words about Mexican center squares. They are awesome. Unlike American center squares, people actually go there to buy stuff, catch up on the news, and watch live music.

The center square here in Cuernavaca is crazy at the moment, because there are four different protests going on at once. One is protesting the waste disposal site’s contamination of the water, one is protesting the demolition of poor housing near the railroad tracks, another is protesting the privatization of gasoline, and the big one at the moment is the government’s cutting teacher salary (trust me, the U.S. isn’t the only country going through an economic crisis right now).

There has been no school for two weeks due to strikes and teachers have flooded in from all over, blocking off the streets with their cars and camping out with their huge banners. During the day there are huge marches and at night, they drive around with megaphones encouraging everyone to turn off their electricity by 10:00 in protest. I have a teacher in my house, so I had a fairly early bedtime the other night.

As scary as all this sounds, the atmosphere downtown is really a party, which isn’t a surprise, because Mexicans will find any excuse to turn something into a party. There are food vendors galore, a full brass band, and if you can ignore the police in riot gear (some of whom chat amiably with teachers), it’s a regular old-fashioned party.

Palace of Cortez

The capitol building, all decorated for Mexico's upcoming Independence day.

Cuernavaca Cathedral. It's hard to get a picture of all of it at once

Language school is only half the experience however. One of the unique things about this particular language school is the arrangements they have with host families in the area. We are all assigned to a host family that feeds us three meals a day, gives us lodging, and perhaps most importantly, gives us a look into the day to day life of a Mexican family.

For the next 3-4 weeks I am staying with Sra. Maria Elena Velasquez and Sr. Juan Caballero. There are a lot of nerves involved when a person goes to live with complete strangers in a culture with different rules and social norms. These nerves are increased significantly when you know neither of your host parents speak any English.

However, my host mom greeted me at the school with a big smile and a customary hug and kiss. The first thing she did was take me to the nearby bakery and let me pick out the bread for dinner. I knew then that I was going to be just fine.

My house hides behind a wall right off a busy street and is fairly unassuming until you open the door and step inside. Then it takes your breath away. Built on a steep slope, several buildings cascade down to a pool and garden, and beyond that is a gorgeous view of the valley with flowering trees, banana plants, and more. I can hear a waterfall from my room, though I haven’t investigated it yet.

I live in a house by the pool with four other guys. This originally confused me until I realized that my host parents run an informal guesthouse of sorts. The top house is where they live and it is where I have all my meals.

I have yet to make the connection with all the various people that are in and out of the house for certain meals, but I assume it is all extended family of some sort, as this would be typical of Mexican society.

Mealtime is my primary social interaction time. I try to go a bit early to catch the end of a voiced-over movie with my host dad, and then stay a little later afterwards to soak up some Spanish conversation.

It can be a bit rough. Sometimes I understand quite a bit. Other times I don’t catch any of it. Oftentimes question are asked of me, and then everyone looks at me expectantly. I desperately review the question in my head for familiar vocab, and then either try a brave shot in the dark, or shake or nod my head, depending on the looks I’m getting.

I do ask for things repeated, but you can’t do that for everything. So sometimes, to avoid feeling even more like a dunce than I do already, I pretend I know what was said. In the past when dealing with exchange students back home, this was a source of endless frustration for me. “If they don’t get it, why don’t they just say so?” Trust me, it makes more sense when you’re on the other side of the conversation.

The first day my host dad asked me how long I would be staying with them, and I matter-of-factly told him I was staying for four years. That got quite a reaction. Undoubtedly not my last blunder.

All in all though, I am feeling good about my Spanish. I have a new sense of confidence now, knowing I can go about anywhere and get by with the Spanish I know. It is also helpful that the family I am staying with has been hosting students for over twenty years, and are thus forgiving of my cultural and language blunders, and knowledgeable in knowing that I can’t drink the tap water, that the fruit needs to be washed, and that the flaming spices should be kept in the salsa, so that introducing your taste buds to molten lava is optional.

My host mom is really wonderful. She greets me with a smile at every meal and asks me about my day. In fact today she gave me roses to put in my room. Well, actually, she gave me roses yesterday and something was lost in translation and I left them on the kitchen table. Go figure.

View of the valley from my new home

The main house from my pool house.

I’m here in Cuernavaca!

We got up a bit before five this morning to take the bus here. Due to traffic, busses operate early and often overnight.

Cuernavaca is a comparatively small town. Only as populated as the state of South Dakota according to my calculations. The city (towns don’t have traffic jams in my book) is about an hours drive from Mexico City and is up in the mountains. It is a paradise for about anything beautiful and green that God has made to grow on this earth. Temperature fluctuates between 65 and 85 degrees year round. Nobody has air conditioning or heaters.

The school is a fairly unsuspecting building off the street, but like most of the houses that hide behind gates and walls, the backyard is a breathtaking tropical paradise. Red tiled brick buildings open up to beautiful gardens with flowers and fruit trees. There’s also a pool and a tennis court, and a computer lab with internet.

After absolutely bombing a test that would determine my skill level, I was assigned to a cheerful Mexican lady named Martha who is my private tutor this week. Every day I walk about fifteen minutes from my host family, (more on that later), to the school. Class starts at 11:20 and goes for 3 hours, with a 10 minute break between each hour.

The lessons are completely in Spanish. This is ensured by the fact that Martha cannot speak English. I found out immediately why I only have three hours of class a day. It is exhausting. In Spanish class in the U.S., when you burn out, you just daze off. Not an option here. Trust me. I’ve tried.

Part of the time is general conversation. I am corrected any time I say anything incorrectly. The other part is going over grammatical structure. Monday and Tuesday we drilled reflexive verbs and direct object pronouns (frustrating since English doesn’t necessarily require reflexive pronouns like Spanish does). Today we work on the preterit tense, which is a beast with plenty of irregulars. That and the fact that Spanish, unlike English, has two different forms of the past tense. We haven’t even touched the Imperfect tense.

I get out at 2:10 and head back to my host family for dinner (which is eaten around 2:30 or 3:00 here). The afternoon is as free as I want it. The school here, which seems to cater to middle and upper class foreigners, also offers history and culture courses (all in Spanish). Thus there are a handful of Americans here for a semester taking other courses.

There are often fieldtrips for those classes, and we are invited to tag along. Sometimes thy are dance classes, sometimes they are fieldtrips around the city, and on weekends, they are in other places around the area.

Needless to say I am very well taken care of here and am learning a lot of Spanish. More later!

This morning Sam Goertz, my fellow Mexico SALTer, arrived, finally having dealt with her visa fiasco. This brings our MCC troop to a fantastic five. And perhaps this is as good a time as any to tell you a little about them.

Ricardo and Marion, as I have mentioned before, are the MCC Mexico country representatives. Marion is from South Africa and Ricardo from Columbia. Both are well traveled and have been working with MCC for quite a while. However, their term as Mexico country reps started just three weeks ago, so at times the learning curve is for both of us.

In the short time I have gotten to know them I have found them to be very friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable people. Ricardo is fun loving and easygoing, and continues to work on his English, which works out just perfect for me, because I continue to work on my Spanish. Our conversations morph fluidly between the two languages, giving me a chance to get my feet wet with someone who is patient and forgiving.

Marion is fluent in both English and Spanish, and it’s with her that I work with some of the small details of finances etc. Conversation in the house is generally in Spanish, though when the topic directly involves me it is generally in English.

Isabelle is their two year old daughter. Her big observant eyes don’t miss anything, and she understands both Spanish and English. Likely more than I do. It is common to amuse children of this age by asking them “what is this?” For me though, it has been a valuable vocab building experience. Isabelle is a livewire. She likes to be around people and accompanies us everywhere we go in Mexico City. If you let her go for one second, she takes off running, and good luck catching her.

Sam is from Vancouver, British Columbia, and her assignment will be to work in Cuernavaca, the location of our language training, and about an hour from my eventual placement. We won’t see much of each other during most of the year, but for the first month or so of language school, we’re going to be best buds.

Marion and Ricardo decided to take us out on Sunday afternoon to show us what Mexican families do on their day off. Most family owned stores close on Sunday, and the families head out to one of a number of parks within the city. Though fairly crowded from a South Dakotan’s perspective, it is the closest connection with nature most of these people have.

Deeming it the best way to see the city, the five of us boarded a double-decker bus for a two hour driving tour of the city. It’s a great system. For only $12 they give you a bracelet, and the buses circle their route all day, so if you want to get off to see something or get a cup of coffee, you can catch the next bus.

A few observations about transportation here. First of all, after four taxi rides and searching for signs, I have discovered that there are no speed limits in this city of over twenty million. There are a lot of police driving around, but they all drive around with their lights on, so either that means you slow down when you hear the siren, or stopping speeders is a lost cause. I would guess the latter.

Drivers take chances, are generous on the horn, and definitely have the right of way over pedestrians. Walking is about as much an adventure as driving. There are stoplights, but it seems that a red light sometimes acts as a stop sign. Just when I thought I had it figured out, our bus driver stopped at two green lights, so I’m back to square one.

Taxis dominate the street. They’re green and often VW bugs. The city is crawling with VW bugs. I assume there must be a plant nearby. Despite my nervousness however, drivers do seem to know what they’re doing, so I guess I’ll just let it rest at that.

Today has been a day full of new and exciting firsts. In the morning we visited an open air market to do some grocery shopping. What an exciting place! Hundreds of shops selling all sorts of fruits, vegetables, meat, music, toys, clothes and more.

The bombardment of the smells of ripe fruit, sizzling meat, and spices is hard to describe. In the U.S. everything is behind sterile plastic. Not here. Fresh meat hangs from hooks and they cut it right in front of you. Fruit is stacked high with slices cut out so you can look inside. No more thumping melons to find the ripe one. You can pick one that has been cut open, and then as an added bonus, when you buy a melon, they cut a slice from another one so you can have a taste on the go.

I’m excited to try the many new fruits and vegetables (and don’t get me started on sweets) that I see. I have already developed a love for prickly pear, and cactus leaf is a bit like green pepper if sliced and sprinkled on a taco.

Outside the market, stores line the streets, one after another, selling about anything you would need. I’m told they stay open late and might not open till 10 or 11 in the morning. Sounds like college. I may never leave.

In the afternoon Ricardo, Isabelle and myself took a trip downtown to the city square. Though the metro system is a hot sweaty beehive of activity, it is really quite easy to navigate, and I feel more at ease knowing that if necessary, I could find my way back to the country reps from about anywhere in the city.

When we finally rose out of the metro back into the fresh air, I was momentarily paralyzed by the sheer mass of people. I have been in big cities before, but I have never seen wall to wall people bustling about quite like this. Traffic honking, police blowing whistles, and people pouring through crosswalks. Live music blares from street corners, and a traditional native drum and dance ritual entertained a crowd in one of the squares.

It took me a while to get my bearings. There is so much to take in. Ricardo explained that it was unusually busy because there was a protest on gasoline going on, made apparent by the lines of police in full vests.

On top of that, there was a rock concert going on in the main square. Punk and Goth Mexican youth and about everything packed the square shoulder to shoulder. Above the roaring crowd flies a massive Mexican flag, and in sharp contrast, right across the way stands one of Mexico City’s largest cathedrals, guarded by a wall of police.

With so many people and so much excitement and adrenaline going on, a person has to be careful not to get trampled. The smallest incident can spark an avalanche of fleeing people.

Quite an exciting day, and just the first of many.

Mexican market

the Zocalo, downtown Mexico City

I’m finally here!

Nestled in a city of around 25 million, with a working visa and all of my luggage, after a relatively uneventful flight. No small miracle.

It was definitely one of the scarier days I have had, not because of any particular incident, but because prior to my flight to orientation, I had never traveled by myself before (lets just discount the trips straight down highway 81 to Bethel).

During a year with SALT, I know MCC will take great care of me, but during the roughly 11 hours of travel, I felt very much at the mercy of a monster known as air travel. Being used to the Sioux Falls airport, I was a bit dazed checking in at the Philadelphia airport. Never in my life have I seen so many people at 4:00 in the morning.

But hopping then to Atlanta and then to Mexico City with no flight over 3 hours, I am no doubt the envy of most other SALTers, some who traveled over two days to get to their destination.

My introduction to Mexico City was flying over it by plane. 15 minutes in, seeing nothing but city in any direction, I realized with awe just how insanely huge the city is. There is nothing like it in the U.S.

Ricardo, one of the Mexico country reps, was there to pick me up from the airport, and it was really only then that I started to relax and enjoy my surroundings.

It was an adventurous 45 minute taxi ride to the MCC reps house (I have found that driving in most other countries operates in a state of organized chaos). I am staying with Marion and Ricardo (the country reps) and their 2 year old Isabelle for the weekend, before I start language school on Monday.

Mexico City from plane

As of the time of this post, I am still in Akron, but for the first time in a while, I know when I’m leaving. After visiting a specialist, I was told I potentially have an ulcer in my small intestine. However, the medication I am on allows me to feel virtually 100%, and since it simply needs time and medication to heal, I have been given clearance to leave the country.

Friday morning I fly out from Philadelphia, which puts me in Mexico City by 2:30 PM. Of all the SALTers I definitely have the most enviable travel schedule. And I make that flight with virtually no time change.

Though my days are numbered here, we are definitely making the most out of them. A lot of the meat canners are around and there is a house of MCC ladies across the way, so we have had some very good volleyball matches in the evening. It also is cause for a very packed house for Olympics in the evening. The more the merrier.

At the Mennonite Resource Center, the four of us that are still around are stuffing envelopes with Mennonite publications. We did 1500 today. This sounds good until you consider we still have 68,500 to go. It is definitely time to leave the country.

Today was a big day for Mike, Joel, and myself. It was the day we ran our mile. Inspired by the Olympics and curious about our times, we documented the whole thing on video camera, from pregame interviews, to live footage, to postgame comments. We found a nearby track and made our dream a reality.

As we imagined the first lap was pure adrenaline, and about everything after that made us wonder what the heck we were thinking. However in the half hour after we were already dreamily reminiscing on our adventure, and by tomorrow, maybe I will even be able to walk without my calves cramping. While I took 2 minutes off my sixth grade mile, my time still left something to be desired. Maybe when I get back…

After losing a bit of momentum this week, I’m preparing to get back in the frame of mind to leave my country and culture for a year. The butterflies are coming back and all the anxieties that come with it. But an MCC worker told me this week that if you see everything, good or bad, as an adventure, there is a lot less to stress you out. I plan to live by that advice this next year.

So keep me in your prayers as I take off on my next adventure.

Talk to you from Mexico…

The perfect mile. Accomplished.

It’s hard to believe that orientation is over. Over the course of the last couple of days our dwindling group has gathered almost hourly to see vanloads of SALTers off to the airport. It’s amazing how hard goodbyes are after only a week. Life seems to be all about goodbyes as of recent.

However, my final goodbye of leaving the country keeps evading me. My departure was scheduled for the 16th, but a few days into orientation I began experiencing stomach pains. After a few uncomfortable days and sleepless nights, I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled.

After several tests, a last minute decision was made to keep me here in Akron for further medical appointments just to be safe.

So at 4:00 on Friday I was packing to leave the country and double checking my paperwork. A few hours later I was waving goodbye everybody else, preparing for what might be a week or more of time in Akron.

The delay is admittedly frustrating. After spending the last few months preparing and waiting, I’m ready to go, or at least ready to try. It’s really the wait that gets to a person after a while.

However, it’s not all bad. In fact, this unexpected free week has been a lot of fun. I have been moved into MCC housing along with two other SALTers (Joel Krehbiel and Mike Spree) who are waiting for their visas to Brazil.

We have quickly bonded, enjoying free reign of MCC headquarters. We have watched a lot of Olympics, played a lot of ping pong, enjoyed a game of volleyball with other young MCCers, and after watching the women’s marathon winner run with an average of 5:15 per mile, we have decided to have a mile run of our own (stay posted to this blog for more details). After all, none of us have intentionally run a timed mile since middle school. If time permits, we might even take a day trip to New York City. I’ve never been closer in my life.

Our week here is not all vacation though. We spend some time working on language training and reading literature about our respective countries. We also spend half of our day at the MCC material resource center, where over 70 percent of MCC aid is shipped from. Today we loaded two shipping containers with sewing kits, newborn kits, school kits, and general relief kits. One will be sent to Iraq, and another one to Afghanistan. We were the last people to touch them before their distribution. After the containers are loaded, everyone working in the building gathers to pray over them. It is truly an incredible experience.

Tomorrow is my doctor appointment. If I can get a clean bill of health, I will be out on the next available flight out. If not, more Olympics, more ping pong, and more work for MCC. But hopefully I will be Mexico bound. Keep me in your prayers as I try to determine what the next few weeks holds for me.

Stuffing envelopes at the Material Resource Center

A recently returned SALTer described SALT orientation to me as “college without the classes.” Having enjoyed my college days immensely, this prospect was quite pleasing to me. After a little over two days, I have to say, I have not been disappointed.

However, after more deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that a more accurate comparison might be to my fond days at Swan Lake Christian Camp. Global Young Adult Camp if you will.

Like camp, over 100 of us descended upon the MCC compound at Akron loaded down with suitcases, a little nervous, a little excited, and all unsure of what lay ahead of us. Only instead of five or six states, we represent almost thirty countries, and instead of looking forward to swimming and s’mores, we all squint into the dense fog of our futures, trying to discern God’s plan in the next big step of our lives, into another country and another culture. Melodramatic? Maybe. But welcome to my world.

Also like camp, we are all at very different places in our lives, heading in many different directions. Some are fresh out of high school or halfway through college, looking for a taste of the real world and break from academia. Many of us have just graduated from college and are looking towards our first job in the “real world.” Yet others have been out of college for several years, looking for a break from the “real world.”

We are headed to Africa, Asia, Central, South & North America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. We will work as teachers, program coordinators, technicians, development workers and more. Yet though everyone’s upcoming year holds something distinctly different, we share something essential in common: We are all putting aside the comforts and familiars of home; using the gifts and resources we have been blessed with, to be the hands and feet of Jesus in other countries. And I can honestly say I have never been around so many fascinating, fun, and inspiring people, in my life.

Every day we eat together, learn together from our scheduled sessions on cross-cultural issues, worship together, and after supper when our schedules clear, we spend the evenings with each other, talking and laughing, playing cards, and swapping missionary stories. It seems everybody has spent time overseas in one capacity or another.

I’ve talked with a young man from Zimbabwe about the political turmoil in his country. I’ve listened to a conversation with some young Jordanian women about what’s popular in Middle Eastern music. I have been reunited with Emily Hershberger, a fellow missionary kid from Tanzania who is doing SALT herself, and had the opportunity to talk to another SALTer who will work in the same African village that both Emily and I share so many memories in.

On top of it all, many of us gather around the tv in the evening to watch the Olympics. A global community watching a global event. A once in a lifetime opportunity.

SALT, YAMEN! and IVEP love nest