Actually, before I start on this weekend, I wanted to mention just a little about last weekend. A few weeks ago, some of us met with the people organizing the gay pride week here in puebla, and we agreed to be volunteers. They had lots of cool events like movie viewings, and panel discussions, but the week got really busy and we didn’t end up volunteering for anything. But in the end, we made up for it by volunteering at the most important event- the march. As volunteers, we were supposed to keep people moving along and try to make sure things stayed peaceful. As it turned out, these two things pretty much took care of themselves, so we didn't end up volunteering as much as participating, but I think participating was just as important. I haven't been to any pride events in the states, but apparently this one was pretty small in comparison. We were a decent crowd, but it wasn't 
huge, so it felt like our presence was really important. Homophobia is pretty bad here, so it was really nice to take a public stand against it. And we even got our picture in the paper! It was a big shot of the crowd, but Jenna, Rouwenna and I are clearly visible right in front. I don't have a scanner, so I can't post it, but here are some pictures Rouwenna and Jenna took.Friday was our program halloween party and it was amazing! Thursday night I went over to Patricia's house to carve pumpkins for the party which was really fun. I was a little surprised to see that they were green instead of orange, but they still had the same smell when you opened them up and pulled out all the gross pulpy seeds. It made me feel very nostalgic in a happy way.
I didn't end up going to help decorate more on friday afternoon, but those who did did a
spectacular job. Patricia's house was totally transformed. And almost everyone was in costume- and there were some pretty amazing ones, including max wearing courtney's dress, which was one of my favorties. I'm not going to lie- my costume was pretty terrific. Rouwenna and I had decided to use the masks that we got at the lucha libre and go as luchadoras (I went a second time with Rouwenna, Sarah, and Sarah's parents who were visiting from the states a few weeks ago, but this time we sat with "los rudos" who are a giant fan club, who blocks off an area of the cheap seats and sits together exclusively- we were allowed to sit with them because the president recognized rouwenna from a conversation they had on the bus- they told us which luchadores to cheer for and taught us lots of groserias (swear words/vulgar sayings) to shout at the enemy luchadores and rival fan club and afterwards they took us out back behind the arena to take pictures with the luchadores as they left in their street clothes and masks so as to preserve their luchador identity- not really relevant, but a good story). We both went really over the top in creating our costumes. Getting ready reminded me of getting ready for a crazy themed smith party. Since the party was a halloween/rocky horror party, those us who arrived in non-rocky horror costumes (a lot of people just went all out rock horror style from the beginning) changed into our costumes at midnight for a traditional rocky horror showing. It was so much fun and made me appreciate my study abroad program so so much!!! How many other programs have a rocky horror picture show viewing with everyone dancing around in their underwear as a program activity, and how many resident directors would dress up in a red corset, a garter belt, big red boots and carry a whip for such a viewing? It was a pretty amazing night!But the excitement didn't end there. Moises, rouwenna's host brother, offered to drive us home since we all live in the same area, but just after we left Patricia's house, we got pulled over for a "random" check by the police. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem, except that Moises forgot his license and we're in Mexico. When they found out Moises didn't have his license on him, they made us all get out of the car. Lord knows why, but they asked for our ids and checked our bags as well. After talking with the police for a few minutes, Moises motioned to us to get back into the car. Apparently, they told him that because he didn't have his license they were going to take his car. But, if we paid them some money, they would just forget that this ever happened. We were all out-raged that the police could be so blatantly corrupt, but Moises assured us that this was the easier way to take care of things. Some people wanted to call Patricia, and in hindsight we probably should have. I was talking to my host mom about it the next morning, and she said that if we had told them we were calling our program director the police probably would have gotten scared, and just let things go, but I don't know if they would have let things go completely because Moises didn't have his license, so it's not that we were completely innocent. But at the same time, the punishment they were threatening was ridiculous for the "crime." So I feel kind of bad, because I was one of the ones who said we should just listen to Moises and not make it something bigger by calling patricia. But hindsight is 20/20 and at the time, just listening to Moises seemed like the best plan, so we all chipped in some money and gave the police the equivalent of about 60 american dollars, and then they returned our id's and just let us go.
The whole experience was really bizarre and unsettling. It is really awful to know that the people you would want to be able to turn to if something bad happened are they themselves doing something pretty terrible. After talking to my host mom and thinking about the experience more, I wish I hadn't encouraged listening to Moises and just paying off the police, because it just feels so wrong to have played into their system. My host mom was telling me how if it had been her driving, things wouldn't have happen the same way- if anything, they would have just given her a ticket for not having her license, but because we were young and clearly vulnerable, they threatened us with ridiculous punishments and scared us into paying them. Maybe we should have just said no, and let Moises deal with the consequences, but we felt bad, especially since having a car full of young americans was probably one of the reasons the police decided to "randomly" pull him over, so we just went along with his plan. But again, hindsight is 20/20 and it is much easier to say what could have been a better plan of action now that it's not three thirty in the morning with the Mexican police surrounding us.
While I would have liked to sleep all day on Saturday, instead we went on another adventure. About a week ago, when Jenna and I were at CU (one of the university campuses) waiting for an immigration conference to start (which was also amazing and has inspired us to go to another huge immigration conference in Chiapas and the end of the semester!) and we were speaking english, so this woman sitting on a bench says, "What are you ladies doing in Puebla?" We started talking to her, and apparently she is an anthropologist named Eileen Mulhare from Colgate University who does her research in a small town just outside Puebla. She was giving a guest lecture, so she gave us her card as she left and told us to get in touch with her. So the next day I emailed her and invited us over to her house to visit her house and see the town where she does her work. She was more than happy to have us so yesterday morning we went for a visit.
Jenna, Katy, and Eileen on our tour
We took the same bus that we take to go to CU and it was only about a 15 minute bus ride, but even though it was so close to the city, it had a very different feel. It was more rural- there were donkeys and chickens in backyards and the streets weren't very good and there was just a general small town feel to it. The small town feel was evident when we were trying to find Eileen's house and we asked a family what street we were on, and they said, "are you looking for a gringa like you guys?" and then brought us to her house. Eileen was so nice to us. She told us all about how she got started out as an anthropologist and how she ended up in Mexico. Then she took us on a little walking tour of the pueblo and introduced us to all these people. She told us a lot about the cargo system, which is a system of communal work for things like public repairs and hosting religious events. I read books about it last year in two different anthro
classes so it was so interesting for her to be telling us how it works in this town. It made the concept very real. She also shared a lot about her personal life and what it's like to be an
anthropologist living in two places- she lives in mexico a few months out of the year and spends the rest of her time in NY with her husband. It was so much fun to get out of the city and really get the feel for a small town.These are some really beautiful remains of an old mission in the town.
After that, I was pretty much exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before, so when I got home, I ate and took a nap so I could be well rested for my, drum roll please... date! I had invited a guy from my sociology class to the party the night before and we had a really good time, so he asked me to go to the movies with him saturday night. We got some ice cream, saw "Open Season," and got some coffee. I have no idea where this will go, if it indeed does go anywhere, and I'm really not looking to seriously date anyone here, but they say dating someone is the best way to learn the language, and we had a lot of fun together, so I guess we'll see!
So now it is Sunday, and I have SO much reading to do for my anthro class tomorrow, but I am still in very good spirits. On tuesday we are leaving for our trip to Morelia to see the day of the dead celebrations, so I am very excited about that. Things aren't always a bed of roses here- sometimes I feel really homesick, or I get stressed out about classes or the fact that my spanish still isn't spectacular, but overall, I am very, very happy here and I hope I am able to convey some of that to you all!
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