Celebrating Semana Santa

This week was Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Mexico, and it's an important holiday with lots of events both in the community and in all the churches.  It's also a big time for vacations which meant that I only had 2.5 days in the office this week and spent a lot of time with my host family talking about culture, traditions and the different meanings for words like sueño which can mean both to sleep and to dream.  

The famous Querétaro sign!

 Decorations out for Semana Santa

View from park bench while eating ice cream one sunny afternoon.

Local church with well manicured trees. 

View of winding streets on a rainy day. 

One of many beautiful buildings downtown.  For my cultural adventures this week, I got to know downtown Querétaro, went to a service with my family at their Catholic Church and attended the Procesión del Silencio with fellow volunteers.  The procession was quite the event and is a large display of different groups expressing great sorrow for the death of Jesus (including walking a long distance in a robe and hood with a large cross, no shoes and chains on the ankle).

Waiting for the procession with fellow volunteers

Table with a view!

Images from the procession below.

I also tried out new foods including tacos filled with mashed potatoes, corn on the cob with lime and salt, lentil soup with hot dogs and bananas (I know it sounds a little odd but it was really delicious) and pancakes for breakfast (those are exactly the same as at home!). After a hearty pancake breakfast today, my neighbor and fellow volunteer Natalie and I headed out to visit the Cerro de las Campanas which was a beautiful garden with a historic building where the emperador Maximiliano de Habsburgo was executed. Also there is a GIANT statue of Benito Juarez with a lovely view of downtown. 

The BIG statue of Benito Juarez. 

There are several museums in Querétaro and I made it to two of them this weekend: the Museo de Arte de Querétaro and the Museo del Calendario where we could see A LOT of cats on the neighboring roof, along with all kinds of interesting art.  Both buildings were beautiful and images are provided below for your viewing pleasure.

How many cats can you find in this tree? 
We counted 20 cats on this rooftop but only a few are visible here. 

View from the museum rooftop.

View from the museum rooftop.

My Spanish continues to slowly improve and I continue to feel very lucky and blessed to be able to embark on this adventure and to be a part of such an awesome family of both Mexican people and Peace Corps volunteers! 

Week one is a wrap!

My first full week of pre-service training is complete, concluding with today's "Mission Impossible" exercise that involved my first local bus ride in Mexico, a visit to the large Terminal de Autobuses, and a scavenger hunt with two other volunteers to find different landmarks in the city.  We had a grand time navigating our new home and met a chef who introduced us to a popular dish, enchiladas queretanas, and offered us a free meal!

 Sunset over a church in town. 

 Amazing architecture.

Los Arcos - the aqueduct. 

I'm getting to know my new city and really enjoying the historic streets, open doors and gates on the sidewalk that let you see into the lovely courtyards and homes hidden from street view, the many statues and squares, and the daily sunsets over various church tops.

 Interior courtyard view. 

 Sampling of daily street views. 

One of many beautiful fountains in town. 

 Amazing statues. 

 Another lovely statue. 

I take 3.5 hours of language and culture classes every day and live with a family that primarily speaks Spanish, so my language skills are slowly improving.  My host mom introduces new foods (and words!) to me every day and she is an amazing cook!  I love having fresh fruit, like papaya and pineapple, every morning for breakfast and finding out what's different and what's the same compared to home.  Even though we have a language barrier, we manage to communicate enough to share lots of laughs and make sure I know how to use important things, like the washing machine. It was a proud moment when I could ask someone at the store where the laundry detergent was and I am very grateful to come home to such a warm and friendly family every day.

 Downtown streets. 

Another statue downtown.

I also have internet and TV at home which is not a luxury everyone gets, so I am super grateful for that!  It means I've been able to communicate with family using my Google Voice number (free calls for both of us!) and to access important information for homework. I've also been lucky to see many hummingbirds, other birds and bees - some of which are huge! - and enjoy great, warm weather in the past week.  And of course, any time you come across a Harry Potter reference (especially one as good as this), life is good!

Bienvenido a México!

So much to share from my first week of pre-service training!  First, I have to say that the other 21 people I’m serving with are AMAZING! It’s like a call went out for the best group of people with good hearts, positive energy and hilarious personalities, and they all arrived here with me in Mexico.

 My roommates! Megan (while in DC) and Jess (while in Mexico)

Our full group in DC. 

Also arriving with me in Mexico, freezing cold weather.  Like literally freezing with snow in the mountains, school classes cancelled in Querétaro, and a wind that sounded like a freight train.  Since that type of weather is highly unusual around here, there are zero heaters in buildings, including our hotel so at the first break on day one, we all ran back to our rooms to put on all available clothing.  For me that included 2 shirts, 2 cardigans and my rain jacket, and a constant cup of hot water to keep my hands warm (most of our luggage was at a different location).  Thankfully it warmed up a bit for the remainder of our visit and was sunny the whole time, so I got to see lots of sun and blue skies.

Views from the first 4 days in Mexico. 

Now let’s get to the important part: the food – OMG the food!  It is delicioso! No, es muy delicioso!  To ease us into the new schedule for eating (a light breakfast, a mid-morning meal, a big mid-afternoon meal, and a light late evening meal), we had breakfast at 9 everyday (delicious!), a big meal in mid-afternoon (delicious!), and an early evening dinner (also delicious!).  On night 3 in Mexico, we were served guacamole for the first time, and you should have heard the screams of delight as we all ran towards the giant container of avocados and demolished it.  That guacamole…..it was served with tamales, sopes, a full salad bar, and an astonishing array of desserts. I feel certain there are more blog posts to come that highlight the incredible comida!  

Salad bar on the last day of pre-moving in with host families. 

Adios America!

I made it from one Washington to another with 72 pounds of my belongings, strategically split between my lovely roller bag and my sister Katie’s big purple backpack.  After determining there was no way I could wheel two suitcases through subways and crowded streets by myself, she took my smaller backpack and loaned me the big, lopsided purple beast which now houses my beloved Big Agnes sleeping bag, two new pairs of shoes, and all the clothes and goodies that made 10 rounds of cuts for their own international adventure. 

This is it - my haul to Mexico. What you can't see is the HUGE suitcase and box stored at Katie's for potential restocking at Christmas ;)

I had a week with family to rest and relax, which really meant that on one Saturday and one Sunday I was a nice, normal visitor engaged in fun downtime. The rest of the time I was running around in a bit of a panic trying to cancel my phone, send in new voter registration forms, print out loan deferment documents, transfer music files, practice Spanish and complete pre-arrival readings.  

I did get to see everyone and managed to get a lot of good laughs in, including when my brother Amery said “Now when you get there you need to immediately – well maybe not immediately – but you need to research the fishing situation so we can figure out if there’s anything worth visiting.”  That guy loves his fishing, but he also loves his sister and lugged my 72 pounds of luggage into the airport for me at the crack of dawn on Monday.

Lots of laughs with my brothers and sisters!

It recently occurred to me that in addition to no longer having any keys, I no longer own a fork, a pillow, sheets or any of those other seemingly mundane things I spent years accumulating only to give away for free.  It’s weird to think I’ll have to buy utensils again at some point in my life but I’m embracing that weirdness and pushing off those thoughts to a later date. Spoons?  Where I’m going I won’t need spoons! Well, I won't need to personally own any spoons... Ok, here we go.  Next post is from Mexico!