Last Week (of the 3rd November)

I don't know if anyone heard about this over in the UK but on the 4th November there was a jet plane crash in Polanco which killed 13 people including Maurino (an important government minister and potential Mexican president) amongst other ministers. What is most suspicious is that those on the jet were most invloved in the action against the drug cartels who are unforunately powerful in Mexico.
It was a very strange experience as I was teaching a class about Guy Fawkes Day at the time and as my students were asking me why we celebrate treason which never actually happened they started recieving calls about the crash (many people work in Polanco, including myself and my students).
The crash is still under investigation (by British experts none the less) so no one knows for sure how or why it happened.
If you are interested this is the info the bbc had; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7709877.stm

You may have noticed that the accident occured on 4th November and so in Mexico Obama only made the 2nd page of all the broadsheet newspapers. I went to the "English" (ahem) pub to watch the results. The place was full of excited Americans all supporting Obama and taking another shot of tequilla for each state that went blue. It was clearly the Gringo place to be as it was even reported in the expat newspaper here (http://www.thenews.com.mx/home/imprime_home.asp?cve_edicion_cont=296&cve_home=590) and one of my good friends (American wife of my Mexican friend Luis) was interviewed for the national news.

Finally, after such an eventful week, it was nice to have a reasonably relaxed weekend. On the Saturday I went to Zoe's new flat for dinner and an Ugly Betty binge (she has been downloading the new series with her fancy high speed internet... grr...) and then for drinks al depa de Luis y Jenne.
On Sunday we walked to the Museo Tamayo, a modern art gallery here. I really enjoyed the well chosen exhibitions which focused on the Mexican/North American history and politics.

Halloween & Dia de los Muertos

Having never had much interest in Halloween nor having really heard of Dia de los Muertos, the weekend of the 31st was certainly different for me.

Working at a school with a lot of American teachers (or gringos, as the Mexicans unkindly call them - based on the American Forces green uniform ... "green go") there was obviously a halloween party organised on the Friday. It was a lot of fun and, as you might imagine there was a lot of 'in school' gossiping and drama - it seems that teaching in a school is not much different to going to school (obviously I am happy to share the gory details via msn ;) )

Sunday 2nd November is the main celebration of the lives of the dead, a trdditional Mexican Festival where it is believed the souls of the dead are able to visit most easily. Families usually make offerings to their dead in their homes. These usually incude food and drink which that person particularly liked during their lifetime. There are different days to celebrate the lives of those who died young and the disabled and I imagine these are quite sad, yet Dia de los Muertos was very cheerful.
The festival was begun by the Aztecs and later influenced by the Catholics who moved the date from August to All Souls Day when their attempts to ban such a sacilegious festival failed.

While the festival is most keenly celebrated in the more indigenous parts of Mexico, there was still no lack of enthusiasm in D.F. We went to the historical centre (the Zocalo, above) to watch tradditonal dances (see below) and view the many public offerings made in the plaza.Below is a photo of one of the many offerings. The orange flowers are tradditional for this festival as are the chocolate skulls.

Museo de Dolores Olmedo

The weekend of the 25th October, in between slagging off our landlord/satan and marking exam papers we took a trip to Xochimilco to visit the casa de Dolores Olmedo and go for lunch on the trajineras.

Having visited the Casa estudio the week before it is easy to see why Frida had so many problems with Diego as the house he purchased for his mistress (Dolores) is over twice the size of her blue studio. It is beautiful with huge gardens which have peacocks and Spanish, short haired dogs roaming freely (unfortuantely the dogs were not around the day of our visit as it had been raining - very Lindy/Blitzi of them).

In the gardens we saw some tradditional Mexican dances from all the different regions of Mexico.

Inside the house there was an exhibition based on Dia de los Muertos - the pictures below are blurred as taking photos is technically banned and so Zoe had to act fast.

The house also has a lot of Diego Rivera's work. He was a great artist, who uses big, simple shapes and brushstrokes with beautiful colours. Most of his work is still in Mexico City and so I am defintely looking forward to seeing more of it. There are also lots of photos in the house of Olmedo touring the world and mooching with different celebrities. It seems that being a bit of a tart worked very well for her. Below is a painting of her by Diego Rivera (like the postcard I bought):

After the musuem we went to the market to buy blue corn quesadillas and mamey (my new favourite fruit) to eat on the boats.

We floated about stopping at some of the markets and enjoying the views from the boats, searching for our names on them. Fortunately my name is Spanish enough and so the VIVA LAURITA boat does exist, oh yes! Although Zoe had no such luck.

As for Edgar, I have now moved out and live with another teacher from the school. However there will be no photos up here untill I have found a vacum.

That's all for now as I am off to the centre to celebrate Dia de los Muertos (today).

San Angel & Coyoacan

After a hectic week of organizing, changing, attending and (at times actually) teaching classes it was great to finally have a weekend free to visit some of the places I have been told so much about.

Yesterday morning in true tourist style we grabbed our Guidebooks and headed off to San Angel in the South of Mexico City. It's a beautiful place filled with cobbled streets, stunning Mexican architecture and markets selling Mexican jewellery, crafts and paintings.
For a while we walked around staring longingly and attempting to resist the urge to buy. Unfortunately I caved a teeny tiny bit and spent 35 pesos on things which, I confess I may have been able to live with out (note my shiny new hat way below :D ).

We then walked over to the Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, where the two artists used to live together in seperated buildings united by a connecting bridge from 1934 untill he slept with her sister and they got divorced in 1940 (yes, I too am stumped as to why that one didn't work out). They did later get back together.
The houses themselves were designed by Juan O'Gorman (nope, I hadn't heard of him) as a rejection of tradditional conservative architecture and "buen gusto" - good taste. I personally really liked them, with their bold colours and clear shapes and lines. They also take full advantage of the bright Mexican sun as the light streamed in through the windows making the rooms really bright - a great way to display the collection of artwork inside the house. Apparently people now claim that O'Gorman "se proponía hacer edificios feos, pero no lo lograba" -attempted to make ugly buildings, but failed (although I'm sure some sarcy people might believe he succeeded).

Being my mother's daughter, what made this trip even better is that now I am a legal teacher in Mexico I pay nada (always the best price) to visit museums and cultural sites and so this part of the day was totally free!

After we visited the museum we walked the 3-4kms from San Angel to Coyoacan for dinner, stopping by the churchyard in San Angel where there had just been a Quinceañera (Latin American 15th birthday celebration). The girl in question was dressed like a bride (although not in white) with her hair and make-up professionally done and all her family and friends gathered round her taking pictures and stuffing themselves on tradditional Mexican sweets. Unfortunately I didn't want to take any photos (although I would have probably just merged into the mass of Grandparents) of the Quinceañera, only the park:

Coyoacan is another beautiful part of Mexico City. It also has another of Frida Kahlo's homes, which I tried to visit last Monday. This is the day when Pat and I discovered that on Mondays everything in Mexico City is shut. However we managed to take some photos before we gave up and went to a bar and below is one taken that day:


On Saturday nights, Coyoacan is full of people and has a real atmosphere and so it was great to come back. Fortunately, my Spanish teacher had told me this week all about a coffee shop, El Jarocho famous for selling the best coffee in Mexico City (my Spanish teacher has the most amazing ability to go completely off topic at the mention of either food or British music - it really couldn't be easier for me). The coffee comes from Veracruz and the queue for the coffee goes all the way down the street. The coffee is pretty strong stuff, comes with a loads of foam and sprinkled with cinnamon - it's also half the price of Starbucks and twice as nice.

Anyways all in all it was a great day. I wish I could say today will be as interesting but unfortunately my class has an exam next week and the only thing more boring than revising for an exam is teaching people how to revise for an exam that I'M NOT EVEN TAKING!

End of CELTA

After 4 weeks of observed teaching practices, assignments and evaluations the CELTA course is now finally over and I am starting work at International House next week. To celebrate the end of the course IH provided beer etc on the terrece for the CELTA students (most of whom are in the front of the photo) and our voluntary students. It was a good end to the course and a good chance to get those last email addresses from the students who for some reason still like us after some of the chaotic lessons we have given them.
Sadly not all the people on the CELTA course are staying on in Mexico City but I'm really happy to be one ofthe people who are so I can hopefully fill this blog up with all the stuff I plan to do.

Binge Drinking and Saturday Night

Having spent last Saturday evaluating my "progress" as a teacher ("I didn't check instructions well at the begining of the course... and I... erm... still don't") that all important time of the day came along when all one has to do is turn up at their friend's flat and have them cook you dinner and serve you wine. I finally managed to try Mole, which Luis kindly prepared with shredded chicken and enchiladas and I kindly scoffed having quickly attempted a terrible photo (yes, that's the dark blur on the left). Either way it was absolutely delicious - rich, spicy and chocolatey.
This was then rounded off with more chocolate in the form of Kelsey's birthday cake which was accompanied by both the English Happy Birthday tune and the Mexican Anthem (seriously, 'God Save the Queen' is shorter).
We then finally made it to a salsa club which was a lot of fun although, being English and totally uncoordinated salsa dancing really just means jerking about and waking up the next day feeling like you have dislocated your hip. However I'd do it again so it can't be that bad.
And today I had my last and most interesting class ever which I was able to design by myself. I chose Teenage Binge Drinking in Britain and, while many a comment was made (including my tutor's "if you need some realia - you can just point at yourself" - ha. ha.) I really enjoyed the discussion at the end of the lesson. Most of my Mexican class found the concept of alcopops totally foreign and had some really insightful views as to the role of the family for young people. So while this week (and weekend) could get better in some ways, in many others it's going great.

Museo de Arte Popular

Last Friday evening we went to the Museum de Arte Popular for a magazine launch. It was an art magazine called AlterMundi and while some of the pages are very intense (the theme of this issue is "Death" - what else?) there are some really beautiful artworks and Spanish poems included within the magazine which has a strong Latin American influence.

They also made the piece above on the floor of the museum out of sand, which was really vibrant and rather impressive me thinks. However most importantly the evening meant free wine and a good chance to practice my Castellano after a "fun" afternoon teaching relative clauses in English (WHICH are in fact as much fun as GCSE Physics).

I managed to go with my two friends from the school who both have a degree/diploma in art, and so I had not one, but two "must have" accessories for one's friday night gallery visits!

The museum itself is very interesting as it has a lot of indigenous folk art. The photo above to the left shows the word "Welcome" in all the different indigenous languages of Mexico, including one, called Hñahñu which to the untrained ear sounds like a series of different breaths.

The two pieces above are both made by paper mâché and the thing I have plonked myself infront of in the photo below is called an "Artesan Tree" which has pretty little symbols and objects worked into it's "branches".

One of the most beautiful pieces was a silk tapestry which is based on symbols representing souls (the tube like shapes), the mind (the crosses) and spirit.

Unfortunately after all this we ended our rather sophisticated venture in a Taco cafe up the road, stuffing our faces.

But all in all it was a great evening and an excellent start to the weekend.