Despues de cuatro y media semanas en Mexico, estamos casi terminado. El Lunes, regresamos a los Estados Unidos otra vez. Esta semana, estoy en Hermosillo en el estado de Sonora. Cuando llegue en Hermosillo fue el 15 de Septiembre - el Dia de Independencia. Fui a una recepcion del gobierno del estado en el Palacio Gobierno. Vimos el presidente del estado y despues fuimos afuera por los fuegos artificiales (fireworks!). Estuvimos directamente debajo de los fuegos artificiales y tambien el confetti. Fue muy bonita.
Ahora estoy mirando la television con mi hermano anfitriona que tiene tres anos. El es mi amigo nuevo. Cuando llegue a la casa la primera vez, fue muy timido, pero ahora anda sobre la casa buscando a mi. Es precioso. Tengo cuatro hermanos anfitrionas ahora, de 3 a 16 anos edad.
Luego...
This afternoon Carlos Alfonso (mi hermanito) started getting closer to me and will not leave my side. He ate dinner on my lap and while the girls were watching a movie he'd come in intermittently so that I knew he was there. At one point, he brought his sister's hair tie to me, because it had a rose on it. Later we played with his magnet house and then I asked if he wanted to read a book. He nodded and so we read Green Eggs & Ham again. I asked if he was ready to go to sleep and he nodded again, so I tucked him in and off to sleep he went. My host mom was quite surprised when she asked a few minutes later where he was and I said "in bed."
Tomorrow is our last show in Mexico, then we head back to the States for 8 weeks. I'm excited and nervous all at the same time. I'm really excited to see some people in Arizona that I haven't seen for a while. I'm also nervous about how operations change in the United States.
That's my Hermosillo update.
~Molly
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Who are you, what are you doing, and where have you been?
I know, I know. What can I say? Life moves really quickly on the road and I don't always have enough time to even think about it, let alone write. When last we met I was in the midst of a month in Thailand. My student semester tour ended there with tearful goodbyes and lots of plans to visit foreign friends in the future. What happened beyond that? TONS! Here are some highlights.
Directly following Thailand, a group of us from the cast stayed in L.A. in what we termed "Cast L.A. 2008." It was a fantastic experience orchestrated by one of our castmates. It was almost a mini-version of our tour. We had host families and even had an allocation meeting. We got an RV donated for us to use which was really nice. We had mini morning meetings to discuss the day's logistics and re-live the past six months of our lives. It was a lot of fun.
From there I went directly to Hawaii, where another group of castmates was vacationing. I stayed with that group on Oahu for a few days before heading to the big island. I met my family on the big island and was there for a week for my brother's wedding. It was probably the most laid-back wedding that's ever occurred. We procured the use of a hole on the golf course the day before the ceremony was scheduled and had a beautiful sunset wedding overlooking the ocean. I even got to walk the bride down the aisle. It was great spending time with the family as well.
From there I flew back to San Francisco where I re-packed my bags, said hello to my dog, and slept for four hours before getting back on a plane to Denver. I was in Denver for 6 weeks, one week for a pre-staging private events show (in layman's terms that means I did about 30 hours of dancing in 3 days and then performed) and 5 for staging. That's when the loooonnnng days started. Coordinating logistics for an international tour of 107 people from 21 countries is a tall order. I'm still in my learning curve, but am getting more and more confident every day. It's lots of work but lots of fun.
While in Denver I was staying with the producer of the show and his wife, who was on UWP staff for many years. It was really relieving to have a family that understood what it was like to be doing what I am doing. When I got there, their younger son was just learning to walk. I was there for his first birthday (chocolate cake covered face and all) and by the end he was almost running. We went on a hike by a beautiful mountain lake, which was a first for both of the boys, to which the older son exclaimed, "I love hiking!" They were also there for me learning how to drive and getting my driver's license. Yes, it's true. Seven years after the rest of my peers I've finally experienced the rite of passage into mobility.
From Denver we hit the road and our first stop was Breckenridge. Breckenridge is beautiful. The mountains are unlike those in the places I've been and it's so beautiful in the summer it makes it easy to see why people flock to it in the winter. We managed to get condos donated so all the staff was able to stay together. It was great for bonding. We went out to eat, watched some olympics, and just shared some good stories as we prepared for the most challenging part of our journey thus far...
Mexico! That's right, our second week on the road took us into Mexico. Our first stop was La Paz, an ocean-side city with crystal clear waters and poor drainage systems. Upon our arrival in La Paz, we drove through the central part of town which was completely flooded. The water almost reached the bottom of our bus in parts, and we saw vehicles getting stuck in the streets. It wasn't even raining when we were there, but there was nowhere for the water to go so it just stayed there.
From there we hit Los Cabos, but that deserves it's own post. So that's it for now. There will be more to come... at some point. Tonight is our last night in Tepic and tomorrow we're off to Culiacan.
Hasta luego,
~Molly
Directly following Thailand, a group of us from the cast stayed in L.A. in what we termed "Cast L.A. 2008." It was a fantastic experience orchestrated by one of our castmates. It was almost a mini-version of our tour. We had host families and even had an allocation meeting. We got an RV donated for us to use which was really nice. We had mini morning meetings to discuss the day's logistics and re-live the past six months of our lives. It was a lot of fun.
From there I went directly to Hawaii, where another group of castmates was vacationing. I stayed with that group on Oahu for a few days before heading to the big island. I met my family on the big island and was there for a week for my brother's wedding. It was probably the most laid-back wedding that's ever occurred. We procured the use of a hole on the golf course the day before the ceremony was scheduled and had a beautiful sunset wedding overlooking the ocean. I even got to walk the bride down the aisle. It was great spending time with the family as well.
From there I flew back to San Francisco where I re-packed my bags, said hello to my dog, and slept for four hours before getting back on a plane to Denver. I was in Denver for 6 weeks, one week for a pre-staging private events show (in layman's terms that means I did about 30 hours of dancing in 3 days and then performed) and 5 for staging. That's when the loooonnnng days started. Coordinating logistics for an international tour of 107 people from 21 countries is a tall order. I'm still in my learning curve, but am getting more and more confident every day. It's lots of work but lots of fun.
While in Denver I was staying with the producer of the show and his wife, who was on UWP staff for many years. It was really relieving to have a family that understood what it was like to be doing what I am doing. When I got there, their younger son was just learning to walk. I was there for his first birthday (chocolate cake covered face and all) and by the end he was almost running. We went on a hike by a beautiful mountain lake, which was a first for both of the boys, to which the older son exclaimed, "I love hiking!" They were also there for me learning how to drive and getting my driver's license. Yes, it's true. Seven years after the rest of my peers I've finally experienced the rite of passage into mobility.
From Denver we hit the road and our first stop was Breckenridge. Breckenridge is beautiful. The mountains are unlike those in the places I've been and it's so beautiful in the summer it makes it easy to see why people flock to it in the winter. We managed to get condos donated so all the staff was able to stay together. It was great for bonding. We went out to eat, watched some olympics, and just shared some good stories as we prepared for the most challenging part of our journey thus far...
Mexico! That's right, our second week on the road took us into Mexico. Our first stop was La Paz, an ocean-side city with crystal clear waters and poor drainage systems. Upon our arrival in La Paz, we drove through the central part of town which was completely flooded. The water almost reached the bottom of our bus in parts, and we saw vehicles getting stuck in the streets. It wasn't even raining when we were there, but there was nowhere for the water to go so it just stayed there.
From there we hit Los Cabos, but that deserves it's own post. So that's it for now. There will be more to come... at some point. Tonight is our last night in Tepic and tomorrow we're off to Culiacan.
Hasta luego,
~Molly
Sunday, May 25, 2008
I've been pinched, but I'm still waiting to wake up.
Upon our arrival in Bangkok, we were greeted with flower bracelets by a volunteer who helped set up the Thailand portion of our tour. The flowers smelled lovely and made for an excellent make-shift crown. We grabbed our bags and got on the bus for a 15 hour bus ride. What better way to see the country than on a bus, right? We passed rice fields and temples and amazing cloudscapes before stopping for dinner.
Dinner was our first experience with Thai food. By that, I mean it was the first time someone mistook hot chili sauce for sweet and sour sauce. There were more than a few burned mouths. Mine took to it well, as I was pretty sure whatever sauce it was was going to end up hot, so I took only a small amount. After that it was back on the bus until 1:00 AM which is when we arrived to the temple. Did I just say temple? Oh right, a temple. We spent our first night in Thailand at a Buddhist temple. We woke up to the mind-numbingly loud chirp of the crickets and Erika and I went for a walk to check out the local area before breakfast. Breakfast began the chain of similarity when it comes to food. So far, 3/4 of the meals here consist of fried rice with egg, vegetables, and some kind of meat I don't eat (so I get it without). It's delicious, though monotonous.
Where was I? Right - the temple. We were greeted on our first real day in Thailand by the head of the monastery as well as some local radio personalities. Monks are very happy people. I want to take them home. The pictures don't do the temple (or the happy monks) justice, but suffice it to say the entire experience was beautiful. We also experienced luke-warm bucket showers and "squatty potties" at the temple. We were told to expect them in our host families, as well. I'm happy to say I lucked out on that front. My family lives in a nice house near the airport with a western toilet that flushes as well as a shower with warm water! They also speak English! These are all luxuries in the Up With People Thai tour. I'm living the big life.
Our first night, my 17 year-old host sister took me to a show. I had no idea what kind of show to expect, but it turned out to be a multicultural show put on by a local university. My host sister is friends with another family that's hosting, so Johan from the Netherlands was also with us. When Johan (as blonde-haired and blue-eyed as they come) and I walked in we were approached by the staff and told to "Wait here for VIP." We told them we weren't VIP and went to sit down with our host sisters. When we got to the row we were sitting in, another staff member came up and said "You can sit up front." It was then that we realized that we were the only non-Thai people in a crowd of about 1000. Needless to say, we stuck out. There were spotlights that would go around the whole room from time to time. Every time they came near Johan and me we were just waiting for them to stop and for everyone to look at us. Thankfully, that didn't happen until halfway through the show. We heard the emcees coming down the aisle saying "farang, farang," which I recalled from my Thai phrasebook to mean "foreigner." The spotlight came to a halt on our blonde heads in the sea of dark hair and we meekly waved to the crowd. I let Johan do the talking and just sat back and laughed. I'm finally exotic!
On Friday the group I'm with went to one of the local high schools to do some activities, teach some English, and perform a show for the students. It was well-received, though the students were very shy.
That brings us to Saturday. Saturday was our regional learning day. We started the day with an hour and a half boat ride down the river to our first site. One of the boats ahead of us hit a rock and got a hole in it, so we had to stop and wait for another boat to get there, as our boat had the only Thai/English speaker. As we neared our destination we saw them. They were big, gray, wrinkley, and beautiful. They were our rides. Each elephant had a seat on its back which held two people. We went on a tour of the area on our elephants (ours was a female who happened to be pregnant) which ended in the river to get back to the stand. My elephant date and I each got a chance to ride on the head of the elephant. It was quite bumpy, though the overall feeling was much like that of riding a pony. The elephant's skin felt really cool with all the bristly hairs on its head. Its ears kept wrapping around my legs like it was trying to protect them. It. Was. Awesome.
From there we got on another boat and headed to our next departure point. We were told to bring comfortable walking shoes, which usually means a fair amount of walking. We hadn't really anticipated what was about to come. After a grueling 45 minute hike in the 90+ degree weather we reached a hill tribe. "Great!" we all thought as we reached the village. Our guide then informed us that we were just stopping to let people catch up, that we still had another 45 minutes to the hill tribe that we were going to stop at for real.
We hiked another half hour and stopped again to wait for people to catch up. Two hours and buckets of sweat after we left our starting point, we arrived at one of the Akha tribe villages. We stopped to get drinks and then hiked the last ten minutes to our actual destination. We could hear the rushing water before we could see it, but as we climbed further and further in the jungle, we finally reached the WATERFALL! Hans, Mitch, and I were the first around the bend to behold the amazing sight. After some shouting and running about in feverish delight (90+ degrees, remember?) we hopped into the waterfall. It was glorious. I went to sit on the rocks right at the bottom of the waterfall and realized it created a natural massage. I stayed there while the others trickled in. It was very surreal, seeing my friends from all over the world climbing around on a Thai waterfall like water nymphs.
How do you follow that? With dinner, of course. We took the local trucks (pictures to come eventually) to an open air restaurant that was just for us. We had some time to relax and chat with each other as we heard the vocal stylings of a local artist. He sang everything from Aretha Franklin to Maroon 5 - all in English. There was even some John Denver thrown in. After that, we were treated to a local group of hill tribe performers. The group comes together as part of an effort for awareness and to keep tribal girls out of human trafficking. They were from a number of different hill tribes and each had their own ceremonial dress. Their songs and dances were very reminiscent of native American traditions, with a lot of natural influence.
I think I'll stop there for now. Happy reading.
~Molly
Dinner was our first experience with Thai food. By that, I mean it was the first time someone mistook hot chili sauce for sweet and sour sauce. There were more than a few burned mouths. Mine took to it well, as I was pretty sure whatever sauce it was was going to end up hot, so I took only a small amount. After that it was back on the bus until 1:00 AM which is when we arrived to the temple. Did I just say temple? Oh right, a temple. We spent our first night in Thailand at a Buddhist temple. We woke up to the mind-numbingly loud chirp of the crickets and Erika and I went for a walk to check out the local area before breakfast. Breakfast began the chain of similarity when it comes to food. So far, 3/4 of the meals here consist of fried rice with egg, vegetables, and some kind of meat I don't eat (so I get it without). It's delicious, though monotonous.
Where was I? Right - the temple. We were greeted on our first real day in Thailand by the head of the monastery as well as some local radio personalities. Monks are very happy people. I want to take them home. The pictures don't do the temple (or the happy monks) justice, but suffice it to say the entire experience was beautiful. We also experienced luke-warm bucket showers and "squatty potties" at the temple. We were told to expect them in our host families, as well. I'm happy to say I lucked out on that front. My family lives in a nice house near the airport with a western toilet that flushes as well as a shower with warm water! They also speak English! These are all luxuries in the Up With People Thai tour. I'm living the big life.
Our first night, my 17 year-old host sister took me to a show. I had no idea what kind of show to expect, but it turned out to be a multicultural show put on by a local university. My host sister is friends with another family that's hosting, so Johan from the Netherlands was also with us. When Johan (as blonde-haired and blue-eyed as they come) and I walked in we were approached by the staff and told to "Wait here for VIP." We told them we weren't VIP and went to sit down with our host sisters. When we got to the row we were sitting in, another staff member came up and said "You can sit up front." It was then that we realized that we were the only non-Thai people in a crowd of about 1000. Needless to say, we stuck out. There were spotlights that would go around the whole room from time to time. Every time they came near Johan and me we were just waiting for them to stop and for everyone to look at us. Thankfully, that didn't happen until halfway through the show. We heard the emcees coming down the aisle saying "farang, farang," which I recalled from my Thai phrasebook to mean "foreigner." The spotlight came to a halt on our blonde heads in the sea of dark hair and we meekly waved to the crowd. I let Johan do the talking and just sat back and laughed. I'm finally exotic!
On Friday the group I'm with went to one of the local high schools to do some activities, teach some English, and perform a show for the students. It was well-received, though the students were very shy.
That brings us to Saturday. Saturday was our regional learning day. We started the day with an hour and a half boat ride down the river to our first site. One of the boats ahead of us hit a rock and got a hole in it, so we had to stop and wait for another boat to get there, as our boat had the only Thai/English speaker. As we neared our destination we saw them. They were big, gray, wrinkley, and beautiful. They were our rides. Each elephant had a seat on its back which held two people. We went on a tour of the area on our elephants (ours was a female who happened to be pregnant) which ended in the river to get back to the stand. My elephant date and I each got a chance to ride on the head of the elephant. It was quite bumpy, though the overall feeling was much like that of riding a pony. The elephant's skin felt really cool with all the bristly hairs on its head. Its ears kept wrapping around my legs like it was trying to protect them. It. Was. Awesome.
From there we got on another boat and headed to our next departure point. We were told to bring comfortable walking shoes, which usually means a fair amount of walking. We hadn't really anticipated what was about to come. After a grueling 45 minute hike in the 90+ degree weather we reached a hill tribe. "Great!" we all thought as we reached the village. Our guide then informed us that we were just stopping to let people catch up, that we still had another 45 minutes to the hill tribe that we were going to stop at for real.
We hiked another half hour and stopped again to wait for people to catch up. Two hours and buckets of sweat after we left our starting point, we arrived at one of the Akha tribe villages. We stopped to get drinks and then hiked the last ten minutes to our actual destination. We could hear the rushing water before we could see it, but as we climbed further and further in the jungle, we finally reached the WATERFALL! Hans, Mitch, and I were the first around the bend to behold the amazing sight. After some shouting and running about in feverish delight (90+ degrees, remember?) we hopped into the waterfall. It was glorious. I went to sit on the rocks right at the bottom of the waterfall and realized it created a natural massage. I stayed there while the others trickled in. It was very surreal, seeing my friends from all over the world climbing around on a Thai waterfall like water nymphs.
How do you follow that? With dinner, of course. We took the local trucks (pictures to come eventually) to an open air restaurant that was just for us. We had some time to relax and chat with each other as we heard the vocal stylings of a local artist. He sang everything from Aretha Franklin to Maroon 5 - all in English. There was even some John Denver thrown in. After that, we were treated to a local group of hill tribe performers. The group comes together as part of an effort for awareness and to keep tribal girls out of human trafficking. They were from a number of different hill tribes and each had their own ceremonial dress. Their songs and dances were very reminiscent of native American traditions, with a lot of natural influence.
I think I'll stop there for now. Happy reading.
~Molly
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Champagne showers and goodbyes
I leave for Thailand tomorrow, and by tomorrow I mean 3 AM. Our travel "day" is currently estimated at 53 hours. We'll fly from Dallas to Denver, Denver to LA, LA to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Bangkok, and then take a bus from Bangkok to Chiang Rai (which is essentially on the other side of the country). I'm not sure yet who my travel partner will be, but I better pick a good one.
I guess I'd better backtrack first. Last night was our last show in the United States. It went swimmingly. Unfortunately, it was our last show with our technical manager. She will not be joining us in Thailand, as she got a job working for Cirque du Soleil and has to leave on Monday. Also, in Thailand we won't have to set up or take down our set, so last night was our last night of striking the set. Upon finishing, we had a truck-closing ceremony as well as a goodbye to our tech manager. The tech crew climbed up on top of the truck, made speeches, and then sprayed us all with champagne. I must have been in the splash zone, because I got pretty wet. We will miss her, but are all really excited for her to be working with Cirque.
Tonight we'll be dropped off at our meeting point at 9 PM, where we'll have an education workshop then a party... until 3 in the morning. I know what you must be thinking. "But Molly, there's no sleep time in that schedule." Believe me, this small detail has not been overseen. We will have over two days to sleep intermittently, and I plan to take advantage of that. It is, however, quite exciting to have some party time with the cast. We're so often in work mode that we rarely get the chance to just hang out.
My host family in this city is amazing. Wendi is an alum from '92 and she along with her husband Derek are expecting their first child in early July. They're currently referring to it as "the mushroom" as they're waiting to see if it's a boy or a girl. Their other "child" is a husky named Nikita and he is one of the sweetest dogs.
Today my roommate Maiken and I went to a glass blowing studio owned by our host mom's parents. Her mom does fused or flat glass pieces while her stepdad does blown pieces. They have created pieces for corporations as well as individual patrons around the world. One of their more fun commissions was a series of glass cowboy hats for a man from Taiwan. They happened to have one left lying around the studio and, though stylish, it's not exactly practical for everyday wear.
Afterwards, we went to Snuffers for lunch. Snuffers was one of the originators of cheese fries. They're a Dallas staple for burgers and game day food. Once stuffed, we went to pick up some last minute items for Thailand... you know, a towel, bug spray, toilet paper. Oh, I didn't mention that they don't have toilet paper in the restrooms in Thailand? Well, they don't. We also stopped by Borders where Derek and I looked at inappropriate children's books. One gem was "The Mole Who Knew It Was None of Its Business". It's about a mole who, upon emerging from its hole, gets pooped on. It spends the rest of the book asking different animals about their poop until it realizes it was the dog. (Spoiler Alert!!) It decides then to poop on the dog's head, then promptly returns to its whole. Moral of the story...? It was lost on us as well.
Now I'm off to finish packing. Who knows when I'll have internet access again? I don't.
Happy trails!
~Molly
I guess I'd better backtrack first. Last night was our last show in the United States. It went swimmingly. Unfortunately, it was our last show with our technical manager. She will not be joining us in Thailand, as she got a job working for Cirque du Soleil and has to leave on Monday. Also, in Thailand we won't have to set up or take down our set, so last night was our last night of striking the set. Upon finishing, we had a truck-closing ceremony as well as a goodbye to our tech manager. The tech crew climbed up on top of the truck, made speeches, and then sprayed us all with champagne. I must have been in the splash zone, because I got pretty wet. We will miss her, but are all really excited for her to be working with Cirque.
Tonight we'll be dropped off at our meeting point at 9 PM, where we'll have an education workshop then a party... until 3 in the morning. I know what you must be thinking. "But Molly, there's no sleep time in that schedule." Believe me, this small detail has not been overseen. We will have over two days to sleep intermittently, and I plan to take advantage of that. It is, however, quite exciting to have some party time with the cast. We're so often in work mode that we rarely get the chance to just hang out.
My host family in this city is amazing. Wendi is an alum from '92 and she along with her husband Derek are expecting their first child in early July. They're currently referring to it as "the mushroom" as they're waiting to see if it's a boy or a girl. Their other "child" is a husky named Nikita and he is one of the sweetest dogs.
Today my roommate Maiken and I went to a glass blowing studio owned by our host mom's parents. Her mom does fused or flat glass pieces while her stepdad does blown pieces. They have created pieces for corporations as well as individual patrons around the world. One of their more fun commissions was a series of glass cowboy hats for a man from Taiwan. They happened to have one left lying around the studio and, though stylish, it's not exactly practical for everyday wear.
Afterwards, we went to Snuffers for lunch. Snuffers was one of the originators of cheese fries. They're a Dallas staple for burgers and game day food. Once stuffed, we went to pick up some last minute items for Thailand... you know, a towel, bug spray, toilet paper. Oh, I didn't mention that they don't have toilet paper in the restrooms in Thailand? Well, they don't. We also stopped by Borders where Derek and I looked at inappropriate children's books. One gem was "The Mole Who Knew It Was None of Its Business". It's about a mole who, upon emerging from its hole, gets pooped on. It spends the rest of the book asking different animals about their poop until it realizes it was the dog. (Spoiler Alert!!) It decides then to poop on the dog's head, then promptly returns to its whole. Moral of the story...? It was lost on us as well.
Now I'm off to finish packing. Who knows when I'll have internet access again? I don't.
Happy trails!
~Molly
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Mucho mas
So let's see... Again, I'm not here with too many real updates. I do, however, need to list things out again so as not to forget to write about them in the future.
San Luis Potosi
~La Familia - Lupita, MaPo, Princesa Jimonorosa, Hongito
~Cast Appreciation Day
~Travel back to Texas
~Police escorts
New Braunfels
~Arrival/swimming
~Abby
~Fiesta Texas
The Woodlands
~The Masterplan
~The ferret stole my toothbrush - Parts 1 and 2
~Momma
Plano
~Strangeheart
~Hunger Banquet
~Swedish culture presentation
Here we go, starting at the end again (well, with yesterday). We started the day with a walking tour of the Arts District in Dallas. There was nothing too note-worthy. We had some free time in which I walked around the Asian art museum. I loved the intricacies and delicacy of the art work. Other than that, the coolest part was the symphony hall. Unfortunately, we were only able to go into the lobby. It was gorgeous there, but I really wish we'd been able to go into the actual theatre.
Our focus for the day beyond that was poverty. When we returned there were some presentations from various nations describing what poverty looks like in their nation. We also got a look at the worldwide situation. That's where the demonstrations began. Our education team put together a Hunger Banquet, in which we were divided into three classes and given food according to our station. The poorest group (the bottom 50%) sat on cardboard boxes and had rice to eat and salt water to drink. The middle class group (the middle 35%) sat in chairs and had rice and beans as well as water to drink. The upper class group (the top 15%) sat at a well-decorated table where they were waited on by our road staff. They received a salad course, a pasta course, and dessert. That group, however, was not allowed to share with the others. Beyond that, any food that was left was tossed in a trash can in plain sight of all parties. Once the food started being thrown away, those at the upper class table rallied to eat as much as they possibly could. This resulted in many ice cream-filled stomachs as one of our staff members kept "accidentally" bringing out an extra cup of ice cream, just waiting to be able to throw it in the trash. After the sixth time this happened, the table gave up and sighed as the rest of the fixings were unceremoniously thrown away.
"How were we categorized?" you may ask. There was an activity earlier in the day in which hands full of pennies were tossed and the cast scrambled about trying to scavenge for as many as they could. On the first toss, I managed to grab three. On the second toss, I didn't grab any. In each of these rounds, we were told not to share any of our pennies. On the third toss, I happened to be standing near the front and by simply putting my hand up I managed to catch five, then I picked up one more for a total of six. The education team mentioned that you could share pennies this round if you so chose, however there was no one around me who was talking, so I just kept the ones I had. That, as you may have guessed, left me in the upper class.
To truly understand the reality of the situation, some context must be added. We were asked to wait outside until the food was ready. Upon returning to the room, it was clear what was about to happen. The lights were all dimmed and the walls were lined with pictures of poverty along with descriptions and quotes. There was a slide show portraying more images along with statistics. We were asked to keep silent as we listened to Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" and looked at photo after photo. We were then asked to take our seats. The silence continued for what seemed like hours, as we contemplated whether or not we could actually eat the food laid in front of us. Too many thoughts went through our minds as we realized there was no right way to handle the situation. The guilt set in long before those on the cardboard began to come as close as they were allowed and started singing "Sound of Peace." It was immediate. Welcome to the real world.
At what point does the situation lighten up? Well in the case of our demonstration, it was after we got in the car with our host family to go home. It was decided that a stop to Cold Stone was in the cards (please refer to aforementioned section on ice cream). Those who didn't have enough to eat during our hunger banquet were asked to go hungry for the night. As I was in the upper class, I figured it was my responsibility to take what was offered to me and pony up for some more ice cream. Mmmmm.
That's all for now. I'll try to get one or two more posts in before Thailand. Good night.
~Molly
San Luis Potosi
~La Familia - Lupita, MaPo, Princesa Jimonorosa, Hongito
~Cast Appreciation Day
~Travel back to Texas
~Police escorts
New Braunfels
~Arrival/swimming
~Abby
~Fiesta Texas
The Woodlands
~The Masterplan
~The ferret stole my toothbrush - Parts 1 and 2
~Momma
Plano
~Strangeheart
~Hunger Banquet
~Swedish culture presentation
Here we go, starting at the end again (well, with yesterday). We started the day with a walking tour of the Arts District in Dallas. There was nothing too note-worthy. We had some free time in which I walked around the Asian art museum. I loved the intricacies and delicacy of the art work. Other than that, the coolest part was the symphony hall. Unfortunately, we were only able to go into the lobby. It was gorgeous there, but I really wish we'd been able to go into the actual theatre.
Our focus for the day beyond that was poverty. When we returned there were some presentations from various nations describing what poverty looks like in their nation. We also got a look at the worldwide situation. That's where the demonstrations began. Our education team put together a Hunger Banquet, in which we were divided into three classes and given food according to our station. The poorest group (the bottom 50%) sat on cardboard boxes and had rice to eat and salt water to drink. The middle class group (the middle 35%) sat in chairs and had rice and beans as well as water to drink. The upper class group (the top 15%) sat at a well-decorated table where they were waited on by our road staff. They received a salad course, a pasta course, and dessert. That group, however, was not allowed to share with the others. Beyond that, any food that was left was tossed in a trash can in plain sight of all parties. Once the food started being thrown away, those at the upper class table rallied to eat as much as they possibly could. This resulted in many ice cream-filled stomachs as one of our staff members kept "accidentally" bringing out an extra cup of ice cream, just waiting to be able to throw it in the trash. After the sixth time this happened, the table gave up and sighed as the rest of the fixings were unceremoniously thrown away.
"How were we categorized?" you may ask. There was an activity earlier in the day in which hands full of pennies were tossed and the cast scrambled about trying to scavenge for as many as they could. On the first toss, I managed to grab three. On the second toss, I didn't grab any. In each of these rounds, we were told not to share any of our pennies. On the third toss, I happened to be standing near the front and by simply putting my hand up I managed to catch five, then I picked up one more for a total of six. The education team mentioned that you could share pennies this round if you so chose, however there was no one around me who was talking, so I just kept the ones I had. That, as you may have guessed, left me in the upper class.
To truly understand the reality of the situation, some context must be added. We were asked to wait outside until the food was ready. Upon returning to the room, it was clear what was about to happen. The lights were all dimmed and the walls were lined with pictures of poverty along with descriptions and quotes. There was a slide show portraying more images along with statistics. We were asked to keep silent as we listened to Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" and looked at photo after photo. We were then asked to take our seats. The silence continued for what seemed like hours, as we contemplated whether or not we could actually eat the food laid in front of us. Too many thoughts went through our minds as we realized there was no right way to handle the situation. The guilt set in long before those on the cardboard began to come as close as they were allowed and started singing "Sound of Peace." It was immediate. Welcome to the real world.
At what point does the situation lighten up? Well in the case of our demonstration, it was after we got in the car with our host family to go home. It was decided that a stop to Cold Stone was in the cards (please refer to aforementioned section on ice cream). Those who didn't have enough to eat during our hunger banquet were asked to go hungry for the night. As I was in the upper class, I figured it was my responsibility to take what was offered to me and pony up for some more ice cream. Mmmmm.
That's all for now. I'll try to get one or two more posts in before Thailand. Good night.
~Molly
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Highlights
So I don't have time to go into detail right now as a ton of stuff has happened recently, but I'm going to leave myself bullet point highlights so that I can return to things later and fill in the blanks. I am back online after having a full week without internet. Anyways, remind me to tell you (or if you're interested, ask me) about:
~Secretary of Foreign Affairs
~Night of the Churros
~All hands on deck load-in
~Puebla family
~Cholula
~Payasos
~San Luis Potosi reception
~Mariachi promo in the streets
~University "rally"
In true fashion, I'll start right at the end. Let's just start with the fact that tonight was absolutely amazing. I've recently started trying to take more chances and just go for things rather than justifying them away. Today was one of those days. Near the end of an already crazy day, one of the staff members mentioned that there was a rally at a University in town and they wanted some people to promote there. Being the marketing intern, it made sense that I would go help promote, so I volunteered. We were all in for a huge surprise. Now, as tends to happen in our Mexico cities, we didn't really have a clue what we were supposed to be doing. We just knew we had a place to meet some students and that we'd probably be done at a certain time. Well the "rally" turned out to be a scavenger hunt. There were eight teams (and eight of us) so we were divided with one Uppie in each scavenger group. Our only instructions were "Please speak only in English. They have to figure out how to work with you, but please speak in English." Well, that lasted about 10 minutes. The problem with a scavenger hunt and having a time limit is that you want to do things as quickly as possible and it makes it a lot easier when you don't have to feign ignorance, so I used a lot of Spanglish to try to at least mix the two.
Basically, each team had 4 different characters they had to find and each character had a task associated with them that needed to be completed. All the characters were from San Luis Potosi lore, so there was Juan de Jarro (I'm not sure what exactly he was - some sort of apothecary-looking person) who told us that one member of our team had to learn how to make a "trenza" and had to make one at least 3 cm long. Well a trenza turned out to be hair weaving, where you take thread and knot it around the hair. Our next task was to find envelopes with puzzle pieces in them and make a puzzle. Let's just say that my team's color was brown and trying to find 5 brown envelopes in a dark park with only the light of a cell phone was not the easiest task. After that, we found the clown. We had to make up one of our members as a clown and perform a "show" until people in the "audience" gave money for a total of 5 pesos. Our last activity was to create a cheer using 5 words that were given to us that included specific movements and a pyramid. It was a ton of fun. Our chant became "Amigos unidos, amigos unidos, todos juntos vamos a ganar." (Translated that means "Friends unite, friends unite, all together we're going to win.")
So yeah, sometimes when you take a risk you come out on top. This was definitely one of those times. There's nothing quite like running (as fast as possible, mind you) through the dark streets of an unfamiliar city with people you've never met who speak a language that you (more or less) don't. It was brilliant.
That's all for now,
~Molly
~Secretary of Foreign Affairs
~Night of the Churros
~All hands on deck load-in
~Puebla family
~Cholula
~Payasos
~San Luis Potosi reception
~Mariachi promo in the streets
~University "rally"
In true fashion, I'll start right at the end. Let's just start with the fact that tonight was absolutely amazing. I've recently started trying to take more chances and just go for things rather than justifying them away. Today was one of those days. Near the end of an already crazy day, one of the staff members mentioned that there was a rally at a University in town and they wanted some people to promote there. Being the marketing intern, it made sense that I would go help promote, so I volunteered. We were all in for a huge surprise. Now, as tends to happen in our Mexico cities, we didn't really have a clue what we were supposed to be doing. We just knew we had a place to meet some students and that we'd probably be done at a certain time. Well the "rally" turned out to be a scavenger hunt. There were eight teams (and eight of us) so we were divided with one Uppie in each scavenger group. Our only instructions were "Please speak only in English. They have to figure out how to work with you, but please speak in English." Well, that lasted about 10 minutes. The problem with a scavenger hunt and having a time limit is that you want to do things as quickly as possible and it makes it a lot easier when you don't have to feign ignorance, so I used a lot of Spanglish to try to at least mix the two.
Basically, each team had 4 different characters they had to find and each character had a task associated with them that needed to be completed. All the characters were from San Luis Potosi lore, so there was Juan de Jarro (I'm not sure what exactly he was - some sort of apothecary-looking person) who told us that one member of our team had to learn how to make a "trenza" and had to make one at least 3 cm long. Well a trenza turned out to be hair weaving, where you take thread and knot it around the hair. Our next task was to find envelopes with puzzle pieces in them and make a puzzle. Let's just say that my team's color was brown and trying to find 5 brown envelopes in a dark park with only the light of a cell phone was not the easiest task. After that, we found the clown. We had to make up one of our members as a clown and perform a "show" until people in the "audience" gave money for a total of 5 pesos. Our last activity was to create a cheer using 5 words that were given to us that included specific movements and a pyramid. It was a ton of fun. Our chant became "Amigos unidos, amigos unidos, todos juntos vamos a ganar." (Translated that means "Friends unite, friends unite, all together we're going to win.")
So yeah, sometimes when you take a risk you come out on top. This was definitely one of those times. There's nothing quite like running (as fast as possible, mind you) through the dark streets of an unfamiliar city with people you've never met who speak a language that you (more or less) don't. It was brilliant.
That's all for now,
~Molly
Saturday, April 5, 2008
La Cultura
Ahh yes, Thursday. Thursday we went to a college campus in the southern part of Mexico City (I'm hosted in the north). We had another mini-show there. Again, we used costumes. This time, rather than having to change on both sides of the stage, we had to change in the big truck we carry all our equipment in. That means we had to run all the way off stage and over to the side, climb up into the truck, change, jump down, then run to whichever side we entered from next. Did I mention this city is approximately 2 miles high? Needless to say, we were all out of breath pretty quickly. After our show was a reception with regional Mexican food. It was really good.
We were treated to a special performance of Romeo and Juliet by some of the college students. Our schedule said Romeo y Julieta, denoting Spanish. The poster on campus said Romeo et Juliette, denoting French. Let the confusion begin! When the announcer introduced the show he welcomed us all to the musical, Romeo y Julieta. Well the show began with a big song and dance number - in French. All right, we thought to ourselves, it's in French. The song ended and the next scene began... in Spanish. Wait, what? Oh right. The costumes were really cool, kind of a gothic style with the Montagues in black and the Capulets in red. The show was really good, but I can now say that I saw Romeo and Juliet in Spanish with French songs in Mexico. They had a really cool addition to the show which I guess would best be described as fate. There was a dancer all dressed in white who was shown directing all the moments where the plot turned - whether it was passing the knife used to stab someone or stealing a letter from the messenger. It was very effective, especially with the dark costumes the rest of the cast had.
At the end of the day, our host sister took us out for tacos, so we got home around 12:30. That made it quite difficult as the next day we had to leave the house before 6:00 a.m. Why? You might ask. There was a group of 15 of us who went to a television studio to perform for some show that I don't know the name of. After we finished there we walked to our meeting place where the rest of the cast was. We rehearsed some and then went to Los Pinos, a.k.a. Mexico's White House. We received a tour of the grounds and were officially received by the President's wife. We sang "Viva la Gente" for her and she sang right along with us mouthing every single word. It was neat to see all of us dressed up in our fancy attire as opposed to our day-to-day rehearsal clothes.
When we left Los Pinos we went back to our meeting place where we did another mini-show (yes, that makes 3 days in a row) for the press. Apparently we were on the 10:00 news here, but I didn't watch. I got interviewed for the first time in English. We had a little bit of time to hang out before our bus came, which was nice to have some down time. I sat next to Jared, one of my hometeam leaders, on the bus ride and we came to the realization that we are both equally nerdy. I never would have guessed.
I came home and took a quick nap before eating and heading out again. Our host sister took us to a salsa club where we danced all night. By all night, I mean that we got home around 4:00 this morning. I danced with 5 or 6 different people, which was cool to see the different styles with which people lead. Most were decent partners, but one was great. He led with confidence so you knew which way you were turning and how far and all those details that make a girl look good. I even got a few compliments on my salsa skills :-) Today is our free day, which means sleep! My roommate and I both slept really late and so far we've just lazed about. We're probably going to go into the city to hang out with some people and get coffee later. With that, I think I'm up to date! Huzzah! Now I just have a ton of pictures to upload. The connection is a bit slow so it takes a long time to upload. Be patient and there will be more up soon.
Adios,
~Molly
We were treated to a special performance of Romeo and Juliet by some of the college students. Our schedule said Romeo y Julieta, denoting Spanish. The poster on campus said Romeo et Juliette, denoting French. Let the confusion begin! When the announcer introduced the show he welcomed us all to the musical, Romeo y Julieta. Well the show began with a big song and dance number - in French. All right, we thought to ourselves, it's in French. The song ended and the next scene began... in Spanish. Wait, what? Oh right. The costumes were really cool, kind of a gothic style with the Montagues in black and the Capulets in red. The show was really good, but I can now say that I saw Romeo and Juliet in Spanish with French songs in Mexico. They had a really cool addition to the show which I guess would best be described as fate. There was a dancer all dressed in white who was shown directing all the moments where the plot turned - whether it was passing the knife used to stab someone or stealing a letter from the messenger. It was very effective, especially with the dark costumes the rest of the cast had.
At the end of the day, our host sister took us out for tacos, so we got home around 12:30. That made it quite difficult as the next day we had to leave the house before 6:00 a.m. Why? You might ask. There was a group of 15 of us who went to a television studio to perform for some show that I don't know the name of. After we finished there we walked to our meeting place where the rest of the cast was. We rehearsed some and then went to Los Pinos, a.k.a. Mexico's White House. We received a tour of the grounds and were officially received by the President's wife. We sang "Viva la Gente" for her and she sang right along with us mouthing every single word. It was neat to see all of us dressed up in our fancy attire as opposed to our day-to-day rehearsal clothes.
When we left Los Pinos we went back to our meeting place where we did another mini-show (yes, that makes 3 days in a row) for the press. Apparently we were on the 10:00 news here, but I didn't watch. I got interviewed for the first time in English. We had a little bit of time to hang out before our bus came, which was nice to have some down time. I sat next to Jared, one of my hometeam leaders, on the bus ride and we came to the realization that we are both equally nerdy. I never would have guessed.
I came home and took a quick nap before eating and heading out again. Our host sister took us to a salsa club where we danced all night. By all night, I mean that we got home around 4:00 this morning. I danced with 5 or 6 different people, which was cool to see the different styles with which people lead. Most were decent partners, but one was great. He led with confidence so you knew which way you were turning and how far and all those details that make a girl look good. I even got a few compliments on my salsa skills :-) Today is our free day, which means sleep! My roommate and I both slept really late and so far we've just lazed about. We're probably going to go into the city to hang out with some people and get coffee later. With that, I think I'm up to date! Huzzah! Now I just have a ton of pictures to upload. The connection is a bit slow so it takes a long time to upload. Be patient and there will be more up soon.
Adios,
~Molly
Monterrey? More like Monte-yay
Show day in Monterrey brought up a lot of new experiences - my first double show day, my first alumni reception, and my first on-camera interview in Spanish. Having two shows in one day is such a unique experience, because we're all so used to having our show and then going immediately into breaking down the set and interviewing prospective students. It was weird to stay in my show costume all day.
Our first show went pretty well. We were still trying to gain confidence as it was our first time performing our Mexican medley. The audience was much quieter than I imagined - they were very polite, but seemed to be enjoying it.
Our second show was awesome. The crowd was a bit bigger and a bit more raucous. During one of our songs ("I Can Believe") I looked out to see a few cell phones waving back and forth, lighter style. After a while a few more joined in, and then a few more. Eventually there were cell phones waving through 3/4 of the audience. In the dark they looked like stars twinkling in the distance. I first noticed when I looked over at the singer who had this smile of surprise on her face. I looked at the person sharing the microphone with me and we both got huge grins on our faces as we continued the song. It's amazing how something so small can make such a difference. I only wish more of the cast was on stage at that point so they didn't have to experience it second-hand.
Monday morning we left Monterrey and traveled to Mexico City, where I am currently. Mexico City is... HUGE. Our days are usually pretty long, but they're even longer when you add in Mexico City travel time and traffic. I spend between an hour and a half and 4 hours traveling each day, which makes our normal 10-12 hour days much longer. Needless to say, sleep is far from abundant. That being said, our days have been packed with activities.
Our first full day here we traveled to Teotihuacan, the ancient pyramids. The pictures really speak for themselves (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyskye218/sets/72157604366099067/). All I can say is that it was the perfect day to be there. When I reached the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, there was a yellow butterfly that just kept flying around like crazy. Eventually another joined it, but the original was up there the whole time I was. After Teotihuacan we visited MUNAL, one of the most famous art galleries in the city.
On Wednesday we worked in the classrooms of a school here. The school itself has the oddest architecture I've encountered. The classrooms all look like pods, with one stacked on top of the next. It's very futuristic. We worked with 3 classes and had a mini-show for all 1000+ students in the school. It was our first time using specialty dance costumes for a mini-show, which led to a few problems when I realized during our rehearsal that half my costumes were on one side and half on the other. Due to different entrances, my shoes ended up on one side when I had to change on the other. Fortunately, one of my castmates had an extra pair of shoes that I borrowed for half the show. It went over pretty well with all of us being asked for pictures and autographs afterward.
As for the classes themselves, there's an interesting contrast. The school we were at was a bilingual school, so the students are more or less familiar with English (the older they are, the more exposure they've had). The three of us who worked together began in a sixth grade class. They understood some of what we said, but I ended up translating a good portion of it into Spanish so we could make sure they got as much out of it as possible. They were a good class, very attentive, and very interested in what we were doing. They also had some great ideas about ways to make their community better.
Our second class was an 8th grade class and man were they difficult. They were so loud we couldn't hear ourselves, and it was quite frustrating to go an hour and a half without having a single moment of silence. We ended up getting through about half of what we had planned, but there's only so much you can do with an unwilling audience. Some of them were very receptive and we ended up taking the opportunity of them talking all the time to talk about respect. For the last 10 minutes, they suddenly got quiet - we're not sure why. We're just hoping that perhaps our lesson of respecting others when talking will translate into helping their regular teacher.
Our last class was... amazing. They had said that there was a portion of the student body that was different than the normal students. They were less privileged, but were given the opportunity to go to this private school at a very discounted rate as long as they maintained a certain grade point average. I knew that these would be good students, as they actually wanted to be at school rather than being forced to. I was right. Every one of them was engaged. Since many of them were indigenous people, many didn't have the opportunity to learn as much English as the other classes. Again, I translated most of what was said to make sure they understood the meaning. Our lesson plan got rearranged because some of the things we were talking about flowed right into another activity and the transitions were effortless. At the end, we taught them a few songs that we sing to get ourselves energized. They went crazy for them. One was in Spanish and one in English, and they were so enthusiastic - even the teacher got into it. After that they taught us two similar songs in Spanish. The kids who had all been reserved and shy were no longer. They were shouting and laughing and having a great time. As we left the classroom, we were accompanied by the singing and energy along with shouts of "Thank you!" and chants of "Viva la Gente!" It was the best class I've been in.
This is where I'll stop this one so that you can split your reading into two parts, because this is really long already.
~Molly
Our first show went pretty well. We were still trying to gain confidence as it was our first time performing our Mexican medley. The audience was much quieter than I imagined - they were very polite, but seemed to be enjoying it.
Our second show was awesome. The crowd was a bit bigger and a bit more raucous. During one of our songs ("I Can Believe") I looked out to see a few cell phones waving back and forth, lighter style. After a while a few more joined in, and then a few more. Eventually there were cell phones waving through 3/4 of the audience. In the dark they looked like stars twinkling in the distance. I first noticed when I looked over at the singer who had this smile of surprise on her face. I looked at the person sharing the microphone with me and we both got huge grins on our faces as we continued the song. It's amazing how something so small can make such a difference. I only wish more of the cast was on stage at that point so they didn't have to experience it second-hand.
Monday morning we left Monterrey and traveled to Mexico City, where I am currently. Mexico City is... HUGE. Our days are usually pretty long, but they're even longer when you add in Mexico City travel time and traffic. I spend between an hour and a half and 4 hours traveling each day, which makes our normal 10-12 hour days much longer. Needless to say, sleep is far from abundant. That being said, our days have been packed with activities.
Our first full day here we traveled to Teotihuacan, the ancient pyramids. The pictures really speak for themselves (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyskye218/sets/72157604366099067/). All I can say is that it was the perfect day to be there. When I reached the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, there was a yellow butterfly that just kept flying around like crazy. Eventually another joined it, but the original was up there the whole time I was. After Teotihuacan we visited MUNAL, one of the most famous art galleries in the city.
On Wednesday we worked in the classrooms of a school here. The school itself has the oddest architecture I've encountered. The classrooms all look like pods, with one stacked on top of the next. It's very futuristic. We worked with 3 classes and had a mini-show for all 1000+ students in the school. It was our first time using specialty dance costumes for a mini-show, which led to a few problems when I realized during our rehearsal that half my costumes were on one side and half on the other. Due to different entrances, my shoes ended up on one side when I had to change on the other. Fortunately, one of my castmates had an extra pair of shoes that I borrowed for half the show. It went over pretty well with all of us being asked for pictures and autographs afterward.
As for the classes themselves, there's an interesting contrast. The school we were at was a bilingual school, so the students are more or less familiar with English (the older they are, the more exposure they've had). The three of us who worked together began in a sixth grade class. They understood some of what we said, but I ended up translating a good portion of it into Spanish so we could make sure they got as much out of it as possible. They were a good class, very attentive, and very interested in what we were doing. They also had some great ideas about ways to make their community better.
Our second class was an 8th grade class and man were they difficult. They were so loud we couldn't hear ourselves, and it was quite frustrating to go an hour and a half without having a single moment of silence. We ended up getting through about half of what we had planned, but there's only so much you can do with an unwilling audience. Some of them were very receptive and we ended up taking the opportunity of them talking all the time to talk about respect. For the last 10 minutes, they suddenly got quiet - we're not sure why. We're just hoping that perhaps our lesson of respecting others when talking will translate into helping their regular teacher.
Our last class was... amazing. They had said that there was a portion of the student body that was different than the normal students. They were less privileged, but were given the opportunity to go to this private school at a very discounted rate as long as they maintained a certain grade point average. I knew that these would be good students, as they actually wanted to be at school rather than being forced to. I was right. Every one of them was engaged. Since many of them were indigenous people, many didn't have the opportunity to learn as much English as the other classes. Again, I translated most of what was said to make sure they understood the meaning. Our lesson plan got rearranged because some of the things we were talking about flowed right into another activity and the transitions were effortless. At the end, we taught them a few songs that we sing to get ourselves energized. They went crazy for them. One was in Spanish and one in English, and they were so enthusiastic - even the teacher got into it. After that they taught us two similar songs in Spanish. The kids who had all been reserved and shy were no longer. They were shouting and laughing and having a great time. As we left the classroom, we were accompanied by the singing and energy along with shouts of "Thank you!" and chants of "Viva la Gente!" It was the best class I've been in.
This is where I'll stop this one so that you can split your reading into two parts, because this is really long already.
~Molly
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Mas y mas
So I realized there were a few things I missed in my last entry. The first was our arrival in Monterrey. As we neared the city, the sun was setting. Through the haze, you could see the red of the sun as it set behind the mountains. Being a bus sleeper, I was sleeping and happened to wake up just as the sun hit the mountains. When we reached our final destination at Tec de Monterrey, we were greeted by lots of cameras as well as staff we haven't seen since Denver. We had a special surprise waiting for us, which turned out to be a traditional band with dancers. The dancers were great, with a style made up of lots of foot stomping and spinning.
The second thing I may have missed was the fact that every morning we get fresh juice here. The first day we had orange juice, which was awesome. The second day, our host mom made mandarin orange juice. I don't know what it feels like to get punched in the face, but if it feels really really good, then this juice was about the same. It had such an intense flavor and it was soooo good. This morning we had pineapple juice to go along with our breakfast, which was a ham and cheese tortilla.
This week I've been doing promotion around the campus of Tec de Monterrey, and I'm learning how to say all the things I need to say for promotional purposes in Spanish. I think, though, that my Spanish is getting worse. Perhaps it's a side effect of being very tired, but by the end of the day I don't understand anything my host family says in Spanish. They'll ask me what words mean and the synapses just aren't firing quickly enough for me to recollect the English words. Yeah, my understanding has been much worse than I would like. I knew coming in that I had a hard time understanding when people speak, and it's true. I ask for everyone to repeat things at least once, especially when they are asking a question. Hopefully I'll start picking more up soon.
On Thursday, we had a mini-show on campus. It was outside in the 90-some degree sunny weather. At least there was a breeze. The stage, however, did not get much breeze, which caused my knees to burn while doing a dance which required kneeling (though only for a brief period of time). After the mini-show, I got interviewed for Tec de Monterrey's newspaper. Then some of us laid about a bit in the shade, watching the deer, peacocks, birds, and squirrels on campus. It's a gorgeous campus.
Friday was our regional learning day, and man was it packed - 4 sites in one day. We split up into 4 groups and spent the day with our group. My group started off at Parque Fundidora, which used to be a steel mill, as steel used to be one of the biggest industries in Monterrey. The park had tons of great steel structures strewn about. We got to ride the rickety cage elevator up the side of what used to be a blast furnace and got to walk the catwalk. Needless to say, I stayed near the rails and the non-slotted walkways because it was a long way down.
Our second stop of the day was Dialago en la obscura (Dialogue in the dark). This was a museum that simulated what the world is like for a blind person. It's completely dark, and you go through a series of rooms (a grocery store, a neighborhood, a street, a beach...) and get to experience the world without the use of your eyes. It was really neat to hear the differences between people's experiences, even within our own group. Some people had a really hard time telling where things were or who was near them. I was able to get my bearings pretty quickly in each place and was very aware of who was in the room with me. At the end of the tour, we went to a snack bar where I got to make a transaction in the dark even. It was really cool.
After Dialogo we walked to Paseo Santa Lucia. We took a boat along a river through the park, which led us to... the Museum of Mexican history, our fourth stop. We only had a little bit of time to look through the museum, but it was cool to see all the artifacts we've seen in U.S. museums with a Mexican perspective. Didn't I tell you we fit a lot in for one day?
After our regional learning we went to DIF, an organization that works with children who've been abused or abandoned. We got to play with all the kids (ages 2-18) and we danced for each other. It took about 3 minutes before I had a little one on my lap to watch the dancing. We got to run around and just have fun for a bit, which was a great ending to our day.
Did I say ending? I didn't mean the real end. Our day ended in my first official fiesta. There are a bunch of us living together in a neighborhood, so we had a party with all 9 of us Uppies and our host families. There was talking, singing, dancing, and food. I danced until the cows came home, which was about 1:00 in the morning. It was such a great group, some of my favorite Uppies, and we just had a blast all night.
That leads us to today. This morning, a group of us (most of us from the party) went to the Tec for a salsa class. It was really fun. I danced with Paul (my original dance partner from the show) and we didn't do too poorly for a couple of gringos. At one point, the teacher even called us out to show the dance they were teaching us. They only did that at one other point while we were there. Dance truly is a universal language, because goodness knows I didn't understand 40% of what our instructor was saying and I was still able to pick it up. After salsa class I went to help set up the stage for our show tomorrow. Tomorrow brings with it a lot of firsts - our first show in Mexico, our first time doing the Mexican medley, our first time doing Up With People in Spanish in a show, and most importantly... our first double show day! It's also my first show as the marketing intern, which brings with it some responsibilities I've not yet had. We've got a lot of work to do in the morning before the show actually starts. Here's to hoping everything gets done.
Cheers,
~Molly
The second thing I may have missed was the fact that every morning we get fresh juice here. The first day we had orange juice, which was awesome. The second day, our host mom made mandarin orange juice. I don't know what it feels like to get punched in the face, but if it feels really really good, then this juice was about the same. It had such an intense flavor and it was soooo good. This morning we had pineapple juice to go along with our breakfast, which was a ham and cheese tortilla.
This week I've been doing promotion around the campus of Tec de Monterrey, and I'm learning how to say all the things I need to say for promotional purposes in Spanish. I think, though, that my Spanish is getting worse. Perhaps it's a side effect of being very tired, but by the end of the day I don't understand anything my host family says in Spanish. They'll ask me what words mean and the synapses just aren't firing quickly enough for me to recollect the English words. Yeah, my understanding has been much worse than I would like. I knew coming in that I had a hard time understanding when people speak, and it's true. I ask for everyone to repeat things at least once, especially when they are asking a question. Hopefully I'll start picking more up soon.
On Thursday, we had a mini-show on campus. It was outside in the 90-some degree sunny weather. At least there was a breeze. The stage, however, did not get much breeze, which caused my knees to burn while doing a dance which required kneeling (though only for a brief period of time). After the mini-show, I got interviewed for Tec de Monterrey's newspaper. Then some of us laid about a bit in the shade, watching the deer, peacocks, birds, and squirrels on campus. It's a gorgeous campus.
Friday was our regional learning day, and man was it packed - 4 sites in one day. We split up into 4 groups and spent the day with our group. My group started off at Parque Fundidora, which used to be a steel mill, as steel used to be one of the biggest industries in Monterrey. The park had tons of great steel structures strewn about. We got to ride the rickety cage elevator up the side of what used to be a blast furnace and got to walk the catwalk. Needless to say, I stayed near the rails and the non-slotted walkways because it was a long way down.
Our second stop of the day was Dialago en la obscura (Dialogue in the dark). This was a museum that simulated what the world is like for a blind person. It's completely dark, and you go through a series of rooms (a grocery store, a neighborhood, a street, a beach...) and get to experience the world without the use of your eyes. It was really neat to hear the differences between people's experiences, even within our own group. Some people had a really hard time telling where things were or who was near them. I was able to get my bearings pretty quickly in each place and was very aware of who was in the room with me. At the end of the tour, we went to a snack bar where I got to make a transaction in the dark even. It was really cool.
After Dialogo we walked to Paseo Santa Lucia. We took a boat along a river through the park, which led us to... the Museum of Mexican history, our fourth stop. We only had a little bit of time to look through the museum, but it was cool to see all the artifacts we've seen in U.S. museums with a Mexican perspective. Didn't I tell you we fit a lot in for one day?
After our regional learning we went to DIF, an organization that works with children who've been abused or abandoned. We got to play with all the kids (ages 2-18) and we danced for each other. It took about 3 minutes before I had a little one on my lap to watch the dancing. We got to run around and just have fun for a bit, which was a great ending to our day.
Did I say ending? I didn't mean the real end. Our day ended in my first official fiesta. There are a bunch of us living together in a neighborhood, so we had a party with all 9 of us Uppies and our host families. There was talking, singing, dancing, and food. I danced until the cows came home, which was about 1:00 in the morning. It was such a great group, some of my favorite Uppies, and we just had a blast all night.
That leads us to today. This morning, a group of us (most of us from the party) went to the Tec for a salsa class. It was really fun. I danced with Paul (my original dance partner from the show) and we didn't do too poorly for a couple of gringos. At one point, the teacher even called us out to show the dance they were teaching us. They only did that at one other point while we were there. Dance truly is a universal language, because goodness knows I didn't understand 40% of what our instructor was saying and I was still able to pick it up. After salsa class I went to help set up the stage for our show tomorrow. Tomorrow brings with it a lot of firsts - our first show in Mexico, our first time doing the Mexican medley, our first time doing Up With People in Spanish in a show, and most importantly... our first double show day! It's also my first show as the marketing intern, which brings with it some responsibilities I've not yet had. We've got a lot of work to do in the morning before the show actually starts. Here's to hoping everything gets done.
Cheers,
~Molly
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Up With People becomes Viva La Gente por Mexico
!Hola!
Estamos en Mexico ahora, en Monterrey. Soy con mi amiga Jen (de Canada) en una familia con dos hijas y los dos padres. Las hijas hablan ingles, y el padre se habla Spanglish, pero la madre no habla ingles. Vivimos en un barrio con 4 o 5 otra personas de Viva la Gente y esta muy divertido. Acoba de jugar futbol con dos personas de Viva la Gente, mi padre, las dos hijas, y otros vecinos en el parque. Fue magnifico, y el tiempo fue fantastico tambien con un poco de viento.
Hoy fue mi primera entrevista sobre Viva la Gente y... fue en espanol! Fue una sorpresa para mi. Soy el asistante nuevo de marcadeo por las 6 semanas proximas y de esos, 5 estan en Mexico. Es dificil, pero es posible. Necesito mejorar mis abilidades en espanol y esto es una oportunidad buena para mi.
La comida aqui esta bueno, tambien. Ayer despues de llegando, tuvimos jicama con limon y chile y entonces pastel de chocolate :-). Esta manana, tuvimos bananas, mangos, y pinas frescas porque son mis frutas favoritas. La madre le gusta cocinar y comemos pescado asado con arroz, champinones, y aguacates. !Que delicioso!
Manana, voy a bailar todo el dia porque tenemos bailes nuevos por nuestros canciones hispanicos. Me gusta el sol, las montanas, y la gente aqui en Mexico. Mas luego, pero ahora voy a dormir.
!Buenas noches!
~Molly
Otra cosa - lo siento, pero mi computadora no tiene las marcas de puntuacion o esta muy dificil y por eso no las tengo.
Estamos en Mexico ahora, en Monterrey. Soy con mi amiga Jen (de Canada) en una familia con dos hijas y los dos padres. Las hijas hablan ingles, y el padre se habla Spanglish, pero la madre no habla ingles. Vivimos en un barrio con 4 o 5 otra personas de Viva la Gente y esta muy divertido. Acoba de jugar futbol con dos personas de Viva la Gente, mi padre, las dos hijas, y otros vecinos en el parque. Fue magnifico, y el tiempo fue fantastico tambien con un poco de viento.
Hoy fue mi primera entrevista sobre Viva la Gente y... fue en espanol! Fue una sorpresa para mi. Soy el asistante nuevo de marcadeo por las 6 semanas proximas y de esos, 5 estan en Mexico. Es dificil, pero es posible. Necesito mejorar mis abilidades en espanol y esto es una oportunidad buena para mi.
La comida aqui esta bueno, tambien. Ayer despues de llegando, tuvimos jicama con limon y chile y entonces pastel de chocolate :-). Esta manana, tuvimos bananas, mangos, y pinas frescas porque son mis frutas favoritas. La madre le gusta cocinar y comemos pescado asado con arroz, champinones, y aguacates. !Que delicioso!
Manana, voy a bailar todo el dia porque tenemos bailes nuevos por nuestros canciones hispanicos. Me gusta el sol, las montanas, y la gente aqui en Mexico. Mas luego, pero ahora voy a dormir.
!Buenas noches!
~Molly
Otra cosa - lo siento, pero mi computadora no tiene las marcas de puntuacion o esta muy dificil y por eso no las tengo.
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