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Darn The British!
Posted by Miz B
on
Friday, August 13, 2010
I have another post in the works, but as it pertains to events 2 days ago, I decided to write up the present and save the past for later. Ah! How I love the English language, let me count the ways. You have no idea how hard it is, especially for someone as word-friendly as me, to be unable to communicate basic thoughts. I can't say if I'm uncomfortable, or specifics about the weather, or even “Where are we going?”. Okay, I can ask that one, but I can't understand the answer. The loss of communication is maddening. I never know what the hells going on, and everyone else knows it. Anyway, lets see. Today is Friday, I think. I have no watch, all the clocks in the house are wrong, and my lovely alarm clock was smashed in transit (along with 2 containers of peanut butter, but no matter. I have more). I would kill for some water! All the water is room temperature, so it hydrates, but it doesn't give that lovely, “Ah, I drank water” feeling.
As far as I can understand, tomorrow we're going to Veracruz city to visit Petrona's hijo, Jose Fernando. He's a doctor, and I think he's working in a full-on hospital there. I'm looking forward to it, in a 'what do I bring, what do I do, I'm not ready' sort of way. Yesterday, we went to Catemaco (look on a map, it's on the shores of a lake a little northwest of here) to attend a Rotary meeting. We were supposed to go home and attend a local meeting, but I missed it because I got sick. Don't ask me what, I don't know. I don't think Petona knows either, but she's not worried, so I'm not. I got really woozy and tired and got weird shooting pains. It was not fun. It was even less fun because it was right in front of another Rotary member, and another exchange student (Anouk, 15, from Germany, currently living with what will be my second family). It was worse because they were so nice about it. We think it was dehydration, exacerbated by weird food and stress. Anyway, it sucked. And they decided to leave me home from the meeting, so I could sleep. Thank god. It was very embarrassing, but I feel a lot better now. Also, it led to a very interesting conversation about food this morning. Also, Juli has decided I won't every get sick again if I eat fruit all the time. I'm not going to argue. I like fruit.
I also realized something else, when we went looking for shoes yesterday, and other clothes today. At first, I thought I was just not skinny enough to fit in with the standard here, which is weird because, like I said, I'm skinnier than most people here. After going shopping today, and seeing people's reactions (and listening to Petrona's conversations with her friends that she thinks I can't understand), I've come to this conclusion: Here, I'm kind of like an Amazon or something. When properly dressed up, I look like someone from TV. But, as most of you know, dressed up is sort of the opposite of my default state. Petrona gets exasperated trying to find me clothes, but that's because I'm to tall for all the pants, to, ahem, endowed for the tops, and, well, my feet are to wide for the shoes. That's the same in the U.S. I have weird feet. But when she does find clothes that fit her standards, she's very happy. I feel like a giant doll.
Anouk knows more Spanish than me. I'm happy for her, and it definitely will make her life easier, but she also has a host sister a couple of years older who is helping her with her words constantly, so she's learning a lot faster. I just sit in the house, because I'm not aloud outside without someone with me, and everyone has jobs. I'm a little jealous. Also, there's going to be at least one more exchange student at her school. I'm the only one at mine. Anouk is very nice. Her English is pretty good, too. Not enough to talk more than Spanglish, and nothing complicated, though. I really want to be able to talk about ideas or life or anything extraneous. I watch movies on my Ipod at night and soak up the words. It's almost as good as a real conversation.
Tomorrow, we leave for Veracruz. School starts on Monday, but I'm going to miss the first day because we have to stay in Veracruz until Monday so I can finalize my immigration papers. Don't expect anything more from me until Tuesday at least. Like I needed anything else to hold me back...
Everyone stays up all night here. I can't really argue. The days are sweltering. Everyone sleeps for a while after lunch, but there's no air flow in my room, so I can barely sleep at night. Today, a man came and knocked a whole in the wall for the air conditioner, but her ran out of cement and left and didn't come back. So, now there's not only no fan, but also a big old hole in the wall. It's a work in progress. Speaking of works in progress, I'm going to go back to fanning myself with a magazine and watching Open Season in Espanol. I have no idea what's going on!
As far as I can understand, tomorrow we're going to Veracruz city to visit Petrona's hijo, Jose Fernando. He's a doctor, and I think he's working in a full-on hospital there. I'm looking forward to it, in a 'what do I bring, what do I do, I'm not ready' sort of way. Yesterday, we went to Catemaco (look on a map, it's on the shores of a lake a little northwest of here) to attend a Rotary meeting. We were supposed to go home and attend a local meeting, but I missed it because I got sick. Don't ask me what, I don't know. I don't think Petona knows either, but she's not worried, so I'm not. I got really woozy and tired and got weird shooting pains. It was not fun. It was even less fun because it was right in front of another Rotary member, and another exchange student (Anouk, 15, from Germany, currently living with what will be my second family). It was worse because they were so nice about it. We think it was dehydration, exacerbated by weird food and stress. Anyway, it sucked. And they decided to leave me home from the meeting, so I could sleep. Thank god. It was very embarrassing, but I feel a lot better now. Also, it led to a very interesting conversation about food this morning. Also, Juli has decided I won't every get sick again if I eat fruit all the time. I'm not going to argue. I like fruit.
I also realized something else, when we went looking for shoes yesterday, and other clothes today. At first, I thought I was just not skinny enough to fit in with the standard here, which is weird because, like I said, I'm skinnier than most people here. After going shopping today, and seeing people's reactions (and listening to Petrona's conversations with her friends that she thinks I can't understand), I've come to this conclusion: Here, I'm kind of like an Amazon or something. When properly dressed up, I look like someone from TV. But, as most of you know, dressed up is sort of the opposite of my default state. Petrona gets exasperated trying to find me clothes, but that's because I'm to tall for all the pants, to, ahem, endowed for the tops, and, well, my feet are to wide for the shoes. That's the same in the U.S. I have weird feet. But when she does find clothes that fit her standards, she's very happy. I feel like a giant doll.
Anouk knows more Spanish than me. I'm happy for her, and it definitely will make her life easier, but she also has a host sister a couple of years older who is helping her with her words constantly, so she's learning a lot faster. I just sit in the house, because I'm not aloud outside without someone with me, and everyone has jobs. I'm a little jealous. Also, there's going to be at least one more exchange student at her school. I'm the only one at mine. Anouk is very nice. Her English is pretty good, too. Not enough to talk more than Spanglish, and nothing complicated, though. I really want to be able to talk about ideas or life or anything extraneous. I watch movies on my Ipod at night and soak up the words. It's almost as good as a real conversation.
Tomorrow, we leave for Veracruz. School starts on Monday, but I'm going to miss the first day because we have to stay in Veracruz until Monday so I can finalize my immigration papers. Don't expect anything more from me until Tuesday at least. Like I needed anything else to hold me back...
Everyone stays up all night here. I can't really argue. The days are sweltering. Everyone sleeps for a while after lunch, but there's no air flow in my room, so I can barely sleep at night. Today, a man came and knocked a whole in the wall for the air conditioner, but her ran out of cement and left and didn't come back. So, now there's not only no fan, but also a big old hole in the wall. It's a work in progress. Speaking of works in progress, I'm going to go back to fanning myself with a magazine and watching Open Season in Espanol. I have no idea what's going on!
