Don't worry, folks. In the words of Mark Twain, "The report of my death was an exaggeration". I got pretty sick on Friday, to the extent that someone felt the need to call our neighbors to come pick me up early from school. I can't pretend I didn't like that (I went home, covered myself in blankets and slept for 12 hours), but I kind of wish they hadn't made such a fuss. I got a common-or-garden variety virus, but getting sick is not a very normal thing in a tropical climate (I'm just guessing this. The other kids at school weren't that worried, it's only the adult women who seemed really upset). I've been fighting for days against antibiotics. It's not that I find anything morally wrong with antibiotics, it's just that in my eyes, about half the time I try them I end up getting either some side effects or some sort of allergic reaction, which is something I like even less than being sick. And I don't think I could accurately explain an allergic reaction. I could barely explain a regular cold in the first place. I'm getting better with sleep and lots of water, but now I've gotten to the annoying 'can't stop coughing' part, and everyone keeps freaking out. They say "It's getting worse" and ask if I'm sure I got a H1N1 vaccine back home. Anyway, in other news: It has been brought to my attention that several of my blog followers don't use Facebook, and so have not been able to see the photos I've been posting there. So, for your viewing pleasure, I have put a thing labeled 'Picasa Photostream' in the sidebar. It's not perfect, but I think if you click either on the link or on one of the pictures themselves, you should end up at my Picasa album collection. Since I'm really to busy to upload and label any of my photos and still have time to write, I'm going to be pretty much data-dumping all my pictures into there. The labels of the albums are the dates the photos were uploaded to my computer. Sorry if some of them are indistinctly blurry, like I said, I don't have a lot of time for labeling and sorting. If you have any questions about some specific pictures, don't hesitate to email me (if you don't have my email address, simply click the 'contact me' button in the sidebar, right under the completely useless 'search' function. I'll get the note like a regular email).
I wrote most of this post yesterday, but I had to stop because my computer ran out of power, and for some reason if I plug the charger into the surge suppressor in the computer room and touch any of the metal parts of the computer I get a very unpleasant, open-wire shocking sensation. Charming. So, I charge the computer in the other room and only plug into the internet cable, which doesn't seem to cause spasmodic muscle cramps. I think I've only been to about a week of school since I got here, and I don't mean all at once, I mean 7 days spaced out over a month. For many different reasons, I have missed all the rest of days. People were tired, people were busy. We had to go on vacation, I was sick. Immigration. Mostly immigration. For some reason, immigration is only open when school is in session, and I am not allowed to come and go, so I have to keep skipping so I can go to the immigration office, wait in line for an hour, and get kindly explained to by yet another person that I don't have the correct forms or whatever and to come back on yet another day. I've been a grand total of 6 times now, I think, and tomorrow will make 7 (and fate willing, last). I missed school yesterday because my parents and brother went back to his home in town called Lerdo (I think). We went through it on the way to Veracruz this weekend. It turns out most of the towns along that stretch of area are in the floodplains of several major rivers, and spend a good 3 months out of the year the next best thing to underwater (many pictures to be added to Picasa soon). The family left early in the morning to return to Lerdo with an empty car, and try to rescue as many valuables as possible and set the house up for use when it's partially submerged. They returned late in time for Petrona and Jose Luis to get to their night shifts at the hospital. Luis stayed in his house. He has to intern at the hospital down the street (and uphill) from his house. Now, Petrona is getting sick. She says it has more to do with spending most of yesterday up to her knees in freezing water than me being contagious, but I still feel extra guilty. More credence is added to this by the fact that poor Arnoud, who was stuck sitting next to me in the car for 8 hours over the weekend, is sick enough to be missing school too. At least I'm feeling better, although all my limbs are kinda fuzzy-feeling from the random electricity buzz. It's very subtle, but I keep getting it all over the place. It's hard to tell it apart from the whole feeling-really-sick thing.
I feel like there's probably more to say about something or other, but I can't really think of what it is. So, as per usual, That's All, Folks!

I got to spend another 20 minutes with my hand down the back of the toilet today. On the other hand, it broke during the day so everyone got a chance to kick in. It got funnier and funnier as time went on. I was working on it when Dona Erica came in to ask a question, and she couldn't fix it so she called Petrona, who couldn't fix it, and she called Jose Luis. They were all trying to fit into my tiny little bathroom. Dona Erica ended up standing in the shower. Then I realized I knew what was wrong, but I couldn't get in to fix it. Than, somebody accidentally broke the tie that holds the plungery-thingy to its stick-thingy, so they had to all go downstairs to find a twisty-tie to hold it together. I probably could have fixed it with much less hassle given some more time, but it does work now, and it was very entertaining in the meantime. They also fixed the lights in my room, meaning I can see enough to read now. I wish whoever put it in had taken their shoes off. Now, there are dirty footprints on the bedspread, and that just got changed today! I would fix it myself, but I can't figure out where the clean sheets are kept, and I don't want to ask anyone because if I do they will come up and help me whether I like it or not. Usually, I wouldn't mind being waited on hand and foot, but it's starting to wear on me. I'm so used to handling everything myself, from groceries to laundry, that not having any say over things like what's for lunch and how my clothes are folded, that I've started to get little swells of glee every time I do something sneaky around the house and help out. I take my dishes to the sink and rinse them while everyone's arguing over something. I fix the broken toilet in the middle of the night. I throw out the rotten fruit from the hamper while everyone's napping.
I tell ya, folks, it's a strange world when I can get a thrill from washing my own underwear in the sink out back. I should write something about today's events, but my eyes are getting heavy and, let's face it, I have school at 6am tomorrow morning.
So, without further adieu (snigger), That's All, Folks!

I would once again like to let the world know just how awesome this program is, how awesome Mexico is, and how awesome my family here is (especially my mom!). I believe this all the time, but especially right now, because while I'm out here typing, Petrona, god bless her, is in the tiny library/extra closet/used-to-be-the-TV room repairing a rather *ahem* embarrassing rip in my skirt. Once I post pictures of it, you'll understand. I tore the annoying 'decorative' slit up the side, so every time I sit down it ripped a little bit more. Thank god for leggings! They're not an approved part of the uniform, but none of the teachers have complained yet! I think the extra-tight fit of the skirt is supposed to teach you to walk slow and sit with your legs together like a lady or something (all the rowdy middle-schoolers have regular, Catholic school style skirts). All I know is, most of the students are complaining because they can't sit at their desks properly, the teachers are complaining that the students way of countering this is to hike the skirts up to mini length, which offers them freedom of movement but is far from descent; and I'm complaining because I tried to take the stairs 2 at a time so I could get to the media lab before the doors closed, and ended up doing a sort of impromptu mini strip show all through the rest of classes. I have decided if I have to study for years to get a degree to get a job that DOESN'T require a uniform, it'll be worth every second.
I'm very tired right now. Tireder than usual, I mean. This might be due to the fact that I had to get up at 2 in the morning and spend 20 minutes with my hands in the toilet tank trying to fix the plunger-mechanism-thingy that holds the water in while the tank fills. Or it might be due to the fact that we lost power to the house again at about 8pm. All the houses to the left of ours had power. All the houses to the right had none, as far as the eye could see. It was sort of surreal. Since all the air-conditioners and lights run on power (obviously), everyone went to stand out in the street where it was cooler and wait for someone to come fix it. I walked down to the corner store with Juli to get candles (and than again, she forgot the matches). I hung out on the steps of the house next door playing with their one-year-old son, Angel. It was interesting. If you walk down our street in the daytime, there's usually only 1 maybe 2 people and a couple of dogs in sight. When the power went out and it was cooler outside, the street filled up. Turns out, there really are people behind those high stone walls, and they all know each other. Eventually, however, everyone got fed up with waiting and went inside. Which means I got to spend the rest of the night slowly boiling in the upstairs bedroom. The worst thing was, it was actually windy and pretty cold last night, but because the window in my room is actually a sort of deck-ish thing that's enclosed up to the waist in concrete. No air flow. I finally fell asleep around midnight, only to be awoken again at 1an as the power came back on. All that, and I had to get up at 6am to make it to school. I'll tell ya, I almost missed muster in the courtyard. It was a tough day. I only got homework handed in in 2 classes. In fact, I almost missed one entirely. Geography is actually something I find very interesting, but the gent who teaches it talks very fast, without hand gestures, and uses lots of technical words. On the other hand, I got distracted from the lesson while I was drawing an accurate map of our house, so at least cartography sneaked in somehow.
Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to go finish watching a crappy duped copy of From Paris With Love on the desktop in my room. I was watching it on the flatscreen in the upstairs computer room, but Luis brought a friend over to plat Halo 3, and I didn't want to make him unplug everything and move it to the dinky TV in his room. To be fair, he offered to let me play to, but I declined. I'm sure that Halo is fun if you know how to play, but I haven't had time to teach myself yet, and watching Halo (face it, boys) is boring as hell.
Weirdly, my greatest wish in the whole wide world right now is to watch The Chronicles of Riddick all the way through. If anyone has a way to do that, let me know!!
Anyway, keep it together, and That's All, Folks!

Went to see Predators at the plaza last night. I guess if I went to the movies with a bunch of boys whose only criteria was that it be in English with Spanish subtitles and start soon after we got there, I couldn't really expect much. Still, I wish the directors had decided if they wanted to do a movie about tough military-types dooking it out with freaky death-obsessed aliens on a faraway planet instead of a flick were a swim team played by 20-year-olds van breaks down in the woods and are chased and killed off one by one by a dude with a messed up face and a hook for a hand BEFORE they made the movie...
In other news, this post didn't make it up last night because the worst storm I've seen here yet took out power for the entire block. They didn't get it back up until half and hour ago. I need to find some way to warn Juli that the eggs and meat in the fridge are probably not a safe bet now, no matter how much oil she fries them in.
And, my Ipod is in its death throws. It can't decide whether or not it wants to do lots of things, and more and more often it makes a horrible crunch noise, stops working, and keeps going 'whirrrrr-CRUNCH whirrrr-CRUNCH' until I turn it off. This wouldn't bother me so much, except that it's my only real lifeline to the English speaking music world, and while I have everything on it backed up at home, I had hoped it was going to last for at least a month, seeing as there is no way to replace it here. I honestly don't know what I'll do...
And so for now, That's All, Folks!

See? Y'all was right. Second day was much better. I let the schoolwork go a little more, and it was better. I even found out that I can submit some of my work in English for the time being. It seems like they aren't actually grading anything right now, they just look at the work and then sign and date it, to show that work was done. At the end of the semester we hand in the signed sheets to the teacher, and they count them up for part of the grade. They barely even read the work. For mine, they usually draft poor Jose Luis to translate.
I think I forgot to mention the other students....
Okay, here goes. I only really know 4 of them by me, but everyone knows me. Whenever someone in my class is bored, they start arguing with the person next to them how to pronounce my name. It's quite an experience, to be surrounded by 20+ people all saying your name over and over. Badly. Anyway, they were trying to come up with a nickname for me, and I was desperately trying to distract them from arriving at Brownie. Not only do I not really like Brownie (and the way they pronounce it here makes it hard to tell apart from random sound), but here, brownie is another word for muffin, and I really don't like the nickname 'Muffin'. So, I started telling a story to Jose Luis about another time people had trouble with my name: in the first play I ever did, there were so many kids and the director called me by my characters name rather than my own, so lots of people thought the name of my character was actually my real name. To this day, some people still think that.
I made the mistake of telling this story, in English, right next to someone who only spoke Spanish, so the only word that got out of it was the name of my character: Alice. Before lunch, the entire school was calling me Alice. Whenever I met someone new, I would tell them my name was Bronwyn, they would say "What?" and someone else, even someone passing in the hallway who I didn't know, would say "Alice!" and the other person would say "Ah! Alice!". This is even funnier if you know that their are two Bronwyns in my family, me, and the lovely woman I'm named after. I'm Bronwyn R. and she's -say it with me- Bronwyn Alice. Sigh. Well, Alice is better than Brownie. Or Muffin.
And then last night I went to a fiesta in Anouk's family's house with the local Roteracts (for those of you who don't know, Roteracts are kids who did exchanges in the past, and are now in college. They're kind of like junior Rotary members, they run like a Rotary club, and one of they're prime duties is to act as friends and support for inbounds). Some of them were considering Ana as a nickname (for RhiANnon), which I thought might be a little confusing, seeing as there are 2 people here named Anna, and when I'm with the Roteracts I'm usually standing next to ANouk. See the problem? I mentioned that the kids at the school call me Alice. Well, here's a bit of fun trivia for ya, kids: the nickname for Alice in Mexico is Licha (pronounced 'LEE-cha'). So now I have to answer to Ana, Alice, Muffin, Brownie (and Broony, which is how Petrona says it), and Licha. Anything but my actual name. I think I'll be really happy to hear my name when I get home. And here I never thought I'd miss it if it was gone...
On the other hand, this all took place during a conversation about how to pronounce poor Arnoud's name (I think I spelled that right. Arnoud is from French-speaking Beligium, he arrived 2 days ago, but more on him later). This got onto the subject of full names, and how to pronounce them. After a good 5 minutes happily savaging my title, everyone moved on to Anouk, and she mentioned her second name was the slightly more language-friendly Sophia. Guess what the Mexican nickname for Sophia is? Chofie. So, in some respects, I got off easy. And the only person who can say Arnoud's name well enough that he'll recognize it from across a crowded room is Anouk. I'm ashamed to say that 2 weeks completely immersed in the Spanish accent has destroyed whatever remained of my careful French pronunciation.
Arnoud arrived at about 8pm 2 nights ago (which in a way led to me missing school today. Thanks to the lovely Mexican predelection for drawing things out as long as possible without really realizing it, I didn't make it back home until about 12. School at 6am, Rotary meeting runs late last night, 1am. Today, Petrona said I should skip school so I could get some sleep. I slept for 10 hours, and I'm still exhausted). He is very thin and extremely tall. I guess I don't really have a good basis for comparison, because I'm one of the tallest people I know here, but he's quite a bit taller than me. He's nice. He speaks very little English, and even less Spanish than I did when I got here, but he's a good learner, and is very quick witted. It's tough to make jokes with people who don't speak your language, but he pulls it off. Anouks older foster-sister, Melissa, was an outbound to France, so Arnoud is not completely without interpreters. I feel very guilty about this, but I find it kind of heartening how much more Spanish I know that Arnoud. Not because I like being better than someone, but because the only basis for comparison I had was Anouk, who just passed her 3 week mark and is definitely better than me, at least at forming coherent sentences. She says Arnaud is about where I was 2 weeks ago, which means I actually am learning. I knew I was, but it helps to have some tangible evidence. I often feel like I'm standing still, in a figurative sense. I have more to talk about, but it's about 10 or something now (I really need to figure out how to get a watch...) and I'd like to not loose all of last nights hard work because I couldn't stop sitting on the couch typing and watching 30 Rock in espanol so....
That's All, Folks!

"Well this sucks."
-Private, (on the Arctic)
Madagascar

That was certainly not what I was expecting from a first day at school. As some of you now know, there was a mess-up with my visa yesterday (apparently, somewhere along the line, someone decided 'student' meant 'church minister'). Yes, I evidently entered the country on a religious visa. Why none of the many, highly trained airline personal I showed that visa to didn't wonder if I looked a bit young for the position, I will never know. Anyway, it sounds like my fantastic travel agent and the local Rotary worked together to handle it, although this is one of the those "I'll calm down when I'm actually holding the damn thing" situations. And I don't know when we're going to go get it validated. Judging by the line last time, this is a takes-all-day kind of thing, and I don't have all-days anymore. That's right, school started.
I don't want to sound depressed, but if there is any sort of god listening who happens to owe me a solid for some reason, I would sure appreciate that being the worst day I'm gonna have here. I don't think it will be (there are always worse possibilities), but it would be cool if it was. I don't think it would have been so bad if I wasn't me. Don't play dumb, you know what I'm talking about. I'm not a normal student. I've never done anything study-related where I wasn't at least very good, if not one of the best in my group. It's a skill. It's what I'm good at. But here, not so much. I know that grades are completely unimportant here. My family, both here and at home, don't care. My college application won't have these scores attached to it. It's possible no one in the States will even hear my scores, unless I tell them. But I'LL know, and they're not going to be pretty. I can barely understand what the other kids say to me, and a good chunk of them speak at least functional English. None of the teachers do, except the French teacher, and he speaks German and a couple other languages too.
Everyone was very nice to me. The other kids even helped me submit some of the classwork. But after 4 classes, I stopped even trying to take notes and just started writing down words I didn't recognize to look up later. I don't think they can kick me out if I don't submit homework, at least not for a while. I'm slightly ashamed to admit than when Petrona picked me up, I broke down crying in her car. I couldn't even explain what was wrong. She says her daughter Karina was in the same situation (Karina's been in Japan for a while, I don't know how long, but longer than me). She says if Karina gets sick of trying to understand her teachers, she works on translating a book in Japanese or something. No one expects me to even do the work yet. I don't know why I'm attending right now if I'm not supposed to learn anything. Well, that's wrong.I'm here to learn Spanish. But one of the requirements for Rotary is that I try hard in school! What do I do? Is trying hard to understand more important than turning in really awful work and not knowing what I'm doing for longer? I really wish the handbook covered this junk...
It's even worse because no one even told the teachers I was coming, let alone what to do with me. And I know, I know! In a month I'll be functionally fluent, in 5 I'll be well on my way to being fully fluent. However, right now, it sucks. I've never felt so stupid in my whole life. I don't like it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go wash my underwear in the bathroom sink. I'm going out with the other exchange students and the local Roteracts. I don't know where or why, because I don't know how to ask. I could get used to this NOT being the norm.

Hi, y'all! Sorry for the gap, but as you devoted readers know, I've been in Veracruz City for the last 3 days. I'm back now, with much to say, but it's gone 10 so I would like to get to sleep. I need to get up before 8 tomorrow to get to the immigration office to finalize my visa (although I heard from Anouk it might not be that easy. She says she went last week and it all got delayed for some reason). Anyway, I digress. Talk more tomorrow! School got delayed until Wednesday. I was upset, but Anouk says her host mom said that even though her school starts this Monday, she's not going until next week. Anouk, as I may have mentioned, is from Germany, and was just as shocked that our parents wouldn't want us to start with the rest of the students, especially handicapped as we are. But apparently, school isn't quite as important here, at least socially. I find myself slightly relieved. Hard schoolwork on top of all this not-understanding-more-than-one-word-out-of-ten is very hard. Although I think I'm doing well. When I got here, it was one word out of 20. I still can't speak worth a damn, but I'll take what I can get. Stay tuned!

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!

Hi, everybody! If this is posted, that means my crazy idea worked! My family has wireless internet, but it must be provided by AT&T as well, because it's having the same problem as our old provider (it has a fine connection strength, but won't assign my computer an IP address. Ideas? Let me know!). So, while I have been able to post this, you won't be getting any pictures, because I have no way to get them off my computer without the internet and Picasa.
Anyway, let's see if I can get this in some manageable order. As some of you probably know, I was scheduled to leave on Sunday morning. Well, over the weekend my airline (Mexicana) caved, so the place was in an uproar. We waited in line for 4 hours (no, I'm not exaggerating) to be told that my flight had been canceled, and I'd have to leave on Monday.
Of course, it wasn't until I got on the plane next morning that I found out that my connecting flight to Minatitlan had been canceled again, so I got to spend 5 hours in the Mexicana/Interjet Domestic Flights terminal in the Mexico City International Airport. You won't like it 'til you try it! My host mother and most of my hosting club met me at the baggage claim, and, after some mixed signals (they speak less English than I speak Spanish), they figured out I hadn't eaten since mid-morning and took me out for tacos (word to the wise: all Spanish words are italicized in this post). They were all very nice, and I'm sorry I can't remember all but 2 of their names (and one of those is only because I misheard who it belonged to and spent 10 minutes wondering why anyone would name a woman 'Antonio'). I assume I'll see them all again, so I'm not to worried about that. By then it was about midnight, so I was kind of falling asleep in my seat. Petrona (my host mother) took me to her house, and sleep was eventually achieved.

My first day has been so busy, it's hard to tell where to start. I guess beginning is a good place. My room is a little weird. It actually belongs to Petrona's daughter, Karina, who is Japan (japon!) right now, on a student exchange like me. The room is pink and purple with lots of china figurines and flowers and stuffed animals. It's going to take some getting used too.
It has it's own bathroom, but the pressure on the shower is so bad I can't figure out how to wash my hair AND get the soap back out. Also, the room is so hot I'm sleeping in the room next door, which I think used to belong to Petrona's son (hijo) although I can't figure out how to ask more information about him yet. Only, the reason I was in that room was the A/C, which stopped working this afternoon, so I don't know where I'm going to be tonight (esta noche). I tried very hard to come with no assumptions, but it turns out I brought some anyway. For example, everyone tells you “Don't drink the water”. I guess it never came up that if the water is that dangerous, people might not drink it here, either. No one does. Ice cubes in shops on the street? Tap water. Dishes? Rinsed with tap water. Juice? Made with fruit. What did you think the answer was?
Than there's clothes. I was told high necked t-shirts and skirts. Conservative, right? Dead wrong. I've seen a grand total of 2 skirts (faldas) the whole time I've been here, and one of them was a school uniform. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that...
Today, I woke up in time to set the table for breakfast (desayuno) and help Petrona and Juli serve the juice (jugo). We went to my new school to pick up my uniform. There, I found out something I wasn't expecting. Here, I am huge (note: that word is italicized for emphasis, not because it's in Spanish). I don't mean fat (actually, I'm practically skinny compared to many people on the street), I mean, if you took someone from here, opened them in Preview and clicked 'zoom', you'd get me. I'm a good 1 ½ feet taller than everyone here, gents included. My bones are bigger, too. My skull is larger than Juli's, I checked. I feel like the big friendly giant. Kids look at me like there wondering if I'm going to snap and start eating sheep and grinding bones.Like I needed anything else to make me stand out. My hair and eyes and skin already make it painfully obvious I'm not from anywhere near here. So, when it comes to uniform sizing, I'm wearing an XL because anything less and the skirt hiked up to my thighs. As it is, I have trouble closing the blouse over my chest, and the waistband on the skirt keeps slipping down. At least the tie will probably fit...
We went to Coatzacoalcos (not pronounced how it looks, btw), to look at the sea (el mar) and go to 2 malls (dos plazas, it's confusing because mexican spanish uses plaza for what we would call a mall, and also what we would call a plaza) and a grocery store. It was made a little more interesting by the fact that I mixed up me gusto (I like) and quiero (I want). I spent 2 hours wondering how to tell Petrona that just because I liked something doesn't mean we should get it. Now I have half a watermelon I have to eat, and their watermelons could squash ours flat, literally. Everything is a study in the unexpected. Smells gross? Tastes sweet. Looks like puke? Best juice ever (tamarind). Think it's chicken? It's mushrooms. Here the name and think it's supposed to be sweet? Most spicy, sourest thing ever! (chopped coconut chunks with 2 types of chilis, lime juice and salt. I didn't find that out until later, though).
I only understand about one word in 10. I think everyone had sort of a desperate hope I was already fluent, because no-one speaks english, but they were pleasantly surprised when I explained that I would try anything at least once. I think they were under the impression that Americans were vegetarian for some reason. "You eat fish? And beef? How about steak? Oh good. We have lot's of steak" (that's a translation, obviously). I understand a lot more than I can speak, and a lot more than they think I can, because I don't know how to prove to them that I understood it. I also don't understand things they think I do, so even when I say, "Si, yo entiendo" (which means Yes, I understand), everyone keeps going, trying to make sure I actually get it. I don't know how to tell them I really do without being rude.
That actually brings to mind another problem I didn't foresee, my name. Although I really should have, considering how much trouble my spanish professor has with it. Apparently, the closest anyone can come to saying Bronwyn in roughly 'Brownie'. Before I could come up with something better, the name stuck. Bethany will understand the irony of this. I have to go before Petrona finds me plugged into the telephone line. This is what I do at home, and the internet will be fine, but I don't know how to explain what I'm doing yet, so I do it while she's not here (she's in town with Jose Luis, trying to fix the A/C (clima). Have a cookie, Mr. Holmes (Lilly should get that Klise joke). More pictures to follow. Now. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sit in front of the revolving fan and watch Tom and Jerry in espanol with Juli.

I don't really have that much to say. I couldn't tell you why, because I feel fine, just not the least bit talkative. Anyway, I'm okay, still alive, and I am leaving for Chi-town tomorrow to say goodbye to my extended family before I leave on Sunday morning. Stay tuned, America!

I'm very busy right now, so I haven't really had time to post, but this was an event I could not overlook. Today, the government finally caught up a little. And, more importantly, won back some of my respect, which, if you know me, is no small thing. It's still a long way to go, but at least someone connected to 'The Man' has admitted that their are other people on planet earth besides the ones with more money than god. Congratulations, California. Welcome to the 21st century.
Revel with me.