So i just put up 3 more new blogs from a very long time ago.  Yeah the internet has been really hectic the past couple of weeks and more often than not it was too slow to post anything big.  Just letting everyone know who is reading my blog that yes i am still alive and having a great time in Mexico.  I am doing so many things that I never thought I would get to do in my life and am having a lot of fun.  I miss everyone back in the states a hell of a lot and part of me can't wait to get home and see everyone.  Well I hope all of you are enjoying the freezing weather back in PA while I am down in the tropics!!  Love you all!!!

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After being in Mexico for 5 weeks there are definitely a few things that are very different from in the United States.  Besides the obvious things like language and food there are still others, like the way men act towards women and also the way couples act in the city. 

            One of the first things that we noticed after arriving in Merida was the amount of honking and whistling that was done by men at the girls as they were walking down the sidewalk.  Now, people obviously do this in the United States too but not to this extent, not even close.  It is no exaggeration to say that there would be a honk or a whistle at least one every 5 minutes and that is being generous.  After a while the group just became accustomed to it and went about our business with no other thought to it just like many of the people here do.  However, when looking back on it, and also from the conversations we have had with our conversation class instructor, the honking and whistling is more of a way of saying “hey, what’s up?” instead of what we are used to and that it means that the men are trying to get the women’s attention because they think they are pretty.  Men would honk or whistle when they had women in the car already!  This was very strange to me because obviously in the United States if a guy is with a girl then it is not socially acceptable for him to be honking at other women, even if it is just to say hello.  I first came to realize that it was not just men honking at the women to get their attention after seeing women in the car too, but another thing was that the men were honking at many of the women not just the very pretty ones.  They would honk at older women and women of all different types leading me to think that there must have been some other explanation, so, what better person to ask then someone who lives here and is a woman, Svet, my culture teacher.  We began talking and I brought up the fact about honking and what not and she said that it is not really all that sexual.  It is a way for a guy to give the girl a compliment basically.  It is the man’s way of showing, in a completely friendly and non intentional way, that he thinks that she is a good looking person.  I thought that was a very good way to put it because it put some light on why men were honking all of the time and it is just because it has become part of their culture.

            So what does a guy do once he actually gets a girl and doesn’t have to go around honking all of the time?  Well first of all roses are absolutely huge here!  You can find people selling roses all over the place, they will even walk along the median in the road near traffic lights and as the cars are stopped the people will walk down the rows of cars selling them to people.  Apparently a way to win a girl here is to buy her and rose and give it to her, just a single rose, there is no need for an entire bouquet.  In the US it isn’t as common to give a girl a flower all of the time.  Most of the time you get a girl flowers for a special occasion, or when you do something wrong to make them not mad at you, and this is even seen because you aren’t able to get flowers at every corner there are normally florist shops or sometimes in the supermarket you are able to buy some. 

            One thing that is very obvious while in Mexico is the amount of affection that is displayed in public by couples.  Back home PDA is definitely looked down upon, even as far as kissing in public.  Holding hands is one thing and no one gives a second thought, but while walking around the plaza and seeing couples full out making out right in front of everyone was a little strange.  And it wasn’t like it was just a few people or even just one age group.  Many times it was all different people of different ages.  This is just another great example of how cultures are different and the ways that people view appropriate behavior.  Personally I find nothing wrong with displaying affection in public to a point.  If you are kissing your significant other in public that’s fine, but apparently that is not the case everywhere, ie the United States, and is just another idea for cultures to differ upon.

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Within the center of Merida, near the Cathedral and Montejo house lies a building known as the Palace of the Governor.  Now, when first hearing this one would probably assume that this was the place where the governor lived and would not really be open to the public; however, this is not the case.  The governor’s palace is actually a very big tourist attraction and it contains office buildings where people work but it also houses gigantic murals of many different things.

            Some of the murals were of the governor, or other important people, but many of them depicted scenes of violence, despair, or suffering.  When first entering the palace, on the right side of the interior, there was a huge mural showing Mayan men being tortured and killed.  It showed men being consumed by fire, while others were being impaled by giant thorns, and even one man hanging in some sort of torture device.  Through all of this carnage there was a priest depicted with his hands of two of the condemned men’s heads with an expression of anguish and despair on his face.  This mural really put into perspective what the Mayan went through at the hands of the men who had built this place centuries ago.  Straight across from this mural was one of complete opposite.  This mural showed Mayan workers doing their job and then above them the maize god was shown arising from the maize itself.  This contrasts the mural on the opposing side showing that the Mayan people are able to overcome struggles and like their god will be risen up though the earth when they die so in essence never actually be killed.

            The major part of the palace that I remember very clearly comes from one of the upstairs room that contained about 10 or 12 very large murals of all kinds.  The mural that sticks out in my head was titled “La Guerra Castillo” or The Castle War.  In this mural there were a group of 4 men wielding machetes and standing in front of a group of terrified children.  The men were in a fighting stance and ready to defend the children from the oncoming attackers.  The reason that this stood out to me was because of the realism in the expressions of the faces of each individual in the scene and also the thought that this exact that me have actually occurred.  It is human nature for adults to protect their young no matter what culture you come from.  This is one of the main ideas of thinking that most everyone is the world is able to say that they have in common, the idea of wanting to protect their young.  This can be seen not only in humans but also is many animals in the world.  It is not always the male that protects the young, but regardless the adult still protects the infant.  One example of this is in birds when predators get too close to the nest and they try to distract them so that their young do not get hurt, or another example of this is in bears.  There are not many things scarier then coming into contact with a young bear cub and realizing that its mother is probably close by.  Overall I feel like this mural really catches the main theme of protection of young ones in all walks of life, and it also shows that the Mayan people were no more “savages” than any other human.

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What is one thing that almost every city has in common?  Venders, people selling almost anything you can imagine from food to trinkets to souvenirs.  This is the same for cities in Mexico, however they have a different way of selling you things and it is definitely something to experience. 

                People always talk about how they went to Mexico or a somewhere in the Caribbean and how they “haggled” to get items that they wanted to buy and to be perfectly honest I have not had much experience with this myself because it is not something you really have to do in the United States.  Back home, you ask how much something is and you pay for it.  You are not able to sit there with the worker or owner of the store and say that you will give them this much and go back and forth until you reach an agreed price (at least not places I have been shopping).  So after talking to our tour guide, Hugo, I learned that when you are going to buy something you do not pay the price that they ask.  When thinking about a good price to pay you take the price that they give you, and then reduce it by 25% and then that is the price that you should pay, just a quick rule of thumb.  So after a few days in the city we definitely wanted to go out and get some things for our friends and family and ourselves too so we went to the center of the city on Friday night and let me tell you that you have no problem finding people to sell you things.  There are venders and stores all over the place with people wanting to sell you things.  That previous statement brings we to another point about the venders/sellers down here, they are very persistent and aggressive.  While we were shopping a man with one leg and crutches literally chased us down to come into his store and see what he was offering, and once you get in the store the people definitely don’t leave you alone until you buy something.  If you show the slightest bit of interest in any item at all watch out.  They will grab it and start throwing numbers at you, and so the haggling begins.  While I was shopping for a bracelet and other little things the man saw I was looking at a particular one and said that it was 270 pesos, so remembering what Hugo said I told him no and so back and forth we went until I finally got the price of the piece down to 150 pesos.  I was pretty proud of myself for being able to haggle and get the item that I wanted for cheaper than it originally was.

                This type of bargaining and bartering is very fun to me and am glad that I have had the chance to do it, and I have gotten pretty good at it if I do say so myself.  I don’t think that I will have much opportunity back in the states because it seems as though our culture revolves around many goods that are imported and have a set price and things, but down here when many of the little vender items are hand made by the people who sell them you cut out the middle man and make the shopping experience definitely more fun and exciting than just giving the people the amount of money that they ask for.

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So today I went and visited the Museum of Modern Art in the center of the city right next to the cathedral of the city.  When I first found out that we had to visit the art museum I was not all that excited because to be perfectly honest I am not usually that into art.  I mean I love to draw and things like that but I never got into the whole scene of going and looking at other peoples artwork, but I guess that there is a time for everything.  When I first got to the museum and went in I found out that picture taking is not allowed, which kind of upset me because if I was going to look at all of this artwork I would have liked to take at least a few photos to remember it by.  So the overall layout of the museum was pretty symmetric.  The first one or two rooms that are there are mainly sculptures and normal paintings just giving the artists view of the world and it is pretty much what one would expect to see in an art museum.  After the first two rooms there are a few rooms that contain abstract art.  This was pretty interesting because a lot of the paintings were not proportional and there were so “optical illusion” paintings as well, I very much enjoyed this segment of the museum.  After the abstract room there was a room that started a series of rooms that were, well to describe it briefly, odd and somewhat disturbing.  The first image that you see when you enter the room is a giant three panel painting of death and torture.  The first image is of a man hanging by his bound hands and spears and arrows being cast at him, the middle image was of three men standing with machetes trying to shield themselves from the flames there were consuming them, and finally there was a painting of a man being impaled by a giant plant with thorns.  The next few rooms contained strange paints of all different sorts and then there was a room that contained pictures of what seemed like bondage and torture.  There were paintings with men tied up and hanging from the ceiling with ropes, and others showing blood and torture devices scattered throughout the picture, and still others depicting men struggling against an opposing force whether it was physically another individual or the struggle within the man.  I found this room very interesting because of the types of paintings that were done.  Thinking about what occurred in this country, and in most countries come to think of it, there has always been struggle, death, and torture.  While I was looking at these paintings it seemed as though the artist could have been showing the pain and suffering that the Mayans had felt at the hands of the conquistadores because of some of the elements of the works, including monks and elegant headdresses.  What occurred here also made me think about what was done to the Native Americans in the United States during the flourishing of our culture.  It seems that no matter where you look there are times during which one civilization overpowers another and causes pain and suffering of a certain people.  After this room there was a room that basically had the same painting 20 different times, except the same two people were in different positions with the inclusion of or deletion of other people/objects in the frame.  Some of these seemed to show happiness, others sadness, and still others fear.  This room led me to think about the fact that there are definitely many ways to look at life and depending on which road you take is the way that you will view things.  Every person, no matter what culture that they live in, has the power to view the world as they want to and no one can change that.  This I something that I have really experienced since coming here because being in a new culture definitely gives you the ability to think about your life and everything in it.  I used to let things get to me pretty easily, and that definitely isn’t the way to live life.  As an example if I would ever be back at home or at school and happen to get on the wrong bus and go somewhere that I didn’t know I would get so worked up that things weren’t going as planned and would need to think of a solution right then and there, but why?  Here I can’t say how many times I got on the wrong bus and just went with it, I got to see so many new and exciting places that I probably would not have gotten to see if I didn’t just relax and go with the flow.  There is a big difference between not caring (being lazy) and just taking what life gives you and turning it in to the best things possible.  That is definitely one lesson that I have already taken from this trip and hope that it will stay with me for the rest of my life.   

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So what better way to get into the culture of Mexico than to be here for Marti Gras (or in this case Carnival)?  Basically Carnival is a five day long celebration during which time there are concerts, and food, and rides all along the main street (Paseo de Montejo) and it is shut down during the five days and there are so many people out it is ridiculous.  It is not just in Merida that there is Carnival either, it is all throughout Mexico as well as in Spain all during the same week.  Well to start from the beginning Carnival actually started Wednesday night with a concert being performed by a well known group from Mexico named Nigga (pronounced Nee-Gah).  So the group decided that it would be fun to go down to the center and check out the concert and get a feel for what Carnival would be like, well when we got there boy were we surprised!  There was a fence which in the middle there is an opening where you can normally walk through but it was gated off with police standing there and not letting anyone through so some of us decided to squeeze through and make our way towards the gate, just in case they opened it up and let some people through we would get a chance to maybe get closer.  Well as we snaked out way up closer to the front the crowd that we were in started getting a little restless and began to sway and push towards the gate.  It wasn’t long before there was more and more pushing until all of a sudden the gate, along with the police, fell and everyone started running through to get closer.  Of course we weren’t just going to stand there so along with everyone else we made our way past the fallen gate and police trying to stop people to get into the second level of concert.  So now this second level was closer, but definitely not close enough for our liking, so as before we snaked through the crowd along with other people until before we knew it we were almost at the front of this crowd were we met another gate, with even more police.  Once we got here we figured that there was no way we would be getting any closer because any time people began pushing the police would cross the gate, or come from the crowd and take the menace out.  Just as we thought we wouldn’t be seeing any more action the band started to play its most famous song called “Te Queiro”.  Once this song came on everybody went nuts and began pushing and swaying and things were getting pretty intense, especially since we were in the middle of everyone.  Because the crowd started to get rowdy the band stopped playing the song, I assume under orders from the police, but this was probably the worst decision possible.  The mass of people were not happy that the song had stopped and were not going to have any of it, all at once the wall of people began moving towards the stage, and even with the gate and wall of cops there was no stopping the enormous crowd moving as one.  When I looked up I could see the look of defeat on the cops faces as they just stepped back at once and allowed the gate to fall, once the gate fell the weight of the crowd forced those people in front to fall with the gate, including some of us.  At this point adrenaline was rushing to try and make sure everyone was able to get up and not get trampled or legs caught in the gate and ankles broken, all while trying to avoid the cops who were not happy and had batons in hand being quite forceful with people.  Luckily, we were able to get everyone up and away from the crowd and make our way passed the cops until we got pretty close to the stage, we were happy!  The crowd was then contained and the band began the song again, which we could now actually see being played, and we were all filled with satisfaction that first we got through the mass of people to the front unharmed and also that we got to experience something that many people do not in their lives unless they live in the city.  As I look back on the experience, and even during it, I was trying to think about how something like this would be in the United States and from my personal experiences I can tell you that it would be very different.  Even though there were points that were scary or nerve racking I never actually felt scared for my life or safety while in the crowd.  There were points when people we so squished and there was no room to move but it seemed like even then people were very polite.  Not once did I have an elbow thrown into me which I can say has happened numerous times in the United States.  Also, if someone wanted to leave the crowd people made a conscious effort to clear a path so the person was able to leave easily instead of trying to push out just as they had gotten in.  I personally think that there is a big difference between cultures in general, but even this really made me think that it seems as though it is more “unified” here.  At concerts and things that I have been to in the United States people care for themselves and the people they are with and don’t give any thought, usually, to the people around them and would not normally be mindful of helping other people in situations like this.  I guess that there is always going to be differences between cultures and that is just something people have to live with, but it was nice to experience that even a mass of people and chaos there is still understood order and a common knowledge what is acceptable and what is not.

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After living in another country for an extended period of time, 5 weeks tomorrow to be exact, you learn some different customs and other things that you would not normally know without living in that country.  One prime example is the way that things are said, not the different languages, but the meanings of the words being used.  So in the United States it is not uncommon for people to go into a grocery store, or house, or restaurant and say something along the lines of “Do you have bananas (or eggs, or papaya)?”  Well, here in Mexico the word for have is tener, and we are always taught as students to use the word tener to ask if someone has something.  Well in Mexico, when asking to for bananas, eggs, or papaya you absolutely never use to the word tener, you would say “Hay” and then the word.  If I would happen to walk up to a store clerk and say “tiene platanos?” I would be trying to ask “Do you have bananas?” but in reality would be asking him (or her) if he/she had a penis.  Learning this after being here for 3 weeks was kind of disturbing because I am quite sure that I have asked at least one person if there were bananas anywhere and I can guarantee that I used the verb “tener”.  The same thing goes for papaya (being vagina) and huevos, eggs being testicles.  It is strange to think that the way things are said makes a huge difference in their meanings because in the United States if you want to say “Do you have bananas?” there is only one way that it can really be taken.  Also, this is only here in Mexico, if I would say “tienes platanos?” in Spain it would be perfectly fine and they speak Spanish there too!  This is a very interesting idea about culture, even though two countries speak the same language they are not always able to communicate with one another exactly how they want to and very big misunderstandings could occur and be very insulting.  To be perfectly honest if my culture teacher had not told us about these different words and different ways to say things I still would not know, I would have gone on knowing what I was taught and making a fool out of myself when speaking to the Mexican people.  Another example of this is the word for jacket.  In schools in the United States they teach that you are supposed to use “chaqueta” for jacket “saco” for suit jacket.  Well once again not here.  Saco is jacket, if one were to say chaqueta that would not be very appropriate at all!  In Mexico City, chaqueta means testicles, in the Yucatan chaqueta means masturbation.  So you see how it could be very confusing for someone, especially just starting to learn the language, that certain words mean certain things in certain places and each is used is different places at different times.  So this was my experience learning that there are certain words a can and can’t say here even if my intention is completely harmless, and I am sure that there are many more things that can be taken the wrong way.  I definitely feel unless you grow up in a culture you will not truly be able to 100% understand it and there will always be things that are “understood” that you will not be taught.   

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So on our second Saturday here our class went to a place called Dzibilchaltún, which is an ancient Mayan archeological site that is found about 10 miles north of our city, Merida.  The “park” or site was founded in 1994, but dates back to much earlier than that.  Researchers estimate that Dzibilchaltún was built around 300 B.C. and it still stands today, which is very impressive.  This is one of the Mayan cities that has been continuously populated throughout the past couple thousand years and has changed size from a city to a small town numerous times throughout history.  Before entering the site we went into a museum that contained both Mayan and Spanish artifacts, and we also got a little synopsis about the Mayan culture from our tour guide.  One of the really interesting points that he made and also really caught my attention was the part about the Mayan’s sacrificing people to the gods.  In a cenote, I cannot recall the name, there were about 90 bodies found.  Originally this cenote was thought to contain 100’s of bodies that were thrown in there after they were sacrificed; however, this small number along with the bodies being predominantly male (known from the dental features), suggests that these bodies were thrown in their after they had died and leaves room for question about the sacrificing part of the culture.  Just to make a quick rant, while we were in the museum of anthropology, our teacher Adrian was telling us that many people in Mexico were unhappy with the way that Mel Gibson portrayed the Mayan civilization in Apocolypto, but was very certain, as was the museum, that sacrificing did actually occur.  I just think it is interesting how one little piece of evidence can really change the way people look at what happened in history.   

This entire museum was very interesting but a few things caught my eye when I was walking around.  The first of these happen to be a statue on the outside of the museum, it stood probably about 7 feet high and was of a ball player in the game that I previously mentioned in a blog.

                      I really like this statue because it shows what the players would have actually worn during the game and also the way the player is depicted it shows that these men were not usually small and very fit.  You can’t really see it in the picture but the statue definitely had some definition to it especially in the legs.

After going into the building and walking around for a couple minutes I noticed that it was not just Mayan artifacts on display but Spanish as well.  It was very interesting to me to see Spanish chain mail, and armor, and cannons here right alongside the Mayan weapons and artifacts.  Seeing them in comparison was a really reality check.  It is really unbelievable that the Mayans were able to fight against the Spanish despite their superior weapons, armor, and horses.

            You were also able to see the Spanish influence in the religion of the Mayans as well.  In the museum there was an alter arranged with angels and decorations.  The sign/description of this artifact said that the alter was usually the most important part of the city and was given the most care, as well the most attention.  Also with the alter, or right next to it, were 3 crosses.  The crosses were probably easy for the Mayans to relate to because they had already been using crosses in their religion for thousands of years.  The cross that they used was similar to the Christian cross but it was supposed to depict the Ceiba tree.  The two crosses stood right next to each other and the only difference was that the Spanish cross (on the right) had a drawing of Jesus being crucified whereas the Ceiba cross had only color.

            Alright so after the museum we went to see the ruins.  I have never been at an archeological site before so I was really excited to be able to see something like this, and yeah it definitely lived up to my expectations!  One of the buildings that we saw was the The Temple of the Seven Dolls.  The reasons that is was named this is because when the building was discovered in contained 7 effigies.  During the Spring Equinox the sun will shine directly into one window and out the other that is on the opposite wall without touching anything in the middle.  This temple is just one part of the city and is connected to the rest of the city by a road called a sacbé. 

Yep we walked the whole thing!

The last building that we looked at was a Spanish Church.  The reason that we know it is Spanish is because of the alter, the place for the sacrament, and also by the arch of the building.  This type of arch was not used by the Mayans and is used to distinguish the makers of the buildings.

            Then, finally the cenote!  This cenote was not as cool as the last ones because it was above ground but it was still very clear and nice to swim in.  There were lily pads and a lot more fish than in the last ones.  I really enjoyed this cenote because I remembered to bring my mask and was able to dive to the bottom and get shells as well as rocks that we green and blue.

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So on Friday for our culture class we took a little trip to the Museum of Anthropology which was pretty interesting.  The outside of the museum itself was very beautiful and elegant and the inside was just the same.  Upon entering the museum, in the first hallway, there were 2 giant stone tablets, along with a sculpture of Jaguars.  The reason that this is so sigfinicant is because during the time period of the Mayans jaguars were very plentiful and also worshiped by the Mayans.  They used to call them B'alam and the emperors wore jaguar pendents and pelts.  They also incorporated the Jaguars into astronomy and thought that 4 jaguars, each a different color, help up the sky.  After seeing many sculptures depicting the jaguars we went into a room that had collections a human artifacts as well as remains.  There were definately a lot of cool things in this room but a few stood out to me.  We learned in culture class that the mayans had certain rituals, as does any culture, but you do not actually get the full effect until you see what people are talking about.  The Mayans would change the shape of the males teeth for certain rituals, making the long and skinny, or serrated on the edges.  They would also incrust things into the teeth, such as little pieces of jade for example.  Jade is not native to this part of the country so it is also known that this must have been imported from somewhere else and used for these ceremonies.  Another thing that they would do to young males is deform their heads.  The way that they would do this is by having two boards that were attached at one end, lying the baby boy inside the boards, and then pressing down so to flatten the forehead of the boy.  This action would perminately deform the skull of the child and was normally done by the mothers.  Another interesting fact is that the Mayans and Aztecs had mainly the same gods but just called them by different names.  One example of this would be the serpent god.  In the Mayan language this god was known as Kukulcan, and in the Aztecs was known as Quatzequatl.  Many other gods overlapped and archiologists have found many statues of the gods that look very similar but come from two completely different places.  Now on to sports, one of my favorite topics, but i am still undecided if I would have liked to play this sport.  It was a form of basketball/soccer.  The object of the game was to use your head, hips, and knees in order to get a rubber ball through a hoop.  Now this doesnt seem so bad, but when you think about that they played with no shoes, in the dirt and rocks, and oh yeah the losing team got sacraficed, it puts a different perspective of things.  So these were probably the coolest things that I saw at the museum but there was definately a lot more to check out and coupld probably spend weekes writing about it, because after all there are people that do that for a living.

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Alright so I have been writing about everything that I have been doing in Merida over the first full week but I haven't been writing about one of the most important reasons that I am here.... SCHOOL!!!  Alright so here is the gist of what I have been up to on the learning end of this trip.  To start off when we got to school on the first day we all took a placement test and then they put us in our respective classes, which they already had assigned so I really wasn't sure what the test was for.  I got put into the advanced class, which I wasn't really expecting, and from there we started to learn.  The first class of the day is from 9-12 with a 20 minute break at 10 and this is a grammar class.  We don't speak any english in the class while we are learning, and our teacher speaks very little in general.  I think that this is really good though because one of my goals for this trip is to become fluent in Spanish and having it spoken to me all of the time is a very good way to learn it.  So anyways in our grammar class we obviously learn grammar, but we also talk all of the time, and play games like having to describe things on the board to a person that can't see the word, or pretending to be news casters and having to read the paper and then reporting on the news, and other things like that.  Just getting you used to using Spanish more frequently.  So this is pretty much what we do everyday in class and I really enjoy this class because I feel that I am learning a lot and using my spanish more properly.  Oh, on a side note, we have a test on wednesday in this class!!!!  Okay, at 12 we get a half hour break, which usually consists of walking to the bank or the corner store to buy something to eat because we get hungry and lunch isn't till like 2:30.  Then, at 12:30, we have culture class which is really fun.  In this class we also only speak spanish, but we go to places in the city and learn about the history, or the other day we went to "El museo de Canciones Yucateca" which is the museum of Yucatan songs, which was really cool because it told about the origin of the music and its influences and all of the different kinds.  We also learned to salsa in culture class on friday, which was fun but also really tiring.  Overall the culture class is a little more laid back than the grammar class but it is still just as fun and also helps us to understand the culture of where we are living at not just the language.

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My school, the front door

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