Hey everyone,
Sorry I took so long to blog. It has been a very, extremely busy last few weeks. I went to a concert, to a Mexican Football game, to church and had to take my second partials. The pictures are from the Manu Chao concert and the clasico football game between ITESM (my school) and UANL (their rivals). The names of the mascots are interesting, my school is the borregos the salvajes, which means rams and the UANL is called los tigres autenticos, they are called the authentic tigers because there is also a soccer team called the tigers. Now on to the photos, the first three are from the clasico which the TEC won 35-13. The game was ok, the players were smaller than normal, and they could not pass that well. Let me interrupt myself here for one second, There are some interesting ways people make a living here, there are some guys who drive trucks around and scream out what they are selling with loudspeakers, it is really really annoying when i am trying to take a siesta, nap. Then there are people who dress up like clowns and juggle at intersections to get tips from people, and also we have people who watch cars, not wash. If you go to the movies or somewhere like that, they will stand outside and make sure no one breaks into your car or anything like that. It is pretty interesting to watch the underground economy here. The problem is that there are rich people in Mexico, then everyone else. It is capitalism at its most, there is a really really very extremely wealthy class, which is personified in Carlos Slim, then there is a tiny middle class, my house mom Liz is a member of that and then most of the country is poor; they live paycheck to paycheck eat tortillas and beans at every meal. Wow, i didnt mean to interrupt myself that long. My friends in the picture are from the left Dinorah, Ana Lucia and Olga. Yes, her name is Olga, her dad was born in Mexico and got his bachelors here then he studied in the Ukraine for his masters and met her mom. we are going to practice our languages together. It is frightening that i will be helping someone learn english jajaja. The concert was amazing, it was in the Huasteca park. It is up in the mountains by monterrey. We parked and were walking in, then we saw a truck and asked if we could hop in, we got in the back and rode with them. The men were upfront, and the wife and child were in back. They told us that everytimethere is a concert this happens to them, it takes forever for them to get home. Then they gave us beer, i gave them 50 pesos and the women refused to accept it, so then i gave it to the kid and refused to take it back. This story is short but it teaches you a lot about mexican culture; firstly, the women and children are subjugated to the machismo of the men, this is a male dominated culture, secondly, everyone tries to help everyone else out here usually, thirdly, the campesinos (country people) are also subjugated to a tertiary role, they recieve the worst services and help, fourthly the mexicans are proud and don't like to be looked down on even if they are really poor. The concert was awesome, Manu Chao, was born in france because his parent were political refugees during Franco's reign. He would sing/rap in Spanish, French and English. The crowd wasnt that wild, but it was a beautiful venue, the stage was framed by the mountains. I really liked my first big concert ever :). I went to Church yesterday with my friend, Kim Benjamin. It was a baptist church and really fun, the preacher got really into his sermon, he pounded on the pulpit and yelled. Religion is a huge part of the Mexican life, I want to go to a Catholic Church as well sometime. I have found that most of the people I know identify themselves as catholics but not fanatical usually they don't go to church. I got back my calculus test, and i got 103% on it, so that is pretty good. Well I think that is enough for now, I will try to post more regularly.
I have a special visitor coming to see me on the 17th of October, yes the one, the only Jody Varney!!! (Applause) We here at American Vampire in Mexico, will make her do a guest blog. about her stay.
Love you all,
Take care,
Kyle
