Out with the New, In with the Old

I just finished the first half of this semester and although some of my grades have now dropped below 100% I’m still getting by. I have one class in particular this semester that has been pretty grueling but it makes me feel like I’m actually in grad school and I really like it.  Although I did have last week off for spring break and I really liked that too.

The church I’ve been going to owns a campground and last month I went up with them for a work weekend to get ready for the summer camps.  It was great to get to know people on a different level and it was in a part of New Mexico I hadn’t visited, the Gila Wilderness.  One afternoon I went on a little walk though some nearby mountains and was amazed by the awesome rock formations.  I don't think these pictures give justice to the beauty.  

 

 

On the drive down we passed a bunch of huge radio satellite things at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.  The official name for the site is the “Very Large Array,” which totally cracked me up. 

UNM has a pretty good basketball team and I finally got around to going to their last regular season game (they made it top 32 post-season).  I really like live sporting events and went to my share of Davis basketball games but this was totally different because the team is actually competitively good.  Our arena, The Pit, seats like 15,000 and was totally packed out with screaming fans.  It was lots of fun and I’ve resolved to go to all their games next year, especially since they’re free for students and I’m all about that.  

I totally get that New Mexico is beautiful, sometimes when I’m out and about I’m blown away by the mountains and rocks and cacti.  That aside, it is brown.  I mean it’s the desert and I think we average less than 9in of precipitation a year (a fair amount of that is snow) so zero-scape is really popular.  I was walking with a friend a few weeks ago and she pointed out that someone had an actual lawn. I pointed out that it was brown and her response was that not all grass is green.  WHAT? I mean come on, the phrase “the grass is greener” I think is comparing shades of green not other colors altogether.  I mean if you are comparing brown grass and green grass I don’t think anyone would judge you for thinking the green grass is greener.   I was in Concord for a few days last week and walking outside I felt like everything was in technicolor, it’s just so bright! And all that grass (obviously green) and flowers!

I’ve still been blogging about my food mis-adventures and you can read them on my other blog.  I hit the 2 month mark spending less than $70 total so I feel like I have that area of spending under control.  Many people spoil me so it’s not like I never eat.

So that updates you a little on the New, now onto the Old.  Last week I had spring break and went to Old Mexico with my mom to visit our friend Luz.  You may remember some of Luz and her town Mascota from previous posts (I was there once in 2006, once in 2008, and twice in 2009) and you can read lots of posts about previous trips looking through some old posts.  I love Mascota, it has quite a bit of drama for the size of town but still safe.  There were lots of adventures this past week and I’ll share some highlights.

On Sunday nights you can walk around the town square and eat freshly fried churros.  Sunday I was in search of churros and ran into my friend Dalia.  The last time I saw here I was also walking around Mascota’s town square looking for churros.  Her response was that if she’s ever looking for me she will go to the churro stand.  That is mostly accurate although on non-Sunday nights its more likely I’m at the popsicle store by the bus stop.

One day we went to visit Luz’s friend Ofelia, a great lady that I’ve spent time with my last few times there.  When we were walking around her yard picking fruit she asked me if something was there last time I was there.  My Spanish is limited so I had no clue what the “something” was but Luz answered no for me.  Guess what the “something” was.  A COUGAR (a word that had never come up with my vocabulary).  They built a habitat for this wild cougar someone gave them a few years back.  Evidently on their other property they have a jaguar.  Both eat live chickens.  As my mom phrased it, Ofelia is a little eccentric.   It was pretty awesome.  I was really bummed that I didn’t bring my camera.

This trip I also spent a fair amount of time with Luz’s sister/neighbor Lupe.  I never really knew what was going on but one day I did go to her classroom.  She left me in there alone and it brought back nightmares of teaching in Nicaragua. Except these kids mostly stayed in their seats and no one peed on the walls.  We talked about their home lives (fruit trees and chickens and horses and living multi-generationally) and I taught them “head, shoulders, knees and toes.”  Later on we ended up outside with me teaching “duck, duck, goose.”  They really liked to pick me so I did quite a bit of running in circles.  Finally we switched to steal the bacon so I could rest.

One day I got my teeth cleaned. I think Dra. Lucy was trying to kill me.  No joke.  I have a pretty high pain tolerance and about 5 minutes in I couldn’t imagine how I could sit through a half an hour of her torture.  Not just the pain but she used this electric pick thing that made the worst sound imaginable and whenever she would pull it out of my mouth water would spray in my eye.  She kept asking, “does it hurt?” over and over but nothing ever changed. Then she would explain that they were getting really clean. I was all excited when she pulled out the rubber twirly brush thing because that would be better.  Her “toothpaste” tasted like cement, and spitting it out of my mouth it looked like cement too.  It was cheap; it might have been worth it.  

Compared to my previous trips this one was pretty laid back, most days only had one Bible study, and the neighbor hood visitations were more limited. To fill up some time Luz had me paint a picture.  It’s mostly house paint, with some acrylic on plywood.  I was going to attach a photo but you can just believe me that it is the most beautiful picture of impressionist cacti ever painted.

One day there was my birthday (some more oldness).  When we were visiting Ofelia she was giving Luz suggestions of nice places to take me. We did have a nice breakfast and then an interesting lunch and some carrot bread for dinner.  Here I am at my birthday lunch. Luz kept laughing because of its extreme ghettoness. The hosts did say next year they would be more prepared with balloons.  Evidently in Mexico the cool thing to give people for their birthdays is a big hug. Yay.  I hadn’t met the lady whose house we had lunch at but as soon as I walked in she gave me a big birthday hug.  Then later on I saw my friend Dalia (not looking for churros) and she apologized for not giving me a hug because she was sick. Really it’s OK.   Back at home my aunt bought me a heated throw blanket and it is my new best friend.  Really it’s amazing. 

Well this is long but I know you’ve been missing me.  I’ll try to work on that.  What adventures have been going on with you?