pepinillitos

so we have finished the first 2 weeks of our course, and are still alive. 2 more weeks to go.

i taught a lesson to teens on thursday, was not looking forward to it, and the topic was boring (a reading comprehension about deaf people.....). consequently it was quite a dull lesson, even i was bored, so how must they have felt. anyway i taught them what sign language is, and also the word drive-thru. we had meetings with our tutor savannah on friday about jobs and cvs and where we want to live etc and will start sending out job applications in a the next 2 weeks. we discussed our options with juan - i told him i`m quite flexible as long as i`m in a big city, that isn`t too hot, and has lots of things going on - ie either guadalajara or mexico city really. he immediately wrote off mexico city as being far too dangerous in terms of road safety. the car has priority over the pedestrian there apparently, and if you drive over and kill someone, the victim`s family often has to pay damages to the driver`s car if it is damaged in the process, and there are posters up reminding people that the car has priority. apparently there were around 22,000 road traffic deaths last year. i explained to juan that although this is indeed not great, i didn`t want to limit my job prospects based on the pedestrian crossing access of cities. he wasn`t having any of it and demanded that i do further research. me and skye were having a hungover giggling fit for most of this bizarre conversation so i don`t think juan was too impressed with our commitment to our future careers.

so to recover from our week me and skye and some of her friends from her trip to mexico before went out on thursday night to a club called plush, which was indeed very plush. it was 50 pesos (around 2 pounds) to get in and free beer until midnight which we took full advantage of. there was a strange dance routine and a band too, playing i suppose what you would call salsa rock. from somewhere a bottle of whiskey appeared so we drank most of that. a strange mexican boy kept asking me if i thought he was attractive compared to various other boys he kept pointing out. i told him i didn`t understand and that he was really weird. despite this strangeness it was really fun to go out and not think about teaching for a while.

friday afternoon i went to help ace ventura pet detective at the university again, with juan2 as well. they did some work from the text book then some more songs, this week we had something by foreigner, can`t remember what, and imagine by john lennon, and hey jude by the beatles. ace ventura drew a little picture of john lennon on the board so i took a photo of him next to it, he`s quite artistic and has also painted some murals in our school of a map of the world and little people on it. i explained that the word lyrics isn`t part of all the song titles, but means words of the song. because every song had the name of the singer eg the beatles, then the title, a day in the life lyrics. so they couldn`t understand why each song had the word lyrics in it.

i then cycled home, was too tired to cycle to the lake to watch the sun set again. jayne came over and we had a nice chat with rosa, with me as interpreter as jayne doesn`t speak spanish yet. this made my brain hurt but was really funny too. rosa told us that mela (jayne`s mexican mum) was engaged to juan1`s uncle, but he died 3 days before the wedding, and that mela`s family used to be sort of aristocracy but then lost a lot of money, and that they were something to do with pemex, the main oil company here and also have a supermarket on the edge of town somewhere. juan1 didn`t know of the uncle story when we asked him yesterday. me and jayne then went to our local for a beer to celebrate it being friday, but one drink turned in to lots of drinks and some crazy strong tequilas too which made our heads spin. we learnt lots of spanish from the waiter and in exchange taught him some english. he laughed his head off when i translated my surname, in spanish it is pepinillos, and if i have children they will be pepinillitos, as a pepillinito is a small pepinillo. we went to our amazing burger stall for some post tequila food and met some more strange mexicans, turned out one of them had lived in jayne`s town in canada. mundo pequeno.

yesterday me and jayne went to manzanillo again to chill out on the beach. we got a lift there with juan1 and his lodger alfredo. alfredo is from california and was trying to be an actor in hollywood for years, until he got fed up with just getting extra work and nothing serious. we asked him how come he had ended up trying to be an actor, and he said in his high school yearbook he was voted most likely to become an actor. i guess it`s as good a reason as any to give it a go. anyway, he`s really sweet and also used to do ballet dancing which made me giggle but not out loud. so he drove us all to colima where we stopped briefly to meet some of juan`s students who are also studying a similar course to us (but taught by nicky who also teaches at our school), but on saturdays, as they are also working during the week (mainly as teachers, or if not then they are going to be teachers by the end of the course). there was another of ace ventura`s murals of the world in this school so i took a photo. then we carried on to manzanillo where juan and alfredo were teaching the same saturday course but in the evening. we left them to it and went to the beach over the road, via a really nice italian restaurant to get some hangover food. i had spaghetti bolognaise, that classic mexican dish. jayne had chicken but couldn`t eat it all so we put it in my bag with the sandwiches that rosa had made for me, to eat later. after this we wandered to find a nice quiet spot on the beach. as there were no other people there at all this was quite easy. the current in the sea there is quite strong so we didn`t really swim, but paddled a bit then lay down again. after a while a huge freak wave (not quite a tsunami but not far off) washed all the way up to where we were lying, and washed all our stuff along the beach - all my clothes were drenched, the sandwiches and chicken were long gone, thankfully i had just put my camera in its case after taking some photos, but everything else was covered in water and sand, as were we. this was quite hilarious but also could`ve been quite bad, if for example we`d been asleep when it struck. we gathered our belongings back up and found my apple half way down the beach , but left it there with the sandwiches and chicken and retreated to higher ground to recover. i found a shower where i washed all my clothes and hung them out to dry and then tried to relax and have a snooze but wasn`t quite in the mood for it now.

after our close encounter we also found a dead blowfish (the big fat fish with spikes) rolling around in the waves. a little mexican girl came and told us about it (i think its name in spanish is pezapa) and that they were very dangerous, and then her brother came and buried it in the sand. there was an amazing sunset behind some clouds, and a huge ugly tanker out on the horizon which became quite beautiful when the sun went down and its lights came on. we left after a while, disgruntled but amused with our `relaxing` beach day, and went to get an ice cream. on walking into the shop i knocked half the bin over by the door oops. then proceeded to act out a real life charlie chaplin sketch as i had to empty all my bag out on to the counter to find my money, then my water bottle tipped over, and then a gust of wind blew my dress up so the man saw my lovely wal-mart knickers.... jayne had left the shop she was laughing so much.... i don`t think i`ll be returning to manzanillo any time soon to be honest.

we went back to the school they were at as juan had called to say his students wanted to meet us, as they always like to meet real life english speakers. they were very sweet and we asked them how the course was going etc. then jorge, one of the more talkative ones, launched into a huge beatles conspiracy story - apparently in 1969 paul mccartney died (or was killed), and there was a talent/lookalike competition to find a replacement. there are lots of references in various of their albums about this apparently (like on the st peppers album cover paul is facing backwards and the others forwards; on the abbey road one he is the only one in bare feet etc etc). i said i`d never heard of this story, as i haven`t, but that i`d investigate. the strange thing was was that jorge actually looked like the mexican version of paul mccartney, which i pointed out to him. at the other side of the class, felipe was telling jayne that he wanted to work in canada but he didn`t like flying and was it possible to take the bus all the way there? if so, he would need a transit visa to pass through america (unless obama steps in i guess). all in all yesterday was one of those strange hungover days where strange things happen and nothing makes sense.

so alfredo drove us all home, on the long curvy road (we had passed a lorry that had tipped right over on the way down to manzanillo on one of the curves). the roads here are really good quality, really well tarmaced, but just quite curvy. there is an optional toll road, but apparently it`s only marginally quicker. we stopped off in a little town called armeria to get some tacos at a road side restaurant, which by day was a parking lot. there were still a few cars in it actually, but the tacos were amazing - i had chorizo and beef ones. the street food in mexico is really good if you go to the right places. i slept some of the way back and then slept loads once i was home, didn`t get up until around 2 today. i now have to do some homework on my cv and write a mid-course self reflection, so it`s a good job i don`t have a hangover today too.

any ideas about the beatles conspiracy let me know.

another question that has cropped up this week was where exactly the midlands are. juan had referred to the dales and the moors as being in the midlands, but i would say there were in the north really, and another english person agreed. i think it depends where you`re from in england as to what you refer to as the midlands, maybe if you´re from the scottish border then you would refer to yorkshire as the midlands, as relatively it is middle way down the country from you.

adios
senorita pepinillos x