The last city on our Mexican tour started out with a boom. Literally. Actually, Hermosillo started out with a 12-hour bus ride that included four checkpoints where men with machine guns checked our buses for fruit and drugs. It wasn't a big deal for me, because I was allowed to stay on the bus, which lead to very interesting conversations:
Machine-Gun-Wielding Mexican Officer {all serious and menacing}: ¿De dónde es? [Translation: Where are you from?]
Me: Stewart. [Translation: Stewart.]
M-G-W MO {all smiles}: ¡O... como el ratón Stuart Little! [Translation: Oh... like the mouse, Stuart Little!]
Me {breathing a sigh of relief}: Exactamente. [Translation: Exactly.]
Never in a million years did I think that E.B. White would help me break the ice with a guy that could blow my head clean off my body just for having some mango in my backpack. Mexicans take their fruits and vegetables very seriously, it turns out.
Anyway, what made this city so special was that our arrival day, September 15, was Mexican Independence Day, which meant that the whole city of Hermosillo lined the streets and partied hard. It also meant that we had to make our way thorugh the dense crowd of partying Mexicans just to get to our headquarters. That was a bit challenging, but we eventually made it. After we took care of business, we had to walk to the Palacio in Hermosillo, where the Governor of the Mexican state of Sonora lives, and go to a reception there with a whole bunch of official-looking people who we had no idea who they were. After the reception, and shaking hands with the Governor and His Lovely Wife, we stood outside the Palacio, waiting for him to ring the bell, and shout things in Spanish (in an Eva-Perón-Don't-Cry-for-Me-Argentina-type style) after which the whole town cried, "¡Viva!" Then, when all the ringing, shouting, and "¡Viva!"-ing had taken place, the fireworks display began. This fireworks display put all of my previous fireworks experiences to shame: The whole thing lasted a solid 45 minutes, and the fireworks were right over our heads, and then the whole thing was punctuated by mass quantities of green, white, and red confetti shot out of confetti canons.
The whole thing went until 12:30, and by that time everybody in the cast was exhausted, and wanted to go home. But in order to do that, we had to meet our host families. This time around, our theme was Disney characters. And to make it more challenging, all of our host codes were in Spanish, which made it really hard for Seung Beom (my roommate) and me to find our host family. Our host code was Campanita, which I had no clue who that was. If I had known that 'campa' was the Spanish word for 'bell,' I probably would have figured it out, but alas, I was left clueless.
The first person I met was my host mom, who was holding a helium-filled Tinkerbell balloon. Meeting your host family on a travel day is the most interesting experiences you can have when you're on tour with Up with People. Imagine meeting someone for the first time knowing that you are going to live with them, and eat what they eat, and sleep in a bed that they have prepared for you. This is why I get nervous on Mondays. The unknown can be a little disconcerting sometimes. But once you meet with them, and you put your stuff in the trunk of their car and get to know them on the way home, a sense of ease washes over you, and you're just so excited about answering whatever question they might have. I also met Aarón, my host brother, and his fiancée, Joana (pronounced: yo-AH-nuh). As soon as I was in my Hermosillo home and it was so easy talking to them, I knew it would be hard saying, "See you later!" at the end of the week, which, by the way, is the second reason why Mondays are always the hardest days of the tour.
I don't have a lot of stuff to write about this city, because Tuesday was the day that Montezuma decided to get his revenge on me. I guess that's what happens when you don't drink water on the bus, and then you sweat profusely for 5 hours afterwards. So, I had to stay home and miss the last day that the cast hung out at the beach in San Carlos. I heard it was amazing. [Sigh] But my day off afforded me the pleasure of talking with my host family and realizing just how much my Spanish had improved over the past 5 weeks. I went from not being able to understand my La Paz Host Dad Hector to having a really good conversation with my Hermosillo host family about the Up with People program. All in Spanish. It helped that Aarón spoke really good English and could translate whatever I didn't understand.
I also loved my living situation in Hermosillo because it was the second time that I was hosted with Seung Beom from South Korea. But it was even cooler because he was my only roommate and therefore I could learn a whole lot more about Korea. For instance, I learned that when a child is born in Korea, they automatically are one year old. In Korea, they believe that any living being should have an age, and so it is impossible to be under a year old over there. Another weird thing about Korean age is that everybody automatically is a year older on January 1st. So, a Korean baby born on December 31 is automatically two, two days into its life. It's interesting because when anybody asks Seung Beom how old he is, he says that he's 23 in Korea, and 21 everywhere else.
Okay, I could talk about my living situation over there for days, but I'll move on. One of the things we did in Hermosillo was attend a conference about issues surround sex and drunk driving in Mexico. The whole day started when we got up on stage and started singing Viva la Gente, Then we saw a drama about different issues that the Mexican people have to face in regards to sex. It's pretty much like the United States. Then, we had a selection of Viva la Gente people come up and speak about what their attitudes are about sex in their country. The most interesting part about the discussion was when Cecile from Denmark said that there are no real taboos surrounding sex, and that everybody over there was really open about it, which is the reason why Denmark has one of the lowest rates of STD transmission in the world. Nobody is ashamed to talk about it, because it's no big deal over there, so people are therefore more aware and able to take care of themselves more. This caused a stir in the audience because it is really not like that in Mexico. Sex is still a really hard topic for a lot of people over there, and they have a lot of work to do in order for people to be more open about it.
Towards the end of the week, our host family invited us to a couple of family get-togethers which was really cool, because both Seung Beom and I got to meet the rest of our host family. They were the nicest people, and they treated Seung Beom and I just like we were a part of their family. We sang songs, and we talked to them about where we were from, and told them about our tour of Mexico and what we thought about different things.
We also discussed the different things that had happened during the week in Hermosillo, like when Seung Beom wanted to say, "Buenas noches" to Joana, and it came out "Buenas nahcas" instead. Apparently in Spanish saying, "buenas nachas" to someone is the equivalent of saying "You're bootylicious" to them. I think we'll all be laughing about that in the years to come.
On travel day, we had to take our bus to the Mexican border, unlaod everything, walk across the American border and load onto American buses in Nogales, Arizona. It was really eay for the Americans, since all we had to do was get our bags x-rayed, and show the border guard our passports. It took the non-Americans much longer to cross, and some people's bags had to be searched. It was kind of a bittersweet moment of the tour because the Mexican portion of it was over, and it was back to normal as far as being in the US where everybody spoke English again. Looking back on everything, it's really hard to believe that I actually lived in Mexico for 5 weeks and became somewhat of an expert on the culture, attitudes and traditions of the Mexican people. I know that there are many of my host families that I want to see again, and will stay in contact with for the rest of my life.
So thank you, Mexico, for opening my eyes to so many things, and for the churros that I got to enjoy week after week.
Next stop: the good ol' U. S. and A!
Stay tuned!
Machine-Gun-Wielding Mexican Officer {all serious and menacing}: ¿De dónde es? [Translation: Where are you from?]
Me {trying to act calm}: Los Estados Unidos. [Translation: The United States.]
M-G-W MO {still serious and menacing}: ¿Cómo se llama? [Translation: What's your name?]Me: Stewart. [Translation: Stewart.]
M-G-W MO {all smiles}: ¡O... como el ratón Stuart Little! [Translation: Oh... like the mouse, Stuart Little!]
Me {breathing a sigh of relief}: Exactamente. [Translation: Exactly.]
Never in a million years did I think that E.B. White would help me break the ice with a guy that could blow my head clean off my body just for having some mango in my backpack. Mexicans take their fruits and vegetables very seriously, it turns out.
Anyway, what made this city so special was that our arrival day, September 15, was Mexican Independence Day, which meant that the whole city of Hermosillo lined the streets and partied hard. It also meant that we had to make our way thorugh the dense crowd of partying Mexicans just to get to our headquarters. That was a bit challenging, but we eventually made it. After we took care of business, we had to walk to the Palacio in Hermosillo, where the Governor of the Mexican state of Sonora lives, and go to a reception there with a whole bunch of official-looking people who we had no idea who they were. After the reception, and shaking hands with the Governor and His Lovely Wife, we stood outside the Palacio, waiting for him to ring the bell, and shout things in Spanish (in an Eva-Perón-Don't-Cry-for-Me-Argentina-type style) after which the whole town cried, "¡Viva!" Then, when all the ringing, shouting, and "¡Viva!"-ing had taken place, the fireworks display began. This fireworks display put all of my previous fireworks experiences to shame: The whole thing lasted a solid 45 minutes, and the fireworks were right over our heads, and then the whole thing was punctuated by mass quantities of green, white, and red confetti shot out of confetti canons.
The whole thing went until 12:30, and by that time everybody in the cast was exhausted, and wanted to go home. But in order to do that, we had to meet our host families. This time around, our theme was Disney characters. And to make it more challenging, all of our host codes were in Spanish, which made it really hard for Seung Beom (my roommate) and me to find our host family. Our host code was Campanita, which I had no clue who that was. If I had known that 'campa' was the Spanish word for 'bell,' I probably would have figured it out, but alas, I was left clueless.
The first person I met was my host mom, who was holding a helium-filled Tinkerbell balloon. Meeting your host family on a travel day is the most interesting experiences you can have when you're on tour with Up with People. Imagine meeting someone for the first time knowing that you are going to live with them, and eat what they eat, and sleep in a bed that they have prepared for you. This is why I get nervous on Mondays. The unknown can be a little disconcerting sometimes. But once you meet with them, and you put your stuff in the trunk of their car and get to know them on the way home, a sense of ease washes over you, and you're just so excited about answering whatever question they might have. I also met Aarón, my host brother, and his fiancée, Joana (pronounced: yo-AH-nuh). As soon as I was in my Hermosillo home and it was so easy talking to them, I knew it would be hard saying, "See you later!" at the end of the week, which, by the way, is the second reason why Mondays are always the hardest days of the tour.
I don't have a lot of stuff to write about this city, because Tuesday was the day that Montezuma decided to get his revenge on me. I guess that's what happens when you don't drink water on the bus, and then you sweat profusely for 5 hours afterwards. So, I had to stay home and miss the last day that the cast hung out at the beach in San Carlos. I heard it was amazing. [Sigh] But my day off afforded me the pleasure of talking with my host family and realizing just how much my Spanish had improved over the past 5 weeks. I went from not being able to understand my La Paz Host Dad Hector to having a really good conversation with my Hermosillo host family about the Up with People program. All in Spanish. It helped that Aarón spoke really good English and could translate whatever I didn't understand.
I also loved my living situation in Hermosillo because it was the second time that I was hosted with Seung Beom from South Korea. But it was even cooler because he was my only roommate and therefore I could learn a whole lot more about Korea. For instance, I learned that when a child is born in Korea, they automatically are one year old. In Korea, they believe that any living being should have an age, and so it is impossible to be under a year old over there. Another weird thing about Korean age is that everybody automatically is a year older on January 1st. So, a Korean baby born on December 31 is automatically two, two days into its life. It's interesting because when anybody asks Seung Beom how old he is, he says that he's 23 in Korea, and 21 everywhere else.
Okay, I could talk about my living situation over there for days, but I'll move on. One of the things we did in Hermosillo was attend a conference about issues surround sex and drunk driving in Mexico. The whole day started when we got up on stage and started singing Viva la Gente, Then we saw a drama about different issues that the Mexican people have to face in regards to sex. It's pretty much like the United States. Then, we had a selection of Viva la Gente people come up and speak about what their attitudes are about sex in their country. The most interesting part about the discussion was when Cecile from Denmark said that there are no real taboos surrounding sex, and that everybody over there was really open about it, which is the reason why Denmark has one of the lowest rates of STD transmission in the world. Nobody is ashamed to talk about it, because it's no big deal over there, so people are therefore more aware and able to take care of themselves more. This caused a stir in the audience because it is really not like that in Mexico. Sex is still a really hard topic for a lot of people over there, and they have a lot of work to do in order for people to be more open about it.
Towards the end of the week, our host family invited us to a couple of family get-togethers which was really cool, because both Seung Beom and I got to meet the rest of our host family. They were the nicest people, and they treated Seung Beom and I just like we were a part of their family. We sang songs, and we talked to them about where we were from, and told them about our tour of Mexico and what we thought about different things.
We also discussed the different things that had happened during the week in Hermosillo, like when Seung Beom wanted to say, "Buenas noches" to Joana, and it came out "Buenas nahcas" instead. Apparently in Spanish saying, "buenas nachas" to someone is the equivalent of saying "You're bootylicious" to them. I think we'll all be laughing about that in the years to come.
On travel day, we had to take our bus to the Mexican border, unlaod everything, walk across the American border and load onto American buses in Nogales, Arizona. It was really eay for the Americans, since all we had to do was get our bags x-rayed, and show the border guard our passports. It took the non-Americans much longer to cross, and some people's bags had to be searched. It was kind of a bittersweet moment of the tour because the Mexican portion of it was over, and it was back to normal as far as being in the US where everybody spoke English again. Looking back on everything, it's really hard to believe that I actually lived in Mexico for 5 weeks and became somewhat of an expert on the culture, attitudes and traditions of the Mexican people. I know that there are many of my host families that I want to see again, and will stay in contact with for the rest of my life.
So thank you, Mexico, for opening my eyes to so many things, and for the churros that I got to enjoy week after week.
Next stop: the good ol' U. S. and A!
Stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment