Chicos...

Yesterday's adventure visiting the "secondaria" can be summed up in one word--boys! After class in the morning we headed off in taxis to the Secondaria to see a Mexican middle school. Suffice it to say our girls were quite the spectacle. Particular attention was given to the kids who most diverged from typical Mexican coloring--so our blondes, and kids from races other than Caucasian were quite the sight (OK, but lets be real--all of the girls, because they are so beautiful, had more admirers than they could handle!). The girls toured the school in small groups with their host students, were given gifts of Mexican candy (not exactly their favorites--tamarind flavored etc.) and then the school had planned a special performance for us. One boy, in their first form (6th grade?) stood before us and sang "Beautiful Girls" the American song ("you have me suicidal, suicidal when you say its o-ver..."). Another girls stood and pasionnately recited a powerful poem, which I would be lying if I said I understood it all...and finally there was a beautiful traditional dance done, complete in traditional Vera Cruz outfits. This was a very poor school, so they had really turned out their best for us, and not wanting to be outdone, our girls also planned a dance performance as well...sort of.

Led by Taryn and TMike, annd then joined by many of our experts, our girls first performed, then taught, then performed en masse, our rendition of "Crank that..." and since there was no access to anything to play a CD, they had to sing it at the same time! I have to admit, that despite my trepidations, this was the hit of the day--our girls were awesome teachers and clearly spoke enough Spanish and were fluent in dance, that many friendships were made!

Following our dance lesson we were challenged on both the basketball court and the soccer cement (!) to games. Our girls held their own, and the games ended scoreless since we had to leave before they were done. Many, many emails were exchanged, many hugs, a few cheek kisses, even and several proposals of marriage (um, we intervened at this point...) as we left.

We spent our afternoons in back our our host fammilies and in small groups before we were to return to school for our Salsa lessons. We learned an important lesson during this time, which is left with too much free time, our girls do less well...after arriving back at the school we spoke to the girls about being more aware of their surroundings (for instance when they are in a public park) and trying to be aware of the unintentional messages they are sending. While the girls did not like hearing this, and felt "they could handle it" we reminded them our job was to make sure they didnt have to. The situation at the school was safe and contained, but the public places are not, and while we feel they have good sense, we are also wanting to be very cautious. We made ourselves clear going forward, and have filled up the rest of our schedule so that there will be no more unstructured time other than with their host families.

Finally we returned home in time to observe the total lunar eclipse over late supper with our host families.

We are off today to spend nearly the whole day at a water park (shoot me now, please), followed by some late afternoon shopping in the Zocalo, finishing with dinner at a Pasado restaurant (Pasado is a traditional Thursday night meal in some parts of Mexico--its a hominy bsaed soup, not vegetarian, but the restaurant has many other options too).

We are having connection troubles (on and off) so I will try and get some of yesterdday's pictures up but it may take a while...more soon--marja