así es….de mi punto de vista, pues

 three american girls just sat down next to me in this cafe and they’re really quite loud.  maybe they just sound louder cause it’s easier for me to tune out the spanish, but i’m not used to hearing english voices that i’m unfamiliar with.  so it feels like they’re invading my space.  and they seem young.  i mean, college-aged, but still.  i realize how much conversation i don’t mind not understanding.  i mean, i’d still like to understand everything, but the fact that i miss a lot of conversation doesn’t really bother me that much unless i’m actually involved in the conversation.  does it make me old if i think college-age people sound young?  goodness.  people still mistake me for being in high school…i think they’re just judging on looks…

i mostly get my news from the bbc website and lately the news about mexico has just been about drugs and kidnappings.  i haven’t heard people talking about either one a whole lot…maybe i just run in the wrong circles.  i don’t feel any threat to my safety as a foreigner.  when i’m in cities i take the same precautions that i would in any city, in the US or elsewhere.  and i always have my trusty waterbottle with me…i have switched from nalgene (bad) plastic to sigg (good) metal.  i got my waterbottle at goodwill…perhaps my favorite goodwill purchase ever.

i’m reading a book at the moment called, “The Faith Club.”  it is quite interesting and has inspired a good amount of journaling.  sometimes i think i read too fast and would get more out of it if i read slower.  but i’m just so excited to find out how it ends.  and i also go through phases where there are books that i think would be really interesting, but i have a hard time making myself read, for whatever reason.  anyone else have that problem?  anyway, the book is about a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew (all women) getting together to talk about their faiths and how to relate to one another.  they all experience a deepening of their own faith while at the same time developing a much greater understanding of each other’s faiths.  i highly recommend it. 

i went out last night (the blog about chihuahua i actually wrote last night but my internet time was up before i knew it and the computer shut down on me) with a bunch of people from school and some oaxacans that stopped me to do an interview about tourism in oaxaca.  we went to a place that sells amazing hot chocolate.  very thick and it came in a bowl.  technically i think it was a mug, but it was as big as a bowl.  and it only cost a dollar.  it was incredible.  i don’t find that mexico is overly cheap…i’m used to traveling in countries where economies are doing worse than here…but this chocolate…man.

i’m going to switch cafes and go get myself some tea.  i have the beginnings of a sore throat and it seemed that about half of the mcc team had a cold in chihuahua.  i will hopefully be avoiding that.  i’m trying to increase my intake of fruits and veggies.  it can be difficult when i don’t have a whole lot of control over my meals.  oh well.  after this week, i’ll have lots of control and i’ll probably be wishing that someone else could make my food every once in a while.  (merideth, if you’re reading this, that statement was not referring to you).

ok.  must go.  feeling overwhelmed by the american girls.

oh, but first, i really liked this quote from The Faith Club…the book is actually quoting a guy by the name of Craig Townsend:  The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty.  delightful.   and reassuring.

we had a team meeting in the state of Chihuahua last week.  it was quite interesting on a variety of levels.  it apparently looks the same as southern manitoba (this coming from people who remember what southern manitoba looks like, as i do not).  there were vast fields of wheat and corn, both fairly green at this point.  in the distance (and this apparently differs from manitoba) there mountains, but when it is quite cloudy and/or foggy, you have no idea the mountains are there and you´re looking at endless fields of wheat.  it`s pretty gorgeous.  and completely different from olinalá.

there is a large population of german-speaking mennonites living in this area, thus the reason we were there.  mcc canada (there are 12 MCCs, just to make it extra exciting) works with all the low-german speaking mennonite populations in the western hemisphere.  there are colonies of these mennonites in mexico, belize, bolivia, paraguay, canada and i think another country that i´m forgetting.  all of the colonies differ from each other, in their lifestyles and their beliefs.

at times it was hard for me to identify with these mennonites as fellow mennonites.  there aren´t buggies in the area where we were, but their beliefs on women in the church, well…women in general, the excommunication, the violence with which they have treated other mennonites and the view of education are just a few of the things that made it very difficult for me to come up with things held in common.  i´m speaking mostly of the old colony mennonites.  it was easier for me to identify with the general conference mennonites…i went to a youth group meeting of general conference mennonites and the room in which we were in could have been transported to the US or Canada, with the exception of the languages (of which everyone spoke at least three…low-german, english, spanish and high-german).  we sang, `Shine, Jesus, Shine` in german (not sure if it was high or low).

i’ve got a number of pictures that i`m hoping to upload once i get back to olinalá.  i am back in oaxaca for another week or so of language school…still trying to get the hang of subjunctive, which is pretty crappy.  ah well.  poco a poco.

I am back in Mexico and I will be here for the next two years.  This sounds like a long time when I think of it in years, but if I think of it in growing seasons, it doesn’t sound quite so overwhelming.  I will be doing the same thing that I was doing this last year, but with a good number of changes.  Yes…

I will still be living in Olinala and will continue working in the communities around Olinala with groups of women and organic gardening.  However, Merideth and I are planning to change a good number of things in the way we work with the groups.  We are constantly in discussion on how development works and how we should do things, what works, what doesn’t, etc.  

I’m in Mexico City at the moment and, with the rest of MCC Mexico, we will be going to Chihuahua tomorrow.  Chihuahua is a large state in the north of Mexico and it shares part of its border with the US.  There is a large population of German-speaking Mennonites in Chihuahua and we are going to have some meetings with them as well as see that population of Mennonites in this Spanish-speaking culture.  I think it will be quite interesting.

We return from Chihuahua on Saturday and on Sunday I will go back to Oaxaca for another week of language school.  I spent the last two weeks in the city of Oaxaca in language school and it was great.  I’m studying subjunctive at the moment (of which there’s not an English equivalent) and it is quite difficult but once I can actually use it properly, it will be very helpful.  The city of Oaxaca is beautiful and there’s all sorts of artisan work and ruins that you can go and see.  The site of the oldest writing samples in the Western Hemisphere is a twenty minute ride from the center of Oaxaca.  Oaxaca is famous for their moles (pronounced mo-lay) and their chocolate and rightfully so.  Both are quite delicious.

I stayed with a host family that was incredible.  My room was amazing and they were very, very hospitable (quite characteristic with pretty much everyone I’ve met in Mexico).

I’ve got to be off.  We’ll see how long this new leaf of mine will stay turned over as far as writing blogs goes