i'm back to blogging...

wow. A full 6 months, no posts. Sorry to all of you who have written and asked where I disappeared to..... Each time you asked me, I promised to write updates, but then I didn't.

I think I sort of HAD to disappear. Weird. I set up this blog to have a place to put down my thoughts, and to invite friends to peek into my world, but somehow I just couldn't get on the ball. Some days I would write my experiences in a Word document, thinking I would paste my thoughts into Blogger, and then I would re-read and feel like this was a journal entry that I couldn't post; not because it was really that private, but more because I was just still processing and wasn't ready to share.

Selfish, I know.

So now, on this extended visit to the US (started as what I thought would be a week in the States because of a family emergency, now nearly a month later I am still here) my life is suddenly so different as I am thrown forcefully back into "reality". "You have to come back to reality", my friends in the US would say. Whose reality? Does this mean the life I live each day is not reality if I am not on US soil? "You seem happier, more relaxed," friends noted upon my return visit. Okaaaay, I think, then is my own reality devalued because I am happy? I wonder as I watch the rat race all my friends say they wish they could walk away from. I don't fault them for wanting what they want, and I will continue to see if what I want is in the place I am looking in as well. There is no shortage of curiosity over my lifestyle in Mexico. As I reunite with the folks in the US, and as I tell stories of life in Guanajuato and field the common question "why didn't you put that in your blog?" I wonder, why didn't I? Somehow I guess I had to have these last 6 months for myself, to get myself solid again. But now I am back on the blogging circuit, and I will fill you in:

I headed back to Mexico in mid May.



The flight attendant knew of my excitement to get back to Mexico, and pointed out the moment we crossed the border.

I felt like I was returning home and was instantly ecstatic as I wandered the town, reminiscing from the winter before, relishing in the uniqueness of my new home. The town is nestled a bowl surrounded by mountains, and the motor traffic travels through tunnels that once routed a river. There is no other place like this.

When I first got to town I shared an apartment in the center of Guanajuato near the University.

The beautiful University of Guanajuato

I had a teeny tiny puppy for about a minute. Really teeny - in this photo she is sleeping in my shoe! A friend found her abandoned outside of Mexico City. After a short while with her, knowing we couldn't keep her, Christina found a nice person to take her in. I miss that cutie!

I was bitten by some sort of particularly bad poisonous spider, sometime in my sleep... and ended up with a nasty abscess. The weird thing is it got me in exactly the same spot my friend Eric was bitten last winter. I got to see the hospital health care system first hand.


My apartment-mate moved in with her boyfriend and I moved from my apartment to a hostel with a lovely rooftop patio and a perfect location in the Centro. I lived there for a month while searching for just the right apartment.

I changed my original plans of spending all summer in Quintana Roo to that of just a week - exploring Cancun area and Tulum -- Tulum is truly magical. I ended up spending wonderful a week there with some friends visiting from the States.

and a week in Oaxaca visiting an old friend.

It was the Galagetza in Oaxaca, which meant there were demonstrations in art forms - the people's way of stating their frustrations with government - but with art, music, dance, crafts.... This made for wonderful shows, but a bit of a sense of danger as well, with people all too aware of the oppression and near police state that still lingered after the small war there in 2006.

I returned to Guanajuato and moved into an upstairs apartment in a very cool house on the side of one of the smaller mountains, close to the center of town, in a quaint neighborhood.

The view from my living room window is amazing.

All this time I continued to attend my language school. It's so pretty and the teachers are so great, it doesn't feel like school at all.

And I continue to work on my internet classes through my University back in the States. Ahhh I found a happy medium!

A little about the life in Guanajuato, for those of you who have been wondering...

Each morning I get up and head outside to turn on the water heater - an hour later I will be able to take a hot shower. (In the summer I didn't bother with this, and just took cold ones). That sentiment surprises my friends in the States who just turn the tap and have hot water, and the comment I always get is "I couldn't deal with that! There's no time to sit around for an hour waiting for hot water!" But it's all about how you value and use time. Instead of thinking of it as waiting, I will use that time to do things I want to do - make some tea and listen to music, and study my verb tenses, or check email, or dance a little in the living room, or read, or take a walk, or sit with the cat who hangs out in my alley, or write a little, or clean, or meditate, or study..... it's ok!

That's is my water heater. It's definitely seen better days, and I just hope it keeps working...

I'll then head to school down the winding cobblestone alleys lined by colorful houses, a downward trek to town and then upward again and out of the Centro.

After a full 6 hours of grammar, conversation, writing, culture classes, and general good fun learning Spanish, I head back towards the Centro and never make it far before running into friends. The town is so small that I don't go ten minutes without finding people to greet and chat with. What I love is that people take the time to stop and share a hug and a kiss in their greeting, and truly care about the answer when they ask how you are.

For those of you living the luxurious life I once took for granted in "gringolandia" (haha sorry), here is a peek into everyday life at my new home. One cannot drink the water, so garaphones of water can be purchased down at the corner store, or by roving water salesmen.

I can't carry that garaphone up the mountain to my house, so I listen for the guys in the morning, opting for the salesmen rather than the corner stores. Very early, starting around 7am you can hear them shouting "AAAGUAAAAAAA CIEEEEEL!!!!!"... I perk up, and wait till I can tell he is on my callejon (alley). Then I open my door and ask him for a water, and he heads back down the callejones towards the Centro and in 15 minutes or so returns with a garaphone of drinking water. This water I will use for cooking and drinking and disinfecting my vegetables, and it will last me about a week.

A good friend ended up with amoebas because she didn't disinfect her fruits and veggies before eating them. I am religious about doing this. I add the raw foods to a bowlful of clean drinking water treated with 20 drops of betadine and let the fruits and veggies sit for about 25 minutes. And this bowl of amazing strawberries was worth the wait! Thanks Megan and Marty! (they found a man selling strawberries in a doorway one day and brought these tasties home).

I mentioned earlier that my boiler is outside and I turn it on when I want hot water (in an hour). The gas tanks are kept outside as well, and I get more gas much the same was as my water. The tanks don't have a gauge on them to tell me when I am running out, so pretty much I figure this out when I go to cook and there is no flame, or go to light the boiler and it won't light. When I am out of gas, the next morning I listen for the gas guys, roaming the callejones and yelling "GAAAAAAAAASSS!!!!" and I pop my head out the door and order myself a tank. Half an hour later, the gas guy comes up with the 4 foot tall tank on his back, hooks it up to the line outside the house, and I have gas again for a few months.

Each day when I return home I check above my head for alacranes (scorpions). One evening I returned home to find 2 hanging out next to the window by the door - this was my first encounter with them in my house.... I panicked and stared at them, unable to move, until I realized I had to kill them. Not thinking about the shoes I was already wearing, I went into the bedroom to find a shoe. When I came back, there was only one. Terror set in. I killed the one, and felt so nervous I decided I had to leave the house. As I went to open the door, the missing alacran fell from the ceiling and grazed my hair on its way down to the floor. Adrenaline pumping, I stomped on it about 15 times, yelling and screaming; I had to laugh at myself at my reaction once I got over the fact that that thing was almost in my hair. So now I check the ceilings too. And my shoes. And the bed. And the aforementioned Megan and Marty took a photo of this guy who was hanging out on their bath towel early one morning... I keep imagining the very real possibility of reaching for the towel after washing one's face, only to have a scorpion sting you in the eye. Ugh. Ok, I exaggerate, but it's still a good idea to shake out your towel before your shower...

All of these "issues" are just the way it is. I love it there. I can't wait to get back. The month I have been here in the States I have been missing my town and my friends in mexico, felt the stress creeping back into my head, been cold (Virginia in November brrrr!), and feel downright pained as I see the wasteful lifestyle that was once normal for me. I now see how easy a life I had here, and though I appreciate it, I appreciate the simple things more when I am in Guanajuato and things are, well, simple.

I think of it Mexico as home now. I know I have made some of the best friends of my life there. I feel more myself there. I feel joyful and beautiful there. I am volunteer nurse to my friends and community, and free spirited life learner for myself, dancing and speaking Spanish, hiking mountains and visiting beaches, immersed in art and music, living to live.

(Photo by Michael Wright. Emily, Chris, Joel and I were a jammin' musical team)

So now, I will relish in my time in the US, because for all my missing Mexico, it is indeed a gift to be here with my sister and her family and to be just down the road from my Dad. Though I admit, in the quiet moments, I am dreaming of my return to Guanajuato :

(photo by Heather Sawyer, taken outside the Sala de Minas on Panoramica one particularly early morning)

I'll get back there soon, hopefully within a month, and I will continue to search for a way to keep living in my dream in my lovely town.