Taking the Wrong Bus

Whew!! Today was quite a day. I went on a field trip today with my tutor to various museums to look at murals depicting the history of Mexico as seen by the Mexicans today. Unfortunately, I didn´t have my camera, so I´ll have to go back and post pictures later. After school, I went to the hospital to meet my tutor. After waiting for 1 1/2 hours to see the director of the hospital, I learned that my mentor wasn´t there today and that I have to wait to meet him on Monday! During the time waiting, I took some pictures of the hospital, which you can see on the other blog. The real event of the day took place when I took the wrong combi to get home for lunch. Combis are small buses, or VW vans. They are color coded and are numbered for each route. I was so focused on finding a 1 or 4, that I didn´t realize I got on a brown one instead of a red one. In my defense, brown and red seem to be very very similar colors here in Mexico when on a combi. So after taking a nice tour around town and ending up in the middle of nowhere (literally!), I had to return on another bus and walk to my house. All´s well that ends well though and I made it back home safely and then some. On the bright side, however, I am quite well oriented with the layout of the city now should I ever need to find my way home again.

In other exciting news, tomorrow I am going to a nearby city named Pátzuaro. I have made two new friends at the language school who ironically are also from Oregon! Here´s to you, Ginger and Carrie. After spending the weekend at the lake and viewing the well-preserved traditions of the area, I will post pictures of our trip and descriptions. That´s all for now. Please write me emails to let me know how all of you are doing. And starting next week, I should have some exciting hospital stories. It looks like I might be starting in the Emergency Room!

Also, a side note, to explain the pictures. The older man is my host dad, Pedro. He is dancing with his grandaughter, Camila, who lives with us. She is one year old. The other picture of her is with my host mom, Leonor, and her aunt, Julissa, who also lives with us. Camila was opening her presents that the Three Kings brought her. This is January 6, the day kids get their presents if they´ve been good all year. They don´t really have Santa Claus here. The other photo is just a little park I walk by on my way home from school. I also included a picture of a church in the Plaza de San Francisco. It is the same plaza as the huge tree that you can see in the photo from my roof.