Mmmm....chocolate skulls.

This last Saturday I went to the Day of the Dead market. So cool! Plus, it was in the sketchy part of Tehuacan, so I felt like I was finally in Mexico. (Don't worry Mom, I'm fine. I only got mugged twice). :)

The market is just GIGANTIC!!!! I wouldn't have been surprised if I got lost multiple times, but thank goodness I didn't. I probably would've cried. That wouldn't have attracted attention at all...

Here are pictures!

Everywhere there were all these huge bins full of pottery that was so beautiful. I just loved how it looked, and had to take tons of pictures!


In the first part of the market they had everything to do with Dia de los Muertos, and they had the coolest candies everywhere! And some really sick stuff that I don't even want to talk about, but the candies were awesome. I don't know how they make it, or how they keep it from melting in the hot Mexican sun, but they do it!

This is Pan de Muertos. It has something to do with Day of the Dead, but I honestly have no idea! I should probably figure that out, since I live in Mexico and am seeing it everywhere. It is sooo good!


These pots were everywhere, and they make all sorts of beans and other foods in them. Definitely a Mexico staple. Plus they were crazy cheap! Only 25 pesos, which is roughly $2.20 - anyone want one? I can afford that :)




There were tons of peppers there. Then I realized that I was in Mexico, and felt like an idiot. One day my family and I were in the store and I didn't know why EVERYTHING was written in Spanish! Yeah...I hit my head on the bottom of a pool.

The man who was selling his peppers kept on wanting me to take a picture of him, and I kept on motioning to him that I didn't want to take a picture of him. I finally just gave in and pretended to take a picture of him, and sneakily didn't. Ha ha ha! Too bad. I probably made his day.





So here in Tehuacan there is a ritual called 'La Matanza,' where they slaughter thousands of sheep in a showing of thanks. There's more to it, but I can't really remember. I guess if you really want to know more, I will find out for you. Anyway - there is a special dish called Mole de Caderas where it is a soup made with the hip bone of the sheep, and is very expensive. They only have it this time of year, and it costs about 200 pesos for one dish - which is outlandish for Mexico! A parent of one of my students invited me over for dinner to have it, and I am very excited. In the picture, you can see the feet from the sheep, and the little bundle of strings is actually intestines. Weird. It is all tied up in a little bow! How...cute?



Classic Mexican style - shirt half up. Not even kidding.



The End!

Don't worry, it was only temporary.

Don't worry, kids. My face is fine now. Unfortunately I didn't take a ton of pictures of my face - some people my think of this as a good thing. But really, it was quite the face. To put it in the words of my good friend April, who is also a teacher here in Tehuacan, "Suzy, your face is nasty."

Thanks.

But she spoke the truth. I had some seriously nasty scabs on my chin, above my lips, and a HUGE bump on my forehead. Thank goodness for bangs. Here's a picture from when it first happened :

You like the sugar on the forehead? Yup. It absorbs moisture. Who knew?

Don't mind the awkward facial expressions. Give me a break - I'm laughing because I just hit my head on the bottom of a pool!

I'm just living the dream here guys!

life lessons. they're all over the place.

What does this handsome lad have to do with me being in Mexico? A lot, actually.

Long story short, I hit my head on the bottom of a swimming pool and screwed up my face. It hurt a lot, and I'm not sure if I had a concussion or not, but I was acting really weird afterwards. So here's the story...

So it was my host Grandma's birthday, and there was a big party for her at a park. I was really excited. My family said that we would be swimming and to bring my swimming suit, so I said, "OK." And I brought it.

So we (my family, my sister Mandy, and our friend April) get there. April and I got creeped out by some teenage boys, and then we went swimming. We played a lot of swimming games and it was way fun! There was a shallow end and a deep end, so it was a regular pool, right?

Wrong.

After a little while, we decided to have a cannonball contest. Mine won...naturally. Somehow, a teacher remembered that I was a diver in high school, so they told me to do the dive. I said no. I reminded them how I...was not very enthusiastic...about diving while in high school, and how I hadn't dove (dived? diven?) since State competition in 2007. So over three years. I figured that I would be a little rusty. But how bad could it be, right? I mean, I was literally just jumping off a seven foot platform into a pool. Standing front dive - easy.

Well, my arm is sore - it's not broken, but something is definitely up with it. I have the biggest goose egg on my face, (my little brother Luis says that there is a rock in my head). I am scaring small, Mexican children with the gashes on my face, and to top it all off, I have a scrape on my arm that feels like a rugburn, that probably hurts the worst - and it's not even that big. That is probably the worst part. Earlier that day, I bent down in the bathroom and hit my head on the metal handle, and I made everyone feel my "bump" on my forehead. If only I had known what was to come later...

Hopefully I won't be known as 'The Girl Who Hit Her Head On the Bottom Of the Pool', rather than 'The Girl Who Peed Her Pants' (story to come later...). I guess there are worse things. But not a ton.

So, if you have been paying attention, there were many a lesson to be learned here:
1- Don't learn how to dive correctly. If you are smart, you will just do a shallow dive and run the risk of a belly flop. Those hurt, but the pain wears off. Plus, you don't get scraped by water.
2- Actually, don't even learn to dive in general. Cannonballs are much more fun, and you get to look like "Ham" from The Sandlot.
3- Sugar soaks up liquid from bumps. Not actually something that you should have learned from this short story, but it's true. My host Mom put sugar on my forehead, I was very confused, but hey - how many people can say that they've gotten sugar put on their forehead IN MEXICO! Not a lot. Think about it. The only downside to that was that it kept on going down my shirt. No me gusta.
4- If you are in a foreign country and wanting to dive into a sketchy swimming pool, always go the extra mile and ask someone who knows English how deep the water is. It will save much pain, and as an added bonus, embarrassment.

You bet your burro there will be pictures a comin'!!! From various family member's reactions on Skype, I bet you, the reader, will enjoy them.

Who knew it could be cold in Mexico? I didn't.

Thank goodness I brought my Utah State sweatshirt, or else I would be in big trouble. Usually when people think of Mexico, they think of warm, sunny beaches and getting the best tan of their lives. Also, people might think of drug cartels, but that is a whole different story. Anyway, it is starting to get cold here, and even though it is nothing like Utah falls where it is warm one day and then snowing the next, it is getting pretty chilly. I mean really, I was cold when I was sitting in the shade today. It's going to be quite the shock when I go home to two feet of snow. I'm not especially excited about that. And if you were wondering about me being tan, don't worry - I will still be the same old Suzy when I get back! The Self-Esteem Booster....whiter than anyone else.

On a different note, I have broken four pairs of shoes in Mexico. I don't know what it is about me, Mexico, and shoes, but we apparently don't mix. The first pair I broke in the second week while walking to school, and since I needed to be to class in 5 minutes, I duct taped it to my foot. I felt very "Red Green" ish. I'm pretty sure that only my family will know what I'm talking about there! But none of my school kids noticed, and hopefully none of the other teachers, so I thought I was pretty cool! The second, third, and fourth pairs have just....deteriorated. With all of the walking in the rain, it has really worn them out. They will just randomly break in half. One time it was in front of a fire station, and I just left half of my shoe there. Oh well, I'm American. They already think that I'm weird.

I am a terrible blogger, but I'm trying.

OK, so Mexico is great! Really it is. But I've been so busy with a lot of stuff that I haven't had time to even write anything. So here are some things that have happened:

-I was on the front row for the circus.
-I was asked if I was an American princess.
-I got married to my 8 year-old cousin, Rodrigo. I promised to cook his food and always have Coca Cola on the table.
-My friends cousin Johnny walked in on me belting out some Mulan songs, and all he said was, "Can I pass?" (The Mexican version of 'Can I pass through your room?')
-I've watched 'Four Christmases' twice. Why? Because it plays on the bus to Puebla. It's not even Christmastime. Terrible movie, if anyone was wondering. Why Reese?
-I've watched 'The Last Airbender' twice. Dubbed. But I still liked it!
-My school children think that I'm in love with Justin Beiber....?
Well I've gotta go to an illegal movie store to pick my entertainment for the night. Geez I love Mexico....