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Sorry for the delay of a few days…turns out the exchange rate on time isn't so great. Our American hours translate into days here.

What a week so far. We started Spanish school on Tuesday at the Institution de Fénix, founded by the Profesor Arturo Dorado, and staffed largely by his entire family. It’s been some time since I had to wake up at a specific time each day and get to a classroom, so it’s taking some getting used to, for sure. Oh, and we have homework! The classes are pretty good, and I'm definitely learning lots. At the very least, I know more than I did last week.

There are only four of us in the class, and only six altogether in the school right now. They have had a really difficult time this summer because of the media blow-ups about the swine flu (which Mexico was recognized internationally for dealing with in such an efficient fashion) and the "narco-terrorism". Many US schools cancelled their summer programs, so where there usually would be 80-100 students, there are only us 6. Kind of a tragedy for the family, as it is their sole source of income and rent on the building is high. I can imagine that this is a microcosm of many industries here in Mexico that have been greatly affected by the American media's need to exaggerate problems in general.
I wonder if anyone in the MSM (mainstream media) ever takes into account such things. I imagine they don't, as it's great for ratings.
Jerks.

Anyway, so we start the day with 3 hours of studying grammar, vocabulary, etc (telling time, comparisons, etc). It's crazy how many different categories there are in Spanish, some that don't exist at all in English, as far as I know, like Redundancias. Not to mention that I couldn't tell you what most of these things are in English, much less try to get them in Spanish. Double object pronouns? Indirect object pronouns? Prepositional object pronouns? Yes, I learned them at some point, but that was a looooong time ago…and I haven't done a lot of thinking about English sentence structure since.

Our teacher for the first part of the day is the youngest Dorado daughter, Lorena. She's trained as a psicológia, but is a fine teacher as well. She's also the shortest member of the family, which I know because we spent hours comparing the various family members to each other. We also know their entire family tree – their cuñados, yuernas, suegras,abuelas and so on.

We spend the next two hours with the Prof. Dorado studying pronunciation, random questions, and cultural stuff. He's a fascinating man, and I am really hoping that I'll be able to continue learning from him beyond the 6 weeks I have planned. He is not just a fly-by-night Spanish teacher, but a real student (and teacher) of linguistics. His insights into language, culture and how they fit together are pretty cool. Some things I've learned, though very basic if you know Spanish, are really interesting. Such as, the letters "n" and "ñ" are just that – separate letters. The letters (and sounds) "r" and "rr" are also separate! Yes, basic, I'm sure, but still far out. I do want to say that the letters are not indicative of the concepts he has taught us – just what I can remember right now…the concepts we've discussed with him are definitely more interesting than just letters.

The other two students in our class are a couple from Holland that are on a motorcycle tour of the Americas. They started in New York, rode up to Canada and back down through the US into Mexico. After a couple weeks here, they're heading further south through Mexico into Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina – as far south as the roads go – and then back up the other side, as time permits. They did the same thing through Africa some years ago, and have been living in Moscow for the past 3 years. Their blog is here - http://www.aukemarieke.blogspot.com/
Pretty awesome.

The school also organizes trips, movies, and other activities to get people more involved in the culture, which is great. We'll be going to some museums, archeological sites, "coffee socials", and other events which should be fun.

When we were talking to Professor Dorado about how much the school would cost – we had been told that people working at CDM got a discounted rate – there was a moment, for me at least, where I felt like we were here really doing good work, and not just some stuff that anyone could do and wasn't such a big deal. He was very clear that he gives the discount specifically because the CDM is a great organization that does very important work for his people. Call me sentimental, or even ask why I need to hear some encouraging words to feel good, but it gave me chills up my spine. I hope that doesn't sound negative in any way...

Another interesting thing about Prof. Dorado- We were talking about us being Jewish (and of course we were asked if we knew his Jewish friend in New York) and he mentioned that his last name is a special one. There are very few Dorados in Mexico, and mostly in one area. It turns out that the name is a Marrano one! Marranos were the Jews who were persecuted in Spain and had to hide their Jewishness from the Catholic Church out of fear of being killed. They took their "hidden" heritage with them when they went to the colonies, but over the years, mostly became actual Catholics. It's pretty cool that he is still aware of that part of his history (which his father told him about) although he definitely doesn't identify as Jewish in any way.

Some other stuff that happened this week:
We moved rooms in the hotel, which is great, because we now have a kitchen. I made my first meal in Mexico, which wasn't fancy, but I will say it was better than most of the restaurant food we've eaten. I'm glad I decided to bring my camping pots and leatherman tool, as they were indispensable. The crazy thing is that everything needs to be washed with bottled water – pots, dishes, vegetables and fruits. For the fruits and veggies (except those with peels), people actually wash them with soap to get the bacteria off, and then rinse with tap water, dry them and rinse again with bottled water. It's an annoying process, to be sure, but my stomach is thankful.
(Update: just wanted to say, it's not the bacteria the people worry about when it comes to the water, at least here in Zacatecas. It's the heavy waters in the aquifer, which has been ruined, due to the centuries of mining in the area. And check it! The biggest Corona factory is right here and uses the water! Huzzah!)

We learned what the terribly annoying and loud noise is every morning that goes on around 8am or so. When you buy gas for heating water and cooking, it doesn't come through pipelines or whatever. There are trucks that drive around with tanks on the back. They play loud music and scream "Gaz! Gaz!" Then, you have to run out and catch the truck. The guy stops and comes inside and takes your empty tank. Then hebrings a full one inside and hooks it up. A tank is good for a couple months, I think.