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This is the home of my hostess during my stay in Merida. Her home is better than the average "casa" and is in one of
the new "colonias" or neighborhoods being built north of the main part of town. Although this photo doesn't show it, on top
of every home is a water resevoir (about 30 gallons or so) because the water pressure is just awful and without a resevoir
you'd never have enough water for a shower.
NO ONE here drinks the water! The poorest of the poor buy bottled water before they buy electricity,
although I am sure that many of them often have to drink the water from the tap. The water here is untreated and guaranteed
to make anyone who drinks it very ill for several days.
No one I knew uses a washer or dryer (although a few folks had one) and no one had a dishwasher. Laundry
is done by hand, like my Meridian "Mom" did, or taken to a laundromat. However, the laundromats have no machines. You give
your clothes to the person there who weighs them. Then tomorrow you can go pick them up, all cleaned and folded for you and
are charged by the kilogram. A weeks worth of laundry costs about $4 to get done. However since electricity is so expensive,
getting a weeks worth of laundry washed and ironed costs about $45!
This is the backyard. The homes are always surrounded by a high wall, and everything is made of concrete: no brick, siding
or wood. Along the top of the wall connecting this home with the one next to it (although you can't see it here) are four
wires. These are the electricity to the house, and the wires are 'hot'. Birds can of course land safely on the wires, but
the iguanas (which are very common) usually ended up deaded on the grass somewhere with a "shocked" look on their faces.
This is the main dining room and living room of my hostess' home. You can see the tile floor; carpets just don't exist
much here. And stepping out of the shower onto this floor was always an adventure!
The front door is always opened when anyone is home, and often when the house is empty, in an attempt to encourage a
breeze through the house. You would not believe how hot it was here! Most days, the temps hovered at or above 100
degrees and the humidity made it feel like 115 degrees or so. There was a small air conditioner in the house, but with electricity
costing so much, I think we had it on for like two hours total during my stay. For some reason, ceiling fans are not as popular
as I thought they might be.
I found out all about "siesta" while here. Breakfast is much like ours, but lunch is the main meal of the day, at about
1pm. Then nothing much else is done until about 2:30pm or so, since this is the hottest part of the day. Dinner is a small
meal, usually at 9:30pm or later when it has started to cool down. Walking around town in the evening was strange: all those
restaurants were empty at 8pm, just lots of tables and waiters standing around. But by 10pm, the town was hopping, all the
tables were full, bands were playing in the streets around El Centro (main downtown plaza) and often you could see construction
workers inside new homes, kids playing football, museums open, etc. until nearly 2am because it was so pleasant.
This was my room, and was very nice. My "Mom" had arranged for the cable to be turned on for my TV set, although there
are only half a dozen non-premium cable channels. At least I could watch the History channel! I had my own bathroom just
to the right of this photo, which worked out real well the weekend that I got sick from eating a slice of beef (never
recommended in this part of Mexico) slathered in olive oil.
Those round silver things on the wall are for a hammock. There are of course two more on the wall behind where I stood
to take this photo. Hammocks are MUCH cooler than sleeping on the bed, but after trying to use one for a couple of days, my
back just couldn't adjust. Besides, laying in a hammock with a bag of chips, a few books and the remote for the TV was awkward
at best. But right next to my bed was a floor fan that was always on!
Most of the movies were either in English or French, and dubbed into Spanish. There were four or five channels available
just with the antenna, mostly soap operas and of course a cartoon channel. Twice a day there was news in Mayan, since many
of the folks there are of Mayan descent, and many Mayan terms are part of the local version of Spanish.
This is my school. Actually, it's an older home that is being converted into a school. This is a branch of the main campus
in Puebla, Mexico and just opened up last November. It is still quite 'rustic': the water fountain doesn't work, the computer
is rock-bottom basic and has only a dialup connection, and while the classrooms each have an air conditioner, most of the
cooling (such as it was) is done by fans. But in Mexico, nothing happens quickly and in another year or so this should be
a much nicer place to study.
There are four classrooms, a meeting room, a room with a computer and a TV (no cable connection though) and a small (as
in extremely small) fridge, and a couple of offices. Street addresses here are different too. The school address is C.37 358
e 58 y 60 which means that it is on 37th street, number 358 between 58th and 60th streets. There were only six full-time students
in the whole school while I was there, and only one other in my class. And he was a real "unique" individual: a seminary student
from L.A. who was Indonesian but had lived in the U.S. for about 8 years. However, his English was only somewhat better than
his Spanish, and that sure made for some interesting times in class!
This is my instructor, Nelly. She was a fantastic teacher: patient without limit, great sense of humor, and since the
school was so small both Nelly and the other full-time instructor became good friends. The education system in Mexico is quite
different from ours, and while there Nelly passed a series of very tough exams that permitted her to teach any of the social
sciences at any level, including college. This was quite an achievement!
She was always trying to draw pictures illustrating new vocabularly, and her drawings always sucked! You should have
been there the day we coined the phrase "hamacasutra"! (hamaca = hammock). Who knew a seminary student and a nice senorita could
have such a raunchy sense of humor?
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