Day three

A quick note: all of this wandering I've been doing has not been without consequences. The pedestrian streets around the Zocalo where we've been spending most of our time are all made of cobblestones, and to get there from my homestay takes over half an hour. Plus I've been walking other people home at night... Anyway, I have three budding blisters between my two feet, and I was happy to stay in most of today just to avoid walking on them at all.

Other consequences of our presence here have taken the shape of two or three of my classmates being absent from the party at our RA's this evening: they stayed home with intestinal unpleasantness. The weird thing is that I ate exactly the same things as two of them for dinner and I am fine. We'll see how long I last, though.

Jasmine and I did our reading in the garden today while Martina the dog romped around. Once Martina went back inside, Huela the 14-year old cat came out to sunbathe:


Jasmine also spotted a tiny lizard:


And these are the tallest poinsettias I have ever seen:



When it came time for La Comida, three of Viky's (our house mother) sisters, one of their husbands, and two cousins came over. Remember, Viky's two daughters and her cousin live with her, and her aunt and another cousin are visiting right now, so there was a full house. We ate outside in the garden. Someone brought empanadas oaxaqueños: large handmade corn tortillas folded over different kinds of moles (by the way, not all moles have chocolate in them; these had mole amarillo, or yellow mole) with chicken or cheese and fresh cilantro. People eat them with their hands, folding over the open side and holding it basically like a piece of pizza; unfortunately, Jasmine and I didn't get to see anyone do this before we tried to eat our own, and things got pretty messy. There was also special holiday beer Noche Buena, la rosca de reyes, and fresh ice cream. They call ice cream nieve (snow) rather than helado. I had a scoop of some white, nutty ice cream and a scoop of a sorbet of atuna, a bright magenta cactus fruit. Everything was delicious, and we ate for two hours before heading over to Anna's.

Me and my host mother, Viky