Friday – dia del mural

Mural design

Friday. Went to the casa to paint the mural. First of all Emily and I went to a hardware store and bought a litre of white paint (economico) for about £1.50. It turned out to be practically transparent and useless so I walked to the nearby supermarket with the 2 Miguels and bought another litre for about £1.90 – this worked much better. The Miguels helped me paint the wall white. Miguel S helped me all day (Emily commented on how keen he had been to paint) apart from around midday when he had a kip. It was very boring watching paint dry! Miguel E went to school in the afternoon – kids either go in the morning or the afternoon, but not both. Lupita and Bibiana (2 of the women who work at the casa) came and helped me paint around lunchtime, then Miguel and Cristian (who isn’t in my art group) painted with me til 4. I think we’ll finish no problem next Friday, as it’s quite a simple design.

There's a German girl who's just started at the casa. She's about 17 and seems to have only 2 facial expressions – bored or scared witless. She's only about a year older than the eldest of the boys so I imagine they'd be a bit scary. Having spent the first 2 weeks accidentally speaking German everytime I tried to say something in Spanish, I kept on interjecting Spanish words when I spoke to her in German. Flippn' brain can't get it right.

I don’t seem to be going out much, though that’s not really bothering me at all. I spent the evening half watching telly and writing up lesson plans. I feel a bit like a character in a Jane Austen novel, spending my time (quite happily) on ‘diversions’, keeping myself busy with activities other than watching the telly: reading and writing and going to bed at a reasonable time (apart from having the telly on in the background, but I’m not really watching it as I don’t understand what they’re saying!). Having said that I have picked up a few words. Mexican soap operas are numerous and rubbish, really hammy. They make Curly Watts look like Laurence Olivier. A news programme told me the clocks go back on Sunday, which is just as well as no-one else has.

Adverts on telly don’t seem to have snappy straplines, instead what look like government approved statements appear at the bottom of the screen (always in the same typeface and in capitals). For example: shampoo commercials tell you salud es belleza (health is beauty); food commercials (even for Coffee-mate) tell you to come bien (eat well), an advert for tinned tuna says ‘eat tuna, live well’ – if only life were that simple. Axe (Lynx in Britian) assures you that ‘cleanliness is healthy’ (limpieza es salud). Caring for yourself is enjoyable I’m told by an advert for powdered chicken stock – good to know. Burger King's ad instructs you to "do sport" – sweet irony!

Judging by the adverts (and what’s on sale in the supermarkets) Mexicans suffer badly with dandruff. And while I’m at it… they must be crap at parking as even in the biggest car parks have people tooting whistles to guide them into spaces (that even I could get into) and then get a tip for doing so. You’re not meant to take shopping bags (purchases from other shops) into supermarkets, so they provide lockers for you to stash your stuff. I haven’t seen a single pram or pushchair or buggy – all mums carry their babies in their arms, wrapped in a blanket (or sometimes tied to them) – this is all mums, not rustic, poor or indigenous women in particular. I think this very considerate, as nothing makes me curse more than dodging myriad buggies down the central aisle of Woolies (it still exsists in Mexico…as does C&A).