Got here around 5 am (my time) about midnight Mexico time. Everyone here thought I was arriving tomorrow (!) but luckily Alison (Juconi Director) and her friend, Anita, were here to let me in (most importantly!) and give me an unexpected very British welcome including a cup of tea and a month-old copy of the Guardian and a jar of Marmite. Today I met Emily, an American girl who's been working here for about a year and who I hope will be a friend and good source of information, and Gelos who took me to casa Juconi: there I sat in on an art session in which the kids were painting dia del muerto things – skulls and diablos. Dia del muerto is at the beginning of next month, it's a kind of bizarre (by most places' standards) Hallowe'en celebration (or is it? – it takes place a couple of days after Hallowe'en on 02 November) when the dead are remembered and celebrated – I expect I’ll understand more after I've seen it all happen.
There are 7 boys in the group and there were 2 other adults apart from Gelos and myself: I don't remember i.e. didn't catch their names. It was all very low-key, very tranquilo, very calm: none of the cheeky banter I would have expected between them, but they all seemed to be happily, calmly doing the work. One of the boy's work was "less good" than the others, insomuchas his painting was a bit haphazard, but the work was really good. They'd made skulls out of some kind of clay, with some really nice, quirky ideas. I hope the portrait project I'm going to do with them isn't too 'straight', they've obviously got some nice ideas in their heads.
I took photos of each of them, which I'm going to get printed out onto A4 for the project. Realised that possibly the only cable I haven't remembered to bring with me is the cable I need to get photos off my camera. Tipico! Gelos says she's got something that can read the camera's memory stick so my trip has been saved. You always have to forget to pack something. Here's hoping everything is compatible.
Gelos dropped me off at Juconi HQ where Maricarmen showed me an induction video and a little Powerpoint presentation on everything that Juconi does. My Spanish is only good enough for me to get the gist (though the pictures helped, as did Maricarmen with a little bit of English), but I think I know more than I did about Juconi's three programmes and other organisations they work alongside. Maricarmen escorted me back here around 12.30 and the rest of the day has been mine.
I said to Emily this morning that I am both willing and able to help out with more than just the art sessions, obviously it’s only the first day and it’ll come out in the wash but I’m a bit concerned that I’m going to have too much time on my hands and I’d rather get involved and be busy that have plenty of free time to fill. Of course it will depend to some extent on who I get to know, but I am very rubbish at motivating myself to ‘do something’ on my tod once the general sight-seeing is out of the way. I felt a pang of de ja vu earlier of being in Germany and poncing around not really doing anything that I’d said to myself I would.
Emily does therapy work with the niños, I got a brief run-down this morning. She seems really nice and straight-forward. A friend of hers has turned up this evening, she had invited me out with them but I was akip when he arrived (with his big booming voice!) and have only just come back to life after a cup of Nescafé. I’m 6 hours behind UK time, so it’s half eight here and half two in the morning for everyone at home. Bobby will be snoring in bed right now. I spoke to him briefly this morning (expect a large phone bill at the end of the month), partly because I had expected, and not had, a text message from him to wake up to and I wanted a bit of contact. Got a text message from Blinker to say that he and Anna are parents as of half eleven last night – a girl: congratulations.
I’ve been trying to get on the internet all day. I managed 5 bars on the wi-fi connection before I asked Emily if I needed a password (I do), then managed to receive one email (from RiO, an arts organization, asking me if I can work on a design project with some kids over the next couple of weeks – sod’s law), but the connection went down before I could reply. Will have to try to connect again tomorrow. The internet connection here is fleeting. Gone are any thoughts of catching up with British telly or listening to the radio online. I do like a bit of background noise– I’ve got some Mexican soap opera on at the moment; the theory being that I will pick up more Spanish my osmosis, though really it’s just to make me feel that there are people around! Actually you do pick up a few words off the telly – especially when the news has ‘breaking news’ subtitles going across the bottom of the screen. My new words today are lleno (full), vacío (empty), desarrollar (develop) and basura (rubbish). I thank you!
Emily says there’s a café down the road where I can get a decent wi-fi connection, I think I passed it on my failed trip to find a supermarket earlier. Puebla is set out on a grid system like most U.S. cities are. I know this is meant to be easy to navigate but it just confuses me. Puebla is also pretty low level (no church spires appearing above the skyline) so there’s not much to navigate by… so I set out and walked in a few different directions (I think actually I walked straight past the end of this road without realizing it) before, map out, got back to base. Very hot this afternoon, though it’s rained and become cooler since. My second trip to find a supermarket was more successful, there’s a massive Bodega ten minutes down the road, selling food in American-sized packs, I spent 338 pesos which is about 15 quid.
The house I’m staying in is behind one of Juconi’s offices, there’s a courtyard between the front, locked gates and the door. It’s quite modern with 3 bedrooms – you get to mine by walking through another. Everything’s painted in ‘Mexican colours’ – terracotta, yellow and dark green. Quite dark, which didn’t help me wake up this morning, but nice and open. Apparently if we run out of water I have to fiddle with a switch outside, and the water is solar-heated so no hot water if the weather’s bad. I feel a bit ‘locked away’ behind the doors, but am yet to explore and find out about buses (Maricarmen and I got a colectivo back here from the office, but lord knows how I’m going to suss where those go!)
I’m smoking – bad Kate.
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