Sunday, April 30, 2006
The Fiestas in Arandas, Domingo Familiar, and Tetanus Booster Shots
The energy I was expecting to have after returning from my vacation never really appeared. I get so tired every day at work that I end up wanting to go to bed right after watching my telenovela, around 9:30. I think I just didn’t realize how hectic my vacation really was. My trip back from the States was also rather exhausting, as I had a really long layover in Dallas and then a seven-hour overnight bus ride back to Arandas. I did spend the next morning sleeping, but I don’t think it was enough to really be rested, because I had to travel to Guadalajara as well the same day. Despite the exhaustion, my attitude has definitely been refreshed, so that’s good for work.
Speaking of work, we had to work today—a Sunday. It was “Domingo familiar,” or “Family Sunday,” an event for the students and their families. We were to arrive at 11:30 a.m. to help set up, while the event would last from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. When we got to the events place—a terrace adjoining the Charro tequila distillery, everything was chaos. There had been a party the night before, and since they hadn’t been properly notified that we were having an event there the next day, they had left everything to clean later. Carnitas bones were sitting on the kitchen counter along with piles and piles of dirty dishes; the floors were filthy and there was trash everywhere; the table cloths were dirty and they didn’t have any clean linens. The people there were pissed off because they didn’t know there was going to be an event; we were pissed off because people would be arriving in an hour and a half and nobody was working very hard to get the place cleaned up. Later, the principal and other directors arrived, and they put us to work helping out. We picked up trash, arranged the tables, piled the dirty dishes in one corner of the kitchen, swept the patio, and since there weren’t any waiters, we had to wait and bus tables, too. In short, we did a lot of work none of us were expecting to have to do.
Exhausted back home, just writing another blog entry. We have tomorrow off because it’s May 1st, the international labor day. (Also, it’ll be the day we will not buy any gringo products, in protest of anti-immigration sentiments in the U.S.) I’ll probably just do lots of chores that I’ve been putting off in my laziness. I have to do laundry and clean my apartment and unpack properly. But lucky me, I get Tuesday off as well, because I have to go to Guadalajara once again for my visa. I’ll teach Wednesday and Thursday and then get Friday off, because it’s Cinco de Mayo (in commemoration of the Battle of Puebla, whatever happened there). Yet another three-day weekend! There are THREE of these long weekends in May. I thought about spending the next long weekend in Puerto Vallarta again, this time with Rocio, but it’s too little time for so much travel and expense. We will probably stay here and maybe take a day trip somewhere. Then for the last long weekend, the school is taking the teachers to Zacatecas, a colonial mining city in the hills to the north, but only for a day. It will be nice to see the Zacatecas, which I hear is beautiful, but what a pain it will be to travel all that way for just one day. Maybe I’ll convince Rocio to stay the night with me and go back by ourselves the next day.
This three-day weekend in Arandas are the last days of the fiestas patronales, or the fiestas for the patron saint of Arandas. I’m not sure who that is, actually. In any case, there are fair-like rides for the kids all along el parque and tent-restaurants set up in front. Every night this weekend there have been shows in el parque, and all along the main street, which has been blocked to traffic, there are bands playing banda music and people dancing and drinking in the streets.
I went last night with Rocio. I had only heard them before, especially one night when a band was playing very close by my building and woke and kept me awake until about 1 a.m. Rocio and I spent the afternoon dying her hair “uva,” or “grape.” Then we went to the fiestas. The streets around el parque were packed with people, not all from Arandas, because people from surrounding towns, even from Guadalajara, come as well. I waited for Rocio on a bench in el parque, and there were fireworks being set off right in the middle of the plaza. It was kind of frightening, until I realized I was safe in my area from burning bits falling from the sky. We walked around and found some of Rocio’s friends. We stood chatting and sometimes Rocio and her friends would dance banda.
The friend of the boyfriend of one of Rocio’s friends was this nice cross-eyed guy. When he was away getting something to drink, I heard them talking about him, that it was sad that none of the girls ever want to dance with him, because of his being cross-eyed, and it’s a pity because he’s such a nice guy. Well, there I was with no one to dance with and not wanting to dance banda with just any guy because it’s kind of a sketchy and intimate dance, so I thought I’d be nice and talk to him. We had a so-so conversation, and then he gave me his cap, which is this cheap thing with the logo of the tequila distillery where he works. He never invited me to dance (I suppose he doesn’t try to ask girls much anymore), but he invited me to the charreada that was happening today in the lienzo charro near my apartment, which I would’ve attended except we had the stupid school event today. I was not interested in him in the least, but then later everyone kept making jokes about him to me. “Where’s your boyfriend, Jeanne?” or “Where did your conquest go?” I would say, “What conquest?” and everyone would just laugh. Even today Rocio and Aracely were telling all the other teachers at the Family Sunday thing that I had picked some guy up, and, exasperated, I’d have to set the record straight. It’s like being in middle school all over again.
Anyway, tomorrow is the last day of the fiestas, and I’m considering going again, but I’m pretty sure I’ll just be tired after watching “La fea” and not want to go. After all, I have to wake up super early to take the bus to Guadalajara Tuesday morning.
In other news, I have been asked to play the piano with the students while they perform the Mexican national anthem in a competition this week. I spent a few hours practicing last week, but it was such short notice, and I haven’t played the piano in several years, that I think I should tell them it’d be better to just have guitar accompaniment from the music teacher. I suck. And, as always, I don’t really practice much. I didn’t practice yesterday or today! I meant to, but … you know how it is. Practically every day I get the national anthem stuck in my head, though. Kind of bizarre.
After an afternoon English class on Thursday, Aracely and I got tetanus booster shots. One of my students is a pediatrician, and in his class we had discussed tetanus a couple of times. I can’t remember how it came up the first time, but the second mention was made by me to demonstrate the usefulness of the present perfect tense, as in the question you ask someone who has just stepped on a rusty nail, “Have you had your tetanus shot?” We were talking about tetanus for a while, and I asked, “What happens if you get tetanus?” and the doctor answered, “You die.” I thought he was joking but in fact tetanus is often fatal. You are supposed to get the vaccine boosted every five to ten years, and I can’t remember the last time I had one—probably in high school. So he brought us booster shots the next day and administered them right there in English class. My upper arm still hurts from it! Anyway, public service announcement for the day: get your tetanus booster shot if it has been ten years without an injury since your last one, or if it has been five years with an injury, or if you can’t remember when your last booster shot was. Even though it kind of hurts a little.
Speaking of work, we had to work today—a Sunday. It was “Domingo familiar,” or “Family Sunday,” an event for the students and their families. We were to arrive at 11:30 a.m. to help set up, while the event would last from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. When we got to the events place—a terrace adjoining the Charro tequila distillery, everything was chaos. There had been a party the night before, and since they hadn’t been properly notified that we were having an event there the next day, they had left everything to clean later. Carnitas bones were sitting on the kitchen counter along with piles and piles of dirty dishes; the floors were filthy and there was trash everywhere; the table cloths were dirty and they didn’t have any clean linens. The people there were pissed off because they didn’t know there was going to be an event; we were pissed off because people would be arriving in an hour and a half and nobody was working very hard to get the place cleaned up. Later, the principal and other directors arrived, and they put us to work helping out. We picked up trash, arranged the tables, piled the dirty dishes in one corner of the kitchen, swept the patio, and since there weren’t any waiters, we had to wait and bus tables, too. In short, we did a lot of work none of us were expecting to have to do.
Exhausted back home, just writing another blog entry. We have tomorrow off because it’s May 1st, the international labor day. (Also, it’ll be the day we will not buy any gringo products, in protest of anti-immigration sentiments in the U.S.) I’ll probably just do lots of chores that I’ve been putting off in my laziness. I have to do laundry and clean my apartment and unpack properly. But lucky me, I get Tuesday off as well, because I have to go to Guadalajara once again for my visa. I’ll teach Wednesday and Thursday and then get Friday off, because it’s Cinco de Mayo (in commemoration of the Battle of Puebla, whatever happened there). Yet another three-day weekend! There are THREE of these long weekends in May. I thought about spending the next long weekend in Puerto Vallarta again, this time with Rocio, but it’s too little time for so much travel and expense. We will probably stay here and maybe take a day trip somewhere. Then for the last long weekend, the school is taking the teachers to Zacatecas, a colonial mining city in the hills to the north, but only for a day. It will be nice to see the Zacatecas, which I hear is beautiful, but what a pain it will be to travel all that way for just one day. Maybe I’ll convince Rocio to stay the night with me and go back by ourselves the next day.
This three-day weekend in Arandas are the last days of the fiestas patronales, or the fiestas for the patron saint of Arandas. I’m not sure who that is, actually. In any case, there are fair-like rides for the kids all along el parque and tent-restaurants set up in front. Every night this weekend there have been shows in el parque, and all along the main street, which has been blocked to traffic, there are bands playing banda music and people dancing and drinking in the streets.
I went last night with Rocio. I had only heard them before, especially one night when a band was playing very close by my building and woke and kept me awake until about 1 a.m. Rocio and I spent the afternoon dying her hair “uva,” or “grape.” Then we went to the fiestas. The streets around el parque were packed with people, not all from Arandas, because people from surrounding towns, even from Guadalajara, come as well. I waited for Rocio on a bench in el parque, and there were fireworks being set off right in the middle of the plaza. It was kind of frightening, until I realized I was safe in my area from burning bits falling from the sky. We walked around and found some of Rocio’s friends. We stood chatting and sometimes Rocio and her friends would dance banda.
The friend of the boyfriend of one of Rocio’s friends was this nice cross-eyed guy. When he was away getting something to drink, I heard them talking about him, that it was sad that none of the girls ever want to dance with him, because of his being cross-eyed, and it’s a pity because he’s such a nice guy. Well, there I was with no one to dance with and not wanting to dance banda with just any guy because it’s kind of a sketchy and intimate dance, so I thought I’d be nice and talk to him. We had a so-so conversation, and then he gave me his cap, which is this cheap thing with the logo of the tequila distillery where he works. He never invited me to dance (I suppose he doesn’t try to ask girls much anymore), but he invited me to the charreada that was happening today in the lienzo charro near my apartment, which I would’ve attended except we had the stupid school event today. I was not interested in him in the least, but then later everyone kept making jokes about him to me. “Where’s your boyfriend, Jeanne?” or “Where did your conquest go?” I would say, “What conquest?” and everyone would just laugh. Even today Rocio and Aracely were telling all the other teachers at the Family Sunday thing that I had picked some guy up, and, exasperated, I’d have to set the record straight. It’s like being in middle school all over again.
Anyway, tomorrow is the last day of the fiestas, and I’m considering going again, but I’m pretty sure I’ll just be tired after watching “La fea” and not want to go. After all, I have to wake up super early to take the bus to Guadalajara Tuesday morning.
In other news, I have been asked to play the piano with the students while they perform the Mexican national anthem in a competition this week. I spent a few hours practicing last week, but it was such short notice, and I haven’t played the piano in several years, that I think I should tell them it’d be better to just have guitar accompaniment from the music teacher. I suck. And, as always, I don’t really practice much. I didn’t practice yesterday or today! I meant to, but … you know how it is. Practically every day I get the national anthem stuck in my head, though. Kind of bizarre.
After an afternoon English class on Thursday, Aracely and I got tetanus booster shots. One of my students is a pediatrician, and in his class we had discussed tetanus a couple of times. I can’t remember how it came up the first time, but the second mention was made by me to demonstrate the usefulness of the present perfect tense, as in the question you ask someone who has just stepped on a rusty nail, “Have you had your tetanus shot?” We were talking about tetanus for a while, and I asked, “What happens if you get tetanus?” and the doctor answered, “You die.” I thought he was joking but in fact tetanus is often fatal. You are supposed to get the vaccine boosted every five to ten years, and I can’t remember the last time I had one—probably in high school. So he brought us booster shots the next day and administered them right there in English class. My upper arm still hurts from it! Anyway, public service announcement for the day: get your tetanus booster shot if it has been ten years without an injury since your last one, or if it has been five years with an injury, or if you can’t remember when your last booster shot was. Even though it kind of hurts a little.
