Leaving Baja was one of the saddest things I've ever had to do.
So many unexpected things happened... My love and respect and views of my grandparents grew and changed. I experienced a very beautiful and extremely unexpected romance. It's hard to ignore love when it's practically smacking you in the face. It was brief, we were together only a month but it's something that I'll cherish forever... Not that it's even done, exactly... things are in the works... as I am planning on returning and I had these plans prior to meeting JR.
Oh life. It's such a beautiful thing, isn't it? I feel very happy and at ease with who I am and where I am in my life...
And I can't believe I'm about to graduate! I have less than one week left here in El Paso before I go back to Portland to begin writing my thesis. How crazy. Such an exciting time period in my life.
Fancy good-bye night. We had a lovely dinner and stayed up talking and drinking wine until 5am when I had to leave with Nana y Toño.
On one of our many drives to fro between El Pescadero and La Paz...
My time is almost up. So close. So close. I'm pretty sad about leaving. I have too many homes. Too many loves. It makes life difficult. Hahaha. But such is my life! It's my calling, I think. In a way. I can't explain it quite yet. One day.
Love you all.
Jr
Nelo's huerta
Friends :)
Fellow in yellow is who I've danced the most Banda with. He's good.
Portland was wonderful. I had some surprises and I expected to see certain people more than I did, but I had a great time the way things worked out. I was able to pull together my Chola costume, but unfortunately I didn't have the foresight to take photos early in the night when I looked my best. My only photos are from late in the late after dancing for hours and my hair got curly. Oh well...
This past week back in Baja has been good so far. My living situation has been shifted around. I'm now staying in the house and the trailer was sold. It's been worked out well. I have privacy and the bed is more comfortable than the was bed in the trailer, haha, so that's good.
Last night was my first party night since being back. Had a blast. Lots of singing and dancing and drinking, of course... So fun. I can't even really say what we did. We just sang and danced a hell of a lot. My toes were literally BLEEDING I danced so much and was stepped (stomped) on so many times while dancing Banda. How's that for hardcore?
I hosted a fish taco and tequila dinner party.
Best beer in Mexico.
Last night
Posing with the Salgado boys. My neighbors and homies.
Hello, hello! I'm in Portland right now! I got in night before last. It's cold and wet... Ugh. I'm not prepared for this weather. When I packed for Baja I didn't think far enough enough to realize it would be cold and rainy when I visited here. Oh well. I'm staying with the lovely lovely Sarah. I was so happy to see her, it had been nearly a year since we last saw each other. Sarah was my roommate freshman year and semi sophomore year. She studied abroad in Japan last spring, and then of course I was abroad in the summer, and then I'm on a leave of absence right now, so yeah. Many many months without seeing each other. Crazy.
Well, these pictures are from last weekend, and this past Wednesday when we were on our way to the airport....
This past Tuesday night I did something pretty funny. I performed some Zumba routines for a town festival. Haha. Me and the ladies in my class went, it was about 20 of us, and maybe 15 townsfolk, including the priest. Hahahaha. It was hilarious. I unfortunately didn't take photos, but I know the two guys who were, so hopefully I'll get photos/videos from them eventually. We shall see.
Aight! Well I need to roll out. Tomorrow is Halloween and my costume isn't 100% yet. Pictures of that will surely be posted. :)
Alma, Sammy, Emmanuel, FeFo, me, Enzo, and crazy Sergio
I'm falling in love you guys. This is dangerous...
So, I went to Cabo this past weekend. Had a blast. The usual group went, minus Disan (underage) and Dulce (had to work). But me, Emmanuel, Enzo, Sammy, Sergio, plus some guy named Fernando (Fefo!) all drove over Saturday evening together, and then we met Alma there in Cabo. Alma is the sort-of niece of Emmanuel's step mom. We stayed at said-stepmom's house. Her name is... Shepi. Or something like that. I'm not sure how it would be spelled. Hahaha. This past week was Cabo's patron saint festivals. Given that Cabo is a much larger city than Todos Santos, the party was much more grand, and with bigger named groups performing music. The day we were there we saw Límite (I suppose. I have zero recollection of this band for some reason.) and PeeWee. He was the kid singer who sang for some Kumbia Kings songs, and later fronted the Kumbia All Starz. He's now done his first solo album and is a Mexican novela star. Quite impressive for a kid from Texas! I now have dreams of becoming a novela star as well. I have faith in myself.
I'm kidding. That's not in my plans at all. Anyways. We all stayed there at the fiesta until it started dying down, and then we hopped a cab to the city center and did a bit of bar hopping. We tried getting into Squid Roe, but the meanies at the door wouldn't let us in because they didn't like Sergio's shoes. Jerks. Had at least one of us been white they would have let us in... After we were denied, a group of white guys walked in all wearing flip flops with the beachy look. So not cool. But I guess that's how it works. Cabo caters to Americans and other tourists. Whatever. We took our business elsewhere. We went to the famous Cabo Wabo briefly, but were a little annoyed with the band and quickly found a nice empty bar with good dance music and a stripper pole, sans stripper. We provided our own entertainment, and danced the night away. I had quite a blast! We stayed out until reallylate, and finally wandered back home exhausted and happy after a quick hotdog stop along the way.
A mattress had been thrown out in the living room, and all the women told me to sleep in the mom's room with her and Alma... but, I felt very uncomfortable doing that. Because neither of them have been very nice to me, Alma straight up ignores me and the step mom, well. She's a step mom. So I decided, no, that I wanted to stay out in the living room with my friends so that's what I did. Me, Sammy, Sergio, and FeFo's head all slept on that mattress. Sideways, with our feet hanging off. It was pretty funny. The next morning I refused to get up and was teased all morning until 4pm when I finally got out of bed (but only because they'd brought tacos). Hahaha.
Today I went to Zumba again, and I've been researching what it'll take for me to return here after I graduate and teach english at a university (best case scenario) or in a highschool or private language institute. I think my chances are good, since I speak decent spanish and already have experience with teaching english (it's one of my jobs on campus). I'm very very excited, because I can't imagine myself continuing with school immediately after graduation, nor do I want to jump into the normal workforce. I want to postpone that as long as possible. Doing this will give me great experience and will make getting into grad school all the more easy. A good thing. Win-win.
This weekend it's been the Todos Santos festival. Patron saint something or other. I really don't know. All I know is there's been mucho party partiez. Friday, it was just me, Emmanuel, Dulce y Disan (who I just realized spells his name, 'Dixan' but it's pronouced Disan. weird). We had a great time. Lots of wandering around. A cute young guy, named Lupe, approached Disan to find out my name, and I actually ended up liking him, miraculously enough. Normally strangers who approach me in public are a big no, but he was pleasant looking, and obviously younger than me, so I appreciated his guts. We talked a lot, but never danced... but his story shall continue...
Eventually all of us (yo, emma, dulce, disan) danced! We danced a lot, too. It was a banda group, but they played other stuff that was a little different. Two Selena songs. I was very excited about that. Hah. It was funny dancing with Emmanuel, since I'm about a whole head taller than him. He doesn't seem to mind though. Hahaha. The band stopped playing at 4am, and we left just a bit before they finished. Now, last night! Was my favorite. We went, same deal, same group. And then there was Lupe again, the tall 19 year old from the night before. And he approached me again and we talked again, and since Emmanuel and them wouldn't have danced until much later when they were drunk, I figured, eh. Screw em, I want to have fun. So, Lupe and I danced. And danced, and danced. And danced some more. He's a good dancer and I had a blast. It was really refreshing being with someone taller than me, hah. He's got to be at least 6'1'' or so. I hadn't looked up at anyone in a long while. Hah. Also, he was very patient with me. Emmanuel many times just tells me "olvidalo!" (forget it!) when I ask him to repeat things or explain something to me. Now, I understand why it's hard for him. I understand perfectly well, it's my job on campus with international students. It can be very tiring explaining everything to someone, especially something so seemingly simple. But that's the way language learning works...
Anyhoo. Lupe never told me olvidalo and explained all sorts of things to me and taught me some new phrases and words. Such as... me cae gordo! Same as me cae mal, just... funnier. And saying, Aguas! for watch out. We were saying 'Aguas!' alot while dancing to prevent collisions. Heehee. We took one break from dancing, and found Emma and them again. They were still just standing around, so Lupe and I went dancing again. After a while, when we needed another break, Emma and crew had disapeared. So we stood around in the place where they were last, but they never showed up. So then we started wandering around trying to find them, didn't have luck, so we went and sat by the church and just relaxed a little bit, chatted, etc. And then we decided to go looking for my friends again, and I ran into Enzo, Sammy (Emma's lil bro), and Sergio, a friend of thiers. Enzo told me he had seen Emmanuel just a bit ago, so I decided I'd just stay there with Enzo until Emmanuel showed up again. I said my goodbyes to Lupe and he has my email so hopefully we'll get to dance again sometime. :)
Hanging with Enzo was fun as usual, he's crazy, and I think he's hilarious. We laugh about stupid and sometimes mean things... like, his girlfriend. And how Mexicans really know how to party, and Italians and Americans aint got shit on them. Hahaha. Eventually Emmanuel showed up, and was obviously irritated with me. Turns out he thought I'd been kidnapped and had been looking everywhere for me, for "5 horas!" hahaha. Mentiroso. But I felt bad for him because I think he had been genuinely worried about me. Lots of smiling Melanie annoyingness later and he was back to his normal Emmanuel self. No one can ever stay mad at me too long. Or at least he can't. Hahah. Dulce and Disan left a bit early, and Emmanuel and I stayed with Enzo them.
We didn't leave until the band stopped playing, but we (err.... Enzo and I..) didn't want the party to end, so we went to a bar that was blasting some reggaeton. I danced danced danced some more, with Emmanuel, and then Emma threw his brother at me while he went to the bathroom. Hahaha. Guys here are so funny. So so different then American guys. Some of it I like a lot, other things not so much. I like that since Emmanuel knows I love to dance he didn't want me to have to stop dancing or dance alone, so he litterally threw his brother at me and told him, Dance! Hahaha. One thing I don't like, however, is that they don't seem to defend women from other guys. I don't know if it's because I'm single, or because they think it's funny, or what. But, for example, last night, a very drunk guy approached me while I was sitting with Enzo and Sammy, and I thought it was obvious I didn't want to talk to this guy. He asked me to dance, and I said no and turned away, but he kept talking to me, and it took awhile to get him to leave. But all the while Enzo and them were either just watching or not paying attention. Either way, they didn't help me one bit to get the guy to leave me alone. Oh well. It's forcing me to be more direct, I suppose.
Unfortunately I didn't take any photos from yesterday, only Friday. The party continues today, but since we're leaving to La Paz tomorrow to eat shrimp (hahaha) I don't think I can go three days of party partiez in a row and still wake up. Yikes. We shall see.
Also, for those not in the know of Banda music and dancing...
