Plenty of thanks to report

Our Thanksgiving dinner was a a huge success. We had planned for 60 people with the thought that we could have 50 or 70. It turns out we had at least 72 guests that we can remember. Guests included students and some of their friends, all of our instructors and their family members, the families of two students who were visiting for the week, instructors from our affiliated Yucatecan universities where advanced language students take classes, internship and service learning community partners, former language assistants, and a former student and her family who were in town. George Ann even came this year which I consider a major sign of healing. Perhaps my favorite guests were the entire staff of the pilates studio where a number of students take classes.

We served a traditional meal, but tradition ended with the arrival of the mariachi band and the salsa dance marathon that followed. The pilates instructors provided lessons to those with two left feet. All of the guests from the US commented that their next Thanksgiving dinner will be dull and boring in comparison.

Pictured below are Veronica and Eduardo who were language assistants in Pella last year where they experienced their first Thanksgiving. They are good friends of the current group of students and have been extremely helpful in making their experiences memorable.



Pictured here are some of the US visitors. We had tables set up in the main house and also in our outdoor classroom.

Sofia was our youngest guest by far. She is the daughter of our anthropology professor. She danced until she fell asleep.

Part of the kitchen staff without whom none of this would have been possible.

An invitation

If you are in the neighborhood, be sure to consider yourself invited to our Thanksgiving dinner.

My name is Valerie, and I....

...am a recovering magazine addict. I love magazines, but with the advent of blogs, my addiction has been much more manageable. For me to walk out of my magazine store this afternoon with only three magazines is nothing short of a miracle. I have completely given up Spanish & US shelter magazines, food magazines, hairstyle magazines, People magazine and US fashion magazines. But not to worry, I have not gone cold turkey and continue to buy my favorites including the 3 pictured above. For some strange reason, I still have a thing for Spanish Vogue and will undoubtedly buy it when the December issue comes out. I am home for the evening, have checked my favorite blogs, am now blogging myself, have a pot of lentil soup cooking on the stove. Let the good times roll!

Dress codes

Without exception, the question most frequently asked question by students preparing for the semester abroad is, "What do I bring for clothes?" Even though I talk about the differences in how students dress here and provide lists of clothing prepared by students, they are always surprised by how much dressier the dress codes are here especially for bars and clubs. I am now including photos in pre-departure orientation information.



For going out to restaurant/bars on a weeknight:

For weekend clubbing:

The female students are now lamenting the fact that there will be few, if any, opportunities to show off their newly acquired club clothes (and shoes!) when they return to Pella. Sadly, they are getting negative feedback from friends and relatives at home about this kind of dress, but they are responding positively and proudly about how comfortable they feel, how they love fitting into the local culture, and how much they will miss the fun they are having in social settings that, for most of them, were completely different from anything they had ever experienced.

Hurricane Ida

The odds are I will experience a hurricane before my time as director ends, but Hurricane Ida will not be the one. We have had rain most of the week because of the storm, but the area along the coast of Cancun is getting the worst of it as Ida passes into the Gulf of Mexico today.

Whew.....

Random Chiapas Shots

Agua Azul without students The basilica in San Cristobal de las Casas

Lunch

The entrance to our hotel

What I do not have photos of was our most fascinating experience. I had read about Day of the Dead ceremonies in a small indigenous village; the article said foreigners are not always welcome. We decided to take a chance. When we arrived, we were told by the local authorities that we were welcome to observe the festivities, but we were not allowed to take photos. Anyone caught taking photos would have his/her camera confiscated and could face a fine or even jail. The pageantry we observed left of breathless and with a million mental images of Catholic saints dressed in indigenous clothing, the predominance of crosses painted green, the candles, the fireworks, the number of times the villagers paraded around the plaza in front of the church, the language spoken by most of the villagers, the prohibition against photos. I think it was actually a good thing that we were unable to witness all that we saw through the lens of a camera. I am looking forward to reading students' journals and blogs as they attempt to describe the morning without simply referring everyone to their photos.

The trip was not without its problems. On the first day while we were at the archaeological site of Palenque, our ever present guide, Luis Medina, fell off of a 8 foot high platform and landed flat on his back. He has 3 broken ribs and a fourth is cracked. I had to step in as temporary van driver thus earning the title of "La Brava" or "The Fearless One." The wife of the visiting professor came down with a bad, bad case of Moctezuma's revenge. She earned a different title that won't be mentioned here. We had trouble with one of the vehicles in a remote part of the trip, and we ran into heavy rain storms. Overall, however, students rated this the best field trip ever. I agree.

A contender....

Each semester we choose a group photo to represent the semester. Pictured here is a contender taken at Agua Azul, a waterfall in Chiapas.