A cucaracha visit, Spanish lessons end, en route vers Mexico City

Tejate, a pre-hispanic drink, a specialty of Oaxaca, made from ground corn, maize, and mamey seed and the rosita cocoa flower. The ingredients are ground to form a paste, which is later mixed by hand in water until a foam forms on top. They say in order to prepare to perfection, takes years of practice! The drink is served in painted gourds :) Savoury, nutritious in a pretty presentation. 

Another week has passed, lots of Spanish learnt, ate a lot of fantastic food, all home made from the hands of my lovely homestay mother, Margarita, lots of Spanish & English conversations, and here ends the part of my own travel.

I would have never thought that I would start to feel sense of loneliness after a week of being away, but I did. However, that is mainly due to my intended seclusion to the "gringos" (a term used by Mexicans to refer to white americans) as I am staying with a real Mexican family vs. a hostel full of gringos. Since I only have contacts with Mexicans, the language barrier still does become a nuisance at times!

One of the evening, the inevitable happened. A cucaracha paid me a visit while i was in the shower. Good thing I wasn't wearing my glasses, so all i could see was this thumb sized cochroach roaming on the shower floor. My whole concentration was spent controling my fear and withholding my scream. I kept telling myself, "it is not dangerous" over and over, and with enough will, I may be able to flatten it with my slipper once im done showering. Once done showering, I muster enough strength to want to kill it. Put on my glasses, and ... saw it more clearly. At that point, I've lost all courage to kill it! Finally locked the nasty thing and asked Adolfo (homestay papa) to take care of it... This makes me realized no matter how clean a hostel/hotel is, my encounters with this radiation-proof multi-legged nasty bugger have just begun... *gulp* This is one fear that I'd like to conquer one day... I am not afraid of walking home alone at night, but yet i am afraid of a cochroach... how funny our mind plays tricks on us!!!

Below is a nice little video showing you how some of the vendors sharpen knives in the street markets in Oaxaca! :)

On another note, about a week and 2 days into my over-ambitious zeal to study Spanish, I finally realized that I am frustrated and cannot take the pressure I've put onto myself to learn Spanish. 4hrs a day + 3hrs of homework + Spanish language exchange is a bit much... I can't absorb as much as I want to. It finally came down to a small breakdown in class. This is yet, another lesson to be learned as I have come to realize that I am not a machine, and that I need to stop and smell the roses, after all that was whole purpose of this trip! Thankfully, I have an extremely understanding teacher and she comforted me that indeed, she has never given materials so fast in such a short frame of time, but because I was able to understand it, she adjusted to my speed. We both agreed in the end to reduce the time to 3hrs, so that I can actually regurgitate what I've learnt in speech and not only grammatically!!

Before leaving, Angélica, the assistant at the Spanish school which I attended in Oaxaca, gave me a parting gift. It's a metal tin, completely hand made from the shape to the colourful painting on it. A typical artesan craft from the area called "Alajero". Not only was it a thoughtful gift, but it was the perfect gift!! I was about to ask her for some old cardboard box in order to put the fragile jewelries that I've purchased, and voilá! What a beautiful and pleasant surprise :)

Metal tin gift from Angélica!

¡La vida me da sorpresas, Sorpresas me da la vida!
(Life gives me surprises, surprises give me life)

I've had to leave my wonderful homestay family in Oaxaca to come to Mexico City from an overnight bus. My 2 weeks of spanish lessons have ended, and now is the start of another journey, as I am about to go pick up my mommy from the airport. Another rhythm, another journey.

La primera semana (week 1)

Today, day 6 of my journey: looking back at my routine life in Montreal already feels like something from a fairytale story from far far away. Having my work laptop and my whole purse stolen a week before leaving felt like a test to the strengh of my conviction (for my journey) as well as a prelude to what lay ahead of me. In a way, I am thankful of such an event, as it showed me the those whom truely care about me and those whom are ready to help when I am at my weakest moments. As a short parenthesis about the incident about the work laptop, which initially my employer was going to charge me for the loss, was finally resolved on a positive note. I had a few suggestions on how to handle the situation, but what I learned is that, I have to be true to myself and do what I feel is comfortable. Yes, we have to push in life to get what we want and what we deserve, but sometimes with a humanitarian approach, one can succeed to pierce through obstacles not commonly believed possible. By being honest with my employer, I managed to make him change his mind and make an exception. Which, I do believe for a "very principled person" is not easy to make. Perhaps I am still naive, perhaps I am not thick skinned enough, but I'd like to believe that we can overcome conflicts through peaceful communication (as per the Dalai Lama! although the case with China is another story which I don't want to start...)



As for the day before leaving, obviously everything was done last minute... so after 30hrs of being awake and packing through the night, I took a night bus right after arriving in Mexico City in the direction of Oaxaca, about 6hrs away by night bus. Was the night bus comfortable? Trust me, after 30+ hrs of being awake, I just slept through everything!!! oh and the pillow that Air Canada graciously "lent" me and my silk blankie (from NewZealand!) did add some comfort points! Once arrived at Oaxaca, my homestay mama, named Margarita Rodriguez, came to pick me up after a quick phone call. At this point, my Spanish is still just barely functional, and the conversation with Margarita was a bit of a blurr at 6am in the morning. Since I never met her, I just hoped for the best. After 6 days of staying at la familia Rodriguez, I have to say that the school couldn't have arranged a better place for me to stay than here! It will probably be the most luxurious stay I will have for the rest of my trip. So I might as well enjoy it now!








Since my arrival in Mexico, I've had 1 day to relax and then a week full of spanish lessons. I've enrolled myself for 4hrs of spanish lessons a day at a school in the city of Oaxaca. It is a lot of fun but extremely demanding! I've only found out today that apparently I am the only one crazy enough to take 4hrs of private lessons per day, whereas most people take 1-2 hrs... I have to say that after 4hrs, I'm pretty much completely saturated with español !! But one good thing is that it isn't that hard thx to my knowledge of French! But my German is now suffering a lot... whenever I try to speak Spanish, German comes out. It is actually the exact opposite scenario when I first started to learn German!! Seems like the part of my brain that resides these 2 languages are in conflict :p It's all an entertaining learning process :)




Funny how, literally, the 2nd day of my arrival, I started to write my diary in French. Has the excess of Spanish around me aroused another part of my brain to wake up? Has something in the air around me that opened the locked door to my ability to speak French that I learned during my childhood? I don't know which one for sure, but I do not dislike the consequence, but rather welcome it :)

It took a little more than 24hrs since my departure from home, to feel completely FREE. It didn't take long to realize and feel, while sitting at the pedestral of a big piazza listening to local musicians perform as part of a may fiesta, that "j'ai laissé dernière moi, une vie comfortable, d'où rien ne manque, mais d'où rien de très excitant sort de l'ordinaire à maintenant, d'où chaque passing moment se sent fiévreuse, envoûtante, vibrante, pétillante! La passion, l'énergie avec lequel le chanteur chante, sa joie de vivre et l'énergie de l'audience me fait réjouir de la vie juste en leur regardant de loin. âgé, jeune, gros, mince, blanc, mixe, marié célibataire, tous dancent avec de telle libération d'esprit que j'ai envie de leur embrasser. Depuis que j'ai pris la décision de partir, j'ai commencé à ressentir, à vivre, à m'ouvrir à coeur ouvert aux émotions, à la chaleur de ceux qui m'entourent. On dirait qu'une porte s'est ouverte, que le mur avec lequel je me suis entouré, celui que j'ai bâtis autour de moi afin de me protéger contre les intempéries humaines, dont notamment les attentes, la pression sociale, la corruption, greed... commence tranquillement à disparaitre."

(English translation: I left behind me, a comfortable life, where nothing is missing, but where nothing of great excitement to now, where every passing moment feels feverish, enchanting, vibrant and bubbling! The passion, the energye with which the singer sings, his joy of life and the energy coming from the audience makes me rejoice life even just as an observer of what's around me. Young, old, big small, white, mixe, married, single, everyone dance with such liberation of spirit that i have an incredible urge to kiss them. Since i've taken the decision to leave, i've started to feel, to live, to open my heart to emotions, to the energy of the people who surround me. It feels as if there's a door that's opened, that the wall with which I've built around me in order to protect against human 'storms' slowly starts to disappear)


I can't help but smile, physically and from within. It feels as if my skin has become some sort of ultra absorbant membrane, sensitive and attentive to the slightest emotions, vibrations, taking it in for all the missed opportunities of a free spirited life. I've already started to feel that I've started to let go, to live, to release my inhibitions, previously ingrained habits. Yes, I feel, I really feel very strongly! This is all very exciting!! In hindsight of the past few months, I believe the hardest part of my journey is the actual decision to leave, rather than the journey itself. To choose to leave our zone of comfort, leave all that we've taken so long to build, to let go of what we believe is how life should be, was by far the most difficult step so far. Once I arrived in Mexico, the people, the smells, the surroundings found a easy way into my life. It never ceases to amaze me how the human brain can adapt so quickly to new environments! True we are creatures of habits, but once we are on the move, we have incredible capability to adapt!