Arrival

I have arrived...finally! Its still hard to believe, but here I am. The first few days I couch surfed with a sassy 75 year old lady named Joyce. She's traveled and lived all over the world, but has been in San Miguel de Allende for the last 10 years. She welcomed me into her home with a beer in hand and directed me to the only food vendor on her street that was still open when I arrived. They were serving hamburgers with bacon and fries. It wasn't exactly what I expected my first meal in Mexico to be, but it was definitely tasty. The next few days I wandered around the city looking for apartments to rent. Fortunately I was able to find a small, cheap apartment fairly quickly. It has a tiny kitchen, living room area and bedroom. The apartment is just what I need and is close to where I'll be working. I'm exicted to cook, but its been sort of a stuggle as I have limited kitchen supplies. Its also a little more time consuming because all my fruits and vegetables have to be soaked and cleaned before i can eat them.

I decided today that I needed to buy a blender. Without a blender I wouldn't be able to make sauces or refried beans. I figured that if I planned to attempt to prepare any sort of Mexican food these are two things that I would need to be able to make. I was directed to Bodega Aurera, which was described to me as a poor man's Walmart, to find a cheap blender. When I was buying the blender I noticed the cashier's name tag said Walmart. Its sort of disheartening that Walmart is also taking over Mexico, but I suppose its not a surprise. It was raining as I walked home with my new blender in hand. As I was making my way down a a busy street the bottom of the box gave out and my new blender went flying into a big muddy puddle. Its currently drying off it my kitchen. Its pretty cheap so I hope that it still works. But enough about blenders...

I started working at CASA on monday. I'm not sure exactly what projects I'll be working on as I'm still in the process of familiarizing myself with all of the different programs. I've met with the Director of the School of Midwifery and it looks like I'll be doing some work with her, but nothing has been finalized yet. I have been told by past interns that I need to be very proactive about deciding what I want to do. I'm trying to be, but its hard as I don't really know what I could do that would be of use to CASA currently and after I leave. I'm considering proposing doing some sort of photo project and I definitly want to see some babies be born. But we'll see...

If you are interested in checking out CASA's website here's the link: http://www.casa.org.mx/programs.html