Cuernavaca Journal: Day I

Kenny and I got up at about 0430 this morning in order to make a 0930 flight to Mexico City. For the first time EVER, since I started buying discounted plane tickets online, I didn't get flagged for special screening in security. What a luxury.

We are going to Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico to study Spanish at a little school called Chac-Mool -- for about a week. We will be staying with a host family in the same neighborhood. Despite the fact that I have taken 7 years of junior high, high school and college Spanish, I am far, far from fluent. However, I can say things like: Please bring me a beer with some lime or I am going to start your IV now. Kenny's mastery of the language is limited to: Hello and I'm sorry. We come armed with dictionaries, verb books, phrase books, and two types of antibiotics.

Our flight lands and then proceeds to sit out on the tarmac for about 20 minutes. ??? Apparently, our plane is too big to negotiate the runway we are on and nobody noticed this until just now. Finally, we get tugged to the gate. Immigration and customs are surprisingly quick and suddenly we are looking for our driver, Vicente, who will take us to our host family's house in Cuernavaca, which is about an hour's drive from Mexico City. We buy some bottled water in the airport and go to the car. I make a tiny bit of conversation with Vicente. Kenny tells him hello and that he's sorry. I sit in the car, letting the wind whip my hair around my face (something that I would never allow in the states) and think about how funny it is that Kenny, who is the real talker in our family unit -- and usually our main emissary of good will to the outside world, speaks no Spanish, while I, the mostly silent one, can actually navigate the language. We are in for an interesting week.

We arrive at the house just in time for la comida, the afternoon meal. The day is sunny and breezy and warm -- I anticipate a house of open windows, ceiling fans. Unfortunately, the house is shut up tight, the fans are all off, and the kitchen is right next to where we will be eating -- so that our dining area has been, in effect, pre-heated. At the table sits an American man eating. We say hola, go to our rooms to put our bags down, but by the time we return, he is gone. We eat a meal of chicken in guajillo chile sauce, iceberg lettuce, pinto beans, tomatillo salsa, and corn tortillas. Our hostess, a grandmotherly woman named Chelo, tells us that she disinfects the lettuce for her American guests. (This is really nice -- because the main way that American's contract Montezuma's revenge is through water contamination -- which means that any raw veggies washed in plain tap water are suspect and to be avoided.) The meal is homey and exotic and delicious all at once. Chelo is the Mexican version of Kenny's grandmother. The dishes and flatware are all mismatched -- there is nothing that appears to have been purchased before about 1978. However, Chelo appears to have a full-time housekeeper and gardener. Although the meal is delicious, I am actively sweating as I eat. (Over the course of the next 8 days I will become familiar with the strange sensation of simultaneously dreading and looking forward to a meal -- the food was always delicious, but the heat in the room was always unbearable.) This is a cultural difference that we become more and more familiar with as the week progresses. Whenever Kenny and I are comfortable (while wearing sleeveless shirts and shorts) the Mexicans will be wearing long pants, long sleeves, sweaters, and once, a long leather coat.

After the meal and much awkward Spanish-only conversation, Kenny and I retire to our room. We walk out of the kitchen, through a little courtyard/utility area and up a narrow flight of stairs which is made narrower by the placement of at least two potted plants on every single step. Upstairs, our room is plain but serviceable. We have two fans, two beds, a desk, a dresser, and a bathroom with a shower. I will come to love this shower over the next eight days. It has a large tiled bench -- a feature that I wish I had in my shower at home. (Makes for easier leg shaving for those of us over 40).

Once Kenny unpacks and I promise him that I will unpack tomorrow (I never did), we go out for a walk around the neighborhood. We stop at a little taqueria on the corner, La Puerta de Oro del Bahio, for beers. The last time I was in Cuernavaca, Rosario, the proprietess of La Puerta told me (I think) about a door in the upstairs room of her house that leads to another dimension. The walls are covered with pictures of UFOs that have been sighted around Mexico City and Tepotzlan. Every available inch of floor space is home to a potted plant, or old bleach bottle full of scummy water and a vine of some kind. I have a couple of Negra Modelos a la cubana -- with lime and salt. These cost me about $1.25 each. I realize, as I am draining the dregs of my first one, that it has been poured over ice -- which is the way "a la Cubana" is usually served. I have been on the ground in Cuernavaca for less than an hour and I have already broken the "no ice in Mexico" rule. Oops.