seventeentimes

 
Zamora to Mexico City and the amazing pyramids , to Oaxaca and one of the biggest trees in the world , to Puerto Escondido and back, on a bus that caught fire (a bit) and past a tornado!!!

What a day. In the last 24 hours… Keith found two tiny, tiny kittens wandering in the street. They spent the night in our bathroom and now one of them is with her new family (headed up by the lady who has made tortillas for twelve years at our daily taco place) and the other one is sleeping near my feet, waiting to be picked up tomorrow by a wonderful woman who works at our school and speaks the fastest Spanish of anyone in the country. It was a heartbreaking experience to split them up, but seemed to be the thing to do. Even more exciting, is the fact that Peppy may have found a family. Our lovely Spanish teacher Oswaldo is VERY interested in taking him, and is talking to his wife about it this evening. I daren’t hope… Meanwhile, we found a dead rat, and a dead baby pigeon, which I got an incredible photo of. Oh yes, and this morning I found the email I’ve been waking up hoping for everyday for the last few weeks: Central have invited me for an interview (I’ve applied to do an MA in Drama and Movement Therapy there)

It’s the next day now, and I am feeling the loss of kitten number two, which I had the tremendous priviledge to spend many hours in the company of. Now I understand what the fuss is all about. I have seldom met such a charming creature as this… 

As requested, more pictures of the sweetest dog in the universe.

I would love it if you let me know of anything good that you have done, seen, heard, read, eaten or in any other way experienced recently, so that I can make add it to my otherwise very biased list of things that I like.

We had a party on Saturday and I found myself sitting there in the middle of it thinking about what damned fine people I know. The teachers here are absolutely delightful - thoughtful, sweet and caring. Almost everybody I have interacted with in Mexico has acted with true generosity, warmth and kindness. I think of Japan and how I had such a stong sense of decency there (a word I learned the meaning of in San Francisco from Richard, Charles and Tatiana.) While living in Japan I experienced a kind of friendship that I had never known before. I felt people accept and love and work and give with remarkable openness and spirit. I have yet to put words to it in a way that even hints at what I want to.

Keith once said something that to me remains one of the most sensible things I’ve ever heard, he said, ‘People are trying their best’.

As a foreigner living in different places you are so often given the wonderful opportunity to meet people at their best. So often people welcome you into their lives in ways that would not happen so quickly with a fellow citizen. They open up their homes, families, lives, they feed you and take you to places they love; together you quickly open up your hearts and share stories and ideas and feelings. I don’t know exactly what it is - some combination of the awareness that we only have a short time to know each other, the freedom that can exist between people of different cultures which allows us to talk without fear of being judged in the ways we are used to, the playfulness of switching languages, the adventure of just being different together, and the very beautiful feeling of seeing deep into someone from so far away and realising that you are very close after all. To dance and sing and dance and laugh and eat and with other people from other cultures makes me smile all the way down to my toes.