Hard to be a White Girl in Guadalajara

(Warning - this blog contains several Spanish cuss-words.  If you take offense to this, don't Google their meanings.  ...and also a couple in English.)


Tuesday...

Pancakes with caramel sauce for breakfast! Yumm.  A different form of chicken noodle soup for lunch: less soup, more noodle.  Snacks for dinner on the go.

Luz was my teacher in the morning.  She is my favorite teacher because she is young, and energized and has a huge personality.  It's fun to talk to her and hear her stories.  I had another new teacher in the afternoon too.

After lunch I met Ming at the school at 3:30.  We took a bus to downtown Guadalajara.  We had a poorly printed out map with us that was super faded and useless, so basically we didn't have a map.  We got a lot of practice asking for directions so that's good.  (Like 4 or 5 different times).  Ming is funny.  He's very, very nice and very, very Chinese.  Picture the most stereotypical Asian tourist you can.  Tivas, khakis, unaware of other people's personal space, sort of oblivious, taking pictures everywhere...  that is Ming.  He's been in America for 4 years I think.  Two for grad-school in CA, and two in KS. 

Guadalajara is cool, I guess.  It's just a giant Tlaquepaque but they sell more things in the same manner as boarder towns;  a little in your face at times.  For example, at stoplights there are people selling gum in the median and they walk right up to your car and put a pack resting on your driver's side window hoping you'll roll your window down.  They also wash your windshield, even if you say not to, in hopes of receiving a tip.

Lucha Libre was interesting.  Certainly not a place for blonde white girls, apparently.  (Which I wish Wouter would have warned me about, but if he did I wouldn't have gone.)  Lucha Libre is Mexican professional wresting similar to WWE.  They dress up in costumes and put on masks and fake fight.  The people get crazy and roudy and yell and scream obscenities the entire time.  Chants break out of "Chingue su madre" and "puta" and lots and LOTS of very bad words the entire time along with plenty of hand gestures.  There are workers walking around selling nachos, Coronas, fruit, pop-corn with hot sauce on top and other Mexican foods that I have no idea what they were.  It was good entertainment,  HOWEVER!... There were 4 of us guerras (white girls with blond hair) in all of the stadium.  About 5 times that night the whole audience would pick out one of us girls and all point and then would start chanting "Guerra! Veulta!" (Which means they wanted the girl they were pointing at to stand up and turn in a circle to show off their body.)  Keep in mind they ONLY do this to the few of us guerras in the stands.  And as if that weren't bad enough, if you don't stand up you get chanted at that you're a "puta" (Bitch).  And if you do stand up and turn around (which not a single one of us did) you get chanted at that you're a "puta" (whore).  How fun, right?!  I would be extremely offended had I known for sure that was what was going on the entire time but I wasn't totally sure and just thought I was being paranoid or hearing them wrong... that is until Wouter confirmed my suspicions and explained it to me the next day.  Before the show started a really pretty white lady with blonde hair (a guerra) walked in with her Mexican husband to take their seats.  A lot of people were whistling at her and making remarks.  Also, one of the times while they were chanting one guerra stood up to go to the bathroom and everyone was like "ohhhh!!! Puta, puta, puta!"  My hatred for getting "hit" on by groups of Mexican men (like when "my kind" walk by a construction zone in America and get whistled at and made remarks to) has been completely and utterly solidified.  I think I'm scarred for life and if it happens when I get back home I will probably not handle it well.  Luckily, I am armed with plenty of offensive come-backs now.  I asked Wouter the next day why they do this to white girls all the time and he said it's because guerras are naturally pretty and sort of exotic for them.  I asked Luz, my favorite teacher, why this happens all the time and she said it's because they're men and especially at Lucha Libre it's a place for men to express their power and aggression and whatever else needs expressing I suppose.  Luz then began to go over all of the cuss-words I heard while I was there and equip me with several more.  Yet another reason she is my favorite teacher.  I'm not quite sure how to process all of that experience but it sure was an experience.


Wednesday...

Thankfully uneventful.  Eggs and tomatoes for breakfast, soup containing meatballs and veggies with white chewy juice to drink.  Cereal for dinner.  School, laundry, and work (preparing things for my business back home).  Then homework and sleep.

Things I've learned/noticed:
-Driving in other countries is super dangerous it seems.  They are crazy, uncourteous drivers.
-A lot of times the roads are backed up in a traffic jam and if an ambulance needs to pass people start honking and you can hear the honking move rapidly up the line of traffic and by some miracle the line of cars on the left start moving forward quickly.  Very interesting.  I hope to see it again.
-The mother of a family is the most cherished person in the family. Mother's Day is a serious holiday and there is no school or work.  Now I understand better why "your mom" insults are so offensive.

Adios!