Lots of Time...

So, I promise that this will get better...well, I'd better not promise until I have stable internet...but I'll do my best, ok? It's been quite some time since I've written, and without checking back to see previous entries, I imagine that much has changed.

The biggest change is that my boyfriend and I made the journey from Ajijic, Mexico (state of Jalisco) to Playa del Carmen. The trip lasted 3 days/2 nights. And in the course of the thing, we saw the entire southern tip of the country. It was beyond words kind of amazing. Arriving and leaving the area of Puebla in the state of Mexico, we experienced picturesque mountains and valleys and all that accompany them as though someone had painted them rather than actually being a part of a living, breathing environment. The temps there fell to 52 F at the lowest, and then arriving near VillaHermosa (passing the state of Veracruz and entering Tabasco), we were scorched with coastal conditions and temps beyond 100. However, we made lots of irreplaceable memories. We fought, we cried, and we made it. We're here.

We arrived to a friend of Ricardo's. It was night, something like 8pm. And there we stayed. A small house- no aircondition. I was surprised to find that most people here in this area sleep in hammocks. All over the neighborhood were people sprawled out in their brightly-colored hammocks. And all over the neighborhood were PEOPLE. This isn't a common practice in Ajijic, but later I found the reason for the sudden need for out-of-doors: the heat. Inside the houses is something like roasting in the oven. You come out like a plump, brown duck or chicken with vegetables. And in the bathroom, you get more of a sauna experience. It's like going beneath the earth or in a cave that gives you that sweaty kind of good sensation...like you've purified your skin, but through simply sweating out all of the toxins. I told Ricardo that this would be good for us...if for nothing else than to lose weight....by simply sweating. I've been without make-up for a week now. I told him I think this is healthy somehow.

Anyways...there we found a hospitable and kind family. However, there was something missing for me. There wasn't an air of homeiness for me. And then my padrinos arrived. And it feels like a completely opposite experience. Well, I guess it is. We're now their guests in one of the finest resorts in Playa del Carmen and have more aircondition than we could possibly have hoped for a the other house. Also, I feel so at home here with them. I became friends with the oldest daughter through some mutual friends of ours (and quite on accident, at that). But Leti and I became fast and close friends. I consider her to be one of my best and most cherished friends although our immediate time together was short...she went back to the United States after taking a 3 mon. break in Mexico. I felt a kind of kindred spirit with her that is inexplicable in words. It's just one of those you know you'll be friends for life kind of relationships.

So anyways...her family sort of adopted me and I them. And here we are. They've been incredibly amazing to offer us a place to stay during their vacation and have even set up interviews with various people here in the resort. Tomorrow is the first of such for me. It's sort of like going at it blind, but I'm really excited at the same time that I'm completely unbelievably nervous. I don't know if it will be in Spanish or English. I don't really know what the work entails. I don't know much. But I do know that as I was walking downtown on the famous Quinta Avenida here in Playa, I was enchanted in a new way by Mexico. It's charming. It's beautiful. It's elegant. And it's full of every kind of race and creed you could imagine. There were beautiful strands of Italian, French, German, Russian, Spanish.....Mariachi, wind instruments, and typical sing-along type of Spanish songs. It was fabulous. Absolutely something that I've dreamed of since being the size of a loaf of bread, I think. I just sat there, talking with my padrinos and Ricardo and thinking: "Wow." That's it. There are so many opportunities present before us. And I'm so fortunate to be here, living and doing this.

An adventure of great proportions in my small world. It opens up for me, somehow, a giant place full of humankind from places I've only seen in books or on tv. But oh how my thirst and hunger is tempted. Oh how I'm enticed. Oh how I'm enthralled. What a big world. And there I am a sole part of such a huge whole. And what possibilities await me as a part of this giant sphere? To be discovered.....