¡La gringa es en San Cristobal, Chiapas!

¡Hola chica hola! I am finally in Mexico!

Yesterday I woke up in NJ at 4am and took 3 flights: Newark to Houston to Mexico City to Tuxla-Gutierrez. It was a huge schlep. I finally got to Tuxla at about 5:15pm (Mexi time, not NYC time). Then, Tom Hansen, the director of the MSN program, found me and three of the other students at the airport. He asked "did you have any trouble getting through customs?" To which I replied, "no just with my own spanish." (This will plague me throughout the trip but I'm already learning a lot.) Then Tom drove us in the MSN van to San Cristobal where the MSN house is (and where I am now). This van ride was pretty crazy for a lot of reasons:

1) I don't believe I've ever been in a car with four straight men before.
2) Tom drives really fast. We went on very windy roads around big mountains... wasn't wearing a seatbelt. There were only two lanes so when trucks and when other slowpokes knew Tom wanted to go faster than them they would sort of just move to the right and he'd have to wait to get around a bend and then he'd gun it around them. Muy interesante.
3) WHATSUP I'M IN MEXICO. I think we were all in shock of how beautiful the drive was that we didn't really talk a lot.

When we got to the MSN house we met Mel, the fifth student (and the only other grrrl here besides one of the teachers). Here are some pics of the house I took today:

I drew the bottom flower area on my syllabus while Tom was giving us an orientation.

The living room. (How great are these tiles?!)

(In this kitchen the only things to eat so far is bread with avocado and hot sauce. also, peanuts. we need to go food shopping...)

After Tom gave us a little schpiel about the house and the city etc., we all walked around San Cristobal zocalo and went out to the Revolucion Cafe/Bar:

We ordered beers as we watched a live jazz band play. Unfortunately I couldn't drink one of my beers that I ordered because without thinking I poured it into a glass with ice in it, as we had just been lectured not to drink ice if we weren't sure it was from the tap water. I felt super dumb in this moment, also because I couldn't remember how to order in Spanish.

3 of the other students are only staying for 5 weeks while me and one of the guys are staying for 8. We will be in Chiapas for three weeks, then we will be in Tlaxcala for two weeks, then in Mexico City for three weeks, where we will meet up with a big group of students from University of Colorado Boulder. There are only 5 of us because 12 people dropped out after the swine flu craze.

We have a final project due at the end, sort of like at SLC, which is really open ended. I'm thinking about doing a portraits series, mostly when we are in Mexico City, for a couple reasons. One, the Zapatistas in Oventic will probably not let me draw them unless they are wearing ski masks, and two, we will be learning about Sex Workers movements when we are in Mexico City and meeting some workers there, so that seems like a compelling project to follow up on both my Sex Workers research this past semester and also my Sketchy Lady project.. I am thinking about doing a show (portraits, installations etc) when I get back to school and having that be part of my final project.

Here are some pics from our walk around San Cristobal today:

(¡Mi colores!)

The church up on the hill that we climbed a really huge mountain to see up close.

A view of San Cristobal

Will y Mel.

The gang! George, Matt, Will and Mel.

Here I am at a muro en la calle. The stencil says "No more sexual attacks in the streets".

The Cathedral in the zocalo area of San Cris.

Burger King.

Another view of la ciudad

Tomorrow we're driving up to Oventic (a Zapatista community) in the morning and staying there through Friday. I have to go do some last minute homework before class starts. Ta-ta for now!