Nothing new this week

I've been sick, which put a halt to my capoeira training. I have spent, however, some time studying, which I feel is a better than average trade-off. I seem to have tricked my professors into thinking I'm a serious student again, so I have been invited on the trip next week with my 7am class. I think that's pretty darn terrific. After the trip, though, I have no idea what I'm doing. I may just hop a bus to Cancun, sure it's a long trip, but I hear it's some of the best beaches in Mexico. Otherwise, the big news has been that part of the university here has been without electricity going on more than 24 hours now. I'm also needing to get to a bank to pay money and then I go to migración. And I've registered for classes at Western for the fall. I'll start my early days at 12 and end at 5:15 and Tuesdays at 4 and go until 8:45. 17 credits, and three of which are in the College of Education, which I think is a good thing because I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take the class. Too bad it had to be a night class. But I'll be taking three different literature classes, two of which in English and the third in Spanish (just to make sure that I'll finish my Spanish degree next fall). After that, it'll be two classes without prerequisites for an English major and I'll still be in school anyway for the Education program. Pinche education program. What degree should I work on after English?

El Batizado del primavera de 2006

Well, to start out with, this previous weekend was a longer one. I've no idea why, something to do about one of the historic figures in Mexico's history, I guess. So while many of the other Americans went travelling to such places as Veracruz, Veracruz, right on the coast... I went to a small city about 45 minutes away from Querétaro called San Juan del Rio with the Academia Nacional de Capoeira for the Batizado Spring 2006. To be honest, I can probably go to Veracruz later, and have the same experience they had, and I can go back to San Juan del Rio, but I won't ever have the same experience as I did this weekend.

We all met up at the park in the middle of the city and we left an hour later than we meant to. But we still got there, and everybody changed into our abadas and other shirts (I don't have a black shirt, though... I hope that will change later), and we had a class in a field with 52 students, plus the six playing the instruments, and the professor, Yaqui Grande. After our practice, we all sat down in a double roda (two big rings) and Yaqui talked to us about the importance of things (I understood it all at the time, but I don't really remember things). And a fire was made to make rocks hot, and we all jumped back on the busses and headed to the downtown area of San Juan del Rio.

There, we formed a roda and it was my first public roda ever. I should have participated, but... I didn't. I watched. Mostly in awe. But it still takes a bit of concentration on my part to clap the beat, sing the refrain (in Portguese no less), and not get lost in the movements within the roda. While everything was pretty cool, one of the more advanced students danced with fire. His name is Orlando, and his capoeira name is Zero (I think it's pronounced Schero, but I don't know Portuguese). After all this was over, we headed back to camp.

And there, a tent was set up with a big hole in the middle, and we all changed clothes to bathing suits. We all got set up, and we entered the tent and we had what is called a "temascal," kinda like a sauna. We sat in there while Yaqui explained things about capoeira and I understood at the time, I just can't recall what was said. He explained the levels of capoeira in the Academia. Afterwards, we had the chance to go swimming, but I passed. I slept under the stars in a sleeping bag with a towel - it got kinda cold in the morning.




And I woke up much too early, but this is where we slept. Lots of people had tents, I had the chance to sleep in a tent, but I thought, "Well, I'm in Mexico. Why not sleep under the stars, I don't think I've ever done it before." And I woke up much too early and slept not quite enough. But it was all good.



And then everybody woke up. About 8am or so everybody started moving. It took me awhile, but I found Yaqui and managed to get some white abadas for the Batizado. And at about this time, I stopped using the shoes. The grass was a bit cold. But after a bit, all of the young'uns getting the first rank got to choose a capoeira name. Which means that I've got a capoeira name. To get all the translations, well, one meaning of translations, anyway, in English, it's "Lonely Lion" or perhaps "Solitary Lion" and in Spanish, "León Solitario," and in Portuguese, "Laõo Solinho." (I think it's pronounced "Layao Solinso" or "Layao Soliño," I'm not entirely positive. My other choice was gazelle/gacela/gazela (Pron: gaschela) but I liked the three vowels together in Laõo. But Yaqui informed us of what was going on, and the nine of us headed to the roda to get welcomed into the Academia.

We played a few rounds before receiving our cords, and it's difficult to choose which pictures I like. And it wasn't quite me taking pictures because, well, I was playing capoeira.



I can't remember names, but this is the guy that got to batizar me. At one point, my head was nearly taken off by a kick. I mostly only know this because everyone in the roda gasped. It was pretty fun. But this picture is neat because if you look closely, he's not on the ground at all. There's no pictures of me in any kicks or anything really cool looking...



But we do have a picture of me on the ground and we finished me in the batizado. I don't think I was hit (which was allowed at this point and there were some vicious take downs during the day), it's mostly my own fault that I try to do things and I get confused and end up doing things not quite correctly and falling down. But what can I do, eh?



But I got my cord! In the line of things, I think it goes, cruda (cotton color), amarilla (yellow), amarilla avanzada (one yellow two green twisted together), verde (green), verde avanzada (two white one green), azul (blue), azul avanzada (two white one red), roja (red), roja avanzada (I think... it'd be two white one purple), and violeta (purple) plus two more above this of blanca (really white) and dorada (really yellow). I only thought I'd be getting a cruda, but I got a yellow! Whoo-hoo!



But this is about what it looked like as I received my cord. The berimbau is is the stick with the gourd on one end. It's got approximately six notes: close to the body, away from the body, open, closed (above and below), and with a rattle. And the drum, I think is called a tambor, but also present are different types of African drums.

Otherwise, that was kinda it. When we received our cords, we played the roda again, and I've got a 435 MB video that lasts about 14 minutes. Until I'm able to edit it, or when I get back to Michigan, one or the other and I'm not sure which will happen first, I'll be able to get it online. But to let everybody know, I lasted about 40 seconds, partly because I tried things I saw in my head... It didn't quite work. But it was still fun.



But this picture is from Bernal that I forgot last time. No idea how I missed it, but from left to right, we've got Bere, Ryan, Ángeles and myself.

Bernal

Alright. Almost as promised... I got ill on Tuesday and was under the weather until yesterday\today. Anyway. On Sunday, I, along with some friends, climbed a monolith. The city lies only about forty or sixty minutes away from Querétaro and the bus ticket cost $28 pesos, or about $2.80 American.


Here was our challenge. That's me in the foreground, and Bere with her arms spread out and Ángeles in the tie died shirt with Ryan working the camera. But that beast in the back was the challenge. And the sheet of rock that I'm standing on is the first part of our ascent.


We had to make a few wall climbs, and this was the first. Ángeles and Bere first climbed up where we see Ryan finding his grip. I took a more difficult path just to his right. I thought it was a little bit faster, but that was kinda the point of the day - to find the fastest way up.


We're a little more than half way up at this point, and all that's left is the rock climb that involves rebar bent in odd positions hammered into the rock face. It was kinda neat. But the point with this is that we could only climb up so far before needing climbing gear. So we got to where we could and chilled out for a little bit.


Oh my gosh! Ryan snapped this picture as I fell... But luckily I was able to climb up in no time... Actually, at this point, I was checking out how far down it was. Looks something like five meters, or twenty feet, and before it leveled out, there was maybe four feet or so of grade. And after it leveled out, there was a good couple hundred feet before finding the foothills and civilization.


But this was what it really looked like. It was a fun little spot we found - good for a rest, and excellent for pictures. But yeah, there was a long way down by that point. And just a little bit more to go up.


But my acting earlier sparked Ryan's acting, too. And what a scared face he's got!


But, like everywhere I go, I managed to get a panoramic shot. Not quite as full as I might have wanted, but I was climbing with friends. It was a shame that we got there when we did because there was still haze on the hills that later burned away by 2pm or so.


You can't really see them, but there are two kids repelling down after reaching the very top. This picture is only important for a picture later on.


And Ryan was third to climb down with me taking the tail. But check out that face of determination yet again.


But I thoroughly enjoyed all parts of the climb. Now, I fully know that rock climbing is difficult and there's a very good chance that it's not going to be a future hobby for me, but don't I look cool doing it?


And what did we think of the trip? Ryan quite looks like he wants to climb another rock, and Bere gives international "It's awesome" symbol of the thumbs up. Ángeles is a bit camera shy, and we'll have to use our imagination to see her. But also to be fair, she was on the upswing from an illness on Sunday.


After the short little downhill climb above, the rest of the trip down had raillings and steps. But these are our friends after they came down. I think they had the right idea. We ended up walking down to a restaurant-store and having some micheladas and afterwards some ice cream. And then we basically just went to wait for the bus. This was the view from our corner:


It doesn't look so big from far away, but I took at least one more:


Actually, I edited this one a little bit, too. Now, as my photo editor is Microsoft Paint, it's not the greatest edit in the world. Especially when I couldn't really see what I was doing in the big picture of things. So that little tiny red smear you see when you try to inspect the picture closely? That's the point we were able to climb to.

But then we got on the bus and rode back to Querétaro. It was a good day. Nobody fell. The ice cream was yummy. And we slept the bus ride back. And then I had tacos that night and wrote and went to bed and slept through my alarm the next morning. Good times, good times. And as I put this online, I notice that there was a picture I accidentally left out. That'll be forthcoming, I guess.

El Pueblito

Well, two weeks ago I took a bus to a small town about five miles away. It'd almost be like taking the trolley from Muskegon to Whitehall, Kalamazoo to Portage (the far side, or something), or perhaps from Caesarea to Port Perry. Really, I have no idea. But there's really nothing in this small town. I went there on the basis to experience the party in honor of "Our Lady of Guadalupe of Pueblito." When I got there, there was a wedding party just finishing up, which is always pretty neat in Mexico. Then I decided to stop wandering around the plaza and asked a policeman where the dancers were. He directed me down the street to the other plaza.

I ended up taking ten photos and ten videos. Which means that the only images of the folklore dancers I have are in a video format that I can't edit on my computer. And the better images of the concheros (the real reason I went, everything else was just icing on the cake) are in video format, too. But here's some of what I've got:


This is the church. I'm sure there are more, but this one is at the main plaza in the middle of downtown. The wedding was in this church. I wandered around. There really isn't much.


Here are some concheros. They've got the fancy headresses on the heads and shells around the ankles and knees. There are two drums off to the side giving a crazy beat and the dance really is quite impressive. As soon as I can, I'm going to try to get the videos on a friend's site that I can link out.


I just this guy's headress was pretty neat. So I snapped a picture of it.


This girl was just too cute to not take a picture of her. She was one of two dancing groups later in the night. The groups danced to the music of banda groups. The first group was dressed up in black suits with red accents for the boys and red dresses with black accents for the girls. It was very cool.

But like I said, the best images are in video format that I can't quite access. But I should have the next update somewhere around this Thursday regarding my Sunday.