Casa de los Refugiados

An excursion to the park

When we left for our excursion yesterday, we knew we were going to a "Casa de los Refugiados," but we didn't know where or what that meant, and we expected it to be a house with a lot of refugees and horribly sad.

A lot of immigrants actually try to come into mexico, and some of them are refugees. People have to leave their home country for various reasons, including political, class, race, or gender discrimination. Some of the immigrants coming through are trying to get to the US, but others are just trying to get out. Some stay for 2 weeks. Some stay for 30 years.

We walked to the Casa de los Refugiados. It turns out, the "casa" was little more than a small...I hesitate to say shack because it was very nicely kept, but it was very small for a house. The whole thing was one room with a table, a lot of chairs, some shelves of books, and other assorted educational and meeting related items within it. We had a guide named Timor who was from Germany and 20 years old, but he was pretty new to the job and seemed nervous to be speaking in front of a Spanish professor (his Spanish was about the level ours is). 

The Casa de los Refugiados is only where they have meetings. They have to kinda acclimate to Mexico, and they don't know the culture or the people when they come. Timor is one of the people that helps with that. They live in these safe houses, and we didn't actually get to talk to anybody, but that's okay. Our meeting at the casa was short and I don't think as detailed or sad as Doctora would have liked since it must have been a different guide than before, but that was just fine by all of us.

The back of the casa, a mural of the "bestia"

After we went and got alcoholic ice cream, which is a genius idea. Also, they had different colored powders to put on mango at a little stand, which was weird but cool.

Dark Ice Cream: the other side of ice cream

Today we had debates. I had to argue for capital punishment in Mexico, which was super hard for me but I think I got a 94. After, we got lunch at an Italian restaurant which was a good change. 

It rains almost every day here, which makes me super unmotivated because I can't go on runs so I take naps or eat food instead. I think next week it will be easier because our next professor won't be as tough and we won't be as exhausted. I am excited for this weekend and have loved having Doctora as a professor, but it has been a LOT. 

Tonight is Wednesday so normally I would go to salsa lessons, but tonight I can't because of our quiz tomorrow, test Friday, informe due Friday, and two article summaries due some time this weekend. However, I've learned so much in this three week course. I am pretty sure the hours of class we had total more than the hours of class for a three credit course during a semester. 3 hours a week for fifteen weeks is way less than 6 hours a day for three weeks. Granted, we have had a lot of excursions to cut down the class time. It's been such a whirlwind, as Doctora promised us, but so much fun.