First Day of Class

An A-MAIZE-ing First Class

Today was our first day of class. Class is six hours, 8:30 - 2:30, with only a half hour break. Yeah, it's all the same class. I thought it would get a bit tiring after maybe three hours or so.

But...we got to the class and the first thing we did was go to a Tortilleria! We got to walk into the area where they prepare the corn. They have huge tubs of corn, which they mix with hot hot water and lime (the chemical, not the fruit). They have to soak it to make it soft before they can grind it up, and we got to hear all about the process and watch them grind it. We even got to pick up and pass around a bit of warm dough right out of the machine. 

So much corn

There was also a random dog underneath, barking as we came in and being held back by it's owner who worked there, which I thought was funny. 

Making fresh dough

 The tortillas were fantastic. Nothing like the store-bought tortillas in the US, and the man gave them to us to try for free. He took the time to learn all of our names, and kept giving us advice about life and telling us about his life. He apparently has nine kids, and was married for a long time, and they were very poor but very happy. He also tried to get our professor to dance, but unfortunately she declined.

Eating fresh tortillas!

Corn is super important and very symbolic. The Aztecs believed that man came from corn, and there are multiple legends of Quetzalcoatl related to corn. Since it was our theme of the day, we went to get tamales for lunch after class.

I single handedly ate both a pork and a bean tamale, and they were fantastic. Tamales are my favorite Mexican food in general, but here they are about 1000 times better. They were served with this "water" infused with guava, which I can't even explain in words.

The things we are covering in class are so interesting that I don't mind having just one class for six hours. Plus, we get to go buy fresh fruit during our break, which is fantastic here.

Just hanging out and practicing our Spanish as a class comes with a lot of funny moments too. Today, our professor had to inform us that the word we had been using for jacket actually means something inappropriate in Mexico. I'm finding out that our mistakes really do make up a lot of the experience. None of us speak Spanish perfectly yet, but laughing at ourselves with the locals we meet is part of the fun.

So, despite classes starting, Mexico remains fantastic.