Many welcomes in many different languages

In starting a blog I feel there is a great deal of pressure. Pressure to know what I want out of a blog, what my blog should contain, should I post pictures, stories, or simple antidotes? In humming and hawing I decided my best course of action would be to not think about it at all, jump in and see what comes of it. Perhaps what emerges from this ad hoc approach is exactly what my blog needed to be.

So today I am in Colima, Mexico. While here I am taking three UofCalgary sociology courses based out of UofColima. There are 17 of us, students, and one professor. At this point the assignments are vague as well how we are to complete them, I have been assured everything will make more sense in a few days.

Yesterday was an impossibly long day of traveling, somewhere in the 17hr range, on about 2hrs of sleep. I think I did alright.

We arrived in Colima via bus around 9:15pm local time, in the dark and where whisked away "into the Mexican night with complete strangers" as my prof would say. And my stranger a very excited lady speaks no English, luckily for her I speak no Spanish so we are about in the same boat of understanding. Thus far there has been a great deal of nodding, laughing, smiling, and confused looks. Over all a success. Fortunately I am not going to be a mute for my entire stay at the home as she has three daughters, two of which live at home who speak English just fine. *phew* and are both around my age. The third daughter even brought her two very cute little kids, 3 and 1yrs old to the house today. So cute. But they seemed confused why when they spoke to me directly I just stared blankly at them. I suppose I'll have to get used to that feeling.

Today has been good but somewhat daunting. Today is our "homestay day" in which we are to get our bearings, and get to know the family, the town, etc. I should mention that everyone on the trip is paired with a fellow UofC student to stay with, well everyone except me. I won't complain because I did volunteer, partly because no one else did and I knew I could do it. I will say that it would be nice to have a fellow English speaker in the same situation as me. No worries though as I am surviving nicely. I do not know what I'll be doing for the rest of the day, perhaps a nap would be in order.

I will try to post regularly :)

Current weather conditions: 23℃ and clear

As an aside; today I saw three women in the back of a truck driving around downtown, although this is not unusual they also had a stroller with them. Oh Mexico, you are a crazy place.