Hola!

Estoy en San Miguel de Allende! Es un pueblo muy lindo y llena de mucha cultura. Vivimos en una casa muy bonita y ahora estoy en escuela todos los dias exactamente como ustedes!

Now that I am in school too, I am not as frequent in writing to all of you. After all the new sites, smells, sounds and movement of the day, I am going to bed quite early. (which most of you know is unusual for me!)

First of all, we live in an area of San Miguel that is not extremely wealthy or extremely poor. It is a mix. There are two nice houses next to us, but then there is a home that is really run down, has a tin roof and still uses wood for cooking and heating next to those.
Unfortunately everywhere in our neighborhood, the people still accept littering as a part of life. For many, many years there were no garbage cans or people to pick up garbage, so people would just throw it where ever they wanted. Now, San Miguel has a semi-decent garbage program, but old habits are hard to break. Therefore when we walk the paths to town, they are scattered
with litter. JonPaul and Ammann who have been trained to to pick up garbage when ever they
see it and will be imprisoned by their parents if caught littering are having a hard time with it.

The interesting thing about garbage pick-up... You know they are coming to get your garbage when a young man comes walking down your street ringing a bell really loud. This sound means the garbage truck is not far behind. You never know what day or what time this will happen, so you just hope you are home when it does!!

Another interesting thing is our drinking water. About every 3 days someone comes driving down the street yelling "agua, agua, agua" and if you need purified water that comes in those 20 liter containers then you go out to the street and purchase one. No need to go to a store!

We are learning quickly that there is a price for the "gringos" and a price for the "locals". It seems that we are usually given a price double of the locals and I find myself having to argue for everything. This is the part I don't like. Today we went to the market - a huge Tuesday Mercado - where everything is sold from toothbrushes to food to hand-me-down American clothes! I would listen to the prices they gave the locals and then ask for the same price and they wouldn't give it to me until I started to walk away. It was frustrating, but I know it's a way they are able to make money too. Our big purchase for the day was JonPaul's DVD "Tom and Jerry". They sell pirated copies of all the DVD's you can imagine for $15 - $20 pesos (about $2 US dollars). They color copy the cover of the DVD,, tape it onto a blank case, then put the copied CD inside and sell them really cheap! Anyone want to put in an order for a movie?


Today in the market I bought my first "nopal" - cactus! - to cook and eat! It actually was quite "ricisimo" (delicious) - but then anything here tastes wonderful when you put lime and salt on it! In fact lime, salt and very spicy salsas seem to be put on everything - including pasta!
The other fun food we have is from a Tortilleria. (A tortilla shop). Everyday on our walk home (about 25 minutes) we stop and eat fresh tortillas from the Tortilleria. The tortillas are fresh off the press, made with corn flour instead of white flour and cost $1 peso for 5 tortillas (about a dime). We sprinkle green spicy salsa and salt on the tortillas and find that we then have the energy to make it up the last big hill to get to our home!
Well, today's theme seemed to be about "alimentos/comida". Tomorrow - who knows.
Miss you all and see things everyday that I wish you could be here to experience as well.

Who ever is going up Big Mountain this week (Julio, Paco, Domingo, Santi, who else???) take a run for me!
Hasta Pronto!
Sra. Koch

New words of the day.... Swimming pool - alberca, tomate=green tomato and jitomate=red tomato, a straw = popote and Chicken Noodle Soup = sopa de fideo