Settling in

Yesterday marked a full month since I arrived in Mexico. And almost like magic, this past weekend Oaxaca started to feel like mine, or like I was a real part of Oaxaca. I've had some rough weeks, struggling with homesickness and "la turista" stomach illness, feeling lonely and alienated... But the past few days have been really great.

I got an approved day off (after only a small mountain of paperwork and 4 signatures) on Friday to go into Oaxaca city and pick up my completed FM3 work visa. This makes me officially NOT a tourist (no matter how many pictures I take!) and allows me to work legally. I navigated the immigration office sola, and then went to the US consular agent to get a document notarized. This guy is my country's representative in Oaxaca, and I am not afraid to say that he was surly (definitely NOT burly) and not at all friendly. I was rather disappointed, but I got the task done.

Friday night I went out with my friend Katharina and an assortment of other people (including some Mexican professors), for her friend's going away dinner. Saturday I met with a friend from Great Barrington (Humberto!) who was visiting his family in Oaxaca. It was SO great, and rather strange, to sit and talk with a friend from GB, in such a different environment. While I was waiting for Humberto in the zocalo, a co-worker from my University came up and introduced himself. Seeing as I am so very visible on campus (being the new gringa in town), he recognized me, and we had a nice conversation.

Later in the day my landlord picked me up for ice cream (and for me to pay the rent). At all of the ice cream places they have "helados" which are traditional ice cream made from milk, and "nieves" which are made from (hopefully purified) water. I have given up on avoiding dairy, since EVERYTHING is served with cheese inside and out here, but I'm still trying to keep it to a minimum, so I order nieves. My favorite flavors so far are pineapple, lemon, and mango... Yum!!

Then I went with Katharina and 2 of her students to a cine-cafe, where they have 2 small rooms and you can have the movie of your choice projected on a big screen while you eat... And later that night we went out dancing, which I was really needing! I got picked up by one of the professors I had met the night before, and it ended up being a large group of us dancing for hours... And did I mention the special on mojitos??

Sunday I made my way back to Miahuatlàn, and stopped in at the internet service provider that I have been trying to work out scheduling with. He said he could do it right then, so we drove to my apartment (which was great because it was POURING), and he hooked up internet in my apartment!! Right now it's not very fast, I'm going in this evening to work out a deal on fast internet. So hopefully I'll be able to Skype from home.

And this morning I woke up early to walk the 10 minutes into the center of town to buy fruits and veggies at the Monday market. Every Monday is market day, and the streets are full of vendors selling everything from fresh produce to hardware supplies and clothes. I spent about $50 pesos ($5 USD) and came home with about 8 bananas, 10 tomatoes, a bag of little potatoes, 5 avocados, 3 little zucchinis and 6 mangoes. And I think I got charged too much for the avocados. It's amazing the variety of produce that was available, I don't even know what 25% of it was.

Now I'm in my new office, moving things around and getting settled. I'd been holding off on choosing which office I wanted as mine because Friday was the last day for 4 of the teachers, and I didn't want to crowd anyone out of their space early. So this morning I came in and checked them all out at my leisure, and now I'm in my real office.

So all in all, things are feeling a bit more settled. I'm getting the hang of how to do things in this corner of the world, and slowly but surely, I'm making friends. I might just survive here after all...