Los Manatiales

.Friday was a school holiday because it was the last weekday of the month and Thursday was a field trip to Los Manantiales (i only found this latter fact much later)  The field trip was called dia del campo.  Basically a day in the country.  I had seen the sign posted at school but thought it was just for the preschoolers and not the older kids. 
When you don't speak the language you miss a lot.  I then thought there was no school on both days, two days tacked onto the 2 week holiday.  Berenise tried to clue me in but she kept repeating ' dia del  campo!'.
I thought it must be a special holiday.
At the end of the day I was saying 'goodbye ' and 'have a nice holiday' to the ladies in the kitchen and they said,  'aren't you coming tomorrow?'. They said I was to be there by 8. 

I had understood on the sign that the school provided certain food and the families were to provide snacks and maybe a torta or sandwich.

So I arrived the next morning with my purse, camera, granola bar and a package of pumpkin seeds.
There was lots of cars because parents and grandparents were coming and they had rented a 13 passenger van to accommodate families or staff who didn't have a car.
The cars were all over stuffed with people and the van had 18 in it but we were told that the van's liability did not allow it to be over capacity.  So the extra 5 people were moved into the already overfilled cars.

We started off South out of town and drove for an hour or more.  I still had no clue.
We got into very dry country with tall cactus and turned off the road onto a steep incline dirt road.
We arrived at our destination and I thought it was some sort of nature preserve.  There were lots of trees and we saw a squirrel and a large iguana right away.
The staff and families got out coolers of food, blankets, baskets etc and we went down by a beautiful river to set up our picnic area.
It finally dawns,  we are here to spend the day in the water and, I am told, we are not planning to leave until 6 pm.
Again, those who know me know my all time favorite exercize is swimming and I LOVE playing in the water.  

I have no towel or bathing suit.
Lucky for me ,Jorge has an extra pair of sweat shorts.  The photo of me, is me in my swimming attire.
Having bottoms allowed me to change into dry jean capris for the ride home and my blouse dried out quickly during story time on the blanket at the end.

As I understand it Manantiales are hot springs and this is one of many .  A famous and more developed one is Estacas, which is also about an hour from Cuernavaca.
The hot water combines with the river water making the temperature perfect for hours in the water.

There many waterfalls of all sizes.  Some little ones you can sit in tucked and hidden back in the bushes and some large enough to stand behind.

The close up of the kids are both in my class, Josebeth and Juan Carlos.  And the close up of the two woman, one is a mom of one of the girls in my class and the other is a teacher with the preschoolers.  The teacher is an Argentine and I thought verry beautiful.

The woman in the lavender blouse is Juan Carlos' grandmother.

Of course there was a lot of delicious food and I did not starve.

Diid I mention recently how I hate my tablet.  I have no idea why it is underling or how to make it stop.

I would like to say that this experience of not understanding plans and not being prepared, due to my lack of Spanish, has made me study 3 to 4 hours day like my brother, who is living in Chile, but alas it has not.

Cuernavaca

I really don't fully understand why Cuernavaca is so special to me.
But it is.  These photos don't capture the heart of it but a small glimpse.

Volunteering

Today we had very special visitors at Communidad de los Ninos.  They are doners that make the program possible.  I am grateful for their desire to have a program that does not have a specific faith base.

The children had an egg and candy hunt, rice dyed green, hard boiled eggs that they cracked by hitting their egg on someone's head and bread baked in the shape of a rabbit. 

There are more photos on Facebook but I wanted to talk about my role as a volunteer.

I would like to say that I am a teacher's aide but that would imply involvement at a different level than my Spanish allows.
I am like a combination of a teacher's pet because I always try my best to figure out what the teacher wants and do it;  the oldest kid in the class who has been held back because there are some things I can do really well and other things that I have not a clue;  and an autistic person because I do best with predictable patterns and routines so that it is clear what I am to do now and what I will do next.

I am hoping in another month I will be closer to a teacher's aide.

Tepoztlan pyramid

I have been to Tepoztlan a number of times.  Only one of those times were people in the group hiking up to the pyramid but I opted out.  I had heard it was very difficult and was with people I did not know so decided to stay with the folks exploring the town.
On Sunday Nora called and asked if I wanted to go to Tepoztlan and of course I said yes.  Little did I know that they had planned the climb.  There were a few clues;  they were surprised I wore a skirt and they had a backpack with a couple of water bottles in it.  Lucky for me I had one too.
We started up and all was well.  It was all stairs of natural stone.  I saw women in lace blouses with the matching red bra underneath, people 30 to 50 pounds overweight, parents carrying small children,  children climbing on their own and people as old as me so I figured if they can do it I can do it.  Then I started feeling light headed and I told Nora and the girls to go ahead.  I started then feeling sure I could not complete the climb.  And all around me I heard,  'no puedo'.  'I can't '  from many different people.

The picture of me sitting down was taken by a man who, after I took a photo of him and the woman he was with, asked me if I wanted a photo too.  I said 'yes because I think this is as far as I am going'.

Two things changed my mind.  9 yr old Nohemi,  who had bounded up ahead like a mountain goat and probably had been on the top for 40 minutes came back to where I was and said,  'tu puedes'   '  you can''
she only said it twice and also told me her Mom was at the top and then bounded back up out of sight.

The second thing was the couple and their grandson who had climbed up early to sell apricots to the climbers.

I did then make to the top.
The view and experience at the pyramid was worth it and the trip down was a piece of cake in comparison.

We each had a shrimp from the ladybarbequeing.
My legs and knees were totally worn out but I got to sit down while we had a great meal.  And afterward some of the town's famous ice cream.
It is one of those things that afterwards feels so good to have accomplished.

Suzanne gets lost

I was heading for Tetela del Monte to see the architecture of John Spencer but ended up somewhere totally different.  I got off the ruta at the end of the line and started walking.  I ended up at a point with a barranca on two sides.
I started back to the ruta but turned the wrong way at a fork and ended up in a small town that I found out later was Santa Maria, that is actually incorporated into Cuernavaca.
Being stubborn and prideful, I did not want to turn around and go back and look like the lost gringa, so I kept walking.  I wandered thru town.  The town looked like a place where few gringas are often seen and where there was little entertainment other than watch the gringa  pretend like she knew where she was going.
They had some kind of a carnival going on with kiddy rides but I saw not a child anywhere at the rides. 
I did see and smell some of the most beautiful and fragrant loaves of bread I have ever had the pleasure of encountering and I would like to say I took no photos out of respect but in all honesty I was still trying to hide the lost tourist look.

My guess is that all this is early preparation for Samana Santa.

I walked more than an hour and a half knowing that downhill will eventually lead to town if you are in the north.
I will try again for Tetela del Monte maybe tomorrow.

The Birds

My sister Chris gave me the idea of having the kids make these birds.  Even with my limited ability in Spanish to explain, I think they came out well and I combined it with an English lesson of the parts of the bird and the things we needed to use like glue, scissors, rope etc. 
At the time I did not think the English words held much interest but I posted the list and the kids are referring to it daily, trying out their memory and pronunciation and mine.

Then there is a photo of the Springtime decorations at the entrance and the last photo, one of my favorite little cuties sewing his bunny or conejo.

The scenery photo is not supposed to be in here