“…I said wow, what a concept, I could use a little fuel myself and we
could all use a little Change!”

Well.. Ajay’s still here but not for long, school’s out on August
5th, and my flight out from Monterrey is on the morning of August 12th..
It’s been an interesting last week and a bit, lemme tell ya. I went to what
might be my first “real” party of the program, and had a really good time,
playing video games (fighting mainly, a la Street Fighter, only different),
and choppin it up with some mexicans.. (one of which my friends says is the
hottest girl around, and they claim she wanted me, but they’re loco..) I
also tried to go to the swimming pool (El Estanque de la Luz) to search for
my forgotten swim trunks, but they were missing. I jumped in real quick
anyways (~2a), which was entertaining, of course. The next night was
another party at a ranch, it wasn’t quite as much fun since it was mainly my
group (who, ya know, I see like everyday or something!), but it was a good
time. My “mom” here was convinced I was drunk when I came home since
apparently I arrived home very happy. Kept asking me what I drank, etc etc,
funny stuff. That was like two days out of the weekend of somebody having
trouble believing me in saying I don’t drink.. ­Que Raro! Ahh well,
whatevs! What next..

The week after, leading up to thursday (7/28) was kinda stressful, the thurs
especially. The invited to dinner/Presentations==>MIA. But!
We had to sing a song, the Romance del Conde Olinos, which
was fun; then we had our presentations. We talked about our projects. me
and Armeda (who has a travelpod blog) had already started our powerpoint
presentation that we intended to give to our class. (Or I should say, she
did most of the work, as well as for our paper!) But, that was in English,
now we had to give a presentation to the community–In Spanish?? Huh! Not
to much work to tweak the presentation (I assume, again Armeda stepped in!),
though I was of course a bit nervous about doing it in Spanish, and what
exactly to say. I was planning on making some notes, and practicing a lot.
The day however, was also our instructor Lonny’s birthday, and we had a
camera person there, by coincidence. (And so we all cut our beards to look
like Lonny to, hehe.. Lines in the sideburns, and a thin line for the rest)
And he gave a talk about Blackwater in the afternoon. This was a guy who
spoke 0 Spanish before the trip, and isn’t taking classes with us now
either. And he managed a ~1 hour talk! Without practice and without
notes?! WOW! If he can do it, so can I for a 3-6 minuter I figured. and
so I did. It worked out surprisingly well, I might add! I got multiple
comments, about how good my spanish was (words that feel _REALLY_ special!),
as well as how alive/lively my presentation was. This is because it was
contrasted with everyone else, who either relied heavily on notes, or just
straight read off their notes, which provides variable levels of
understandability. I’ll have to write more about our specific project in a
bit. (e.g., later.) The last thing we did there, at the FAC for our
presentation, was a skit. Me, Lisa, William (Guillermo), Tressie (Azul) and
Jen (jables)! It was kind of a nervous experience, one I definitely read
off my notes for. Luckily, both during my presentation and during my lines
for the skit, I received laughs from the audience. This was good, a sign
that they actually understanded some of what I said. During the
presentation I Was trying to think of a good word for stop, to say that
“these straws stop the air from coming in the receptacle,” and replaced
“stop” with one of my (now seemingly characteristic??) sound effects, which
in addition to receiving much laughter, additionally got a woman translating
my sound effect into the spanish word (choco? mas o menos, to stop/hit) for
it, funny stuff. She also had a lot to say, in terms of resources locally,
other ideas for our project to help make it work better, etc. Unfortunately
there’s not so much time for all that now.
For the aftermath, a bunch of us went to a bar, popularly known
(among my group) as Fernando’s Bar, but I think my ‘family’ calls it ‘The
Half,’ wherein I took some pictures of our group playing pool (Yay! I’d
been waiting for some billiards for a while!), and then I placed my camera
down next to a window with bars on it (no mesh/etc), and that was the last I
saw of it. YEs, the same Canon S-60 that has allowed me to take so many of
the wonderful pictures ya’ll have enjoyed, is no longer in my possession.
According to my “aunt,” a fat man with a baseball cap seemingly took it,
but.. the world may never know. Fernando tried to scare him into giving it
up, didn’t work. WE put a Social Service Notice/Message on the TV last
night– didn’t help. I’m debating a police report, but I can already tell
you, that that.. “won’t help” (With the returning of my camera, but I think
it still has value.) Those two events (being ~dissed 2x?) definitely let me
to being sad the next few days, let me tell ya.. well, I think I should get
to work, it’s late.. all for now, ta! -Ajay

  
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