Our Visit to Mexico City & Countdown to Becoming a Full Fledged PCV!

I decided to do a flurry of a couple of postings, since it has been awhile since I have posted anything.  This is mainly due to the fact that our training days are really long and packed with stuff to do.  But we are beginning to the see the light at the end of the tunnel!  It is Saturday and we only have 2 more weeks of training before our swearing in.  Swearing-in is officially Thursday, April 19th, so not even quite 2 full weeks left to go.  It was actually supposed to be Wednesday April 18th but the US Ambassador will be at the G20 Summit.  I guess he figured he need to be there in Puerta Vallarta instead of our swearing-in!  We are all looking forward to our swearing in although we have lots of big things to complete before that happens. 

Speaking of the Ambassador, we were invited to go to his home for a cocktail party when we visited Mexico City last week.  We were in Mexico City for just 2 half days and one night to visit the Benjamin Franklin Library, to meet resource people from the Department of Commerce and State and US AID.  In addition, we met with the officials at CONACYT, which is the Mexican government organization that runs the research center where many of us will be serving.  When we went to visit the US State Department people, it turns out that one of currently serving volunteers worked with her in Washington, D.C. for many years and she was the person that snagged us an invitation.  The Ambassador was not at home, so his second in command was hosting the reception.  It was being held as the closing event for a Smart Grid conference that had been held that week.  Needless to say, it was really fun to see the house-which is really large and lovely, and it was really fun to be driven though the most beautiful parts of the city to get there!  I don't have the photo that we took of the group in his house, but when I get it from the person who took it I will post it  But here is a photo of the courtyard of the hotel we stayed in.  It was in a great area with good distance to nice restaurants etc.  It is called the hotel Casa Gonzalez.  Even though we loved the charm of the place, the rooms were just okay. Next time we will stay in the same neighborhood but find a different place.

 

Meanwhile, now that we are back at our training site, we are working on a practicum with one of the local universities here in Querétaro, and we are giving our final presentations next week.  I am working with one of my fellow PCT's (Peace Corps Trainee) supporting a professor who is developing low cost parallel robots.  So not exactly the classic Peace Corps experience!  We need to give our 20 minute presentation in Spanish, so that could be painful all around for both presenters and audience, but great practice for the Spanish qualification test which is also looming.  I started out at the intermediate level of Spanish, so in order to be sworn in unconditionally, I need to have advanced by 2 sub-levels.  I have no idea if I have done that, but fingers crossed that I have because there isn't too much time left to cram!  If I haven’t advanced enough then I will have to build a plan with the language instructors to get to that level before the next early in-service training, which happens 3 months after your service starts. So I am hoping that isn’t the case.  I do want to work more on my Spanish once training is through, but in my own way and at my own pace.  We are really hoping to stay focused on staying in Spanish with our colleagues at the center rather than using English.  Many people there speak lots of English, but our hope is to limit our English to class time only.  It is bad enough that Antoine and I speak English at home!

Okay I guess I have finally caught up.  On a final note, this week has been a fairly important holiday week in Mexico, “Semana Santa”, the holy week ending with Easter tomorrow.  So yesterday, Antoine and I went to the centro of Querétaro to watch the silent processions.  These are processions of volunteers from different churches around the state who silently march barefoot between seven churches in the city.  It is really beautiful and impressive.  Most of the people are carrying heavy crosses or statues of Christ or Mary or Guadalupe.  The atmosphere is respectful but also carnival like with people lining the route to watch and there are also little stands that sell tortas and gorditas and other yummy types of snacks.