My departure from Germany & my arrival in Mexico

Hello everyone,

I'm already in Oaxaca for more than three weeks and lots of things happened. I want to talk about most of them in my 1 month update, but just before I begin talking about the actual topic of this post: I'm good. I was shocked by the earthquake but I'm ok, maybe a little shocked, and my city isn't too much affected by it. The same can't be said about my work, but I'll tell you more about that in the next post. My sympathy goes out to all the people who lost someone in this terrible natural disaster and as well to everyone who lost his or her livelihood.
However sad this thing is, I'm going to talk about different things now.

The first struggle in Germany was certainly packing my suitcases. I've another post about this topic planed, so I'm not going into details now, but I can tell you: it was really hard for me. 23 kg or 50.6 lbs plus 12 kg or 26.4 lbs hand luggage just isn't enough for a year. In the end I nearly mastered it (my hand luggage was a little too heavy but luckily they never weighted it) but only because my mum sent me some more things in a parcel.

Saying goodbye was even harder (I get really emotional just thinking about it). I had a little farewell party with friends and family the weekend before leaving. We had some really good cake and it was nice seeing almost everyone again. My dad and my little brother brought me to the train station in Karlsruhe because my flight was early in the morning and my mum and I had decided to stay in a hotel close to the Frankfurt airport to not risk missing my flight.
This also meant I had the chance to test our new car on the autobahn before leaving which was really cool (who would have thought I would enjoy driving a car someday?). Saying goodbye in Karlsruhe was the first hard thing to do.
I didn't sleep too much in my last night in Germany but I didn't feel too anxious or nervous either.
We got up at 4 and something the next morning and took the 5am shuttle to the airport. There we had to collect my big suitcase which we had left there the day before. Then we had to go to terminal 2 which was a bit of a struggle. The queue before the Air France check-in was also quite along, especially for this early hour. I had to wait for a while and then went to have some breakfast with my mum before having to say goodbye at the security control. This was a really hard moment because I finally realized I won't see my family for a year (well my mum will most likely visit me, so it's not a full year, but still enough time). Fortunately I wasn't alone as there were four more volunteers which flew from Frankfurt. The flight to Paris was really hard for me and I cried for most of it.
In Paris we had to go through passport control as we were leaving the European Union which took quite some time as there was only counter open.
When we arrived at our gate for the flight to Mexico City we soon received the information about a two hour delay. At least we got a free 11€ coupon too buy food and that's how we used this time and of course we were over 20 volunteers so it didn't get boring.

Mexico City from above

The flight to Mexico City was good for me. I slept a little, watched a film, listened to an audio book and talked to the other volunteers in my row. Time passed by quickly and soon enough we arrived in the capital of Mexico were we had to recollect our suitcases, go through passport control and some of us through security control (it's a system based on coincidence and of course I had to do it). As we missed our first flight to Oaxaca, we had to go to the airline counter to see if we could take a later one and as I later read in in an e-mail by the Mexico coordinator of the World House Bielefeld, they had already rebooked our flight.
We had some time at the airport in Mexico City because the flight was only 9:45pm and we had arrived around 6pm. I was already really tired at this point and when we were on the plane I couldn't keep my eyes open and didn't realize that the start was delayed because it was raining heavenly.

This city never seems to end...

Our mentor waited for us at the airport in Oaxaca and we went to the city with his car and a taxi. We had to squeeze four people plus the luggage of three in a little car. We went to the house of two volunteers first where three of us stayed for the night together with two which returned to Germany the next day. I could choose to go to my own room or stay with the other two at their house and I did the second option because it was already late at night and I wanted to sleep.
I finally went to sleep at 1:30am when it was already Friday. I woke up at 7am for the first time but managed another few hours before my mentor picked me up at 12pm to bring me to my own room.
There I met the volunteer who worked at my organization before me and another volunteer who had already lived here for a year and stays here for another six months.
Before they went to the airport we went to get something to eat (I hadn't eaten in a long time by then but I wasn't to hungry either) and they showed my where to find a bank and a supermarket.
Later colleague from my organiszation visited me to tell me when to start on Monday and just welcome me which was very kind.

Bienvenido a Oaxaca

Map of the federal state of Oaxaca

This was Friday and my first day at work was Monday, so I still had the weekend to get comfortable. However the weekend was really hard for me. I didn't feel good referring to health and I felt really alone and was very much homesick. I slept a lot as I had a jet leg as well.
So yeah the weekend was difficult to me but I went to buy a Mexican chip for my cellular with the girl who prolonged her stay here but other than that I chose to do nothing outside of the house because I really didn't feel good.

Buying food for the first time

This cat is enjoying the mess I made with my things :D

So this is everything for now. I can already tell you that my last weeks here were like a roller coaster of feelings. But of course I don't want to spoil too much of my next post which will be published tomorrow 😉.

¡Hasta luego!

Sandra