After I already had a quite bad experience in the morning today that fortunately turned out not so bad in the end and received a massage, I'm now relaxed and motivated for this post.
Feelings
This month was less of an up and down than my first one here in Mexico. Even though not a lot changed to be honest, I feel happier and more content. I haven't accepted my situation and I'm in the process of changing some things that I assume would improve my experience here but I'll tell you more about that when I know for sure how my life here is going to turn out.
The hardest thing this past weeks was dealing with the aftermaths of the earthquakes. While the first and even the second one (that happened shortly after my 1 month update) didn't affect me too much, one Saturday I woke up to another earthquake which wasn't even that very strong, but this experiences was really horrible for me. After that I was often shaking when lying in bed trying o relax or sleep and I sometimes imagined hearing the earthquake alarm or the earth shaking when there wasn't anything happening at all. Every strange noise startled me and for some time I really wasn't too good at home.
By now I'm a lot better, mostly due to starting doing yoga daily. I do it alone at home with YouTube videos but this half an hour really helped me.
I haven't missed neither Germany nor Brazil too much this month because I finally accepted that I'm spending 12 months in Mexico and that I myself decided what it will be like. Not everything has yet turned out they way I would like it but it can still happened. We will see what the next weeks bring (hopefully some major changes).
Experiences
As already mentioned I experienced some more earthquakes in the last month and I think I'm nearly accustomed to the earth trembling once a week. Maybe I'll miss it when I return to Germany next year (warning: irony!)
I must admit my weekend weren't too exiting in the last month. The best day was definitely the "Dia del Amaranto" (Amaranth day). I only planned on going in the morning to help prepare anything for the event but in the end I stayed nearly 12 hours.
I got to know a Mexican who also volunteered there and he was really nice and we talked a lot and after we finished decorating, he had to help with the children's program and I accompanied him and helped with some workshops as well. I had a lot of fun and learned quite a bit about amaranth as well. It was the first time I found someone from Mexico to talk to about different topics (even politics) apart from my colleagues and it felt really good.
We also had time to walk around the fair and try and buy different products mad of amaranth. My favorite were definitely sweet amaranth popcorn and the skull which you can see in the photo.
There are also some interesting videos from this event on the Facebook page of Puente (they organized the event). Just look for the videos from the 7th of October.
By now I have also received my Mexican ID and I already joked about how I'm collecting permanent residencies. I already have two and the third is already planned. However this fact really represents the part of me that loves to get to know cultures intensively which you can only do by living in a country for a longer span of time.
Other than that I've been to a children's birthday/goodbye party where I arrived quite late, but hey I had some other things to do beforehand and it was hard to find a way to go the village where it was hold and I still had a good time there and as we went to our mentor's house after the end of the party, we could also take some nice pictures of Oaxaca from above (in this moment I wish I owned a real camera, my smartphone just couldn't portray the beauty of the view).
I'm really looking forward to next year though as I planned my mum's visit to Mexico next year this week and I also bought tickets for the Niall Horan show in Mexico City, so yeah, I'm really excited for these events and everything else that will happen beforehand which I don't about yet. Also the "Día de los muerto" (Death day) is coming up and I'm quite excited what it will be like and also a good friend who volunteers in Mexico City is going to visit us in Oaxaca for this event.
Work
There's isn't much to say about this topic as nothing has changed too much. I'm still really happy and like going to work a lot. I got some new tasks and in between I do translations or whatever other is needed. I don't think I can grasp anything yet especially as there is so much going on at the same time but I learned how to keep this things out of my mind in my free-time and not look too closely at the horrible pictures of dead people in the newspaper every morning (I was so shocked the first time I opened a newspaper as these pictures aren't allowed to be published in Germany).
Language
I would say my Spanish has improved quite a bit since I arrived here in Mexico. I understand most of what is spoken by now apart from the Chilean volunteer but I was told before by another volunteer who studied in Chile for a year that if you can understand their Spanish, you can understand every Spanish. I'm not there yet unfortunately. I can also communicate sufficiently and I don't use as many Portuguese words anymore as in the beginning. I even started to think in Spanish sometimes which is crazy because I'm only here for two months and it took so much longer in Brazil (but I didn't know Portuguese beforehand, so maybe that's the reason). I can't say anything about dreaming because I never really remember them or at least not the language it was in.
About my Indefinido and Imperfecto issue: I just use what appears in my head first or which one sounds better to me and if it's wrong, well people usually still understand what I want to say. And maybe I'll develop a feeling for when to use what in the future.
I also learned that if I study International Management, I'll Spanish classes (I thought I would only have Portuguese) but that won't be a problem when I return to Germany next year.
Oh and I sometimes have problem saying things in German without using complicated sentences with a thousand commas which is kind of a problem.
Contact to Germany
I still have a lot of contact with my family and friends in Germany. I talk to my mum (and sometimes other family members) on the phone once a week. WhatsApp is kind of my best friend. My wristwatch show the German time as I sometimes need it to know if I can expect an answer from there or not.
It's also interesting to get know how my friends are doing and especially how there first days at university are like. It kind of makes my looking forward to going to university next year but I think doing a gap year especially a voluntary service was totally the right decision. And at the latest when they have to study for and write exams again, I'll be happy being here learning what life after university could look like and appreciating comfortable office chairs.
So that's it for now, but stay tuned. I was asked if I wanted to accompany some for my colleagues to the Istmo (that the region on the coast of Oaxaca where the earthquake destroyed a lot) and I said yes. So the next post will certainly be about this topic.
 |
| What would be a post without a cat pic? |
Sandra
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen