It was no better or worse than the surroundings would have suggested. He poked in my mouth with questionably clean instruments, which he wiped down on his grimy (and inappropriately named) whites, as he babbled in medical Spanish. With the use of mime and illustration, we established I did not have gum disease, and was not losing all my teeth. I did however have a "muy mal" cavity and needed either a crown or a filler. Thus followed several days of very badly translated, dental documents, tearful skypes with my dads partner (who is a dentist), and the discovery that my declining teeth were thanks (probably) to my little stint in Colombia, where I ate approximately 42 sugar mangos a day. (Sugar mangos- the same as regular mangos but SWEETER...)
I dinghied the dodgy dentist, and got myself another one. The way I acquired her is quite roundabout and also odd. The bare bones of it is Angela was seeing a Mexican boy before I came, who seemed to blame the demise of their relationship on my arrival. The one and only time I met him, he said that it was funny how misleading photos could be. I had looked like quite a nice person IN MY PHOTOS. But I WASN'T in real life. Hah. Anyway, it's his dentist. She seems good, but I'm waiting for the day when my tooth drilling is interrupted by the scorned hombre, wielding dental floss in a threatening manner. The dentist is under the illusion we are great friends and I haven't known how to tell her otherwise. Anyway, I've had some weird polly filler stuff in my tooth all week, and today find out if I can just get a filling, or if a crown is in order. Fingers crossed.
On top of the toothache, I had some horrible stomach thing, followed by a chest infection. I was inhaling antibiotics like there was no tomorrow, and now I seem to be coming out of the dark place. Lucky for me, more lucky for Angela. Because of this, I've literally done nothing for a fortnight, except crawl from work- to bed-to work again. I have manage to obliterate me and Angela's carefully constructed budget by missing almost a week of work, and spending vast sums of money downloading music from my youth, with which to curb the anxiety of being on my own in the house for more than 17 minutes.
I am of course exaggerating, and in amongst the falling teeth and phlegm, there have been some nice things too.
We went to The Blue House, home of Frida Khalo and Diego Riviera. It was lovely. We accidentally went on Fridas birthday, which meant it was a bit packed- but what a beautiful house!
The exhibition of her stuff was nice, but I believe she didn't do a huge amount of paintings, so there wasn't much there. Far better for, me was drooling over her soft furnishings. I tried to take some photos for future inspiration, but got a row from an aggressive security woman. I will just have to try to reconstruct her dreamy kitchen from memory, if I ever become a real adult with a house.
We also went to the national anthropology museum, which is really famous for being great and informative etc etc. I think I missed something because it almost made me weep with boredom.
It was pretty much just pots. Hundreds of pots, with some gold, and some stuff made of sticks thrown in for good measure. Even the codexes which I was really looking forward to, looked like they were cut out from the back of an 80's Beano. And it needed a good dusting.
I had forced Angela to go because I "love museums", so for the first hour I had to feign interest in the crockery. After an hour or so however, my desire to sprawl in a plaza eating tacos outweighed my desire to never be wrong, and I slithered off to lie in the sun whilst Angela and Matt looked at chipped cups for another hour.
I am not saying the museum commonly held to be the best in Latin America is rubbish, just that it wasn't doing much for me. I acknowledge that my inability to read Spanish, my lack of brain power and what seems to be a general indifference to anything that isn't relating to myself, probably contributed to the disillusionment, but it wasn't that great in my opinion. Sorry Mexico.
The most thought provoking part of the day for me (and I use the term loosely) was my time in the sun, where I was given the opportunity to ponder the Mexican propensity for PDOAs. Public Displays of Affection are a daily part of life here. I fluctuate between thinking its romantic, and wanting to cheese grate my eyeballs off. It does make me realise what a repressed nation of prudes the British are, but whether I really think that's a bad thing I'm not sure. Even the over fifties do it here; full on snogging on the subway, cheeky gropes on the bus or persistent if gentle mauling in the park. Yes, that's ageist, but I'm not saying its worse from the elderly, just weirder. Mexicans seem to think British people are cold and sexless in our interpersonal relations (except when drunk), which I can also see to be a valid assessment. All I know is I spend a lot of time feeling hot and bothered when I'm on public transport. I never know where to look. Probably the answer is not "straight at them with a bright red face and a twitching jaw", but never mind. I need to work on my nonchalant face more, something I have thought before. I am too expressive, like a massive, shocked baby.
Yesterday we went to a craft market in San Miguel. It was great. There was a square full of art which consisted of approximately 572849 paintings of women with their breasts out, or horses. Sometimes one or the other, sometimes both. There was a rare sighting to be had of abstract vases of flowers, but these were few and far between, and generally pushed to the back to give the breasts and horses greater platform. I laughed a lot which understandably went down quite badly.
There was also a performance of sorts consisting of the most beautiful peerie lasses with huge tropical flowers all over their head, dancing about with big white skirts on. Later I was forced to watch an unintentionally hilarious "sword fight", where lots of tragic middle aged men poked each other with sticks whilst wearing bee keeper masks.
The craft market was better; loads of cakes, bonkers jewelery, skeletons covered in glitter and pictures of famous Mexicans with light bulbs and bobbles coming out their foreheads. A student told me that Mexico was where the word kitsch originated from. I'm not sure this is true (India seems a contender too), but its certainly one of the team captains. I love it.
I had forced Angela to go because I "love museums", so for the first hour I had to feign interest in the crockery. After an hour or so however, my desire to sprawl in a plaza eating tacos outweighed my desire to never be wrong, and I slithered off to lie in the sun whilst Angela and Matt looked at chipped cups for another hour.
I am not saying the museum commonly held to be the best in Latin America is rubbish, just that it wasn't doing much for me. I acknowledge that my inability to read Spanish, my lack of brain power and what seems to be a general indifference to anything that isn't relating to myself, probably contributed to the disillusionment, but it wasn't that great in my opinion. Sorry Mexico.
The most thought provoking part of the day for me (and I use the term loosely) was my time in the sun, where I was given the opportunity to ponder the Mexican propensity for PDOAs. Public Displays of Affection are a daily part of life here. I fluctuate between thinking its romantic, and wanting to cheese grate my eyeballs off. It does make me realise what a repressed nation of prudes the British are, but whether I really think that's a bad thing I'm not sure. Even the over fifties do it here; full on snogging on the subway, cheeky gropes on the bus or persistent if gentle mauling in the park. Yes, that's ageist, but I'm not saying its worse from the elderly, just weirder. Mexicans seem to think British people are cold and sexless in our interpersonal relations (except when drunk), which I can also see to be a valid assessment. All I know is I spend a lot of time feeling hot and bothered when I'm on public transport. I never know where to look. Probably the answer is not "straight at them with a bright red face and a twitching jaw", but never mind. I need to work on my nonchalant face more, something I have thought before. I am too expressive, like a massive, shocked baby.
Yesterday we went to a craft market in San Miguel. It was great. There was a square full of art which consisted of approximately 572849 paintings of women with their breasts out, or horses. Sometimes one or the other, sometimes both. There was a rare sighting to be had of abstract vases of flowers, but these were few and far between, and generally pushed to the back to give the breasts and horses greater platform. I laughed a lot which understandably went down quite badly.
There was also a performance of sorts consisting of the most beautiful peerie lasses with huge tropical flowers all over their head, dancing about with big white skirts on. Later I was forced to watch an unintentionally hilarious "sword fight", where lots of tragic middle aged men poked each other with sticks whilst wearing bee keeper masks.
The craft market was better; loads of cakes, bonkers jewelery, skeletons covered in glitter and pictures of famous Mexicans with light bulbs and bobbles coming out their foreheads. A student told me that Mexico was where the word kitsch originated from. I'm not sure this is true (India seems a contender too), but its certainly one of the team captains. I love it.
Angela got hilariously ripped off buying some matchboxes with pictures of Mexican wrestlers on them, the purchase of which was accompanied by my haranguing insistence that "I could make you one of those. For FREE", which seemed to delight her almost as much as it did the shopkeeper. I bought some embroidery to give as presents back home. I've decided as I've got about three more months, I better start now so I don't get to the last week and realise I have 84 sequinned frijoles to buy.
The "I could make that" gene seems to be strong in both of us, as our house now resembles some kind of camp, Santa's grotto, full of homemade piñatas, clay moveable skeletons and other questionable "art works", that are certainly influenced (if nothing more) by the real Mexican versions which we are too tight to pay for. I'd be being insincere if I didn't say we've made the house rather homely though. We have a couple of pals who are boys, who just come round (to get fed usually) and wistfully gaze at all the pleasant touches, which men seem so incapable of introducing into their own homes (sorry for sweeping gender assumptions but its true). The twitching cockroaches sometimes ruin the vision of domestic bliss which is irritating, as too is the pervading odour of damp shoes. Nonetheless, we get by in a
vaguely Kirsty Aslopp-like manner.
Anyway, I had better to and do some lesson plans. Last week I had a class on physical descriptions. The workbook suggested I get the class to describe each other, which I thought was naive at best, and that I would save some of them the pain of being described accurately by nominating myself instead. I smiled modestly (with just the right hint of acceptance) when I was described as "beautiful" and "young" by one creeping sook, but was soon brought crashing to earth by a gimlet eyed youth who described me as "on the heavy side" with "dry hair". In future I am determined to bring more visual aids to class. Let them describe Bradd Pitt next time. I will know better.
Sent my
The "I could make that" gene seems to be strong in both of us, as our house now resembles some kind of camp, Santa's grotto, full of homemade piñatas, clay moveable skeletons and other questionable "art works", that are certainly influenced (if nothing more) by the real Mexican versions which we are too tight to pay for. I'd be being insincere if I didn't say we've made the house rather homely though. We have a couple of pals who are boys, who just come round (to get fed usually) and wistfully gaze at all the pleasant touches, which men seem so incapable of introducing into their own homes (sorry for sweeping gender assumptions but its true). The twitching cockroaches sometimes ruin the vision of domestic bliss which is irritating, as too is the pervading odour of damp shoes. Nonetheless, we get by in a
vaguely Kirsty Aslopp-like manner.
Anyway, I had better to and do some lesson plans. Last week I had a class on physical descriptions. The workbook suggested I get the class to describe each other, which I thought was naive at best, and that I would save some of them the pain of being described accurately by nominating myself instead. I smiled modestly (with just the right hint of acceptance) when I was described as "beautiful" and "young" by one creeping sook, but was soon brought crashing to earth by a gimlet eyed youth who described me as "on the heavy side" with "dry hair". In future I am determined to bring more visual aids to class. Let them describe Bradd Pitt next time. I will know better.
Sent my
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