San Juan De Dios

I don't have a lot of time to write today, so I thought I'd just share one experience from the trip so far. One of the more unusual things I've done on this trip is go to San Juan de Dios in Guadalajara.
If you have never been to Mexico, it's going to be hard to visualize, but I'll try to describe it the best I can, because I couldn't take pictures for reasons that will be obvious as you read along.
In Mexico they have a place in almost every major city called the "Tianguis." The best approximation in the U.S. would be a swap meet or flea market, but those are much to clean and civilized and the merchandise too random to really translate.
The tianguis are arranged like flea markets- open air, usually, with individual booths, stalls, or tents where vendors display their merchandice on tables and racks. Some have cash registers, but not most. Usually money is exchanged via a cash box, shoe box, fanny pack, or some other mysterious source. The tianguis are kind of the Mexican equivalent of an American shopping mall as far as merchandise goes- they sell cosmetics, perfumes, clothing, electronics, shoes, cd's/dvd's/mp3's, etc. Most even have a food court. The merchandise is almost always pirated or otherwise infringing on copyright laws (such as rip-off perfumes sold in recycled bottles and Chinese-made immitation brand name clothing). The food is traditional Mexican fare, including fruit that you can pick and have chopped up for you on the spot, served with fresh lime juice, chile powder, and salt... or possibly Chongos Zamorranos, a caramel flavored milk based treat that has the consistency of squeaky cheese and comes served in a flan-like syrup... roasted chicken quarters or tortas... and so on.
Most tianguis are crowded, dirty, noisy, chaotic, and somewhat smelly (the toilets are usually located WAY too close for comfort to the actual shops and are never more than poorly maintained outhouses). They are also the only place most Mexicans can go to get really affordable American-style stuff, including latest releases for videos and music. Since piracey is legal in Mexico (yup, even cable tv is pirated off of American satellites... no big surprise there) it makes a lot more sense for Mexicans to buy their movies 10 for 150 pesos (that's like $12 American) than to go some place legit and buy one DVD for 275 pesos (like $25 American), especially if they are poor working class families like most of the country are. To buy a DVD released from the production company who made the film is really impossible here because even if you can afford to pay for them, they are impossible to find. Stores like Best Buy don't even exist here and WalMart is a joke. It's basically an overblown grocery store with a few shirts and shoes tacked on. So the only place to get stuff is really the tianguis, hence their popularity.
Well... back to my story. We were going to buy Andrei's Christmas gifts here, so we wouldn't have to cart so much stuff around to so many different places (see previous post). However, our usual tianguis (Tianguis El Sol) is only open Fridays and we were going to be in Manzanillo on Friday so we headed over to San Juan de Dios on the recommendation of Luis's cousin Rogelio who was the deputy Chief of Police over that area of town for like 8 years. However, he warned us that they are truly cesspools, more crowded, and WAY more dangerous than regular tianguis. The trade off is that the stuff is even cheaper there than most places.
So on the 25th we drove over there. That might sound odd, but in Mexico most Christmas celebrations occur on the 24th, last until like 4 in the morning, and the majority of Christmas day is spent sleeping off the insanity of the night before. Gifts are opened at midnight on the 25th, so the kids play while the parents are hung over. Merry Christmas, right? Since we didn't stay up that late, relatively speaking, and since we weren't tired or hung over (not drinking is always a good choice I believe), and since Santa only brought Andrei a couple of cars and a story book, we had nothing to do all day. We figured, why not go see if SJdD was open.
Wow.
The only way I can describe the place is Hell on Earth. Not because we were actually suffering but because it was the lowest I've ever seen humanity sink. I was instructed before I went to leave my purse, camera, and all jewelry in our room and to wear dark sunglasses the entire time I was there and avoid speaking so that people couldn't guess I was American, since that would make me a target for robberies and violent crime. Luis hid all of his identification, credit cards, American cash, and most of his Mexican cash in the owner's manual of the car we were driving so that if someone broke in while we were shopping they wouldn't grab it. Andrei was instructed to not say anything at all unless absolutely necessary.
When we got there we waited in line for 30 minutes to get into the parking lot. When we got out, we walked down a flight of slimy stairs into an open air plaza where there were horridly tacky touristy looking clothing and toys, and dirty beggars pleading for Pesos. It's like if pergatory had a gift shop that's what it would look like. We walked through the plaza and down some more stairs into a dark tunnel, and that's where things got really interesting.
It looked like an enclosed storage unit or military storage locker and smelled like exhaust fumes, urine, and vomit. Everything was painted a garish shade of red, covered by gum, old ads for bands and porn, graffitti, and general grime. We wandered around in some rat-like tunnels and finally emerged into what looked like a post-apocolyptic shopping mall. All the storage units we'd seen closed were opened here with tents set up and cardboard boxes layed over the tents, which looked strange looking down on the floors below because you could see uncovered sidewalks with people walking around and the tops of the tents, but no actual shop fronts. The tops of the tents were all covered with garbage and other undisclosed substances, hence the boxes to prevent it from seeping on to the shop owners and clientele below. Everything was terribly filthy and you had to gingerly pick your way between the garbage and fluids on the ground to navigate your way around the place.
There were so many people I can not even begin to estimate, and the temperature was a balmy 85 degrees. It was so noisy you had to shout to be heard and the only light that came in was a thin stream of dirty sunlight from a small opening on the top floor (I think there were 3 or 4 floors, but it was hard to tell) and the assorted flashing lights put up around the individual stalls . Everywhere people were trying to grab your attention, and sometimes literally your arm, to get you to stop and look at their wares. There were more beggars strewn around on the ground, sitting on cardboard hunks to keep from dirtying themselves on the ground below, and there were a few random assorted drunks reeling about. There was also a very strong aroma of marijuana in a few places.
We spent about 1 hour there, and it was intense. Imagine babies crying, people shouting, music blasting at Disco-Club volumes, and strobe lights flashing, mixed with the aroma of gas, smoke, exotic foods, pot, B.O., perfumes, incense, cheap plastic, and garbage... then you can begin to get an idea of what San Juan de Dios was like. We got a lot of cool stuff for cheap, but if we ever go back I'm not bringing Andrei. This is surprisingly not because of saftey reasons. If you've ever seen my husband you can guess why I wasn't ever truly scared for our safety. Rather, this is mostly due to the fact that Andrei was throwing one of his "I'm only going to speak English because I'm an American" fits and we missed out on a few things we really wanted to get because people doubled their prices as soon as they heard him blabbing on and on in English. In short, no one was robbed and no one was stabbed, and we got a bunch of MP3's (like 20) for $5. All in all I think it was a good day of shopping. Towards the middle I started to feel like I was going to either faint or vomit or both, so I had to sit down and drink some ice water to make it through. I spent the rest of the day in bed with a fever and nausea. I don't want to know why.
Anyway, Merry Christmas! Where were you on December 25th?

I'm Still Here!

Just in case you thought I forgot about you all, I'm still here. Actually, I should be specific. I'm still here in Mexico. We left on the 19th literally minutes after school got out, drove to El Paso, then to Chihuahua, then to Guadalajara, then to Colima, then to Manzanillo, then back to Guadalajara, then back to Chihuahua. Yes, I am carsick, dizzy, disoriented, and still a little bit sandy. More details to come. I'll be here until the 2nd or 3rd I think. I'm not sure. It's kind of hard to keep track of time when you have no phones, emails, or schedules. I seriously thought it was Saturday until about 10:48 this evening.
Hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!
Love to all...

Family Photos

We had our family photos taken this last week or so by Sears thanks to my dad who bought all of his kids a full family photo session. The first one is going out in Christmas cards, but in case I don't have your address, here it is for your viewing pleasure. The rest are just on the photo CD we got. I really liked them and thought they turned out pretty good.

Thanks dad!

And so we say adieu.

I finally had a sit-down with my business partner and broke the news to her that we've gotta close. I left out the part about her incompetence causing us to lose business and just went with the old "we're in a recession" thing. She says she's going to start her own company with a friend from fashion school. I didn't feel like it would be appropriate to tell her that's going to fail, too, if she can't learn how to make a friggin' deadline.
She took the news pretty well and basically let it be known that she's just been hanging in there the last few weeks for my sake. I told her that was kind of her, but that I'm more than fine with closing things down. I didn't tell her I put in our 30 days notice with the rental company last week.
I've had some really great inspiration lately, though, to start an etsy store to sell my crafts. I'm going to have to think about what I want to make and start crafting, but it seems like a fun and rewarding outlet for my creative energy. I love etsy. If you don't know what it is, check it out.
Anyway, it's the right time, and I'm glad I'll be able to pick up Andrei after school now and care for him instead of keeping him in his pointless after school classes.
I guess that's that.

Come together, right now...

So Andrei is a weird kid. Have I ever mentioned that before? He didn't talk until he was three. Literally. It mostly just shouting, screaming, grunting, throwing, and hitting. He did, however, know all the lyrics to the Barney song before his second birthday. He also has been able to dance in rhythm since he was 8 or 9 months old. It's truly bizarre. To this day he has trouble with anything verbal or written. He is a slow reader at best and he has no interest whatsoever in becoming better. He is, however, obsessed with music. Still. He can sing in harmony, and he can hold a tune while others sing harmony to it.
While we were at my mom's house in Fresno over Thanksgiving, she gave him a quick piano lesson and he's totally internalized it. He's been bugging me about that darn piano for a couple of weeks now, so I dug my old keyboard out of the crawl space this weekend and bought a universal DC adapter so we could plug it in. He went nuts. He spent like an hour and a half just playing around with the different settings and I had to drag him to bed. He even got me to get out my violin so we could "jam." I haven't touched the thing for years now, since I basically gave up music when I got to college. I guess this is something he really wants to do, though so who knows. Maybe I'll get back in to it, thanks to him.
Kids are weird like that.

White Christmas?

It's foggy and stormy outside and I'm hoping that we'll get some snow. So far we've had a really dry winter. The first snow was in September, but it was just a flurry and didn't stick, and everything that's followed has been really random and kind of the same thing- melts the same day it falls.
I love the snow (just not being outside in it) because it makes things look so pretty. Our neighborhood looks just like a Normal Rockwell postcard in the winter.
So here's hoping for a white Christmas- or at least the week before. We'll actually be in Puerto Vallarta for Christmas and I'm assuming that it will be tropical and sunny, like always.

Aggression...

I've been feeling really angry about a lot of things lately, and I think that the bottled up tension is starting to manifest itself as unnecssary aggression.
Case in point... today when I came home I found a notice on my front door from animal control. Apparently my poodle got out (Again. Long story.) and a neighbor called animal control. Animal control saw her running under the fence and left me a cute little note saying I was being cited for my dog being off-leash in the neighborhood and oh, btw, could I please call them to arrange to have my citation signed. Grrr. I did call. I also said some unladylike things to the animal control lady.
Another example... I was walking in the hall on Friday when one of my most obnoxious students ran past me (he had shoved someone and was trying to run away before getting kicked). He ran into me without looking and nearly ripped off my pinky in the process. Let's just say I paid him back by fully ripping him a new one.
My sister Teriesa has offered to give me a free massage. I think it's about time to take her up on it because I'm starting to revert to Klein Camille. When I was living in Klein I had too much stress in my life which manifested itself as explosive aggression. I had kind of a reputation for being a colossal "B" in high school. I probably deserved it because I was one angry little chickadee back in the day. I am afraid that angry Camille is making a comeback and I don't want that because I worked REALLY hard to mellow out and stop verbally asaulting everyone who irritated me. I need to seriously chill before I say something I regret to someone who really doesn't deserve it.
Anyone got any ideas? What do you all do to relax when you're wound up? Maybe I should take up kickboxing. I've got some serious issues that could probably be worked out better on a punching bag since my method of self-medicating with chocolate hasn't worked out great so far.

Rock Lobster!

Ok. So the title of this post has nothing to do with anything. I just kind of like the B-52's sometimes. I don't think that's such a crime, unless I admit it in public.

So my friend Megan posted this picture on Facebook the other day and it really made me think back on the good ol' days.

I have been in Provo now for officially 9 years. That makes me feel really old and lame most of the time, but you know what? I'm glad about it. When I graduated from BYU the only thing I wanted to do was get married to my high-school boyfriend, but he wanted to do a mission and I wanted to support him in that. I waited for him for 3 years, and to help ease the waiting I came to BYU. I also came up here because it was halfway in between either parent. (Nice strategy, huh? I was out of both of their jurisdiction! Sorry mom, but it's true) It worked out for the best, though, and I've had some really good times here.

Now since both of my parents read this blog I'll spare them the details of my college years. But this picture kind of sums up the kind of stupid stuff we used to do.

On my 18th birthday we decided to celebrate in style. Since I wasn't interested in smoking, we figured we'd just commit a misdemeanor. There is a local gas station chain called the Maxi Mart. Classic. Now, knowing me you can probably guess where this is going.

I'm all for honesty in advertising so I thought we should Maxi the Maxi Mart- you know- to send a positive message about their corporate identy to the public. Mel's friend Alicia donated the Maxis and Mel, Alicia, and Megan helped me do the dirty work. Mel's roommate Jenny took the photos, and the rest is history.

Most of them fell off within a few weeks, but there was this big Always overnight that stuck to the sign for literally like 2 years. It was still there when Luis and I started going out, I totally promise. Gross! I guess no one wanted to get near it.

Aside from the horrible vandalism we are perpetuating on an honest business establishment my favorite part of this picture is how I look. This is living proof that I spent about 4 years literally not caring what I looked like and pushing the envelope as far as I could go without crossing the line between eccentric and full-on crazy. Note my excessively dark, short hair and overly colorful wardrobe. Classic!

Anyway, enjoy. This is seriously one of my favorite pictures ever. Thanks Megan for posting it!!!

Giving Thanks

So we left last Tuesday night to go to my mom's house for Thanksgiving. We got permission from Andrei's mom to take him, which I was somewhat aprehensive about, but my family really wanted to see him so we decided to go for it.

The trip there was pretty uneventful. We drove to L.V. and spent the night in a motel there. Around 7 the next morning we got up and started the long drive from L.V. to Fresno. Andrei behaved pretty well considering, but having a 6 year old in a car with no friends, movies, games, or activities and only a few toys. All I have to say is thank goodness for the McDonald's Play Place in Tehachapi California. We spent Wednesday night at my sister Tiffani's house, and Andrei had a great time getting to know his cousins.

Thursday we all woke up pretty early and spent most of the day getting things ready for the big show at my brother Kris's house. Kris has a new house, a new family, and a pretty awesome new life. His first biological child was born this October and we're all so excited to welcome little True into our family, and are so grateful for Jo-Ann and all that she's done for Kris the past year. They are a really great couple and an adorable family, and I really enjoyed getting to know them. Their house is pretty big and really nice, so it was the perfect locale for Thanksgiving Dinner. Andrei had a great time playing with Jo-Ann's girls Katrina, Mia, and Cienna.

On Friday we woke up WAY too early to do some Black Friday shopping. We got a whole bunch of stuff we weren't planning on purchasing because it was so cheap, so Christmas is basically done for this year. Our favorite purchases are Guitar Hero World Tour and my new camera. I've been wanting a nice camera for a long time now, and I got a Nikon Coolpix P80, which I love. It came with a bag, a battery, a charger, a memory card, and a coupon for 50 free prints from Costco. Yay! I also got to help Emily shop for a new London wardrobe, which was ridiculously fun. I love her. Friday night we played Risk with Emily, Brent, Malachi, Tiffani, and Richard. Luis and I won, although we had to be pretty sneaky to beat Richard. He's really good at the game and our mission was to wipe his armies out.

On Saturday we did a session at the Fresno Temple. It was the 5 year anniversary to the day of Emily receiving her endowments at the temple so we thought we'd commemorate it by reliving the experience. It was cool. We haven't been to the temple for a long time (that's what happens when you work nights and Saturdays), and the Fresno Temple is a pretty cool one. It's really tiny and you get a lot of personal attention. Afterward we went back to Tiff and Richard's house to make gingerbread houses. Emily slaved all day Friday making them, and they turned out AWESOME, despite a frosting malfunction which was later corrected. Saturday evening we went out to Sweet Tomato for dinner with Emily and Brent and then went back to my mom's house to play cameras. Emily got a new SRI by Nikon (I think it was the D60?) and I'm excited because now she can take all sorts of amazing pictures in London. I'm so jealous!

We left early on Sunday morning, making sure to stop one last time at Donut Queen, home of the world's single greatest doughnuts. I love them too. We're glad to be home, but will miss family. I know this because Andrei mentioned about a million times on the drive home that he misses his cousins and especially his Grandma. Apparently he things Grammy is the greatest person ever. He was very specific about this.

I took a lot of pictures on the trip home, mostly to amuse myself on the long drive. Above are some of my favorites, as well as a few fun shots from the night before.