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Hi everybody!! My name is Gabriela and I'm 11 and I'm going into 6th grade. This summer I went to
MEXICO for FOUR WEEKS to stay with my Abuelita (that means grandma!!) in a little town in Jalisco. I went
from June 26 to July 24. My mom flew with me to Guadalajara and stayed the first week and then she
went home and left me there!! (On purpose. It was my idea.) I took a disposable camera and these are my
pictures. Some my cousin Veronica took because I'm in them.
Some of my friends don't speak Spanish so I put what the words mean in pink. My friends who DO speak Spanish, hi, you can skip those parts!! |
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My Family There Abuelita is my mom's mom. She is short and she laughs a LOT and she gets up at like 6 in the morning every day. Tío Rodolfo (my uncle) is my mom's brother and he has cornfields outside of town and a horse named Canelo. Tía Yolanda (my aunt) lives two streets over. And I have SEVEN primos (cousins) there:
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Making Tortillas!! Me and Abuelita in her kitchen. Veronica took this. I'm doing the press and Abuelita does it with her HANDS. Abuelita makes tortillas every single day. You take a ball of masa (corn dough) and squish it in the press between two pieces of plastic, and then you peel it off really carefully and put it on the comal (a flat round pan, Abuelita's is black and older than my mom). You flip it and it puffs up like a balloon!! My first ones were shaped like Texas. By the end they were round. Almost. Abuelita says I have good hands. I think she was being nice. |
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El Mercado (the market) We went to the market with Abuelita in the mornings. It's a big building with a roof and a hundred little stands inside, fruit and chiles and cheese and meat and flowers and piñatas and shoes, all together. It smells like EVERYTHING. The mango lady gave me a mango on a stick cut like a flower with chile and lime on it. Abuelita knows everybody and it takes FOREVER to get anywhere because she has to talk to all of them. |
Sunday Nights in the Plaza The plaza on Sunday, July 11. The white thing is the kiosco!! This was my FAVORITE. On Sunday nights EVERYBODY in the whole town goes to the plaza and walks around and around the kiosco (the bandstand in the middle). That's it. That's the whole thing. You just walk around in circles and see people and buy a raspado (shaved ice with syrup, I got tamarindo) and the old people sit on the benches and watch. Veronica told me in the old days the boys walked around one way and the girls walked the other way so they could look at each other. EWWWW. But also kind of cute. Me and Veronica walked around like 50 times. |
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It Rains EVERY DAY In the summer it's la temporada de lluvias (the rainy season). Every morning is sunny and nice and then around 4 o'clock the clouds come over the hills and it POURS, with thunder, and the street turns into a river, and then it stops and everything smells good. You can set your watch by it. Tío Rodolfo says the rain is why the corn is so tall. It was taller than him!! |
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THE SCORPION IN MY SHOE (AAAAAAH) OK so. The second week. I went to put on my sneaker in the morning and Abuelita said WAIT and took it and banged it upside down on the floor and an ALACRÁN (SCORPION!!!) fell out. A real one!! It was brown and as long as my finger and it had its tail curled up. I screamed so loud Marcos started crying. Tío Rodolfo squished it with his boot. Abuelita said "ya ves" (see?) and gave me my shoe back like it was nothing. After that I shook out my shoes EVERY morning and I am still doing it at home even though there are no scorpions in my room. Probably. |
Riding Canelo!! Me on Canelo and Tío Rodolfo holding him. Saturday, July 17. The corn is SO TALL. Canelo means cinnamon, because that's his color. He's Tío Rodolfo's horse and he is very old and very nice and he only goes slow, which is good because I never rode a horse before. Tío Rodolfo walked next to him the whole way out to the cornfields and back. You hold on to the front of the saddle (it's called the cuerno, the horn). My legs were too short for the stirrups. My legs hurt for two days after but I don't care, I want to go again. |
THE FIESTA!!! The castillo!!! Thursday, July 22. My flash didn't work but the sparks came out. Every town has its own saint, and ours is Santa María Magdalena, and her day is July 22, which was two days before I left. Lucky!!! For days before, there was a band playing in the plaza and food stands everywhere, and every morning at like 5 a.m. they shot off cohetes (rockets that just go BOOM, no colors, just to wake everybody up) and the church bells rang. On the day there was a procession with the saint carried through the streets, and everybody in their best clothes. And then at night: the CASTILLO (it means castle). It's a TOWER made out of poles, taller than the church door, and it's covered in fireworks, and they light it at the bottom and it goes up one part at a time and the wheels SPIN and throw sparks all over the place and everybody screams and backs up. At the very top was a wheel that spun off and flew up into the sky. Tío Rodolfo made us stand way back. Sparks landed on Jaime and he did a dance. It was the best night of my WHOLE LIFE. |
What I Missed From Home
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Stuff I Learned to Say I already speak Spanish because we speak it at home but my cousins say some things different!!
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NEXT SUMMER I'M GOING BACK!!! Abuelita said I can come every summer until I'm a grownup. Veronica and me already have a plan. I'm going to ride Canelo by myself next time. (Tío Rodolfo said "we'll see.") 
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E-mail me!! [email protected] Last updated Saturday, September 4, 1999 ~ ¡Adiós! |