Miercoles = Wednesday.
That was the day I met my loves Roisin and Paudraich. Now I am following them around the country.
I don´t know how we didn´t meet each other earlier, but somehow the 10 new students who started last week managed to hide from my Aus friend Kate and I.
After school, in the computer lab, they rescued my precious Bio Oil that I had left there.
That night was the cafe social and we, the 2 aussies and a British lady wanted chips.
Not Mezcal, chips. They were on the menu and we were all telling great chip stories as we are all from lands of chips.
Mexicans did not understand this attachment. And although normally they cut the potatoes and fry them up and add 4 sauces right in front of your eyes in the street carts... this crappy bar (did I mention the fact that the waiter got away with overcharging my friend $10, and another time they told us we have to move to a tiny table with 4 minature chairs (there were 6 of us) because
there were other people who needed the couches... (so what if we just had juices and chips!).
Anyways, the chips came out stone cold. Straight away the bolsy (is that a word) Brit was all ´´Áhhh excussssemmmmeeee - Theeesseee areee coold. FRIO¨. Not impressed with the lack of effort. The irritated waiter took them away, only to return with the same, still cold chips a minute later. This time everyone was appauled, ´frios´were used and spanish was attempted. He took them away and returned with them 20 minutes later. Cold, but the bowl was semi-warm.. I was laughing SO hard... guess this is a got-to-be-there moment.
But the Mexican-Australian said to the waiter in Spanish ¨She´s from England, she´s from Australia and she´s from NZ:.. these are people who know their chips¨ dead seriously.
The waiter was all ¨not my fault¨(which, if I have learnt ONE thing at my hospitality school it´s that that is what you DON´T say) but brought Mezcal shots. Shame we were hungry and wanted chips. The manager came over and asked him to get fresh chips and he replied, ¨It´s okay, I got them Mezcal¨. That being the answer to a lot in here.
Thursday we headed back to try our luck at soccer again. It was much the same macho-fight without-rules as the first time but my team gained the star player and the new Irish lad this time so it was pretty even. I didn´t even run back and forth this time. I just stood there yawning.
Friday was the Salsa class, which for the first time in 4 weeks I wasn´t the loan pupil at. The irish lads were suprised why no one else was going, to which I jokingly said ¨Coz the Germans don´t know how to have fun¨ to, which the German didn´t appreciate... turns out Germans don´t know how to take a joke either.
The salsa class was led by a classic gay man called Nay who say ¨Nay, not gay¨ but I knew better. My gay-dar is unbeatable. Paudraic, the irish lad, had me in stictches originally with his complete unability to get the steps. He was all over the place, making it harder than it was. It was even funnier becuase all the dance teachers here (well, the 4 I have had.. that is 100%) show you something once and then presume you´ve got it for the rest of your life.
Anyways, he convinced us to visit a salsa club that evening, which we thought would be casual.
Boy.... no.
We got their and Paudraic and Roisin got up straight away.. .this 60ish man asked me so I got up, figuring I had to do it once, saying ¨Yo no sabes¨(I don´t know) 100 times and he didn´t seem to mind. Everyone asks different people to dance for each song, and I realised after that he must ask people he knows can´t salsa because he definately can´t either!
I think his wife and friends are all pros so he pounces on foreigners. With only the basic steps I can go okay with a strong leader (aka one of the teachers) but with him... he was making moves up and flinging me into other people! I couldn´t stop feeling a mixture of how awkwardly funny and how embarrassing it was at the same time. One of the skills of salsa is keeping to a small space, which the other couples were forced to do with me spinning all over the floor.
But there were AHMAZING dancers. One girl I noticed straight away, who was flying all over the place (SO fast) with such grace, while able to genuinely smile and look pretty at the same time (something, I learnt that night, which is VERY hard to do... no other female in the whole place pulled it off)... she danced every song with all every man in the club.. she always outshone them... even the teachers (including Nay).
She was what I consider to be the picture perfect Latina. She had a black halter top on that showed her belly, with tight jeans and black boots.. her goldenish curls were originally up but she bust them out later... they were long of course, typical Latina. Me and Paudraic reckon she never stops salsa dancing and discussed at length her dancing on the way to work, spinning to grab the newspaper at the shop before strutting on to catch her change... we worked out her life.
I tried to take some photos but she was moving so fast she is literally a blur!
Saturday was to be my last and boy was it exciting. I ended up wandering around parts of the hood I had never seen before... not exactly tourist territory as i discovered.
A man saw me sizing up the streets and helpfully gave me directions in very fast Spanish to where 2 of the streets lead... wanting to take a different road entirely, but wanting to look like I appreciated his advice, I headed down one of them.
I know he didn´t mention ¨Prostitutas¨on this street but that is what I found.
There were quite a few, it was like with ants... you see one and then notice the whole trail.... I think the first one I saw was about 17... I knew something was up when I saw her leaning on a VW van.. but not really looking like she was waiting for anyone or anything.
And then I saw the shoes. The HUGE platform-heals that were about a foot high. They were clear plastic...all class. The other ants, bar one, all had the exact same.
These were the ugliest shoes I have seen in my life, and this is someone who owned light blue slip on platforms and saved up piano practises for my silver pulps. But like every near-21 year old I am blaming my fashions of past on Scary, Sporty, Posh, Baby and especially Ginger.
I wanted to give them money, not for their services obviously, but so they would get off the street and take off the drag makeup, but unfortunately I cannot afford to make up what they would miss from a days work. There must have been about 12 of them... they were only on the one block, which was only about 6 buildings long (small buildings here... they are all about the same size.. coz it´s still all colonial). The girls had their own posts, one even had permanently attached an umbrella to the fence. I noticed that the men walking down the street (not customers) were not even making eye contact... which I found respectful for a culture that wolfwhistles and makes smarky comments at anyone over 14...
