Pyramids and My Last Week at IDEAL

I have a new suitemate from Indiana. She is a social worker in the public schools. She and my other suitemate speak Spanish very well and I´m learning by speaking with them. I was describing to my new suitemate the sounds I usually hear in Evelia´s garden. I told her I really liked the sound of the ¨canarios.¨ I described the chirping, the cooing sound I hear at night. My suitemate is very outgoing and friendly. She kindly informed me that the sound I was hearing was from tree frogs. I don´t think I ever knew that birds don´t ever chirp at night. I am learning something new every day!

I´ve now visisted two ancient pyramid sites (piramide). Teotihuacan is the ancient city of the famous, most influential indegenous population in Mexico. The site was settled around 200 B.C. It lasted until about 850 A.D. when something, maybe famine or overpopulation caused the population to collapse. The Spanish conquistadors evidently did not find this grand city even so close to Mexico City, so they did not crush the piramide del lune (of the moon) and del sol (of the sun). I climbed the little pyramid in the ancient ¨commercial area¨. There were indegenous dancers the day we visited.

Last weekend, I took a trip with my suitemate from California to the nearby Tepoztlan. She had studied Spanish in this town six years ago. While she visited her friends I climbed the 10 meter (straight up, no switchbacks) very rocky mountain, Tepozteco. There is a pyramid at the top. Some people have fallen to their death climbing this pyramid! I did not climb it. The mountain climb was bad enough. I sometimes took 4 or 5 steps and then had to rest. It took me about 90 minutes to climb the thing. But the pyramid was beatiful and so was the view. This pyramid was influenced by the ancient Teotihuacan people (most indegenous people were). It was built around 1200 AD, but the Aztecs destroyed the population around mid 1400.

Tomorrow is my last day at IDEAL. It has been a wonderful school and this last week I studied with two other classmates. Javier is our teacher and he has shared some really interesting cultural things with us. We discuss poverty and wealth in Mexico and the differences between Estados Unidos (The United States) and Mexico. He is about 34 and is the youngest of 10 siblings. Two of his older siblings live in the United States. I invited Javier and my other teachers to come visit us. This weekend I move to the Diocese of Cuernavaca where I´ll meet folks from the Episcopal Church for two more weeks of classes.