Extranjera...

If you know me at all, you know that I am an intensely social person. One might therefore expect me to have no problem making new friends in a new country, and one would be partly correct: I've met some wonderful people indeed. Few of them are Mexican, however, and this is something I am trying to understand. But then I've been here only a month, so there's still plenty of time, right?

I do have one Mexican friend, M, who is lovely. She and her husband recently took me to Uxmal for the evening light show. I had envisioned something bizarre along the lines of "ancient ruins meet 70's rock-opera laser show," but it was actually much more tasteful than that. While a narrator tells the story of Uxmal, a spectrum of colored lights highlights various buildings within the Uxmal compound-- and so it is that the most modern story telling techniques bring these ancient structures to life. I look forward to returning to Uxmal during the day, but I'm happy my first view was by moonlight, and with new friends.

I'm still getting used to the fact that I am una extranjera here; the translation doesn't do the word justice, because more than being a "foreigner," I am, by etymological extension, extraña (strange). But of course, we already knew that...

What else would explain the strange woman who walks just for exercise, who rides her bike to work, who sits in the park and reads? I don't see locals doing these things. People walk to and from, men ride bikes, and people in the park sit idly (and if alone, only if they are men) or talk with others. In fact, you just don't see women out alone very often. So here I am, a stranger in a land that is by turns baffling and normal.