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Currently the Inn Keeper in Guanajuato, Mexico. Go to www.houseinguanajuato.com to see the wonderful lifestyle I enjoy.

Friday, October 06, 2006

The Festival

Things are heating up in GTO. The Festival International Cervantino is now officially underway. As Millie and I walked the streets today, we passed (and paused) at several sidewalk events. There was a troup of clowns entertaining near the central market, complete with a VW covered, totally covered (except for the windows), in patterned ceramic tile. Near the house there was a troup of puppeteers complete with the little stage to hide the performers. Nearby was an acting troup doing, as near as I could tell, a comic version of Little Red Riding Hood, complete with wolf costume and all. On Plaza Ferdinando there was a song group blazing away. Big people, little people in all sorts of costumes are on the streets. It is now almost 10:00 pm, and there are singing groups walking the streets which I can hear as I type.

Added to all this were the street vendors taking advantage of the enlarged population. Balloons, souvenirs, food, paintings, you name it. It was like a spontaneous county fair. Police are out in great numbers to be sure the traffic does not lock up, as there is limited space for cars, and one can easily visualize a catastrophic traffic jam which would require cementing over the whole line of cars and starting anew.

Millie thinks it is wonderful. She has joined forces with the street cleaners attempting to keep the sidewalks and streets free of pieces of dropped food. She enjoys doing her bit. At least until this afternoon. One of these little droppings had attracted the attention of a honey bee. Millie stepped directly on it, and the bee responded by stinging a pad on her paw. It hurt her quite a bit, she shook it and licked it and favored it for a couple of hours, but all is better now. Tomorrow she is to get shampooed and groomed. I am anxious to see how she comes out.

The house has an exposed patio with no roof which fronts the living room, dining room, my room and some of the hallway. Yesterday was spent smashing the old facing off the walls with hammers and chisels. Debris was raining down all day. Plastic sheets cover my patio window and door, but even then when I stepped out the accumulated dust and broken cement showered down on me. Today they put cement on the surfaces, so when I went out today I was showered with wet cement. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

The tutor came for the first time today. He is not a gaggle of giggles, but being serious about the task is not too bad. The vocabulary is increasing, but the structure of the language in terms of verb tenses and word sequences is still a long way away.

Some sweet thing gave me a book of 6000 spanish words, which included a CD to assist the learning. One theme is to use (electronic) flash cards, which are shown in random order once one has reviewed the vocabulary list. If one gets a card wrong, it is shuffled into the mix more often until one gets it right a few times in a row. I think I am making some progress, but when I smilingly offered a "poco a poco" at the tienda after receiving a correction, they responded "poco a pocito", or "little by very little". That's a clue. Back to the books.

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