more interesting stories from south of the border

jp here...back to tell you more about the wild and crazy times south of the border.

but first the academic stuff. school has been going well. the small classes make speaking spanish the only option, hiding in the back of the class is pretty tough when there are only two students in the class. my brain has bonked a coupla times and i feel much like a person who has never spoke spanish. the classes are six hours a day and five days a week. the day is divided into six periods: three for grammar and the rest for conversation. much of the grammar class has been review and housekeeping, since my brain is a little bit dusty from not speaking spanish for a while it is a great help. conversation class is a little more difficult because we are required to bring articles in from different magazines and explain them to the class. this is where the rubber meets the road because alot of it is vocab recall and stringing sentences together on the spot. it is a pain sometimes but just like many other things; the more you do it the better you become at it. funny how that works.

now for the fun stuff.

so my buddy jesse taught me how to juggle and got me started on the devil sticks. the devil sticks are three sticks: one for each hand that are the same length and diameter with a rubber grip to lift the third stick. The third stick is much bigger than the hand sticks and the stick diameter decreases as you move toward the middle. to make the devil stick dance you lift the third stick with you hand sticks and then you can make it do all types of cool stuff. my devil sticks have been a pretty handy way to meet people. for example, last night some classmates and i went out to La Plazuela and actually met a guy who was excellent at the devil sticks. Axle had actually manufactured his own devil stick torches and i was very impressed at the tricks he knew. alot of people don't realize how much time it takes to learn some these tricks and ya gotta give the guy alot of credit with the tricks he knew.

ok...so that's my first devil stick story, the second has to do with actually giving a performance for a crowd of people. the cool thing about El Centro is that it is a huge commons area for families to take their kids to get something to eat or buy something from the well-established black market nearby. there is also lots of space for street performers.
on fri sat and sun there are clowns that perform for quite a few people. these clowns are pretty darn good at what they do and have a great stage presence. you can understand what is happening even though you cannot understand everything they are saying. after talking with a few of the clowns and introducing them to the devil sticks they invited me to actually perform in front of the crowd. i was a little nervous to say the least but gave it my best effort as i performed the six tricks i know with the devil sticks. hey, everybody has got to start somewhere.

the people i have met here so far have been pretty genuine and nice to talk to. tonight i hope to take it easy since i was out pretty late last night and enjoyed a few...errr...sodas...i think i might just go do that after i get done with this blog entry.

catcha on the flip side!

jp