Mexican dance

There have been some free concerts in the Ajijic square in the evening this past week. We didn’t find out until lste in the week; however, yesterday (Friday) we did go. It was a dance troup doing Mexican dances, including Mexican hat dance (I recognized it as they were dancing around ‘los sombreros’. The dancers looked Indian. The girls and women had long, billowing dresses, tied to their wrists so that they could swing them in arcs as they danced; the dresses were very colourful. their performance lasted about an hour. It was in front of the cultural centre. The plaza is raised about 3 steps there so that it was like a platform. In one dance, the young men had knives which they twirled and clicked together rythmically. It was a beautiful night and very interesting occasion. This series of concerts I think was a warmup for the big celebrations for Mexican independence day--16 September. The festivities are spread over almost a week. We are looking forward to that as the descriptions sound really interesting.

Tonight, we went to the ‘Blue Moon’ festival held by ACA, the organic farm and ecology group. It was quite large, with enormous amounts of food, including turkey, duck and rabbit, all grown on the farm. It was well organized, with tents. The latter was necessary as there was a bit of rain for part of the time. We sat at a table with another couple who turned out to also be Canadians, originally from Winnipeg. They are both real estate agents and have been living here for just over 10 years. Lucy said that for about three years she worked in Trudeau’s office on press relations. There are so many interesting people here.

I signed up for Level 1 Conversational Spanish. It starts next Wednesday, once a week until the first week of December, just before we leave to visit Nova Scotia. The 3 classes in Level 1 Spanish were filled up just before I got there, as I intended to enroll in one of those. However, I got the text/workbook used and I can work on that on my own. The oral conversation is always the aspect that I am weakest on in learning foreign languages. Thus, this may turn out to be the best for me. I just hope that they are not expecting a larger Spanish vocabulary than I possess; however, I have a few more days before the first class so can learn some more before then. These classes through LCS are only 500 pesos each (i.e., about 50 dollars), compared to the thousands that the commercial language schools charge. My online course at St. Mary’s starts on that same day, Wednesday, Sept. 3; thus, I’ll have to field questions and last minute requests to get into the course--no time to be bored.