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Life here isn’t always beer and tacos—some days we have to get dressed up and try to behave ourselves for a few hours.  Once such event, was two weeks ago when all the Rotary Clubs in the city held a formal dinner for the annual changing of the “board of directors” for each Rotary Club. 

Things were supposed to start at 8.30pm (punto) with the marching band/honors to the flag scheduled for 9.00pm.  We were running late and arrived right on time at 8.30—only to discover that we were still amongst the first ones there (we’ll never get the timing thing right..)

Fortunately, the speeches were short and the food and music were quite good—so we enjoyed the evening.  Of course all the newspapers were there and once again we ended up it one of them.

We’ve only been in SLP for 3 1/2 months now–and we’ve somehow somehow gotten our picture in SLP’s two largest newspapers in the past two weeks.

It’s not that we are famous or anything–but when you’re the obvious foreigners at a city-wide formal dinner for Rotary, the photographers can’t resist taking a photo.

Here we are with some members from our Rotary Club (Club Rotario Lomas del Potosi.)

(Another possibility is that the photographers are just using us to set their white-balance )

Danielle has also posted about our trip to Cancun–so you can find the details on Cocobongo and lot of other things here.

Below is a picture from our day at Xcaret (the morning was all Rotary meetings and we had the afternoon/evening to enjoy the park.)  This picture was taken in the underground river that runs through the park.  If you’re in Cancun with children then this is a “must visit” place (assuming they like playing in the water.)

I now understand why Cancun and the Mayan Riviera is such a huge destination for people on their vacations (the combination of great beaches, lots of hotels and an incredible tourist infrastructure make it a very easy place to visit.)  However, it was really strange for Danielle and I while we were there–as we knew we were in Mexico with Mexican friends–but it sure didn’t feel like Mexico…

Fortunately we had a 24 hour bus trip back to Salina Cruz to reacclimatize ourselves to the Mexico that we know…

Our Rotary District here in Mexico (D4200) comprises the six southern-most states of Mexico (running from the Pacfic coast of Oaxaca all the way over to the Carribean coast of Quintana Roo.)  The annual District Conference moves around each year and this year it was held in Cancun.  Cancun has never been on our list of “must visit” places–but as the members of the club here were really enthusiastic about going to the District Conference in Cancun we decided that it couldn’t be too bad of an experience.

The bus trip from Salina Cruz to Cancun took almost 24 hours so we were a little numb we arrived in Cancun (we had contemplated driving or flying to Cancun–but the bus made a lot more sense from both a time and money perspective.) 

Most Rotary Conferences are a mix of “social” and “work”–and this one was no different.  During the “work” sessions some of the speakers were really good/interesting–while others weren’t quite as dynamic.  It’s funny how much of an impact language and culture has though–as there was:

• one speaker that neither Danielle nor I really enjoyed–but the other Rotarians thought he was great.  Fortunately, we found it amusing that he (a Mexican) thought that Cancun was really, really hot where we (the Canadians) thought it was quite nice–especially when compared to the temperatures in Salina Cruz.
• two speakers from Spain that spoke with a “spanith” accent.  There are some big differences between the Spanish spoken in Mexico and that spoken in Spain–and although we could usually understand both speakers it was sometimes challenging.  Fortunately one of the speakers was from the Rotary E-Club of Latin America and he talked about virtual Rotary meetings and podcasting (which made it a lot easier for me to understand.)

This being Mexico, the “social” sessions were a lot different from what happens at home.  The most significant difference was that for the evening events most people dressed in the traditional clothing from their city/state.  For our club this meant the men wore guayaberas and black pants and the women wore Huave traje (on Friday night) and Tehuana traje (on Saturday night.) 

The picture at the right is most of us with the District Governor on Friday night (and yes even the kids were dressed in traditional outfits.)  I think the funniest part of Friday night was when one clubs did a traditional song that included a bull fight scene–and the “bull” was actually a Rotarian dressed in a black and white spotted cow costume (see video clip here.)

Saturday night was a parade through the downtown of Cancun (yes they closed off some main streets for us.)  It was quite impressive seeing a parade of approx. 400 Rotarians all dressed in traditional outfits.  Unfortuantely I didn’t get any good photos as the light was poor–and everyone was always moving.

We really enjoyed the conference and met a lot of interesting people–it was definitely worth the 24 hour bus ride.

ps.  We also learned that the folks in Merida refer to the Canadians that stay in Merida/Progresso during the winter not as “snow birds” but as los patos (ducks.)

We’re off to the Rotary District Conference in Cancun–leaving the house in approx. 10 min and returning late Tuesday night.

It should be interesting as they’ve incorporated some interesting places into the conference schedule.  We’re also spending the whole week-end with the Salina Cruz Rotarians–I’m hoping that they’ll let the poor tired Canadians get some sleep…

I’ve been slow posting to the blog recently–but I’m going to try to catch up on things today…..

Friday afternoon was another Rotary “Lotteria”.  Lotteria here in Salina Cruz is very similar to bingo in Canada–except the cards have pictures of various objects on them instead of numbers (making it a great way to learn more vocabulary.)  This one was held outdoors in a courtyard in the middle of the afternoon (so even though we were in the shade of mango trees it was still quite hot–low 30s C.)  It was a sucessful fund-raiser–and I really appreciated a cold beer when it was over.

Saturday night was a small birthday party.  As always there was lots of food and drink–and eventually the karoke machine was brought out ( at 1:00am!!!)  There was also lots of interesting conversation–starting with the Mel Gibson visting the Istmo story and then moving on to Selma Hayek’s mother (who was from Salina Cruz) and also a lot of talk about local musicians.  Unfortunately (fortunately?) we were really tired and left before the karoke became too serious.

Sunday was beach day.  We had planned on going to Playa Vicente near Juchitan with one of the new English teachers in Ixtepec.  However the lack of signage and/or a decent map showing where Playa Vicente was located made this challenging–and we eventually gave up and drove to our favourite palapa at Playa Chipehua (where we found Mark and Lily already enjoying the beach/palapa.)  The beer was cold, the red snapper was cooked perfectly and the waves were a lot of fun to play in–not a bad end to a week-end….

Sunday was another Rotary event–this time in Juchitan (about 60km for Salina Cruz) where we were doing a solar cooker demonstration at one of the schools (it was part of an community program they run called “Learning to Learn.”)  We left at 7:30am and Danielle and I somehow ended with someone’s kids in the back of the car (we originally thought that they were part of the Rotaract/Interact group–but then discovered that their father was a teacher at the school where we were doing the demonstration–and they thought it would be more interesting to travel with us than with their parents!)

One of the teachers played music on the harp for us, while the food was prepared and the solar cookers were un-packed and setup.  Then there was an explanation of the solar cookers and how they worked (ie.  pots should be black and in a sealed bag so that heat isn’t lost to the air, things take longer than other ways of cooking–but don’t dry out near as much, etc.)

Solar ovens make a lot of sense here–as there’s a lot of poor people for whom wood/charcoal is a significant expense and there’s plenty of sunlight to power the solar cookers.

After the explanation and demonstration, there was an opportunity for people to make their own solar cooker (using cardboard and aluminum foil and glue.)

After that, there was some time to kill before lunch would be ready (solar cooking takes time.)  So the teacher with the harp played and sang some more (he was really good and both the kids and mothers enjoyed it a lot.) 

Finally all the food was ready and it was time to eat (we had 11 solar cookers going and made fish, chicken, pork, eggs, vegetables and rice pudding.)

And all the participants got to leave with a solar cooker of their own….

Sidenote:  Sunday was also the first day I experienced a sunburn here in Mexico (fortunately a mild one.)  You would think that at sometime during the day I would have made the connection between “cooking with the sun” and “sunburn”–but nope.