So I sorta did a little pre Dad visit blog by answering the questions Kelly gave me after I published my last blog. I have been thinking about the time I spent with my Dad and those questions. This blog has been sitting in my head for a bit so I apologize if my thoughts do not always make sense.
First of all my time with my Dad was AMAZING! I am so happy that he was able to come down here and spend time in my community with me. We saw many things and did a LOT of walking. Even I was exhausted after our four full days together, and I am a customed now to walking a lot and the difference in altitude. We spent a day for Puebla and took a tour bus around the historic center, then walked around the city center (zocolo), and finally went to dinner with my host family. My Dad got to eat a typical Poblano meal that I haven't even had yet! (Chile en Nogada) Then we had a day for Cholula. We even got to go to a party at my worksite where we danced the "Chacha Slide", and all the students were impressed with our skills as a pair of dancers. (The Germans are still impressed 2 weeks later that he danced at all!) On my Dad's last day we went back into Mexico City, and passed the day there. Dad's flight was REALLY early in the morning the next day, so we went to the zocolo and did a segway tour of sights in the historic center then called it a night. The tour was truly fasinating!
I learned some of the ways I have grown in during my time here in Mexico while my Dad was here. As part of my program I am enacouraged not to have a phone plan, especially one with immediate inernet access. There are some that do but there circumastances are different than mine. Since I do not have internet all the time I have little use for being on my phone except to listen to music. I also have a limited amout of contact with my family and friends in the states as well (even my friends here in Mexico I rarely talk to because our Mexican phones are hard to text/call on). This can be a good thing and a bad thing. While my Dad was here I suggested that he have an international plan soo that if we needed to find something quick or get an Uber we could. But for him this was also to have contact with people back home, primarily my stepmom and sister. His contact with family and his work was eye opening for me. I do not mean this as a critique on my Dad, but it is some thing I noticed. Every once and a while my Dad would look at his phone turn on the data and check any messages he had gotten. When we were waiting for a bus or other transport, in the car with my host family, or waiting for food we ordered to get to us. Because of this I noticed how my relationship has become one of a tool and less of a friend, by that I mean that I don't feel pulled to look at my phone as much or to use it as much to go the whole day without wifi to check emails or facebook does not bother me as much anymore. I hope that this habit will continue when I return to the United States.
While my Dad was here we did a LOT of walking. After the first day my Dad was tired physically from all the walking and was working hard to keep up with me! I have not been a very active person in recent years and would not call myself a very active person here in Mexico either. But I walk a LOT everyday. There is also a large change in altitude, to the credit of my Dad, so that affects how a person can walk and be active. However, I am very proud of myself for being able to just walk like I do and the physical growth I have done. There is a different perspective that you get when you actually walk with the people you are living a long side.
Before my Dad came he got many of the same questions I did before I came. "Oo, are you going to be safe there?" "There's a lot of violence in Mexico, aren't you worried?" What I replied with was that YAGM is not going to send me to a place that will put me in harms way, and that I will be living with a host family that will help look out for me. Mine truly does look out for me. My Dad's responces (or so he tells me) were similar to mine but not about the program his responses were about me. I was not going to let him come visit me here if I did not feel safe or that he would not be safe. He also trusted me and my host family to look out for him. As my time here goes by I have become that person that someone (my Dad of all people) can count on. I would like to think that I have been that kind of person for a while now but there is something your own father tell you "I don't know what is going on or where we are going but I trust you." that you find a new confidence in yourself.
I have grown in many ways and hope to share more with you as I write more blog posts in the future.
I will typically put here at the bottom of my blog post a Ted talk link of a Ted I have recently watched, but this time I have not spent as much time watching those. Instead I will leave you with a book suggestion: Tattoos on the Heart. I have not yet finished it, but it is very interesting so far. If you are a person that needs a lot of good stopping points then this is a great book for you.
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