Zanatepec, February 24

Rodrigo, Lupita, and the youngest of their three children

Rodrigo, our host in Zanatepec, is an English teacher, and he invited us last night to speak this morning with his class.  How could we refuse?!  Due to the late start of his classes, the heat, and the 3,000 foot hill that lies about 13 miles from here, we decided to stay for the day in this little Oaxacan town.

Unlike our last two class presentations, which were more like, well, presentations, this one was more of an interview.  We were introduced to the 15 and 16 year old students as not knowing any Spanish in order to force them to speak in English.  They asked us a few questions, but their grasp of the language was tenuous at best, so they were reluctant to speak up.  We soon revealed our mild capability in Spanish and lapsed into that language, and the students became more talkative.  It was quite a challenge, being interviewed in Spanish, but I think we did pretty well!  

Rodrigo then took us to a guy he knew who sews and makes clothes, so that we could have our homemade frame bags reinforced.  The guy, with his old, mechanical sewing machine that far outpaced the fancy one we used to originally make the bags, expertly followed the stitching and finished both of our bags in maybe 30 minutes.  

He told us it would cost 30 pesos (~$2.25), which seemed to us to be way too little, so we thanked him profusely and tipped him well.

The rest of the day was spent reading (I finished Rushdie's The Jaguar Smile and moved on to The Time Traveler's Wife [gasp, fiction!), eating, and hanging out with another cyclist, a French Canadian named Max who is spending tonight here as well.