The Adventures of a Rather Intelligent Gecko

June 7th, 2009

Today was mostly spent completing my homework assignments for tomorrow. I have wanted to reorganize my suitcase since my arrival and at the end of the day feel that it is finally back in some semblance of order. My other task for the day was hand washing a few items, mostly tank tops that I have worn throughout the week and a few delicates. I was shocked to discover that they were dry in only an hour and feel quite productive at the end of an otherwise boring afternoon. My time at the beach yesterday has left me with a peeling forehead and several heat rashes, which are diminishing quickly with my careful application of Cortaid.

Dinner delivered another wonderful panucho to the table, and to my surprise and excitement, a cup of delicious vanilla ice cream. It still feels quite strange to be staying in someone’s home, but Xavier’s constant jokes and conversations in English go a long way to making me feel more comfortable. After one week I finally feel enough at ease to really put my Spanish language skills, no matter how insignificant, to greater use. Blanca was quite impressed at my vocabulary, which I explained to her my difficulty in forming my large repertoire of words into grammatically correct sentences. I was trying to tell her a little bit about my time spent at sea, which went much better than I expected in my clipped Spanish phrases. I find listening to my host family, her children, and even her grandchildren a great help. After dinner Blanca and Xavier asked me if I would like to go to the beach next Sunday with the entire family, which I am looking forward to as opposed to taking the multiple buses to Progreso. It will be fun to watch them interact with their grandchildren and I am sure that it will remind me of my childhood at the beach with my own family.

By now my readers have assuredly read the previous post and are familiar with the events of this evening. Gideon, as I have come to call my scrawny visitor emerged quickly from above the florescent bulb shortly after I turned out the lights. I do not like how their creepy little bottles wobble back and forth as they scamper across the wall, nor do I like their disgusting yellow green coloring that becomes almost peach in certain lightings. At first Gideon made his way toward the closet at the opposite end of the room, but my quick thinking halted this merry scuttling across the peach colored wall as I turned back on the light. I would like to offer my actions of this night to some sort of scientific research. Geckos are smart little buggers. Light clearly equals bugs, which clearly equals food. They apparently can do the math. With this theory proved I turned off the overhead florescent and turned on the lamp next to not only the bed, but also the door. It took some time and alternating between light sources, but eventually, after already opening the heavy wooden door, I pushed open the screen and he disappeared. Of course time seems to fly when dealing with these night critters and so it was well after midnight before I lay restless looking around my, what I assumed to be, secure abode.

June 8th, 2009

Obviously my 6:30 wake-up call arrived too soon and I begrudgingly crawled out of bed to get ready for class. After last night if anyone has a gecko that needs to be trained I would be more than glad to help for a small fee, though potty training is additional. This morning breakfast was a delicious plate of cheesy eggs with pieces of bacon and onion. I’m not sure if my face is easy to read or if Blanca is beginning to guess by the amount of fruit left which ones are my favorites and which ones are not so much. She has taken to placing an apple and a banana at my place setting, which I always eat the banana at breakfast, and take the apple for a snack during class.

Class passed rather quickly, but I still feel as if my instructor constantly chooses me to go first, in which case you have no model to base your answer on. Today I was asked to create a question in the future tense, which everyone tried to correct after the fact, only to discover that indeed I was correct after all. My Spanish is horrible and yet I knew that my question was in the appropriate tense. I even made it a point to say, “Isn’t that exactly what I said,” when Ismael wrote it on the board for everyone to see. After our break I was again asked to read my one page essay first on our visit to Yóol Iik’. I even had to sit in the front of the classroom facing my peers and read the essay aloud. When I reached the portion about Chris forgetting the name of his wife, everyone burst out in laughter. Keep in mind my entire essay is written in Maya. Ismael gave me a “Jach ma’alob,” meaning “very good,” and mine was the only essay not to get corrected on the dry erase board. I’m patting myself on the back right now.

The afternoon passed a bit slowly with me lounging lazily in the hammock. After a traditional Mexican lunch accompanied by two cold Hershey kisses, I retired to my room where clean sheets awaited me on the bed along with a fresh towel. It was so cute at lunch how Blanca dug around in the fridge looking for the box of Hershey’s as if she had hidden it away from everyone. It feels like Ismael gives us quite a bit of homework and I wish that it did not take so long to do.

Dinner was a delicious hot dog, no chance of forgetting American food altogether, followed by, of all things a cinnamon bun and the freshest one I have ever tasted. I have decied that either my blog gets published in Spanish and they know how much I enjoy my sweets, or they are concerned that I will melt away into nothingness. My shower once again shut off before I was complete, but I think that I am finally beginning to get the timing right so that at least the shampoo is rinsed out of my hair. Tomorrow we have a lecture at four o’clock so I am not sure if I will return to Blanca’s or wait it out in the city.