Don't call my name

-I have exactly 2 weeks left in Mexico
-My camera charger and I have been reunited!
-My face is slightly sunburned and I couldn't be more pleased
-This laptop is burning my legs and I am not pleased
-This week for class we have a paper, presentation and test. Here goes nothin'.
-I just can't be with you like this anymore, Alejandro.
-Work on the Mexico video has commenced
-I might run into problems fitting everything in my suitcase when returning home. Perhaps.
-Sometimes life is really beautiful whether you make an effort to notice or not

Sometimes I can't think straight. Sometimes those are the times when I think too much.

Dontcha hate that?

Please?

Words mean what?

I appreciate that the spanish language demonstrates the difference between "I love you" and "I love you". For example, distinguishing between Bella's love for Jacob and Bella's love for Edward.

Yeah. That just happened.

Te quiero.
Te amo.
Love.

York. Oxford. Ibiza is home.

Painting over graffiti is a band-aid on the city. There is poverty, there is pain, there are problems. This is life. Let go of your perfect white wall.

Each day is a facade, masquerading in pride, pretending to fear nothing. But I see it, like hiding an oak tree under an old baby blanket.

Grass

I miss church in English. I miss Amanda Kathleen and McKenna Maye. I miss pizza. I miss my job in Provo and the people I work with. I miss crossing the street without a legitimate fear of getting run over. I miss feeling average in height. I miss unplanned philosophical conversations with my dad. I miss feeling like I know what I'm doing. I miss the international cinema. I miss my best friend of a brother and my mom playing with my hair while we watch another badly written episode of CSI Miami. I miss lightning bugs and 10 minute showers. I miss drinking tap water, washing machines, and falling asleep next to my Austin. 


However:


I know when I'm back in the U.S.A. I'll miss the Mexico sky. I'll miss clay roofing and tile floors. I'll miss Maggie and the bread she bakes. I'll miss brightly painted houses with their infections of graffiti. I'll miss the long walks to class in the morning and the friendly guard at the gate. I'm going to miss speaking Spanglish and being understood. Real orange fanta and helado. Weekend excursions with my family of 16 college kids and one very small Colombian mom. People who call me Natalia instead of Natalie. Tiny latin kids with big brown eyes. Street vendors and air that smells of fruit and spices and sweat.


I miss my home. But I'll be ok for a little while longer.

Sometimes it works

8:49 a.m.
There's a fear here not seen in the United States. It's in the eyes of the niña who asked to trade a peso for a sticker. In the face of the store owner at seeing an American walk through the open door. In the actions of a seemingly careless bus driver weaving in and out of heavy traffic. He hides behind Mary and a pair of plush dice beneath a black light just before 10 when his shift will finally end. Even our well off Mexican mother speaks to us of our plans for the weekend with a subtle terror in her features. I would tend to assume this is related to religion, but these people believe with everything in them. Yet in their faith, they shake. I wonder what it is they fear for. Perhaps the fact that I have to ask is a testament to how American I really am.

10:22 a.m.
I like the jagged movements eyes make when staring out the car window.

11:41 a.m.
Dear Jorge Lopez,
Your successful family's business ad picture looms above a broken down barrio, and within that same panorama sits a small boy begging for pesos. Were you aware?

12:48 p.m.
I have a strange kind of kinship with my feet. I'm looking down at them and have the impulse to apologize for everything I've put them through. Right now they are covered in scars, scabs and tan lines. They don't complain much.

12:52 p.m.
We are all just kids on an inflated field trip. What do we know?

1:42 p.m.
A 6 hour bus ride later, I am relunctant to part from my headphones and window seat. I am such a loner sometimes.