Thursday 19th January:
So what is it like living here? The house is large on a side street about a mile from the centre of town and we often walk into town. I am in a room downstairs, just off the kitchen with Ian and upstairs there are two rooms, one with four bunk beds and one with two bunk beds. The smaller of the two rooms accommodates two girls who are very good friends, the other room has six girls at the moment. I believe there is a sun roof, but I haven’t been up there yet, leaving it to the young girls to lie and bake in the sun during the day and drink tequila at night.
We share the kitchen and cook our food. The first thing is to grab a space on the shelf for your dried goods and then to bag a space in the fridge for everything else. The fridge seems to be the hardest to maintain and I bought myself a plastic box to put my meagre rations in, meagre because I don’t buy huge bottles of coke or fanta. Generally speaking we rub along quite well as the girls choose to do volunteering that doesn’t start until the afternoon. fIVE days a week I leave early, before 8a.m. to catch a bus or buses to my destination and the journey takes about an hour, mainly because it winds it’s way around the suburbs. I always travel with Ian who knows the ropes but yesterday I went on my own to Progresso, I’ve lost my gorgeous Mexican swimming costume and Progresso is the only place that sells them. I went on a large bus, quite comfortable, and it takes about 40 minutes. It’s a long straight road for bout 25 kilometres. TheY drive quite fast and brake just before they want to stop so that we all lurch forward. In Progresso I got the one remaining large swim suit left. There are about three shops, I mean stalls, that sell them and they are all small. Once again I had to go behind a makeshift screen and squeeze into nylon fabric. I was absolutely sweating buckets by the time I squeezed into the one that I was going to have to buy. I had to buy it because there wasn’t anything else and having lost my other one I probably will never be able to buy another costume in the Yukaton to fit me. I kept it on and went straight down to the beach and into the sea, it was bliss. The waves had calmed down and the current wasn’t as strong and I was grateful just to be in the water. An American asked me what it was like as I sat drying myself in the sun, I didn’t have a towel with me as I had gone to Progresso straight from looking after the children. He tried to make out how lucky we were in England to have the Gulf Stream dashing past our doorstep all the way from Florida. This is lucky, being here in Mexico where the water really is warm.
You must never put toilet paper down the toilet. On day two I put toilet paper down the toilet, realised what I had done and tried to retrieve some of it. The next person to go in, Theo, complained that the toilet was blocked. ‘Oh no,’ I cried, ‘you must never put toilet paper down the toilet as the pipes are so small,’ making a tiny circle with my finger and thumb. Theo nodded in agreement and my guilt was all over me.
Ian and I tend to keep to ourselves, simply because we’re the early birds and get up and out and by the time we get back to the house the others have gone off to their projects. They go out for the occasional meal and then come back complaining that it wasn’t as good as they thought it would be, though it is often followed by a visit to a night club. Last night Ian and I went to a very smart bar, Café Chocolate, and had a Pina Colada for 33 pesos, about £1.50, it was nectar. I only had the one and then we walked back through the streets, quite a long way; Ian peeled off to the right to go to his usual haunt for his usual couple of drinks, women are not invited, not unless you are ‘the other woman’. I peeled off to the left and made my way home. I usually go to bed around 10 o’clock and read by my headlight for twenty minutes and then I sleep very well until 6.30a.m. I am seldom disturbed by the rest of the house returning so must be getting used to subconscious noises. I am looking forward to going away this weekend for a change of scenery, and to get away from the close proximity of the house, otherwise I generally like it here and get on well. I start Spanish lessons next Monday.
