spring break highlights plus my favorite oasis

I apologize for the irregularity of the blogging over the past couple of months but things have been pretty hectic with the burglary and then spring break and then adjusting to being back at school. So now that life is back to some version of normalcy I will hopefully be a little better about blogging.

I suppose I should say a few words about the wonderful country of Belize since it was where I spent a week and a half of pure spring break bliss. We were lucky enough to have our friend (who spent 2 years in Belize in the peace corp) show us around and share her love with country with us. It was a truly beautiful place filled with so many amazing sights and people. We spent a few days on the island of Caye Caulker where we snorkeled, sailed, tanned, scuba dove, and kayaked (I know, sounds rough right?) Then we spent a few days in San Ignacio where we floated down a river for one day and then spent another day hiking and spelunking through a cave filled with ancient mayan ruins and remains (sounds awesome, right?) Here are some pics of what we got to see and do:


Enjoying our sailing and snorkeling cruise

Our first sunset in Belize

An island motto that we can all bring back to the mainland





Exploring the Mayan caves



Goodbye beautiful Caye Caulker


Since Spring Break life has basically consisted of school and whatever adventures will give us the opportunity to escape the semi-unbearable heat. Which means we have been seeing A LOT of movies lately. With the combination of the air conditioning and the freshly made carmel corn the Tuxtla movie theatre is basically heaven (not to mention the whole cinematic experiences aren't too shabby either). I'm hoping that the rainy season will be starting soon because then at least there will be some relief in sight. If this Mexican sun keeps at it, we might just have to re-visit the good old rain dance ritual. Here's to rainy thoughts!

help make my birthday wish come true

Dear Friends and Family,

As many of you know, a couple of weeks ago I had an unfortunate incident with a burglar. Basically someone broke into our house and stole a ton of stuff, including my laptop, camera, hardrive, ipod, phone, and passport. I was bummed about losing my camera and laptop and everything but I know those are just things and can be replaced (some day in the distant future when I am not living on a Mexican teacher salary and paying loans). However the hardest part has been losing all my pictures and memories from the last decade of my life. I am someone who loves taking pictures and cherishes the memories that come along with them. So it basically broke my heart to realize that all of my pictures from college, camp, ski tournaments, living and traveling in Europe, friends and family weddings, vacations, etc. were gone.

So I have had a lot of people ask if there is any way they can help or support me and here is my one request:

If you have any pictures that you think I might love to have in my possession please share them with me so that I can start rebuilding my collection of photographic memories.

Here are the two ways you can help me do this:

1. If you just a few jems you want to share, please attach them to an e-mail and send them to me at kat.bramley@gmail.com

2. If you just have too many and can't fit them in an e-mail, burn them to a disk and send it to my lovely sister's address in the states since I am in the far away land of Mexico where the postal service is less than trustworthy. Here is the address you can send it to:

Kat Bramley
365 N. Jefferson St.
Unit #2203
Chicago, IL
60661


I know that it will take some time out of your day to do this but it would be the best birthday present imagineable if I were able to get back some of the pictures and memories that were lost.

Thanks and hope you are well.

Happy almost birthday to me!

marimbas and waterfalls- not a bad few weeks

Times seems to be rolling by pretty fast these days. I'm counting down the weeks until our Spring Break trip to Belize and then after that I will have less than three months left in this wonderful country. It's pretty hard to believe!

Everything at school is great. We just did a unit on family and geneology and had a big family celebration today where parents were invited to come see the student's present their family tree projects. We even had a little concert where we sang a song called "Family" (super original, right?) from the classic film remake of James and the Giant peach and the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" song by Jack Johnson that we just learned during our unit on conservation. All in all it went great and the parents seemed to be pretty pleased. I heard a lot of "muy precioso!" as everyone was exiting, so I;m pretty sure that's a good thing.

Last weekend I went with a few friends to the park in the middle of our city. It is named Marimba Park and every night there are men that gather in the gazebo to play Marimbas while couples dance around the gazebo. We went on a Saturday so the park was bustling and there were tons of couples- young and old, getting their dance on to the bewitching sounds of the Marimba. We first acted as spectators but couldn't ignore the call to dance and quickly embraced our ever familiar role as the crazy Americans who just don't seem to quite fit in.


We also took advantage of having Monday off of school (special thanks to Benito Juarez for being born) by taking a little day trip to a nearby waterfall called Choreadero. Its about 30 minutes away from us in Chiapa de Corzo and it consists of on huge waterfall, about 10 smaller pools, and some pretty sweet caves at the top of the waterfall.














I think I have taken for granted the fact that all my life I have lived within 10 minutes of a large body of water because I am definitely realizing now what a luxury that was. When I am walking home from school in 98 degree weather with the hot Mexican sun beating down on me, all I can think about is diving in to a freezing cold lake. Soooooo it felt pretty amazing to finally have some water to dive in to in order to escape the heat. We also may have performed a little synchronizing swimming act which allowed us to fulfill the afore mentioned role that we just can't seem to escape...that's right, crazy Americans.


I also had the opportunity to try a new type of Mango which is a second cousin to the pineapple (clearly I have my mind on geneology and am taking some creative liberties here). I think it's called mango pina and you basically just cut a hole on one end and suck the deliciously refreshing juice out, incredible!

Last week was one of my roomates, Nikki's Birthday so we had some friends over for a little celebration. Nikki said she wanted homemade pizza so I of course consulted with my newest baking, cooking, and blogging idol- Pioneer Woman for a mouth watering pizza recipe. She did not dissapoint and inspired me to create these two gems.

One barbecue chicken pizza and one pesto margarita pizza. They turned out amazing and there was definitely not an empty belly at the party.

Well that's all for now. I checked the weather this morning and it looks like we'll be lingering around 100 for the next week so everyone say a little prayer that I don't melt down here on the equator.

six hours of my weekend I'll never get back... and never want to

Well it's another Monday here in Mexico and it's just a little hot and by that I mean it hasn't dropped below 95 for the past week. Although it sounds brutal, it's usually not too bad if you can hide in the shade somewhere. However when you have to be active or out in the sun it feels a bit like you are actually walking on the sun.

This weekend had the perfect mix of fun and relaxation. Friday night I ventured out with the roomies to a friends mom's birthday party. It was a wonderfully intimate Mexican gathering filled with delicious dishes and even a mariachi band. I think my favorite part was when the family sang the Mexican birthday song and then did this really lovely birthday ritual where they gave the birthday lady a blessing, crowned her with a beautiful wreath of red flowers, and then proceeded to take an excessive amount of group pictures (very typical for a birthday or wedding celebration). It was a great night and by the end I had yet another excuse to use my most recently acquired spanish phrase, "Estoy llena" (google translate it).

I also made the wise and productive decision to devote approximately 6 hours of my weekend to the very high-quality television program "The Bachelor". Yes, I finally gave in and got all caught up on the latest season and couldn't be happier that I took the semi-embarrassing plunge to watch 7 episodes in two days. Although it started out as a shameful endeavor, I quickly roped in my housemates which made it much more respectable since it was in a group setting. So basically I cannot wait for to watch tonights episode tomorrow and see my new good friends fall in love in one of my favorite countries in the world, South Africa.

That's all for now, wish I could send some of this intense heat to those of you in colder places!

updated address

I have had some requests for my address lately so here is the updated address where you can send me mail. The best way to do it is just through the regular postal service (NOT DHL or UPS). As long as you don't send me anything like a diamond ring or flat screen TV, it really should get here just fine.

Kat Bramley
American School Foundation of Chiapas, A.C.
Boulevard Belisario Dominguéz 5580-F
Box 5
Col. Cinco Plumas, Tuxtla Gutiérrez,
Chiapas, México
CP 29052

There is nothing quite like getting mail when you are away from home, any and all letters, cards or care packages would be mucho appreciated!

Winter highlights (can we really call this winter?)

I am four days away from it being 2 months since my last post...yikes
Sorry blog world, my deepest apologies.
Where do I even begin...

My Christmas vacation was absolutely delightful, I had an incredible time visiting with family and friends and felt like it was the perfect amount of time to see everyone and get a big enough dose of home to make it through another 7 months of Mexico.

Since I have been back, school has been crazy busy but really good. It was great to come back and jump right back in to things and feel so comfortable. Life seems to be in a much easier rhythm than it was during the first half of the year which is really nice.
Here are some highlights from my first month back in Mexico:

1. Hosting a bachelorette party for our friend Jessica and then attending my second amazing Mexican-American wedding. Seriously, Mexicans really know how to do a wedding, it is like a broadway show. Every hour the band will introduce a new costume and prop for everyone to play with or try on and the crowd goes wild. At one point the groom and groomsmen came out in hip-hop space suits circa 1998 and sang "Backstreets Back" to the bride, it was quite a sight. I also enjoyed the conga line complete with maracas and glowsticks. Oh and by the way, the mariachi band didn't even enter the picture until 3am, incredible!



2. Overnight trip to Comitan, Chifflon, Lagos de Montebello with Katy and seeing the biggest waterfall and some of the bluest lakes I have ever seen. These places were amazing and could not have been more different from our current city of residence. We first arrived in Comitan where we arranged for a delightful Mexican man to chauffeur us around in his minivan to all of the tourist attractions in the area. Our first stop was a Mayan ruin overlooking a very tranquil lake, then we went to Lagos de Montebello which is a group of lakes nestled in a very wisconsin-esque forest. Seriously, we got out of the car and both felt like were at home in the northwoods, so crazy! So we got to see about 3 or 4 lakes of varying royal blue and turquise colors which were all completely breathtaking and then top it off with a quick swim in the last one. After the Lagos we headed for Chifflon which is a series of waterfalls outside of Comitan. Our friendly chauffeur told us it would take about 30 minutes to hike to the top which made me wonder just how grand this waterfall was. I was definitely not disappointed when we got to the top and were quite literally blown away by the largest and most powerful waterfall I have ever seen. We were able to go up to a viewing tower which was literally right up in the fall and feel completely dominated by it's strength whilst getting a nice little spray down, it was righteous. By the time we were on our way home we definitely felt like we had seized the day.

3. Attending Mexican Zumba class. So I thought that I knew what zumba was about after attending a class in chicago at my old gym but it turns out authentic zumba is a little different. I went to a class at the gym that we joined after break and it was me and like 5 other women ages ranging from 40 to 60. The teacher was a very mexican, very muscle-ey and very flamboyant gentlemen who clearly had not prepared any choreography but rather had us follow him through various pelvic thrusting and hip gyrating movements and excersises which felt far from natural. At one point I was in push up-ish position with one leg in the air being told to whirl my hips and when I looked over at the elderly women next to me I just had to laugh. All in all it was a hilarious workout and quite a cultural experience.

4. Our neighbor/friend's very birthday party. We have a lovely neighbor (Montse) who invited us over for her 27th birthday party last friday night. She told us to come over at 8 so in true Mexican style we arrive at about 9:30 and the party was just getting warmed up. The party guests consisted of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and us two bright eyed Americans. It was a blast to be invited in to such a intimate and authentic Mexican celebration. Everyone was super friendly and while Katy did most of the talking I was understanding about 70% of what people were saying and was able to throw a few words in here and there. The food was INCREDIBLE, honestly the best Mexican food I have had since I have been here- fresh guacomole, tostadas, chickeny tomato goodness, beans, spinach and chicken crepes, pasta salad, and bottomless tequila. The highlight was when Montse's mom offered to have us come over for cooking lessons so we could learn how to create these culinary masterpieces, we will hopefully be taking her up on that one soon!

3. Hosting a delightful cross-cultural Barbecue Fiesta complete with both cheeseburgers and carne asada.It was our good friend sarah's birthday a few days ago so we decided to host a bbq for all of our friends. We included all the American staples like cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and watermelon and were treated to some delicious carne asada, cooked by the guys.



The comida was delicous and the company was delightful. We will definitely be having another fiesta shortly.
























I will leave you with this salivating picture of the chocolatey goodness cupcakes that I made for the bbq, enjoy...
How strange that there was only one left at the end of the night, I guess they tasted pretty good