Last night, I, in a last-minute decision, flung my inner cowardice into the wind and hopped on a bus from Zacatecas to Tampico.

By “last-minute decision,” I mean I decided five weeks ago when I had to put a deposit down with my professor.   And by “flung my inner cowardice into the wind,” I mean I clung very tightly to my inner and outer freaking-out self.  And finally by “hopped on a  bus,” I mean I shuffled along with my bags and my folded-(exactly)-in-half ticket and kept asking, “Wait.  Do I need I.D.?  Oh wait, do I need to show my passport?  Wait.  Someone else is sitting in my seat.  Wait… Wait… Wait… etc.”  Lots of panicking preceded and continued through (and exceeded) this hopping on of a bus at the last minute.

At least the rest of the trip was smooth and full of sleep.

I started off by winning the jackpot and was treated to Eddie Murphy’s “Meet Dave,” a comedy in which two little aliens get sneezed out of a nose at one point in the movie.  Then, around 10:30 p.m, I was lucky enough to get to hear top-notch American easy-listening love songs.  Finally, at midnight, the bus driver thought he would be kind and start another movie for us–but this time at a louder volume.

At the next stop, I decided to put my ear plugs in.  This is when I discovered we were pulling away from the bus station without the girl who was sitting next to me.  I calmly (read: I panicked and couldn’t figure out what to say and to whom) informed someone of this fact.  Needless to say, at the next stop, I ran to the bathroom and ran back with eight minutes to spare (and this included having to pay my three pesos to get into the actual restroom). I have been informed that my time has qualified me for this particular bus’s “fastest peeing record”!  Go me!  I shall be going for the fleet record this afternoon on the final leg to Chicontepec.

As for the rest of last night’s trip, I faded in out and of Mexican pop music, American love songs, kids throwing up, and well… the thrill of enjoying my reign as the fastest pee-er on the bus.

Sometimes the difference between a short i and a long i makes all the difference (insert witty Derrida comment here).

Case in point: in Nahuatl, “chichi” means dog (and according to all of the pictures in our manuals, a very cute, fluffy dog).  Say it quickly to get the pronunciation correct.

You can imagine that I’ve been laughing hysterically at this since week 2 when my tutor thought we should move ahead and learn a few “tlapiyalmeh” (domestic animals).  I learned “cahuayoh” first (a word that sounds like the Spanish for horse since the Spanish colonizers introduced them here in the 1500s) and then “chichi” next.  When I looked up at my tutor and laughed, he did not at all see why it was funny.  Of course, most other people have also managed to keep a straight face when they have heard this word (probably because they either didn’t grow up hearing it all the time–or because they are much more mature than I).  But still, I started wondering why we used this word as we did growing up (I still have several of my own theories).

Last week, during an excruciatingly hilarious class session during which we had to repeat the word over and over, the truth finally came out.  ”Chichi” (with a short / quick i /  ee) does, in fact, mean dog.  However, “chichi” (with a long / elongated i / ee ) means to suckle–and finally, chichiuh (with a long i and a very short breath for the h at the end) means (according to the dictionary at the back of one our books) “a woman’s breast.”

That was definitely the definition we grew up using–and you know what?  I actually love that I know where it comes from now.  I love that, once again, indigenous languages have infiltrated the dominant language.  I love that we use words from languages that are supposedly (at least to some linguists) dead.

And as mentioned above, we actually spent a good five minutes this week in class saying these words over and over again.  We said each one as a group, individually, as a group, in pairs… “chichi” … “chichi” … “chichiuh” …  over and over and over again… until we all managed to get the pronunciation correct (kind of).

But for some of us, it was akin to saying (in class) over and over again:  ”boobs” …. “boooooooobs” …. “boobs” … “booooobs.”  And once again, I was six years old and laughing at body parts (or dogs, depending on which i we were saying).

(P.S. the picture above is my nephew, Bonsai–or when you want to practice Nahuatl, a chichi.)

I have a 3 p.m. hangover.

Those of you who follow me on “el face,” as we say here in Zacatecas, Mexico, may already have a hint of what I am speaking.  At this point, some of you may be hearing Carly Simon’s lyrics–”You’re so vain… You’re so vain … I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee / Clouds in my coffee, and / You’re so vain…”–in the background, but saying “those of you that follow me…” allows me to keep up the facade that lots of people care what I eat or which bands I listen to or what random thing happened to me.  Maybe one day I will surpass the likes of Ashton Kutcher/Demi Moore or Brittany Spears, but I’m down to earth enough that I shall never dream of reaching Lady GaGa-dom.

So here goes… by 1 p.m. today, I had a slight headache (yes, Mom, I took my medicine), and I was sleepier than usual even though I’d had my daily dose of caffeine.

That would actually be a boring story, but fortunately for you, this story actually starts much earlier… say around 10:15 this morning when I walked into a local coffee shop / panería here in Zacatecas and ordered a pan dulce and some caffeine.  Since this was the first time I’d ventured from Starbucks for my caffeine (where Raul and Melissa know my order before I say a word and spell my name as my mother does, “Casie”–and not as my great-grandmother did, “Quessey”… which, you know, I kinda like too), I decided to order something I hadn’t seen anywhere else–”Cappuccino Bailey.”

I moved over to the side counter to make room for others… when lo and behold, I see the girl behind the counter pull a dark bottle of liquor (at which I first freak out before I realize… ahhhh!  Bailey’s whiskey and cream) from the top shelf and pour it into a small cup–then in went the milk (which I could not order as nonfat, by the by), and then finally the espresso shots.

How did it taste?  Well I had to add sugar… and a couple of Tylenol two hours later during class.

Yah, I’m a lightweight.

But I’ve come back to Starbucks where I’ve asked Raul and Melissa for forgiveness for straying–and I think we’ve pretty much patched things up.  My “alto caramel macchiato helado con leche light y los shots abajo” is back in my hands and should get me through my “total body workout” this evening (read: lifting weights to bad American music by a superb instructor who makes cheesy faces and looks down at his own muscles often.  I heart this… more on this later.)

In my attempt to keep from paying extra for baggage, I failed to bring several key unnecessities to Zacatecas with me.

Some of these I took out of my bags on impulse; others Andrew would hold up and say, “Really?… Really?  You need twelve pairs of shoes?  You need two bathing suits?  You need five pairs of jeans?  Really?  You need twenty books [for seven weeks and besides the ones you are taking for class... is what I think he was hinting at]  Really?   You can’t buy this/that/these/those there?  Really?”

“Yes–these two bathing suits are clearly different.  Yes, I need that many shoes–how do I know what I will be wearing?  Yes, I need all these jeans.  See… these, I roll up.  These I wear with heels.  These are for long shirts.  These are also rolled up ones.  These, I just like. No.  No, I cannot buy dried mangos or breakfast bars or sunscreen or tylenol or… [insert easily found object here].”

In the end (or shall I say the three hours before I left on my international flight), I decided that I would prove that I learned how to pack the last time I went on a backpacking trip (despite my Zacatecas trip not being a backpacking trip) and so started pulling “extra” things out of my bags.  For instance, I ended up only bringing two pairs of jeans instead of five…. eight pairs of shoes instead of twelve (if you know me, you know that is a HUGE drop in number)… two towels instead of three, etc.

I’m still regretting pulling several of these things out of my overpacked luggage three weeks ago.  So… over the next few weeks, I will just list the things that I wish I had packed.

I wish I had brought…

1. more than two pairs of jeans…

2. my heels… I desperately miss my heels (I’m thinking of you, red-ones-with-the-thick-strap… and, you, black-strappy-ones-with-pink-polka-dots… and, you, black-and-brown-wedges… and, you… and, you… and, you…) despite the hills I walk up and down here.

3. my rainboots (I finally bought a pair of black ones here, but I miss my blue ones with the whales that are smiling just because I’m wearing them.)

4. a third towel

5. a second set of sheets (ohmygosh, I am so super glad I did not get one of the rooms with bedbugs.)

6. a three-hole punch.  so much.  seriously.

Happiness is…

… finally buying una paleta from the skinny-long store (aguas frescas in the front, gross powder-cheese nachos in the middle, and paletas aaaaaall the way back) that you have been eyeing for over a week now.

… choosing–and then eating–una paleta de sandia with the seeds in it and everything!

… walking through the rain with it in one hand while holding a bag of ice (the bag of ice, of course, is to keep the fresh cheese and vegetables you bought at the market, cold) in the other.

… having to drop the paleta in your hand (because, of course, it’s come loose from the stick), running to the bathroom to hold it over the sink, letting the sticky juice drip down your chin, and pulling the little trash can next to you to spit out the seeds.

… remembering doing this with your lita on hot el paso-juárez days.

… knowing you still have a million-billion flavors to choose from tomorrow (OK, so, at least fifty).