First Day

Well, today was the first day. On the airplane a 9-year-old girl asked me if I knew I was going to Mexico, and when I told her I was going for 5 months she made the same face you all made when I told you, which was quite hysterical. When we landed and went through customs I kept accidentally speaking English to people and they had no clue what I was saying. It’s surprisingly hard to get used to that. When I checked into my hotel, the guy who helped me with my bags talks to me like I’m a dog from Saturn who only understands strange and awkward gestures and he was a…well, a confused and mute Mexican guy. I think that might become a norm for me here. People are gonna assume I don’t know Spanish and since they don’t know English, they’ll point at things and feel just as uncomfortable as I am. So, after the welcome dinner, a couple of girls decide to go out so we hit the streets. We get to this one club (where we get in for free but the guy tried to charge us for leaving) and I figure, “fuck ya, I’m an awesome dancer. Like, for a white girl, my shit be impressive. I got this.” No. Wrong. My shit is NOT impressive. Like 12 dudes wanted to dance with me when I was dancing alone, and when I agreed to dance with one of them, he was the last one who asked. It was that atrocious. I’ve never had a guy do the “wait until the end of the song, say thanks, bow and walk away.” Until tonight. He kind of laughed at me and was clearly disappointed that the white girl was kinda cute but danced… well, like a white girl. Do you know how HARD that shit is? It’s like side to side and back and forth and the freakin spins are like IMPOSSIBLE and I think I got hit in the face/elbowed a few people trying to do it. It went from “oooh look at that white girl” to like “eeew haha look at that white girl.” Oh, and you’ll all be glad to note that I made my first mistake today. I told a dude I was from the U.S. and all of the girls (who, of course, are like expert spinny salsa dancing goddesses from Michoacan) immediately jump on me for revealing my foreign-ness, cuz all Mexican guys think that American girls are uber sluts. To which I reply, look at my snowy, polarbear like complexion. They all know. And they say, no, say you’re from Coyoacan, there’s tons of gueras there. So that’s settled then. Basically the first day has gone like this: I’ll be fine, I’m gonna die, I got this shit in the bag, what the fuck am I doing, it’s okay cuz people will excuse me if I try to look cute, but NOT if I reveal my rhythm-less whiteness. So, all in all, good first day.