Carnaval!

We went to *2*, yes TWO carnavales.  A Carnaval is a type of parade with floats and people dressed  up.  The first Carnaval we went to was at 8:30 on a Friday night in Espita.  We had pizza first though.  While we were eating, the floats with people screaming on them kept driving past the restaurant.  After pizza my mother took a gazillion pictures of us with the people to perform in the Carnaval.  There were all different kinds: there was one like a jungle,

one like a train, etc.

They were just rides to the Carnaval but they were still amazing! 
This Carnaval was different because there were just people dancing in the main square. 
We watched, then Henry fell asleep and Mary got tired so we had to go.

 

The next day we drove to Merida.  The day after that, right at the heat of the day we went to the parade that was there.  This one was like most and they kept moving.  The floats were all giant trucks decorated with people and other things all sporting different companies.  The people on the floats dance and throw things like necklaces, fans, chips, hats, horns, and candy down to the people watching.  Pati was there.  Pati is a person who used to take care of us. She now has a little baby boy.

A person on one of the floats tried time after time to get something to me but the people in front of us grabbed it all.  (I was screaming and jumping to get their attention.)  So she sent one of the people by the side of the float and they went and told the next float.  The guy on the next float got a t-shirt, handed it down, and said to give it to me.  I was very happy.  One of the people took three necklaces that the people threw to my mother and wouldn't give one to us when she asked for it.  She fell off her chair three times.  Pati said it was because she was being mean.

My t-shirt!

After the big parade in Merida:

 

The remains of Juan Carnaval after they burned him:

Too many Bugs / Creepy Crawlies

Every night before I go to bed I never fail to find something scary.  The other day I killed a scorpion- a poisonous one.  I killed it with a rock.  It was ready to strike.  My mom thinks there are probably more.

So far we have seen a giant grasshopper, an assassin beetle (it carries a deadly disease called Chagas),

plenty of mosquitoes, a giant cockroach, a giant beetle, giant spiders, daddy long legs, etc.

This is a tailless Whip Scorpion.  A bunch of these live in our storage building.

  

There are too many of them.  My mother says she is not too happy about that.  I agree- it is really hard to get a mosquito net to stay on a bed!

Bird Lover

This is a good name for my mother.  First it was ducks, now it's geese.  Next thing you know it will be swans!  Sometimes I think she loves them more than she loves us, her kids.  Yes, I do know that this is "for the snakes", but something tells me if this keeps going on this place will be a bird farm!

Enough about my mother for now.  I will talk a bit about the geese.  When they first got here they were hissing and kicking and throwing a hissy fit, and they were doing this weird thing with their tongues.

My mother figured out they were panting.  At first we were all scared the geese might bite us or hurt us some other way, even the dogs, but luckily they didn’t.  They must have gotten dehydrated, so we took them back to this place where it's kind of like a cement pond. 

As we were filling it with water, one of the geese fell into it and couldn't get out, so Miguel made a ramp out of rocks.  While he was doing that, we got to name the two geese.  Again everyone liked my names best, so they were named Paddle and Sirena (which means mermaid in Spanish).  Sirena is the one that had fallen in and she couldn't get out because she did not understand how the rocks were going to help her.  Miguel had to grab her to get her out. 
Later that day one of the dogs wanted to play with the geese, but the geese did not want to play so they threw another fit.  I met two girls that day.  We became friends, though soon it was time for bed.  That is the end of this adventure. 

New Girl at School

The first couple days at school I was bombarded with questions about what my name was, who my BFF's were, where did I come from, how old was I, and who was I sitting with at lunch.  One person told me I was popular.  My mother and I think it is because I look different, my hair is naturally blonde, and I speak a different language. 
I told them all the girls are my friends, my name is Exie, I do not have a boyfriend ( I was already told all the boys like me), I come from the USA, and I was sitting with all the girls. 
On the second day, everyone knew me and all the older girls wanted me to sit with them.  Things continued like that for awhile. 
Right now we are in Merida.  We went to Parque de las Americas and got marquesitas, which are made out of pancake or waffle batter and are rolled up and have cheese in them and you can put different toppings on them.  To sum it up, it has been an awesome week. :)

Any More Questions?

In reply to a couple of people who asked me what good ducks did, I will tell you.

No one in my family knows, but we think that ducks eat snakes. Personally, I think we should have gotten eagles, considering the Mexican Flag.

And tobacco has a strong smell that keeps away snakes.

The Snake Incident

We came to Mexico from the United States of America because my dad is an archaeologist and is studying the Maya.  We live on a hacienda located near Espita, Yucatan.  A hacienda is like a ranch.  We have a couple of animals like sheep and chickens. Right now we are living in sort of a hut, but as soon as the workers finish fixing up this big house that is in ruin right now, we shall live there. This is how our trip has been so far:

It was the first day we were here.  My little brother Henry got bitten by a snake. 

What happened was we had just come back from swimming in a cenote, which is a cave filled with water, and Mary (my little sister) and Henry were playing by the water trough where the sheep drink.  They were trying to catch tadpoles (they were having no luck though), and the snake slithered out of a hole in the rocks.  We think Henry stepped on it.  It jumped up and bit him on his knee.  Mary ran for my parents and I honked the horn in the car.  When everyone was together, my dad called for Miguel, one of the workers, and he and a few other workers killed the snake.  We were told that it was not a rattlesnake, as we had all feared, but a snake pretending to be a rattlesnake.  We still went to the hospital, just in case.

 I had a feeling that Miguel was wrong because all people make a mistake once in their lives.  And so we drove to the hospital with Mary and I crying.  Halfway there we got a flat tire.  We were upset but we managed to get to a doctor and they confirmed that it was a “Cuatro Narices”, a Fer-de-Lance.  My brother took an ambulance to the hospital and we got a new tire.  Then we went to the hospital too and my brother was treated with antivenom.  After that my sister, my dad, and I had to stop back to where we were sleeping, the hacienda, to get some clothes for everyone because we would need to spend a couple of nights in Merida in a hotel. 

After that we got to visit my brother every few days and then one time a friend of my mother’s stopped over and invited us to spend the night at her house until Henry was cured.  And so we did and my aunt came from the United States to see us because Henry had been bitten by a snake. 

Now we are going to school at Instituto de Mexico in Tizimin.  This weekend we came back to Merida for Henry’s doctor checkup.  He is completely cured now.  Before, the snakebite had been purple and now you can’t find it.  We are all very happy that we have three children in this family- not two!  

Peking, Romania, and Iris

 

Snowflake & Quintin

My mother is now very careful about snakes and we got some ducks, which are supposed to get rid of snakes, and some tobacco, which helps too.  My mother fell in love with the ducks.  We named the ducks.  I named two because my mother couldn’t think of anything and she like my names:  Iris and Romania.  My dad named one Peking.  My sister named one Snowflake, and my brother named one Quintin.  We think they might be husband and wife.