Social Studies in Mexico

Social Studies is another great thing to study on vacation,  especially when you’re traveling internationally. Just to observe the people’s customs is a lot more social studies than you can possibly get when reading about people and their ways. Just wish we could travel to every place that we wanted to learn about.

We very much enjoyed eating Mexican food while we were there. We love Mexican food.  In that part of Mexico and on south through El Salvador, everybody eats corn tortillas. Flour tortillas are a thing of Northern Mexico and, of course, Texas! It’s a treat to have the fresh made tortillas. I enjoyed watching this lady make them.

One of the most interesting things we did on this trip was to visit a Mexican dentist. It wouldn’t have been as interesting if I was the patient, but since I wasn’t I was intrigued by things they did differently from U.S. dentists. My father-in-law has concluded that he can pay for his trip to Mexico by visiting the dentist there. He had to have a crown and some fillings so he spent a few days at the dentist, but she really did do a nice job for him, it seems. John Deere Boy had a tooth that needed pulled, so I decided to give the Mexican dentist a try. She did a right fine job. She was so careful that he didn’t feel any pain. He complained more while we drove to the dentist than he did at the dentist!

But let me tell you about a Mexican dentist, besides being a lot cheaper. The practice we visited had two female dentists, two chairs, one assistant and one exam room. Both dentists worked in the same room. So I sure was hoping that the other patient would be quiet, so that John Deere Boy would become frightened by the other guy’s pain. The door to the exam room stayed opened the whole time, so it was easy to look in at the patients and dentists.

Also there was no glass on the windows in the waiting room and there was a dusty road in front of the office. But I sat in the waiting room for hours and I never felt like I was being choked on dust. I could smell it. They had fans in the exam room to keep the dust out of there, I guess. That was our visit to the Mexican dentist…not to bad. I’m thinking if I ever go back that I’ll go to her too.

While John Deere Boy and I waited during my father-in-law’s dental visit, we went exploring. We watched the school switching shifts. They school half of their children in the morning and half in the afternoon. I don’t know if they divide them by age or how they are divided. Everybody walks home. There were no buses. There were several little shops close to the school that sold drinks and ice cream and things like that. But we only saw three kids of all the hundreds that were walking by stop and get a snack. I thought, that is a lot different than American kids. The American kids would have lines going at the ice cream shop.

We stopped at one some of their little shops and looked at their wares. We were intrigued with the one that sold bulk foods and dog food.

John Deere Boy was especially intrigued with their fast food restaurant:

That was grilled chicken that they were selling there on the same dusty road that the dentist was on. It didn’t look appealing at all to us, but maybe that is because we are vegetarian.

We also spent some time checking out a Cathedral. There are many Cathedrals there. Even though Mexico does not have a state church, the population in Mexico is 89% Catholic. It is interesting to be in a country where religion seems to permeate things so much more than in the U.S. For instance, every bus that I’ve ever ridden has multiple Catholic emblems on it: crosses, Mary, etc.

On Saturday night while we were there, we had the opportunity to watch a group doing their native dances. I videoed it, because it was so interesting and so loud. They had on large feather head dresses and they were burning incense or something and they were beating on the drums that made your head rattle. It was really quite interesting, but unfortunately those clips are gone off of my camera. I don’t know where they went, but they disappeared. We watched the same type of thing last year, but my husband was gone with my video camera that time. So I’m being very unsuccessful of videoing their native dances. I guess I’ll have to go back for just that purpose!

We also had the opportunity to visit a cemetery. My in-laws had adopted a little Mexican girl from that town that passed away before they brought her home, so she is buried there. I was amazed by the cemetary, but I think the pictures say everything I can say, so here they are:

This is my final post on our trip to Mexico and I never found a post to put this family picture in, but it shows that we enjoyed ourselves immensely!