This weekend on Saturday I went on another day trip to a small town called Capula about 30 minutes outside of Morelia. Capula is known for it´s pottery work so naturally we went to see how it´s done. I went on the trip with a teacher from the CCL (the place that found my housing and where I go to use the computers) and two students, and the friend of another teacher here. We took a bus out to Capula and then walked a few blocks to the home of a family who works with clay and making the pottery for a living. They showed us the process pretty much start to finish. La Señora Martes showed us how they crush the rocks into dust both by hand and with a machine. Then they filter out all but the finest grains to be mixed with water which we got to do. It was messy but fun! Then after we had made a batch of clay she took us back inside to show us how they form the clay into the different shapes. They have a whole wall filled with shelves of forms they made to form the different plates pots and jars. We each got to pick a form to make. She made it look so easy! I think mine will turn out pretty good though. Her daughter was behind us washing the pots that were leather hard after a few days so they could be ready to go into the fire the next day. They make 450 of the pots their family is known for in a week. The whole process from start to finish of hardening and firing the pots takes 7-8 days so they are working all the time. We also got to paint some jars that had already been in the fire once so they were hard and they will go in again to be glazed later this week. The whole family works there together doing all of the different tasks. It was great to see and you could tell they are close family. I thought it was very interesting to see what the difference between successful businesses is, by American Standards this family would probably be considered poor, but in Capula their pots are highly desired and they sell them wholesale to other vendors to be sold all over Mexico. I can´t wait to see my finished products later this week. My only regret of the trip was that my camera battery was dead so I don´t have any of my own pictures but one of the other girls has facebook and said she would share her pictures with me.
Later Saturday night I met up again with the teachers from the CCL, Ramses from our trip, Dee and her guest Jan who came on the trip and go figure another Katie is another American here to study. We met at Dee´s house and had some snacks and saw the view from her roof before going to the Cathedral for the illumination ceremony which involves music and fireworks, a very good recipe for a good time. It was beautiful. I took lots of pictures, I will post them soon. Then we wandered around downtown a little so that Jan could see some more of the town. We walked into the lobbies of two of the fanciest hotels in Morelia, absolutely beautiful. One was an open courtyard with a fountain and ivy everywhere, the other a huge building with a stained glass ceiling. Probably muy caro! (expensive) All in all a great night, that ended much later than I have been up yet here 1am! I usually am in bed by 10 or 10:30 since I´m up at 6 every day.
Today at school my students continued to let me practice my teacher voice and I got to work with the 4th graders for the last hour of the day for math class. I´ll will keep you posted on how the rest of my week of teaching goes, and the festivities of Valentine´s day. :)
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