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Ma Noweyiteko Mitstiochiwa

Huastec monolithI have returned! From the wilds of Mexico, from the high mountains of San Luis Potos铆, I have brought tidings of the people, language, landscape, and culture of the Huasteca.

My trip to the Potosian Huasteca went very well; I made some new friends and I was able to talk to lots of people there and improve my Spanish. Although I had previously visited the states of Coahuila and Tamaulipas, I had never before journeyed so far south (if you’re not sure where San Luis Potos铆 is, take a look at a map). I discovered a totally different side of Mexico on this trip!

As I experienced first-hand the culture of that region, I couldn’t help but think, this is the real Mexico! This is a place where everyone knows their native tongue as well as Spanish, a place where they make such bizarre dishes as a giant tamale. This was no Tex-Mex!

There is so much to tell about my trip, and so many pictures to show, that I am going to dedicate a good number of my subsequent blog posts to sharing these things with you. As you may remember, I did the same thing on BenjaBlog when I got back from North Carolina, but this trip was much more interesting than that one.

I hope you’ll come back regularly! This blog is dedicated to providing you, the reader, with interesting things to read and look at, and I hope I am achieving this goal.

About the title: I considered using Spanish for the title, but I decided to instead use Nahuatl (pronounced NAH-wahtl), the language of the Aztecs. The phrase means God bless you, and I would like to thank Luis Alberto of Coxcatl谩n for his help in providing me with some words from the language (stay tuned for more information about the indigenous tongues of Mexico).

Fiery Searcher

Fiery Searcher

I identified this shiny green beetle as a Fiery Searcher (Calosoma scrutator). I freed it from the bucket that it was in earlier in the week, but just yesterday I found it again (or another just like it) in the same bucket!

Mini waterfall

This is a (usually) dry creekbed near our house, and last week we had enough rain that it started flowing!