When I woke up yesterday, my right hand felt like it was on fire. Some wretched thing had bitten me in the night and I woke up at 4:00 Sunday morning with the torturous experience of the itching and burning that wouldn't go away. I was half asleep and by the time I was fully awake I had taken the top layer of skin off the area. There were a number of little bumps indicating where the bites were and then came the hives, indicating an allergic reaction. Common opinion was that it was a fire ant. Thankfully the hives were confined to the area of damage. I think it's very rude to bite another thing when it is sleeping. Can't these pests find something else to do'? There are all kinds of yummy road kills they could be munching on, but nooooooooooooo, they prefer Gringa meat.

Midmorning yesterday we went to the pharmacist where I ruefully showed him my hand. He explained that it was a toxic bite (gee, do ya think'?) and sold me some antihistamines, which worked almost immediately to relieve the reaction. The problem is, it says on the box to only take one pill every 12 hours. In three hours my hand was itching and burning again but I could no longer do anything to relieve it for the pain. I put some antibiotic gel on the wound and oh my God, did it BURN! We called a nurse friend and she said if the cream made the pain worse, don't use it. But then I was told the second danger is infection. But I can't use the antibiotic cream! I am still trying to sort all this out, maybe I'll find a shaman somewhere who can smear something green and slimy on it. As long as I don't know what's in it, I don't care.

Speaking of things medical, I have also learned that Spanish acronyms are very different from English ones!

If you are listening to the news here and you can pick up a few words of it, they make a lot of mention of the EU. I was thinking for the longest time, "Why do the Mexicans care what the European Union is doing? Are they thinking of converting pesos to Euros?" The EU is mentioned every day here in lengthy terms. Then I saw an image of George Bush talking to President Fox of Mexico. The background didn't look at all European although they kept on about the EU. Well. Turns out the EU here is "Estados Unidos." the United States. D'uh.

In the movie we watched on DVD yesterday, someone called out for CPR but in the subtitles it showed up as RCP. Oh great, I thought. RCP''? After pondering that for almost 24 hours I finally asked what it stands for and found out it is Resucitacion Cardio Pulminar. I will never remember that. I can only hope that if I yell out CPR there is a dyslexic Mexican somewhere in the vicinity.

I can carry on a conversation with scientists, doctors, veterinarians and other professionals because the medical/technical terms are fairly close in both languages. But even after 11 months I can't say, "Please pass the pepper." I don't have to say it because I normally don't put pepper on my food anyway. I can deal with most things that are critical with a professional but I don't know how to say knife, fork, or spoon. I recently learned how to ask for oil for my truck. Car terms are usually easily translated as well if I tell the mechanic what the term is in English, but "oil ? in English is "aceite ? in Spanish. Not even close.

Of course I know most of the swear words in Spanish but I rarely use them unless I am joking. In traffic though I've been known to hurl a word or two. Fortunately I don't understand what they are saying back.

One thing that Mexican men think is really funny to do is just blather a bunch of unrelated English words for sport and watch the gringo get confused. They love to play Let's Confuse the Gringo. Well, one day I'd kind of had it with that game and as I drove past a pack of soccer-playing fun loving guys who loved to make me stop and wonder what they were saying, I played it back. I stopped, smiled, and said to them, "Hola! Insistiendos mistacos!" Then I drove away, watching them standing dumbstruck in the rear view mirror. I laughed all the way home. Having related that to my Mexican friends, they now think it's the funniest thing in the world to yell INSISTIENDOS MISTACOS! for no reason at all. And nobody gets the joke that doesn't know the story, so they confuse their own, which is even better!

These people have a crazy sense of humor. I consider some of it to be very mean, but that's maybe my Euro Centric thinking. Is mean the same thing around the world? Maybe so, maybe not. But these people love to have a good laugh at anyone's expense, including their own. So maybe it's not so bad.

Sometimes I feel like a cultural anthropologist, making my way through a society so different from mine, and that of Europe. That's how I can cope with the loneliness sometimes is to pretend I am on a mission and learning the ways of the people like in all those films I saw in my college anthropology classes.

Addendum: I wrote this last year; I've been in Mexico for almost two years now, and I can now say "fork. ? It's "tenador. ? I use it as often as I can, even if I don't need a fork. I like to show off my prowess in my new language.