Descending upon Ciudad de Mexico from the air was the perfect summary to the second largest metropolitan area in the world – located in a valley, half a mile higher than Denver, Mexico City was a blur of sprawling buildings and striking colors behind a thick sheet of pollution. A really helpful man named Leonel from The Hunger Project (the organization that we’re working for) was waiting at the very front of the entrance to meet us with a huge smile and large, endearing sign stenciled in with: THE HUNGER PROJECT, WELCOME STUDENTS OF PENN. I think the most impressive part was their recreation of the Penn Logo, complete with dolphin or whale…or water horse. After exchanging money and a few awkward bilingual smiles (thankfully Diana spoke Spanish, because he spoke no English), we found a van, we set out on a long journey into the city – a ride of about 40 mins, during which we probably saw less than an 1/8 of what there is to be seen.

The office of El Proyecto Hambre was, as all the girls rightly called it, “charming.” It had yellow walls, red accents, and various office rooms, with a kitchen and two bathrooms completely decked out with toothbrushes (I think the best part was when they invited us to leave our toothbrushes there as well…maybe they brush their teeth after every meal?). We met Alejandra and our project leader, Claudia, but our infamous Odin, the man we had been in contact with for so long, was unfortunately away. He recently got into an accident and was on leave. Claudia, who spoke English almost flawlessly, was warm and full of laughter, but we could easily tell that under all that hospitality was definitive drive and passion for what she did. She sat us down and very directly drilled us on our backgrounds and our reason for picking the Hunger Project and within a few minutes, we had a swanky list of research to be done before work the next morning at 9am.

After the introductory meeting, they walked us to our apartment, a mere five minute stroll from the office. It’s lot larger than we had imagined, and personally reminded me of houses in India – very minimalist and extremely practical, furnished with the only the most necessary things (a couple of desks, beds, a dining table). We had ordered pizza in and strangely enough, I think we inadvertently stole some unassuming Mexican’s pizza because Alejandra whistled down a random passing pizza man and just paid for it on the spot. He just shrugged and accepted the money. When we opened the box and realized that it was not Pizza Hut (as we had ordered), but Dominos, and definitely not the plain and veggies flavors either, we concluded that we had stolen unknowingly. I mean, we paid for it. $40 actually for two pizzas – a definitive proof that purchasing power parity does not hold and that the Big Mac Index is flawed. Who buys $20 pizza in the US (it was Domino’s too)???

Alejandra then walked us around town for a bit, familiarized us with the neighborhood, before she finally let us loose in the metro, and where we made our way to Zocalo (the center of the city). The Plaza de la Constitucion was striking to say the least – it was such a stark reflection of an obviously strong and proud culture, heavily reminiscent of what I’ve seen in Madrid, yet somehow holding itself above with a unique sense of self. We made a complete round around the amazing Cathedral, posing for cheesy pictures in front of large monuments as the natives stared shamelessly at us. I suppose we’re not the typical group of American kids – 3 Asian girls, an Indian girl, and a white boy.

Flora and I, on a silly silly whim, made a stop at the Starbucks for iced tea and frappucino. I think about 3 sips into each of our drinks, we both began panicking that Starbucks used tap water for their ice and that we were both doomed to spend the next two weeks in the water closet with Montezuma’s revenge (the deathly attack of diarrhea). Flora complemented our fears with colorful stories of a friend who had suffered similarly and became so pale that he couldn’t even walk – yes, direct correlation between the lack of color and inability to walk. I think it was the deities punishing us for our shameful American fancies, but it’s been a good couple of hours since that fateful sip, and we’re still holding strong, so thank you. Thank you (with clasped hands and upturned eyes). Knock on wood.

We left Zocalo before night fell to retrace our steps back to our neighborhood, and find the supermarket so that we could stock up on necessities such as toilet paper, snacks, hand soap, trash bags, etc. I think we must have walked up and down the same street 4 times (since four different people pointed in four separate directions), but ultimately a really sweet lady in a charming tea shop (we made a note to go back there to express our gratitude) spent a few minutes sketching out a map. It was a great help, because we finally made it to the elusive El Superama, stocked up on brie cheese, whole wheat crackers, fresh baked bread, honey bunches of oat, and LaLa Light pasteurized milk.

We celebrated the end of the day with boiling showers, cheese and crackers, and some good candid shots of Sruthi pouring coke into a glass.

Signing out,

Sruthi