If are planning to travel to or stay in Latin America, do not drink the water out of the tap! The water usually isn’t potable because they don’t use the same type of water treatment plants as they do in the United States. If you accidentally drink the water out of the tap, you may get what many people, over the ages, have affectionately called “Montezuma’s revenge”. Along with other symptoms, this condition will usually include many unwanted trips to the restroom. Read more…
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For your own safety, in the streets of Latin America there is one major piece of information you need to be aware of—pedestrians do not have the right of way. If a pedestrian walks across the street at a cross walk (2 solid parallel white lines) in the United States, all vehicles are required to slow down to let the pedestrian cross. Most cross walks in the United States are at are at street lights or intersections with stop signs, but once in a while there are crosswalks in the middle of city blocks (far from an intersection). When people start to cross the street at the crosswalks, vehicles will slow down to wait for them even without street lights to stop the cars. If pedestrians are in the streets in Latin America, not only do cars not slow down, they seem to speed up. Read more…
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We will be discussing personal space this week. You probably have not thought about it very much; however, you’ll know it exists after today. I don’t know how it is in other parts of the world, (those of you from Australia, England, and so forth, inform me please) when people talk to each other at social gatherings in the United States, they usually stand three to four feet apart or so.
Personal space is very different in Latin America. When people talk to each other, they usually stand closer together. Both men and women stand close together and this has no hidden or implied meaning at all, it is an everyday normal thing. They simply just stand closer together when they talk. Click here to learn Spanish. Read more…
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The text for “Cinco de mayo” below is taken, with permission, from Mexonline.com
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The holiday of Cinco De Mayo, The Fifth Of May, commemorates the victory of the Mexicans over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. It is primarily a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican state capital city of Puebla and throughout the state of Puebla, but is also celebrated in other parts of the country and in U.S.cities with a significant Mexican population. It is not, as many people think, Mexico’s Independance Day, which is actually September 16.
Setting The Stage
The battle at Puebla in 1862 happened at a violent and chaotic time in Mexico’s history. Mexico had finally gained independence from Spain in 1810, and a number of internal political takeovers and wars, including the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and the Mexican Civil War of 1858, had mostly wiped out the national economy.
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