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Hello, everyone!  This week we saw a very interesting movie on the lives of nuns in early Latin America.  After discussing, in class, why there were so many nuns in Mexico at that time, it was good seeing a movie to help us understand it better and have a more elaborate way to visualize it.  For me I was a bit surprised to see that some nuns were allowed to read and write as much as some did.  In Dona Marina case it was clear that she became a nun because she wanted to be educated.  It shows when she had the flash back of her childhood, and goes to her mother dressed like a man studying in a university, also because she loves to read and write so much.  It was sad to see when she lost her rights to read the large number of book, because you know it’s her passion, and in a way she gave up her rights to get married to become a nun, and all to have a good education.  I even think she would rather be educated than keep on praying to God.  Because when she gets the books taken away, the men tell her to pray and she said “why should I pray when I think that God is deaf.” Another part of the movie that was a hard to see was when Dona Marina’s mother gets mad at her for becoming a nun, all while she was on her death bed.  You can tell that Dona Marina is disturbed by this and it has made the sting of lousing her books even harder.

One part of the movie that I had a hard time understanding was the relationship between Dona Marina and the Queen.  For someone seeing this movie in 2010 I have a feeling that the Queen likes Dona Marina as more than a friend, because she asked her to undo her middle part of her dress, and the Queen also asked her to take off her veil than gives her a kiss on the lips.  This did not look so innocent to me but rather sexual.  I am not sure that Dona Marina feels the same way, if I am reading into this right.  If I am not right about this hunch, it could be because this cultural of early Latin America may have been a bit more touchy feely than our current America cultural, and also it may have been normal for women to have more of a stronger and closer relationship than the heterosexual women of our time do.  Although we have not seen the conclusion of this movie, I can say that I have enjoyed it.