Change

Please forgive me, stranger on the plane. You sit beside me plugged into your music and I keep to myself with my nose in my book. But the unrequited love of my novel or the aerial view of expansive rows of agriculture remind me of the world I am leaving behind. My nose crinkles up and one tear escapes; but then I begin to weep full hot tears of spicy tacos and the dim lighting of our mosquito-infested Frisbee fields, of dodging horse dung and grasshoppers on the short walk to class and the meaningful talks Maggie and I would dive into on the bus rides to avert our attention from the lunacy of traffic. 

I was  feeling completely discombobulated when we disembarked the plane. Everything was shiny and flashing and on sale. I stared up at the screens displaying departures to every corner of the world until I saw him for the third time. He’d been napping on the plane a row ahead of me. He’d let me pass him in security as he juggled his shoes and luggage. Now he sidled up to my right and we fell in step as we headed for the same plane to Seattle. I got so lost in conversation with this nice guy from Cuernavaca that I forgot that I’d been overstimulated and upset...and where we were going. But getting lost in the huge terminal was of little consequence as my entire being sighed with the familiarity of our common tongue. Sometimes God sends us angels when we need them the most.

And now as my mom and I wind our way up and down the West Coast, carving out our play time for just us, I am playing my own game. I am playing tug of war between the present and the past as I embrace the fall weather and the vampires offering me Snickers bars and waterfalls and pancakes. I want to appreciate this adventure as an isolated chapter – a fantastic opportunity to pioneer the West with my best friend and my inspiration. But even in the most serene moments, life’s not as simple as mojitos and scenic drives, because this journey is bridging the gap between what was and an unknown future. Not only am I marching into unemployment in my parents’ basement, which I know will inevitably unfurl into another impactful pile of life lessons and business ventures, but I am being hurled into American life like a trans-national human cannonball. I’m learning how to adapt to hurling. So while I’m trying to savor every morsel of these pumpkin pancakes, I’m also lost in the memories of the place I just left. My heart is aching for my friend – he never stops laughing, never stopped holding me up, but he must be so exhausted from studying full time and caring full time for his ailing mother.  I left another friend in the midst of emotional turmoil and all I want to do is hug her. I close my eyes and over the Deep South accents discussing music in the seats behind us, I can hear Augustín panting as he streaks up the hill to arrive first to class, and Dona Rosa’s cow mooing off in the distance. My heart was on the mend when I left Mexico – I had scooped up the bits and held them together every night as I curled into my squeaky bunk bed, but as it had a tendency to break apart in its fragile state, I’m not sure if every fragment made it into my overweight baggage.  

On the outside it looks like we haven’t a care in the world. But you can’t see my tug of war game - my heart torn between worlds. I can’t explain why I marvel at toilets with seats that actually flush paper or why I would return to a land without them. I can’t explain why I love the smells of donkey dung, burn piles and myrrh. I can’t explain why fourteen children or teammates who may never bridge the gap of ever-lasting friendship made such a deep impression in my soul. Consequently, I can’t explain why I am testy and impatient; why I have such a profound sense of ache and longing when the scenery from this train is beautiful, the food is rich, the company is sweet and the future is bright (albeit unilluminated). The best advice I’ve gotten so far is fake it til you make it. My friend was talking about love, but I think it’s applicable here too – just power through and live in the moment and eventually the energy you pretend to have will seep into your real mindset. One can only hope.

San Miguel de Allende

The Queretero tournament was quite an adventure. Only five of my teammates from Pachamamas went, so we were split up onto different teams rather than playing together. On Sunday, I hadn’t intended to play and really wanted to go to museums, but I kept waiting and waiting until the decision was essentially made for me. Why is it the case that moving to a foreign country doesn’t faze me, but the idea of leaving my team and going into the city for a day by myself makes my heart race? I realize that there are lots of open factors and unknowns, but that doesn’t explain my calm about big changes and neurotic anxieties about small things out of my control. Lately I’ve been trying to plan like mad – how do I get to practice next week? What will we eat when we get home from work on Wednesday? What time should we leave work to pick up tortillas? It’s like I’m clinging desperately, obsessing some might say, over things that I have some autonomy over because there is so much more swirling above me that is entirely out of my hands. It’s a very exhausting dichotomy.

Anyway, after we went to dinner in the center, I went home with Pablo, a friend from Pachamamas who’d just moved to Queretero, who was crashing at his friend’s place. He’d expressed interest in accompanying me to San Miguel and thus became my travel buddy for the rest of the weekend.  We woke up on Monday morning and headed for the bus station for the one-hour trip to San Miguel. I felt calm and free. As a background, I’d like to tell you that it was important for me to go to this city because this was the town where my mom’s friend, Joyce, lived for 10 years. It was she who inspired me, really. I had always said I wanted to go abroad and then one day she told me she and her husband picked up and moved here. And I thought, “Oh, you can just do that? Cool!” She made me realize that you don’t need an excuse to do what you want to do – just figure it out and go. So I wanted to pay a tribute to her and visit this funky pueblo.

 It was just as she described it – artsy and charming. There were expats on every corner. You could distinguish the foreigners by the way they stood, by their shoes, their maps and Ibuprofen bottles (after a long weekend and another pulled quad I secretly coveted their over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, but I kept walking).

Pablo was a fabulous travel partner – so relaxed, similar non-agenda and interests and a fabulous conversationalist.  We spontaneously hopped another bus to Atonontilco, famous for its sanctuary, but not much else. The church was known as the site where San Miguel Hidalgo assembled the community to march to San Miguel de Allende and initiate the grito (the shout) that began the War of Independence. They grabbed the flag of the Virgin Guadalupe to rally behind. This rallying point started a great conversation about how even with official separation of church and state, everything is so connected to Catholicism that the government is very similar to a theocracy. Many of my friends in Cholula resent this because they don’t practice a faith. Recently, Calderón stated that even though we may not be all practitioners or believers, we are all “Guadalupanos” (of the Virgin Guadalupe). This really upset my friend:“How can you make such blanket statements about who I am?” And yet, even those most disconnected from the church still tend to cross themselves and have confirmation ceremonies. It really is a very interesting culture of faith here.

 Anyway, we walked to the end of the world – down a long cobblestone path that led out of the town, or at least to the mezcal distillery whose owner greeted us at the elaborate iron gate. ”I’m 67 years old! I have 7 sons and daughters here and I’ve seen them grow up here!” We took a step back from his strong breath. Apparently he’d been in charge of taste-testing that day. “One day, with more calm, you can come back and have a look around!....Well, come on in!” We didn’t stay long or score any samples, but we did get a peek at his giant plantation. Then we back-tracked to the sanctuary and the other half of the town with the store, restaurant, paper shop and rows of tents selling rosaries. We leaned on an old pickup truck while doctoring our cans of Modelo Negro with salt and lime and continued talking about religion.

 We wandered a bit more around San Miguel and then got on the return bus to Queretero where we parted ways. I’m not sure what I would’ve done had Pablo not been there to offer me a bed and hold my hand. But the more hesitant I became, the more I realized how important it was for me to go. I continue to attempt to let things work themselves out, as is the Mexican way, but it may kill me first. Maybe someday I’ll be less tightly-wound. I keep doing things like jumping buses to unknown places and getting haircuts in a foreign language, throwing my agenda to the winds, but I’m not sure if it’s helping or just giving me high blood pressure. I’m having a damn good time trying to figure out the answer, though. And my hair doesn’t look too bad, either.

The Dance of Fire and Rights

Two weeks ago I participated in an ocote – the fire dance to celebrate the saints. The whole town rallies behind the band and parades from mayordomo to mayordomo, church caretakers, to ask for tamales and atole and to light the next ocote. The ocote itself is a holy (and holey) bucket of fire kept lit by special incense-infused wood. It’s like Mexican trick or treating - an indigenous superimposed with Catholic ideology. I went to bed before they lit the toro fireworks. Those are the worst in my book – a big basket of fireworks that kids carry around on their backs that shoot off in the town square (you might remember I wrote about them in April). We paraded through the town for four hours and at each home we’d dance around the flames and toast with Styrofoam shots of tequila. I’d had quite a few tamales as well, having not been able to fill up on chicken innards and yolk fetuses that our hosts offered us (yup you read that right – the stew actually wasn’t too bad, except when I ate what I believe was a kidney. And the yolks tasted just like they do after they’ve been expelled from the chicken, but ultimately I saved my appetite for the tamales).

 The rockets went off all night. At some point I dreamt they’d switched to cannons, but I think it was just the case that the parade got closer. The next morning after helping the grandmothers make tamales, I went with Maricela and her family for another round of the parade. We ate MORE tamales and carried a bouquet behind the Virgin Guadalupe along with 3 different adornments of flowers – red, pink and white (each has a different purpose – love, donations and something else) each strung with symbolic gifts: apples, peppers, bottles of tequila, bees nests, etc. We marched behind the same band that had been playing all night long and stopped at another mayordomo’s home for ice cream and soda. I think my teeth might fall out by the time I leave….

When I came back to Tecuanipan from Cholula that afternoon we passed by Orlando’s parents’ home for dinner. Delicious tortillas with rice, chicken and mole. The in-laws brought the tequila. As is the custom, the tequila is not rightfully the property of the ‘owner’ of the bottle. It is his or her duty to empty the bottle by sharing shots with everyone. Naturally, being the traditionalists that we are and dedicated to our quest to connect profoundly with the community, we were very intoxicated by 6:30. It was incredibly pleasant to dine with the family, to check out all of Orlando’s toys and watch his dad play with his sister. We listened to Orlando’s father recount his memories of 9/11 in New York and tell us about his trials and triumphs during his time in the US. He said that he had no interest whatsoever in returning to the States now that he has his children to consider. This was a fresh perspective from the focus on American dollars as the main means of family support.

The following Tuesday evening, I stepped out of my routine again. I decided not to go to frisbee practice, but instead to stay in Tecuanipan for the festival of San Fransisco – the last day of the fair. We went to our neighbors’ for their party. As with all of the mayordomos’ gatherings, the party was open to the entire town and free dinner for everyone. As soon as we sat down with Maricela and Renato, we were served rice, chicken and mole, hot tortillas and a cold Victoria. We were simultaneously approached by two very intoxicated older women (heretofore known as the tequila ladies) with half a bottle. Same deal – they pour you a shot, they toast with you. The problem was, as this was a much bigger party than the dinner at Orlando’s house, there were many, many bottles of tequila going around.

As much as I’ve assimilated to Mexican life here, I will never be able to eat chicken and mole with a plastic spoon. I left a splatter ring at my white place setting, somehow flung it into my eye, and graciously accepted Ina’s continuous and subtle indications to mole stains on various parts of my body. After most of my dinner and my second round of toasting with the patrons (or 3^rd?), a young mariachi left his post and asked me to dance. Once he’d returned to his guitar, I was petitioned by two other significantly older and more intoxicated gentlemen who would rotate dances between Ina and me until the gifts ceremony began.  They mayordomos offer presents of gratitude to everyone who helped with the festivities – bottles of tequila or soda, baskets of tamales, mole, etc. Then the recipients dance in a conga line with the gifts to show their appreciation. It’s really beautiful, but my friend Pablo says that it’s for this tradition that no one gives refrigerators as wedding presents.

I chuckled when the first tequila lady handed Ina a new bottle and made her hop in line. That was until she returned with an empty Squirt bottle and towed me into the dance – apparently the rules relax a bit after a few rounds. Then I had the pleasure of dancing with Goretti – Maricela and Renato’s youngest daughter – and tequila lady #2. I think this was the highlight for me – with the two of them we shared pure joy, no rhythm and not a single preoccupation as we twirled and jumped to the mariachis’ music. The rockets continued to blast off above the tarp that covered the yard. The ground was littered with beer bottle caps (which I’d scrounge for later with the aspirations of making earrings), Styrofoam cups and as the many stray dogs hoped to find, chicken bones. I quietly offered my fat and gristle to Orejón who wagged unceasingly under the table and followed Ina around the dance floor every time she received an offer.

I had to leave at 7:30 to catch the bus, but I was so grateful to have gotten the chance to witness and be part of such a great party. Unfortunately, the bus schedule caused me to miss the men pole dancing, which came just after the next round of tequila toasts…

There’s another perspective to these festivals, however. My friend Julian’s father was a church guardian for many years. He attended all of the parties and the services, rang the bells, shot off the rockets, danced in the parades…When I told him about the ceremonies I’d attended his expression turned sour. “They spend all of their money on rockets and rice for celebrations. They pocket the rest. What about social services and paving roads and helping the poor? Where do you think all of that extra money goes for the offerings once they’re done paying off the party? Hmm?” Don Manuel is one of the most kind-hearted and religious people I have met in Mexico. But for all of the years he dedicated to its service, he has now turned away from the church because he can no longer bear the burden of knowing many of the corrupt truths. They put these parties on and tell all of the townspeople to be good servants to the church and to God, and then defy their own sermons in favor of personal gain and power. (These are his words.) We talked for a long time about how to approach life while you know such truths. And while Don Manuel may not have changed the church, he has indeed influenced his own community and made change by the way he raised his children. They run an honest and communal business among them. They are socially responsible and are raising his granddaughters to be independent and strong women. They are all truly good people, inspiring others (including myself). Is that enough to fight the power of corruption? Mmm. Dunno. But take a look at what’s happening all over the world right now: on Wall Street, in Sol Square, in Egypt, in the parlor of Lito’s Pizza in Cholula, Mexico.

We went into Puebla today, October 15, to shop around and take a stroll around the square. There is a demonstration going on in Puebla today that is in solidarity with the huge protest going on two hours west in Mexico City. People all over the world are pissed at how politicians are defining democracy and how the economy is managed by the top few percent. There were signs of indignation and also of hope: people writing that they are neither for the right or the left, but simply from and for the bottom to work its way up into equality. We met some incredibly inspiring people, which was really cool because as I write this, I realize that we are a lot like the kids we met today. We, too, are playing an important part in redefining our economic values, in connecting with them and with the people of Tecuanipan, and in the choices that we are making.  In the context of street dancing behind a tuba and ducking rockets or in that of the demonstrations happening everywhere, being a part of community gatherings has been a pretty monumental aspect of my life recently, and in itself is an exceptionally powerful experience. 

Random musings of an early Autumn afternoon

My house looks out over fields of corn and alfalfa, and one plot in the middle lying fallow for a few days of rest before they plant and fertilize again. My neighbor guides his dull chestnut horse through the rows, churning its own clods of waste into the battered topsoil. Beyond that, there are bright green, purple, orange and yellow low-rise apartment complexes. Softer shades of the same color scheme flap mildly on a clothesline strung between two water tanks on the roof. From the other side of my own roof, the hidden sun casts a deep periwinkle shadow over the volcano and its dwarfed neighbors. This makes me think of my own blue ridges so many kilometers and cultures away.

The clouds build and fade throughout the afternoon. Despite the calm ambiance of the climate, there is never a moment of true peace for those who don’t work hard to find it within themselves. You can hear the mariachi music from the party salon in the next block. Trucks rumble on the adjacent avenue – a cut-through for those headed to the main drag leading to the capital. For the moment, only one dog is barking off in the distance, but there is always a cacophony of fights, yelps, guard barks, bicycle and car chasers (easier to spot with a hind leg usually tucked up in the back) and general reports of mayhem. It’s a 24 hour canine’s chorus.

Let’s not forget that Cholula is a quickly growing suburb of Puebla with constant construction – hammers, saws, sanders, etc.  And please don’t be alarmed by the fireworks and gunshots either, as these are a daily occurrence in celebration of a Christian saint associated with one of Puebla’s 365 churches. Other than that, you have the regular city sounds of laughing children, traffic, the recordings of gas and fruit vendors driving through town, the neighbor’s turkey, the neighbor’s dog that sounds like a dying bunny, exotic birds, shouts from campesinos resting in the fields as their goats graze, and far off rhythms of festivals and church bells. 

Down below on the cobblestone street, a daughter hangs her head out of her father’s 1980s VW; her black hair flying and sticking to the remnants of a purple popsicle in the corners of her mouth. Painters in their white splattered jumpsuits finish their task to enforce homogeneity onto the exterior of an apartment complex. The party is momentarily drowned out by the music from a bicycle vendor carrying pots of boiled corn (which are delicious – served with lime, parmesan, spices and a bit of mayo).  Sitting on my rooftop and soaking all of this in, my thoughts take me to the following track:

Maggie just read me an article about Buddhists who believe that you are continually changing your identity. You’re not the same person you were 5 minutes ago as 5 hours ago as 5 days or years ago. So how do you define “who am I?” Perhaps you can only preface that answer with “well, right now I’m…” And what would I say? 5 hours ago I’d say I’m a Frisbee player. One day ago I’d have said I’m a disgruntled volunteer, frustrated by the paradox of simple resolutions and complicated processes and why the hell can’t anyone seem to do it right? And in this moment I’d tell you I’m a writer and a dreamer. How do your selves relate? They must know each other because they share memories. The pissed off Rachel seeks the tranquil Rachel. It’s not personality disorders – that’s a whole different issue; and according to this philosophy, everyone would have one. Has the right now Rachel learned anything from the 1 hour ago or 8 months ago Rachel? Have the yous?

In Spanish there are 2 verbs for “to be.” Ser is used for fixed concepts like time and descriptions. Son las 3: It’s 3 o’clock. My dad es Jewish. Soy de North Carolina. Estar is for things that change. The pencil está on the table. The car está broken. What if there was only one verb for both? Everything is changing, everything is fluid, not just time or actions but people and who and how they are. Estoy Rachel rather than soy Rachel because we are always changing. Maybe it sounds like I’m on drugs, and perhaps the Rachel in 2 hours from now will be, but I can’t control that Rachel – I don’t know her yet. This may not make any sense, but it was just something I was thinking about and I thought I’d share. What do yous think?  

Chiapas

We woke up in the jungle. Well, really it was more like the forest, but it was dense and looked kind of rainy, so we’ll just call it the jungle because that sounds so much more badass. Maggie and I first arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas and had to wait for Beto to get there by car later that evening. We spent the entire day in one coffee shop. We started off with breakfast and coffee, and then (a few minutes after noon, respectfully) went for round 2 of coffee with liqueur, and were just about to go for round 3 when it started to pour (we soon learned that this was a daily ritual at 4pm on the dot).  We scampered inside to a packed restaurant where our damp and pathetic appearance spurred an invitation to sit at the nearest table by a gentleman who turned out to be a state representative. “El Chunko” they call him (I think it means youngest son?), and we chatted with the couple about the Mexican political system and autism (his hot button topic) for an hour or so until they offered to pay our entire bill and flitted off.

Throughout the day we were approached by indigenous women and children selling small figurines, bracelets and candies. The women, with their long, dark hair plaited with ribbons, were dressed in ankle-length black wool skirts, bright cummerbunds and loose white blouses. The children looked forlorn and tired and asked us to give them our bread or a jelly packet when we turned down their sales pitches. The effects of globalization and racial hierarchy beat down on us like the Mexican sun as we watched well-dressed tourists dodge and scoff at the vendors tottering after them with their outstretched necklaces. If you give one of these kids a break, or a jelly packet, are you helping or hurting? How do you decide which vendor to purchase from? It seems that the art of tactical capitalism never reached the lower levels of Mexican society, because everyone sells identical bracelets, identical painted flower pots, identically boiled or barbequed corn on the cob, identical Mayan paintings on leather – and all right next to each other! There is no angle; there’s no competition. It depends on which kid whimpers the most or which moment you decide to give in. So, theoretically, in buying a bracelet am I preserving these women’s income and their craft or further pressing them into the mold of the Other that the tourist industry has amplified? This is not a rhetorical question... In fact, it buzzed around me the entire time I was in Chiapas, to which point I was unable to fully enjoy meandering the streets because I was so overly conscious of societal roles. I finally couldn’t take it – we were asking so many questions between the two of us sitting their sipping our cappuccinos and amaretto that I decided to catch up with a recently rejected sale and talk to the woman. Her name was Rosa and she had been selling bracelets ever since she was little. I’m not sure if she actually made them herself, or just told me she did because that was part of her delivery. I really wanted to understand her background and how she felt about people – about us foreigners and her work. She alluded to the tribulations of her position and how she was treated, but it was understandably challenging to extract such intimate reflections from a woman who was clearly surprised and confused by the fact that I was interrogating her in the first place.  Oh well, we go on asking and observing.

It happened again on Wednesday, when we returned from Comitan (I’ll come back to that, I promise) and went to San Juan Chamula, the next little pueblo over from San Cris. As we turned into the public parking lot, four kids came running up and smushed themselves against the car. “I’ll keep watch over your car.” “I’ll guide you!” “I’ll watch your car!” Beto told one kid he could watch his car, and two others they could accompany us to the church. Then name, Chamula, they recited, is made of 2 Tsotsil words – death and mule – the mule, like the goat, is sacred to these people and was killed by the Spaniards when they arrived. The church here is very unique in that it serves the people in a mixture of Catholicism and indigenous Mayan rituals. There are no benches, so the people sit amongst fresh pine needles on the floor, lighting candles of various colors and quantities depending on their needs. They pray to Catholic saints in Tsotsil – a language that sounds very similar to when you rewind a CD – eep errp boy neeep dob boop. As the boys explained, and as I witnessed, when someone is sick they bring in a chicken (or an egg if it’s only a mild illness) to pass over the body of the ill as they pray. The chicken takes on the illness and then the family goes home to kill, cook and eat it (which, to me, seems counterintuitive but who am I to tell them their ancient traditions are not properly closed cycles?) and then hang the feathers in their home for three days.

After we left the church, denying multiple requests from our guides and other children to gift them my umbrella, Beto’s watch or churros from the street corner, we investigated a posh stillery. Posh is the fermented drink (a lot like moonshine) that is sacred to the shamans within the indigenous community. The shamans will drink posh as they heal you, sometimes even spitting it on you, and ask you to share it (or more commonly now, to drink Coke to help the evil spirits escape via belching. No lies.) We finally found a tiny store that sold posh and gasoline. As the posh I’d tried was pretty heavy duty, I was mildly concerned that they would confuse the two, but we bought the stuff that tasted like raspberries, so I’m pretty sure we’re in the clear.  As we headed back to the car, the number of kids had nearly tripled, all of them asking for a tip for helping with the car or trying to sell bracelets or simply just looking for a handout. Two girls went so far as to open the car door and not let us leave in attempt to win our affections (by which, I mean, the contents of our pockets).

As we drove away, the kids shrinking into the rearview mirror, I got angry but I wasn’t sure at whom. The parents, certainly. When I was ten I was roller blading and hosting the occasional lemonade stand. These kids are towing their siblings, preparing meals, making a living. Families here are a powerhouse of economic means; which is, again, counterintuitive as it is another mouth to feed and human to clothe. But how can you get mad at the parents when it’s all they know? And their religion tells them that it’s wrong to think of family and sex otherwise. Do you get mad at the abstract system of social history and lack of reproductive education? Then you are simply wasting your brain energy. Ugh. Someone please tell me how to decide what to care about when there seems to be so much to fix.

On Tuesday morning we left for Chiflón, which was a gorgeous national park and waterfall. I uploaded a few pictures on facebook. There is nothing more calming and neutralizing to me than the powerful roar of a waterfall and its mist in your face.  After dropping Beto’s family with relatives, we continued on to los Cinco Lagos de Montebello (Five Lakes), where we spent the day swimming in a mysterious teal blue lake over 1000ft deep. We ate little bean pockets and I managed to spill two beers (I batted about .400 for the week) and lounged in the glory of nature for the afternoon. We stayed the night at Beto’s aunt’s home: Mexican hacienda meets small Florida ranch home, and one of the few places so many cow prints were made to look cozy and classy rather than kitschy. We exchanged recipes and pondered the moon through a telescope and headed home after quesadillas, cookies and coffee in the morning.

I haven’t mentioned much about the town of San Cristobal de las Casas itself. It’s a very unique and touristy town. One of the bakeries called Madre Tierra had signs all over for yoga, vegetarian restaurants, mediation sessions, art classes – it seemed very Asheville. Perhaps it’s because of the vibe that all of the tourists bring – there were more earth-wanderers and dirt-worshippers in that one town than anywhere else I’ve seen in my travels (or in my stationaries). Perhaps it has to do with the energy of the natural resources found in Chiapas – it’s where all the rich coffee and chocolate come from, but furthermore hails treasure-hunters seeking jade, amber and apparently uranium among a slew of other goodies. It’s in a valley surrounded by forest-coated mountains jutting into the air. The forms here are much more drastic than my Blue Ridges. And the city, full of bright colors, splashes up the sides of the hills like soup in a shallow bowl. We climbed the hills overlooking the city, wandered the walking-streets trying to guess where other tourists were from, popped into a Chilean improv theatre performance, sipped (spilled) beer while explaining United States history to Beto at the Bar Revolución, shopped at the natural printing press and the Zapatista art co-op, took a coffee with cardamom and rich chocolates at a local café, munched on baguettes and focaccia while touring the artisan markets, and accompanied Beto for tamales on the ever-necessary excursion to the local market.

The last day, because we weren’t really exhausted, we went to Palenque. I won’t go into detail about the waterfalls because in this case the pictures, while not justifying the experience, at least give you better perspective than I can on paper (on website?). Plus, it’s 1am and it’s my blog and I’d rather talk about the ruins. So we took a tour with a bus full of French and Germans (the German was Bavarian and really hard to distinguish b/c it sounded almost Italian, but the French were easy to spot mostly because they always seem to wear funny hats when they travel…perhaps in their own country too, but I couldn’t say). Anywho, we united together to get a guide, concluding that our common language was English and electing a young dude named Virgilio who lived in a pueblo in the jungle. Did I mention we were in the rainforest now? Ok. Good. So he showed us all around Palenque, which was built um…a very long time before the birth of Christ and the first temple was discovered in 1746. He threw a lot of dates around, and I think that different temples were discovered at different times – apart from the first temple, most of Palenque has been exhumed within the last century. The city functioned from around 630 AD (after being erected about 700 years before) until about 900AD. He took us on a mini excursion through the jungle to show us the Ceiba, the Tree of Life that is said to have special energy and is actually hollow inside (the Lacondona (Mayan descendants who live in the rainforest) use it to make canoes as the boys come into manhood), the Cocodillo which is a super spikey and poisonous palm tree, the Mulatto, a beautiful red-barked tree used to make furniture, and the vine of another tree that smells like cloves used by Lacondona dentists to clean teeth. We popped back out of the other side of our walk in the woods at the top of the Temple of the Skull. The main badass was Pakal, who’s tomb was built by his son over a span of 25 years. Pakal was crowned when he was 12 and reigned for 69 years. Then you have the tomb of the Red Queen, who was the wife or mother of Pakal. Her sarcophagus was painted the sacred color red inside. We walked through the palace and the courtyards of the Temple of the Corn and of the Sun and climbed up the Temple of the Cross (pertaining to directions, not to Christianity). We walked down to the fields where the warriors would play a ball game in which  the winners were honorably sacrificed to the gods and then the losers were killed, too. Sounds dumb to me, but no values imposition here – purely observational enrichment. I will point out, however, that evolution has brought sport to its epitome in which after every game of ultimate frisbee opposing teams stand around in a spirit circle and tell one another how much they love each other and then everyone gets drunk together and it’s beautiful and no one dies. Just a side comment. 

My words cannot do this place justice, nor can my pictures. It was simply magnificent. And to think that it was completely covered in rainforest and that so much more of it is still untouched. We saw the main plaza, but some researcher found 1400 other temples in the surrounding forest. It’s just massive. Virgilio told us that Coca-Cola and Nestle dedicated millions and millions of dollars to the restoration projects. I found that very peculiar – what would these capitalist empires want to do with ruins in Mexico? Beto says that this part of the country is rich in uranium and many people are trying to get at it. Very curious how that might all piece together. Avatar, anyone??

The van ride back to San Cristobal from the ruins was a 4-hour switch-back paved luge shoot through a downpour from the rainforest to the valley. Our chauffeur was driven or pulled by some unspoken potency - a tacit race among rivaling tour agencies for the fastest time down the mountains; desire to escape bad energy from an angry Mayan god; or seeking thrill to keep himself awake against the forces of the monotone soliloquies from his belly-bag toting co-pilot – whatever it was, I wasn’t really afraid or nauseous, but I had come to terms with dying. We actually did make it back, which you have probably figured out seeing as I am writing all of this in the past-tense. I have added tak marks to my “have seen” list, and thoroughly enjoyed spending the week with truly fabulous individuals. It was unfortunate that so much of my mind was occupied by personal and emotional matters, and filled with what-ifs and how-comes and how-to-fix reflections. While the week was fantastic, I really didn’t relax per se. If anything, I just revved up. If it is all a learning, and I am a student of life, how do you know when to stop doing research and start taking action? I had another blog post written about this – if I can dig it up, I’ll make a lovely transition into my next musing, for which you hopefully won’t have to wait too long.

Suspiro

Suspiro means sigh of relief - it's the name of the coffee shop I always come to to teach my English classes, and it is my current location from which I am writing to you. Seemed rather appropriate for the day's topic.

Contentment. How do you define contentment? How do you know when you’re truly content?

Sitting in the backseat of Bodo’s Chevy something-or-other-that-they-don’t-have-in-the-States listening to Bodo practice his English with Jay as they discuss the intricacies of photography lighting.  Chamo is half-listening in the front seat. My hair is being blown about by the wind from the cracked window as we fly down the highway on the way to ultimate practice. I am in a stupor of contentment. My worlds have interwoven so beautifully – I have found community here.

My new roommates are amazing. Jay’s Spanish has improved quite a bit from “que tal, amigo? (what’s up, friend?)” to basic verbs and hitting on women. Maggie and I crack each other up and have conversations that challenge me to stretch my memory back to my foreign policy and European diplomacy classes. We complement each other’s humor and intellect and I appreciate her presence so much. The other morning she and I were discussing the merits of being completely informed of current affairs versus taking the Buddhist “the news of the universe will come to me” approach, when Jay shouted, “Oh my God – breaking news!... Design your own board shorts competition!!” This is a perfect example of my life right now. Sadly, it will change again soon as Jay is heading back to the states on Aug 1.

Last Sunday we all went to a baby shower for Dany and Chamo (good friends - the captains couple on my frisbee team). Jay kicked butt in the all-male competition to talk on the phone, hold a babydoll and hang as many clothes on the clothesline as possible in one minute. Our table won the competition to dress someone up as a stereotype baby. We beat out Chinese baby and Harry Potter baby with our Apache baby; I think it was the lipstick war paint and the tissue paper tomahawk that set us apart. Totally PC. Inspired by our competition, we spent the evening at the movies watching the final Harry Potter movie. Ah, the end of an era…I can't have imagined a more satisfying weekend.

I think my favorite week of work so far was last week. We had a summer camp for the kids in Tecuanipan. Each morning, cappuccino in hand (gracias a mi boss, Miguel, who was living with us for the week with his 2 kids), we began the camp with English class. We taught them how to jump and shout and run around and the hokey pokey. We built on an environmental theme, predominantly focusing on water issues in the town. The first day we cleaned up the riverbank and made a monster from the refuse. We watched a movie about a little boy who saves his village, and did theater and art projects based on water. A rich man is hoarding all of the water of the townspeople – how do you save the town? Their productions were hilarious.

We took them to the pyramid and taught them how the Aztecs and their predecessors used their environment to build an incredibly advanced civilization. They helped us build with cob (and even some of the kids came back this week to help us mix it because they enjoyed it so much). On Friday we took them to the zoo.  Holy cow. The first part was a drive through. They gasped at the lions and squealed as an ostrich approached the driver’s window to taste Manuel’s shirt. We wandered through the butterfly garden, watched a bird show, fed a few kangaroos and finally took them home around 5 in the afternoon. It was great because a lot of the mothers accompanied us, so we served as the backup for them.  Even so, we were exhausted after a full week of planning, educating and entertaining. But it was fantastic! Who the hell knew that I wasn’t completely terrified of children? This is a dramatic change in my character.

So now things are moving more slowly. Jay hopped a bus to the coast to go surfing, Maggie and I are working on blogs for the events of the past month (ie sitting in a café eating pie), and we intend to drive down to Chiapas next week with Beto. I’m really excited – it’s supposed to be an incredible state. I have to leave the country to renew my visa, and I was considering bussing over to Guatemala from Chiapas. But I feel much more comfortable (even though my bank account won’t) hopping a plane to Houston for a couple days. I’m going to eat brown rice. And organic food. And good beer. Upon asking Jay Stritter, with whom I’ll be hanging out during this time, if we could please please please go for Chinese food, he responded: We have Chinese food. Or Thai. Or Vietnamese. Or Korean. Or Mexican (lots of these). Sushi. North Korean (they just give you an empty plate and some meaningless currency. But it's ok because you get to pretend your leader is a Supreme Being). I wanted to share that little snippet with you because it’s hilarious, although not very tantalizing. Chinese buffet with vegetarian mushu, here I come. I won’t even care if the building has bull horns on it like everything else in Texas.

So, how do you know when you’re content? I feel so at peace. So grateful for my life here. I love my neighborhood, my friends, my boy, most aspects of my work…so what is it that makes me so restless? In November, I return Stateside to good friends, to a wedding, to a sweet road trip with my mom, and then…and then I ask, and then?.  

I know people with just a few bucks in their bank account and no plan for next week. But they feel free. And I feel pulled. Pulled in every which direction trying to find the release for this relentless pressure to be doing more and something meaningful. Whatever it is, it’s never enough. I just wish I could understand what that call was saying - it’s like there’s static. But you can guess which end that’s probably coming from. I guess I’ll mention that I started applying for grad school. I found a program that I love, so now it’s just a matter of getting there and paying for it. But I’d like to come back to Mexico after the holidays and work in a similar field until then. I wish I could balance the drive that I have with the patience and appreciation for the moment. Externally I think I can, but quieting the mind – that’s the real art form. In the meantime, I think I’ll have more Mexican pie.

Pitches, Puebla and Pork Gut

Today is Sunday. I haven’t cried yet, so I think it’s going well. The high school boys have gotten really comfortable with me – like, a little too comfortable. I’ve been guiding them in the art of making cob (clay, dirt, water, hay – awesome natural building material) for the past week. We’ve had some really in depth conversations about globalization, immigration, environmental issues, rating make out sessions and why it’d be so gross to swap gum with a girl but not to make out with her. It’s challenging to take charge of someone that you brush your teeth next to in the mornings…and who is an adolescent male who would much rather discuss the merits of Boondock Saints than grind clay for 3 hours straight. I’m ragging on them a lot, but I haven’t hung out with high school boys in a long time and I am finding it to be surprisingly pleasant and certainly quite entertaining.

Many of them are finding a deeper connection with our work here - they are getting angry and overwhelmed by the problems we discuss and searching for profound ways to make changes (beyond the cliché options of flushing less and writing a congressman). Others are good at shoveling, but seem confused by the changes in their bodies and not sure how to deal with the world – these are more easily identifiable as the ones who laugh like Scooby Doo.

Each night they sit around and smoke cigars and reflect upon what they’ve learned. This is my favorite part of the job. Hands go up with comments and questions of pessimism, frustration, confusion, inspiration; and then they take the discussion back to their rooms to continue pounding into the problems that face our generation. Jay told them, “Don’t get overwhelmed. Pick one thing that inspires you. One thing that really pisses you off and focus on that.” We want them to connect and to feel. We realize that most will go back home and start flushing the toilet more often and continue buying Nike shoes and GMO corn. But perhaps they will weave some of the lessons from this adventure into their own passions and their own paths. And that’s the cool part to think about.

On Friday we had to plan for yesterday’s soccer tournament/campout. So we’re planning and planning inside Ina’s house, and all of a sudden a storm swoops in and we have 2 minutes to save 25 people from the impending squall. So we scrap the meeting and I find myself in the driver’s seat of our 15 passenger van with 19 boys in the back. They limit their harassment as I slowly drive us home to Cholula in the downpour through the small windy roads of Tecuanipan. I was more nervous to get pulled over by a corrupt cop looking for a few bucks (or more than that, with 20 white, non-Spanish-speaking tourists) than I was to get popped by a dumptruck or a pothole. While it was one of the more nerve-wracking moments of the week, we made it home and my fingers eventually uncurled from the meaty part of my hand.

Yesterday was the soccer tournament. I and I spent most of my morning running all over the house coordinating people and looking for various necessities. Did I mention that I find it much more taxing to manage a bunch of people than it is to just do the work myself? Not having to answer lots of questions but just making my own cob all day or finding the dang tents myself is a lot less draining.  I’m going to bed exhausted all this week. And thank the Lord that I’m going to bed here in the house. Originally I was supposed to also camp out at the land, but wound up being asked to help guide a group around Puebla and go to dinner with them. Score.  So I am writing this from the warm and quiet house in the last moments before some of the absolutely drenched boys trudge back from their abandoned and flooded campground. Listening to the guys in the back of the van play punch buggy and make women’s tennis grunts every time we went over a speed bump was by no means as annoying as sitting in the rain with seventy grumpy boys. One of the teachers pleaded with the whole van to be quiet – offered them everything in her purse from suckers and gum to even a desparate promotion of savory Rolaids – but to no avail. We finally arrived and their shouts subsided as we meandered through the markets. I took a power nap on a bench while they bought saxophone bubble blowers, tequila-filled chocolates and Mexican sweat shirts.

After dinner and a mad dash through another rainstorm and I fell into bed, only to wake up this morning and start all over again. We’re having a huge party for the camp boys and my boss’s dad got here early and plopped half of a pig on the kitchen table. He spread the entire skin out over the counter and started shaving the hairs off with a razor, while the snout rested on the open flame of the stove. The whole house smells like raw pork gut. I can’t really explain the stench, but I assure you that you don’t really want me to. I’m trying to find work to do upstairs and far from the kitchen until the meat actually smells like it’s roasting. Bleah.

I’m running on pure coffee. At least it’s delicious organic coffee, but I guess I better go back to work before my steam runs out. The boys will be back soon and I’m supposed to be doing about 487 different things (including helping translate for this couple that brought their beautiful woven artwork up from Oaxaca to sell to the groups – SO gorgeous and cool). I’m crossing my fingers that I can at least go watch the last game of my Pachamamas men’s regionals (ultimate) at one o’clock, but I’m not holding my breath.

Life is so good. Have a great day guys – thanks for reading. 

So. Many. Hormones

So I guess I have a lot to catch you up on. As I mentioned in my last blog, I got super sick when Lily was here. Thursday night I got sick, Friday and all weekend we were busy and in Mexico City, Monday I went back to work, and finally made it to a doctor on Tuesday.  I’d barely gotten my symptoms out of my mouth when she asked if I wanted a shot or pills. But  - but…. You don’t know me or my history or more details – @*&%*^ this system! I asked for more specific tests and she sent me to a lab. So for the next 3 days I would wake up at 6:45 to walk 40 minutes in the rain to deliver stool samples. So much fun. During this time, naturally, I couldn’t take any meds, so I started drinking lots of garlic, ginger, thyme, dragon’s blood tincture and honey teas. I also read that cider vinegar and grapeseed oil are helpful under such conditions, so I took a couple doses of those as well.  I was on a strict diet of boiled apples and spinach, rice and the occasional banana. I think my new roommates (Jay and Maggie – I’ll talk more about them in a minute) thought I was really weird.  But you wanna know something, my body healed itself! I mean, I cut it close a couple days later with the chipotles on my cemita, but I will-powered myself to recuperate slowly (which was really hard on Friday when I felt much better and all I wanted was ice cream and brownies and beer).

I finally got my results back, after a very confusing bureaucratic process during which I was convinced they’d lost the poo and dropped my name from their system. Oh, Mexico. I’m going to send the info to a holistic doctor I found in Tepostlan (a hippie town in the next state over) who is going to make me some tinctures to strengthen my system altogether. I feel much calmer about this process than just taking generic antibiotics. I think that the burrito cart dude, the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies are all in cahoots.

As alone as I feel when I’m sick sometimes, I never really was. My family was really supportive even from a distance, and we have two new volunteers who just arrived. Maggie got here a week ago Saturday and is super enthusiastic about life. She’s 20 and spending half of her junior year volunteering and the other half hopefully studying at La UDLAP where I play Frisbee.  We’ve already had some pretty interesting life discussions, which is one of my favorite things. So despite the age difference I think it’s going to be a healthy partnership. Jay is here for a month and is probably one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. He folded our laundry, offers to get us a drink when he gets up and listens when we talk. My mom asked if I could marry him and sounded a little bummed when I told her I didn’t think it would work out. But to say the least I am incredibly grateful for my new housemates, especially as we prepared for our next group to come. They only had a few days to settle in because last night 40 high school boys from private schools in Arizona and Nebraska moved in for a week and a half…

(Preface: This was written on Monday. Today is Saturday. I'm adding new revelations and observations presently...)

Actually, they seem like pretty cool kids. They’re really hard-working and very enthusiastic and I’m still waiting for the your mom jokes to start. Today was their first day of work and we started out digging dirt out by the river to haul up in bags. We were making bokashi – a natural fertilizer made of composted manure, dirt, hay, yeast, sugar and corn. We’re going to put it on the amarinto we planted on the land. Amarinto was a staple crop of the Mexican diet until Spaniards got rid of it to gain more power over the native culture. While we were digging one of the boys asked me what I thought about job outsourcing, and right now I’m half-listening to their conversation on immigration and border control in the next room. These boys are smart cookies and really connected to the world.

In the afternoon we had the chance to help our neighbor, Don Alfredo, plant beans in his plot. I volunteered right away. Rather than measure out the rows and the depths, the deal is that you take off your shoes and walk in as straight a line as possible. Then someone follows behind and drops three beans into each footprint. Then we cover it with a swish of our foot. It was very rhythmic, and nothing like the diligent planning of the rows at the Dickinson Farm, or hunched over planting meticulously at Beardsley. We went so slowly compared to Don Alfredo, but I got the chance to have some really great conversations with a couple of the boys, and sink my feet into farmland, so I was quite content. Then we smushed 20 people into the 15 passenger van (with two riding along the bumper on the back) and headed back to Ina’s house. I always had a good bit of respect for mothers of teenage boys, but so much more now that I have seen many of them eat all at once. It was a lot like a plague of locusts. I’ve been hiding in my room writing since the frenzy ended.

I’m sharing the 10x8 room with Maggie and my boss’s niece who is also working with us for the week. I tried hiding under the bed, but it was too dusty (even though we swept twice). Soooo a lesson in finding your inner sense of peace (and adolescent male). I’ll try to write yall again soon assuming I survive the soccer tournament and campout we have planned for 100 boys from various communities on Saturday. If you don’t hear from me by the following Thursday, have someone check under the bed.  

So. Many. Hormones

So I guess I have a lot to catch you up on. As I mentioned in my last blog, I got super sick when Lily was here. Thursday night I got sick, Friday and all weekend we were busy and in Mexico City, Monday I went back to work, and finally made it to a doctor on Tuesday.  I’d barely gotten my symptoms out of my mouth when she asked if I wanted a shot or pills. But  - but…. You don’t know me or my history or more details – @*&%*^ this system! I asked for more specific tests and she sent me to a lab. So for the next 3 days I would wake up at 6:45 to walk 40 minutes in the rain to deliver my stool samples. During this time, naturally, I couldn’t take any meds, so I started drinking lots of garlic, ginger, thyme, dragon’s blood tincture and honey teas. I stunk, and my new roommates (Jay and Maggie – I’ll talk more about them in a minute) thought I was really weird. I also read that cider vinegar and grapeseed oil are helpful under such conditions, so I took a couple doses of those as well. I was on a strict diet of boiled apples and spinach, rice and the occasional banana. And you wanna know something, my body healed itself! I mean, I cut it close a couple days later with the chipotles on my cemita, but I will-powered myself to recuperate slowly (which was really hard on Friday when I felt much better and all I wanted was ice cream and brownies and beer).

I finally got my results back, after a very confusing bureaucratic process during which I was convinced they’d lost the poo and dropped my name from their system. I’m going to send the info to a holistic doctor I found in Tepostlan (a hippie town in the next state over) who is going to make me some tinctures to strengthen my system altogether. I feel much calmer about this process than just taking generic antibiotics. I think that the burrito cart dude, the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies are all in cahoots.

As alone as I feel when I’m sick sometimes, I never really was. My family was really supportive even from a distance, and we have two new volunteers who just arrived. Maggie got here a week ago Saturday and is super enthusiastic about life. She’s 20 and spending half of her junior year volunteering and the other half hopefully studying at La UDLAP where I play Frisbee.  We’ve already had some pretty interesting life discussions, which is one of my favorite things. So despite the age difference I think it’s going to be a healthy partnership. Jay is here for a month and is probably one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. He folded our laundry, offers to get us a drink when he gets up and listens when we talk. My mom asked if I could marry him and sounded a little bummed when I told her I didn’t think it would work out. But to say the least I am incredibly grateful for my new housemates, especially as we prepared for our next group to come. They only had a few days to settle in because last night 40 high school boys from private schools in Arizona and Nebraska moved in for a week and a half…

(Preface: This was written on Monday. Today is Saturday. I'm adding new revelations and observations presently...)

Actually, they seem like pretty cool kids. They’re really hard-working and very enthusiastic and I’m still waiting for the your mom jokes to start. Today was their first day of work and we started out digging dirt out by the river to haul up in bags. We were making bokashi – a natural fertilizer made of composted manure, dirt, hay, yeast, sugar and corn. We’re going to put it on the amarinto we planted on the land. Amarinto was a staple crop of the Mexican diet until Spaniards got rid of it to gain more power over the native culture. While we were digging one of the boys asked me what I thought about job outsourcing, and right now I’m half-listening to their conversation on immigration and border control in the next room. These boys are smart cookies and really connected to the world.

In the afternoon we had the chance to help our neighbor, Don Alfredo, plant beans in his plot. I volunteered right away. Rather than measure out the rows and the depths, the deal is that you take off your shoes and walk in as straight a line as possible. Then someone follows behind and drops three beans into each footprint. Then we cover it with a swish of our foot. It was very rhythmic, and nothing like the diligent planning of the rows at the Dickinson Farm, or hunched over planting meticulously at Beardsley. We went so slowly compared to Don Alfredo, but I got the chance to have some really great conversations with a couple of the boys, and sink my feet into farmland, so I was quite content. Then we smushed 20 people into the 15 passenger van (with two riding along the bumper on the back) and headed back to Ina’s house. I always had a good bit of respect for mothers of teenage boys, but so much more now that I have seen many of them eat all at once. It was a lot like a plague of locusts. I’ve been hiding in my room writing since the frenzy ended. I’m sharing the 10x8 room with Maggie and my boss’s niece who is also working with us for the week. I tried hiding under the bed, but it was too dusty (even though we swept twice). Soooo a lesson in finding your inner sense of peace (and adolescent male). I’ll try to write yall again soon assuming I survive the soccer tournament and campout we have planned for 100 boys from various communities next Saturday. If you don’t hear from me by the following Thursday, have someone check under the bed.  

Lily comes to play!

So I promised Lily and Julián, and myself, that I would write more. I suppose the most current update is that Miss Lily Avery came to visit me this week. Lily and I had an amazing adventure. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting her, she is a fantastically charming and wonderful individual.

 Let’s stand back and look at this situation for a moment: I have a friend who loves me enough to purchase a ticket to visit me (yes, I do keep perspective and realize that I am in MEXICO, which is a big pull), to gather an entire backpack of American commodities from other friends and family all over Asheville: sesame sticks, cards, mixed CDs, CHOCOLATE, cookies, seeds, Korean socks (thanks Laura!) and books, then spend the entire week telling me how fabulous I am.  No, certainly all of those sweet breads and fried quesadillas have made you no fatter than when you left. Yes, you are in fact undervaluing yourself – you should speak up more and do what you want even if you risk offending someone! Good work! You’re nice! A therapist is a lot more expensive and you can’t go out for ice cream nearly as often.  I can’t believe I have such an insightful, hilarious and caring friend in my life. I’m so grateful!

So, as per usual, I’ll start with the food. She got in on Monday and we immediately went for shots. Cross my heart it was Beto’s idea, not ours (for once).  He helped me pick Lily up from the bus station. Apparently these are very cultural shots – pasitas – with raisin and cheese garnishes.  Then we picked up tortas, which are sandwiches with egg and cheese or chilies, which we saved for later, which I managed to burn upon reheating, so we will forget the first food experience and move on to Tuesday.  We wandered around Cholula and I showed her the pyramid and the zócalo (town square) and then I whisked her off to Tecuanipan so I could teach class. I think the bus ride in itself was quite an experience. She met some of the neighbors and wandered around shooting the volcano while I tried to keep up with my students in long-division. Then we went for ice cream in Atlixco, where she was disgusted by my choice in avocado. I wanted some adventure, and you’re going to tell me that you’ll come all the way to Mexico and go for strawberry? Hmph. She loved the pozole – the hominy soup that is common here, although she managed to avoid tasting the pig snout. It tasted like, well, pig. But gummier. Bleah.

Wednesday we went into Puebla to fart around and take pictures of gorgeous buildings and couples making out in public. After being literally chased down by hostesses with samples of mole, we decided that the Parian tourist district was not really the casual lunch vibe we were pursuing and found a little corner restaurant where I convinced her that a molete with huitlacotzche was her best option for lunch. Translation: fried quesadilla with cheese and corn fungus. Go ahead, ask Lily about her favorite meal in Mexico.  

Wednesday night I had class with my English student. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. I have an English student – his name is Fransisco and he works for Volkswagon as a mechanical engineer and I am tutoring him in conversational skills. Lily, Fransisco and I chatted for almost 2 hours over tostadas and picaditas – it was the best class I’ve had with him so far. Already Thursday? Dang! Whirlwind tour of churches around Cholula with my fabulous friends Blanca and Julian. Did you know that Cholula is the oldest city in Mexico? It used to be the religious pilgrimage site of all of the surrounding areas. There are 365 churches Puebla, and each church has a day to celebrate, thus, one celebration (gunshots (and the occasional cannon), rose pedals, parade) every day of the year. We stepped into some Baroque churches without a single meter of space free of gold relief. The entire interior was woven with gold – golden patterns, golden flowers and fruits, golden babies. I found my mouth literally gaping open from wonder and awe, but then I had to keep myself from gagging at the ostentation of the display. Outside, Lily made a special puppy friend with a constipation problem. You just barely skirted disaster there, Dumptruck – she almost brought him home.  After class again we popped over to Frisbee practice, which was a definite highlight. Props to Avery for going barefoot. We played until it was too dark to differentiate Richie from his brother Edgar, and I kept throwing scores to Beto on the opposing team (maybe it was my subconscious hucking). The frisbee boys and I showed Lily to Container City, where the two of us fell into our familiar tequila groove. J We rocked out to American cover bands and laughed a lot. Pictures to be screened and posted pronto.

That night I got very very ill. I had dreams about wild pigs and shivered a lot. This is the third time I have had a stomach issue since moving to this great state.  But I’ve become anti-antibiotic because by this point my body is probably growing a super bacteria that looks like the cockroach man in MIB. But I also can’t get a hold of a holistic doctor before I shrivel up like a prune and die. So, I’m on day 4 and I’ll keep you posted.  Friday was pretty mellow, and we naturally went to Mexico City on Saturday anyway because, well, I love a challenge. While most people time their vacations around the holidays or nice beach weather, I choose to schedule mine whenever I have chronic diarrhea.  We did miss out on the ruins and instead spent a marvelous time wandering the streets of Mexico City with my friends from the beach. We meandered through Bellas Artes – the opera house made of marble, waved hello to Ursula, Lady Gaga and Elvis (our visit coincided with the Mexico City gay pride march which meant fabulous costumes, lots of prancing and no public restrooms anywhere), bought an eggroll in Chinatown (no luck on special stomach herbs) and then finally wound up at a bar to watch the Gold Cup Finals between Mexico and the U.S. Lily and I were bipartisanally excited the entire time, especially when Mexico won. Lalo purchased a huge Mexican flag and we drove around the town square with it until it got caught in the tire and broke Pedro’s finger. I slept in the back of the car for the next three hours while the boys hung out in the hospital…

Lily caught her flight the next morning, and I booked it back to Cholula to greet our new volunteer, Maggie. Most of what I have written wasn’t half of what’s going on in my head. Lily said so many inspiring, thought-provoking and hilarious things that I am still whirling trying to grasp everything that she made me think this past week. We took a dip into the Asheville pool of memories and affection (and gossip). She made me look more closely at the world I’m living in; she made me laugh deeply and appreciate so profoundly the friends that I have been blessed with on each continent.  I think I’ll go meditate on that for a while cuz my head is going too fast for the rest of me to keep up. Miss you already, Lily! 

A Learning (this should be the title of every post)

It’s been so long since I’ve taken time to write for myself. I’ve been so involved in everyone else’s lives and my own daily moments that I haven’t taken a moment to process it all. I think that’s why my leg hurts, why I have been waking up at night with stomach aches, and why I slept all day on Wednesday. It’s been so long that I can hardly remember the details that I wanted to share with you. I wanted to share the irony of being chased by a gang of vicious dogs, then immediately listening to the police driving by announcing over the loudspeaker the pet parade that would take place at the town square. I wanted to mention the Frisbee tournament that I went to last weekend not to play but to make a complete scene – a white girl screaming at the men’s team in broken Spanish about how to orient themselves in their space. How they smoked a bit of weed on the way back home and discussed the need to change Mexico in such a way that we see success as not by climbing onto the back of your neighbor but by helping him up as well. Revolution, or subtle changes in the nucleus of society? Can they be one in the same? How we went out for a beer on a rooftop bar with Julián and discussed the expectations of Mexican women in relationships, or how we met a woman on the bus who gave us peaches and started a conversation about racism and capitalism in the United States. Or even further back, how we gave in completely to this scam artist, lost about $800 USD collectively and spent the next week trying to trudge through the bureaucratic system to protect my identity and offer a declaration so that he could be caught. OR the following weekend, how Cecilia saw him on the streets and chased him down, called the cops riding around in their pickup trucks with their boots up to their knees and their important machine guns. How they asked her to get in and all of the women in the crowd now surrounding her screamed “No! Never get in their truck!” And how the cops sped off when they realized that the beautiful blonde wouldn’t ride with them and the rest of the crowd offered up every means of support and care that they could.

And while all of these details have occupied much of my time, they have not occupied the majority of my attention. I’ve been reading The Zahir by Paulo Coelho, and it’s all about love. We try to put love into rules created by society - I should feel this way, I should act this way, I should only see this person at this time, etc. When in reality, love, romantically or otherwise, is the driving force that moves us to act and as such, how can we possibly try to contain and control it? Coelho is so much more eloquent than I, so rather than word-vomit all of his beautifully explicated philosophies, I will instead highly recommend that you read it.

Everyone around me has been coming to me to talk about love and work and passion, and I don’t have the answers, but I’ve been internalizing a lot of that negative energy. How do you love unconditionally and be there for someone without incorporating their emotions and issues into your own? This week was all about self-exploration, and taking the next step forward in the face of great personal challenges (or for me, how to deal with these challenges from an external perspective both to help my friends and to learn for myself). And a bit of compunction for not “working as I should be” (as defined by my American values…and my Jewish guilt). But then I realized, a) I am NOT in the United States, b) this is MY life, so who else but me is telling me to feel guilty for which rules and structures I should follow and c) this IS work. As I sit here sipping on my delicious coffee, listening to Ina and her friend Erika work through the challenges of both romantic and self-love, ego, the patience of learning life’s hardest lessons (repeatedly), and listening, truly listening, to what the world around you is telling you, I realize that I am indeed working. 

Fuck the capitalist, American definitions of success, the Mexican tendencies of pushing yourself to the front of the line and working every day without rest. This is work. This is progress. But I have miles to go before I sleep because that little minion sitting on my shoulder still whispers “you’re not doing enough” “look again at your standards - are you really as good as you could be?” In one sense, of course not – we could always be improving. But with humility and love, not with ego and society’s superficial values. In another sense, yes. My mom and Oprah, two women who I highly respect, told me that I AM good enough. And to realize that does not bring you to your goal – it provides your foundation.

Now all of this sounds beautiful and flowery and “oh, Rachel, how much you’re growing and learning.” But saying these things, writing love on my wrist, or saying ok, this time I’ve actually learned how to let go, is the theory. Now the world’s gonna throw you some tests and examples. Oh, yeah? Really? You get how to love unconditionally? How to love yourself? Here’s a scam artist. Here’s another 3 hour delay. Here’s another night of disappointment. Boo-yah, silly human. How much have you learned? Yeah. That’s what I thought. Talk to me again when you’re 36, 58, 92 or a slave in Egypt (reference to Many Lives, Many Masters - another must read).  So, I think I’m going to let all this settle a little more – the coffee was definitely not decaf, and I have Zumba class in about 45 minutes, and then we have friends visiting from Mexico City. It’s going to be a very full weekend, but I hope to give myself this opportunity to reflect again very soon. I had forgotten in these past couple weeks how critical it is for me to do so. And I thank each of you for being part of this opportunity to share. Much love. 

Semana Santa Part 2

I suppose that if your stomach is going to crap out on you and the only comfortable position you can entertain is a fetal one, than there is no better place than a hammock on the Mexican coast. Cecilia has escaped for Zipolite beach with our friends. In the meantime, I let the waves breaking and the scittered clatter of the palm frawns amongst themselves calm my entire being. This morning I toughened up and actually ate breakfast, but I think I over-indulged: scrambled eggs, toast, fruit with yoghurt and honey, fresh OJ and coffee. Only small portions but still enough to keep me sick and satisfied til 5pm when I’d be able to stomach a banana (which I’d later regret). 

We met up with an older couple from Rhode Island and brought them with us to La Ventanilla to take a tour of the lagoons. We walked along the beach for about 10 minutes. I laid in the sand as we waited for our boat to fill, and then slid into the last spot, trying to slither as low to the floor as they’d allow me. We slipped into the water and glided along the mangroves as the guide explained their restoration cooperative. The sounds were more incredible than the sights – white birds with woodpecker features on their brows made sounds like this little toy I used to have a as a kid. It was also a bird and when you jiggled it, it would go “oyoyoyoy.” There were scores of them in the trees. Huge ospreys (or maybe egrets?) and little black birds shared the webs of leaves with the others and also made peculiar sounds. There were also grey toucans with bills like platypuses. A croc or two nosed its way into the fingers of the mangroves, completely unphased by our presence. We docked at a small island where we would spend most of our time, and I would spend most of it doubled over. I took interest in some animal whose name I can’t pronounce and the friendly spider monkey named Yupi. But I hardly glanced at the deer or the crocodiles and by the time we stopped to get a drink I was a goner. I threw dignity to the winds and laid myself in the black hard earth, gently trying to expel all of my pain without drawing too many glances. Cecilia suggested water, but I had visions of my intestines bursting. Still, through it all, I continue to be grateful that I’m continuing on this trip rather than dripping in self-pity on an uncomfortable couch in Cholula.

That night we left for Oaxaca. Never again will I sit in front of a mega bus. It was a real life roller coaster, twisting and winding us through the dark desert mountains, slowing at the last moment near the switchbacks as the reflective arrows whizzed into our past. We skirted bunnies and tire shreds without so much as a wince from the agile beast that was carrying our loads and our lives. It was a fluid ride, but on a few occasions I submissively reminded God that I had much of His work to continue.

We arrived at 7am in Oaxaca where it was surprisingly brisk outside. I was actually hungry for the first time in a while, so after we found our hostel we immediately hit the market. The markets in every city in Mexico are the hub of the culture and the flavor. Oaxaca is the epitome of this and our original plan had been to eat our way all the way through all day long. I tasted everything but didn’t actually consume anything: We kicked off with chocolate atole (the corn drink) and bread (both of which Oaxaca is known for), so it was a good start. 

We ordered a chile relleno next – fried egg (like egg foo young) with a pepper stuffed with cheese; beans and tortillas. Devil’s food. Cecilia had another drink of pure cacao and corn with pure milk fat on top – it’s her favorite, but I wasn’t super impressed. The agua de horchata (sweet rice milk with spices and fruit) was pretty great though. Cecilia bought $800 pesos worth of leather purses and I considered a $6 USD hat but decided against it. My stomach was fierce again, so we bailed and went to a contemporary painting museum. We had some great conversations about art and artists and I was surprised at how much I remembered from senior year of high school. We later met up with our friends we’d met at the beach for supper. I managed to choke down a salad and some bread, but I must say that the company was far superior to the food – we laughed the entire time. The entire city was on the zócalo celebrating Semana Santa when we exited the restaurant and strolled into town.

Last night I dreamt that I was in band class/simultaneously orchestrating a group therapy session. When I woke up around 6am I realized that the tuba was not in my band class but actually at the church across the street. Now I’m sitting up on the hostel’s terrace noticing all of the purple (thank you Alice Walker via Lauren), and listening to the monastic-style chanting. The lower parts of the tree immediately buffering the church and the terrace have fat raindrop leaves and fuzzy fuchsia flowers like the top of a troll pen I used to have. Some of the flowers even look like they have 2 white eyes to observe all of the worshipers below. The empty branches towards the top all reach outward and upward – like they too are acknowledging this holy day. There are huge lavender tapestries and plain wooden crosses hung on each edifice and flags of white and purple strung above the vendors on the streets. 

Here are my observations from the bus ride from Oaxaca back to Puebla at the very end of our trip (sorry it's kind of stream of consciousness):

Jade green rocks. Goats butting heads. Dr. Seuss’s wonderland. Comically awful movie on a gently rocking bus. Mossy mauve slopes into an empty neverland. Spherical palms like an exploding star. Small home of stones and concrete on top of a canyon – needing nothing from soap or necklace vendors, nothing we could offer. Layers. Rich overlooked colors of the desert. Rock waterfall. Campesino in an orange t-shirt walking towards nowhere. Cows scavenging spiny greens by the roadside. Freestyling policemen and topiaries at the checkpoint. Moon mountains. Lolipop tree with yellow mushroom branches. Leafy shrub popping from the bare cliff face like a stripper from a cake. Green. Orange. White. Who knew there would be so many shades of grey? Squat umbrella trees. Some are crying. Rusty car the color of the earth. White flowers in an old stream pass. A mask of concrete over a fence frame pegs the mountain to itself. Hope that I never forget the contrast of the mountains, but certain that I will. Vertical fields of cacti. Neon flowers surround a bored soldier’s station. Bustling city. Hectic bus station. Home.

Semana Santa Part 1

We left for the beach Friday night. We asked two separate door men about our bus, and each told us that the bus hadn’t arrived yet. Only when they called “last call seats 5 & 6” did we bolt from waiting space, diving over families and luggage to almost get on the wrong bus that also said Puerto Escondido to get directed to the write bus with a very exasperated looking driver. How to make a scene: #18. Fifteen hours later we rolled into the beach town.

Climbing hundreds of stairs down the cliff face, we entered a small and quiet beach where you can rent an adirondack chair for the price of a coconut drink and a few quesadillas. The tide was strong and tepid and the sand burned our toes. After a few hours of sun and vendors circling their foreign pray had beaten our energy level back a bit, we packed up and went to the market in search of ice cream. Instead, we found fruit that looked like something Dr. Seuss would have pulled up from a scuba excursion. We also got some hibiscus juice and eventually decided to grab some grub. Cecilia had fish tacos and I ordered a michelada: a Corona rimmed with salt and lime wedges and infused with a mildly picante salsa. Sounds like a case of the shits for 30 pesos right? Just save yourself the tongue twister and go straight for the PBR? But no – it’s actually delicious. I would end up ordering some fish tacos as well so I didn’t have to stagger out of there.

I’m always struggling with the idea of spending my money and trying so hard to let go and allow myself the opportunity to spend just a fraction of what I’ve saved. Then I think about the Australians in our hostel who are backpacking for 4-8 months at a time, going out every night, and I think – OK I can learn to splurge for one week. Cecilia has promised to help me with this, and I can hear my dad’s rational, calming voice in my head as well. One purchase at a time…So this morning I am enjoying a FABULOUS breakfast at the Buena Vida Sports Bar where Ceci and I each ordered a “Michael Phelps” – fried tortilla with a thin layer of refried beans under two sunnyside up eggs with a garnish of fried plantains and glazed with an unspicy salsa that’s the color of a sunset.  Holy cow. We read, wrote, took pictures and looked pensively off in the direction of the neon flowers and the occasional taxi going by.  And Mr. Marley serenaded us while I sipped on one of the best lattes I’ve ever had.

The Sound of the ocean never gets old. I think I’ll read…I think I’ll write…maybe I should go out. But then the waves crash back into my awareness and I decide to let them play another set before getting proactive about nothing of major consequence. Cecilia left for Mizunte today with a group of friendly and good natured kids we met on yesterday’s little squatter beach (Ezacahuite?). (We’d wind up spending a good portion of our vacation with them, and we’re going to visit them in Mexico City in May.) But I, for the third time since my arrival in Mexico, was on my back with my hands in a triangle over my core willing my navel to  ease the cramps out of my digestive tract. Either the magic or the pill that Lalo and Iiana bought me when they came to retrieve Cecilia released the tension enough for me to take a nap for 3 hours. Only then, moving quite slowly, did I feel well enough to head down to the beach of Puerto Ángel.

Puerto Ángel is the small fisher town that my dear friend Joyce recommended – it’s far less crowded and touristy than Puerto Escondido (about an hour away – we stayed in each place for 2 days).  I walked across the street and out onto the sand where rows of fishing boats named Lupita and Kelly were parked on the shore. I watched some of the fishermen return to port: they would rip through the crowds playing in the surf and not consider slowing down until halfway across the moist sand. I took a a small rock path that hugs the cliff-face to bridge the fishing beach and the tourist beach. The beach was lined with thatch huts and plastic tables with aderondack chairs that occasionally had to be chased down by the patrons when they got caught in the surf. Little babies wore diapers of sand on their bare butts. Teams of boys kicked the soccer ball onto a terracotta roof of an alcove where drummers and old men perched. Kids stayed in the water for hours and hours – the water was a perfect welcoming cool.

 A girl in a red swuimsuit’s eyes widened behind me as she pulled her brother out of the water. She knew before I did that another remolino was coming. I turned to see the waves explode against the rocks on the opposite side of the bay. Then it reached us and the earth pulled at my heels while the water pushed at my back. Most of the kids would ride it out (literally) but I preferred to let it suck me back and then spit me onto the shore to take a breather on the sand.

The salvavidas wandered by with his little floatie and whistle. “ What’s your name, beautiful? And what? Married? Divorced? Boyfriend? Single? From the moment I saw you I wanted to talk to you.” I have many Mexican boyfriends, I told him. 47 to be exact. “Ah, then surely you have room for one more. Do they each have a special space? Can I have this corner of your ear, so that every morning I can wake up and whisper, ‘Good morning, Raquel. I’m here, ready to serve.” Damn. Salvavida was smooth. Yet, so very old and hairy. I told him that I’d have to check with all of my boyfriends…

The trumpet of the mariachis and the drums of the hippies lulled me into a Jimmy Buffet stupor. I was only to be jolted by the occasional wafting of animal shit or the threat of a dog fight. Once a rooster strutted out from behind a fishing boat, but decided that even he didn’t have the huevos to take on all the ruckus that awaited him on the beach. My lollipop purchase from a short woman with very unfortunate dental care seemed to be the highlight of her day. She stopped me 2 or 3 more times: Hey guera, you reading? Umm. Yeah. Yeah I am; to ask me about my work, repeat the details of each beach and their safety levels and finally to speculate on the moral nature of the tourist culture. Sigh. 

It's Raining Men

We toasted ourselves for spending a full week in lives not our own. Clean and all dolled up we presented ourselves to the city of Cholula once again. We ordered beers on the zocalo (the town square) and congratulated one another on being fabulous human beings. After a beer and change (Cecilia never finishes hers and I always oblige to help a sister out), I was feeling mischievous. I devised a plan to return to the TelCel store and hand my number to the good-looking guy behind the counter who'd been no help whatsoever in my complaints about my phone robbing me of my minutes. In the meantime, we were starting to get hungry and crave the veggies and vitamins that had been lacking in our rice and bread diets last week. We called Olivier to check on the broccoli feast he's promised us. Not only had he done absolutely nothing, he had no intention of going out to get food or to get a phone card to have minutes to inform us that we were on our own for dinner at 9 at night. k$%das0ie9@s*1!! While Cecilia was ready to lay into him, I was dripping with sincerity and Corona, "Olivier, it would be my pleasure to go back and get you a TelCel card."
     We left the note on the counter and got half-way down the block before he caught up with us, "hey! you forgot your paper!" ::Sigh:: "Noooo, (dipshit) it's for you!!!".... "oooh". The four or five text exchange that ensued  pertained solely to how gorgeous his friend thought Cecilia was. Ugh. I should have given up on trying to be smooth so long ago. Anyway, we made up for the whole affair by going to Puebla the next day and buying bus tickets to the beach. We ate at a veggie restaurant called Zanahoria (The Carrot) - no comparison to Asheville, but still a satisfactory soy burger. Then we went to the artisan fair where I met a goofy pirate from Chihuahua who gave me a hair wrap. He had one good eye to work with and another good eye hidden behind a patch.

We almost decided not to go on the date we'd made with TelCel boy and his friend. These guys seemed like total goobers. But good thing we didn't heed our apprehensions. TelCel boy, heretofore to be referred to as Beto, introduced us to his "friend," who turned out to be the owner of the adjacent bar called Enamorada. We ordered a glass of red wine, which eventually became somewhere between 4-6. The boss, Enrique, suggested Cecilia order apple turnover, which was incredible. The dessert was followed by peanuts, then by cherries, olives, a cheese platter...at one point Beto flicked his wrist and a vendor brought us each a rose (3 weeks later mine is still alive and beautiful. hmm). I tried to pay but they actually laughed at me: Please! 1) This is Mexico. 2) I am the owner.  Oh, right. I've never been treated like royalty like that. And turns out Beto's kind of a catch...

On the flip side, Sunday we went out with Cecilia's Cuban boy, Roberto. Well, we started off with hangover waffles at the restaurant where he works, then I took a walk with Beto and had dinner with the Lito family (the family that owns the pizzeria). Theeennn we went out with sketchy Cuban man and his homeboy, Jose Carlos (the doorman if you recall). JC had never shown much interest in me - told me he had no cell phone when I'd heard one beeping, never written when I gave him my email, blew me off on our first double. I had seriously low expectations (well, none really) and to be perfectly honest, despite the fact that he's incredibly gorgeous I was a little wigged out by him in general. But anything could be better than the oil well digger with whom I'd dined on our first double and Ceci didn't want to fly solo. So when Home Slice cycled up to the corner store where I'd escaped the makeout session I'd been chaperoning in search of chocolate or anything else in which I could possibly invest my attention, I was surprised that A) he tried to pay and B) tried to kiss me.  We walked back, grabbed a table and talked about karate (which his dad is teaching him) and his band and his family. I was in the middle of asking more about his family (please note here that I have not once mentioned any questions he's asked me, which is zilch), when he leaned in and kissed me again, like, for real. hmmm. So we finished our beers and he says, "So now what? Hotel?" you American slut, you...no, the last part I improvised - he was at least polite enough to keep that part to himself. Ceci and I took a bathroom time-out to do a half-time report: status of the players, penalties, accolades, injuries, etc. Neither of us were very keen on our predicament, but she was more invested than I was, so we continued vacillating: at the top of the stairs: I don't like this, let's go. At the bottom: maybe another half an hour. When we met them at the door and saw them salsa dancing in the park: ok, I think I'm gonna stick around. Every time my response was the same: ok, whatever you're comfortable with. JC and I took a walk for a bit and let the other two figure out what they wanted for themselves. Once we were seated at the base of the pyramid, he started to actually talk. He talked about the places he'd traveled and the colors of the people and the rain in the jungle. Then he started talking about the Mayan calendar. I told him what I'd learned from Gregg Braden and he explained that everyone has their own potential built into their molecules. We're going to have to change the way we see one another and our potential. And when I asked him what his potential was, he said "I want to be a mirror of people's good attributes." I stopped. It was as if his kiss had sucked the words right out of my own mouth. I tried to explain that but I didn't have the words - he'd taken them. And I grinned, "And your role?" He said, "Soy artista. Y seductor." I tried not to, but I totally cracked up. Hope he's gonna go home and make a painting or something because he's not getting any tonight. Maybe you think I'm being too rigid here, but up til somewhere around 2am, this guy was a total skeeze ball. He asked for my number as he pulled out his non-existent phone. Half an hour later when I climbed down from my high and into bed I got a text message: " And about this night, I will write a song."

I am writing about this ridiculous weekend of imbalanced men - one who is too shy for a goodnight kiss and the other who wanted to take me to a hotel before I could see the bottom of my beer bottle - from a coffee shop at the beach. I am detached and rebalanced. As an update, Beto and I saw each other almost daily before I left for the beach, and have continued upon my return. Jose Carlos texted me "how are you" a couple of times and we tried to meet up the Friday before I left for the beach but it fell through. Texted him as he asked when I got back, but without response. Probably better - it's a good story and we contributed something to one another, but only in that moment, which has since passed. Now, on to the beach...