What Would Said Say?

Virginia Tech and Michigan State arrived late last night, so we started the morning with a traditional Mexican breakfast - chilaquiles. Tortilla chips stewed in a red sauce and served under scrambled eggs, queso, avacado and a dallop of the freshest cream I've ever had (apparently there is a dairy vendor two blocks down with a small farm just behind the wall of his shop)...I ate broccoli for lunch to compensate. Father John is the leader of VT and, if I am not to insult his sacred role by calling him so, a total badass. This is his 19th trip to Mexico and could provide so much more information than I about pretty much anything. Before 8:30 this morning I got myself into a conversation with him regarding imperialism and "the Other" (he started it I swear). We were discussing his revolutionary initiatives to redefine service; both service and mission have connotations of entering another place in order to fix something. "I am coming to you to fix what is broken because I am better." He referred to an article in The Onion that said the top two reasons for service work are resume-building and feeling good about yourself. But true service is not about the servers - it's a mutually beneficial cultural connection and a learning for both parties involved. We may not change the world in a week or a year, but how are we improving our relationships with our immediate world? This is the question he asked his students to reflect upon during their time here.

This theme continued as we visited the pyramid. Arturo, the CommLinks director, explained that the repressed "Other" indigenous populations of this region are descendants from the creators of the pyramid in Cholula. The pyramid is the largest in the whole world by volume. It was started by the Olmecs, finished by the Aztecs, and now upon it sits an ornate Catholic chapel... Arturo spoke of the history of the builders and the site: they could determine precise calendars, directions and astrology, develop a mathematical system,  and interpret the information they gathered to maximize agricultural production. They believed the earth was reborn every 52 years, and consequently destroyed a part and rebuilt a layer every cycle. They deduced that in 2012 this present time cycle will end (not the world, just the cycle), but we have to make a choice about how we are to structure our consciousness and our relationships with one another if we are to survive another cycle. We are too much in ourselves and not aware of our connection with one anOther. Arturo says: Our problem is our necessity of imidiacy, and we are willing to protect it with guns. I thought that was a very powerful statement.

As for the rest of the cultural day, we took the group first to mass at the gold-laden traditional basilica where the Spaniards attended in the 18th century, then to the adjacent gray chapel with pictures to educate the illiterate where the native populations could worship in that time. We took them to a museum where they quickly read about the history of Cholula and spent most of the time doing a photo shoot  in the courtyard. We passed through a clown show whereupon noticing 30 gringos in the crowd the clown gave the audience a few laughs at our expense. We never did figure out why, but suddenly we were the "Others" among hundreds of people. We wandered through the market where they sell whatever you need on any given Sunday: bananas, socks, seeds, fish heads, batteries, the list goes on for hundreds of little booths and smells of boiling grease and cheese. I was stopped by a woman who asked where we were from. When I responded, she told me: I have a brother somewhere in Texas who had been caught by immigration. Perhaps there is a way to radio him a message. You are all so beautiful with all of these blondes and green and blue eyes. If I weren't so poor I would love to have all of you in my home. Go with God.