Mexico 2

Here are some interesting things about life down here:

-People walking around in traditional costume: Many of the women wear them, especially around the fringes of town. Babies are carried in cloth slings on their backs and everything else is carried on their heads. It's interesting to see these women with giant sacks of rice or corn on their heads, and some carry their purses that way, too.

-Languages: Spanish is hard enough to speak with a native speaker, but many of the people from around here speak Spanish a a second language, and don't necessarily know all the grammar. These are usually the same people as wear indigenous costumes, and their native tongues ar those of the indigenou peoples of Mexico, which isn't at all related to Spanish.

-People coming up and selling stuff: this is actually rare here, probably because, for all practical purposes, we are the only tourists here. There are, of course, the obligatory street vendors, with their many types of homegrown, organic food. It was pointed out to me that just about everything is organic here because no one can afford pesticides.

-The food: all (okay, nearly all) delicious. I recently tried tuna, which is not fish, but the fruit of the nopal cactus (that flat one). Tunas are the little things that look like buds all along the edges of the nopales. You pick, peel, and eat the tuna, seeds and all. They have the texture of Asian pear, and the flavor is similar to kiwi. I don't recommend chicharrones, which is deep fried pork skin. What's really neat is that you can see everything growing on the bushes. In María's garden, there is a lime tree and bushes of two different types of avocado, neither of which are available in the U.S. I also got to see pomegranates growing, but that was in Xochmilco.

-Being the only white people around: this is a safe town, beautiful and clean, perhaps half the size of Guanajuato. It is, however, close to the border, so tourists don't come here possibly for fear of Zapatistas (a militant group for returning Mexico to the campesinos [farmers]). People look at us in the street, surprised to see anyone with light skin. I stick out especially, with my hair. At least Eileen's is dark brown.

-Our hostess was, some years ago, kidnapped by Zapatistas, and loved it: María works at health clinics. I don't know how many years ago it was, but she told us that Zapatistas kidnapped her to the cloud rainforest in order to pressure the government to build more group health centers. María found the forest beautiful, and soon, the local women heard that there was a doctor in the area and came to her with their problems. She wasted no time and started a women's group for them, teaching healthful lifestyles and hygiene. The Zapatistas promptly unkidnapped her, for "causing unrest among the natives". She wishes she could have stayed longer.

-The animals: This house has two kittens, named Linda and Delila. There is also a parrot, but apparently, he's mean, and will soon be going to the zoo. Next door are to excitable, evil, LOUD dogs, one of which is a rottweilwer, ant the other of which is really small. There are also scruffy dogs in the street, and the occasional burro.

-Water: Obviously, we're not to drink what comes out of the tap, but that's not why I bpthered to note it. Here, water is "a sometimes thing, not an always thing". Some days when you turn on the faucet, you get water, other days, not so lucky. I'm not really sure what they do about this.

A typical day:

We arise around 7, and María heads off to work. Dan goes out and does whatever it is he does. We eat breakfast, which can be awkward, because I'm never quite sure whether I'm supposed to sit and let la abuelita serve me or get my own. The awkwardness is amplified by the fact that la abuelita loves to talk, but is often hard to understand.

Eileen goes off and catches a bus to the hospital where she works, which is not the same one where María works.

I'm left at the house with Tanya and La Abuelita, who go about doing various chores.

No one's quite sure what to do with me, but I usually juggle and find something to do later.

Everyone but María (who's still working) is back at the house around 1, for la comida, and then people split off to do afternoon activities.

There tends to be another gathering in the kitchen just before bedtime, and we sit around talking and drinking tea and eating cheese and sweet bread.

The journal:

I'll pick up where I left off, Sunday, 7/10/06, just after having arrived at María's house.

We went to Daniel's graduation just after I wrote my first email. Daniel is María's son, and Dan is the one who came with us and lives alternately in Oaxaca and Alaska. It's confusing, and even more so because here they call both Daniel and pronounce it Danielle. Anyway, the graduation ceremony was very interesting. To begin, they had a flag ceremony, which is so different here that I'll have to describe it: the audience is made to stand and salute, with the right forearm straight across the chest, fingers also in a straight line. Four girls enter, one carrying the flag, and three arranged at her two sides. Two other girls follow them on. They come to the center of the stage, marching militarily, with one of the initial four girls calling commands. They face the audience and stand, and at the side of the stage, three middle-aged men in suits play the marimba. They did two songs, I believe they were the national anthem and a hymn, during which the audience was obliged to sing, still standing and saluting, the girls on stage stood stony faced and stiff, arms at their sides, and Eileen and I exchanged glances and wondered what the words were. After the songs, the girls left the stage with the flag, and the audience was allowed to sit. After the flag ceremony, students were called one by one onto the stage, accompanied by a parent or sibling, to shake hads with each and every teacher and have their pictures taken. I don't know how this differs from American graduation ceremonies, aside from that they didn't get caps annd gowns or pomp and circumstance. It took a very long time for the graduation ceremony to finish, but Eileen and I amused ourselves by estimating the height of the girls' heels. Most were six inches or more. We left Comitán's theater and had drinks at a café next to the central plaza. Mine was Tlacalatl, an Aztec corn drink. It was ...interesting.

Lunes, 7/10/06

In the morning, María drove Dan, Eileen, and I to Las Margaritas (it's the town next door, not a restaurant) to get Eileen settled in at the hospital. We returned to Comitán. María went to work, and Dan showed me to la tienda where Jenny (pronounced henny) and her son Eduardo work. It's a little place, with shelves full of everything from liquor to Cup of Noodles,to cleaning projects, to cigarettes and diapers, which she sells one at a time. Jenny owns the place, and Eduardo or her mother take over when she's not there so that the place won't be empty. Jenny has been known to talk people's ears off, so I got plenty of opportunity to practice Spanish. When customers came, my job was to give change and to wrap items if they needed wrapping. The rule for what to wrap, I found out, are things that might leak, like rice, things that have a strong smell, like candles or cleaning products, and bottles of liqour, because "they don't want people to know they have it".

Before returning to the house for la comida, Dan showed me the market, which was a typical Mexican market. We got tuna, mangoes, bananas (those are really different down here), and lettuce. Things are really cheap down here- we got about ten good-sized mangoes for what amounts to $1.50 USD.

Comida was vegetable stew and cheese.

Later in the afternoon, Eileen crammed Spanish doctoral vocabulary and Dan and I walked up to the cemetery. It was closed, but we could see the giant graves, like little houses, crowded and colorful. During the walk, he told me about his day. Apparently, he's marrying María on Friday. He's making it sound like no big deal, and they were just going to sign papers to make it legal, so I guess I won't get to see a Mexican wedding after all. Anyway, he and María had gone to get permission-type documents signed because he's technically a foreigner. Unfortunately, the guy who could give them the papers wanted to take María out instead. Eventually, she managed to convince him that she was, in fact, getting married, so after a half hour, he gave them to her.

It rained that night, but in the morning, everything was dry.

Martes, 7/12/06

I worked at the store again, this time with Tanya along. I had the same job as before, and we also weighed old newspapers, packaging them for sale by the kilo. People with stores in the marketplace use it to wrap purchases. Jenny's been trying to learn English from me, but she's having a really hard time pronouncing words.

After comida, Tanya, Eileen, Dan and I drove to San Cristobal de las Casas. This is a bigger, somewhat touristy town about an hour and a half away. We browsed the marketplace. We wanted to get embroidered shirts, but all of them were really wide, so we ende up not getting any. Dan brought us along for opinions and went shopping for a wedding ring. After looking through pretty much every jewelry store in town, he picked a medium-sized ring of gold and jade, which was all of our favorite. Dinner was tacos, and we also had mangoes with lime. These two foods, street tacos and limey mangoes could easily become our staple foods, along with licuados, which are drinks of fresh fruit, which the vendor juices as you watch. Even the orange juice licuados are really delicious.

We also drove by a grocery store, and Dan got wine to celebrate after the wedding, Eileen got a notebook to write new words in, and I got a dictionary in Spanish. It's really cool, because I can mostly understand the definitions, and it's much more fun than using a Spanish-English dictionary.

That's probably enough for one email. Today we're learning how to do laundry, and later how to make rice (with oil, garlic, and onion) and can whole peaches. We'll see if I understand a word La Abuelita says.