From DC al DF

Generally speaking, I fly in a Dramamine-induced coma. I’ve been known on multiple occasions to wake up after a landing and ask my neighbours when we’ll be taking off. Last weekend, though, despite academics-induced exhaustion, I couldn’t sleep on our flights to and from the DF - or the Distrito Federal, better known as Mexico City. Thus, a friend and I ended up reading Virginia Wolfe’s “A Room of One’s Own” aloud to each other. I am now convinced that to share a book with someone like that is one of the most intimate, delightful things you can possibly do.

We flew in and out of Toluca on Interjet, an airline that hands out free beer, tequila and rum with your juice and has the most spacious cabin I’ve ever seen. Taking the bus into the DF from Toluca, the very first things I noticed about Mexico were that 1) some of the buildings were tall and glassy and clean and 2) there were trees. Neither of these things being particularly common in Juarez, I was immediately struck by the differences between my temporary Mexican hometown and the nation’s capitol. In Juarez, for example, the sky is blue. In la Ciudad de Mexico, the sky is a peculiar shade of orange-pink smog-induced haze. And, beyond the clear presence of international commercial giants (such as HP and Wal-Mart), el DF can also lay claim to the most beautiful post-Conquest architecture I’ve seen.

Another wonder of the DF that captured my heart: the most rapid, frequently and regularly running Metro system imaginable. Chilangos – or residents of the DF – are right to boast of at least this one thing: that their Metro system is a true gem. Where else could you possibly find pre-Colombian ruins interspersed and preserved amongst a 20th century mass transportation system? Although it does have just as many odd folk as any other public space. One clearly drugged-up child hit a friend and kissed me and, shortly thereafter, two other young men wandered through the cars launching themselves into piles of broken glass, scarring their backs to make a few pesos off of terrified tourists. My favourite moment, though, would have to be when a child hiding from his friends in a box jumped out, yelling “Rarrrrr!!!” and, instead of surprising his friends, terrified one of the other BSP students half to death. Oh yeah, and when the entire system’s electricity cut out thrice in a row with us inside the train. And when yet another train skipped our stop because a rally in support of Mexico’s parallel presidency under Obrero was being held in the Zocolo, the ever-busy, ever-important plaza bordering one of the presidential palaces and an absolutely stunning cathedral.

The Zocolo, conveniently just a half block away from our hostel, was also during the course of our weekend host to a group of indigenous protesters. This would not be so out of the ordinary except for the fact that the women were entirely nude and the men almost so save for a small, most-advantageously-placed poster listing their demands tied about their waists. I have to admit to not really having seen more than a few people entirely nude in my life before. It was a healthy shock, though, I think. There was something refreshing in the unashamed naturalness of the event.

Anyways, in terms of actual accommodations, the hostel was lovely architecturally, although it had so many stairs that my thighs were incredibly sore from climbing them throughout the length of the trip. It was great exercise, though, as was going to Mama Rumba, which is supposedly Mexico’s premier salsa club. I had one partner for three songs straight that made me do multiple dips and quadruple, lightening fast spins. You know, one of those guys who literally dances so hard that you physically can’t see anything or anyone else. It was spectacular. At least until they started playing reggaeton, whereupon we left only to later find three clubs within a block and a half vicinity all playing rich salsa rhythms. My poor soul, it felt torn to pieces – too many splendid choices!

The third night, I stayed in. I earned it, after multiple lectures, a trip to the national anthropology museum, and a failed trip to see the Teotihuacán pyramids. Failed because the bus ride that usually takes 15 minutes took over three hours and, thus, had us at our destination just 5 minutes before the park closed. Like any good adventurer, though, we bared it well. We decided to take an hour-long walking break before getting on a returning bus. Thus, we ambled along the town streets drinking our chelas and nibbling on freshly-baked pastries, wondering what people over the age of 16 do in a town where a plaza gazebo and trampoline provide the only public entertainment beyond a few hole-in-the-wall arcades. The answer seems to be that they leave to be elsewhere. Despite its oddities, though, the trip was not a total flop. Looking out of the window on the bus ride to the village, I felt as if I finally understood why the ancient Aztecs and Maya believed that their land was truly the centre of all the Earth and creation. The fertile, curvaceous landscape of Mexico State was not without reason the home to some of the most prolific seats of female worship. That there can be such poverty in such a landscape…

Aside from that, though, other notable elements of our trip included a tour of famous murals and of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo’s house. Not knowing anything at all about the subjects, I was intrigued although perhaps not quite enthralled. At least not until I saw the letter Pablo Neruda wrote to Frida. My fingertips were less than a centimetre away from the writing of one of my favourite authors. Oh, to have received a letter in that green ink (he always used a green pen)! To have been so admired and respected by such an artist!

Or to have lived on the second floor of the Chapultepec castle. The castle itself is lovely and enclosed in the midst of the largest urban green space in all of Latin America. Such a vision after 4 months spent almost entirely in a desert was, to say the least, divine. This was only heightened by the fact that the second floor of the castle is, itself, almost half-garden. The spacious, comfortable, privacy-conducive layout of that floor, when coupled with the various female sculptures and paintings located throughout the courtyard, made for one of the most sweetly simple homages to women I’ve come across.

Generally speaking, though… I loved the whole experience. I felt incredibly at-ease in the DF. The city is vibrant, noisy, and never static. There is always someone blasting music, always something socially huge going on somewhere. It has all the perks of a capitol city replete with theatres and black street-markets alike. I could actually see myself living in the DF for a while. There is so much happening and promising and bursting with potential in Mexico. Wherever I go, I’d like to be part of such a scene.

Get a kick out of Juarez

Every year a committee of professors comes down to visit the program – basically, to see what their universities’ students are doing and to see some of the border for themselves. And so, on November 1st, students, coordinators and visiting professors got together to discus some of the BSP 2007 experience so far. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed and felt at home in a liberal arts atmosphere. I guess it showed, though, since one of the visiting professors told me that I speak like a professional student. If it means more dinner conversations about “the current global phase of catastrophic systemic breakdown”, count me in. There’s something about the whole “inquiry and analysis as lifestyle” thing that I find as exciting as a zip-wire over a canyon and as comfortable as a childhood blanket.

And nowhere but here could that lifestyle have blended so delightfully with a student’s social life as it did at the fiesta given in celebration of the program’s 10th anniversary. Nowhere but here could I – all within the space of an hour - dance to corridas with my Papa, to salsas and merengues with my professor, and to the Macarena, Great Balls of Fire, and Rock Around the Clock with a bunch of fellow students and our 40+ year old Mamas. And nowhere but here would I have been forced to blush through a solid 3 minutes of mariachis singing Las Mañanitas (Mexico’s “Happy Birthday” song) to me in front of 80 people.

My real birthday celebration, though, didn’t come until this last weekend, after a very long week. Academically, it was long because I had to: write another newsletter issue, write a rough draft of my field-study ethnography, research for an immigration policy position paper, set up interviews for research into the economic impact of mono-/multi-lingualism, give a presentation on my field study, and create the third layer to a group mapping project. Which, somehow, all took part amidst my little brother’s birthday party, spending what are usually class-hours chatting sprawled out on a neighbour’s lawn (we left our 4-hour class after the prof was over an hour late), and, most notably, the two evenings I spent with Manuel, a salsa instructor from the UACJ.

On Wednesday we went out for coffee. Or at least planned to before remembering that people don’t go out for coffee here. Instead, he nursed a chela (beer) and I enjoyed a pina colada while we played a rousing 2-hour game of bilingual Scrabble. After that I went with him to watch the Malambo latin dance troupe practice. I filmed their show on Thursday night. This is a serious, formal, well-trained group. They’ve invited me to practice with them. They’re levels ahead of me but they said, “So we’ll make you better” so… here’s to working myself to the point of exhaustion over the next few weeks to drastically improve my dancing skills. Just by watching and dancing socially with the troupe members I’ve learned new moves. None of which, sadly, were used on Saturday.

For my birthday, 11 friends and I (and two complete strangers who tagged along with one of them, whose effect on the intimacy of the evening I was initially less than pleased about) went dancing to eat at Taboo, a place that seems to have more identity issues than your average TCK. It is a wonderful, cushiony world of carpeted walls and low, curtained tables, and is home to delicious Indian/Mexican/Italian/American/French food. On Saturday, this meant having the best cold chai of my life so far, as well as an absolutely divine plate of super-spicy mango chicken served with vegetables over white rice. Other palate-tingling offerings of the evening included the best apple pie I’ve ever had (thank you, mum, for sending it 1000+ miles cross-country!) and 2 3-person hookahs, one a decent apple and one a mixed-fruit flavour that oddly enough felt best blown out the nose instead of the mouth (seriously, it was like breathing silky velvet). Other highlights of the evening included dancing to the restaurant’s bhangra selection and, in keeping with the unwritten rule that says that large groups of women can’t get together without doing at least one incredibly silly thing, seeing how many people we could pass a single pull from the hookah to via a “kiss” before the smoke disappeared. This is, may I just say, quite hard to do when people keep laughing out big puffs of the stuff. Our record, though, was 3 three people.

Anyways, we eventually left Taboo and headed to Ole, where a few of the girls knew the son of the club’s owner. Thus, we end up not just in the VIP room, but in another more private room attached to the VIP room. We got amazing free drinks out of it, but beyond that it was kind of disappointing. The guys said we were boring because we didn’t drink enough, and we thought the guys were boring because all they wanted to do was drink. And as for my actual birthday on Sunday… Aside from doing a little research and having a lovely dinner with my host-family (it was great fun trying to teach them how to use chopsticks and translating their fortunes), I went to my first live professional - real, not American - football game.

I met up with two other friends before the game and together we wandered around the practice fields watching local club teams play for an hour or so. It was great. I’d forgotten just how much I really love watching football, and how there really is something beautiful and magical about the sport. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it generally involves a bunch of atypically attractive men for 90 minutes.

Anyways, it was a decent game. ‘Kind of boring for the first half, but the last 20 minutes of the match were fantastically charged. And oh-my-goodness do the Mexicans know how to cheer. There was an entire section devoted not to the fans of a particular team but, instead, to their “anti-fans”. The calls were vicious. Aside from the fact that I heard more profanity in the last half of the game than I have in the entire rest of my time here, I was particularly intrigued by one call, “se caen por el hambre!” Literally, it means, “They fall because they’re hungry”. Called out whenever a player fell, the spirit of it is that they fall because they’re hungry because they play so badly that they never win and, thus, don’t earn any money and, thus, can’t afford to eat and, thus, they get weak and fall because they’re hungry because etc., etc., etc. Leave it to Mexicans to bring social class considerations into a football match.

Leaving the match, a friend said she couldn’t walk behind me anymore because she hated seeing people check me out. I actually hadn’t really noticed it myself. Generally it pisses me off to no end that any response on the woman’s behalf here is seen as an instigation of further action and, thus, to be left alone you have to walk around with your head slightly down so as not to even make eye-contact with people. I find that, as a social institution, to be incredibly demeaning. It is already a rare and precious thing enough to have a day – or even a few hours or minutes - when one actually feels attractive and confident just as oneself. It is, therefore, great to have a day when I am comfortable enough in myself to not feel bothered by the many whistles and honking and kissing noises and soft calls – when I can walk around with my head held at a normal, self-respecting level. At the risk of sounding arrogant… it feels great to be able to step out of myself (of my fear and hostility) and recognize it all for what it mostly is - men appreciating a pretty woman – and actually laugh and smile at the attention. Which, honestly, has only happened once down here.

But that one time felt like such a release. Because let’s face it: we all want to be appreciated as women. Definitely in more appropriately demonstrable forms, but… well, at the very least it’s damn nice having constant male-advice on your outfits. Just three whistles today? ‘Not wearing those jeans with that shirt again. Lots of honking and a few calls of “Si fueras mia, reina!”? That’s more like it.

Reflections on an Unloved Painting

The piece is Hal Marcus' "Avenida Juarez". I first saw a copy of it propped up against the wall in Anneka's bedroom. She'd found it hidden in the closest while she was moving in and decided that it needed a little more appreciation. I have to concur.

It may look like a work of exotification, but in its details I see some part of each of my days here. There are the children being watched over by loving, tired mothers; there is the old man who needs a cane to walk across the bridge; there are the Indigenous, the hotels, the bars, the stores and the prostitutes catering to tourists; there are the beggars huddled on doorsteps; there is the little boy selling chicles to survive; there is the rich Mexican youth scanning the crowd to see who he can seduce with his American clothes; there, all four of them proud of their conquests, is the guero youth with his morena and the Mexican macho with his guera; there is the sign for the fruit smoothies that keep you going on the hot days; there are the musicians that amble up and down the streets seeking tips for their ballads; there is the pointed but pointless presence of the policeman; there is the bridge, sucking everything northward; there are the cars blasting music as they wait to cross; and there are the mountains and the stars.

Staring at this image that so aptly captures both the tragedy and artistic beauty of this place, I’m forced to wonder… From this place where the harshness of our world’s reality confronts us every day in the same streets we sing and dance along by night… From this place where life’s poignant fragility incessantly reminds us to live to the fullest… How can I possibly return? It terrifies me: the possibility of returning mildly and quietly to a place where facing reality becomes a choice.

Busy-ness

With only 6.5 weeks left in the program, the increasing intensity of our working, academic, and social lives alike means that each week passes by more quickly than the last. And, of course, there is that moment of extreme panic when one realizes that they are poor and have yet to buy a single souvenir for friends and family.

I’ve somewhat reached the saturation-point academically – that moment when you just need to escape from all modes of higher thought about a given subject (in this case anything to do with the border) for awhile – but, in general, I’m glad to have some more time here. At least if recent highlights are any indicator.

For example, the Friday afternoon I spent treating one of the girls who’s having a rough time out to lunch. Later that evening, two of the other girls and I got together to make Spanakopita. Not until after we’d joyfully rebelled against the no-taking-the-ruta-after-dark or no-walking-without-a-male-escort-at-night rules, though.

Once in the kitchen, there was much singing and dancing, and also a fair amount of shouting and laughter during particularly hazardous endeavours to start the most finicky gas-oven I’ve yet to encounter. After hearing the story of an uncle whose eyebrows were singed off during a particularly “successful” attempt at lighting the thing, rather than risk balding ourselves, we vetoed the cigarette lighter we had and ended up setting fire to a bit of rolled-up newspaper and then using that. End result: The food turned out wonderfully and the “flaming redhead” jokes all – quite thankfully - came to naught.

In terms of the present, though... It’s Halloween on the American side of the Border. My boss and co-workers are running around crazily trying to find costumes and candy at the last minute. And me? I have a whole weekend of celebrations for the Dia de los Muertos ahead of me in Juarez, so right now I’m sitting under the tallest tree I’ve seen since San Francisco, listening to the 1.59 gigs of music that I pirated off of friends last weekend.

Also among some of my newer acquisitions – aside from some much-needed trousers (I literally did not own any pants for a solid two weeks) – is a lovely new coat. That’s right, a coat; I bought a beautiful, red, 80% wool jacket in the middle of a desert. I almost feel guilty for cheating on my lovely white trenchcoat – it has, after all, seen me through two Minnesota winters – but, after a year of searching for something a bit less bulky or easily stained, I finally found something that I think Audrey Hepburn would have approved of.

Stocking up on cold-weather clothing, though, was just one of a few chores that’s kept me busy these past few weeks. I’ve done my quarterly budgeting, I’ve worked out my Spring Semester schedule, I’ve finished my summer job application, I’ve worked out winter travel plans, I’ve already finished all of my homework through Monday… It’s been a lot of constant, low-level stress, but it’s paid off in that I literally have nothing to do over the next four days but enjoy my friends and host-family and take a little extra care of myself.

Which I may start doing by curling up with J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and good cup of PG Tips. …Or by taking a pumice stone to the soles of my feet, which – as can sometimes happen when one walks around in sandals through a dusty, polluted city - have been stained the same shade of brown-black for the last two months. On the plus side, I haven’t had this many calluses since my dancing years; I’ve got heels of leather, baby! And while I still get a new set of blisters every time I switch into a pair of close-toed shoes (my current count is four, including one particular gem the size of a quarter), I foresee spending even more time than usual barefoot this spring.

To step onto a pathway and find the surface cool beneath my feet! Or to feel the soft, cutting blades of new grass between my toes… I dream of green and cold. …Except maybe not so soon with the cold. I could definitely handle a trip to… oh, say, the Yucatan peninsula? ...before returning to below-freezing temperature weather. Which, conveniently, is just what I’ll be doing after the program ends.

Hannah and I will fly out of Juarez the next day, where we’ll have an overnight in Monterrey. From there, we’ll fly to Merida, where we’ll be joined by one of our program coordinators and which will be the base for our travels. From there, we’ll have easy access to numerous beaches along the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, Chichen Itza (the world’s most visited archaeological site) and various other Mayan ruins, and some prime hiking-in-the-jungle and scuba-diving locales. I think – given my penchants for nature, anything cultural, intense physical activity, and dare I say seafood! – that I’ll be quite content.

Until then, though, I’ll just be trying to stay ahead of my work and cram in as much as possible outside of work. Which, really, shouldn’t be that hard. The Dia de los Muertos celebrations are this weekend, it’s my birthday next weekend, the program’s trip to Mexico City is the week after that, and it’s Thanksgiving break the week after that. There aren’t any major events that first weekend in December, but the second week we have a farewell party for friends and family, the week after that is the program’s closing retreat, and the day after that I fly out of Juarez. Whew.

The Sound of San Francisco

Going to San Francisco for my Fall Break was definitely the right course of action.

After Atul picked me up at the airport – a seemingly simple thing that was, in fact, a hilarious ordeal involving multiple “What terminal are you in?”, “Wait, there’s more than one terminal?”-type conversations - we headed straight for dinner with his climbing buddies. And thank the lord that what could have been a very daunting, awkward situation was, in reality, delightful. I’ve only rarely been randomly thrown into such vibrant, sincere conversation and, well… Izzy’s Steakhouse, the place was called, and oh my goodness did that shrimp cocktail and the strawberries with custard set the stage for a weekend of culinary bliss.

Between hostel provisions and a trip to Trader Joe’s, our daily fare included peanut butter/strawberry jam/cream cheese bagels, bananas, raspberries, yoghurt, gouda, spiced turkey meat, foccacia bread, carrots, hummus, and breakfast tea – tepid, of course, and with an insane amount of cream and sugar. Breakfast was generally eaten in the hostel’s quirky dining hall, where the music selection varied from the Beatles to Bhangra. On Sunday, however, we went the Yank Sing for Dim Sum, which, I honestly have to say, is fast becoming one of my favourite new cuisines. Whoever decided to put dozens of different types of food in little steamers and then whisk them around a restaurant on a cart so that clients could comfortably try 5+ items was a genius. Particular thanks to the inventor of the egg-custard bun. Mandy introduced me to these little gems in New York and I actually went to Yank Sing specifically in search of the subtly sweet puffballs. After some trial and error, the egg-custard buns were found and - most-happily - consumed. So happily, in fact, that I brought two orders of the things back to Mexico with me and have now had an amazing breakfast three days in a row.

Suppers, too, though, were particularly good this past weekend, and sushi and Indonesian food were among the highlights. Dinner at the Indonesian restaurant was especially satisfactory not just because of the food itself - which, between the coconut rice, spicy shrimp, and lamb curry, was great – but also because the restaurant was literally just across the street from our hotel. Which, originally, it wasn’t supposed to be.

It’s a long story, but Atul and I would have had to change rooms in the hostel on our last night anyway so, instead, we decided to pay a little extra to stay someplace a bit nicer. When we got to the hotel, though, we were greeted with “I know it’s been a long day, but…” Enter horrified visions of lost reservations and sleeping in the lobby.

Or not. Because our hotel has a nicer, sister hotel which, at no extra cost, is going to house us for the evening. Enter, instead of a two-bed single room with a shower, a two-room suite with three beds, a kitchen, and a Jacuzzi. And, to top it all off, the new hotel keeps Werther’s Originals in their candy bowl. Clearly, we’ve hit the jackpot.

Which, considering all the other accidents we had on the trip, was quite the relief. Nothing extraordinary happened, it’s just that in the course of our 18-mile bike ride along the Bay, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and through the island, I most-embarrassingly single-handedly succeeded in forever dispelling the myth that dancers are inherently graceful or coordinated. How so? Let’s just say that I somehow managed not only to headbutt both Atul (moving) and a tree (not moving), but also to run into a parked car and street sign. Even with all the mishaps, though, it was really a lovely ride. Eating a picnic lunch by a brook in the hollowed-out remains of redwood tree was definitely a highlight, and it was simply reviving to finally get some exercise. Which we had a little extra of since we ended up more or less winging the last half our journey route-wise and, thus, biking across one highway and up and down one hill with a slope of about 65 degrees. In the midst of all this adventure I found out that, despite not being able to remember the last time I rode a bike, I can still ride hands-free. All in all, it was an amazingly hard, fun ride and, after nearly two months of living in a desert, even just seeing so much green and so much water as we rode by was more refreshing than a paleta on the Puente Santa Fe.


Our visit to Alcatraz, meanwhile, was not quite so physically intense. The ferry rides, of course, were fun, and I enjoyed seeing a new side of American history during the tour. I have to say, in general, that I’m a big fan of the radio/self-guided: 1) you can hear everything clearly and 2) you can switch the tour on or off at-will and thus control your own pace. Anyways, it was just generally a good day for conversation, and it was also nice to stay near the piers afterwards and picnic on one of the lawns affording a clear view of the Blue Angels air show (which we couldn’t have missed if we’d tried and, thus, saw certain parts of thrice during our stay). We also ended up watching a few movies throughout our stay since we were usually rather tired in the evenings from having walked the city’s hills during the day (Mission Impossible, it turns out, is not the most engaging of films. You’ve Got Mail, however, was quite nice, and the four episodes of the British series Coupling we watched had us in stitches).

On a side note, the Border comes with me everywhere now, and I couldn’t help but notice at times how very Mexican California was – from its colourful, hillside-covering residences, right down to its ice-cream carts. Which, we found out, are actually just Michoacana paleta carts - Made in Juarez - with the side-labels covered.

All in all, though, the great scenery, activities, food, and company made for a wonderful trip and, now that I’ve returned to the border, it’s been lovely seeing and catching-up with my host-family and friends again – everyone has that “I got exactly the break I needed” afterglow.