Heeeeey Macarena!

I went to see Cocarola last night, which, as far as I could tell, was about the presidential campaign of Evo Morales who, thanks to it's success, is now Bolivia's president. I base that assumption on what was pictured rather than what was said in the documentary for, though I understood many, even a majority of the words used, the significance of what was said more than escaped me. I did my best to join the audience in laughter, but I was always late. What I do know for sure is Evo got his hair cut twice during the film, played squash once, swam in a pond in the middle of a cocaine plantation and, more to the point, gave a number of speeches. Apparently, there was no electoral backlash for his upper-crust taste in sports. (Perhaps Kerry would fair better in Bolivia).

At any rate, I have no more to say, so here are some pictures of my little brother who, due to an all too frequent error was later discovered to be my little sister and then, by a decision far more arbitrary than a DNA test, was determined to be my daughter. So without further ado, I present my first child: Macarena, the cutest little Snauzer you've ever seen. (Or at least the cutest little dog of a breed that in Spanish sounds exactly like Snauzer).

Luckily, she was still on this pseudo marble floor when, three minutes after this photo, she had to relieve herself.

Macarena with her tía, Rosita.

Oh dear, she's found Michael's shoes ... and she likes the smell!

Yikes, she's found the source!

Attaaaaaack!

It's never been so much fun to have your chin eaten.

Juan Manuel's story

(Sometimes you don't like what you write, but you post it anyways)

As the boys had scarcely any homework Monday evening, they were already in the courtyard playing when their teacher entered with a dark-eyed boy by her side and called a halt to the games. I’d like to introduce you all to the newest member of our family, she said. Treat him with kindness, just like all your other brothers, she added. The boys gathered round and in rapid succession offered a hand to shake and names that the boy, whose windbreaker was zipped protectively to his chin on the warm night, likely forgot immediately. At least, that’s what I did when the boys of the Casa Hogar para Niños first told me their names.

I spend five evenings a week at the Casa Hogar struggling to explain fractions and graphing while they struggle to understand my awkward Spanish. I would be on solid ground if they were studying politics, I know that vocabulary. But explaining mathematics wasn’t a conversation topic in my college Spanish classes, so I’ve stumbled along, learning as I go. For instance, it took nearly a week of fractions before I learned that denominator was a near cognate: denominador.

I’m in my fifth week volunteering for the Casa Hogar and I know every boy’s name, but I’m still unsure what has brought them there. When I first arranged to volunteer, I thought was a home for maltreated kids, as my school coordinator told me. But the evening I arrived at the home, I was given an undated brochure which states it’s an orphanage. Yet more than one kid has told me of parents in the United States. So, I assume it’s a mix. At any rate, I haven’t had the opportunity to ask the teachers, nor does it seem particularly important. As a consequence, however, families are off the conversation list, as in at least two out of three cases it won’t be a happy topic. Nevertheless, sometimes the boys talk to me. Juan Manuel, who told us his name in a whisper after we’d finished bombarding him with ours, was the latest.

To be continued...

Don't read this, it's pregnant

It’s an old story. You’re spending some time in Mexico or some other Spanish-speaking country. Perhaps it’s a vacation, perhaps a service trip, or perhaps you’re studying Spanish, no matter. You took some Spanish classes in high school, maybe even in college, but now, with everyone sounding nothing like those language tapes—who taught them how to speak anyways?—your functional vocabulary has been reduced mainly to the tourist trio: hola, sí and gracias.

A limited vocabulary, however, has never prevented any tourist from making a fool of themselves. You are no exception. One way or another you do something that makes you red in the face, which, as science has proven, activates the language centers of the brain. Suddenly, you remember lo siento, I’m sorry, which you tell the nearest person though you fell on your face, not on them. But it doesn’t matter because, joy of joys, you’re speaking Spanish! Even better, your language reserves are now activated. In milliseconds, nay, milliseconds you’ve recalled not just the verb, but the first-person singular form for expressing your state of being: estoy.

In this instant, whole worlds of self-expression open to you; now you can be happy, sad, even tired. Yet, in this moment, you want something more. You want to let them know how shamed you feel that you tripped over your bag in the middle of the hotel lobby. You try, but you can’t think of the word. But you are not to be conquered. This is your hour, well, three seconds of fluent glory. So, as you glimpse your newfound conversation partner looking expectantly at your open mouth, you make a desperate mental lunge and hope for the best: “Estoy embarazada”. And thus countless men and women confide to complete strangers, in moments already marked by embarressment, that they are pregnant.

Thanks to more than one classroom warning state side, I have managed during my time in Mexico to avoid any errors that left me impregnated or otherwise unnaturally compromised. Actually, my mistakes tend to be more metaphysical. I have told my mother that I like sleeping under a little bit of the past (using pasado in place of pesado, or weight) and my father that I like to eat nightmares (pesadillas and not the far tastier pescadillas, or fish quesadillas). Another culinary preference is walls (muros rather than moras, or berries). Despite the hints, neither has shown up on my dinner plate. When tired, I have slurred my way into matrimony (casado in place of cansado), only to be told by my Mexican father, in a whisper and with a grin, that the two words mean the same thing. The problem, more than ignorance, is exhaustion. I make errors when I’m tired. But it isn’t always easy to sleep--and it’s not because I’m in bed with the past. The truth is, I keep getting bitten by boogers (mocos instead of the winged moscas).

A few thousand words from El Tule

Last week Oaxaca drained me. The heat, the language and missing you sorry lot left neither time nor energy for blog posts. I will begin again tomorrow, but for now here are some shots of the much-described El Tule.

I'm digging the leafy sombrero, but what is that huge thing to the right?

As my Mexican mother would say, using the only English expression she knows: "Oh my god."

It's not easy to fit El Tule into a camera frame.

This is the equivalent of El Tule turning sideways. Gosh, doesn't it all but dissapear. The sign says: "I'm a living thing, don't cut my branches. Take care of me!"

One last look. (What's that little thing next to El Tule? Oh, the church.)

A few thousand words from Monte Albán

Monte Albán in pictures, not words, for today's post. Enjoy!

The only source of shade remaining in the prehispanic city.

I think this was once the patio of the high spiritual leader.

Nice view, eh?

Another bella vista.

We have baseball at Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. They had el juego de pelota and they played for keeps; the loser was sacrificed.

The public restroom.

What I did one Saturday, part four

Attentive readers will remember my opening description of this ever-extending tale was ‘my trip to the Mitla ruins’. Yet, in truth, I did not begin my journey with that destination in mind. I wanted to go to a small Sierra village known in my guidebook as Benito Juarez. But this name, I have since learned, provokes unending confusion and good intentioned but unhelpful corrections. Benito Juarez the man, for those who don’t know, is, at least in most corners, Oaxaca’s most beloved son and one of the country’s national heroes—not incidentally, as a Zapotec, he is the only indigenous president in Mexican history. As such, many a calle bears his name, the 20 peso note bears his face and many a Oaxacan village is named either something-Juarez or Benito-so-and-so.

Thus, back on the main avenue of Santa Maria del Tule, I fell into conversation with a short, stout, grandmotherly lady who had recently been to Los Angeles to visit her sister. Hearing my intended destination, she directed me to the town of Tlacolula. There I asked around and was directed to a corner to wait for a bus up the hill. I chatted with a few different people at the stop and each agreed that buses for Benito Juarez would pass there. But after some time, none had not come, so I asked again. No, they don’t pass here, said a wild-haired woman who had just arrived at the bus stop. And thus I decided to go to Mitla.

A taxi colectivo dropped me off in a large triangle of asphalt, bordered on two sides by buildings, on the third by the two-lane highway, and buzzing with taxis, moto-taxis and, naturally, vendors. A single street lead into the town from the corner of the triangle, passing under, as it went, a high sign reading: Bienvenidos a Mitla. I was unsure whether the sign referred to the ruins or the town, but I decided to walk on.

At first, I passed nothing but shops selling mezcla or embroidered, traditional-style clothing. Then, after a brief stretch of homes, the street was once again lined with stores, which were once again offering mezcal and clothing. Then I crossed a bridge, and there was, perhaps for those who needed some time to contemplate their purchases, shops selling mezcal and clothing. Reaching what was likely the city center, I found a carnival encamped in the streets, concealing who knows how many shops offering mezcla and clothing. The English-titled rides did not entice me and I kept my pace and soon I was back among shops offering, well, you can guess. Fortunately, as I needed neither clothing nor alcohol, the first ruins were just ahead.

To be continued...

Good Morning Class!

(Today I present a lecture from my alter ego, Maestro Mike. Notice I am also a student in the class. No, this is no comment on my mental state.)

Good Morning Class!

I hope you all had a good Valentine’s Day. It looks like Enrique enjoyed his a little too much, seeing as he hasn’t arrived yet. No matter, we’ll start without him.

Today, we’re going to cover suppositional statements. For instance: “Perhaps Enrique hasn’t arrived yet because he’s suffering from la cruda” (a hangover). Darrien, give us an example. “Maybe he ran away with his girlfriend to get married in Tlacolula.” Very good Darr—oh, good morning Enrique, glad you could make it. In fact, we were just talking about you. Ah, you were late because you were taking photos of the teacher’s union. A man has to make his living.

Let’s move on to suffixes class. Suffixes usually indicate size, but also affection. We will start with, well, how about with Miguel’s house. It is una casa. That’s a word you all know. But Miguel’s mother, were she Mexican, might call it her casita. Yes, as you’ve all learned, that could mean it’s small. Yet it also denotes affection. His mom certainly scraped enough cottage cheese off the ceilings to be fond of the house. On the other hand, sometime after Miguel returns to California he may want to buy a house. He says journalists make no money, so all he’ll be able to buy is a casitita, a very small house. Yeah, maybe you’ll need to stay here in Oaxaca Miguel. Suffixes, however, don’t stop there. There are casitititas. These are about the size of, for example, the homes of the students who attend the Derek Zoolander School for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Want to Learn to Do Other Things Good Too. Extremely small. Like models. And if that’s too many iti’s for your tongue to handle, there are other options. Maybe a casicas suits you, or a casiquiquitas. Say that one three times fast.

But you can go the other way too. Maybe it’s got columns in front and a double stairway. Provided this only one step up the scale—remember, these are all relative—this is a casota. And you can move up from that to a more grandiose creation, a Bill Gates-sized villa, a casototota. Although maybe it’s big but you don’t like it. It is one of those ugly McMansion’s taking over California. Then it is a casucha.

Got it? Well not so fast. With each word they change a little bit. For instance, Julie Roberts doesn’t simply have a bocota, big mouth, unless you want to imply she’s a blabbermouth. And permutations of perro, dog, can easily be misconstrued, especially if you’re talking about females. No need to start using suffixes right away. Maybe best to stick to grande and peque­no.

(My dear fans, I know it will be hard, but as always I will not be posting over the weekend. Why? One, I'm lazy. Two, I don't have internet access outside of school. ¡Hasta lunes!)

What I did one Saturday, part three

I have thus far measured El Tule in superlatives. Here are the numbers: more than 2,000 years old (before ol’ J.C.), 42 meters tall (more than a football field), 58 meters in circumference (nearly one and a half football fields), 14 meters in diameter (why is that we always compare things to football fields?) and more than 636 meters tons of weight (eight busloads of the fattest person you know—yea, I made that one up).

Behind this behemoth stands a church whose name I did not record, but which likely involves Santa Maria and El Tule. It has a pleasant and modestly adorned facade, but a walk inside reveals that, like many others in Mexico, this church has swallowed liters of gold. Multiple glittering altars and encrusted crosses back the pulpit and line the walls of the church’s narrow interior. And if you close your eyes you will notice, though you couldn’t have really missed it before, the church’s other abundance: fresh flowers. At least on the Saturday I visited, the church was so packed with newly cut blooms that their scents wafted straight out the door for want of more air to infect. It seemed many gardens had been decimated to fill the vases.

The courtyard offered a different smell. Opposite El Tule, on the far side of the church’s front courtyard, a simple wheel had been mounted on two posts in the lawn. Every ten or twenty minutes, an apparent employee of the church would load the wheel, then light it. Then, with an audible sizzle, the cachuetes, or fireworks, would speed to their loud conclusion: BANG! A second later, the slightly sulfuric traces would have wafted across the lawn.

To be continued...

What I did one Saturday, part two

The taxi had dropped me at a traffic light on the main avenue, next to a restaurant and a nievería. While I could tell it was going to be a hot day, it was too early for a nieve, or ice cream. Looking across the two-lane avenue I saw a wide, raised and landscaped walkway. Once the light turned red, I crossed the avenue and ascended the steps.

Block letters on the wall of a round building to my right advertised an artisan’s market and a stone fountain stood nearby, but I had no idea where to find El Tule. I saw no sign pointing out the correct direction, nor did the few people on the walkway seem to be headed in a particular direction. My taxi, like virtually every one I had seen, advertised its destination as simply El Tule, as if the eponymous tree was all there was to the town—but where was it?

I knew it was no bonzai. Both my Mexican family and my guidebook had informed me that it is one of the oldest trees, if not living object, on earth. As such, both impressed upon me its enormity, though, as my guidebook pointed out, it is fatter than it is tall—which I figured was fortunate because I think few trees could measure up to the grove of California sequoias visited this summer. In fact, what I heard of the tree reminded me more of the Stanislaus Forest’s ancient Bennett Juniper, which my mom and I had reached after an agonizingly slow drive in her mini along a pothole-studded road. Now it crossed my mind that this tree might require a similar trek.

Nevertheless, I forgo asking anyone. Hoping to spare myself an embarrassing exchange—‘Can you direct me to El Tule?’ ‘Yea, it’s right there.’—I decided to walk to the town’s central church for a quick visit. At the gate—odd for a church—I said hello to the guard and read the posted sign. At the top it read simply: El Tule. I looked from the sign, to the church, to the shade on the ground and, for the first time, up into the branches of the enormous tree that occupied most of the church’s front grounds. Rather than a single organism, it was like a two-trunked pine in which fusion seemed to have occurred in reverse, with a whole grove of trees now existing as one. It was a Trumpalar of a tree and I had been practically under it the whole time.

What I did one Saturday

My trip to the Mitla ruins started in a taxi collectivo, a group taxi, headed to Santa Maria del Tule. I had walked from my home to the nearby periferico, a busy semi-highway that curves around nearly half of the city’s center, and after waiting some time for a bus to my destination, hopped aboard the umpteenth passing group taxi headed that way. I’m no expert, but given that there were four or five in traffic every time the light turned red, I’d say that there is a market glut.

As I closed the door and snapped my seatbelt on, the only time I would be able to do so in three taxi trips that day, I realized to my chagrin the taxi’s stereo was blasting the California alt-rock group Greenbay. At first I wondered it was for the benefit of Americans like myself, but as he honked to signal empty seats at every pedestrian we passed, few of whom appeared to be tourists, this theory was swiftly discarded. I might have asked him if he liked the group, with the hope of jumping into a conversation, but sitting in the back as I was—the front seat was occupied what appeared to be his wife and primary-grade-age son—I would have had to nearly shout over the music, his bellowing horn and the surrounding belches of traffic.

So, sitting silent in the back with my thoughts, I began to fancy that he was listening to American pop music to improve his English, hoping to land a career in an area without such legions of competitors. But then the song changed and, though I was doing my best to shut out the English lyrics, I couldn’t help but listen as the opening lyrics of Blink 182’s ‘Family Reunion’ blasted through the cab: “Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, terd, and twat—I fucked your mom.” I looked at my driver. His son was playing with his outstretched finger and he wore a smile that was oblivious to the profanities issuing from the taxi’s speakers. I didn’t say anything.

At a traffic light on the long, straight main avenue of Santa Maria del Tule, my driver stopped to let me out. I paid him what I thought was owed for the ride, opened the door, and before I could get out, he handed me 2 pesos. The ten-minute ride had cost me $0.80.

(To be continued...)

My first day of classes

Amid streets busy with small taquerias and smaller shops, the yellow-blue cement block facade of El Centro de Idiomas stretches along an nearly an entire city block. Its blue metal gate opens onto a courtyard occupied by a dry fountain and, when I arrived, a handful of Mexican students presumably on break from classes in French, English, German or one of the university’s other offerings. I headed to the administration window and fumbled through a question about the school for foreigners, which, as I was rusty and the words foreigner and strange are similar in Spanish, likely came out “Where is the School for the Strange?” Fortunately, I was intercepted by my email amiga, Ariana, before they could answer me.

Ariana had been tireless in rapidly answering my multitude of emailed questions about the school and, finally meeting her, I found she was no less bubbly and solicitous in person. As I took the two placement tests, she asked twice if I wanted coffee, thrice how the trip had went and assured me repeatedly I needn’t complete the second test if I felt it was too hard. Ultimately, I was placed in level 2 and, after once more offering me coffee, Ariana introduced me to my grammar instructor.

Paulina was a very competent, if slightly dour instructor. (I write ‘was’ not because she has since died, but because she was my grammar instructor for only two days.) She told me she had spent some time teaching at Humboldt State, and she might well have walked off the campus that very day--she wore Birkenstocks and just the right selection of muted earth tones for the Northern California style. Our first item for review was ‘if clauses’ and her first example: “If I had more money, I wouldn’t be here.” We later moved on to topics less personal, but she managed to rise to the occasion: “If there was life on Mars, there would be a brain drain from Mexico.”

In the way that one might hesitate to question finding a huge wad of cash in your mailbox for fear that if you lose your ignorance you will also lose your new found wealth, I have not yet asked whether students get one-on-one instruction year-round. But as I sat there with Paulina and no one else entered the classroom, I began feeling very lucky.


(To be continued...)

First night in Oaxaca

I spent my second night in Mexico in a hostel five blocks from the zócalo, the main square, of Oaxaca. In the standard international flavor of Mexican hostels, my fellow residents included an Argentinean, a white Botswanian, an ethnic Japanese Swiss citizen and the obligatory handful of Australians—Mexico is apparently a preferred destination down under.

The hostel, MezKalito, is one of more than a dozen that litter downtown Oaxaca and, based on what I saw by popping into half a dozen to ask their nightly rate, one of the most attractive. The hostel’s central patio is painted in vivid orange and blue tones, a handful of potted plants add some green, and soft hammocks hang from the courtyard’s fat columns. There is also wireless internet and, for the computer-less, four computers with internet—though two were down when I was there. On that note, the bathrooms, though very clean, are not in the best of shape.

My first trip to the hostel’s men’s bathroom went something like this: I entered needing to pee, noticed two of the four urinals had out of order signs, peed in one of the two remaining, flushed and watched water rush in and nothing go out, flushed again to the same effect. So, I decided to forget it and wash my hands. I went to the sink, turned the knob to no effect, I tried the other knob, same result, I tried the next sink, again nothing. Luckily, the third sink had both functioning faucets and a functioning drain. As I washed my hands, I read a computer print-out taped to the mirror titled in English: ‘How to Conserve Water.’

My trip after dinner, to do number two, was nearly identical. I entered a stall, was about to sit down when noticed there was no bin for waste—necessary as Mexican plumbing is not designed to accommodate toilet paper. I entered the second door, again was about to sit when I saw there was no latch on the door. Again, the third was the charm. Budget accommodations, budget bathrooms. (And actually, much nicer than many of the budget accomadations I’ve since chosen.)

After a restless night’s sleep, breakfast was hardy affair, if only faintly Mexican. I ate scrambled eggs, corn flakes, a bun and a very wet portion of beans. Chatting with my Swiss dorm mate, who was an animated conversationalist despite his awkward English—not a bad lesson for me—I learned he had spent a week in Los Angeles prior to arriving in Mexico. What did he think? “They have a very good subway system.” Maybe someone could tell the residents?

After an only half-successful attempt to ask the hostel’s morning manager for directions to El Centro de Idiomas, my school for the next month, I packed and left. As recommended by the manager, I caught a bus from the nearest corner. The trip was a success in so far as I did not knock anyone over with my backpack—itself larger than many of the other passengers—but when I later arrived at El Centro I learned that the 25-minute ride could have been accomplished in a 10-minute walk. Such are bus rides in the traffic-choked downtowns of most Mexican cities.



To be continued...

I turn a budget hotel room into a metaphor for Mexico

Reentry was easy.

I swept through immigration with a Spanish greeting to the officer, I pressed el botón before a customs agent had a chance to ask, the entreaties of the unauthorized taxi drivers scarcely cracked my calm, the bus agent didn’t once give me a what-is-this-gringo-saying look and during the pre-bus ride search I was not, I am happy to report, the cause of humor—though unlike last time, the screeners simply walked me and the rest of the passengers through a metal detector. Nevertheless, I was walking back into Mexico.

I write this from a hotel room in Puebla, Mexico’s fourth largest city and, as is so often the case, the capital of the state of the same name. My room is perhaps eight by 12 feet and yet manages, in my traveler’s conceit, to house a metaphor for Mexico.

A rug-like array of green and yellow tiles carpet the room and extending halfway up the walls. A couple sturdy, semi-ornate wooden chairs upholstered in convincing faux leather sit along the wall. And out the window there is an open air shaft reaching from the first floor to the sky. In these you have colonial Mexico. Yet, from above shines a circular fluorescent tube in the middle of a plastic-paneled ceiling. And to look into the air shaft, you have to open a sliding frosted pane with a faux wood handle. So, modernizing, mid-80s Mexico is here too. But we’re not finished. A black wire tied in a loose noose protrudes from where the pristine ceiling meets the left wall. This wall also holds the room’s only electrical outlet. And all over the room, white plaster gapes from holes where tiles have fallen from the walls. Thus, Mexico imperfecto* has a grip on both eras. So besides me, my laptop and my huge backpack, I fancy the room holds history, modernity and disorder. It’s missing any trace of Mexico’s indigenous history, but you can’t have everything in a third-floor budget hotel room in Puebla. (And if you’re really into the metaphor, you might say the absence is telling).

False metaphor? You tell me.

*My original post had 'basico' in this spot which, as I realized after posting it, is a false amigo, or a word that does not have the same significance in Spanish as in English.