as the sun sets

In approximately 16 hours, I will be boarding a plane in Leon to head back to the United States. A few thoughts:

This afternoon we had a despedida, which is basically just a big catered dinner, with all of the students, our families, and a few friends that we´ve made here in the last few weeks. We all gave our madres flowers, and shared short words of gratitude for welcoming us into their homes and lives. I feel so incompetent. How do you tell someone thank you for giving everything they have, both materially, emotionally, and spiritually, to help you experience their culture and country? Especially with all of the bumps in the road that the Valdepeña family experienced this month, I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

After the dinner, we came back to the house and gave our family gifts that we brought from our respective hometowns. The four of us are all from various parts of Washington, so nothing was distinctly unique. Sarah gave the family a mug made from the ash of Mt. St. Helens, and then we showed them pictures online of the eruption. We also showed them pictures of our families and of Whitworth. After spending so much time emersed in someone else´s family, it was refreshing to be able to talk about our own family structures and way of life.

Over our game of Dominoes and hot chocolate, we discussed the war in Iraq. It seems like everyone in the world except Americans knows what is happening with our country. Our family here is very knowledgable about American politics, and thinks that Bush is pretty much the worst thing since cold tortillas. I also shared with them my brother´s experiences in the war. I am saddened by the fact that I´ve talked more about the war in Iraq and my opinion of it with a family in Mexico than I have in my own country, where my words could make a difference. This trip has definitely motivated me to stay informed about American foreign policy.

I watched the sunset tonight, and cried a little inside because it was probably the last time I will see the sun for a good 3 months. Maybe my sunburn will just freeze off when I get home.

vivo mi

This is the phrase that our mexican friends will remember me for: Vivo mi, or I live. I said it on Friday during la comida. Some people nearby were shooting off crazy loud fireworks, and our professor at one point shouted ¡vive mèxico! I decided that my life was more important than a whole country, because I´m selfish and American like that, hence my response to his exclamation. Now anytime we see Franscesco or Hiraldo, they greet me with my infamous quote. Delightful.

In other news, Claudia is slowly on the mend. She came home from the hospital late Thursday night, and is getting back a little more color each day. We feel a little guilty for seeming like a burden, but we try to be as helpful as possible. All of our group was encouraged to prepare a meal for our families at some point, so we made our chicken parmesan yesterday afternoon. I don´t even usually like chicken, but that´s the magical touch of Erin´s cooking. It was delicious. Unfortunately the family didn´t take to it quite like moths to a lightbulb, but they were really grateful for the break from the kitchen. At any rate, I got a meal that didn´t consist of beans and flavorless cheese.

bacon, served crispy

We went to the temples at Telohuacan (butchered the spelling) yesterday. It was really the first time I´ve visited anything super ancient, so that was pretty cool. They were built sometime around 150 AD, but possibly earlier. The Telohuacanian people built the complex, which is said to be the first sign of a muli-faceted city center in indigenous Mexico. The Aztecs discovered the site and named it 400 years later. The temples look pretty much like your stereotypical Aztec or Mayan ruins: a trapezoidal shaped pyramid with steps going up at least one side. (If you´ve seen The Road to El Dorado, it´s pretty much dead on.) We climbed both the temples to the sun and moon gods, as well as explored some of the other structures.

The only thing they forget to mention is that when you build a temple to the god of the sun, it means you get really really close to the sun. And then you get burned.

It was overcast when we got off the bus and was actually supposed to rain, so none of us slathered on the usual layer of sunscreen. But then an hour later, when it got sunny and toasty outside, we thought nothing of it when we took off our sweatshirts and various outerwear. All I can say is, I hope I don´t have to rotate my shoulders anytime soon. The damage is less than I expected last night when I took my clothes off and realized that my skin was the equivalent color of a pomegranate seed. But at this point, it´s really only my shoulders that took the brute of the beating. What can you do.

There aren´t words in any language

Our host mother, Claudia, hasn´t gotten out of bed for two days. In June 2006, her oldest son died in a pilot school accident in Canada. The family seems to be doing well, in fact, we didn´t even know about it until we´d been here almost a week. But sometimes she gets into bouts of depression, and pretty much is unable to function.

Earlier this afternoon, her husband and daughter took her to a hospital in Leon, a town about half an hour away. Her sister Monica lives with the family to keep the mother company (her children are grown and on their own, and her husband died several years ago.) She doesn´t cook at all, so for la comida today we had Mexican fast food, from El Pollo Feliz (the Happy Chicken). It was a little comical, until we found out why we weren´t eating a typical afternoon meal.

There is nothing we can say or do. It´s the worst feeling in the world: to be helpless.

delayed culture shock

I´m currently sitting here, eating cookies and watching 24, which is my new addition unfortunately. This morning I just hit the point of needing some familiar comforts, like the simple ability to get a cookie out of a cubbord. After class, Erin and I went to a little coffee shop (totally americanized, what can I say) and were talking about our frustrations and just observations about our experiences in our first 9 days here.

A problem, or at least bump in the road, that I had not anticipated was the almost reverse racism that exists here against gringos, or white people. It´s not necessarily exclusive to Americans, just white foreigners in general. It happens in the littlest things, and the more obvious situations as well. For example, we have to take a taxi to and from our house to get into the city every day. If say how much we will pay, we can usually get the lowest price. But if we ask the driver how much it will cost, he almost always raises the price at least 10 pesos from what a mexican patron would be charged. Part of it is because people assume that we don´t understand Spanish, but most of the time it´s simply because we`re white girls.

There is an unconcious feeling a lot of the time in America that all of our culture is negative and in order to actually be concsiencious citizens, we should try to live more like other cultures. I agree that experiencing another culture is an enriching and essential experience for anyone who wants to be a more compassionate and educated human being. But this shouldn´t necessarily come at the expense of all that you consider comfortable, in the sense of things you know. I´m not saying that just because something is familiar makes it okay to pursue. But the fact that I`m obsessed with my planner and schedules, and I like having regular meals 3 times a day doesn´t mean I´m an ignorant, selfish American. I´m allowed to have a positive culture, and to take a healthy amount of pride in my upbringing and own cultural experiences and tendencies. One is not more or less correct than the other. It´s just different.

los muchachos

Although there are many stories I could include at this point, I´ve chosen to focus on one cultural aspect of Mexican life that I wasn´t exactly expecting: the men. We´ve been talking in class a lot about el machisimo, which is the idea of pride and macho personalities that is stereotypical of hispanic men, but is actually very prevelant in daily life here. Domestic violence is a huge problem, but not one that is very openly discussed in mixed company. It´s not so much the beat to a pulp sort of image you get in the U.S., but more of a slapping around to assert possession and power. (Note: none of this is from experience with my host family, merely class discussions and other observations.) Oftentimes, men see their wife´s job or other friends as potential hotspots for infidelity, and sometimes even prohibit their spouses from working outside of the home because of this fear.

But behind these tangible examples is a mindset that drives so much of the culture. Marriage, or even a committed dating relationship, is not necessarily a binding contract. Even when we are out dancing or just hanging out with some mexican guys our age that we met at the university, the idea that many of us have boyfriends or girlfriends is not seen as important to them, or at least not a reason to not get hot and heavy with someone else. It´s a mindset that if I want something, then there is no reason I shouldn´t be able to get it. I´m still working out why this happens and the larger implications for mexican society, but it´s a question that I don´t think is going to have an easy answer.

hola

Greetings from Mexico! I´m sitting at a comfortable 75-80 degrees during the day, with cool nights. I haven´t seen a cloud since I got here Saturday afternoon. The house I´m staying is pretty much a freaking mansion. So far I´ve counted 4 full bathrooms, 5 televisions (flatscreen, of course) and all the conveniences of any upper class American home, except for a dissapointing lack of hot water for a morning shower. The maid comes every day, and she folds and organizes all of Erin and my crap, so life isn´t bad at all. And the family has a ton of animals, including a cat (misi) and three parakeets that our madre described as `pornographico' Even if you don´t speak any Spanish, I think you get the drift. Seriously, they do each other during every meal.

Speaking excusively in Spanish is probably the most frustrating thing I´ve ever had to do. I realized pretty fast that the vocab you learn in american classes is not necessarily what you need to know how to say on the streets of Guanajuato. For example, the fact that I can name all of my school supplies and class subjects does me jack squat if I´m trying to tell a taxi driver how to get to my house. It´s really tempting to slip back into English when the group is hanging out, but for the most part I try to stay in spanish. Plus, switching back and forth all the time gets really confusing, and exhausting.

The city is an old colonial town, and actually has special rules against types of modernization (stoplights, etc.) because it´s a fairly hot spot for tourists. It´s also very hilly, which hopefully will be a benefit for the size of my thighs when I get back. Most everything is in el centro, so basically you just walk around downtown all day and look at shops and stuff. When went out for the first time, we ended up dancing with a group of students from George Mason University that are here doing essentially the same thing as us. Like I said, there are a lot of americans here. We took a salsa dancing class at the Univeristy, and all I have to say is, salsa dancing with your post-middle aged sweaty professor is more awkward than you could ever imagine. But alas, there is a shortage of men in our group so I took what I was given. and yesterday we went back in the afternoon for a 2-hour more advanced session. There were a lot of mexican muchachos (boys) there, and afterward we all went out for drinks. They are without a doubt the most flirtatious people I have ever met in my life. They didn´t understand why when I said I had a boyfriend, that meant I only had one. Hay, caramba.

Probably the most interesting cultural difference is that the days last FOREVER. With the exception of our 2-hour morning language class, most everything is at a general time. And since we get up around 7 and don´t go to bed until 11 or later, the days seem to take longer than usual to end. It´s not necessarily a bad thing, but I have a feeling it´s going to get exhausting by the end of three weeks.