Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Experiencing the Best of Mexican Medicine
Good Idea: Go to Mexico and experience a different culture.
Bad Idea: Live out of a tent and eat raw fish.
Good Idea: Drink lots of water and maintain hygiene.
Bad Idea: Bath in a lake and become hopelessly dehydrated.
Good Idea: Visit a well known doctor and receive treatment immediately.
Bad Idea: Try to wait out the sickness eating nothing but Jell-O for 5 days, still living out of a tent and getting hopelessly sick throughout the night.
Should I continue with my list or just conclude that hind sight is 20/20 and in the throes of what might be the worse sickness in your life -yes, this even surpasses the 104F fever of youth when in delirium I was subjected by older brother and friends to a PBS´ marathon of Red Dwarf- clear thinking somehow isn´t an option. However, after day 5 and the incessant prompting of my friends, I make my way into Santa Maria and to the hospital for treatment.
I arrive and am placed in a chair by a vending machine. ¡Toma Sus Pastillas! -Take your pills! Courtesy of the government of the state of Nayarit. For about $3.00 US, I can choose from a variety of vending machine medicines to self medicate any illness. Unfortunately, every package looks the same and the medicine names are generic and mysterious. This vending machine has gotten me out of nothing, I still have to visit the doctor.
I am called up to the counter and am asked questions in Spanish that I am having a hard time answering. What is my name? "Katie Trembley. No, with a ´T´... I´ll just write it." What is wrong with me? "I can´t eat, I feel sick." Why doesn´t the education system in the United States teach practical words that one will actually use upon visiting a foreign country, like vomit, diahrea, dehydration, and death bed?
The interrogation stops and I am called into a side room by the same receptionist who appears to also be a doctor. At first it was hard to tell her true identity, as she was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but she puts on a white lab coat before laying me on an examination table and poking at my stomach. Stomach infection! she declares. I am informed that this happens to many travelers with climate and food change. She prescribes me three different medicines, gives me the complete dose of one, charges me 25 pesos, or $2.50 US, and sends me on my way.
After stopping by the pharmacy for the two other pills, my friend and I sit at a restaurant while I prepare to take my first does of Mexican medication. One of Type A- three times a day. Two of Type B- three times a day. Two of Type C- three times a day. As I hold a handful of 5 pills I realize that I will be taking 15 mysterious white pills per day. For a complete medical treatment of under $5.00 US, you can bet these pills are not sugar coated. The whole cocktail goes down with water, tasting very ugly. I order rice, already feeling sick but also optimistic about my condition. The first bite touches my lips and I´m off to the bathroom. Water, pills, and not much else reappear and I am miserable on another bathroom floor. I try to eat at the prompting of my friend, but after three trips to the bathroom, I finally give up and stay wrapped around the toilet.
"Am I pregnant?" the cook asks. She is an older señora appearing to be in her early 60´s. My friend answers no for me. "Would I like a stomach massage?" Barely aware of my surroundings I think, Sure, why not?
The señora has been taught the art of healing through massage and would like to help me. I follow her through the kitchen to a little room by the refrigerator. She takes off her apron and clears away papers, small toys, and not-so-clean looking clothing from atop a massage table and asks me to lay down. Mexico is so weird, I think, as the restaurant-cook-turned-healer applies pleasant smelling oil to my stomach. I am burning a fever and nearing delirium, so I just lay back as if my current situation is normal. The señora claims that I have many bad places in my stomach and begins to work them out. I am thankful for a place to rest and can not turn down a stomach massage, regardless of how random it appears. Five feet away, rice boils away on the stove.
The señora has me turn over, cracks my back and invites me to rest. I am told the bathroom is near, should I need it, and that I can take as much time as necessary. I fall asleep, already feeling like I am in the midst of a strange dream.
Some unknown amount of time later, I awake to the heart-warming clank and rattle of kitchen sounds. I´m still in the back of a Mexican restaurant sleeping on a massage table. I´m still terribly sick. In a last ditch attempt to make my exotic year of travel through Mexico a success, I decide to return to the hospital.
The doctor lays me back on the table and tells me that I need to eat. I hate needles, but I barely flinch or move my arm as the doctor injects me with some unknown substance. I am left to rest for several minutes, but the injection doesn´t seem to be helping and I start to notice the Grim Reaper smiling through the window. Am I to die in Mexico listening to a mariachi wail away in Spanish and thinking how every one of these mariachi songs sounds exactly like the other? I am shuffled to a room where the doctor-receptionist prepares an IV for my very small and dehydrated veins. The task is difficult and I now have another doctor digging a needle around my arm in search of my vein after failing with both hands and my wrist. After another failed attempt, I decide that through adrenaline alone I am feeling better and decide to return to the lake and my diet of Jell-O to wait for death.
Today, I experienced the best of Mexican medicine old and new. I´m curious to see if either has an impact on my health.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Katie´s Incredibly Uncomfortable Weightloss Plan
Go to Mexico. Get really, really sick. Eat nothing for 5 days. Lose up to 10 lbs.
Friday, June 25, 2010
No Hay Prisa
Nearly every morning I wake up to the scratch-scratching of brooms. Restaurant workers sweep the dirt off their open air restaurants. Hotel keepers scratch the stone patios of their establishments. In one hour the scratching will stop and the three song overlay of mariachis lamenting lost loves will sound from three different points around the lake. The restaurants are open and ready to serve. This is the sound of Santa Maria waiting.
During the rainy season, business would be considered slow. People filter down from Santa Maria proper throughout the day and more so on the weekend, but mostly restaurants are held in waiting. It is the same for my artesan travel companions. They set up their tables when the restaurants open and close them down when the people leave. Sometimes people buy a necklace or several bracelets, but most of the time is spent sitting and talking in the shade. If the sales go well, we eat in the restaurant. If the sales are slow, we throw rocks at mangos. Such is life here.
Not much is different in Santa Maria proper. The taxis wait for the people who sit across the street in the shade waiting for the taxi. My North American rush-everywhere instincts tell me that somewhere there is a disconnect in communication, but I decide to keep silent and go with the flow, waiting in the shade and writing. Food vendors swat at flies with towels, talking with other food vendors and waiting. Store owners sit on their front steps, smoking or watching the futbol game with other shop owners.
Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
Or maybe it only looks like waiting to a mind trained in movement of progress. In the United States, I was constantly rushing, striving toward that ever distant goal of who knows what with an arrival time of who knows when. I would skip meals to save time, cut out sleep at night for more production. Little by little I chiseled away at the reserves in my body until I would crash for whole days and weekends. None of this left me happy or healthy. I think perhaps there is a secret in this Mexican way of life. Perhaps life is what is important and work just happen-chances along the way.
No hay prisa- there is no rush. I finished my very first piece of woven jewelry yesterday. It took me nearly all day, but I am 100% content with my production rate. My friends and I celebrated the success of my labors with Coca Cola´s in the shade, waiting for the next person to happen-chance upon our handiwork.
During the rainy season, business would be considered slow. People filter down from Santa Maria proper throughout the day and more so on the weekend, but mostly restaurants are held in waiting. It is the same for my artesan travel companions. They set up their tables when the restaurants open and close them down when the people leave. Sometimes people buy a necklace or several bracelets, but most of the time is spent sitting and talking in the shade. If the sales go well, we eat in the restaurant. If the sales are slow, we throw rocks at mangos. Such is life here.
Not much is different in Santa Maria proper. The taxis wait for the people who sit across the street in the shade waiting for the taxi. My North American rush-everywhere instincts tell me that somewhere there is a disconnect in communication, but I decide to keep silent and go with the flow, waiting in the shade and writing. Food vendors swat at flies with towels, talking with other food vendors and waiting. Store owners sit on their front steps, smoking or watching the futbol game with other shop owners.
Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
Or maybe it only looks like waiting to a mind trained in movement of progress. In the United States, I was constantly rushing, striving toward that ever distant goal of who knows what with an arrival time of who knows when. I would skip meals to save time, cut out sleep at night for more production. Little by little I chiseled away at the reserves in my body until I would crash for whole days and weekends. None of this left me happy or healthy. I think perhaps there is a secret in this Mexican way of life. Perhaps life is what is important and work just happen-chances along the way.
No hay prisa- there is no rush. I finished my very first piece of woven jewelry yesterday. It took me nearly all day, but I am 100% content with my production rate. My friends and I celebrated the success of my labors with Coca Cola´s in the shade, waiting for the next person to happen-chance upon our handiwork.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Mi Primera Ducha en Mexico
En Mexico, no hay duchas. Todos esperan para ducharse en la lluvia.
"In Mexico, there an not showers. Everyone waits to shower in the rain." This is how my friend suggested I start my post regarding my first shower in Mexico, four days after arriving. We are sitting near the lake on plastic lawn chairs in our swimming suits with our toiletries standing in waiting between us. The only thing lacking is the rain, but the clouds and angering sky promise that soon our waiting will not be in vain. The rain is on its way.
Of course, there are showers and bathrooms in Mexico and the general population has only the best hygiene. But we are living the traveling life of hippies and hygiene takes a second to price of accomodations. While camping, we have no bathrooms, showers or mirrors aside from that which nature decides to provide. For the sake of my tent mate and all those that come in contact with my increasingly strong stench, I hope that today nature provides me with a shower.
The clouds are grey and boiling in the sky across the lake. Dusk has arrived and everything is cast in the eery yellow light of a fading day. Night ís good for us. We can shower in the privacy of dark speckled with flickering fireflies. Now we have night, toiletries, and swimming suits all ready and waiting for the rain.
A bolt of lightening followed by a peal of earsplitting thunder roll across the lake. The rain starts not in the gentle sprinkle of "Hey, you should probably take cover now and thanks for waiting" but in the sudden downpour of "I hate the earth and here is your stupid water." Thank you, rain.
My friend and I jump into action, starting with a swim in the lake. The water is as warm as bathwater and I wonder why I waited four days to dip into the gloriousness of full body emersed in water. Shampoo and soap rinsed by the rain, warmed by the lake. Surely this is paradise. Another bolt of lightening and peal of thunder light the lake. Perhaps this is not paradise afterall and my well educated senses suggest that perhaps I should not be swimming in a lake in the midst of a lightening storm.
We finish, thank the world for providing us with a much needed cleansing, and head to the tents to dry our ourselves under the trees, squeaky clean and happy. This is my primera ducha en Mexico, and it was more than worth the four day wait.
Tough Decisions with Bad Language
When you speak little to no Spanish, something as simple as a trip to town alone can leave you with a difficult decision: Is it better to hitch-hike out of town or walk 18 km back to the lake with about an hour and a half of light remaining in the day? Already doubting my failed language skills, I opt for the walk and start my journey.
The miscommunication was simple. At 2:00 in the afternoon, I caught the Cambi from the rustic lake village into Santa Maria proper. A Cambi is a 15-passanger van that acts as a bus system between small villages. I planned to use the internet for the first time since my arrival in Mexico to write a quick blog post and send hellos and well wishes to my friends and family. The driver was insistent, because today was Sunday, the last ride down to the lake was at 5:00. Of course, I deducted this information from hand gestures and understanding words at a 1:10 ratio rather than any direct form of communication. I had three hours in town to experience Mexican life before heading back to the encampment of my artesan friends.
The day was successful. I found an internet cafe and wrote my salutations. I walked around the town and took pictures. I found an old church and watched four kids play futbol in the courtyard. Old men napped in the shade. Youth flirted near the tiendas. At 4:45 I made my way to the Cambi stop, not wanting to be stranded in town for the night. I sat in the shade of an orange tree and watched a wasp fight some ants for a bit of fallen candy.
At 5:10 the Cambi showed up, dropped off a van full of people and parked in the shade. I collected my belongings and prepared to leave. The driver, an older man with a large cowboy hat and mango stuffed in his button-up shirt pocket, got out of the Cambi and walked over to me. He started talking to me in what appeared to be harsh words. I gathered enough to realize my error. His last ride from the lake to Santa Maria ended at 5:00 and he was done working for the day. I wondered what my options were before he made it clear to me. "Go to the corner and hitch a ride." "Great, thanks for the tip. I think Í´ll walk." I started out, wondering how much I should tell my parents and feeling unjustly frustrated at the Cambi driver.
The first 3 km were easy and flat. I walked a trail that sat closer to the fields of tequila plants than the road and enjoyed the rural scenery at my slow pedestrian pace. Occassionally, I would happen upon a group of drunk city folk who insisted on cat-calling and offering cervezas in broken English. As much as I would have liked to join them, my light was waning and I had a long way to go.
At kilometer three, the road winds back and forth down a very steep decline. One side of the road is a rock wall heading up, the other is a steep drop through Mexican vegetation heading down. With little or no shoulder, I keep my ears tuned to traffic noise and switch sides of the road accordingly. Most of the traffic is leaving the lake for the night so my chances at catching a ride, should I want it, appear very slim. At some point, the lake peeks into view and gives testimony to the fact that I am still very, very far away. I walk on, avoiding eye contact with the passing vehicles and realizing how strange it is for anybody to be walking this road, yet alone a sunburned guera like myself.
After nearly an hour and a half of walking, an SUV passes me and slams on its breaks. By this time, it is just past 7:00 and the sun has all but set. A woman driver asks me if I am going to the lake and if I would like a ride. "Sí, muchas gracias." I crawl over her grade-school daughter to the middle of the back seat. The driver´s mother is in the front seat and her two children are in the back. The front seat is talking rapidly in Spanish and I understand nothing except that they are talking about me. Suddenly, the girl next to me, about six years old, lets out a frustrated sigh and turns to me.
"War gon?" She is speaking English to me at the prompting of her mother.
"El lago," I respond in Spanish and apologize for my lack of language skills.
"War fom?" Ah, where am I from?
"Los Estados Unidos" I respond to follow with, "...err, Norteamericano...a." I remember reading somewhere how insulting it is to Mexicans when North Americans refer to themselves as the United States.
More Spanish from the front seat and rapid protests from the daughter. I gather that the woman driver wants to know where to drop me off and the daughter is now refusing to act as interpreter. I answer ther restaurant closest to my encampment and the woman seems satisfied with my response but continues to harrass her daughter.
Finally, as we arrive and the car slows, the little girls asks me, "Cun you nundstan me?"
"Yes," I answer her in English, "You speak English very well." She beams a toothless smile at me while I thank the mother driver for taking pity on me, shortening my long walk by nearly 10 km, and returning me safely to my friends. "Gracias," I say. I really have to get this Spanish thing under control, I think, as I walk into camp and to the relieved smiles of my four worried friends.
The miscommunication was simple. At 2:00 in the afternoon, I caught the Cambi from the rustic lake village into Santa Maria proper. A Cambi is a 15-passanger van that acts as a bus system between small villages. I planned to use the internet for the first time since my arrival in Mexico to write a quick blog post and send hellos and well wishes to my friends and family. The driver was insistent, because today was Sunday, the last ride down to the lake was at 5:00. Of course, I deducted this information from hand gestures and understanding words at a 1:10 ratio rather than any direct form of communication. I had three hours in town to experience Mexican life before heading back to the encampment of my artesan friends.
The day was successful. I found an internet cafe and wrote my salutations. I walked around the town and took pictures. I found an old church and watched four kids play futbol in the courtyard. Old men napped in the shade. Youth flirted near the tiendas. At 4:45 I made my way to the Cambi stop, not wanting to be stranded in town for the night. I sat in the shade of an orange tree and watched a wasp fight some ants for a bit of fallen candy.
At 5:10 the Cambi showed up, dropped off a van full of people and parked in the shade. I collected my belongings and prepared to leave. The driver, an older man with a large cowboy hat and mango stuffed in his button-up shirt pocket, got out of the Cambi and walked over to me. He started talking to me in what appeared to be harsh words. I gathered enough to realize my error. His last ride from the lake to Santa Maria ended at 5:00 and he was done working for the day. I wondered what my options were before he made it clear to me. "Go to the corner and hitch a ride." "Great, thanks for the tip. I think Í´ll walk." I started out, wondering how much I should tell my parents and feeling unjustly frustrated at the Cambi driver.
The first 3 km were easy and flat. I walked a trail that sat closer to the fields of tequila plants than the road and enjoyed the rural scenery at my slow pedestrian pace. Occassionally, I would happen upon a group of drunk city folk who insisted on cat-calling and offering cervezas in broken English. As much as I would have liked to join them, my light was waning and I had a long way to go.
At kilometer three, the road winds back and forth down a very steep decline. One side of the road is a rock wall heading up, the other is a steep drop through Mexican vegetation heading down. With little or no shoulder, I keep my ears tuned to traffic noise and switch sides of the road accordingly. Most of the traffic is leaving the lake for the night so my chances at catching a ride, should I want it, appear very slim. At some point, the lake peeks into view and gives testimony to the fact that I am still very, very far away. I walk on, avoiding eye contact with the passing vehicles and realizing how strange it is for anybody to be walking this road, yet alone a sunburned guera like myself.
After nearly an hour and a half of walking, an SUV passes me and slams on its breaks. By this time, it is just past 7:00 and the sun has all but set. A woman driver asks me if I am going to the lake and if I would like a ride. "Sí, muchas gracias." I crawl over her grade-school daughter to the middle of the back seat. The driver´s mother is in the front seat and her two children are in the back. The front seat is talking rapidly in Spanish and I understand nothing except that they are talking about me. Suddenly, the girl next to me, about six years old, lets out a frustrated sigh and turns to me.
"War gon?" She is speaking English to me at the prompting of her mother.
"El lago," I respond in Spanish and apologize for my lack of language skills.
"War fom?" Ah, where am I from?
"Los Estados Unidos" I respond to follow with, "...err, Norteamericano...a." I remember reading somewhere how insulting it is to Mexicans when North Americans refer to themselves as the United States.
More Spanish from the front seat and rapid protests from the daughter. I gather that the woman driver wants to know where to drop me off and the daughter is now refusing to act as interpreter. I answer ther restaurant closest to my encampment and the woman seems satisfied with my response but continues to harrass her daughter.
Finally, as we arrive and the car slows, the little girls asks me, "Cun you nundstan me?"
"Yes," I answer her in English, "You speak English very well." She beams a toothless smile at me while I thank the mother driver for taking pity on me, shortening my long walk by nearly 10 km, and returning me safely to my friends. "Gracias," I say. I really have to get this Spanish thing under control, I think, as I walk into camp and to the relieved smiles of my four worried friends.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
How Mexico Survives
I had once thought that in the tropics, or warmer climates in general, everything is fighting everything else for survival. Walking through the jungles of Costa Rica, I found one plant growing on another plant growing on a tree dripping from another tree that feeds itself from the decaying masses of more plants. The levels of vegetation in the rainforest are infinitely falling in on each other. While Mexico lacks the same fecundity at the end of their dry season, I see hits of the same in the shores beside this mountain lake. I can take a square foot of space anywhere around the lake and find a plethora of plants and a multitude of insects. But here, survival is not really the issue and I grow increasingly more confident that Mexico, or at least the lake at Santa Maria del Oro, wants everything to survive.
I start my argument with the bottom of the food chain. I´m not really sure what insects eat aside from the lower half of my legs, but apparently there is enough of this mysterious food source. There are bugs everywhere! Butterflies, flies, ants, spiders, bugs with scary looking legs, bugs with pretty shells, bugs that look like very small animals. The background music to this Mexican landscape is the constant buzz and hum of its many legged occupants.
Next in line on the chain of survival seem to be the birds and fish, both feasting on the ready buffet of 1000 different kinds of insects. The birds get off free because as far as I can tell, nothing eats them. Their purpose is to build nests, sing songs, and keep the insect population in check - a task in which they seem to be failing, scream my legs from below my knee high, insect protective socks. The fish in the lake have a meal set for them throughout the day and night, as insects scatter the glassy top of the lake, awaiting death either by water or consumption. They thrash their legs in protest, but I know that just three feet away in any direction, there are ten or more insects exactly them willing to carry on the genes of their species. Survival is not a challenge but a given.
The people of Santa Maria are included in the loving embrace of Mexico´s abundance. Ths morning, I watched two boys launch a barely water safe boat into the lake. Within a couple hours, they will return with twenty or more fish. We plan to buy four fish for twenty-five pesos, the equivalent to $2.50. The rest of the fish will be sold to the surrounding restaurants for ceviche, fish tacos and other delicious fish dishes. Should our fishermen return with abundance, our fish will be cooked over a campfire, seasoned with salt and lime and eaten with fresh tortillas.
From my observation, the other food source of Santa Maria is wild mangos. Mango trees are everywhere, bursting with fruit waiting to be knocked down with rocks and sticks. Locals do this throughout the day as everyone seems to have a mango stashed somewhere on their their person. My prefered method of mango retrieval is a good medium sized rock, but I have seen everything from brooms stuck in trees to forked sticks laying along the side of the road. If you do not mind a minimal diet of fish and mangos, it seems a person could spend their days in lazy foraging and sleeping in the shade. If you want more of this, you need money.
At the mention of money, Mexico withdraws her embrace and turns an insulted face away. Should variety outside of survival be desired, money is necessary. But money is a little harder to come across.
I start my argument with the bottom of the food chain. I´m not really sure what insects eat aside from the lower half of my legs, but apparently there is enough of this mysterious food source. There are bugs everywhere! Butterflies, flies, ants, spiders, bugs with scary looking legs, bugs with pretty shells, bugs that look like very small animals. The background music to this Mexican landscape is the constant buzz and hum of its many legged occupants.
Next in line on the chain of survival seem to be the birds and fish, both feasting on the ready buffet of 1000 different kinds of insects. The birds get off free because as far as I can tell, nothing eats them. Their purpose is to build nests, sing songs, and keep the insect population in check - a task in which they seem to be failing, scream my legs from below my knee high, insect protective socks. The fish in the lake have a meal set for them throughout the day and night, as insects scatter the glassy top of the lake, awaiting death either by water or consumption. They thrash their legs in protest, but I know that just three feet away in any direction, there are ten or more insects exactly them willing to carry on the genes of their species. Survival is not a challenge but a given.
The people of Santa Maria are included in the loving embrace of Mexico´s abundance. Ths morning, I watched two boys launch a barely water safe boat into the lake. Within a couple hours, they will return with twenty or more fish. We plan to buy four fish for twenty-five pesos, the equivalent to $2.50. The rest of the fish will be sold to the surrounding restaurants for ceviche, fish tacos and other delicious fish dishes. Should our fishermen return with abundance, our fish will be cooked over a campfire, seasoned with salt and lime and eaten with fresh tortillas.
From my observation, the other food source of Santa Maria is wild mangos. Mango trees are everywhere, bursting with fruit waiting to be knocked down with rocks and sticks. Locals do this throughout the day as everyone seems to have a mango stashed somewhere on their their person. My prefered method of mango retrieval is a good medium sized rock, but I have seen everything from brooms stuck in trees to forked sticks laying along the side of the road. If you do not mind a minimal diet of fish and mangos, it seems a person could spend their days in lazy foraging and sleeping in the shade. If you want more of this, you need money.
At the mention of money, Mexico withdraws her embrace and turns an insulted face away. Should variety outside of survival be desired, money is necessary. But money is a little harder to come across.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
My First Post From Mexico
I flew into Mexico on June 15th with only a backpack and a desire for adventure. I have no return ticket and would like to stay south for a year or more, but other than desire and a very loose itinerary to guide my path, I´m leaving everything up to God´s will and the Fates.
What does one pack for a year of travel in Mexico? I have no idea, but apparently I have brought too much. My travel campanions, four artesans harkening from different parts of Mexico, laugh at the weight and uselessness of my bag. In a day or two (please read this liberally, meaning up to a week), I plan to half my personal belongings and invest in a few jewelry making materials, mostly threads, seeds, feathers and metal.
My lfe is simple now. I camp under a large tree that drops rotten smelling fruit onto my tent throughout the night. I eat wild growing mangos that I fetch with rocks and sticks like a monkey. My aim has gotten incredibly precise. I bath myself in the lake less often than I am happy to admit. In this small town by the lake in the mountains, nearly everyone recognizes me and greets me with smiles as I pass. Here, I am the dirty white girl that sleeps under the tree, speaks broken and bad Spanish, and bathes herself in the lake. It´s a title I can´t nor desire to deny, so I accept the stereotype of hippi with a smile and nod. I love it here.
Right now, the working plan is to stay at the lake in Santa Maria del Oro for a week and a half before journeying to Mexico City for jewelry supplies and a brief history lesson of Colonial Mexico. After several days in the city, it is on to Oaxaca. Pictures and stories to come, when I can find an internet cafe with computers that accept memory cards.
Adios for now, my friends!
What does one pack for a year of travel in Mexico? I have no idea, but apparently I have brought too much. My travel campanions, four artesans harkening from different parts of Mexico, laugh at the weight and uselessness of my bag. In a day or two (please read this liberally, meaning up to a week), I plan to half my personal belongings and invest in a few jewelry making materials, mostly threads, seeds, feathers and metal.
My lfe is simple now. I camp under a large tree that drops rotten smelling fruit onto my tent throughout the night. I eat wild growing mangos that I fetch with rocks and sticks like a monkey. My aim has gotten incredibly precise. I bath myself in the lake less often than I am happy to admit. In this small town by the lake in the mountains, nearly everyone recognizes me and greets me with smiles as I pass. Here, I am the dirty white girl that sleeps under the tree, speaks broken and bad Spanish, and bathes herself in the lake. It´s a title I can´t nor desire to deny, so I accept the stereotype of hippi with a smile and nod. I love it here.
Right now, the working plan is to stay at the lake in Santa Maria del Oro for a week and a half before journeying to Mexico City for jewelry supplies and a brief history lesson of Colonial Mexico. After several days in the city, it is on to Oaxaca. Pictures and stories to come, when I can find an internet cafe with computers that accept memory cards.
Adios for now, my friends!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Goodbyes and Good Riddance
It's an odd feeling to go through your already small room and get rid of everything you have stacked up and stored away for 27 years. First go the clothes and books that you don't find absolutely necessary. Then with a little more anxiety, the clothes and books that do seem necessary. Next go the toiletries you won't use, but still feel are wrongly labelled as trash because they could be used, someday. With "necessity" and "someday" now in ever growing garbage bags, you move to the furniture. Easier to part with beds and dressers emotionally, but by sheer volume they make themselves troublesome. Two stops at two different second-hand stores later and you are left with the unexpected layer, sentimentality.
You neither need nor want the raging letter correspondence of Summer 2006, the countless mixed tapes, or the ridiculous photos trapped in happily-ever-after. But there they seem to be, at the bottom of every drawer, box and folder. You put them off, instead going through and throwing out tax returns, pay stubs from 2005 and old term papers on Keats and gender. Soon your possessions, your life work of 27 years, fit hap-hazardly into five pregnant trash bags. They flank the walls of your room like an overweight audience, waiting to see if you have the strength to continue. You are at the center of your room, surrounded by a tornado of papers that should be meaningless. It is now that you decide the importance of life change.
Here is my advice to you: Start with the best relationship first. As you hold a book of poetry or a favorite letter in your hand, think about the long and messy break-up or ever approaching wedding. When you land on a particularly grand and happy picture, think of the late night fights and all the times you were made to cry. Then let them go with the memories into a trash bag that looks like all the others. With the best of the worse times out of the way, the rest of the relationships slip from your fingers. Before you know it, pictures and promises and every lie you believed as true is in that trash bag and ready to be gone forever. Grab the red ties, cinch the bag closed and rid yourself of the burden of a thousand heartbreaks. As you cry from exhaustion and emotion, feel the growing strength of a you crawling from the rubble, still in one piece in spite of this lonely journey. Be that strong and dust covered you and clear your throat with a Nalgene full of water.
Grab your backpack, start the car. With the steering wheel in one hand and your prayer rope in the other, let the yellow lines wash over you in three foot sections, increasing speed with your speed until they blur to something consistent, constant. As your direction veers south and you drive, perhaps for good and perhaps still crying, feel the cool wind finger your unfettered hair and drink down the freedom of the darkening night sky.
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