Running behind

I've been back form the field for 5 days now, and I have not yet posted about it. This is not because there was nothing to post about. In fact, there are enough stories to tell that I don't have time to do it now, either. This week has been busy for me. Keating and I are making arrangements to move closer to school (a 20 minute tour turned into 2 hours of surreality plus a little bit o' getting lost at night in the city), we've been trying to prepare for our first houseguests here in Mexico (my parents arrive tomorrow evening. Yay!! They're staying in a hotel, though, so I guess they're not really houseguests. Who wants to be the first real houseguest??? Our new place will actually feature a second bedroom with a full size bed as opposed to the miniature sofa-sleeper in our current living room.), and my brother has been very ill (and yes, it is both frustrating and unnerving to receive a trickle of limited information when I'm so far away that I can't even just pick up the phone and call).

That said, I hope that you are all doing great up there (or down, as applies to Craig in Australia). To tide you over, enjoy a couple of pictures form the field:

Don Tomás, the man who kicked my a$$ up a volcano last week. He is due for knee surgery

soon, and was only really slowed down by needing to use his machete to clear the path for us through the jungle. On the plus side, I was the only member of the team who managed to almost keep up with him.

A spectacular view of the volcano. I swear, San Martín Tuxtla is back there somewhere. This is as much as I saw of it, or just about anything else, last week.

And, since I feel bad without giving you a real volcano, enjoy Pico de Orizaba. This volcano is not in my field area, but we drove past it on our way there from Mexico City. That's kind of like saying I get to play a volcanologist on TV. This photo was taken from the shoulder of the interstate, 'cause geologists are way too cool to actually try to avoid being hit by passing cars.

Credit: These photos were all taken by Lourdes, my fabulous colleague and landlady. I'll see about posting mine when I find new batteries for my camera.

Off to the field

I am so excited. I'm finally getting to head out to the field and get some "real" work done. (So far, I've been doing plenty of statistics and data collection from aerial photos and digital elevation models). The team leaves Monday, and it sounds as though we will have a grueling week. So far, the plan involves staying at a hotel with a pool in Veracruz and renting horses to go up the mountain. Not bad!

In truth, no field work ever goes quite as planned. In 2007, I had to sew my backpack back together after it was partially gutted by a bear who found the apple I had forgotten from the previous day's lunch; I also got locked out of the field vehicle miles from the nearest paved road, and my PhD advisor had to smash out one of the back windows with a sledgehammer that just happened to be conveniently sitting in the truck bed. In 2008, my adviser and I ended up stuck on a small island in California without any means of making fire, one bowl, a fork, and a whole lot of soup and rice packets -- then the winds really kicked up and it looked as though we wouldn't be able to get off the island in time to catch our flight home. 2009 was the year of the black free-range cow on a moonless night. I'm glad that a) I wasn't driving lead van just then and b) I didn't have to explain to the insurance company why they were going to be buying a cow. In short: I have no idea yet what will go wrong on this field trip, but I'm waiting to be impressed.

Trapped on Negit Island, 2008. There weren't any bears, but the whole island is infested with mice or, according to my adviser, "evil robo-hamsters."

Keating, meanwhile, will be here in Mexico City. Despite being invited along (Have you seen him??? He can carry LOTS of rocks!!!), he opted to stay behind. He felt bad about leaving his students to a substitute so soon after starting teaching and worried about how it would look to his employers. For the record, when they found out about the field work his employers told him he was crazy to be staying behind and promised to find subs for him next time (he only mentioned it to them during his meeting on Friday, so there wasn't enough time to find subs for this trip).

Completely unrelated, unless I decide to interpret it as an omen: I noticed my first earthquake today. That was before I read the news about Chile and my paranoia level jumped by a few levels. My earthquake was nothing like theirs: I didn't even feel it, I just noticed that the clothes in the closet were swaying in the nonexistent breeze. To be fair, I suppose it could have just been a ghost. We have daily quakes here in Mexico City, as I recently discovered when I finally asked my boss what the obnoxious alarm sound over the building intercom was. It goes off at least once a day and sounds a bit like the high-pitched tone that immediately preceded all intercom announcements in elementary school, but everyone pointedly ignores it. It turns out that it's an alarm that sounds every time the in-building seismometers record an earthquake and serves to signal the seismologists on the floor above us that they should go check their machines. I'm giving myself another month to either a) adjust to the horrible noise or b) start a petition begging them to use an email announcement system or use a Lady Gaga ringtone instead of that beep. She's been stuck in my head for the last two weeks, anyway.

Brownies and Banks

In keeping with the plan, Keating and I made brownies last night to celebrate being given 3 months of pay. (Apparently, I'm so cool that they decided I started work in December even though my visa wasn't even approved until Dec 3 and I didn't arrive in Mexico until Dec 14, only to find out that everyone was already on Christmas Vacation.) We were a little nervous about how the brownies were going to come out since the box specifically told us to not use the only size of oven-safe dish we own for the high altitude version. Fortunately, the good people at Hershey's Brownie Mix are sissies and our brownies came out great!

That left me with one challenge left in the paycheck saga: how to actually get my bank to accept my cheque. From a cynical American perspective, this seems easy enough -- I mean, don't banks want our money??? It turns out, I was wrong. It took me three banks before they would accept my paychecks, and by bank 2 I was getting nervous that maybe my brownies were a little preemptive.

The first bank, which I visited yesterday, wouldn't accept my money because they won't deposit cheques from other banks after 3 pm. It was 3:05 pm. Argh! My boss was along for this since he said that particular bank, located inside of the university megastore (the school owns its own Walmart-equivalent), wasn't terribly safe. Disconcertingly, one of me boss' friends (an adult man) was apparently mugged in the parking lot in broad daylight. Despite the current travel warnings to Mexico, this sort of thing is still considered absurd. My boss did his best to convince the guy behind the counter to take my money, but was told that the computer is actually set to prevent him from doing this after 3.

The second bank branch, visited this morning, asked me to hang out while they figured out why their computers weren't working. Admittedly, that should have been my sign to flee. One woman there was kind enough to tell me that there was another branch only 3 stoplights up the road, but I have been in Mexico long enough to know that walking that apparently short distance would be a bad idea. First, Mexicans all seem to lie about distances when giving directions. "One block" in Mexican is the equivalent to "maybe a mile?" in English. In addition, she specifically said "stoplights" and not "blocks," and I can only imagine what that distance conversion is. Finally, she grimaced when she said how far it was, further convincing me that the bank branch in question might very well be located in Texas. I sat there for about an hour being told that it would only be a couple of seconds longer. When the computers were finally deemed to be functional again, the woman behind the counter told me that she couldn't deposit my cheques because I had only brought my bank card with me and she needed to know my account number which only exists on the paperwork that the bank gave me when I first opened the account and is now locked safely away with my other documents I'm hoping not to lose. Oddly, I have not memorized this number. Adding to the frustration, Bank Branch 1 had explicitly told me at 3:05 yesterday that all I needed was my bank card.

In the end, I wound up back at Branch 1. My boss figured that I'd be safe if I went before noon, since the local criminal element apparently likes to sleep in. I waited in line for close to forever (20-30 minutes, which they made more pleasant by making sure it was at least 90 degrees there), but they finally took my money. I get to keep my brownies after all.

My next step? Figure out what I have to do to set up direct deposit. There's no way I'm doing this every month.

Breaking news!!!!!

I have finally been paid!!!! And they even gave me my own ID card that lets me into the building! Living the high life now!

I'm off to pick up brownie mix and wine. Keating and I might even have real food for dinner, too. I'll think about it. Tomorrow, we're off to a nice restaurant to celebrate my paycheck and his final exams.

Cheers!

Theft

Yesterday, I almost stole a dog. I was thisclose. I mean, c'mon! It tried to follow me to work! Had it been following me home, I might be posting pictures of my new mutt....

On my walk to the bus stop yesterday morning I followed my normal route, cutting through a closed-street residential area. On this closed street, it isn't uncommon for people's dogs to be taking themselves for sunny little strolls. Petting one of these dogs would be like petting one of their owners while they were happily mopping their sidewalk (another favorite pastime); you just don't do it. I was surprised, then when a perky little Jack Russell Terrier came trotting right up to me. He was very friendly, but worried at first I might hit him and backed away timidly when I offered my hand. Once he realized he was safe, he more or less started head-butting my hand, trying to get to to scratch that magic place just behind his ears. He walked with me for the next couple of blocks, pausing every so many yards to see if I'd scratch his head again (I did). We continued like this al the way up to my bus stop, where he waited with me for a little while and then wandered off in search of other ear-scratchers. He had no tags or collar, but he looked too well fed to be homeless. Also, I can only imagine calling in to work to say that I won't make it that day because I've stolen a dog and want to make sure he doesn't eat my landlady's couch. (It's quite possibly the least comfortable couch in the world, but I still don't think she's appreciate it.) All the same, when I told Keating about it later, it was with the suggestion that we take a pork chop and wander the neighborhood. Keating sounded like he would have been all over it, except that we didn't have any chops in the house. He's been going into fuzzy-withdrawal even worse than I have, in part because I get to occasionally play with the department dachshund.

It made me really want to give my Asher a hug. He's living in Michigan, alternately tormenting and entertaining my parents. I miss my dog. (Don't worry, y'all. I kind of miss the rest of you, too! *grin*)

The Dance Recital

I have been remiss. In fact, I have been a Very Bad Wife. I forgot to bring my camera along for Keating's dance recital on Wednesday. I've been trying to stall about writing about it (I'm , like, really busy...yeah) until Keating can get a copy of the video from one of his classmates, but you'll just have to settle for a written description for now instead.

The dance recital included performances of traditional Mexican dances, the Cumbia (Colombian), some strange Brazilian dance, hip-hop, and a farcical skit that roughly 10% of the audience understood sufficiently to really enjoy (the rest of us were relieved that there was plenty of physical comedy that helped us to know when to laugh). I am suspicious that the choreographer for the traditional Mexican dances was a former member of Stomp -- the dancers, armed with heeled shoes that had had small nails pounded into the soles, managed to shake the small auditorium. In Keating's group, the girls took very seriously their direction to come dressed as sexy nurses, and wore the most amazing collection of white ultra-mini dresses that I think I have ever seen, paired with dizzyingly high, stripper-style stilettos. The men were in black button downs and jeans, with the last minute addition of red-markered gauze taped on their faces so that there might be some relation to the girls in the white minis and nurses caps. At the end of the song, the men formed a circle, picked the ladies up on their linked arms, and rotated in a circle. During the final rehearsal (roughly 30 second before the show and on the stage where we could watch), this last move was a real struggle. Half the nurses couldn't seem to settle themselves on the men's arms; one gave up entirely, and another was nearly launched off the stage, screaming all the way. Frankly, I'm a bit amazed that she didn't break an ankle when she landed in those shoes! For the actual performance, however, all went well and not one dancer was thrown into the audience. Keating was saved from his arm-twisting partner, who pulled out of the performance at the last minute and got to dance with one of the Russians instead. He did a wonderful job up there. His dance teacher has invited him to continue attending the salsa classes in the next 6 week term even though he won't be enrolled in the Spanish program at that time, and he has been pushing for us to go dancing this weekend.

Wednesday was also Keating's first day of teaching English. The program he teaches for is based around guided group conversations, and the first lesson was about appearances. In a crazy twist, the women in his class used the conversation to discuss their utter abhorrence of makeup. This is Mexico! The very same day, I actually watched a woman apply mascara for 8 stops on the metro (more than 20 minutes!), and she already had several layers of the stuff on before I boarded the train. (I must admit, after about 3 minutes I started watching in rapt fascination and timing her. Seriously -- how much could she put on??? Then again, her foundation was so heavy that it completely obscured her natural skin tone and made her look kind of creepy, like something out of a horror movie with flesh-eating diseases and stuff. I'm hoping that she was applying stage makeup for some other dance recital or something. She wasn't wearing stripper shoes, though.) Keating now teaches aver Wednesday and Friday morning and is looking to add more hours soon. So far, he really likes it. Then again, he doesn't wear any makeup.

In completely unrelated news, I finally have the dates for my first field work! *raucous cheering* I will be hiking (and possibly horseback riding to the less accessible parts) around the Tuxtla Volcanic Field in Veracruz March 2-7. Be jealous! Hopefully, the weather will be warm again by then -- it's been chilly enough this week that Keating decided to wear a suit today for the extra layers.

Valentine's Day

Happy belated Valentine's Day! Keating and I had big plans for this year: we were going to go horseback riding in on of the monarch butterfly sanctuaries with another couple. On Friday, though, Monica and I made the Team Executive decision that butterflies are not nearly so much fun during a torrential downpour like the one predicted for Sunday, and that we should wait a week. As it turned out, the rain never actually arrived; Sunday was beautiful, sunny, and in the 70's (take that Buffalo snow!). Keating and I were sitting in our pajamas that morning trying to think of a new plan, when suddenly he was hit by inspiration: Baskin Robbins! I am on a more or less continual search for BR, home of the bestest ice cream ever (Jamoca Almond Fudge!!!!), but it has more or less eluded me for a few years. The ones in my part of Michigan all went out of business years and years ago. There was one on Niagara Falls Blvd in Buffalo for a while, but then the Dunkin Donuts it shared the building with expanded like an evil blob monster and took over the space. I don't even like doughnuts! Or coffee! How could they do this to me???? Keating, however, had spied a BR right here in Mexico City last week on that same fateful walk in which his shoes were force-polished. Even better: it was across a plaza from a McDonalds. We celebrated Valentine's Day this year with BR ice cream, Mc Donald's fries, and a split street-food cheeseburger. It was AWESOME! Best Valentine's Day ever.