Goodbyes

Tonight is my last night in Mexico. Trying to get everything ready for the move back to the states as well as complete work down here (I spent this last week in the field) has been hectic enough that I've failed to update this blog for a month. Fortunately (or not?), I have a stash of stories yet and will continue to make updates for a while. Who knows -- maybe I'll even change the "Life in Mexico" part of the title and keep writing. We'll see.

This past spring while in Cancun, my friend Jackie asked me what I missed most about the US. My mom was sitting with us and chimed in with "Her dog!" While I miss my puppy wildly (thank you again Mom and Dad for taking care of him!!!), that was not the answer that was springing to my lips. Family and friends, while greatly missed, weren't my top item either. The number one thing I miss the most about the US: flushing toilet paper. It is so nice when it just goes away after you use it instead of letting it collect for a few days and then having to empty the trash. Unfortunately, Mexican plumbing (like that in much of the world) is unprepared to handle flushed paper. I think that flushing some TP might be my first act back in the US, shortly after crossing through Customs and Immigration. I don't care if I don't need to use the facilities; I will simply walk into a stall, rip off a square of toilet paper, and merrily flush it away. It will be good.

In honor of leaving Mexico, I wanted to make a quick list of things I've missed about the US and things that I will miss about my temporary homeland, Mexico. In no particular order:

Missing the US:

1) Flushing TP. Yup... still number one.

2) Friends/family/dog.

3) The freedom of having my own car again.

4) The stars. The light and air pollution here is such that you can't see them in Mexico City.

5) Road berries. My mom gagged when I mentioned this one to her, but it' snot nearly as revolting as it sounds. When I was visiting Michigan in July, I had a wonderful time picking and eating wild raspberries along the side of the road while I walked my dog. There were at least 3 varieties, and they were all delicious.

6) Really good desserts/chocolate. Most of the desserts/chocolate down here are very bland and end up tasting a lot like processed sugar. I have not seen a single fudgy/gooey/caramel-y/decadent dessert down here.

7) Buffalo wings! Watch out Duffs! I'm coming back!

Missing Mexico:

1) Friends down here. They've been great. The people as a whole have made the entire experience worthwhile.

2) Public transportation. It can be scary at times and quirky at others, but it can also be a lot of fun. At the very least, it's pretty empowering knowing that you can competently maneuver around this city on public transit. It's like, "If I can do this, I can handle anything. Bring it!" And then I wave my jazz hands.

3) The food. Oh, tortilla soup, pozole, tacos al pastor, pambazos, elote, esquite, etc, what will I do now that you won't be a food cart away???

4) That amazing sense of (self-indulgent) coolness that comes from living in a foreign country. It's pretty darn cool. This alone is enough to get me past the occasional melt-down day when I just wish everyone down here spoke English. It feels great to do something that feels so different, and to be doing it in a foreign language.

5) My garden. It is scary-easy to grow plants down here, and my lilies, impatiens, ivy, mums, bougainvillea, etc. are absolutely thriving under my diligent neglect. I actually feel like an accomplished gardener!

6) The complete surreality that exists down here. I can round a corner and find myself facing a 6 foot tall bush molded into the form of a duck. Or my bus might stop in the middle of a 5 lane road and all of the passengers have to do a Chinese fire drill and board the bus behind us. Or accidentally finding a tarantula in the wild. Every single day has some hidden gem down here.

7) Looking up on clear days and being surrounded by majestic volcanoes.

While I'm moving back to the US for a new job, I will always have a part of me in Mexico. I've got a conference down here in November, continuing field work in March, and every intention to continue to work with Mexican volcanoes in the future. They certainly haven't seen the last of me here! For now, though, I'm tired and ready to see Keating again. He's been in the US for the last couple of weeks sorting out our new apartment, job hunting, etc. This time tomorrow, I'll be asleep in our new place, catching a few hours rest between my midnight arrival and my 8 am job start. Nothing like cutting it down to the wire, huh? That said, I'm off now to catch a couple of hours of sleep before my early flight.

Hasta pronto.

Back to Buffalo

Keating and I are busy excitedly packing tonight. Very early tomorrow morning we leave for our first trip back to the States since we moved to Mexico in December. We're headed back to Buffalo for our friends' wedding. Robin, the bride, was responsible for introducing me to Keating... and she even loaned me the perfect shoes for our first date! Keating asked me out at my birthday party, which is incidentally the same party where Rob met my fellow grad student "Manthew". Manthew (named such for early confusion over his name) is the groom this weekend. Keating and I are so excited to be able to celebrate their wedding with them this weekend!

As I pack, I'm giddily reviewing the delights to come: friends, family, Duff's wings (!!!!), American pizza, being able to flush toilet paper, driving, etc. Yay!!!!

And because everything somehow comes back to work, I will also be picking up a depth sounder for use in my field work down here. It should totally beat that rock tied to laundry line that I was using to measure lake depths last time. I'm headed back to the field shortly after I get back from Buffalo with my improved equipment. With me luck that neither trip, Buffalo or the field, includes more run-ins with tadpoles or free-range crocodiles.

F-ing fire (part 4???)

Someone needs to get down here and take away our matches. Seriously. Keating and I, normally fairly responsible adults, apparently cannot handle fire.

We set the garden ablaze again.

Yup.

This time, Keating had set our little hibachi grill on the glass table in the garden so that he wouldn't have to sit on the grass to cook. He had done this before, and all had been fine. Anyway, all was going well until I arrived home with our dinner guest, a friend from my PhD program who know also works at the university down here. We had just finished with introductions when an amazing crashing sound came from the garden. Yup: the glass table had imploded and dumped the flaming grill onto the glass shards and yard. Keating and I managed to keep cool, and I poured wine for our guest and kept chatting with him while Keating successfully extinguished the yard but kept the grill going.

I think we deserve 10 points for style, but negative 15 points for setting our garden on fire for the second time in a month. Fortunately for us, plants grow like wild down here. In another two weeks, the burned-out patches of grass will be completely erased by new growth. Now we just need to figure out where to get a new glass tabletop.

I'm back!

It's official: I can truly call myself a blogger. How do I know that I have officially joined the dubious ranks? Complaints! See the following email, copied in its entirety, from my brother:

Hey, you need to keep up with your blog better. Some of us want to hear about what is going on down there in little people land.

That said, let me quickly review what was going on during my absence. (You know, happening to me. Not like a recap of real news or anything!)

Right after my last posts, Keating and I ran away to Cancun for a belated Holy Week holiday with my parents and their friends Darrel and Jackie. Despite my fears that Keating would be "accidentally" fed to sharks by Dad and Darrel while the boys were scuba diving (boys!), he came home each time with happy tails of undersea life. That's not to say that there wasn't any good natured hazing: turns out that Keating is now affectionately known in some circles as "Chumly" since he vomited just about every time he set foot on the scuba boat. Since I really dislike fish, I enjoyed lots of time poolside with the girls. On the day that we all went to Xel-ha (an incredible natural aquarium. If you get the chance, visit it!), Keating and I worked out a brilliant strategy by which I lounged on top of an inner tube and held on to the (unfastened) between-leg strap from Keating's required lifejacket as he snorkeled -- it was like getting my very own custom lazy-river tour! Keating would occasionally point out interesting fish or rays, while I would point out the cool birds, lizards, etc, to him... and all without me having to actually get too close to the icky fishies. The six of us also enjoyed a trip to see the pyramids and Chichen Itza. In all, we had a wonderful trip. Unfortunately, Keating and I are both camera-impaired and the only photo from the entire trip the features people has us all so small that we're not really recognizable. At least the pyramid looks good! (We're the couple on the right, Mom and Dad are in the middle, and Darrel and Jackie are on the left.)

After Cancun, Keating and I had a little under a week to prepare for our next excitement: Keating's parents came to visit us for a long weekend. They were our first official house guests (Sorry Mom and Dad, but you stayed in a hotel!). My FIL's knee was acting up, so we opted to not do a repeat performance of the borderline elder abuse we committed against my parents by dragging them everywhere on crowded public transportation and taking them on the occasional mini death march dodging traffic frogger-style. Instead, we enjoyed a relaxing weekend in which we took a boat tour of the famous gardens of Xochimilco and took in a performance of Carmina Burana. Unfortunately, I had to disappear on occasion for work and even left town the day before my in-laws; I was scheduled to return to the field. (Note: if you are reading my mind properly, the words "I was scheduled to return to the field" should have been read melodramatically, with building dread, and underscored by an ominous soundtrack. If you didn't get that the first time, please try again.)

My previous field trip was not successful. At all. So I had alternately astronomical and mediocre expectation for this field work. Mostly, I just desperately wanted to get data points this time and not be crippled by a horse. Fortunately, both of these goals were met. Since actual research data is fairly boring, and outside the theme of this blog, let me just share with you some of the highlights from the trip:

1. The field vehicle we ended up with this time did not have AC or a radio. It turns out that that wasn't too bad, despite it being 95 F and 98% humidity. It meant that we could all roll down the windows and plug into our respective ipods for the long car rides, thus saving me from Barry Manilow.
2. Technologically speaking, I have fallen so very, very far. During my PhD, I was writing programs for Beowulf clusters (supercomputers). For this project, I was rowing to the center of ponds in an inflatable raft (labelled a children's toy, for use only in pools and under adult supervision) and dropping a rock tied to a rope overboard to measure water depth (the sonar depth-finder was broken).
3. I got to see a gigantic iguana chillin' in the wild under a mango tree.
4. I got a tadpole stuck between the two smallest toes on my left foot. Think about my love for fish, and then imagine the screaming and foot-shaking that ensued. Honestly, I still shudder thinking about it. Not cool.
5. My boss would argue that this one is worse that the tadpole, but I'm unconvinced. We had just walked down a steep trail to get to another of the ponds and had shouted out to the man net fishing from a "skiff" (really just a few logs tied together Robinson Crusoe-style) if it would be okay if we dragged our inflatable down the hill and took some measurements in the pond. He replied that we were welcome to it and would not disturb us at all. Almost as an afterthought, he added that we should watch out for the crocodiles. At those words, we notice a 4 foot croc slither off the bank 25 feet to our right and skulk away through the murky water. The man on the raft assured us that that one was just a baby and that many of the crocs in that particular pond were closer to 9 feet long. Shuddering, my boss paid the man on the raft to collect our measurements for us.
6. Ticks and other biting bugs. Apparently, this is the season. On the final day in the field, I removed 9-10 ticks from my clothes and 3 from where they were busy biting me. On the plus side, I have been assured that the ticks in that area are merely gross and not dangerous like our wonderful lyme disease carriers in the US. On the minus side, I came back from the field looking suspiciously like I had chicken pox. Fortunately, Keating believed me that they were bug bites and still gave me a welcome home kiss.
7. Ugh!!!! Seriously! A F-ing tadpole between my toes!!!!!!!!
8. We also managed to get the truck stuck, bottomed out on a broken concrete pipe sticking up through a dirt road. I hereby curse you, Nissan, for building a pickup truck with the power of a VW Beetle (original style) and the clearance of a Chrylser PT Cruiser. What the hell were you thinking???!?
9. Accommodations in San Martín Tuxtla were lovely, as before. Unfortunately, they didn't have any availability for some of our nights. Do not stay in Lerdo de Tejada. The hotel was... yeah. There were dead bugs already squashed into the shower walls, greasy head prints on the mirrored headboards, and the bathroom windows all opened into the "lobby."
10. Did I remember to mention that I actually got some data points???? And I wasn't even crippled by a horse! Nor did I vomit even once! Therefore, despite tadpoles, crocodiles, ticks, and car trouble, this field trip was definitely an improvement over the previous one!

Now I'm back in Mexico City and back at my office desk. Keating and I celebrated Cinco de Mayo yesterday with a splash of tequila in our iced tea (aside from school children and union employees, it isn't a celebrated holiday here. They kind of equate it with Columbus Day.).

(I'll try to add more photos later. I forgot to bring my camera in so that I could download my photos.)

Butterflies

As mentioned in the last post, my reward for clawing my way back to my loving husband in Mexico City after a terrible week of food poisoning and horse-inflicted abuse in the field was to get up at 5 am the next morning to go horseback riding. Keating and I were bleary-eyed but awake and (mostly) dressed when the phone rang at 5:10 am Sunday morning. It was our friend Monica, who had been kind enough to make the reservations for the tour. She was calling because she had just realized that, being a Sunday, the public transportation system would not yet be running and we would have no way to get to the rendezvous point for the tour. Thank goodness that Monica is 100% amazing: she had already called a taxi service to come get us.

About 20 minutes later, Keating and I sat in the dark in front of our apartment building waiting for our taxi. Monica had stressed that the taxi would be a dark blue sedan and that the driver would know both our first names and the code number "98." (There's nothing like the Mexican taxi service to make you feel like you're either in a Bond movie or doing something illegal.) Keating and I watched the minutes tick away nervously as we scanned the nearly-empty streets. Finally, Keating pointed to a car down the block:

Keating: Have you been watching that car? Do you think maybe it's our taxi? It looks kind of like he's looking for someone.

Me: Yeah... he keeps driving in reverse down the block, then pulling forward around the corner. Really weird. It's a white compact, though, so it can't be ours. Monica said it's a blue sedan.

Keating: (simply staring at me for a moment) There have been, what 4 cars on the road? And one of them looks lost on our block? How many Mexicans do you think would be looking for an address on our block at this time of day? Maybe they sent a different car. Are you sure you understood her right? I could just walk over there and ask him.

Me: Don't do that! That guy has been driving like a lunatic. He's probably doing something illegal. I'll call Monica back to check.

Monica confirmed that we were looking for a blue sedan, and I continued to stare suspiciously at the white compact car. Moments after hanging up the phone, the white car ghosted forward and rolled down a window.

Driver: (translated) Are you Sara?

Me: No, I'm Shazta. (realizing that "Sara" and "Shazta" are pretty darn close to the same word in Spanish) Are you supposed to be picking two people up here?

Driver: I'm looking for Sara and .... (trails off to nowhere)

Me: We're supposed to wait for a cab that knows both our names and a security number. (I'm pretty sure this is our guy, despite the wrong car and wrong name, but I refuse to just get into an unmarked car with some man I've been eyeing suspiciously for 20 minutes because Sara sounds vaguely like Shazta.)

Driver: (Gets on radio. Mutters back and forth.) Sara. And Char-ley? (looks hopefully at Keating)

Keating: Well, I think that's the closest that anyone has come to actually pronouncing my name since we got here, especially after it's been broadcast second-hand through a radio. Get in the taxi, Shazta -- otherwise we won't make it to the rendezvous.

As I got into the taxi, still muttering about not having the securi

ty number and how James Bond wound know better than to get into the car without that number, the phone rang. It was Monica calling to tell us that she had phoned the taxi company to figure out what was going on and had been told that the driver was sitting around, confused, waiting for us. It was great that Monica called just then since our driver had completely forgotten where he had been hired to take us to and refused to believe me when I told him (most people aren't looking for closed metro stations at that hour). In frustration, I passed him the phone and let Monica (who is a native Mexican) explain to him that we were not crazy, stupid gringos. (Mostly, anyway.) He agreed to drive us to our destination, but kept repeating that he thought it was terribly strange and very likely a bad idea. I found this reassuring, as you can imagine.

This is how we came to be standing in front of a closed metro station in a semi-seedy part of town at 6:30 am, waiting for anyone else from our tour. At the stroke of 7, Monica appeared from one direction and our mini-touring-bus arrived from the other. Within moments, we were all loaded in and gone.

Our tour left the urban sprawl of Mexico City and wound through the surrounding mountains until we reached Valle de Bravo. At the butterfly sanctuary, we each paid our 3 pesos to use the facilities before mounting the horses for our ride up the hill. Unlike the work horses of my crippling experience two days before, these horses were outfitted with comfortable leather saddles and lazy dispositions appropriate for adult-scale pony rides. Each horse had it's own minder to make sure that the horse didn't suddenly decide to play the old game of "Ditch the Tourist." My horse was so completely indifferent to its prospects that it had no intention of either climbing up or walking back down the hill; my horse-minder had to actually drag the horse both ways. (I felt so bad I gave him an extra large tip.) We had missed the peak butterfly time by about a week, but the view was still incredible atop the hill. The air swirled with monarch butterflies making their final preparations before departing on their long migration north. Parts of the forest floor were carpeted in the orange and black wings of butterflies who had made the long journey south to die in the quiet pines and sunny meadows. It was amazingly beautiful.

Butterflies in the Valle de Bravo sanctuaries. My camera battery died, so I found this photo online to show you what it looked like. Credit: http://veryveryfun.com/index.php?Itemid=1&id=25&option=com_content&task=view

Following our visit to the butterfly sanctuary, we stopped at the nearby Bridal Veil Falls and the actual town of Valle de Bravo. The town, situated on a large reservoir and surrounded by mountains, is a favorite resort location for Mexico City's wealthy. It is a picturesque mix of grand haciendas, artisan's markets, public squares, and old village, with plenty of opportunities for hang gliding and boating.

Another internet-snagged photo, this time of Valle de Bravo's central square. Maybe next time I'll remember to bring spare batteries. Photo from: http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2122445550064444924wnGeZz

Keating, Monica, and I went in search of the main Artisan's Market which our guide had assured us was only a couple of blocks up a hilly street. After about 10 blocks, we decided to ask directions. I have previously complained that Mexicans use a strange and complicated conversion system when giving distances in their directions: "two blocks straight ahead" could easily mean "thirteen blocks north, four blocks east." Thanks to getting lost in Valle de Bravo with Monica, a real, live Mexican, I now know how to translate Mexican directions: go as far as the person suggested, and then find someone else to ask. I was still pretty sure that I was going to die from physical pain and exhaustion from my week in the field, but I refused to give up the search for the market -- I was on the hunt for a cool birthday present for my mom. At least 5 sets of directions later, the three of us finally crawled into the Artisan's Market. I found the gift for my mom, and Keating found a nice present for his dad (whose birthday happens to be the day before my mom's). Presents in hand, the three of us left the market and immediately got lost again.

Note: I use the term "lost" loosely. Geologists are never lost; we are simply exploring the area. (Even if we are confused as hell, holding the map upside-down, howling with frustration. We are not lost.)

Traffic jams on the way back kept us on the road a couple hours longer than planned, and we finally crawled up the 3 flights of stairs to our apartment at 11 pm. We were exhausted and dirty (and may have smelled faintly of horse poo), but we felt good. It had been a great day outside of the city.

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.

"Be my Kevin Bacon!"

Keating has been enjoying his salsa class and, according to some of his Korean classmates I met this weekend, is the best non-native-Mexican dancer in the group. Despite the terrified looks from some of his classmates when he suggested it, he is starting to itch to actually go out to a real salsa club and build on his skills. While his classmates may not be game for the adventure, Keating found an enthusiastic accomplice in one of our Spanish-speaking friends. Jorge, a Colombian architect married to my boss' daughter, is reputed to be an incredible dancer. (It may just be in our social circle, but there appears to be a lot of reverence for Colombia here. Within my hearing so far, the Colombians have been credited with being the best dancers, having the best sense of humor, and speaking the best Spanish in all of Latin America.) Jorge's wife, Monica, seems less than enthusiastic about the idea of going on a salsa dancing double date, since it turns out that she doesn't really like to dance. (Oh, sacred stereotypes! What is happening?? A man that likes dancing more than his wife? A Latina with little interest in dancing? What is the world coming to??) Keating's plan: get Jorge to teach him at least 20% of what he knows, thereby reenacting our own little version of Footloose. While I love that Keating is really getting into this, I don't ever need to hear "Be my Kevin Bacon!" from my husband's lips again. It makes me start looking around nervously for tractors.

King of the Prom

Since Keating doesn't speak Spanish (he studied French in high school...oops!) we decided that it would be a wise investment to sign him up for the 6 week intensive Spanish course offered at UNAM. In addition to the basic language class, he was asked to choose two cultural electives from a list of three options: pronunciation, salsa, and folk dancing. We're still trying to work out how "pronunciation" is a cultural elective as opposed to a kind of recitation section, but those were the options. Surveying the options, Keating decided that there were few forces on earth that would induce him to become a Mexican Folk Dancer. (The only real advantage to taking Folk Dance was that it would allow him to take the afternoon Pronunciation section, thereby giving him an extra hour of sleep in the morning. No small incentive considering our hour-long commute to school.) The result is that he has Pronunciation 8-9 M-F, Basic Spanish 1 9-12 M-F, and Salsa dancing 12-1 M-W.

Most of Keating's Salsa class is filled with students from Korea, Japan, and China, students who have had very little exposure to Latin music. Given his description, it sounds as though many of the male students have had very little exposure to dancing of any variety. Despite having a dancing edge on most of his class thanks to swing dancing and musical theater, poor Keating has been feeling incredibly awkward and self conscious: the reflections in the dance room mirrors highlight for him just how much bigger, and blonder, he is than his classmates. He insists that he feels like a lumbering giant looming over his classmates. On Wednesday, after a particularly grueling hour of learning the Electric Slide crosssed with what appears to be a dash of Jazzercize (yeah, I don't know why that's in a salsa class either, but the daily performances of what he's learned are a riot!), Keating felt like he was in need of a long break and a cold drink. As he gathered up his things to leave, one of the petite Korean girls in his class marched right up to him, looked him in the eye, and said in forceful (if broken) English:

Girl: "You. You're my partner now. You have grooooove."

Keating: (flabbergasted) "Uh, ok?"

And with that, the stunned Keating (who had felt like the elephant in the room) was crowned King of the Prom. He had been claimed, and in no uncertain terms. I think he'll enjoy Salsa class more now.

Now if I can just claim him back at the end of the class so that I can go dancing with him....