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.

Weekend touring

On Sunday, Keating and I decided it was time to run down to Taxco to check out the famous silver markets. We got up early(-ish) and hopped a pesero to the city's southern bus terminal to get our tickets. Ten minutes later, we were happily situated on a very nice Greyhound-style bus enjoying our free beverage and watching Changeling in Spanish.

Living in Mexico has been great for me. It has taught me to let go of some of my embarrassment and sound like an idiot in questionable Spanish and to eat things that would otherwise not cross my lips (anyone up for some local corn fungus? It grows on the corn cobs and looks, well, vile.). More than anything, however, the buses of Mexico City have affected how I handle transportation; riding the peseros to work daily has been like a vaccination for my otherwise miserable motion sickness. I've even become sufficiently acclimatized that I can occasionally read on the bus without thinking that I'm going to die. (Betcha can't tell where this is going!)

Despite this, however, the 2.5 hours bus ride to Taxco through the mountians was waaaay more than I could take. I almost made it all the way there -- we were within Taxco city limits, even -- when I finally lost it. As I clamped my hands over my mouth, Keating dashed to the bathroom at the back of the bus to grab me a barf bag (he had been blocking me in). Finding it locked, he sprinted to the front of the bus, where he proceeded to use broken Spanish and pantomime in a desperate bid to get the driver to understand what he needed. Fortunately, a woman in the front row not only figured out what he meant but also knew where the bags were stashed (they are apparently normally passed out with your free drink at boarding). Keating ran back to me, his hands filled with baggies and paper towels. It was just in time. Moments later, we pulled into the bus terminal. I have never in my life seen people get off a bus that quickly.

Once I felt well enough to walk under my own power again, Keating and I began to explore Taxco by finding a cafe and a pharmacy that sold Dramamine by the dose. Taxco is a beautiful town built into the sides of the mountains are reminds me of the Mexican interpretation of those famous Greek villages with tiered white homes with terracotta tile roofs stacked on upon another up the slopes. There are random arches and second-floor elevated walkways connecting buildings. The streets are cobbled and narrow, and many give up on the pretext of being a road and have entire patches of winding covered stairs connecting drivable stretches. Doorways open intermittently off of the street/stairs, leading into various silver shops and markets.

I'm not much of a shopper, but I have a weakness for jewelry. Keating, who hates shopping, is thrilled to know that he is already covered for our anniversary, my birthday, and Christmas, not to mention Christmas for most of his relatives.

We finally worked our way up through the maze to the central plaza, with its stunning 240 year old Spanish Baroque style cathedral. It was a beautiful, sunny day so we decided to sit on a shady park bench in the plaza and relax while we drank some water. This was a splendid plan for a good 8 minutes, or right up until a bird pooped on my leg. Keating helped me clean it up, laughing at me for my bad luck. Sure that lightning (and poop) never strike twice, we decided to sit for a little longer (to be fair, the bird appeared to have left). Maybe two minutes later, that f-ing bird pooped on my shoulder. As I howled indignantly, Keating snatched the remaining paper towels out of my hand: the bird had managed to get his nose! Thoroughly grossed out but laughing hysterically, we abandoned our shady bench and wandered back into the markets in search of a money clip for Keating and some ice cream to take away some of the emotional pain from the bird attack.

At 6:30 pm, we boarded our bus back to Mexico City. We happily took our seats, free soft drink and peanuts, and Dramamine (well, I did anyway), and settled in for our movies on the return trip (much longer due to Sunday night traffic entering the city). We had our gross-out moments, but it was a wonderful day trip. We've already started discussing how much fun it would be to go vacationing with some friends or relatives, hopping buses between beautiful colonial Mexican towns and ending up with a relaxing weekend at the beach. Any takers? We promise to not let you sit on the magic park bench, and I swear I will take my Dramamine (the drugged trip home was wonderfully uneventful). In the meantime, we're already planning our next weekend escape to Acapulco.

***** Note: True to form, Keating and I both forgot our cameras at home. These pictures were totally stolen off of the web.

Adventures in grocery shopping

I have been absent from the blog for a couple of weeks while I enjoyed being lazy up in Michigan with my family. The university is closed for most of July, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get out of town and escape the rainy 65-degree weather. We got back to Mexico City early Thursday morning, returning to an apartment with little more than crackers and cocoa mix left in the cupboards. Today was grocery shopping day.

As previously discussed, grocery shopping is probably the single most consistent stressor in my relationship with Keating. Today it was for different reasons. Our plan was simple: Keating would call me after work (yeah, he teaches on Saturdays) and we would meet up at the Superama on his way home. This would have worked out wonderfully, except that I didn't realize until after his call that I was locked IN the apartment. I have locked myself out of places plenty of times, the best example being the time I had to break back into my house in Buffalo and got stuck halfway through the large, street-facing window in my living room and my neighbors all decided to neither help the mysterious flailing legs nor call the cops (either would have been appreciated). This was the first time I've accidentally locked myself in. I ransacked the whole apartment, but couldn't find my keys anywhere. This was doubly bad because our landline is a complete POS and has never once successfully dialed a cell phone and I have refused to get a cell phone. Not only was I trapped in the apartment, I couldn't even call Keating to tell him. For his part, Keating was waiting for me at the Superama, reading under a ledge to kill the time and escape the downpour. After a couple of failed attempts, I was finally able to get through to Keating's cell phone using skype (Mexican cell phones use different location codes than landlines) to ask him to rescue me. Checking his pockets, Keating realized that he had both sets of keys and agreed to come home to let me out. Unfortunately, he then wandered inside the Superama to pay our gas bill and left his umbrella behind. By the time he realized that he had left it, his umbrella was gone and he was faced with a long, wet walk home. I'm pretty sure I've seen him drier when stepping straight out of the shower!

Fortunately, in the end all turned out well: I was freed from the food-less apartment, Keating eventually dried out, and we bought food and a new umbrella. Given the frustrations with just getting to the store, the actual grocery shopping was a complete cake-walk! Now we're just hoping that the rain stops long enough to allow us to do our post-trip laundry (our clothes dry on a line in the garden).

Letters from the field 3: Yeah.

Dear Future Shazta,

I know that you haven't forgotten this field trip I just got back from. You really ever won't, short of a massive head injury. If that happens though, see if you can selectively forget the following things that I was unable to write about until now ('cause I kinda needed to calm down first):

1) This was the trip where you got a shock as to just how out of the loop you are with your team. After noticing some unusual bookkeeping practices, you started asking some pointed questions and found out that the grant was out of field money. No one had mentioned this to you before. Which means that for Year 1 of a field project, you have 2 weeks worth of field data to work with. Awesome. Especially since you didn't design your field work with this knowledge in mind. Associated with this, try to forget the extra beers and desserts purchased with the grant money, despite the lack of funding. Remember that you are not in the US, and there are different cultural norms at play here.

2) You also may have gotten into a standoff with one of your team members on a random Mexican hillside with competing GPS units, arguing over which way to go to find a pond you were searching for. For what it's worth, you were right (not difficult, since she insisted that you were standing IN the pond already, despite all evidence to the contrary). At any rate, you never did find the f-ing pond because, after the "debate," it was universally agreed upon to be too far away to hike to it while carrying an inflatable boat.

3) Ok, so to be honest, you may just want to completely block out all memories of that one colleague. She manages to get under your skin in ways that defy logic and leave you a frothing mess of resentment in the back seat of the truck (though you finally got to sit in the front seat a couple of times this trip. That's because she wasn't along on those days, having taken the other truck.). Just forget about her frequent use of "Chhh-chh-chhh" to get your attention the same way other people get the attention of their dogs (when they are misbehaving). Also forget about how hilarious she thought it was that a local boy said he couldn't understand your Spanish, and how she kept repeating the story over and over to everyone, despite the fact that you had been speaking English to your non-Spanish-speaking assistant and there is really no wonder that the little boy couldn't understand your "accent." Etc.

Oh well. Not every trip will be perfect. And you have heard from independent sources that your one colleague is fairly universally difficult to work with. Just take a deep breath and appreciate that her contract supposedly ends in one month. That, and learn how to do geochemistry really slowly so that it will fill up your time for a while.

Cheers,

Shazta

Notes from the field 1: pre-field

Dear Future Self,

Having just gotten back from the field, it seemed like a good time to write down some things to remember for the future. First, though, let's backtrack to things you should remember from before going to the field:

1) You are very allergic to something you ate down here. Fortunately, your throat didn't seal up or anything, but the rash that produced the Melanie Griffith lips and the Dobby-the-house-elf ears was not cool. Never eat that again. Good luck figuring out what it was. Also, local meds don't seem to help much; keep a stash of Claritin in the house.

2) Buffalo is awesome, as are your friends and family there. However, trying to eat your weight in one weekend is a bad idea. Do not do this again. (You may have been too hopped up on the Claritin and Nyquil to recall this clearly, but it will make you ill such that you yearn for the gentle comforts of Mexican food again.)

3) When picking people up from the airport, just give up and call a taxi. Yeah, you can get there for under a dollar if you use buses and the metro, but something will invariably break down and make the trip last over an hour. Like when you went to pick up your visiting undergraduate field assistant and the metro got stuck for 20 minutes. Thank goodness her plane was delayed so she didn't think you'd abandoned her in the Mexico City airport! Just suck it up and pay the $10 to get across town in a reasonable time.

Got all that? Great! Next edition, we'll go over the things you should try to remember from the field. Hint: undergraduates and alligators.

Love,

Shazta (version June 2010)

Size Matters

Back in the States, I have a pretty average height. As a matter of fact, according to Wikipedia, I am exactly the average height for an American woman at 5' 4.5". In Mexico, however, i am some kind of giantess Amazon. While I'm not the tallest woman I've seen here, consider this: the average Mexica woman (again according to Wikipedia) stands 4' 11.5". Granted, that statistic is for Mexican women over the age of 50, but I'm still claiming it. I have stood in the metro next to adult women who only came up to my armpit. This can make for occasionally awkward situations, since I generally try to not shove my pits into anyone's face, even when clinging desperately to the don't-fall-over-and-crush-someone rail. As for the men? Well, I am apparently an average Mexican male.

I get a little self-conscious at times as I loom over my fellow commuters. This, however, is minor compared to Keating's general discomfort. He is over 6 feet tall and broad-shouldered. He looks like he could be called Gigantor. Poor Keating, though, is not limited to just feeling extraordinarily tall. Nope, for him it gets worse. Poor Keating is too tall to properly fit into the seats on public transportation. Have you ever been on a plane with someone who looks like they could be an NBA player? Have you seen that look of hopeless misery as they try to origami themselves into an airplane seat? Now make it a crowded bus. With chickens (not that I've actually seen any, but I like the image). And a blonde, blue-eyed man whose thighs are longer than the space allotted between rows and whose shoulders are wider than the molded seats. He looks like I should be carrying butter in my purse just in case I need to grease him up to pop him out of one of these miserably small seats. Whenever possible, Keating stands on public transportation.

Keating is too big for just about everything here in Mexico, except his pants. He has lost a fair amount of weight since we arrived, thanks to all of the walking and carrying huge water jugs up the four flights of stairs to our apartment. He's been wearing his shirts untucked to conceal that his pants actually hang from his belt like a curtain from a rod. The belts, thankfully, are in wonderful condition -- otherwise I'd live in fear of one snapping and Keating getting arrested for dropping his pants in public.

As soon as my first paycheck arrives, we're going to the store to buy new pants. I can't make the metro or bus seats any larger, but at least we can make sure that he's not sitting on them bare-assed.

Some days, you don't win

Some days start out great from moment 1: you wake up refreshed and feeling great, and the world only gets better from there. Yesterday was not one of those days. Rather than drag you through the mud of the day, let me share one story:

To get from the University metro station to my building, I have to cross a divided road. While there are an indistinct number of lanes on each side of the division, limited mostly by how wide the cars are and how aggressive the drivers, there is usually very little traffic. Green space is held at a premium in Mexico City, so the medians of divided roads are typically turned into small park spaces (imagine for a moment an unfenced playground in the middle of a busy road -- while I appreciate the sentiment of making parks, it still feels a little bit like "Here's a ball, Timmy. Go play in the road!"). The park-median I go through each day has a paved walkway for those crossing and fences to limit foot traffic on the grass. Yesterday morning, someone had left the sprinklers on, spraying the walkway. Rather than walking to the end of the fence and scampering through the median gap with the cars trying to turn around, I decided to follow the lead of the nicely dressed young man near me who was also stuck trying to cross. We both watched the sprinklers, realized that we could easily get down the path between sprays of water, and ran for it. Seriously, who hasn't had happy thoughts back to running through the sprinklers as a kid even if they're hoping to stay dry this time? The worst case scenario was that I would somehow slip on the damp paving, fall, and end up getting a little wet...or so I thought. It turns out that the water used on the lawns of the university has been treated with something. Something that smells suspiciously like raw sewage. While I didn't fall or get hit directly by the water, the mist was...*shudder* I immediately dove into the next building and spent the next 10 minutes scrubbing any exposed flesh in the restroom sink. I don't want to hear from anyone that it was probably sewage. I don't care if you have first-hand knowledge, or personally shat in the water tank. I just keep telling myself that it couldn't have been truly terribly stuff, otherwise it would be inappropriate to spray all over a grassy area used by picnickers on a university campus. *gag*

Keating insisted when I got home last night that I didn't smell odd. Still, that smell was in my nose all day long. I'm lucky I still have skin left after the scrubbing I gave myself.

_____________________________________________

Note: About an hour after posting, I received this friendly email from my mom:

"Eew. You asked that no one give you further information, but a little food for thought-a few years back Mexico had a problem with "unplanted" tomato plants showing up everywhere and it was determined to be coming from the watering source-the seeds don't digest...SORRY! "

Ah, thanks Mom. Thanks. *shudder*

The big buses

My love affair with the large buses here is officially over. I still have yet to have ridden in one, and they still look more spacious and comfortable than the buses I end up riding, but they have made me angry. One of them tried to run me over.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that being a pedestrian in Mexico City requires a little bit of dodging and a lot of looking both ways. I take for granted that at least one car/truck/bus will run every single red light, and so far I've had a 100% success rate for my predictions. My frustration was that the driver broke several laws in his attempt to hit me. Not only was he passing in a no-passing lane, he was outright driving in the oncoming traffic lane (kind of a big deal when you consider it was a one way street), and (even better!!!) running a red light that he had already stopped for. Not only did he piss me off, he also made the cars already going through the intersection pretty upset. I think there may have been some strange stretching in the fabric of the universe since no one actually collided with anything; the sum total of damage was some honking and a few really dirty looks. On the plus side, it really woke me up for the morning.

Transportation

It's a hard thing to go from the blissful autonomy of having your own car to relying on public transportation. That said, I think that it took us a little under 3.5 seconds following our arrival in Mexico City to rejoice in our lack of car; the traffic is so scary that I will do everything in my power to avoid driving here. Ever. That leaves us with three transportation options: taxis, metro, and buses.

Our first experience with transportation here was our taxi ride from the airport to the hotel where we were staying until the apartment was deemed ready. During that ride, we took comfort in the fact that our luggage not only filled the trunk but completely buried us in the back seat: that much padding must surely protect us in the inevitable crash. It turns out that we grossly underestimated our intrepid driver, who spent the next hour swerving through traffic and coming within millimeters of sideswiping every fourth car on the road. Our second taxi ride came a few days later when we moved into our new apartment. On this trip, we had the advantage of spreading out in a 15-passenger van typically used for tourist groups. It was driven by a sweet 85 year old man who had absolutely no idea where we were going. To be fair, the road names change every couple of miles to reflect the neighborhood. We, however, got a very thorough tour of our neighborhood since our driver kept insisting that the number were going the wrong way and turning off onto other roads to circle back. We finally convinced him of the benefit of stopping and asking directions. For whatever reason, he decided that it would be Keating's job to jump out of the van and ask for directions from the woman selling fruit by the road. Keep in mind that at this point Keating was capable of ordering a beer and little else (which the driver was already well familiar with having spent the last 70 minutes coaching Keating on how to pronounce bizarre indigenous words that will only come on handy if we find ourselves in a remote village that is still speaking a Mexica-Spanish creole). We spent about a third of the trip driving in aimless circles, and I consider it near-miraculous that we finally found the apartment. Since then, we have largely avoided taxis mostly as they are the most expensive option and there is still a decently high number of pirate taxis on the road. The pirate situation has improved significantly in the last 10 years, though my friends here debate whether that is a result of cracking down on illegal taxis or simply lowering the standards to allow anyone an official taxi license. Legal taxis can be identified by their license plates -- not any easy thing to read as a car flashes past. It is generally considered to just call a taxi company and have them come get you or, failing that, to find one of the regular taxi stands located throughout the city. Hailing a cab on the street is considered a task for the experienced.

The metro system here is absolutely amazing: the trains are clean, fast, frequent (2 minute waits, max!), and dirt cheap. For approximately 25 cents, I can ride all 11 lines from 5 am to 1 am. (No, I have not yet actually tried this.) Almost all of the metro stations come equipped with food stands, book stores, mini-pharmacies, etc., located on both sides of the turnstiles. The average Mexican is capable of carrying on nearly all life functions within the metro system. They have an uncanny ability to wake from coma-like naps on the train approximately 30 feet prior to their stop. Despite the shaking, the women manage to do their makeup in the morning without any apparent difficulty. My personal favorite was the professionally-dressed woman I saw last week curling her eyelashes with a spoon as the metro train bounced along through the morning commute. Keating and I watched in morbid fascination, waiting for her to gouge out her own eye during a rapid stop. (Never fear, she made the trip in safety despite stops that sent some passengers hurtling forward several feet before they managed to catch themselves.) It also appears to be a national pastime to make out on the metro; from teenagers to senior citizens, you can be guaranteed to nearly trip over a couple necking on a train or in a station every single ride. There are really only two problems with the metro: 1) occasional crowding that makes me wish for the comparative spaciousness of a compact clown car filled with a dozen people kitted out in red noses and oversized shoes and 2) the metro does not run within walking distance of our apartment. This means that Keating and I get to spend a fraction of each day on the buses.

Oh, the buses! Locally known as peseros, they are a force unto themselves. Peseros come in three basic varieties: large, throwback, and converted VW bus. I have yet to have actually caught one of the large ones, but they look like typical buses from American public transportation systems. I look longingly at them every time my throwback bus pulls up alongside one at a stoplight (this is problematic since there is only one bus lane). The route I normally take to and from work typically puts me on a throwback bus. These peseros look to be left over from the 1970's, and no two are the same. Each driver lovingly decorates the inside of his pesero with stickers, lights, and any variety of shiny and/or spiritual objects. These buses all have two things in common: at least one broken window and a door in the back through which to exit. To get off the bus, one must stand up and wade through the people clinging to overhead rails to reach the back door. Once there, one must find and press the "Exit" button somewhere over the open door to signal to the driver that someone wants off. Some drivers will then slowly pull over to the curb and stop while the person exits the bus; most drivers will screech to a semi-halt and expect the passenger to jump while the bus keeps moving slowly. Fortunately, drivers tend to have compassion for the elderly, the disabled, and people traveling in groups and will give them a fair shot at exiting. There are few rushes in the world like careening down the road in a throwback-style pesero when you have a really aggressive driver. It's actually pretty amazing watching the cars flee before it. When I don't catch a throwback pesero, I end up on one of the VW buses. The seats have been ripped out and replaced with benches along the walls intended to seat 13 passengers. This really only works well if you are traveling with an Olympic gymnastics team, or another similarly underfed group. The peseros, despite being a critical part of the transportation system in many parts of the city, feel no need to actually have posted routes. The peseros make up for being cramped, dirty, and a little bit scary by charging more than the metro. I am told that this is because the metro is run by the city while the peseros are a business venture controlled by the Mexican Mafia. Reassuring. While I'm still intimidated by taking peseros outside of my normal routes, they are at least nice and manageable once you figure out which one you want and where to get off. They are also my only way to get to the metro.

I was rewarded last week on the pesero for my efforts to blend in and not look like a terrified foreigner when the man next to me asked me if road "X" was coming up soon since he was supposed to get off there and didn't normally ride this route. I had absolutely no idea, but it was nice to be asked! Perhaps I'm starting to blend in a bit after all. Perhaps I'll soon be curling my eyelashes with a spoon on my way in to work.