Letters from the field 4: Dangers and Kidnapping

Dear Future Self,

Mexico is all over the American news right now, with two high profile assassinations and a 21-dead drug gang shootout all taking place this week. More disturbing than these reports, which really only focus on a small group of people in a small area, are the comments posted below them by readers. If I can believe the posts under CNN articles, it would appear that many Americans are taking the current Mexican violence to indicate that all Mexicans are violent and barbaric and that the US is better off coming up with a way to cut off all ties with our southern neighbor (not to mention expel all legal and illegal immigrants). To this mindset (who aren't reading this anyway, but whatever), I offer the following experience from field work:

The team had been driving 4WD "roads" in the rural hills beyond Lake Catemaco. The area there is sparsely populated, and ours was probably the first car to drive down that particular track in years. Needless to say, there are no road maps and no road signs -- why bother with road names when there are so few to bother naming? At one point, we spotted a small hut set back from the path and decided it would be worth asking directions. After a short conversation in which our team leader introduced us as a team of geologists from the university, the lady of the place loaned us two children to guide us. The boys, Fernando and Diego, were 10 and 8 years old, respectively and were best friends. Their families effectively live together following the death of Fernando's father 2 years ago, leaving him to be the man of the house. Wedging all 7 of us into the Jeep Wrangler, we set off in search of the path we were looking for.

The boys led us up hills with the enthusiasm and energy of kids who have not yet learned to look at the topography to gauge the easiest slope to climb. They taught us about the edible berries growing on the slopes. The berries, apparently called tejote, are shiny and black-ish blue, and taste a bit like overripe blueberries. Even more entertaining, the berries have an incredibly strong pigment that quickly stains one's mouth anywhere from deep purple to black depending on the number of berries eaten. Fernando and Diego told us about life on the ranch and how they milked the cows and helped to make cheese. Neither attended school, since their ranch is so remote that it would require a 2-3 hour hike each way to get to the nearest school; also, their help was needed to keep the ranch running. They were excited to be trusted with the important job of carrying rock samples (and we were relieved!), and they were absolutely euphoric when handed the rock hammer and entrusted with breaking up big rocks.

Diego and Fernando, our trusty guides.

About 6 hours after we took them, we returned them to their homes and thanked their mothers. Both Fernando and Diego happily joined us the next day as well, cracking jokes about the cow chips dissolving in the persistent rain. To thank them and their families, our team gave each family a bag of nonperishable foodstuffs that would otherwise require a long journey to the nearest store, as well as bags of candies and t-shirts for the boys ('cause no 10 year old boy is going to be excited about receiving dried beans). The families invited us in and served us coffee while we watched the end of the Mexico-France World Cup game.

Can you imagine a similar situation playing out in the US? Less than a year ago, it made news when concerned adults called authorities when they saw an 8-10 (?) year old boy walking the few blocks to his sports practice alone. Can you imagine parents giving their child (not to mention the neighbor kid) to complete strangers and watching them drive away?

Another example, this one not from the field exactly: Due to the impossibility of actually finding our street, we must ask taxis to pick us up on a street corner a couple blocks from our house. Normally this is not a problem, however, it is fairly eerie when we have to stand out there at 4 am to get a ride to the airport. We had to do that again last week when the Awesome Assistant took off to return to the US. Both times that I have been out there waiting for a taxi at that hour, someone from the area points out that hanging out on dark street corners isn't the safest move in a city, asks to make sure that we are OK, and offers to stay near us until the taxi comes. The first time, we were watched over by a taxi driver who we had already assured that we had previously called someone from another cab company to meet us. More recently, it was a car full of young men (about 20 years old, perhaps?), one of whom had clearly been studying his English and saw this as an amazing opportunity to practice the language and do a good deed at the same time. Both times, our guardians waited until our taxi arrived and could convince both us and them that he was our prearranged driver (passwords and such). Both times, our guardians were pretty much the only people that we saw out there.

Mexico is very sensitive to the real and perceived violence within its borders. While there are truly bad places to be (anyone remember Cabrini Green in Chicago?), for the most part Mexico is a country full of some of the most generous and hard-working people you will meet.

Hell, I basically kidnapped a cabbie last night while picking up a friend from the airport. Four hours, a traffic jam, two terminals (nowhere near each other), a delayed plane, and getting lost down a restricted hallway of the airport later, he was finally able to drop us off at my corner in front of the ice cream shop. He was gracious and entertaining the entire time, and it was great practice for my Spanish to spend those hours discussing geology, geography (he is working on his MS), sports, travel, etc. Thank you, Miguel. I'm glad I had enough money still on me at that point to give you the generous tip you deserved.

In short, three cheers for Mexico!

Cheers,

Shazta-of-the-present

Earthquake?

I just got back into my office following our earthquake evacuation. It wasn't a drill, but no one felt anything to indicate that we were actually being hit by a magnitude 6 quake (it needs to be that big or bigger to activate the evacuation alarm). As of now, the assumption is that it was a false alarm triggered by a glitch in the system. Oddly enough, however, it turns out that the earthquake evacuation alarm is actually significantly quieter and far less obnoxious than the alarm set off by the in-building seismic stations every time they register anything. Really small stuff. Multiple times per day. Because it's apparently just too much work for the seismologists to just go check their machines every so often without announcing every earth-twitch to the entire building. Seems a little backward, personally.

The problem with Saturdays

Yesterday was Saturday. Weekends and normally wonderful things, but Keating and I have noticed a serious trend here on Saturdays: the alley on the other side of our wall turns into the site of a wild street party. This wouldn't be that big of a problem, except that last night's gala went until 5 am and was louder than the front row at a metal concert, with the music and yelling. As a result, Keating and I got approximately 2 whole hours of peace last night. Why only 2? Well, that's because someone in the neighborhood invariably starts shooting off fireworks at 7 am on Sundays. The consistency is such that I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't part of the local priest's plan to get more people to early mass. Or maybe he's just that excited about Sunday mornings.

On the plus side, it is still far quieter here than it was at our last place. That, and we have yet to have been afraid that the fireworks would set fire to this apartment, something I can't say about our last place. Here, we only have to worry about our own problems with fire.

Being Mexican

This morning, I became (at least temporarily) Mexican. While I was waiting for my pesero to work, a man actually stopped his car and asked me for directions to the Copilco metro station!!!!! (When I told them this, my work colleagues nearly spit their lunches out with laughter. I had to reassure them that I was the only one around for the man to have asked.) Joyfully and accurately, I gave the man directions to his intended destination. I was seriously proud of myself for now only knowing where it was that he wanted to go, but also for being able to concisely answer his question. Then, about 3 minutes after I boarded my bus, I realized that I had actually sent him to the M.A. Quevedo station -- same line, next stop. Without intending it, I had done something so quintessentially Mexican as to justify me declaring myself Mexicana for the day: I had helpfully given detailed, but woefully wrong, directions to someone who was lost. Fortunately, he was a Mexican himself and was likely using my boss' approach to asking directions in this country: ask 3 people, then average their response. For my part, I'm not sure when I've been prouder of such an idiot moment.

Why my job is worse than yours:

This is a follow-up to me gloating about having an awesome job. Now technically, the following complaint is not about my job, per se, but I think it's relevant.

Yesterday at a free department lunch (ok, that part was cool), one of the professors looked a little depressed. When questioned by his colleagues, he admit that he was bummed because his car had just been stolen from the parking lot. Someone had apparently tipped off the thieves that the security camera for that lot was down, and the security guard didn't notice anything to make him suspect that the car was being stolen when it drove out of the lot. Note: not only was the car in a guarded lot, it even had one of those theft-prevention devices on the steering wheel. Quietly, I asked my friend to my left if the professor had a thing for fancy cars -- it turns out that the guy drove a VW bug... of the "classic" (run-down) variety.

To make matters worse: this was the third time that that man had had his car stolen from the university lot.

You'd think that with a track record like that he'd learn to take the bus.

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.

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.

The Kitchen

True story: when I was in the 8th grade, I had to ask my mom how to use a toaster so that I could complete a writing assignment. In my defense, I knew perfectly well how to use the toaster oven in our kitchen and had no idea that we even owned a regular toaster, tucked into some back corner of the pantry. Mitigating circumstances aside, I was not terribly familiar with the kitchen. In fact, I was pretty anti-cooking, which is hard to explain since my mom is a fabulous cook who never seemed to mind cooking family dinner each night. Anyway, I could barely boil water up until I moved out of the dorms and into a rented house after my sophomore year of college. I was suddenly faced with a dilemma: learn to cook or starve (and the follow up: learn to cook decently or suffer from indigestion or food poisoning). I learned to cook.

Since then, I have fallen in love with occasionally experimenting in the kitchen. (Regular meal cooking is ok, but not all that fascinating when I get home late and am too tired to think about it much.) Over the years, friends have been subjected to bananas foster (Sunday dinner crew at Tech), cornish hens stuffed with cherries and wild rice (Abby), stuffed porkchops or chicken breasts (too many of you to count, really), zucchini boats (Keating probably sees these in his sleep), and endless loaves of banana chocolate chip cherry bread (I'm looking at you Marty -- it's just not that same now that I never find old, black bananas in my office mailbox anymore. And no, Mom, I didn't forget the nuts. I intentionally leave them out.), etc. While I love cooking, I will never be at risk of receiving my own cooking show, and all of my meals come with the promise that if it came out plain bad I will be the first to call for pizza (Andy: do you still have nightmares about that lamb stew back in 2003? I do. Note to others: never cook up something that you find in your freezer when you move into a new place, even if it was left there by a kindly older couple.).

Moving to Mexico has provided me with exciting opportunities to try new ingredients and cooking styles. A couple of weeks ago, I made parmesan breaded chicken breasts stuffed with apple and goat cheese. Fabulous! A couple of nights ago I made pork chops with a lime sauce. Edible! For Christmas, I stuffed a turkey with tropical fruits (some of which don't even have names in English) because I couldn't find what I wanted for "real" stuffing. The turkey was awesome, the stuffing inedible. We have been through tacos, quesadillas, rice, and appalling quantities of refried beans.

While I'm enjoying the challenges here, every meal must still be approached as a contest of wills. Every day, I must challenge The Oven.

Mexicans apparently don't like cooking with ovens. Most food around here seems to be prepared in a skillet or something similar. It took me a couple of weeks to even find a mixing bowl for less than the cost of my firstborn child, and oven-safe bakeware appears to be a local joke. Nothing related to oven-use even came with our otherwise fully-furnished apartment.

I have learned why.

The Oven is...fussy. I don't believe the temperatures on the dial (why should I? The burners on the stove operate at "on" and "off" and don't even bother with gradational marks on the knobs). I knew I was in for a battle when Keating and I toured the apartment before we moved in and our landlady showed us the pile of matches she had provided. The Oven must be hand-lit. Instantly, my head was filled with visions of exploding my kitchen, or at least burning off my eyebrows. That Christmas turkey mentioned above? It was pretty much a miracle that it came out ok after I succeeded in launching a fireball 2 feet out of the front of The Oven while trying to preheat. Keating, who missed the fireworks display, had to calm me down and re-fire The Oven.

No meal in our apartment comes without the risk of becoming Dinner and a Show. I think I've mastered the art of lighting The Oven, but I still get a little nervous every time I have to do it. I would give up on The Oven, Mexican style, but for one thing: the grocery store sells brownie mix. Keating and I have committed to making brownies to celebrate my first paycheck down here (yes, that's right...6 weeks on the job and still no paycheck or ID card to allow me into the building). Wish me luck. Because when that paycheck comes in and I attempt those brownies, they'd better come out ok. That's one battle that if The Oven wins will really ruin my day. And I might just have to get even.

How to get a job, Mexican style.

Before we moved down here, friends and family joked about how Keating would get a job in Mexico. The general consensus seemed to be that he should put on some old clothes and stand in front of a Mexican Home Depot, offering to do handyman jobs, or carry heavy stuff, for cash. (Yes, terribly un-PC. I know!)

About a week ago, Keating was playing chess with friends at the Spanish school when a woman walked up to him and whispered, "Do you want to teach English?" Keating figured this was an odd question, odder for how it was asked more than anything, but responded in the affirmative. The woman slipped him a paper with her email address and whispered something about not being allowed to recruit at the school (turns out she'd already been booted out once before), and then was gone. Keating came home that night bemused, but figured that he would contact the mystery email woman to find out more information. Long story short, Keating has a job! The mystery woman works for an English school that targets businesses, and they figured that the best place to quickly find native English speakers was at a place where people couldn't yet speak Spanish. Keating will be teaching on Monday evenings, starting February 15 (or March 1 since the business who has arranged for the course for its employees hasn't finalized all of the details yet).

While the Home Depot-style predictions didn't come true, I can't help but laugh over how sketchy the reality seems. Either way, huge congratulations to Keating!

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.

A note on names

I decided not to use our real names on this blog. That decision made, I was then stuck with a quandary: what to call ourselves? For those of you who know us and wonder about our chosen names, mine is a combination of my name and what I do, and Keating's name comes from the teacher in his favorite movie, Dead Poet's Society. Apologies to friends and family who may be driven slightly mad by the pseudonyms; we just didn't want the blog to come up with a Google search of our names.

Once upon a time, a couple of newlyweds left upstate New York and moved to Mexico City. Rather, this happened in mid-December, 2009. Our two heroes, Shazta and Keating (names changed for the sake of internet anonymity), left behind the familiar and the snowy to move to Mexico for Shazta's postdoctoral work. She spoke some Spanish; Keating could order a beer and ask for the bathroom. This blog is their story, as told by Shazta, and intended to entertain and update friends and family in the States.