...and scene

I spent my last full day in Mexico City with Ben and Adam in the former mining town of Taxco, about 2.5 hours south of DF by bus. The city is built into the side of a mountain, and walking through steep cobblestone streets surrounded by a breathtaking mountain view is a fine way to end any trip.

I'm back in Salinas now. With a laptop and high-speed internet access I can now upload my pictures, which I will do soon. I'll add them to my previous posts rather than all in one separate entry, and should be done with that by the end of the week.

Dash across the border

Upon entering Mexico, foreigners receive a small and rather useless immigration form. Apparently this form is required to leave the country again. Nobody told me this, nor was this mentioned anywhere on the form. So begins my first story, in which I trekked across the airport to the immigration office and proceeded to bribe my way out of the country, since I lacked the cash to pay the official fee and had no cards with which to extract more money. I definitely would not have been able to do this in the US, but in Mexico all it took was placement of cash on the counter, direct eye contact, some leading questions, and silent understanding. I left the immigration without any remaining cash, but with the documents I needed to check in to my flight.

The rest of the flight went without problem, and in Pittsburgh I met up with Doug, Ronli, and Jenny and we proceeded to drive towards Cincinatti, stopping at a Motel 6 on the way. Sometime around 2:30am someone began pounding on the door next to ours and screaming to her not-so-significant other. This continued for about an hour and a half. Eavesdropping, we learned that this woman was seven months pregnant, whoever was inside refused to accept that he was the father, and that he should open the door "so that she could punch him in the face" [sic]. Finally, Doug called the front desk, a security guard rectified the situation, and all four of us (and presumably them two, too) were able to sleep in peace. The next morning, a heavily tattooed woman in a beater was seen in a pickup truck driven by a skinny, smoking tattooed man with a shaved head. Tires screeching, they rode off into the sunrise, leaving behind a cloud of dust with only their shared future ahead of them. I wish them only the best.

Wedding number one in Cincinatti and wedding number two in Pittsburgh were wonderful. Much alcohol and food was consumed, air guitar duels were fought, and jollity was had by all. I saw many friends I had not seen in over a year, and some I may not see for at least another.

Returning to Mexico, I had a five hour layover at O'Hare during which I hopped onto the El to meet with Neil and Mari for lunch downtown. I got back to O'Hare only 40 minutes before my scheduled departure, but to my dismay I learned that my flight had been delayed 2.5 hours. Miffed, I joined the crowd of Mexicans surrounding the payphones and joined their strife in attempting to call friends and family in Mexico. Few of us had much luck, as my calling card seemed not to work from a US pay phone. I soon became the designated dialer of the group, since I could interpret the English operator instructions. While on the line for one call, a young woman handed me a Minneapolis number and I lent her my cell phone. So I met María, who was returning from visiting her boyfriend in Duluth. It was her first time out of Mexico, and she was rightly confused by the delays and gate changes thrust upon her, not to mention being in an airport in the first place. She understood no English. Excited to practice my Spanish and make a new acquaintance, I became her guide, along with a small group of elderly ladies who were similarly confused by the situation. After more delays and gate changes, we finally left O'Hare 4 hours after our scheduled departure. María and I maneuvered some seat switches to sit together and I continued translating crew announcements and refreshment offerings, and tried and failed to summarize the plot of the inflight movie, "Breach." Later, we helped each other through customs and calling taxis. Yay for new Mexican friends!

El día de cuatro museos

Hospital shifts have begun to lose their charm. Our day usually consists of partnering up with an intern and following said intern through the wards and assisting with physical exams and history taking. However, the hospital rotations shifted recently, and now we have found ourselves knowing more than most of the new interns, who seem never to have been in a hospital setting before. On Wednesday, I waited for a reasonable time and when no intern volunteered to lead me around, I left for Chapultepec Forest, the large park housing many of the museum's finest museums.

Museum of Modern Art
The museum has two floors, one each for pre- and post-war art of Mexican artists exclusively. Pre-war art, or "modern" Mexican art proper is very representational; nearly all pieces had human figures, either as a portrait or in a Surrealist landscape. For me this was interesting insomuch as I previously had little idea of what Mexican art was like besides Diego and Frida. However, they didn't match my own artistic tastes, and I assume they use the term "modern" to refer to the chronological time period of the works rather than the aesthetic movement they seem not to represent. The maze-like first floor housing these works was a tad confusing, especially given the absece of any map.
The post-war second floor, however, was breathtaking. The building's floor plan dictated a similar layout as the first floor, but where walls and fluorescent light dominated the ground floor, here open space and sunlight gave clarity to the building's architecture. Contemporary Mexican art is much more abstract, psychological, and powerful than pre-war art, and some of the most chilling and beautiful pieces of art I have seen were found here.
In addition, the museum boasts an impressive outdoor sculpture garden. All in all, my tepid impression of the pre-war collection was eclipsed by the excellent post-war collection. I would definitely recommend this museum for anyone who likes 20th century art or is curious to discover what Mexican art is like.

Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art
For $2 US, why not? This museum is much smaller than the Modern Art, but its layout is much more logical and its collection sleeker and more thoughtful. With limited exhibition space, Tamayo selects representative pieces to celebrate both the progression of 20th century art and recent works by artists of both Mexico and the rest of the world. The entire museum takes about 45 minutes to appreciate fully.




Museum of Anthropology
This museum takes at least a full day to appreciate; I actually visited this museum the day before but returned to take pictures of the fantastic fountain in the courtyard. The Mexica (also known as the Aztec) exhibit is the most famous and rightly impressive, but we were all even more taken with the Mayan exhibit, which included outdoor temples and underground tombs. The museum is logically laid out according to geography, with ancient cultures on the ground floor and each region's contemporary tribes on the level directly above. The Anthropology Museum is a must see for any visitor to Mexico DF.

Palacio de Bellas Artes
This beautiful and historical exhibition space houses a permanent collection of murals by Rivera and Siqueiros, among others, but the rest of the museum was dedicated to a special exhibit commemorating the 100th birthday of Frida Kahlo, easily one of Mexico's most celebrated artists (along with Diego Rivera). I find Kahlo's art a lot more personal and powerful than Rivera's, but I have never been a huge fan of political art to begin with. Bellas Artes was a bit more crowded than I would have liked, and much less thought was put into the selection of individual works. At times, it felt that the Mexican government had aggregated all these Frida works in one place just because it could. If you ever find yourself in DF, you should certainly walk around the lobby of Bellas Artes, but given the surprisingly small permanent collection, I would make sure you are interested in the special exhibit before paying to enter the upper galleries.

This weekend, I returned to the US for a couple of weddings. There are enough stories here to warrant a separate post, which I will write some other day. Chan, out.

Our Acapulcan amiga

Friday evening was our second in Acapulco. The six of us walked all 100 meters from our motel suite to the beach to watch the sunset. While Adam and I bemoaned our sunburnt backs by sipping cans of Sol and Caley snapped modeling shots of Shaina on the sand, Ben and Sirisha noticed a young woman sitting near us, alone and looking very sad. Being the outgoing, nonthreatening people they are, they walked over and soon we were all chatting about Acapulco, the nightlife and the like, in Spanish due to Barnice's very limited English ability. Awesome. Numbers were exchanged by the end of the night, but we didn't expect much follow-up since of all the med students and interns we've exchanged contact info with, only one has actually ended up hanging out with us later.

Not so with Bernice. She called Ben Saturday evening and we met up with her at midnight at Barbarroja, an outdoor bar/dance club on the main strip. We all drank and danced, chatted and laughed, made silly balloon hats and danced some more. We discovered Barnice to be an drop-dead gorgeous, super friendly girl of exactly our age with an independent personality, a fun silly side, and the ability to dance flamenco (or something that looked like it). The four guys all fell in love with her for a night and Sirisha conversed with her like they had known each other for years. By 5am the bar announced closing time and we all crawled back to our respective beds, ending one of the most random and altogether enjoyable nights of the trip.

Acapulco, indeed.

Thursday morning I leave for another long weekend trip, this time to the Midwest to catch two weddings of some Yale friends. Two weddings, two receptions, cramming into motel rooms, and road tripping with college friends? Sounds pretty sweet to me. Plus, I should have enough time to get downtown and catch lunch with my Chicagoans during my 5 hour O'Hare layover on the way back. Did I mention awesome?

Outlook

June 28 - July 1: Acapulco
July 1 - July 5: Mexico DF
July 5 - July 8: Pittsburgh and Cincinnati to attend weddings, with a quick stop in Chicago on my way back
July 8 - July 14: Mexico DF
July 14: Back in California

This makes me both very happy and very sad. Six weeks really is nothing.

On race

I have alluded to the racial tension in Mexico in previous posts, but I'd like to address it here a little more directly. Mexico has an incredibly diverse indigenous population: it ranks third in the world in the number of primary languages spoken, trailing only China and India. Only 70% of the country speaks Spanish at all. Add to this the historical occupation of Mexico by white Spain, who chose to enslave the indigenous population to support their colonial industries (unlike the US, who chose to exterminate the indigenous peoples and import her own slaves). While upward mobility in Mexico is possible, it is much more difficult than in the US given the relatively weaker status of the middle class. All together, this means a society with a considerable, historically entrenched separation between rich and poor, often following racial lines and with a considerable language barrier.

This tension is less apparent in DF, but outside the district limits the bipolar animosity is much easier to identify. In Tlapa, local distrust was not limited to foreigners, but to lighter-skinned Mexicans as well. In a single day walking through town with a fair-skinned Mexican medical student, we watched as our guide was approached by a drug addict, then had to haggle with a local law enforcement officer to allow us to ride back to the clinic in the bed of a pickup truck, a commonplace mode of transportation for the locals. For Tlapans, it's not just that you're not Mexican; it's that you're not Tlapan.

As far from ideal as our racial scene is in the states, I certainly have gained some perspective here about the different masks behind which racism hides. At the very least, I do appreciate that the US manages to chase an imaginary ideal for its racial goals, rather than take the rest of the world as a benchmark like it does in so many other arenas.

Moving the Gente

I love cities, especially those with interesting and efficient public transportation. As much as I still weakly associate the Metrobus with the theft of my wallet three weeks ago, I am still in awe of how a city of this size manages to get people where they need to be, without having to rely too much on their overcrowded streets.

First, there is the Metro, a sprawling subway system comprising eleven lines plus a light rail line. The cars, interestingly, do not run on train tracks but on solid rubber tires, which makes the ride very smooth and silent if a tad slower than systems elsewhere. Pickpockets are common, however, and cars are packed to uncomfortable capacity during much of the day. At 20 cents US per ride, it's definitely the fastest, cheapest, and most dangerous way to get around.

Closest to me is the Metrobus, a bus that runs up and down Insurgentes, a major street that cuts north-south through the entire city. The Metrobus gets its own lane, so even if the Metrobus itself doesn't generate revenue it's probably in the city's best interest to have the system in place for emergency vehicles. Cost: 35 cents per ride.

Finally, there are the paseros, which Ben seems to enjoy a little too much. These small buses are bought and owned by private citizens, who make up their own route and drive it around themselves. Most of the routes are predictable, so it's not too difficult to figure out where to go, but it's a little intimidating at first since there's no map. Often one will have to jump on or off these minibuses while the vehicle is in motion, but that's almost enough reason in itself to try them out. Price varies by distance, but it's comparable to the aforementioned.

There are also many, many taxis circulating through th city, but with the amount of corruption here you never know whether the person behind the wheel is the actual driver, or a carjacker who uses the taxi to kidnap tourists for extortion. Yep, this city is pretty sweet.

Mexico DF pictures, which don't seem to fit anywhere else:

The Zocalo












The Basilica of Guadalupe. The picture is not slanted; the cathedral has sunk.











The tallest building in Latin America, and in my opinion, the ugliest.

















The ruins of Teotihuacan. This is the Sun Pyramid.

Tlapa

Tlapa is an impoverished community hidden in the mountains of Guerrero, a state south of DF most famous for its coastal city of Acapulco. Its name hints at its pre-Spanish origins; this was one of many communities that helped the Spanish to overthrow Aztec rule, only to become enslaved by the conquistadores they had just helped. Today, Tlapa is the commercial center of the region, which is not really saying that much at all. Without any remaining industry, Tlapa exists now only as a lost town surviving on government subsidies. Many of its inhabitants speak no Spanish. Its main source of legitimate income is money sent home by men who have migrated to the United States to work, mostly in New York City. However, most of its revenue comes through the narcotics trade, making this area a rather xenophobic and anti-American part of Mexico.

Arriving in Tlapa, I was at first surprised at its size. I was expecting a rural village; instead, we found a city with 70,000 inhabitants. Colorful taxis, pickup trucks, and paseros drove people through dilapidated streets and the dried-out riverbed, where families set up tents to sell their wares. State guards with automatic rifles stand on street corners and stray dogs roam the dusty side roads. We did ride the mobile healthcare unit to the smaller populations in the mountains to find scenes more similar to what I had expected, but it became clear that few people in DF actually know what Tlapa is like, which explains why we were given so little information about it.

This is not to say that adequate healthcare is not a crucial issue for this town. It may not be rural, but Tlapa is still very poor and its inhabitants do not trust the hospital, which has a reputation for allowing patients to die. The other source of healthcare is a clinic run by medical students on their mandatory service year. They are excellent people, and do their best given what they have, but there is no accountability for standard of care.

Oh, and I was slightly relieved but mostly disappointed to discover that there were, in fact, no scorpions in Tlapa.

Bus stop












The mountain town












Children by the well












Children posing near the clinic

Achilles' Heel and The Yellow Dart

The sixth addition to the med student crew here was Shaina, who arrived last weekend with Caley. Their first day in Mexico, the three of us met to check out the University and walk around Coyoacan, an old town that was originally south of DF but has since been absorbed into its ever-growing metropolitan area. Caley and I ended up wearing the same thing: black tshirt, blue jeans, brown walking shoes. We didn't realize we were twins until we had left the house (I promise!). Shaina showed up in a bright yellow sweatsuit with matching shoes, swiftly earning herself the nickname "The Yellow Dart."

And so we walked through the city, the African American Yellow Dart flanked by her matching bodyguards, a short Asian with spiked black hair and an Irishman with curly brown hair who is quite possibly one of the 50 tallest people in all of Mexico City at the moment. At times, she would pause to take pictures with the locals, or search for skin products in the stores. The bodyguards would silently abide. I was probably smiling the entire time.

Tuesday, the six of us went out to celebrate the birthday of The Yellow Dart. This time, the Dart chose a low cut dress consisting of teal, pink, and leopard print sections. Now, I should note here that The Yellow Dart is not an unattractive person. Mexico has noticed. At our bar table, we were quickly joined by some Latin men inviting us (well, at least the Yellow Dart) to their house in Acapulco for the weekend. Their leader, a man named Aquiles Cervantes, brought over a backgammon set and proceeded to "teach" the Dart, clearly a thin excuse to stare at the Yellow Dart's chest for an hour. Of course, we were able to get a number out of Aquiles by the evening's end. So, if any of you want to spend a weekend in Acapulco with a man named Aquiles, let us know!

Beware of the Scorpions!

Monday we will leave for Tlapa for 5 days. Tlapa is a rural community to the south of Mexico City, about a 7 hour drive on a winding country road. Apparently the temperature reaches the 40s C during the day. The whole point of the trip is to learn about Mexico manages health care delivery to the poorest of communities, but just like most other things on this trip, the program hasn't really elaborated on what exactly we are doing. They did, however, hold an info session for us, during which they outlined their main concerns in order of importance:
1) don't go out at night
2) beware of the scorpions
3) don't drink the water
Of course, I got a huge kick out of hearing "¡Cuidanse los escorpios!" but I guess there have been problems and close calls in the past. It is the rainy season, after all, and even arthropods have to drink/bail out of flooded burrows.

New Roommate

Caley arrived this weekend. We share a room. Our beds are about 24 inches from each other. It's pretty sweet.

Actually though, it isn't so bad; so far we've gotten along really well. He knows the city and the language better than any of us and he's enthusiastic about hanging out with us. He also reads before bed, which has gotten me to start reading myself. I brought along books, after all...I just neglected to unpack them until now. So I've started the Kite Runner, which from what I hear is about as cheerful as Brothers Karamazov, the novel I finally finished in May.

Let's see...more about Mexico. I've been surprised to discover just how expensive things are in DF. Most things are around 80-120% of their US price. Some things (like prepaid cell phone credit) are much more expensive, while others (alcohol and public transportation) are much cheaper. Since my *ahem* donation to the Federal District of Mexico last week, I've been much more careful to only bring as much money out as I think I'll spend. So far, I have rarely overestimated and in fact have often come up short. So: travelers beware!

Speaking of said donation, some guy found my wallet and is asking money for it. He rejected an initial offer of $10 US. Considering the bank cards are cancelled, I would much rather go through the hassle of replacing my IDs than meet this guy somewhere in the city. So, he can keep it.

As a parting note: I finally caved and ate the street food, against some people's advice and following others'. My stomach said yes, but my large intestine said no. But more recently, I tried it again with minimal consequences. Take that, food-borne bacteria! I'm immune against your ass!

Gelo. Mai nem is Maicl. Wat is yur nem?

Last night over dinner I had a long conversation with Vicky, our maid. Domestic service is common in Mexico; I believe all our host families have someone to help cook and clean the house. A casual chat about ourselves and our families and homes developed into descriptions of major US and Mexican cities, climates, and subcultures. I haven't spent much time in Mexico other than tourist traps, and Vicky has never been outside of DF or Oaxaca, her birthplace. Soon we began Vicky's first English lesson. My limited knowledge of linguistics prevented me from adequately explaining phrases like "where are you from?" and "pleased to meet you." I had just as much difficulty teaching English in Spanish as Vicky did learning it. Finally, we came up with the idea of spelling things phonetically in Spanish, as in the title of this entry. This helped a lot. I'm not going to say the typical "English is such a stupid language" because I do adore it, but man is it difficult to teach from scratch.

In other news, one of us was robbed again, this time on the subway. Only 100 pesos (<$10US), but still. I may have to start taping money to my torso.

¡Cantan, no lloren!

We're all going to the Mexico v. Paraguay fútbol match tonight! Alas, I brought no red or green flares, nor gigantic Mexican flags.

Assessing the damage

I lost:
One (1) credit card
One (1) ATM card
One (1) California driver's license
One (1) Northwestern Wildcard student ID
One (1) health insurance card
<$20 in US cash
~1 week's worth of spending money in Mexican pesos
a rent check I wrote for Ben that I was going to give him here (we're living together next year)

I still have:
my passport
a checkbook
about a week's worth of money in $US
a cell phone

The cards have been cancelled, I'll replace my DL when I get back home, and the loss of the rest of the contents is an inconvenience but not an emergency. I still have the means to prove my citizenship, obtain money through the checkbook (the University here has an American account), and survive until said money transaction clears.

By noon tomorrow I should have some money, and we can all laugh at my American traveller's stupidity. Until then, you may shower me with all the pity you wish.

SHIT SHIT SHIT

48 hours in mexico and my wallet gets stolen from my front pocket on the metrobus. goddamn fuck hell.

La Madre

In my last post, I mentioned that my host mother is on the executive board of the Mexican Philharmonic Orchestra. That is incompletely true; actually, she is the General Manager of said ensemble, which means her name is the big one on the top of the program next to the music director's. As I also learned last night, she is an excellent composer and pianist, and has no qualms about attacking the piano at 11:30pm with her compositions. Today she took me out to breakfast with her friends ("las Viejas"), followed by a Philharmonic Concert.


The Mexican Phil is considered to be the best in Latin America. The players are not as first-rate as in the top American orchestras, but the ensemble blends together beautifully as a whole and responds well to the fresh interpretation of their young conductor. The concert hall is comfortable and relatively new with very good but not exceptional acoustics. Their sound is full and rich in the middle range, but the lowest instruments lack clarity, perhaps due in part to the spacious stage area. The concert experience as a whole is similar in many ways to those of Eastern European orchestras; the atmosphere is much more casual and there is a much closer connection between performers and audience members than in the distant-and-often-stuffy dynamic of more "formal" orchestras of America and Western Europe. I was pleased to discover that, also similar to Eastern European tradition, it is customary for the audience to clap rhythmically and in unison at the end of a concert to call for encores. I also found the season programming very interesting; the Philharmonic's summer season is a series of concerts documenting the inspirations, works, and legacy of Gustave Mahler, both as a composer and as the music director of the Vienna Philharmonic. Only of a few of the concerts actually include Mahler's works; the others establish the musical scene of Vienna before Mahler's rise to fame or demonstrate works by composers who are known to be inspired by Mahler's music. Still others are historical recreations of famous programs conducted by Mahler himself at the helm of the Vienna Phil. As a firm believer that concerts should not only entertain but educate an audience, I highly approved of the idea as a whole.


So basically my host mother not only has one of the coolest jobs in the music business IN THE WORLD, but she is also super friendly and is much more honest about expressing her excitement about having an English speaker with whom to practice su Inglés but realizing that she should speak to me in Spanish nonetheless. As she noted to me today in Spanish, "you landed in the perfect house."

¡Ya he llegado!

Hello from Mexico DF! After a rather abrupt parting at customs, I am now with my host family and I can only imagine Sirisha is with hers, somewhere within a 15 mile radius from here. Two other Northwestern students, Ben and Adam, will arrive in the city tonight, and Caley and Shaina will arrive next weekend. Caley and I have the same host family and will share a room; the others will be scattered about the vicinity, hopefully within walking distance. The university being 8 miles from here, I don't know how realistic that expectation is, however.

My family seems very nice. Everyone seems to speak English better than I can speak Spanish, which is comforting for now but once we've fulfilled our initial curiosities about one another I hope we will speak exclusively in Spanish. This will be a lot easier when Caley arrives, since he is more fluent. The 23 year old son in law school is talkative and friendly, the father is retired (although I forget what he did before), and the mother is on the executive board of the Mexico Philharmonic. She is a music educator as well, and the house has a beautifully aged full sized Steinway grand. Their dog, Tango, has absolutely no inhibition and apparently loves guests. The house is old but cozy, and gets a lot of light through its large windows and glass ceiling. I think I am going to enjoy living here.

Some pictures of the house:
The glass ceiling












Yes, that is a tree growing in the stairway.












The red kitchen

I like to be in A-meh-ree-cah

My next post will be from Mexico DF, provided I will be able to find internet (otherwise this will end up being the lamest blog ever...). I have yet to pack, but I have accomplished all that I promised to in my previous post, including cutting my hair from short to even shorter. But considering that it will be the rainy season there, and knowing how my hair reacts to heat and humidity, every centimeter counts.

Countdown

Hi everyone! Welcome to my summer blog! After a quick weekend in SF to see family and celebrate my sister's 22nd, I'm back in Salinas, CA, that veritable gem of the Pacific. Sirisha and I share the same flight to Mexico DF leaving Saturday morning. Until then, I have immunizations and pills to obtain, hair to cut, and In-N-Out to eat. Onward!