I woke up early, heavy chested, and decided I needed to get out as soon as possible. I took the metro, got off randomly and started wandering. I came across this huge old cathedral in the middle of a town square amongst a bustling market. It was incredible...walking in seeing the pews filled to the brim and looking up to high cielings with vast and detailed religious murals (frescos?). I sort of took my breath away for a number of reasons. First, you could smell how old this building must have been...at least back to the early Spaniards and who knows what sort of Aztec shrine they may have built it over. Second, amongst all this incredible adornment...statues, flowers, gold leaf, paintings upon painting, and stained glass I looke up to the front and there was the priest preceding over the ceremony sitting on this lavish couch with an incredibly intricate and ornate background of more flowers and paintings and....insane. Walking out of the Church, after sitting inside and reflecting and somewhat listening, I was brought back to the night before where a terrible judge of character on my part got me into an awkward situation that I ended up learning a lot from. I was invited to a ''party'' that ended up being a miz between a social gathering of a secret society/country club/ social elite network. I've been here a week and I cannot seem to escape experiencing the top 1% of the social situation of the average Mexican every time I have gone out. It's sort of ironic since out of all the interactions I wanted/ want to have....mixing with the richest of the rich was not on my list of things to do. All the more uncomfortable I could not help but indulge in the rich social analysis the opportunity provided. I was explained (and I am not sure how accurate this is) that the spaniards formed three social clubs, and this was one of them. In this banquet hall I was surrounded by business tycoons, politicians, factory owners etc., the '' most influential people in the city'' and the only sign of what I was soon to learn about this group was a huge projected cross right behind the DJ that I noticed, fittingly, as the ''I will survive'' was playing.
The ''church'' in this room, as far as I was concerned, was designer clothes, fake breasts, and died hair. In fact, the only reason that I didn't sorely stand out as under dressed and a complete outsider ( another score for the gringa...misgauging party attire) was the fact that I was blonde and blue eyed. Unfortunately,my breasts didn't quite cut it. Well, it turns out that not only was this group the ''creme de la creme'' (only such a cliche term can fit how awkward and cliche this event was) one of their uniting factos was their ''religiosity'', not solely in the form of sared aesthetics but also (surprise, surprise) in their shared devotion to the lord jesus christ (cheese on rice). I really do not want to go into the details of my horrible character misjudgement. Suffice to say that I was too sick to my stomach and uncomfortable even to dance a little bit.
Part of me, walking out of that Church yesterday, yearned for some sort of sanctuary to pray, or really just bask in my thoughts in. Another part of me thought how nice it would be to have a community in which you practiced some entertaining ritual while singing and sharing principles with people that had the same mindset as me. Right outside of the Church, in the market square, was a group of people doing Capoeira and laughing and singing and looking like they were having a very good time. Definitely a more appealing ''Church'' to me than one that is solemn and dark, where the differences in values and access to resources between parishners is not shared, and where there a acosting statues of a man looking sad and bleeding from all over his body with a thorny crown. But then, as my exploring took me further, I came across the closest equivalent I was going to get to my church that day. An amazing squashed and squishy food, fruit and brightly colored things market where people were bustling about. If there's anything that I don't mind people trying to press on me, it's most definitely delicious fruit. There were amazing, juicy, huge figs, and mangoes, and peaches and these things that in French are called Maribelle's but I don't know how they're called in English....it was amazing. I wish I'd had my camera. Feeling a little better since the morning (it had turned into quite a beautiful sunny day, sort of rare around here during this temporada) I treated myself to a very delicious Caldo de Pescado...big fish and vegetable, and clam soup. MMM...soo good. A soul cleansing experience, I would say.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
June 17th- Coyoacan and Sandwich fixins’
I decided to find the building where I’ll be working starting tomorrow so as not to be stressed about being late. It’s funny because even thought the “daily” has not begun, by the end of today I feel like I already have a routine. We humans are such creatures of habit, its incredible. One of the reasons I want a routine (somewhat) is because I think it will increase my personal interaction. I’ve figured out where to get my tomatoes and aguacate on the route I walk to get home from the metro. I walked by there today what appeared to be the vendor’s daughter was scootering past me singing out loud. Her dad was watching her telling her “use both hands, both hands!” and we both smiled at how cute and carefree she was scootering up and down the sidewalk. The little store was full to the brim with vibrant fruits and vegetables.I also picked up some yummy looking bread in the neigborhood.
I spent the day exploring Coyoacan, an old Colonia that is rather wealthy (old wealth as I’ve been told). It reminds me a little of parts of France with its cobblestone streets and rreally lovely parks. It was Sunday so in the plaza central there was a market with lots of crafts and what seemed to be old Mexican hippies selling them. The crowd seemed comparatively wealthy to other parts of the city I’ve walked through. The menu prices of cafes around confirmed this notion. There were all these performers one of which was three older men performing some sort of Aztec-like dance ceremony. From what I’ve read in lonely planet guidebook (the ultimate source of knowledge..dundundun) this is quite common in marketplaces. I walked away from the market towards IFAI and stopped at a quaint, cheaper, café and bakery for some fresh papaya and orange juice and read some Roberto Bolaño, quite good and appropriate for being in Mexico City near the centro Universitario. Then, I found IFAI (wooohoooo!) and walked around the huge nursery that was across from it that was basically a botanical garden where people were selling the plants. I proceeded to find the metro stop to get home and passed by a huge mall. I was still missing one key ingredient for my beloved sandwich that I had not been able to find in the mercados around la Roma or the places I’d walked in Coyoacan. In search of pesto, that I figured I might be able to find at some gourmet market I took a walk around. If there was any doubt before that I was in an upperclass part of town my mall excursion erased it. It was way overwhelming and maybe because of how tired I was, or maybe something else, I felt sort of nauseas. I found the gourmet store I was looking for and scored some pesto that I will be eating on beautimus sandwich for lunch tomorrow and thinking about all you while I eat it. All the ingredients for this sandwich, and not to mention the excursions taken to find them, were probably more expensive than a few lunches I could buy on the street this week. That said, in the long run I think it will save me a few pesos here and there. Hopefully IFAI has a “bring your lunch” culture…if not I am bound to look a little silly at first. Ooo well.
I spent the day exploring Coyoacan, an old Colonia that is rather wealthy (old wealth as I’ve been told). It reminds me a little of parts of France with its cobblestone streets and rreally lovely parks. It was Sunday so in the plaza central there was a market with lots of crafts and what seemed to be old Mexican hippies selling them. The crowd seemed comparatively wealthy to other parts of the city I’ve walked through. The menu prices of cafes around confirmed this notion. There were all these performers one of which was three older men performing some sort of Aztec-like dance ceremony. From what I’ve read in lonely planet guidebook (the ultimate source of knowledge..dundundun) this is quite common in marketplaces. I walked away from the market towards IFAI and stopped at a quaint, cheaper, café and bakery for some fresh papaya and orange juice and read some Roberto Bolaño, quite good and appropriate for being in Mexico City near the centro Universitario. Then, I found IFAI (wooohoooo!) and walked around the huge nursery that was across from it that was basically a botanical garden where people were selling the plants. I proceeded to find the metro stop to get home and passed by a huge mall. I was still missing one key ingredient for my beloved sandwich that I had not been able to find in the mercados around la Roma or the places I’d walked in Coyoacan. In search of pesto, that I figured I might be able to find at some gourmet market I took a walk around. If there was any doubt before that I was in an upperclass part of town my mall excursion erased it. It was way overwhelming and maybe because of how tired I was, or maybe something else, I felt sort of nauseas. I found the gourmet store I was looking for and scored some pesto that I will be eating on beautimus sandwich for lunch tomorrow and thinking about all you while I eat it. All the ingredients for this sandwich, and not to mention the excursions taken to find them, were probably more expensive than a few lunches I could buy on the street this week. That said, in the long run I think it will save me a few pesos here and there. Hopefully IFAI has a “bring your lunch” culture…if not I am bound to look a little silly at first. Ooo well.
June 16th – The Ritual of Corona Tradiciona
Arturo Sanchez is an 80 year old man. Skinny and sun spotted he always dresses in a dark blue jumpsuit that may have fit him 20 years ago. He lives alone now since his wife, Marta, or Tita as he lovingly called her, passed away from colon cancer almost ten years ago.
His hands, swollen and rough from the years working in construction, look absurdly too big for his body. Behind each of his scars is a tale of the city’s expansion throughout the waves of economic booms and busts. The periferico that I took to get to the place I am staying in la Roma, he helped build it. Currently Arturo uses these beautifully tarnished tools to do odd jobs around the neighborhood when willing shop owners may have little chores or errands. He’s a quiet man but has always been honest and hardworking, this is where his impenetrable pride comes from.
Every Saturday afternoon at around exactly four, he makes a trip to the supermercado on his bike with a hand built wooden basket, almost half his size. That’s how I noticed him first. Riding a bike in la Roma is no easy task and after having walked around for quite awhile I’d yet to see anyone using one.
At the super he picks up exactly eight 40’s of Corona Tradicional, huge, especially compared to him, bottles of amber liquid. His wavering high pitched voice repeats to the cashier que hay ocho, so as not to have to lift the heavy cardboard box, that he brings and uses instead of the metal baskets to check out. He scoots the box gently, so as not to clang the bottles, to this bike. Placing each one tenderly into his basket he moves the bottles as if they were the treasured body part of a loved one. This ritual is interrupted as the boy who works at the exit of the super, paid by the tips of the shoppers he helps, grabs one of the bottles. Arturo scathingly scolds him and chases him off. It is unclear whether Arturo yells out of fear that the boy will take his precious cerveza or if it is out of frusteration for having this ritual interrupted every Saturday after having made it clear before that he does not need help. Perhaps his high pitched crys, giggled at by the other customers in line, are his way of reasserting his incredible independence. Mumbling to himself he walks his bike away with the wooden basket now full of eight 40’s of Corona Tradicional.
His hands, swollen and rough from the years working in construction, look absurdly too big for his body. Behind each of his scars is a tale of the city’s expansion throughout the waves of economic booms and busts. The periferico that I took to get to the place I am staying in la Roma, he helped build it. Currently Arturo uses these beautifully tarnished tools to do odd jobs around the neighborhood when willing shop owners may have little chores or errands. He’s a quiet man but has always been honest and hardworking, this is where his impenetrable pride comes from.
Every Saturday afternoon at around exactly four, he makes a trip to the supermercado on his bike with a hand built wooden basket, almost half his size. That’s how I noticed him first. Riding a bike in la Roma is no easy task and after having walked around for quite awhile I’d yet to see anyone using one.
At the super he picks up exactly eight 40’s of Corona Tradicional, huge, especially compared to him, bottles of amber liquid. His wavering high pitched voice repeats to the cashier que hay ocho, so as not to have to lift the heavy cardboard box, that he brings and uses instead of the metal baskets to check out. He scoots the box gently, so as not to clang the bottles, to this bike. Placing each one tenderly into his basket he moves the bottles as if they were the treasured body part of a loved one. This ritual is interrupted as the boy who works at the exit of the super, paid by the tips of the shoppers he helps, grabs one of the bottles. Arturo scathingly scolds him and chases him off. It is unclear whether Arturo yells out of fear that the boy will take his precious cerveza or if it is out of frusteration for having this ritual interrupted every Saturday after having made it clear before that he does not need help. Perhaps his high pitched crys, giggled at by the other customers in line, are his way of reasserting his incredible independence. Mumbling to himself he walks his bike away with the wooden basket now full of eight 40’s of Corona Tradicional.
June 15th 2007- Bacarday Partaayy
My first evening in Mexico City started out with quite a bang. I arrived safe and sound to Libby and Ric’s house… 114 San Louis de Potosi, Colonia Roma Mexicooo ciudad. Then I got picked up by some friends of a U of C friend to go out for the night. They had tickets to a Bacardi Promotion Party. It was basically a free concert with and open bar in order to promote a new kind of rum or something. You, the Mexican youth, were supposed to go in, look like you were having fun drinking Bacardi and listening to interesting roquero (rock) bands so they could film the whole thing and take pictures. It was an invitation only party which mean you had to have tickets to get in. I am not sure where or how people were supposed to have gotten tickets, but it was obviously and elite sort of thing. The people I went with were very friendly and we danced a lot even though the music was not very good. Although,for all you Peter Bjorn and John Fans out there, during a break between acts we did hear one of their songs and one of the girls I was out with recognized it by name (cool points for the Mexicans, and more specifically Greta’s dad for exposing her). All in all I had fun dancing and hanging out but it really was a strange scene. People were sizing each other up and down and I was most definitely
under dressed (jeans, a sweater and sneakers…can I get a woop woop for the Guerra?).
On the way to this fiestote we stopped at all their houses. This provided me with a tour of the lifestyle of Mexico’s elites. On the drive they told me about the kids they went to school with, who lived in these barrios, and speculated on the origins of their wealth. Politician’s hijos (who had stolen such and such funds and of some of whom were in hiding in the US), Narco-traficos, media tycoons, bankers etc. It was interesting to hear them be so frank and critical of these neighborhoods and these people they knew. They brought up stats about social disparities and the large amount of wealth in small number of hands. All the while though they seemed to construct their critique and my introduction to the city and the noveau-riche suburbs we drove through as though the places we were picking members of their banda up from were not their own neighborhoods.
There were so many scenes from the night that made me think of Y Tu Mama Tambien. Ideal cinematografic sequences where an omniscient narrator’s voice would have been perfectly placed. One of these scenes was as were driving in the supposed richest part of town two huge trucks filled to the brim with limes pulled up next to us probably coming from some rural southern province and going who knows where (our Bacardi drinks?). The second scene was a lot harder for me to stomach. 3 am, we started heading out through seas of trashed cups and cigarettes that covered the floor of the hippodromo (big globe stadium…hippostadium heh heh). This little old lady dressed in candy striped janitors shirt bent down right at Diana’s feet to pick up a few cups that was only a small fraction of trash that had just been dropped. The reaction of the party-goers around was to laugh, scoffingly. Why was she picking these up now? The party wasn’t over. It was 3 am, this abuelita seemed so out of place among the 4-inch high heels, slicked hair and designer jeans. More eerily though, she seemed to fit right in. I wouldn’t want my grandmother to have seen some of the kids in the state they were in and even less to have to clean up after them. Que asco. First night and already reconciling mad social differences becomes a part of my experience. I am curious to understand more about how the social stratification is understood by Mexico’s different age groups and social classes. It’s not like it’s unique to hear. I am sure there are abuelitas who pick up my trash at parties in Chicago too, maybe it just does not happen right in front of my face. I might be wrong but I would be surprised if the first night of going out with a group of kids in the US the majority of them would have any idea of the socio-economic disparities and increasing poverty in their own cities. Come to think of it, I am probably not as well versed in the stats as I should be.
under dressed (jeans, a sweater and sneakers…can I get a woop woop for the Guerra?).
On the way to this fiestote we stopped at all their houses. This provided me with a tour of the lifestyle of Mexico’s elites. On the drive they told me about the kids they went to school with, who lived in these barrios, and speculated on the origins of their wealth. Politician’s hijos (who had stolen such and such funds and of some of whom were in hiding in the US), Narco-traficos, media tycoons, bankers etc. It was interesting to hear them be so frank and critical of these neighborhoods and these people they knew. They brought up stats about social disparities and the large amount of wealth in small number of hands. All the while though they seemed to construct their critique and my introduction to the city and the noveau-riche suburbs we drove through as though the places we were picking members of their banda up from were not their own neighborhoods.
There were so many scenes from the night that made me think of Y Tu Mama Tambien. Ideal cinematografic sequences where an omniscient narrator’s voice would have been perfectly placed. One of these scenes was as were driving in the supposed richest part of town two huge trucks filled to the brim with limes pulled up next to us probably coming from some rural southern province and going who knows where (our Bacardi drinks?). The second scene was a lot harder for me to stomach. 3 am, we started heading out through seas of trashed cups and cigarettes that covered the floor of the hippodromo (big globe stadium…hippostadium heh heh). This little old lady dressed in candy striped janitors shirt bent down right at Diana’s feet to pick up a few cups that was only a small fraction of trash that had just been dropped. The reaction of the party-goers around was to laugh, scoffingly. Why was she picking these up now? The party wasn’t over. It was 3 am, this abuelita seemed so out of place among the 4-inch high heels, slicked hair and designer jeans. More eerily though, she seemed to fit right in. I wouldn’t want my grandmother to have seen some of the kids in the state they were in and even less to have to clean up after them. Que asco. First night and already reconciling mad social differences becomes a part of my experience. I am curious to understand more about how the social stratification is understood by Mexico’s different age groups and social classes. It’s not like it’s unique to hear. I am sure there are abuelitas who pick up my trash at parties in Chicago too, maybe it just does not happen right in front of my face. I might be wrong but I would be surprised if the first night of going out with a group of kids in the US the majority of them would have any idea of the socio-economic disparities and increasing poverty in their own cities. Come to think of it, I am probably not as well versed in the stats as I should be.
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