Genaro

Well, here we are in 3 de Mayo. Daisy told us to come here to see the beautiful artesanias, but really I've seen enough to last me a lifetime, and I think Caila agrees with me. Instead, we trudge for about ten minutes (which seems like an hour) up the hill (that feels like a mountain). By the time we arrive at Casa Hogar, I'm dripping sweat, and the odor of sewage wafting from the open gate does nothing to encourage me to enter. But, as I have learned, interesting smells are as much a part of Mexico as corn tortillas and 5 peso ruta rides. And if Caila lived and worked here for two months, I'd better be brave enough to enter. So, in we go. Caila shows me the small apartment where she used to live right next to the girls' room. About ten girls share the cement-floor dormitory where the scent of rot and garbage permeates the air, and flies congregate on the single sheet covering the king-sized bed right inside the door. I don't know how many girls share that bed, but I know I wouldn't want to sleep there.


Caila chats with some of the girls while I venture outside and meet Genaro, who is mastering some kind of toy that looks like a cross between a top and a yo-yo. The trick is to wind the string around the base and then with a quick flick of the hand, fling it to the ground and get it to spin. "Me ensenas?" I ask him, and he presses the toy into my palm. With my clumsy hands I awkwardly try to imitate Genaro's finesse. The top doesn't seem to want to cooperate and instead plops and pirhouettes stubbornly across the dusty cement. Genaro hops after it, winds the string and plants it in my hand once more, positioning it carefully and hooking the ring around my thumb. "Asi," he instructs, and with a seemingly effortless gesture launches his imaginary top into the air. I try to copy once more, and again it clopples with a lifeless thud, bouncing into the patch of gnarly parched grass nearby. Genaro sighs and throws a hopeless look my way, shrugging his shoulders as if to say, "I tried." I plop down on the cement staircase next to Alejandro, who seems to understand my chagrin as he reads aloud from a tiny Gospel of Mark. As I sit here, watching Genaro ply his magic toy that I can't seem to master, I wonder what other tricks and talents are lying dormant within him. If he can manipulate this little plastic top to glide gracefully over the sidewalk at 7, what could he be capable of at 15, or 21, or 35? He is so young...how will he know that he is something sacred? Will someone be there to push him, to tell him he can do anything? Will he figure it out on his own?

What kind of agency does he have here, as an "orphan" whose parents are too poor to care for him? Can Abrigo del Dios give him the resources he needs to rise above its dusty concrete walls? I don't know, or maybe I am afraid to know the answer.

Hija del Diablo.

Well here I am in the Zocalo, sitting on a bench with my backpack and school supplies, of course not doing homework like usual. UGH! I hate this feeling of almost ennui-I just want to give up before I start anything. I can't think right now because there's and old man sitting near me who for some reason is really bothering me. I wish he would go away and I feel guilty for it. Out of nowhere, he just sat down next to me and started talking--it's really hard to understand his Spanish and he keeps creeping closer and closer. I wish I knew what his intentions are, but I just can't read people here and it's so frustrating. They say that the first step to conquering any problem is recognition, right? Well, here I go.
Let's start with this old man--why am I so uncomfortable? He's not hurting me, he's no doing anything wrong. But...his teeth are rotten, he smells strongly of body odor, which I catch a whiff of every time the breeze blows in my direction. His toes curl under with those yellow, cracked nails that I see so often here. To me, he is physically repulsive. But more than that--I could overcome physical disgust if it weren't for all the other cultural factors pushing and pulling me to disassociate myself from him. Maybe it's leftovers from the million times my mommy ordered me as a child to beware of the big bad wolf. Maybe it's the three almost attractrive muchachos staring at me from across the zocalo. Their eyes grate into me and make me feel exposed...to what, I don't know. I want them to know I don't want this old man's attention, and at the same time I am scolding myself, wondering why I even care what they think. Maybe it's proxemics--inch by inch, he is intruding into my personal space. Maybe his rules aren't the same--maybe he has no sense of personal space and has no idea where my own boundaries lie. Is it a cultural difference or just a personal preference? I don't know--but I do know that I wish he would stay in his "proper place" hugging the armrest on the opposite side of the bench...or better yet, go find an empty bench.

Some kind of profound conclusion seems appropriate at this point...but honestly I have not the slightest clue what that conclusion may be. Should I seek to cast of my qualms and just have a friendly conversation with this man? Or should I surrender to my gut reaction and take off across the zocalo? These reactions to people are built into my being...they form part of me and I don't know how to rid myself of them. And is that even a valuable objective, to cast off my "prejudices"? Thus far they have kept me out of trouble...for instance...I met a man in Jardin Revolucion the other day who spent a substancial amount of time in the U.S. Out of nowhere, he just plops down next to me (I am minding my own business, trying to write a blog I think) and starts talking. He looks a little rough around the edges, which in itself is not disconcerting. Although he speaks English, it is very blatantly the kind of English you learn in the not-so-shiney parts of town. In the course of the conversation, I find that he has spent some time under lock and key, although the cocaine in his vehicle at the time was most certainly "planted," and that on a separate occasion, he broke his leg fleeing the police. At this point, I feel like it is probably time for me to go. He gives me his number and invites me to his home in Lagunilla. I'm not going to call this guy and I don't think there are many people who would advise me to do so. In a way, I am stereotyping him as a drug dealing bum, aren't I? But being able to assign him a certain status allows me to make sense of our interaction and draw the conclusion that spending time with this guy is not the safest thing for me to do. Sure, there is a chance that this is just a very unlucky man who has nothing but the best intentions, and I could be missing out on a beautiful friendship. On the other hand, if something shady were to go down, I would only have myself to blame for ignoring the social clues that my framework for interpreting interactions gave me. So I guess my conclusion is this...there is a fine line between being "safe" and being a cold hearted snob. I'm not sure exactly where that line is drawn...throw in the factor that I am trying to negotiate my way through a foreign culture and it is understandable that a few social clues may be lost in translation, or exagerated in translation, or completely distorted in translation. Maybe here in Cuernavaca, it's completely normal for a scruffy elderly man to sit down and strike up a conversation with a young woman. Maybe a Mexican woman would have felt completely comfortable and at ease in my situation. I'm not Mexican, though, and although I can try to understand how things work here, I am still U.S.en at my core. Okay I'm going to have to quote Emerson for moment, which I don't think I've ever done before in my life. "If I am the devil's child, I will live then from the devil. No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this..." To be what I am, to be U.S.en, is not good, bad, shameful, or meritorious. It's just who I am. To be Mexican is the same. All I can do is live the way I know how...I can't restructure my entire framework for viewing the world just because I'm afraid I might not be giving a prospective friend a chance. I am who I am.

I suppose now I've made myself out to be the cold-hearted snob who's afraid to try anything new or even poke her toe out of her comfort zone. I feel the need to defend myself, and to clarify that these experiences I am having, although at times irritating, are not negative as a whole. On the contrary--although I may be frustrated at times, I feel myself changing and growing into something strange and beautiful with every twist and turn. I've had my ups and downs, and without a doubt I know that this journey is far from over. I can't wait to see where it takes me.

Lidia

I just came across this blog which I wrote while I was studying abroad in Cuernavaca, Mexico. I hesitated to publish it then because it deals with some things that were going on in my host family's house, and I didn't want to rock the boat. However, here I am over a year later and I want to share how I felt about Lidia...

April 2010

This past week has been positively a crucible...(I hope I'm using that word correctly) I don't know where to begin to piece everything together. I know it must fit somehow.

I guess today I just better pick one teeney element and stick to it. Otherwise my brain quite possibly might shatter into a million pieces.

Lately I've been struggling to understand the relationship between Lidia (our housekeeper) and the Peraltas. Lidia is my age, in fact we were born two days apart--I could comment on the irony of how our lives are parallel and yet completely divergent, but that's another blog. The question for tonight is...what is Lidia's "place" within the Peralta household, and to what extent is the relationship between Lidia and the Peraltas representative of the larger social hierarchy in Mexico?

Lidia is quiet and timid, at least as I have seen her working in the house. She walks lightly and speaks little, so our friendship has been a gradual one. Last week, I returned from my first visit to Jardin Revolucion disappointed that all the grass was fenced off and complained to Lidia that I miss the landscape of my home. Her face lit up as she described to me a nearby park with grass in abundance--one of her favorite places. After timid suggestions on both ends, we finally met in the middle and decided that we would go to said park together on Sunday, her only day off. I'd been trying for weeks to convince Lidia to come out with us at night, but she always insisted for some reason or other that she couldn't, so this was a great leap forward. Not two minutes after my triumph however, Lidia turned to me and whispered, "Es un secreto." I asked her why and all she would tell me is that Hortensia wouldn't like it if she knew Lidia and I went out together. Later, she confessed to me that she and Jodi had also spent time together on her Sundays off, and that that had also been their "secreto." I was puzzled. It seemed positively medeival that an employer would have any say in a housekeeper's personal life. But I agreed to keep our excursion a secret. On Saturday morning I realized that I wouldn't see Lidia again before our planned outing, so I tiptoed downstairs with a note in hand asking when and where we should meet. I felt a little ridiculous sneaking around behind Hortensia's back as if I were doing something wrong, but I wanted to respect Lidia's wishes. Hortensia was on the phone in the living room, so I crept past her into the kitchen and presented my note to Lidia. She whispered that I should call her the next morning and started writing down her phone number. Hortensia finished her call and made her way over to the kitchen, at which point Lidia stuffed the note into my hand, practically chucked the pen at me, letting it clatter to the floor, turned her back and started pumping furiously at the orange juicer. I was a bit shocked, and a bit irritated at myself for feeling guilty...we weren't doing anything wrong...we're two adult women who can come and go as we please. Yet Lidia's frantic reaction revealed that she must truly fear Hortensia's reaction.

I think I know what is going on, but I don't want to jump to conclusions. I would make this conclusion because it's what I've been told over an over about Mexico: that the social classes are very demarcated and separate, and that discrimination from the top down is not uncommon. Even so, I want Lidia to TELL me point blank that Hortensia doesn't want her associating with me because we're of different social classes. I'm tired of guessing and assuming I know the way things are. I want to hear it from Lidia, but I don't think she'll come right out and say it, and I don't want to pressue her. Honestly, it pisses me off that Lidia is in this situation, and that Hortensia holds that much sway over her personal life. It's none of Hortensia's business.

Conquistadora..?

It's late and I should be sleeping, but somehow I can't. For some reason I keep thinking of one of the essay questions I had to answer for my MU application for this program...it was something along the lines of "How will you deal with the emotional ups and downs that you will experience in a foreign country?" I think I wrote something about how being an anthropology major, I know what to expect when entering a foreign culture, or that since I didn't have any trouble adjusting to college life, I would be fine moving to Mexico for three months (or some such B.S). Looking back, it's almost comical how naive I was...I remember feeling before this trip that I was somehow above all that childish homesickness and loneliness and such. It's funny how arrogant I can be at times...as if moving to college (30 minutes away from my parents' house) was somehow comparable to moving thousands of miles away to a place I had never seen with people I did not know. I have felt lonely, confused, lost, nervous, out of the loop, and just downright bewildered at times. I still experience about 1-4 of these emotions at some point on any given day, but I'm learning above all that I am stronger than any and all of them. Whenever I have doubts I remind myself of what my Aunt Lou Ann wrote to me right before I left..."You were born with the spirit of adventure." Con el alma de aventura...and I'm MAKING IT here...little by little, I'm digging my toes in and making this place and this experience my own. I'm learning that I am resilient and curious and brave, and knowing that makes me feel inconquerable.

Javier el Pintor

On my way to the Zocalo I pass the shoe store at the corner of Galeana and Hidalgo thinking that perhaps Javier will be at his usual post, painting his plates with scenes from Cuernavaca and Puebla, his home. But the shoe store is closed, and I don't see him. I'm about to cross the street when someone shouts my name from behind. I turn to see none other than my buddy--backpack full of art supplies in tow and missal in hand (it being Sunday). After some chit chat, I ask him if he has just come from Mass, and don't quite catch his answer. But one simple question like this is all it takes for Javier to characteristically embark on a discourse detailing, in chronological order, the entire liturgical calendar from Cuaresma (Lent) to Cuaresma. After learning the Spanish terms for every holy day from Pentacost to Epiphany, Javier offers me his opinions about the scandals among Catholic priests of Mexico and the United States--there's something about a bad tempered sacerdote from Guerrero who pulled out a pistol and shot a man dead to end an argument--and in our very own Cuernavaca, rumors of a priest who "se desaperacio," y la gente anda diciendo que el se fue con una mujer. But Javier stands firm in his belief that one bad apple doesn't make a bad dozen (or something like that), y que sacerdotes, ante todo, son seres humanos que tiene las mismas tentaciones como otro humanos. His sense of conviction is irrefutible, and I find that Javier's beliefs are a pretty close echo of my staunchly Catholic parents', although thousands of miles and a fortified border separate them.

Buscando santidad...

11:45 am, Tuesday - I'm sitting in a chapel adjacent to el mercado. Ya vine de la Catedral que es exquisito, pero esta capilla es diferente--es que me parece mas intima y mas sagrada, en alguna manera...no se que es. Hay mas gente aqui que habia en la catedral, aunque la capilla es mas pequeno. Porque es asi? No se...pero creo que es que el ambiente aqui es diferente. Somebody just kneeled down right behind me and I suddenly feel exposed. My hand automatically shifts to cover the words on the page from what I'm probably just imagining as probing eyes behind me. This man is here to pray and probably has very little interest in the languid ponderings of a gringa. Still, I switch to English, weighing the probababilidad de que el puede leer ingles. La mayoria de gente aqui son mujeres que a mi me parecen tener mas que cuarenta anos. Son madres? Esposas? Estas son las que son mas religiosa, no? O solo es una estereotipo? Hay un hombre--he kneels in the pew, head bent--What is he thinking? It seems that something is weighing heavily on his mind as he reverently approaches the statue of some saint dressed in dark blue with blood speckling his forehead. Should I recognize this saint? I feel a bit guilty as my Catholic roots cringe at my ignorance. But the man knows him and kneels at his feet. Trembling (in despair? in reverance? in hope? I'll never know.) he touches the saint's robe cord to his forehead. I have heard of this--of mothers touching sacred statues and then rubbing their children's foreheads. The man presses the cord to his face, his hair, almost grinding it into his skin as if perhaps somehow the sanctity of this place will remain in his skin. This practice is foreign to me, strange and illogical, but then isn't that the essence of religion?

I want to approach the statue, to read the name and the sign beneath it, but everyone is concentrated right in front of it, and I feel alien, like there is a specific way to approach--a code that everyone understands but me. My curiosity conquers my sense of insecurity, however, and I creep up to the first pew where a woman has just risen to go. I cross myself, something that has grown foreign to me over my years of absence from Church, but it seems like the proper thing to do. I kneel because it seems irreverant not to, and fold my hands even though they no longer seem to fit that way. I feel a little wrong--a little pretentious. I don't believe in this, in the rituals and prayers that make sense and give purpose to so many lives. But then, if I am not this, what am I? This WAS my religion, and even though I don't consider it mine anymore, it is still a part of me. I still feel my roots tugging at me, beckoning from open chapel doors from time to time. I miss the spirituality that seems so intrinsic to the men and women here.

What do they think of me kneeling here with my pink backpack in my perhaps indecently short shorts? Are they disgusted? Insulted? Embarrassed? I don't want to be irreverant, but in reality, I can't detect any hints of disapproval. Maybe they just don't care. They are here to worship I think, after all. They are here to feel their GOD, here to bathe in that aire sagrado that is somehow different in holy places, that makes the silence transcendent. I am after all, just part of the scenery, aren't I? They aren't here to wonder about the silly vulgar gringa, estan aqui para reunirse con su salvador.