Botanical Gardens

10.07.07

A gorgeous day for walking through the botanical gardens after a taxi ride up to one of the American enclaved colonias high above the city. All the homes are new and it feels like Malibu, so much cleaner and pristine than the rest of the city. They all seem to be for sale however, and thus the street lifeless.

Gorgeous plants and cactii fill this green palate of a garden and for the first time an airplane, albeit 4 passanger, breaks this silent sky. On the walk down the heal, I pass a group of young men standing around on a sunday morning. In the centro, yet another festival features cross bearing serious faced men and laughing, gyrating dancers in fur loin clothes and skeleton make up. I love the contrast of christianity and indigenous beliefs. The streets are lined with Mexicans and then us oddball gringos with our cameras and questioning faces.

As my stay draws to a close I feel torn between the beauty of this town and the rift between this ex-pat community which drives so much of the commerce and the life of the local people. The pace of life, the sense of community is lovely but until I integrate with the locals I wonder how comfortable I could truly feel. Being in the street daily, walking through town to pick up food or whatever, mingling feels like growing up in Greenwich Village and having people to hang with has made the stay easy and home like. Tomorrow I will pitch my ideas to CASA in the hopes that they will ask me back to help train their counselors in this new skill Motivating Change. And then I reverse migrate back to the land of big.

Sabado

10.06.07

Saturday. Morning breakfast with Lifepath co-director, then more wanderings though this lovely small town. More work in preparation for Monday's meeting at CASA and a side trip to see a house for sale in this neighborhood. Wonderful view of the city and the parochia, the jardin's signature church. Fun to think about life in another culture and Joe and I talk about this friction between gringos and mexicanos, how the former come down to retire but never really integrate in the city. Ironically, he hasn't learned spanish yet himself.

I get to meet another older woman and we talk about this colonialist mentality of privilege attempting to force it's "do-goodery" on the little people without asking permission or showing interest in indigenous ways. She's been working here for ages and inspires me to be humble in my next forays with CASA.

Thunder and lightening promise some entertainment tonight and I'm just aware of the joys of walking again, breathing in this fresh air and wallowing in sunlight. The thought of my hour commute to work wrenches my stomach as I face my last day.

Fieldwork

10.05.07

Yesterday I finally got to do what I went to public health school for 21 years ago. Fieldwork. Along with a social work student from the U.S. and 2 promatoras we went to a nearby town called Carracol to invite women to attend a platica (talk) on HIV-AIDS. Local women host the talks in their homes and promatoras go door to door to invite attendess. We are driven to the end of a road and armed with pamphlets and a smile Anel, a young pregnant woman, and I greet any and all whom we meet. I simply observe as women shyly listen to her appeal to attend the talk and also sign a petition for a law delineating what actually constitutes domestic violence. Some accept the free condoms, including a rascalian looking young man, but most of teh women claim their men are in the states working, so don't need family planning.

The "street" is dusty and lined with an open drainage ditch around which chickens and their chicks dance their pecking dance. We pass a school where mothers have brought a snack of sopa and tortillas to their young children, passing them through the fence and watching as they eat. It's a sweet scene to witness. There feels no rush to the task this morning adn the light is bright, the air soft and warm. It's quiet but for a few barking dogs and as the morning opens up, more music from radios leaks out of homes.

When we get to the alloted time for the "chat" none of the women who said they would come. The host has washed down her cement patio and living room floor to welcome us and we pass by a pig pen and a few sheep as we enter her compound. The 3 women who are there sit in plastic chairs and listen to the promatoras in an easy way. Seems they are the ones who show up the most. We all agree that the house was not well chosen as school is just letting out and mothers are getting their kids. They also feel the mention of family planning scares many who fear that they will be forced to use something.

Kids run in and out as we talk and I'm aware of how natural everything feels. My dream had always been to work with women in the field, understanding their needs, finding a way to meet them and this first step felt like a favorite shoe tossed aside years ago, but which still fits perfectly.

Back at CASA I am invited to return on Monday and share my observations and suggestions for how to improve the "interview" technique used by both the mid-wives and promotoras, just what I had hoped for. The rest of the day I work on the task, then enjoy dinner with a young woman who wants to practise her English. I'm inspired to find this kind of intercambio back home.

I loved this sign I pass on the way to CASA. No shame. No blame.

View

10.3.07

Today I get to meet the 2 directors of the Center for Adolescents, which is a bit up the street from the mid-wife school. It's in a gorgeous building, overlooking the city, with a central fountain garden, dance hall and various huge offices and class rooms. the light strikes all with this soft protective glow and I am reminded of how the built environment affects us all. The wild blue air sweeps through the doors as I'm given a tour and pebbles crunch underfoot as we wander the grounds. I'm given the low-down on familiy planning in MX, which I haven't been aware of for a long time and it seems teh current administration has cut the budget, and yet is still inserting IUD's into unkowing women's wombs. For family size, catholicism and machismo, birth control is a difficult subject to broach, yet abortion easier to obtain. I'm hoping to help them find new ways to broach subject and tomorrow will finally get out into the field.

I love these mid-wive students, so eager and interested, palpating bellies and filling out minisculy printed forms, their clients perching primly on folding chairs in front of their desks as the supervising mid-wive directs the interview. I miss this field and working with women's issues.

More walking around town and a beer at dusk as I watch more tourists in the Jardin. The library is a lovely place where kids are doing their homework and a few gringos read trashy novels. A roasted chicken for dinner tastes nothing like the Whole Foods bird in a bag and a soft bed on a warm night is welcome.

Limes

10.2.07

A gray morning greets my sleepy head and doing exercises to the news wakes both body and mind. Whenever I think I've got hold of this language, I am reminded that real people speak very differently from the lovely Patricia with whom I'm studying each afternoon. But it's good to hear the real thing, even when much goes over my head.

Anther morning at CASA although today slower because it is "colder." One client doesn't konw how pregnant she is and I delight in seeing the partera use a small kind of ear horn to listen to the baby's heartbeat instead of a stethescope. Her big belly jiggles like a mass of vanilla pudding as they palpate the baby and I imagine swimming again in that safe place. While waiting for more to happen, I do have a lovely long chat with one of the students about her visits to the U.S. where she stays in nunneries, yet goes shopping in big Escalades. It's the best of all possible worlds for her because she loves MX for living; los E.U. for buying.

The afternoon breaks hot and clear again and I head to a mercado, see some incredible fruit and vegetable displays. Taste the delicious carnitas made by a man who rocks back and forth while hacking away at the pork which has been boiled in oil, creating slithery slices of unctious meatiness.

Spanish is much easier with a tutor, than out in the real world and I swear I will start conjugating the subjunctive again one day. But for now, it's fun to platicar about any and everything and simply be corrected. I have met a couple with 2 young kids and will take advantage of their inside scoop on SM over dinner tonight. It's ever interesting to me why people move, especially when the language doesn't come easily. But here it seems to be a spiritual draw that brings ex-pats. That and the real estate prices.

CASA

10.01.07

Blessedly I sleep later than I had planned and make my way to CASA, the Midwife School where I get to sit in on a partera's appointments. None of the clients seem to care that I am sitting there, a stranger in the room and the midwife feels no need to introduce me. The first 2 clients don't know their birthdays, are here for their paps and have had 7 & 8 children each. There's not much eye contact between counselor and client and minimum equipment for various procedures. The older women cover their faces during the exams and the younger ones continue to chat. At one point a young male counselor came in to take photos of the midwive and no one batted an eye. HIPAA doesn't exist here and neither due lawsuits since it's the government who provides the care.

The building is beautiful filled with this wonderful soft but bright sun light that hits the walls of homes like a happy slap. Skylights fill the hallways and local art, musuem posters and hand copied signs decorate the walls. Lovely young students rush around in wasabi green scrub jackets and it's all very quiet. It feels comfortable and a way like home, for some reason. Maybe it's the dream just come alive for a moment that feels so qenuine. Unlike my first day at Kaiser where I felt like an alien.

A lovely 2 hour lesson takes up the after noon, discussing topics from horror movies to the rates of obesity in Mexico. Now I just have to drill in new vocabulary. The view from my window welcomes more afternoon rain.

Which actually never comes. I enjoy the quiet space, a good book, a nice stew for dinner and a walk under the clear night sky before bed. It's quiet in the streets, a few dogs out and some stray walkers. Yet life lives and breathes behind the walls which hide homes and hearts.

Return

9.30.07

Return. The midnight flight from LAX to Mexico City greets me with Spanish only announcements and for some reason the Spanish language customs forms are handed to me my the ticket agent rather than English. I take this as a complement and proceed to the gate where I am the only gringa, yet again, and no announcements are made in my mother toungue. It feels comfortable, more like I’m back in NYC, for some reason. I sleep soundly, unlike the last trip which featured the poor man seized by terrorist visions and anti-american diatribes. Finding the bus to Queretero requires dragging my bag all through hill and gone but it is quick and easy and I am soon asleep again, despite the speakers blaring the latest Roberto Benigni film dubbed in Spanish. At the Queretero bus station, multi-hubbed, I drag my bag through hill and dale and pant up to another ticket counter. They just look at me and say “San Miguel?” obvious, turista yo. But I am flattered by a phone card salesman who explains a long distance tarjeta to me and complements my Spanish. It does feel easier this time.

The countryside, now that I’m awake, is beautiful and reminds me of the rolling hills north of Los Angeles. Nothing as developed, but strip away the rubble piles and dirt roads, the tarp lean-tos and corrugated roofed sheds and you can see a Walmart in the future. Well, actually, it’s already here. Gelatin and flan vendors offered their wares on the bus as we pull into a stop and the man in front of me holds a large palm on his lap, I see a bag full of some kind of shrubbery in the overhead and we now pass a corn vendor, selling cobs from the back of his pick up.


Back at the Casa Arellana, it's lovely to see the same face and be greeted like a long lost family member. I get settled and then head out to explore the last day of yet another festival. The Jardin is crowded and thumping with Aztec drummers & dancers.

Luckily sleep comes quickly after watching fireworks later in the evening and my room doesn't seem at noisily beset by dogs barking and trucks under the window.