The Pursuit of Khaki-ness

Khaki isn’t exactly the prettiest color in the world.

It’s the stuff of Gap ads and corporate casual dress codes, the proverbial “vanilla” of the crayon box: It’s not really the color I’d reach for if I were asked to paint the picture of my life for the past two and a half years.

I’d choose orange for Buddhist temples. Or green for the calm forests I used to cycle through in Fukui. I’d choose white for the uncompromising neon light of Korean cities, or a warm brown for the faces of smiling Cambodian children. I’d pick blue for the sea lapping at Oaxaca’s unspoiled virgin coastline and the endless sky of the Mixteca. Pink for the church in Huajuapan that I run past in the mornings and for the laundry room at my old apartment in Culiacán. Yellow for the threads woven into Guatemalan textiles.

Red for the color of the three faithful suitcases that have accompanied me on my incredible 30-month journey through five countries in two hemispheres, an experience that has helped me fulfill goals I never knew I had and to become a person I never dreamed I could be.

Nope, I never would have reached for the khaki-colored crayon to paint all of that.

Khaki, according to a co-worker, is the color of Chicago. The color of the cold plastic seats on the CTA. The color of file folders. Of cubicle walls in downtown office buildings and of the pants of the people that work in them.

My colleague, who left Chicago years ago and has since found a new home here in Huajuapan, never wants to go back to khaki. At least that’s what she told me yesterday when I told her that I was moving back to the city we both used to call home. It’s funny how we cling to the words we hear when we’re sharing the results of big, life-changing decisions.

Khaki or not, it’s time for me to go home. The reason is simple: The colors of a globe-trekking life, once vibrant and exciting to me, are starting to fade. Travel, once my raison d'être, leaves me feeling a bit hollow. Wanderlust-y weekend treks to exotic locales make me more exhausted than enlightened. As Paolo Coelho-ish as it might sound, through all the travel and time zones and tears and triumphs, I’ve finally found what I was looking for: Me. (Or at least a better understanding of how I fit into this crazy, big-but-small world.)

The decision to return to a khaki-colored life would have horrified the girl who, thirty months ago, sold off every last possession that wouldn’t fit into her three red suitcases and set off in search of adventure.

But the idea of khaki doesn’t scare me now. And that’s how I know I’m ready to go back, mature enough to handle it. Khaki may be the color of the biggest adventure of all: Settling down. Being brave enough to realize that personal growth and fulfillment don't necessarily come in the form of a passport full of stamps and a scrapbook full of photographs. Instead -- and here's where I'll go all Paolo Coelho on you again -- it's about daring to put down roots, to contribute to instead of taking from a community, and to see the day-to-day color in what, from the outside, may seem to be a pretty simple, khaki-colored life.

In five short weeks, my three red suitcases and I will again arrive in a foreign land, a place that will surely be unfamiliar and difficult at first, with the seemingly insurmountable task of making that new place feel like home. The Chicago I'll return to isn't the same Chicago I left in July of 2007. But this time, my process of building a home for myself will be different because I know what home really is.

Home: It’s only fitting that I had to stray thousands of miles away from it to truly understand it.

Foreshadowing

The last thing the Yucateco cab driver said to me before exiting his taxi to go talk to the Federales (the notoriously-corrupt federal police force in Mexico) was to tell ‘em that I was his cousin.

Eh, yes. The green-eyed, sorta-blonde, freckle-faced gringa sitting in the back of your cab is obviously your cousin. Ob-vi-ou-sly. The feds are totally going to buy this one, buddy.

But we hadn’t done anything wrong. There was no reason to worry, yet for some reason I started to sweat, sitting in the back of that taxi watching the machine gun-clad Federales approach in the rearview mirrors. Maybe it was the hot Yucatán sun.

The whole thing started out innocently enough: I flagged a cab outside of the airport on the first day of our vacation to the Yucatán Peninsula, the sticky-out southeastern part of Mexico that is home to well-known cities like Mérida, Cancún and Playa del Carmen. We’d decided that a quick trip to the region would be just what I’d need before heading back to frigid Illinois for the holidays. After all, my tan (or resulting sunburn) would be the envy of all of my friends back home.

Now, in all of my travels to the many corners of the world, I’ve found that one thing usually holds true: The first couple of minutes in place have a way of setting the tone for the entire stay. Foreshadowing, if you will. So if this constant were to prove true in the Yucatán, getting pulled over by the cops within 10 minutes of landing in Mérida was the universe’s way of saying that our little vacation was going to kind of suck.

And it kind of did.

But our trip wasn’t nearly as lousy as that cabbie’s day.

He got pulled over for picking up passengers outside of his permitted zone. It was mostly my fault. Sweaty and suitcase-laden, and not knowing the traffic rules in Mérida, I’d flagged him down on the sidewalk just outside of the airport. Being a nice guy, he’d stopped to give us a lift to our hotel. We hadn’t driven more than 100 meters before those damn Federales honked and flashed their lights and pulled him over. That’s when he told us to tell them that I was his cousin. And that’s when I thought this violation was going to be a bit more serious than a zoning issue.

We waited in the taxi as the cabbie walked over to the police car, showed his license, and handed ‘em a fistful of money. Then the cops walked over the cab and proceeded to question the mismatched pair in the backseat. I, super nervous, suddenly Spanish-less, and obviously not the cab driver’s cousin, diverted my eyes and let my Mexican novio do all of the talking: Yes, he was the cab driver’s cousin. (Lie No. 1.) Yes, the cab driver was a good guy, just doing us a favor. (Lie No. 2.) Yes, we’d just arrived in Mérida, on vacation from Mexico City. (Lie No. 3.)

No, he couldn’t actually verify the cab drivers’ name, despite the fact that they were cousins. Oops.

The Federales had a good laugh at that one, and much to my surprise (and relief), let us off the hook. The cabbie came back to the car in surprisingly good spirits. Just a matter of bad luck, he said. These damn Federales are really cracking down on this zoning stuff, he explained. No need for this little incident to ruin our vacation, he assured us.

We zipped our way through Mérida and arrived at our hotel, where the cabbie parked along the curb. We generously tipped him to help offset the fine he’d received on our behalf. He helped us get our suitcases out of the trunk and told us to have a nice day.

And that’s when a bus rounded a corner and smashed into the back of his cab.

Thankfully nobody was hurt, but the words the cabbie yelled to the bus driver aren’t really repeatable, seeing as how as this is a family-friendly blog. The novio and I looked at each other and backed away slowly, escaped into our hotel, proceeded to check-in, go to our room, and unpack our suitcases. Forty-five minutes later, we could still hear the commotion in the street from the hotel lobby: The cabbie and the bus driver still exchanging heated words, and the honking of nearly an hour’s worth of backed-up traffic.

So the cabby had a pretty rotten day. And we had a pretty rotten vacation. After being pulled over by the cops and nearly crushed by a bus, things stayed kinda lousy for us in the Yucatán. I got sick. My camera got wet and stopped working. And it rained for five of our seven days there. I didn't get a tan (or even a sunburn), which, as you'll recall, was the whole point of this trip in the first place...

But we did salvage our time in the Yucatán with lots of laughs, a run-in with huge iguana on a pyramid, a visit to the region's cenotes (underground swimming holes) via horse-drawn railroad car (you have to see it to believe it), a frigid snorkeling tour, a beach bike ride in the rain, and lots of pictures, courtesy of the camera on my novio’s cell phone. We even had, like, 45 minutes of sun on our last day on the beach.

If you’re ever in Mérida, look for my “cousin,” the cab driver. He’ll be the guy with the smashed bumper and the Federales on his tail. And given his bad luck with us, he could probably use the extra fares.

NOTE to all my beloved Gringa Culichi readers who have noticed the nearly month-long lapse since my last entry: No, I haven't died from the swine flu. I've simply been über busy, hosting hippie biker friends here in Huajuapan, wrapping up work at the university, taking the aforementioned worst vacation ever, and celebrating the holidays state-side. Thanks for your emails; I'm glad to know my entries have been missed. Here's hoping that 2010 is your best year yet!

Sick of Being Sick

I could swear that I’ve had the swine flu about 46 times since April, which is when the international media started with their oh-my-God-we’re-all-gonna-die sensationalism, if I recall correctly. Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m no hypochondriac. It’s just that the common cold seems to pack a pretty big punch here in the mountains, what with the elevation and dramatic temperature changes and all. On any given Huajuapan morning, you can wake up seeing your breath. By noon things have heated up and you’re sweating, peeling off layers of clothes to get to the tank top you’ve cleverly worn under two sweaters and a scarf. Come nightfall and you’re back to shivering under the covers. It takes a while for a gringa gal's immune system to get used to this stuff: Where I come from, it’s either really, really hot or it’s really, really cold, but it’s not both.

These frequent, climate-change-induced colds usually have me so worn down that I’ll swear it’s H1N1. I’ll suck down orange juice and Thermaflu and plan out the monster blog I’ll write about experiencing the phenomenon that may just have replaced donkey shows and getting mugged on the Mexico City metro as the quintessential Mexican experience of our time: The Swine Flu.

“Bravely Battling the Swine Flu in Oaxaca, the Place Where it Supposedly All Originated.” By: Sara Mac, the Gringa Culichi. Has a nice ring to it, right?

But after a few days the symptoms are gone, I’m back to normal, and life goes on. No swine flu. No blog. No glory.

This last time, however, the sick symptoms lingered a bit longer, prompting me to buy an extra-large “freshly” squeezed orange juice from a guy with a cart on my way to work one morning last week. The plan was to blast it all away with a massive dose of Vitamina C, but the quotation marks surrounding “fresh” are foreshadowing for the result: I had to battle some nasty stomach issues – not nearly as “sexy” as the swine flu for blogging purposes – supposedly brought about by bacteria in a bad orange.

By noon, I had to excuse myself from/run out of a meeting at work and barely reached the restroom, where suffice to say, the results weren’t pretty. I won’t be drinking orange juice again anytime soon.

I went home sick and I vomited and shivered and sniffled alone in my apartment that entire afternoon, cursing my misfortune. Why, oh why, couldn’t it be the swine flu? H1N1 would at least have given my suffering a higher blogging purpose, or maybe have even scored me an interview on FOX News, if not just guaranteed me sympathy from my friends back home.

But no, I had to go and get food poisoning from bloody orange juice. Who wants to read about that? (Apparently you, if you’ve made it this far.)

Mexico, however, is almost as synonymous with stomach issues as it is with swine flu, donkey shows and muggings on the metro. A quick Wikipedia search reveals that a full 40 percent of foreigners' travels in Mexico are interrupted by Montezuma’s revenge. In fact, I’d argue that stomach-based maladies are the tie that binds all of us expats living in Mexico. We’ll talk to each other about our pooping and puking in Mexico just as naturally and openly as we would discuss the weather or sports or Sarah Palin’s running shorts back in our home countries.

(At this point it becomes opportune to mention The Tablecloth Rule, which has never failed me, except for the few times I’ve foolishly broken it. The Tablecloth Rule says that when eating out in this lovely, bacteria-ridden country, if you only dine in restaurants that have tablecloths on the tables, you won’t get sick. Just steer clear of tablecloth-free street stalls and, um, men selling juice on carts. Lesson learned.)

At any rate, the good news is that, with such a high rate of ‘em, Mexico is used to dealing with foreigners’ stomach issues. The routine is so common that you don’t even have to leave your bed to get help: I sent a text message to a local doctor (he also happens to be a friend) who came to my apartment, poked around on my stomach, made the orange juice diagnosis and wrote me up a prescription for a cocktail of pills that would make it all go away. I then sent a text message to a local pharmacy who packed my pills into a nifty plastic bag, sent it via boy-on-motorcycle to my apartment, and – 15 bucks and 15 minutes later – I was pumped full of pills and feeling much better.

The doctor wouldn’t even take my money for the house call. Instead, I’m going to treat him to a “thanks-for-helping-me-stop-puking” lunch tomorrow.

And you better believe that we’ll be going to a restaurant with tablecloths. I’m not messing around with this food poisoning stuff anymore. The next time I get sick, I’ll be going down in an H1N1-fueled blaze of glory. Stay tuned for the blog, faithful readers.

Big Plain, Deep Freeze

If Mexico were a Rorschach test, one of those psychological exams that measures your responses to ink blots to determine if you’re crazy or not, common associations might include “taco,” “cactus,” “sombrero,” and “hot.”

Hot. Hot. Hot.

The land of deserts and chiles is not exactly known for its frigid temperatures. After all, the ever-stereotypical Speedy Gonzalez never wore a scarf and gloves, did he? And what would be the point of having Spring Break here if the drunken, bikini-clad hordes of college students had to cover up with a parka?

But there’s nothing like familiarity to break down stereotypes: The more time I spend in Mexico, the more I realize that most of the tried-and-true ideas we gringos have about this place simply aren’t true. I’ve never seen a sombrero-clad man take a siesta underneath a cactus, for example. I’ve quickly learned that there’s more to eat here than just tacos and chalupas (Taco Bell, like Speedy Gonzalez and Cinco de Mayo, is really just a gringo creation, the manifestation of years and years of misunderstanding our Southern neighbor). Not everyone has a pet Chihuahua (okay, yes, some do). And – oh yeah – it’s not that hot here.

Actually, it's downright cold.

Especially when you’re 3,200 meters (that’s a mile high, y’all) above sea level in a town called Llano Grande (Big Plain), Mexico’s own version of Boulder, Colorado. Except that the Mexican version has just 92 residents, none of whom seem to have discovered the virtues of central heating, despite the fact that the average temperature of the place hovers somewhere around 45 degrees.

But Llano Grande, tucked away in Oaxaca’s Sierra Juarez mountain range, has its perks: Beautiful landscapes, for example (see above). Clear, clean rivers. Delicious locally-grown food. Snow. (The Chicagoan in me still thinks of “snow” with the same distain I hold for other four-letter words, but it is somewhat of a draw for Mexicans.) Zapotec culture. (Llano Grande is one of a system of a dozen or so Pueblos Mancomunados, a series of mostly-indigenous mountain communities that have teamed up to preserve their collective 180 square miles of forest, and all of the natural resources contained therein, while promoting sustainable tourism to the area.) And quaint, brick cabins, tucked away in pine forests.

At this point, I should add that the quaint, brick cabins come equipped with a quaint, brick fireplace, meant to combat the quaint, brick design that has the disadvantage of trapping in cool air, making the interior downright frigid at night.

Upon entering our cabin late on Saturday night (those sinuous mountain roads take some time to traverse) and literally seeing our breath indoors, my travel companion and I decided it was time to fire up the fireplace. He helped me load kindling and logs into la chimenea, and we had a decent blaze going before he left to look for some dinner n’ mezcal (what better way to warm up?), leaving me in charge of feeding the fire and warming the place up before he got back.

Clad in a knit cap and three sweaters, I squatted next to the fireplace, dutifully adding logs to the flames, waiting for it to begin to heat the place so my fingernails might appear slightly less blue. The feeling was familiar, the stuff of waiting for the train on elevated, wind-whipped platforms of a frozen February in Chicago, or of shivering in the icy bathroom of my thin-walled, space-heated Japanese apartment, waiting for my toothpaste to thaw so I could brush my teeth.

Little by little, the cabin warmed up enough for me to be able to peel off a couple of layers of sweaters. I smiled, thinking how warm n’ cozy the place would be for my novio when he came back with our dinner.

Twenty-five minutes later, and I heard my novio’s car pull up next to the cabin. The heat had made me sleepy, so I greeted him with droopy eyes and a big bear hug. But instead of settling down by the fire next to me, he tore around frantically opening doors and windows.

¿Qué diablos estás haciendo? Why the [insert choice explicative here] are you letting the cold back in?

Smoke had filled the room. Nearly drunk on the heat (and CO2) produced by the fire, I hadn’t noticed the swirling grey clouds billowing above my half-asleep head: The chimney was clogged.

It was too late to ask the Llano Grande guys for help. We’d have to air the place out and let the fire die down, despite my protests of cold.

We hurled ourselves into the bed, buried ourselves under a sheet, three thick blankets provided by the Llano folks, two more covers that my novio had the foresight to bring, plus a bedspread that we pulled off the top bunk of the bunk-beds in the corner of the cabin, waiting for oxygen to replace the carbon dioxide in the room. When the last wisp of smoke had left the cabin, we hurriedly closed the windows, bolted the door, and shivered ourselves to sleep.

At some point in that frigid, ink-black night, I woke up, teeth chattering and half-frozen. A beam of icy moonlight stretched across the cabin, up onto the bed, and shone right into my eyes.

The front door of the cabin was wide open.

We hadn’t bolted it properly. No wonder we were frozen.

If I had to take a Rorschach tomorrow, I’d probably be institutionalized: While most people associate frozen blue agave margaritas with Mexico, the mention of the place conjures up the memory of my frozen blue nail beds. Just as Speedy Gonzalez, Cinco de Mayo, and Taco Bell’s 99-cent Value Menu simply don’t exist in Mexico, neither does heat.

Coming to Mexico? Better pack your parka. And a couple of extra blankets.

Listen to your gut

The apartment looked like it had served as the set of the toilet scene in Trainspotting. (For those Gringa Culichi readers who have not seen Trainspotting and, thus, have just been spared a very disturbing visual, suffice to say that the apartment was less than pleasant). But for a mere $400 USD a month, it could have be mine, in all of its cockroach-infested, urine-fragranced, windowless glory.

I was apartment shopping because I was contemplating a move. And I was contemplating a move because I had temporarily been wooed by the bright lights of the big city that is Mexico City (and that’s big with a capital B-I-G as Mexico City is the third-largest urban sprawl on the planet). Even a cursory glance at my past blog entries will reveal that I’m a city girl at heart, and deeper investigation into the number of times I’ve referenced my homesickness for Chicago or my frustrations with my $38-dollar-a-day-job and country-bumpkin living here in the small mountain-top town of Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca offer further explanation as to why I’d consider such a relocation in the first place.

So when the job offer rolled in -- and when the job offer included couple more zeros at the end of the number on the paycheck than what I currently see here in Oaxaca -- I could hardly control my enthusiasm. I bought my bus ticket to Mexico City. I’d go to check out apartments and to meet my future co-workers. I’d go to feel out what my new life would be in El Distrito Federal (that’s DF locally, for what translates to Federal District in English, which is what people-in-the-know call Mexico City).

I’d be a city girl again. One of those hip chicas who call the place DF instead of one of the schmoes who call it Mexico City.

My mind was humming with the possibilities and my heart was pounding with excitement. But my gut was less than convinced. And because I refused to listen, it was forced to scream: YOU'RE SELLING OUT! All that noise stirred me out of what semblance of sleep I was able to garner on the seven-hour overnight bus trip. But I blocked my gut's message by turning up my iPod, chalking up the unsettled feeling to carsickness.

Luckily, when a girl isn’t smart enough to listen to her gut, the universe steps in to steer her in the right direction. Despite the fact that I spent the entire weekend trying to fall in love with DF, I kept bumping into Oaxaca in the strangest of places.

There was the gardener who greeted me at the door at the fancy-pants apartment buildings I’d made an appointment to see on Saturday. Waiting for the realtor to show me the place, I struck up a friendly “where ya from?” conversation with him. He wasn’t just from Oaxaca -- nope, I never would have caught a sign that subtle from the universe -- he was from La Mixteca, the region where I live, from a town that’s right next door to Huajuapan, as if such proximity were possible in a place where mountains place two-hour barriers between “neighborhing” communities. I asked him how he liked DF. He shrugged as he looked down shyly -- or maybe it was sadly? -- and poked at the dirt with his shovel. After ten years, he said, he “was still getting used to it.”

Later that day, en route to a coffee date with a future co-worker, I got lost in the maze of streets that criss-crossed the metro stop I’d stumbled off at. All of the streets were named for delicious, glamorous big cities: Londrés (London), Tokio (Tokyo), Praga (Prauge). But I was unable to find my desired address on the swanky Hamburgo (Hamburg) because I was lost, wondering around on -- you guessed it -- Oaxaca Avenue. I’d take the wrong exit out of the subway. Or had I?

The final straw came when I stopped to buy a pair of earrings from a street vendor I came across when I finally found my way to Hamburgo. The earrings consisted of colorful turquoise shapes painted on some sort of natural material -- not quite wood, not quite shell -- so I asked about their origin. The material, of course, was from Oaxaca, which, though unsolicited from yours truly, prompted the vendor to tell me how much he loves Oaxaca. That he thinks Oaxaca is one of the most beautiful places in the country. That he would leave DF in a second if he could find work in Oaxaca.

Oaxaca. Oaxaca. Oaxaca.

Listen, amigo. I’ve just come from Oaxaca. I’ve been wondering around on it for the past hour. Or, rather, I’ve been wondering around IN IT for the past year. There’s nothing for me there! Please, please. PLEASE, just let the city girl come home.

I wanted to shake him and yell at him and attempt to reason with him. But the earring vendor had spoken. And so had the universe.

Lest this blog entry begin to eerily resemble the super-cheesy plot line from Serendipity or sound like it was ghostwritten by Paulo Coelho or those new-agey people from The Secret, let me get back to my Trainspotting experience. The next day, Sunday, I marched -- my newly-acquired Oaxacan earrings dutifully dangling from my lobes -- into the aforementioned so-disgusting-it-provoked-my-gag-reflex-upon-walking-in-the-door apartment located off a busy intersection in downtown DF. This apartment represented what my DF life would be: dank, dark and dirty, full of 6-day workweeks and 90-minute subway commutes to teach English to spoiled rich kids and corporate suits. DF may wine and dine you under its sparkling bright lights, but this apartment, dimly lit by a single, naked light bulb flickering from the cracked ceiling, revealed its dark underbelly.

It’s ironic that I had to go all the way to Mexico City to buy earrings I could have just as easily bought in Oaxaca. And it’s also ironic that I had to go all the way to Mexico City to realize that the good life was actually back in Oaxaca.

I won’t be moving to DF, and, therefore, I won't be chic enough to call the city "DF." So, correction: I won't be moving to Mexico City. Call me a schmoe. But at least my gut will finally shut up.

Meet the Fockers (à la Mexicana)

There’s nothing like spending a Sunday night in a cemetery.

With your Mexican boyfriend.

And his entire extended family.

Meeting a significant other’s family is always a bit awkward. There’s the anxiety of making a good first impression. Of hoping they like you. Of remembering new faces and names.

Throw in the twist of dating a Mexican, and you do all of the above en español while attempting to juggle cultural differences with an extra-large extended family that includes, like, 36 aunts and uncles and at least 467 cousins: Do you offer Tio Martín a handshake or kiss on the cheek? Do you address thirty-something Prima Lupe in the formal “usted” form or use the more familiar “tú”? How do you react when nearly-deaf, 85-year-old Tia Josefa can’t understand your gringa accent?

And then there’s the issue of location. What could be more comfortable or natural that doing all of this in a cemetery at 11pm on a Sunday night?

But that’s par for the course here in Mexico. This time of year, families get together to celebrate El Día de los Muertos (that’s Day of the Dead), so what better opportunity to introduce your gringa girlfriend to the crew than when everybody’s together anyway?

And that’s exactly how it went down in a tiny cemetery on top of a mountain somewhere in rural Oaxaca this past Sunday. Mexican families believe that the spirits of the departed come back to visit the living on November 1 (it’s known as All Saints’ Day en inglés). Since they only come around once a year, Mexican Hospitality says you’d best make ‘em feel welcome, with elaborate altars in homes (packed with flowers, candles, pictures, food and beverages of choice) and all-night vigils at the cemetery, where families take turns tending the gravesites with flowers, candles, food and music.

Where I come from, cemeteries are usually somber places, evoking scenes of cold November days with brittle, leafless trees and sobbing widows at grey gravesites. But in Mexico on Day of the Dead, cemeteries are carnival-like, with music and crowds, cumbia-blaring speakers and vendors hawking tamales and pozole and atole right outside the cemetery gates.

So what better place than a cemetery to meet you boyfriend's father's sister's daughter's daughter, whose name you forgot thirty seconds after it was told to you, because you were whisked away to meet your boyfriend's mother's sister’s second cousin's son?

And what, exactly, does one talk about over the graves of the dearly departed? The universal awkward-situation conversation topic – the weather – doesn’t always translate to Mexico, because, let’s face it, it’s sunny and beautiful here all the time. And frankly, it seems a little trite to be comparing precipitation trends in Chicago and Oaxaca when you’re supposed to be honoring the memory of Abuelo and Abuela, who are resting for eternity just below your feet.

Given all of this awkwardness, it is strange to admit that I actually enjoyed the experience? My novio’s family was warm and welcoming, offering me lots of hugs and kisses, and it’s-so-nice-to-finally-meet-yous. They streamed into the family’s capilla throughout the evening, piling yellow and white and purple flowers on the gravesites and lighting candles. We chatted about NAFTA and master’s degrees and beach vacations. And later we noshed on hot chocolate and sweet bread.

If meeting extended family in a cemetery is normal in Mexico, I can only imagine how out-of-place my novio must have felt when I took him to my uncle's house in Central Illinois for a good ol' red-white-n'-blue fish fry this past July, inflicting my cousins and uncle and grandma on him all at once. Perhaps this whole meet-my-entire-extended-family-in-a-graveyard-at-midnight thing was his form of revenge.

At least I got some hot chocolate out of the deal. All he got was fried bass and a Bud Light-induced hangover.

Lila & Lateness

When they said the concert would start at 9 pm, I knew it wouldn’t start at 9 pm. Though Mexican Time still continues to mystify me (like it did here and here and here) I’m not naïve enough to think that an event would actually – gasp – begin at the advertised time.

So when we heard that Lila Downs – a Mexican singer who’s somewhat of a heroine ‘round these parts, born in a tiny town called Tlaxiaco to a Oaxacan mom and a gringo dad, verified as a star after her appearance in the movie Frida a couple of years ago and subsequent Oscar – would be playing a rare concert in her hometown at 9 pm on Friday, we jumped at the chance to go. I’d take off work at 6 pm giving us plenty of time to drive the two hours to Tlaxiaco and arrive for the show.

A week ahead of the event, the media hype began. Tlaxiaco, a town of about 17,000, wouldn’t have the infrastructure to support the onslaught of concert-goers that Lila would bring. Speculation ran wild, with estimates of 4,000 people expected to descend on the tiny town with only 1,000 hotel rooms.

You’d think the Beatles were coming to play live in the the Mixteca. We booked our tickets early and managed to reserve one of those precious hotel rooms.

We left Huajuapan at about 6:30 on Friday in anticipation of a great night. We’d arrive in Tlaxiaco by about 8:30, giving us time to check into our hotel, get to the concert, and maybe even grab a beer before the show. The concert wouldn’t start at 9 pm. We had plenty of time.

But we didn’t expect getting stuck in mud along the pothole-plagued mountain highway on the way to Tlaxiaco. Nor did we anticipate a parade to be blocking all of the streets when, mud-covered, we finally rolled into town – late – at 9:15 pm. We also didn’t budget for the 30 minutes it would take to reach our hotel, which wasn’t in Tlaxiaco at all, but well on the way to the next town over, across streets snarled with traffic and bits of broken parade float.

We arrived at the concert around 10 pm. Apparently Lila had gotten the message about the delay, too, because her fancy-pants truck pulled up the same time we did, allowing me to snap the fabulous “hey there, adoring fans, I’m arriving fashionably late just like you” picture above.

We were right on time. I’d finally outsmarted Mexican Time! We smugly got our tickets, found our seats, and exchanged pleasantries with the people sitting around us (who had arrived at 9 pm – suckers! – don’t you know about Mexican Time?). And we waited.

And waited and waited and waited.

We waited through as the roadies – in all of their black-hoodied coolness – untangled wires on stage. We waited through the sound check-check-check. We waited through the warming-up cacophony of the saxophone, the drums, the harp, the bass guitar and a banjo – all competing to be heard over the piped-in pop en español soundtrack designed to cover up all the noise.

10:30. 10:45. 11 o’clock. 11:15 pm.

We waited as throngs of later-than-us-but-actually-more-on-time people arrived and smugly took their seats.

Suckers! Don’t you know about Mexican Time?

At 11:30 pm, Lila finally took the stage. There is really no way to put the impact of her music into words. Suffice to say that her smoky, goosebumps-inducing voice, coupled with her kaleidoscopic Mixtec dress, made the wait completely worthwhile.

At 1 am, the concert concluded, and I, after happily violating the concert produers' no-photo policy by taking about 300 pictures, dutifully filed out of the hall with throngs of octogenarians and eight-year-olds alike, all of whom had braved the late hour to see their hometown hero. Where I come from, these folks would have been fast asleep at that time.

So, while I’m convinced that I’ll never understand Mexican Time, I’m also comforted by the fact that I’m not alone.