When it rains...

...it pours.

I'm going to draw an analogy between Morton Salt's good ol' tagline and the steady stream of just-when-you-think-it-couldn't-get-any-worse-oh-look-it-just-got-worse headlines coming out of my lovely host country. I think it is an especially fitting analogy as we enter rainy season here in Mexico.

Where to begin...

In case you've missed the headlines for the past, um, year, Mexico's in the throes of a somewhat major drug war. The army patrols streets in border towns. Journalists are murdered. Cartel members shoot at each other in supermarkets and shopping malls. Folks get kidnapped. I can tell you from first-hand experience that in some cities it's impossible to go out for dinner without getting a gun pointed in your direction. It's kind of ugly up near the frontera.

There's also the issue of this pesky recession. Yup, la crisis has officially arrived here in Mexico. The peso is steadily sinking. Prices are steadily rising. A peso here, a peso there. That's a lot of pesos when you're only making 100 of them a day, like many folks do here in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca. In my case, an hour of peso-salaried work here in Mexico currently converts to approximately enough dollars to buy a one-way bus fare in Chicago. Nice.

You might have also heard about this swine flu. Death tolls change hourly, depending on who you're asking or what you're reading, but Oaxaca has the dubious honor of being home to the first documented swine-related death. Mexico City shut down last week. And as of noon today, Huajuapan de León has followed suit. My classes have officially been cancelled through May 6. Students have already vacated campus in search of face masks and vitamin C supplements. From tomorrow, I'll be on a vacation of sorts, a kind of vacation where you're not supposed to leave your house or breathe or talk or hug or kiss anyone.

And, just today...more good news. A 6.0 earthquake near Mexico City. We felt it here in Oaxaca. You know, just in case things weren't interesting enough.

If you relied on headlines alone, you'd think that the situation was pretty darn depressing down here. Pistols, pesos, pigs, and...darnit, I can't think of an earthquake-related word that begins with "p."

But, truth is, things ain't so bad.

Or at least things aren't as bad as the US media is making them out to be. Not everyone who visits Mexico gets kidnapped by a drug cartel -- or the swine flu from riding the Mexico City metro. I promise.

But, in my humble opinion, the glue that's holding this country together is the people. Mexicans, if nothing else, are survivors. They're resilient. The past couple of hundred years of Mexican history have seen a disproportionate number of awful events: wars, foreign invasions, natural disasters, financial crashes and political scandals. Folks here are used to these things. The mentality is that if today sucks, mañana will be better.

Life goes on here in Mexico. Cartel violence, economic woes, world health emergencies and natural disasters will not affect Mexico's core, the things that make Mexico an amazing place to live, the things that keep me here this country, even through its rough patch. Crisis will not stop people from greeting strangers in the street with a heartfelt "buenas tardes" (even if it is muffled by a sanitary mask). Crisis will not stop people from making time for friends and family (even if the government has discouraged handshakes and kisses). Crisis will not stop people from having a laugh over a beer (even if the bars are closed).

Crisis will not stop people from smiling.

This afternoon, I happened to be up near the front gate of our university as scores of blue face mask-clad students filed off campus. Some looked a bit worried, some were laughing with friends (no classes for a week and a half is a pretty sweet deal to any 19-year-old, even if a world health crisis is the reason behind it). But I caught a glimpse of one student, walking alone.

He'd drawn a big, goofy smile on his mask, just where his mouth would've been below.

It will get better mañana. I promise.

:-)

NOTE: This entry is also posted on a fantastic site called The Truth About Mexico. The site offers "real" perspectives from expat-type people living in Mexico, countering a bit of the sensationalism we're all seeing in the mainstream media. Give it a read, leave your feedback, and please spread the word!!

Ants in My Pants

As the rainy season approaches here in Oaxaca, I've been comparing my apartment (pictured above -- isn't the garden pretty?) to Noah's Arc.

There are lots of, um, species, aboard.

They come inside to escape the torrential rains outside.

And they travel in pairs.

But let me make some clarifications. The aforementioned species aren't the of the cute, cuddly, illustrated Bible variety -- they're mostly larger-than-life cockroaches, nightmare-inducing spiders and large quantities of ants. And they're not just in my apartment to escape the rain. They've been kicking it there for the past 10 months -- for as long as I've been there (I've blogged on their presence before. Their numbers seem to be increasing with the rain factor). And while the cockroaches and spiders seem to travel in pairs, the ants -- oh, those damn ants -- like to hang out in the hundreds.

Hundreds. No lie. But I'll get to that in a minute.

That pretty little garden in front of my apartment (again, see the picture) is a breeding ground for all things creepy crawly. The problem is that the insects don't actually stay there --they make their way into my apartment via the doors and windows on the first floor. And they usually stay on the first floor. This is a double-edged sword because it means that there have been several, um, surprise encounters with insects in my ground-level kitchen and bathroom. But the good news is that my second-level bedroom is usually bug-free.

So I proceed with caution when I'm downstairs. I'm afraid of a run-in with the seven-legged spider that taunts me from my ceiling, or with the cockroaches that like to hang out behind my bathroom door. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. (This, from a girl who enthusiastically hunted bugs n' butterflies during her youth. A girl who proudly co-won The Biggest Bug in Riverton Contest at age seven. What have I become?)

I'm cockier when I'm upstairs. There's never any bugs. I prance around like I own the place (I may pay the rent, but I certainly don't "own" my apartment -- the wildlife calls all the shots).

This was my mindset when I opened the bottom drawer of the dresser in my usually-bug-free bedroom a couple of days ago. I wanted to pull out a pair of sweatpants to go for a jog. I've painted my dresser a cheery yellow. (I like the color. It goes well with the lime green of my interior walls and the very subdued peach of the exterior. Read: sarcasm). But that day, that yellow hue contrasted eerily with what was inside the drawer...

...a seething black mass of ants. Hundreds and hundreds of ants. Crawling all over my pants.

I literally had ants in my pants. (My grandmother pointed this out when I was recounting this disturbing story to her on the phone over the weekend.)

I didn't know how to react. I was too shocked to scream. So I pulled out the entire drawer and threw it out on the balcony outside my bedroom. Pants and shorts and neighbors be damned. I then ran down the stairs and out of my apartment.

OK. I overreacted a little bit.

I steered clear of my apartment for several hours. With a clearer mind, I thought through what would have been smarter reaction scenarios, like calmly carrying the drawer downstairs to the garden, away from my bedroom, and letting the critters crawl out freely. But I didn't do that. And, because I'd overreacted, I'd likely return home to a bedroom full of ants. D'oh!

When I finally did make it back to my apartment, I crept up the stairs to my bedroom. I gingerly flicked on the lights, expecting to see my walls teeming with tiny black ants. But my bedroom was empty.

I carefully opened the door to my balcony, again, expecting to find dark masses crawling all over the floor. No ants.

I hesitantly stepped out on the balcony, reached down to pick up one of the many pairs of pants scattered all over the floor, and shook them. No ants.

I picked up the discarded drawer. No ants.

So I stuffed ALL of my pants into three big plastic bags and dropped them off at the laundry mat the next morning. Eight kilos of clothes. Quite the laundry bill. The clerk looked at the pile of pants with a raised eyebrow. I tried to explain myself, but somehow, the "ants in my pants" idiom kind of got lost in translation...

Shamelessly Stereotypical in Guatemala

It's the stuff stereotypes, the subplot of every bad Hollywood film ever made about life South of the Border: The sombrero-clad, big-moustached, gold-teeth-sporting Mexican taxi driver/police officer/souvenir vendor are supposed to trick the silly, fanny-pack-wearing, camera-laden, map-consulting gringo tourist out of his every last peso. The Mexicans are the rip-offers and the gringos are the rip-offees. And that's the way it is.

Now, I don’t usually subscribe to such stereotypes. I don’t consider myself a fiscally clueless gringa, nor have I ever had a problem with getting ripped off in Mexico. Nonetheless, when traveling with three street-savvy Mexican guys through Guatemala last week, the last thing I expected to be was ripped off. After all, with the Mexicans, there'd be no language barrier to overcome, no tourist traps to avoid, and, of course, the green-eyed, blonde-haired, freckle-faced factor wouldn't apply in their case.

But, at the end of the day, despite our attempt to avoid the touristy, we were all -- three Mexicans and an American -- foreign tourists in Guatemala. And, at the end of the day, we got ripped off. Really ripped off. Milked for our every last quetzal. (FYI, the Quetzal is a very colorful bird, and is also the name of the currency in Guatemala, which I will denote with a “Q” moving forward.)

There were the usual tourist snares: The shop owner in Flores who charged us Q10 for postcard stamps whose actual price was Q4. The restaurant in El Relleno that delivered a bill for Q80 (that’s $10 USD, folks!) for a few stale tortilla chips served with lukewarm beans. The tour boat operator in Livingston who stalked us mercilessly on his scooter, finally convinced us to take his boat, and then left us sitting on the dock for 40 minutes.

But the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was Hotel Suli, a complete dive of an accommodation located along a hot, smelly, traffic-ridden street in Rio Dulce, a coastal city we found ourselves in at about 1 am on Friday morning. Foolishly, we’d rolled into Rio Dulce without a hotel reservation on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. Homeless and sleepy, we crowded around a dingy map posted on the side of the road, thumbing through our guidebooks and calling hotels, increasingly disheartened to find that everything was full.

We met a cab driver (who, for the record, was a saint of a man, a refreshing change from other Guatemalan cab drivers we’d met in our journey who’d overcharged us mercilessly). The taxista drove us around the town, stopped to help us inquire at hotels, lent us his cell phone, and then, when all options seemed to be exhausted, offered us a place to stay in his home.

We should have taken the cab driver up on his offer to sleep on his floor.

Shoulda coulda woulda.

But, as (bad) luck would have it, we pulled into Hotel Suli at about 2:30 am, shortly after four guests had apparently left the hotel without paying. This left their room free and the hotel clerk anxious to fill it to recover his losses -- and unfortunately, with no housekeeping staff available to clean the room, this also left us with dirty sheets and a soggy bathroom floor. But, at the time, it seemed better than sleeping on the street -- or inconveniencing the poor cab driver. The hotel clerk cut what seemed like a deal --charging us a three-person rate for four people -- and we sprawled out in the room, sleeping like babies.

That is, sleeping like babies until we were woken by banging on the door at 7am.

It was the same clerk, sent by the hotel owner to inform us that the price of this particular room had increased by Q100, and that, if we’d like to stay another night, we needed to pay him them and now.

Looking back on the scenario, the situation was laughable. But in the moment, sleep-deprived and fed up -- the memories of overpriced stamps and nachos and taxi rides still fresh in our minds -- we let him have it. What, exactly, kind of hotel was this? What kind of hotel tells its customers one price, and then, not five hours later, shamelessly raises that price? And what kind of hotel wakes its guests at 7am to demand payment for the next day?!?

We threatened to leave, and the clerk backed down. In the end, we were able to negotiate a fair price on two smaller rooms -- complete with clean sheets and towels. But just as the stereotype of Mexicans as the proverbial rip-offers didn’t hold true, the stereotype of Guatemala being a dirt-cheap country didn’t pan out either. Don’t believe the hype. You’ll spend quetzales like you'll drink (bottled) water.

There is one stereotype that I did find to be true: Despite the glitzy tourist brochures and bloated prices and throngs of travelers, there is, sadly, still heartbreaking poverty in Guatemala. Most of the positive things I experienced in Guatemala -- the charm of the cobblestone streets of colonial Antigua; the breathtaking views of the volcano-ringed Lake Atitlán; the magic and mystery of the Mayan ruins of Tikal; the thrill of riding a zip line over the jungle; the things I've included in happy snapshots here -- will never be experienced by many Guatemalans in their own country because they can't afford the obscenely high prices.

I think this is why I was so upset about getting ripped off. I didn't feel angry. I felt guilty. A nagging feeling of shame clouded my every financial transaction. It wasn't an issue of an extra Q100 here and there. It was an issue of lining the pockets of the already-well off (much of the tourism industry in Guatemala is foreign-owned) when their neighbors (native Guatemalans) had nothing. (Note: I did find it refreshing that the Guatemalan government offers a radically reduced "national" fee of Q25 for nationals to visit Tikal. The price for foreigners is Q150, or about $30 USD. But, despite the discount at Tikal, you'd still have to pay the bloated bus prices or be wealthy enough to have a car to get you there.)

Damn you, stereotypes! At the end of the day, despite the best-laid plans, I was the stereotypical gringa tourist getting ripped off in Guatemala. Riding the stereotyptical tourist bus and snapping the stereotypical snapshots of the stereotypical poverty-stricken countryside. The situation would have been kind of a buzzkill, had my cynical side not gotten a kick out of seeing my Mexican travel companions getting un-stereotypically ripped off, too. At least we were in it together.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Next time, we're staying with the taxi driver.

Shit! Sheet!

I get hit up to buy stuff all the time. Glasses of fruit-flavored water off carts in the street. Cups of arroz con leche out of a basket on a woman's head on the sidewalk. Chopped-up cactus from little old ladies. Plastic plug-in crucifixes with flashing lights from corner shops. Couches, refrigerators, doorknobs and you-name-it out of the backs of trucks.

"Hey güera! Do you want to buy [insert name of product I don't have any use for]?"

Usually these sales pitches come from strangers, most often when I'm walking down the street, going to or coming from work. So I was surprised when a student stopped by my office to hit me up at work last week.

Scratch that. It wasn't the location that threw me. It was the language. Here's what I heard as the student stepped through my office door:

"Hi teacher! Do you want to buy a shit?"

Potty mouth. Now obviously, the student was NOT selling feces. But his unique sales pitch certainly caught my attention. I wasn't quite sure how to reply:

"Ummm, are you sure you're selling shit?"

He turned red. Our students here at the university usually don't speak a lot of English before they come to study with us, but by the time they're ready to graduate, they know enough to be dangerous -- enough to know that "shit" is on the list of words that you don't use with your professors.

"No?" He meekly showed me his wares: pictures of sheets and blankets that his mom had sewn.

Now, it's full-on summertime here. Well into the nineties (F) in the morning. The last thing I wanted to buy was more things to sweat through on my bed. But I didn't turn the student away. I needed to make sure that he didn't pitch shit to his next potential customer. So I shut my door, ready to get down to business.

"Look at my mouth. Listen and look at how I say these words."

The good teacher that I am, I carefully pronounced 'shit' and 'sheet' for him a few times. He got the idea. He packed up his pictures, thanked me, and left my office.

I could hear him walking down the hall with his friend, who had been waiting outside my office door for him. Their words bounced off of our building's concrete walls. They were practicing their vocabulary.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Shit.

Sheeeeeeeeeet. Sheeeeeeet. Sheet.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Sheeeeeeeeet.

Funny as shit, eh?

El Gobernador

I put a little spritz in my hair and a little gloss on my lips this morning.

The university where I work here in Oaxaca was expecting a visit from the state governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, and the staff here at the Language Center was instructed to look extra-sharp for the occasion. (Or at least to don something besides the grubby jeans and t-shirts that we usually wear to teach. Sloppy gringos.)

Ruiz Ortiz was supposed to stop by our Language Lab to check up on some new hi-tech language equipment, equipment that the state had funded. The time for his visit was set for high noon today, and we were notified of the visit yesterday.

The thing was, all of the equipment for the new lab had just arrived and was still packed away in boxes as of yesterday. University staff spent the entire afternoon setting up the new computers and desks to make the lab look like it was up and running…but as we’ve yet to receive the actual language software that will eventually be used in the lab, none of the computers was actually, you know, operational. We hoped and prayed that the governor wouldn’t ask for a demonstration.

PR at its finest.

So, at noon today, we received word that the governor was on his way. All 15 of us language staffers, dressed in our Thursday best, filed out of our offices to the entrance of our immaculate-but-useless language lab. A news crew scurried up the walkway. A photographer showed up with a huge camera.

We waited anxiously for el gobernador to arrive.

And we waited.

And we waited some more.

After about 20 minutes, our secretary got a call. The governor would be there in 10 minutes. We should wait. Un poquito más, por favor.

So we waited some more.

And some more.

Another 20 minutes rolled by. No sign of the governor, nor of his entourage. The midday sun beat down on us. The sweatier we got, the more restless we got.

I, having worked five years in PR in Chicago (and by “worked in PR,” I mean, “stood around for hours, waiting for important people to show up for their damn photo opps”), had a sinking feeling that the governor wouldn’t be coming by for a while (what given that we were dealing in PR time, compounded by the infamous phenomenon that is Mexican Time.)

So I went back to my office to catch up on email. I worked for an hour, interrupted by two false alarms where I was informed that the governor was on his way, and that I should hurry back to the lab and get ready to greet him.

Lies! There was no sign of the governor. We waited some more.

At about 1:50 pm, almost 2 hours after the goveror was supposed to show up, the Vice Rector’s office called to say that he was terribly sorry, that Señor Ruiz Ortiz wasn’t going to be able to come after all, and that we should feel free to go to lunch.

So about 10 of the 15 Language Center staffers left. I stayed back for a few minutes to finish my email. I shut my office door at about 2:01 pm, only to be greeted by a rush a university staffer rushing toward me with a walkie-talkie.

The governor has arrived! Hurry, hurry, hurry! Put on your lipstick and go greet him!

So, I rushed into our Language Lab, accompanied by the three other teachers who hadn't been smart enough to get out while the getting was good. We lined up to shake hands with el gobernador and his crew.

Upon meeting me, he asked if I was a student.

Fabulous.

His visit lasted approximately three minutes, long enough to smile for a few photo opps and ask all the foreign staff where we were from. He barely looked at the lab, which is just as well because none of it actually worked anyway.

And then he was off. Riding into the sunset (or, rather, into the blazing afternoon sun), earpiece-weilding bodyguards in tow, in his shiny black government-issued SUV, complete with tinted windows and Mexico City license plates.

The university's tech crew is going to come this afternoon to dismantle our fake language lab. We need the space for classes and exams, so we can’t justify using filling it up with faux lab stuff until the software is actually, you know, installed.

Yes, I’m rolling my eyes as I type this. Silly me, I thought I left all of this PR ruckus behind me when I left Chicago. But a friend, an old colleague, has just reminded me: PR is like the Mafia. Every time you think you're out they pull you back in. (Thanks, Kritty!)

That final sentiment is especially fitting when you consider I’m an ex-PR staffer who lived (scratch that...survived) two months in the Mafia-filled city that is Culiacán, Sinaloa. The ex-governor of my home state of Illinois is currently in the slammer. And Mr. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz doesn’t have the most stellar of track records, either. (There’s a clock in the main square in Oaxaca City that is actually counting down the number of days left in his term. Serious.)

Long live the photo opp!

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round

I've been stuck on the bus.

That’s my excuse for not updating my blog this month. Now normally, I’d roll my eyes at that kind of reasoning. Kind of like when a guy blew off at date with me because he claimed had an ingrown toenail. Lame.

But in this case, it’s the truth. I’ve been on the road (read: on the bus) EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND for the past 15 weeks. I’ve been to the beach (20 hours, round trip). I’ve been to Mexico City twice (14 hours round trip, each time). I’ve been an invited guest at a wedding in Tequistitengo, Morelos (12 hours round trip), and I’ve also managed to crash a random 25th wedding anniversary in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca (6 hours, plus big congrats to Tere and Mario!). I dressed up like cookie monster in Putla (10 hours). I’ve spilled wine at a birthday party in Querétaro (20 hours). And I’ve been stranded on the side of the road in The Middle of Nowhere (2 hours).

So, I’ve been to lots of places. But mostly, I’ve just been on the bus.

My Spanish neighbor seems to have caught the same travel bug that I have. She’s joined me on several of the aforementioned marathon trips, each time fearing that she’ll return to Huajuapan with “nalgas planas” (a flat ass) from so much sitting on the bus. And it’s kind of proven true: Our butts are looking smaller these days. Maybe it’s from all of the dancing we’re doing in salsa class.

But the "flat butt factor" is something you have to take into account when you live on top of a mountain. EVERYTHING takes forever to get to. There’s no talking about distances “as the crow flies” here in Oaxaca: What should be an easy 120 kilometers (75 miles) to a neighboring town is a hellish 2.5 hours through winding roads and switchbacks. What I wouldn’t give to be that crow sometimes…

So I’m planning to travel to Guatemala in a couple of weeks. I had all of these romanticized notions of traveling through the jungles of southern Mexico by bus. Of dozing off with my iPod and waking up Central America. Of walking across the border. The ultimate roadtrip, as it were.

But all of that will take about 30 hours. Each way. Minimum.

So I’m going to be the crow, damnit. I’m going to fly. Just hit the "purchase ticket" button on good ol' Orbitz to confirm it.

To bad it’s still 7 hours to the airport -- you guessed it -- on the bus.

C is for Cookie

Despite six-plus months of salsa lessons, unfortunately, I’m (still) not much of a dancer. Though I've improved a lot -- I’m at the point where I can twirl and dip my way through a 10-minute Ricardo Arjona song -- my “gringa” DNA works against me. I don’t seem to have the coordination in my shoulders, hips, and, um, rear area that allows my Mexicana classmates to move so gracefully.

I usually blame my lack of coordination on the “gringa” factor. But this weekend, at a Carnaval celebration in the tiny town of Putla, Oaxaca, Mexico, I had a better excuse for not having rhytm:

I was wearing a glorified Cookie Monster costume. (See the very flattering pic above.)

Yessir. I was weighed down by about 30 meters of bright blue fabric, cut into strips and sewn into a button-up shirt and pair of second-hand pants that were too big for me. I was crammed into a tiny plaza with hundreds of similarly-dressed folks (decked out in bright yellow, green and red fabrics that made them look like Big Bird, Oscar and Elmo…the Sesame Street comparisons continue). We all wore cotton masks and straw hats. Some had strapped pillows onto their backs for a hunchback effect.

When I asked about the origin of these very unique Carnaval costumes, nobody seemed to know, happily brushing off the subject by pouring me another shot of tequila.

Putla's usually-sleepy, tiny streets were flooded with tourists who had flocked to town for the Carnaval celebration. An unexpected rainstorm had cut the town's power supply. And the throngs of cell-phone wielding revelers overloaded the circuits in the area, paralyzing phone service.

So we paraded through the pitch-black streets, following the sound of drums and guitars and trumpets, sweating bullets (the heavy costumes, coupled with Putla's sticky tropical climate and, well, all the booze, had kind of an oven effect).

It was Mardi Gras à la Sesame Street. It was chaos. And it was hella fun.