on the road

I’m leaving bright and early on Monday morning for Tuxla Gutiérrez, Chiapas. I hope that while I’m there I’ll be able to visit San Cristóbal del las Casas to see if I can find anything Zapatismo. I’ll be there for a few days until we go to Oaxaca, the city; capital of Oaxaca the state. We will only be there for a day in order to pick up my roommate’s wife from the airport. From there we continue westward to the ocean. We’ll be staying for about 4 days at Playa Mazunte, a beach just south of a more popular beach, Puerto Escondido. After the beach we’ll return to Oaxaca to drop my roommate’s wife back off at the airport and then stay there for a few more days until we return to San Luis. My roommate is Oaxaceno, so I’m sure I get to see only the most interesting things of the place. Here’s a map of our route.

Al says the earth is on fire

Did anybody catch another left field analogy by old boy Albert at some senate panel hearing in regards to climate change that went to the tune of, “If the cradle is burning, you don’t speculate as to whether the baby is flame retardant.”? Oh, it was funny with his slow speech and slight southern drawl and all.

Malo Suerte

After work Saturday I managed to get in a few winks until the festivities began. After a week of split shifts – waking up early and going to bed late – it’s nice to sleep past 4 in the evening (normally mid-day naps run only until then, when I have to go back to work). I woke up at around 7. Feeling as great as I did, it seemed natural to stand up in bed and walk off onto the ground. I wanted to start the evening off on the right foot. Well, it turned out to be the left, and like a ballerina. At a little after 7PM on Saturday, March 24^th, I broke my middle toe; the consequence of introducing 163 pounds rather abruptly.

            Well, I’m not sure if I broke it. I think that it would hurt a bit more if I had, but it sure is purple, though not severely swollen. At any rate, I still went to the club and soon realized that it were better that I sat, so I did.

            The next morning, today, I got up to take a shower. Showering around these parts can be quite a task. First of all, you have to turn on the water heater about 45 minutes before you intend to bathe. We leave it off to save gas (a common practice in most dwellings). Once I have some hot water, I crank up the hot water faucet for only cold water to dribble out. It takes some time to warm, and then I increase the total pressure by turning on some cold water. For the most part it’s still like being pissed on. After 5 minutes or so, the pressure just drops. Figuring that we ran out of water, I laughed it off (a learned talent), dried off and walked out. Rounding the corner to my room, I heard the clanking of dishwashing. Upon checking it out I realized that the bastard dishwasher, my roommate, was hogging up all the water. So, I told him to stop and started my shower back up again. This time, after lathering my head up with shampoo, the water really did run out. Luckily however, there was still that dribble from the hot water left. I might still have some soap in my hair. Normally, we’d simply turn on the pump to send more water to the tank, but we share it with the people downstairs and only they have access to the switch, so we’re sort of at their whim.

            The good news however is that I bought a hackie sack for 15 pesos. It’s pretty good quality.         I went to a museum today. It was alright. I’ll write more about it later. I also saw 300. It’s bad-ass. My room is a sty. Semana santa is rapidly approaching.

            The student reviews have come back and my students love me. Out of 16 teachers, I came in between 2^nd or 4^th for every category for every class. I think it has something do with having an intermediate level instead of an advanced one. It’s a commonly held that students of advanced classes are arrogant know-it-alls that are often impossible to please. Getting good marks from my 7am class took me by surprise seeing how that I often don’t even realize that I myself am even there speaking English, little alone teaching it.

 

el zoologico, gracias a sr. Juarez

So because we’re too goddamned lazy to get up early enough to go to Huasetca, we instead decided to fill our day with going to the zoo! It was about 30 minutes away. We took the bus – it was sort of greyhound-like. Well, it wasn’t the world famous San Diego zoo, but it was something. Most of the animals didn’t appear to be very happy. The cages were small, and by no means did many of them belong in the high plains desert – tigers and black bears for example. To get a general idea for how big this place was, we were able to see everything within the course of about 2 hours, including lunch.

Oh, and you might have noticed that today is a Monday. Thanks to a one Benito Pablo Juaréz, a former Mexican president, today is a holiday. I haven’t been able to get a great deal of information from my students about what he did. So far this is what they’ve told me: He separated the church from government and he was around when Mexico kicked the French out. These are two things that are very good. I am also told that his death is somewhat mysterious. People say that he died of heart disease (although my encyclopedia says that he died of a stroke), but others believe that he was poisoned by the conservative opposition – perhaps even the church. His rise to power is also shrouded in mystery, at least according to my students; how ever he went from an impoverished life in Oaxaca to studying law and eventually winning his first political office is unknown. I have a strange Abe Lincoln vibe about him, but no real way of substantiating this, other than he was once upon a time poor and studied law. Juaréz is on the 20 peso bill and there’s a giant bust of him in front of one government building or another downtown. While walking with a friend of mine one day some time ago, I asked her who that was. She told me it was Juaréz. I remember asking her why they make statutes of corrupt politicians and saying that all the presidents back then sold Mexico out. As I now realize, I was sort of dogging a national hero. I must have not offended her that much or something though because she still talks to me.

The Oaxaca-Chiapas-Quintana Roo excursion is a mere 2 weeks away.

stuff

I was going to go to La Huasteca (waz-tec-ah) today, but that plan fell through at the last moment. We were all strapped up to go, money put aside and everything. The hurdle though was that we had to leave at 3 in the morning the day after St. Patrick’s day. Ironically though, this fact bore no influence on our not going. Simply, we all fell asleep (and we blame each other for not waking everybody else up). This isn’t so bad however because at least I’m 700 pesos richer – the amount that I had intended to take. Bus fair is 500 pesos alone! La Huasteca is about a 5 hour bus ride from San Luis, to the gulf state of Veracruz. There are waterfalls there. Here’s a picture I grabbed from a person’s camera that had already been.

Earlier in the week we were eating breakfast at this place when a parade began parading down the street. It didn’t seem that we were the only people who hadn’t expected it, now drawing a small audience on the sidewalks. There were small home-made floats, some fancy cars, and lots of people dancing. At first it all followed a red theme. Later, a blue one. As it turned out, these color-coded groups were rival high schools. I don’t know what the purpose for the joint parade was though. Maybe they were going to have a soccer game later or something.

Speaking of la pelota, Cruz Azul recently lost against SLP, a big upset for Cruz Azul apparently. Today Chivas are going to play América, and América is from Mexico City. Potisinos, I think, don’t much care for this team. Generally speaking, Postisinos care for neither the team nor the people. For some reason I derive some humor from what they call people from Mexico City: Chilangos. It just sounds derogatory. 

I’m 162 pounds now – two pounds away from when I had my license renewed in ’03.

For the past week I’ve been seeing posters for Violinista en el Tejado (yep, Fiddler on the Roof). This is surprising to me because I never would have expected a play about Jews in Russia in über Catholic Mexico, little alone conservative San Luis. But, así es, so I went. It was alright. They held it in some historic theater – a small one. In some parts of the halls I had to duck a little to pass through. They translated “if I were a rich man,” my favorite song in the play, to “si que fueron rico.” “Tradition!” as I had already suspected however, is translated “tradición.” I was trying to listen for how they translated “matchmaker” because it had come up in conversation once that there really doesn’t exist a straight translation. I don’t believe this though – surely there must be. The best a couple friends have both come up with, after admitting that, yeah, there really isn’t a good translation, is “Cupio,” or Cupid. I haven’t tried bablefish yet.

whateverandever

Many people side with the PAN around here. I’m interested to see what the new U.S. government will do in regards to this country, especially seeing how this one leans the other way. I’m talkin’ ‘bout dems, of course. And speaking of their relations, nothing happened here during that hillbilly’s visit. This place is pretty much content with many things as they already are, unlike some places where they’re not too fond of free trade.

I’ve recently switched my affiliation from Libertarian to Democrat (yeah, I can vote absentee from abroad, as well as re-register, which I have just done). I figured that I want to have some say in primaries for a change, and I’m so far interested in the candidates. This getting along act they’ve got going on is curious. I read on some British news website – the Guardian, BBC, or something – that Obama was on some 10 people that could change the world list.

We’ve had 2 parties here so far; both of them on the first 2 Saturdays that we’ve been here. Last Sunday the landlord sort of put a stop to that. She said that we could have a party once a month or so, and people have to leave by 12. That’s pretty much balls though because that’s really when people start showing up. So, whatever.

Nirvana's in SLP

I’m genuinely happy. When from time to time this notion crosses my mind, that this seeming simple introspective discovery of personal happiness surfaces without effort or provocation, then I think it’s safe to say that I’m indeed, genuinely so. Teaching is great, even when I learn the grammar point or whatever moments before I teach it. It’s easy really, and they generally believe whatever I tell ‘em. The level of respect and perpetual kindness that the ladies practice back home is a far cry from that which is observed here. The ladies are so nice, it’s almost embarrassing. Back home I had always been walked on when I do whatever whenever for whomever – not here. That is to say, my pains have finally been made worthwhile. I guess this is reciprocity. There’s a first time for everything.

Every few days I’ll take a trip down to the corner store to buy a sixer of Sol or Tecate (about 30 pesos). While I’m walking home I’ll crack one open – yeah, right there on the street – and stroll down the avenue sippin’ on my brew. Life is good, indeed. Bukowski, eat your heart out. (speaking of which, if somebody can get me his short story colletion, Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness, then I’d love you forever).

At this very moment I’m listening to some brand spankin’ new Modest Mouse. I think they’ve pulled a little to far away from their hard, un-post produced low-B sound, but hey, it’s still good.

I’ve recently changed my computer (Windows; the operating system) so that it talks to me in Spanish. I’ve done this in hopes that it might provide for a lesson on, uh, computer skills in Spanish (or something) – this, alongside of the ubiquity to which I’m already exposed (i.e., immersion). Some of the time I have to work off of my memory of what a dialog box or whatnot is saying because I haven’t a clue. The other day I shut it down when I had intended to lock it. Hey, it’s all part of the learning process.

I’ve moved. We now have a big fat terrace that overlooks the street. The terrace takes up more foot-space than the house itself. We had a moderately sized party last Saturday and intend to have one for every Saturday that this universe can provide us with.

The only thing that sucks is having to wake up at 6am everyday and having to work for 4 and a half hours on Saturday from 9:30 to 2. This is counterbalanced however with the opportunity of taking a 1 to 2 hour nap in the middle of the day. My roommate also sucks. She’s the 21 year old white Canadian girl. I think she’s depressed or something. That, or she thinks she’s a princess and believes that everybody is scum and doesn’t deserve to hear more than a single syllable dribble off her precious lips. She doesn’t do shit around the house and she refuses to chip in for whatever community things such as dish soap, charcoal and meat for our barbeques, water, or anything else. She doesn’t have any morning classes and I get the feeling that she will eventually have problems paying rent, considering. Ironically, I hope this happens so I can throw her precious little ass outta here. We’ve got a hot place here and people have been biting and clawing to get it, but we had the advantage of knowing the former tenants.

Lots of people are happy here even thought they’re poor as hell and work their fingers to the bone day in and day out.

My shits are solid and regular. I could probably digest a license plate. The flu has recently swept through this place, and I made it out unscaved.

Click here for some photos I've edited. They make for good wallpaper I think.