Adventures and Tormented Yowling

So let's not forget ourselves dear friends...I haven't been very diligent with my blog. This is partially because this week was the bi-annual staff training at JUCONI and I didn't get to do much besides read policies and meet people (which nevertheless was thrilling) and I have been exploring "La Ciudad Con Alas" everywhere from ancient ruins to cathedral light shows to mist-covered mountains to Catholic Churches on top of pyramids. It is all breathtaking and so much fun to do, but probably less fun to read about. Also I'm self-conscious writing because I read blogs where people talk about what they had for dinner and what color of shirt they wore that day and what they gave the cat for lunch, blah blah blah and I have a vested interest in not being dull nor pretentious. Probably I am both, but maybe people who care about me won't mind and will read anyway :).

I spent the weekend with my good friend Gibran. He is an amazing tour guide and a marvelous human being. Our joke is that the solution to all perceivable problems is to marry a Mexican. It started on Indy Day when I was lamenting my weak post-mission Spanish and Gibran's friend said, "Just marry a Mexican, problem SOLVED!" Since then if I remark that I think Hispanic kids are the cutest, if I comment that the U.S doesn't have as much "culture" as Mexico, if I mention in that poems and songs are much more romantic in Spanish, Gibran reminds me that all of these desirable things can be mine if I marry a Mexican. :) Here are some fierce shots of Mexican radness: an Indy Day parade we saw last weekend on our way to Cantona! The one of me soaking wet is from the day I tried to go to the store to buy tape and encountered a torrential downpour. The others are from the ruins at Catona and the mountain I climbed with Gibran. Oh, and also me bored waiting at a bank (Not necessarily in that order. Or any order.):


















I've been trying to be conscious of whether or not I've been experiencing culture shock since I got here, and I can honestly say the only uncomfortable feeling I've had is a growing cold guilt feeling for being white and American. I listened to someone go into a long diatribe about Mexican-American war and how the U.S greedily seized all the land and left Mexico with few resources after murdering many Mexican soldiers. I'm not well-versed in the history of wars and rumors of wars, but the bitterness in the conversation stung. Basically this person was telling me that all Mexicans should detest Americans instead of trying to suck up to them and performing all the "low" jobs in the US while they are exploited and treated horribly. Wouldn't you feel the same way?? This conversation sparked a series of thoughts and observations that left me feeling gradually more ashamed. When people gave me deferential treatment based on assumptions, I started thinking about how entitled the U.S must seem (and IS) to so many people. The class distinctions here are all about the inferiority of people who are or appear indigenous, versus those who are from Spanish descent with their fairer skin. It's a type and a shadow of the erroneous idea that is implicated almost everywhere; that white is "better." I feel such heavy weights hung on my heart when I think of all the suffering, indignity and wretchedness that has occurred from that lie. I don't understand everything it means or how it works; all the racism theories from community development have a different explanation, but it truly disgusts me. I don't want to feel that I am better than anyone, I really don't think I am. This weekend I saw and heard many things that made me feel uncomfortable with the comforts I have had, and I'm not sure how to make it fit for me. Right now it feels disjointed and painful, like I sprained something in my mind. Maybe that's the way we should feel all the time.

Saturday night Gibran was in a race that took place in the Centro. He had to go ahead to make it on time and he yelled back over his shoulder, "You know how to get there, right?" Um. Yeah, yeah, go right on ahead! I wandered around for about half an hour lamely hoping that I was going towards the Centro (this hope was enlivened by a massive parade of school kids running with banners and screaming "CAL-DER-ON! CAL-DER-ON!"--the name of the President of Mexico. It reminded me of nothing so much as "PERON, PERON, PERON!" :)I asked directions from a police officer who kindly said, "Que te pasa, preciosa?" He directed me 10 blocks from where I was. I promise I followed his instructions exactly. When I ended up in a dark alley that smelled like rotten fish I decided that perhaps he was insane in the membrane. I found another officer (I don't know what my obsession with cops was that night; I guess I figured they were more trustworthy?) who told me I was totally in the wrong part of town and sent me in the opposite direction. (This phenomenon has occurred several times since I've been here--and since anyone who knows me knows that I can barely find my way out of a building, it has cost me some time. But I am learning. Anyway, today my roommate Joyce was telling me that Mexicans often give convoluted instructions if they themselves aren't sure where something is, or if they don't understand the question. She said they're so eager to help that they don't make the effort to find out exactly what you need and the result is massive miscommunication and ending up in fishy alleys. :) But it's ALL GOOD in the HOOD! I'm learning!

What I really meant to say is that when I finally arrived at the Centro that night to watch the end of the race, I was felt so defeated. I found a place to sit and wait that happened to be right next to a man who was begging from the people who had come to cheer on the runners. He was crouched in his wheelchair and his prosthetic legs were basically just wires and two blocks of wood--material to fill out his pants, never to help him walk. He was a torso with such a kind smile. I gave him all the change I had in my bag--it clinked despairingly into the empty bowl--and then watched agonizingly as he lifted up his bowl over and over again and people stepped past him, pushed away his outstretched hand. I know all the things people say about beggars and I understand those, but sitting here bedraggled and exhausted I couldn't get over the fact that this man had lost his legs and at the end of the day where did he go? Who took care of him? He broke my heart. I've seen so many people like him before, everywhere I've gone of course there are people physically broken by accidents and disease--but I have never sat for an hour and watched. There was no lesson I could take away that justified the irony of him begging at a track meet. It was heavy and it still feels heavy. By the time Gibran came to get me I had tears streaming down my face and I was embarrassed to tell him why. He laughed a little but then he said "Tu tienes un corazon muy noble." This is my Good News:

This is a mural hanging in the municipal building in Cholula Puebla.


It is labeled, "Fundacion de Cholula" "The foundation of what?" I asked Gibran. He pointed out what Quetzalcoatl is holding in his hand--a sheet of metal. "The foundation of metal," he replied. "According to the legend, He taught the people to write their story. On metal plates." He added, "People say He's just one of the Gods of the old world now, but we know the truth..."

Seeing it hit me so hard my knees buckled. I know it won't be as powerful for you, this dingy picture online, but it was a beautiful moment for me to see the mural and what it was depicting when many of the people who walk past it every day don't understand...it was like a piece of home. My Savior does not esteem the people of one nation more than another. He came for the broken and the lost, He died for people who have been given everything and wasted it, and for people who have never had anything. He is the true Light of our world, our only and every hope.
D y C 133:53: "En todas las afliciones de ellos, el fue afligido. Y el angel de su presencia los salvo; y en su amor y en su clemencia los redimio, los sostuvo y los llevo todos las dias de la antiguedad."