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Everything Tastes Better a la Mexicana

14 Oct

Since I can’t be physically present for the potluck to benefit our family’s return to the US, and perhaps neither can you, I wanted to share some more recipes. Because food is love, people. Sometimes.

I really wanted to give you guys the recipe for flying ant (chicatana) salsa, but unfortunately, unless you live in this area, you are not going to be able to get the ingredients. Chicatanas are large, flying ants that only come out occasionally during the rainy season- which is drawing to a close here now. Chicatanas are so much better than, and not to be confused with, chapulines. My friend Corrina refers to chapulines as “the spicy crickets” that she was “burping up for days.” (I did finally try the “spicy crickets,” which are actually grasshoppers, last year, because my friend swore they were the good, fresh ones. They were okay. Nothing half as good as chicatanas.)

Don’t get chicatanas confused with chapulines, the “spicy crickets”- okay, they’re more like grasshoppers really. Here are chapulines:

photo from: http://www.travelerofworlds.com/solo-travel-and-why-you-should-do-it-at-least-once-in-your-life/
photo from: http://karmadecay.com/r/funny/comments/l57qi/bought_a_very_cheap_halloween_blanket_from_walmart/

Chicatanas appear before dawn with the first big rain of the rainy season (in May), and they are quite a sight to behold. There seem to be hundreds of them swarming around the light post. This year was the first year we’ve seen them come out at our house- because it’s the first year there’s been electricity to attract them to my street. (Woo hoo!) (Yes, I was up as usual before dawn, but I didn’t think to snap a picture.) Everyone runs out to catch as many as they can when chicatanas come out. They are ridiculously easy to catch, but because they only come out of hiding one or two days a year they are very expensive to buy. If you ever happen to be in Oaxaca for rainy season, this is a fabulous food experience.

What chicatanas look like- below- still with wings, and wingless after a quick roasting.

Chicatanas when they swarm down from the sky. Photo from: http://elbavaro.blogspot.mx/2010/06/las-chicatanas-las-hormigas-que-se.html
Their wings fall off after toasting on the comal and they look like black dots.. Photo from: http://noticiaszonasurecuador.blogspot.mx/2011/01/hormigas-culonas-delicioso-plato-de.html

 

Paulina, my mother-in-law, makes a to-die-for chicatana salsa, but without the main ingredient it’s pretty useless to give you the recipe. Instead, I want to tell you about the easiest trick for Mexican cooking, that I’m pretty sure everyone can use. It’s called “a la Mexicana.” It’s based on the colors of the flag, conveniently correlated to colors of typical staple foods. You might not know the colors of the Mexican flag if you’re not Mexican, because folks only wave their flag around in your face here in the month of September (for Independence celebrations), not year-round like many countries. So I’ll just tell you- the flag colors are green, white, and red. And cooking a la Mexicana means cooking with green chile pepper (jalapeño or Serrano, depending on how spicy you want it), onion (and usually garlic) for the white tint, and of course a red tomato.

Side note: These are the only local tomatoes available. So you either buy semi-ripe Roma tomatoes that come from who-knows-where, or these. All local tomatoes look like this, except for some cherry-type tomatoes that are around part of the year.

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photo from: 

http://pixdaus.com/los-colores-de-mexico-tomates-zapoteca-de-oaxaca/items/view/527314/

 

 

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The Mexican flag outside of the airport in Mexico City

 

This is the most versatile and handiest thing ever for cooking. You’ve probably heard of huevos a la Mexicana (Mexican-style eggs). It’s the most common a la Mexicana recipe made in the US, and it’s delicious. It’s probably Conan’s favorite. But I love a la Mexicana cooking because I can use it for almost everything. Bored with your usual lentil recipe? Stir-fry your a la Mexicana ingredients in the bottom of the pot and then throw your lentils and water on top. Not sure what to do with those nopales (cactus) you were brave enough to buy? A la Mexicana! (Recipe is below, because I make it a little bit differently than the typical way.) You can make potatoes, beef, or a million other things in this style. Once you’ve tasted the flavor you have a good idea what else it can work with. It doesn’t work with everything, mind you. I can’t imagine beets a la Mexicana, for example. Maybe not broccoli, but certainly cauliflower. Try it and you’ll get a feel for it fast.

 

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Dee endorses nopales. Okay, maybe not exactly. He did not hate them, at least. That’s close enough to winning over a picky eater.

Here are some nopales (aka cactus):

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photo from this site: 

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/are-all-varieties-of-opuntia-cactus-ok-for-tortoises.17716/

Nopales a la Mexicana, Julia’s style

This is a fabulous side dish. It can be served warm, or you can vary it slightly for a salad. You can also make it a whole breakfast if you scramble some eggs in towards the end of cooking. Well, and you need corn tortillas to accompany it, of couse.

Ingredients:

Nopales (around 6-9 whole fresh- not canned- nopales)

½ medium onion, diced

1 medium clove garlic, minced

2 small tomatoes, diced

1 chile or less-  remove seeds for less heat

Handful of cilantro, chopped

 

Instructions:

Cut the prickly bits off of the nopales. (Haha! if you lived down here you could buy them already prickly-free. I’m so lucky.) Then make a couple of vertical cuts in the nopal so that it cooks evenly (this is a trick given by my mother-in-law). Cook the nopales on a griddle, or use a sauté pan, without oil. Put however many will fit on your griddle over low-medium heat, for about 4 minutes on one side. Flip over and cook until brownish on both sides (another few minutes). Alternately, you can boil the nopales, but they have a very different texture when boiled; they’re juicier, but some people (like my husband) think it’s a slimy-ish juiciness. I like their flavor both ways, once again proving that I am more Mexican than my Mexican husband. Go figure.

Set cooked nopales aside. When cooled enough to not burn you, cut them into strips about an inch wide and 2 inches long.

Sauté the onion and chile for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic for another minute. Then add the tomato, nopales, and cilantro, and sauté on low-medium heat another 5 minutes, until tomatoes are pretty well cooked.

The end! It’s that easy.

To make it like a salad, cut the nopales into strips about an inch wide and two inches long, and boil for 30 minutes or so. Put in cold water to cool. When cooled and drained, add tomato, onion, cilantro, jalepeño, and radishes (optional)- all chopped/diced according to your salad-eating preferences. Mix with fresh lime juice and salt and ta-dah! A salad version.

Go to the this week’s benefit karaoke potluck extravaganza if you’re in the Louisville area this Sunday. Sing cheesy songs and eat some awesome food! And if you can’t make it, just make yourself something a la Mexicana. Buen provecho! Love, Julia

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Joy to the World, the Semester Has Begun!

9 Oct

I was teaching about the difference between being boring and being bored the other day, and I posed a bunch of questions for the students to talk about with a partner, using other –ed vs. –ing adjectives. “Who is an exciting person that you know?” I asked them, along with, “Who do you know who is easily excited?” (Careful, Spanish speakers, excited isn’t excitado in most cases– get your mind out of the gutter!)

Apparently these young folks don’t have enough excitement in their lives, though, because many of them seemed stumped about exciting and excited folks. I started telling them about my kids, and how everything excites them- airplanes, dump trucks, the moon, you name it. (Khalil gets up every morning, and points and shouts at everything he’s excited about until I name it. It’s the only reason I forgive him for cutting into my quiet/exercise time at 6AM.)

Finally one of my students said, “You, teacher! You are easily excited.” It wasn’t quite what I was looking for, but at least someone finally answered. And it’s true, I realized. I am so excited every day! I have way more fun at work than most people, I’m sure. Between my grown-up personality (which is somehow less jaded and more light-hearted than when I was younger- go figure), my kids’ contagious excitement, and loving my job, I am pretty damned excited about the universe.

I love my students. I love teaching. I love being able to use my Spanish language skills to instill my mad passion for language and communication and critical thinking into my students via their obligatory old English class. I love that I get to set an example of joy for lifelong learning with a whole bunch of helpless “victims” of my cause- 5 days a week, 4 times a day. I love my job!!! (Yes, I am using excessive exclamation marks, thank you very much, you punctuation snobs. I am expressing precisely how I feel, so there.)

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This is totally what I probably look like in class, except with a bunch of grown-ups in a boring, all-gray classroom. photo from: 

http://www.gettyimages.in/detail/news-photo/karen-renton-is-retiring-after-a-32-year-career-as-a-music-news-photo/477724468#karen-renton-is-retiring-after-a-32year-career-as-a-music-teacher-at-picture-id477724468

I’m starting my 3rd year with the curriculum that I helped invent, so I’m feeling extra confident- perhaps even just a tad cocky- about my ability to invent more and more fun and interesting ways to teach what I need to teach (on a good day, at least). On top of that, I’m a textbook extrovert who gets more energized and motivated after each class. And I have fabulous students this semester. “You say that every semester,” says one of my co-workers, jokingly scolding me.

We just finished up the two month-long introductory period for this year’s new students, and for that I lucked into really great groups again. “You say that about every group,” my co-worker said, rolling her eyes at me just a bit. Really, though, just about all the kids in their intro course are sweet and enthusiastic, so it’s easy to adore them. Even my three students who tested out of the course still wanted to participate- that’s the kind of innocence and awe these first-year students have at the very beginning.

My 12PM class of Biology students was really sharp, as the Bio students tend to be. But they were also really adorable. When they asked me if I was going to be their teacher for the fall semester I explained to them that I definitely would not be, because we rotate classes so that nobody has the same teacher two times in a row. I tried to explain why this policy is good for them: you get exposed to different accents, to different teaching styles, and if you dislike a teacher you don’t get stuck with them for a whole year. I refrained from telling them that the reverse applies for us; we don’t get stuck with a class we dislike for two semesters in a row. “But can’t we request you?” a couple of them asked hopefully. I wanted to tell them that it’s college, not Burger King, but nobody’s ever even heard of Burger King, so I shook my head sadly instead. Now every time they walk by my class, each one of them waves happily at me. “Teacher, we miss you!” they tell me (in Spanish) when I see them around campus. I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

My favorite thing in my 12pm introductory course, though, was my student with the disgruntled faces. While some students are always less-than-thrilled to be called on in class, this student was loathe to answer. She’d scrunch up her nose and make other disgusted faces every time I called on her for an answer or to read aloud. But I called on her anyway, sometimes saying all of the sentence aloud with her, one word at a time, pulling it out of her, pushing her along. But I forced her nicely, and I was constantly, jokingly reassuring her that soon she will love English. I noticed- and made sure to applaud her for it- that she was really good at reading comprehension, and better than everyone else at guessing the word’s meaning based on the context. I found out that she speaks Zapotec (one of the many indigenous languages around here), and publicly congratulated her on already being bilingual. By the end of the course she had changed her disgruntled faces to resolute faces, a sort of willingly-going-into-battle stance. And she joined the “Teacher, we miss you,” club. I absolutely called it a win.

My 6pm class was a tiny class of Forestry students. All 7 of them were kind and studious and interesting, as our Forestry students tend to be, in my humble opinion. My favorite class last year was also half-filled with Forestry students. Last year’s students- a level two group, no longer aiming to please the teacher- even came to a Friday evening class when the other half of their class was out on a field trip, just because I promised to make them popcorn to go with the educational video. I love my Forestry students- those guys and these new guys. (“You love all your classes,” I can hear my coworker saying with a jovial eye-roll.) Look at these Forestry students, though! In my introductory course, at the end of the final exam, each one of them came up and shook my hand as they turned in their exam. One of them, my little Guns n Roses-loving rocker, even hugged me. How adorable is that? Their little wanna-be-professional handshakes. Bless their little hearts. You know you’d love ‘em, too.

This semester- the start of the new school year- I have two first level classes. One of them is a group of Animal Science (Zootecnia) kids, known for their high energy and rebelliousness. If any of our students are coming to exams drunk or high (most of them definitely aren’t), it’s bound to be a Zootech student. My least favorite class at this university was a Zootech class with over half of them dutifully resolved not to learn anything, at whatever cost necessary. Their strongest tactic to evade new knowledge was to spend at least 20 minutes out of every 50 minute class outside. “Teacher, can I go to the bathroom?” was the only thing they mastered all semester. Some of them were still kind of fun when they were in class, though. The Zootech kids are their own little zoo.

My Zootech class this semester is ragingly high-energy, and blessedly enthusiastic about English. I’ve already had to remind them that all words are good to learn but not all words are good for English class. “Motherfucker,” for example, is great for Pulp Fiction auditions, or for your rock band, but not okay for our class. This 6pm class is full of jokers and inside jokes, after having completed two months of stressful introduction to the university together. I don’t get all their jokes- like the student they call Saul even though neither his first nor his middle name slightly resemble Saul. But I can certainly appreciate their enthusiasm. I love how I don’t have to tell them twice to get into groups or to practice talking about whatever we’re learning. Even my foursome who failed this level last year couldn’t resist asking “Have you ever…” questions the other day. So obviously, I love this class, too! (“See? You do say it about every class,” I can hear my coworker point out.)

Admittedly, I love my 10 o’clock nursing class, too, this semester. On the first day of class, when I had all of my classes make their own list of rules and suggestions for building a mutually respectful classroom, one of the kids in my ten o’clock class was already announcing dramatically, “Teacher, we love you!” How could you not love a class with students like that? More than half of my level one nurses are shy, according to my icebreaker/survey, but they’re comfortable enough with each other that they don’t need too much prompting to participate. One of them felt so comfortable that he wrote on his paper to me about himself, “Hello Teacher, I’m gay!” I was honored that he marked me a safe person for him to tell that to. (See? You love my classes, too.)

My level one students, who don’t know me yet, were surprised and impressed by my culinary knowledge, when I reported, for example, that my favorite Mexican food was “Chepil tamales with a salsa made of chile costeño.” (“Sí se la sabe,” said one student to another: “She knows her stuff.”)

In my level 2 classes, most of the students have been my students before and thus my reputation precedes me. I guess my credentials for Mexican slang knowledge and Spanish pronunciation still needed to be proven with a couple of my Level 2 nurses who hadn’t been my students before. “Teacher, how do you say refrigerator in Spanish?” one of my favorite students asked me in his impressive English, and I accidentally answered on autopilot before I realized his purpose- proving my pronunciation capabilities to another student. The new student was much more impressed by the slang I knew. “Teacher, do you know what pistear means?” I grin and nod, lifting up my fingers in the international sign of chugging an alcoholic beverage. I turn back to continue erasing the board, but I hear the same student saying, “See? She’s more Mexican than Gringa.” As if they expect us English teachers to somehow be living here in a vacuum, in which we don’t learn any slang or other relevant cultural things. Bless their little hearts.

Once I had a student tell me he was really disappointed that I could correctly pronounce the word for turkey (they don’t say pavo here- the word is guajalote, which sounds like wah-ha-loe-teh). While students partially appreciate my Spanish abilities in, say, their grammar explanations, I think they prefer to have some language points to feel superior about. I try to keep it in mind, although truthfully my spelling and vocabulary in Spanish is better than that of many of my students. (Because I studied my ass off in college, dear students, and because I love to read about like I love to teach.) But I digress.

So it’s true, I suppose. I do love all my students. I do think all my groups are fabulous in some way or another. I know, the two-month introductory period for new students, followed by the first week of the regular semester, is definitely the easiest part of the year. We’re all happy to be there and students aren’t yet overwhelmed.

But I’m pretty good at keeping up the mood when the going gets tough with my students. (How do you come to class so animada– excited, animated- every day?” my little newbie Biology students asked recently. Bless.) One of my challenges to myself that I started last year is to have more and more compassion for my students, and more and more respect for them, and for where they are in the learning process. Granted, I’m still the first teacher to ask folks to leave the room if they can’t stop disrupting other people. But I don’t hold it against them the next day, and I find things that I like about them anyway. In general I try to assume that students are doing the best that they can do, even if that’s not quite what I’d like them to be doing. I don’t know if that helps them much in the long run, but it definitely helps me to not be angry when, say, kids aren’t paying attention or haven’t done their work. It definitely helps me to be a happy teacher. I work with and know some pretty awesome teachers, and I definitely don’t think I’m a better teacher than other folks, by any means. (Besides, comparisons are odious.) But I get to do pretty much exactly what I want to do, the only standardized tests I have to give being the ones our team made, no excessive paperwork to fill out. I do think I’m enjoying my job more than most other folks. And I think that joy, like excitement, is often contagious. I don’t think that my students are going to switch from nursing to an English career, but if they can get through the semester and actually enjoy learning a thing or two, I’m calling it a win. And I’m publicly announcing that I love all my students! I love my job!!!!! (With plenty of exclamation marks, so there.)

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Traditional Cures for the Partially Lost Soul

27 Sep

In an English class of mostly Mexican moms in Kentucky, for potluck I once took a beautiful dish of locally-grown heirloom tomatoes, with chunks of mozzarella cheese, and fragrant, fresh basil. Nobody even tried it. “Maybe because the tomatoes don’t look like normal tomatoes?” suggested the other teacher; indeed, the tomatoes were orange and reddish. I was discouraged because I’d been so hyped up to share my flavorful and pretty dish (aesthetics are not my strong suit in the kitchen), and nobody told me why they weren’t eating it.

Now that I live in Mexico, it’s obvious why nobody ate my exotic appetizer. The same reason almost nobody is interested in making pesto, even though you can get a huge bunch of basil for just 5 pesos. The culprit is the basil! Here, basil is like medicine, not food. (Why can’t it be both? I’m still not sure about that one.) People put a big bunch of basil in a vase as if it were flowers for their business to attract more clientele. More importantly, basil is used to curarte de espanto– it’s part of the treatment to cure you when you’ve lost part of your soul.

Sounds dramatic, huh? Erase that part from your mind for a second. Picture a kid in the US who is not gaining weight like they should. What happens? They get a bunch of tests and some pediatric protein shakes, their parents get nutrition counseling and vague threats of involvement by Child Protective Services. Something like that, right?

Down here, in many households the first line of defense would be to take the child to the curandero or curandera (the healer- usually a woman but not always) to get curado de espanto (cured of fright). One of the tias (aunts) was just telling Conan that Lucia is too whiney- and therefore she needs curing. When I first started having troubles with Lucia’s sleeping, when she was a baby, many folks suggested that we take her to get cured. I was convinced she just needed a better sleep routine, but Conan’s womenfolk (his mom and all the aunts) were very concerned that she needed curing. You might need curing if you have a loss of appetite, if your hands and feet are cold, if you have insomnia, if you are tired all the time, if you’re pale, if you have slight fevers, if you have headaches or chest pains, if you just feel run-down, out-of-sorts, not yourself. All of those symptoms could signify that you have espanto (fear/fright) and that you need to go get cured.

Conan used to go get cured from recurring migraines, which were supposedly caused by mal de ojo (the evil eye, yes, siree!). Funnily enough, he didn’t get migraines the whole 10 years that he was in the US. Shortly after we moved to Juquila, though, he started getting one right after walking past his mean neighbor. His aunt- who is not a curandera per se, but who knows tons about herbs and massage and other healing- came over and gave him a quick limpia– a cleanse, let’s call it. And his migraine was gone.

A cleanse is like a quicker, simpler version of getting cured- just something to clean the bad energy off of you. It involves rubbing an egg over you (no, you cannot eat the egg later- it makes the egg bad), brushing you with a big bunch of basil, and using rubbing alcohol or alcohol like mezcal, among other things.

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See? That egg is no good afterwards. Apparently.

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One of the Tías shows Khalil how it’s done.

People here have all kinds of rituals and protections woven into their daily lives, and who am I to say whether it works or not? For example, there are special charm bracelets for babies to protect them from the evil eye. Everyone in the US would surely be freaking out about them as a choking hazard, but here it’s par for the course. People also hold or touch a baby when they see one that they think is cute, because somehow touching the baby prevents you from accidentally giving the kid your bad energy.

Evil eye is not the only thing that causes these ills that require curing. The other main cause is “espanto”- a fright, let’s call it. Any moment of serious fear can cause those symptoms we talked about above, and therefore require this ritual of getting cured. It could be falling off a horse, seeing a snake, a wave knocking you down in the ocean- all kinds of stuff.* I remember that a friend of mine from Mexico was in a car accident once in Kentucky, and he called his cousin to hurry and bring him some bread to eat, so the fright of being in a car accident wouldn’t get into him (and make him lose part of his soul, I suppose- they didn’t tell me that part because they probably saw that I was already thoroughly confused. I bet it’s harder to find a decent curandero in Kentucky than here, too.) A student of mine from Mexico told me once, too, about how a fright like that is what really causes diabetes. It was one of those moments of seriously testing my abilities to show respect for a person’s culture and beliefs while also hoping to provide alternate/conflicting information that could be really important for that person’s whole family. (I’m still not sure how well I scored on that one. It’s a learning process.)

There is where the problem lies for me- and why I didn’t send Lucia to get cured when everyone told me too. I am never going to believe that one episode of shock causes someone to have diabetes. I think that many cases of “unexplained” symptoms might have a clear explanation, like anemia or poor circulation. My concern would always be about using a curandero exclusively and perhaps missing out on something important that needs a different type of cure.

Being open to this type of healing, however, without excluding other possibilities or treatment options, is absolutely fine by me. While Conan and I both revere science and reason, while we feel a bit dubious some of this evil eye business, we also respect and appreciate the power of energy, and the ways that it can be used positively or negatively. It’s not incredible to think that someone’s negative energy can make you feel bad. Conversely, if just suggestion can make someone feel better- just a placebo, for example- it’s not the slightest bit outlandish to think that a person’s benevolent touch and attention wouldn’t make us feel better, too. Both of us can accept that it might not be the egg or the basil exactly, so much as the ritual of it that focuses the person’s attention and energy, the healing touch, and a little bit of the placebo effect.

So after Conan got his big head injury a few weeks ago, he was happy to take off for Juquila, for a full-scale curing. He’d spent the week attempting to recover and rest amidst the chaos that is our household- kid problems, car problems, money problems, etc.- the usual workweek. He was still tired and dizzy with bouts of confusion. He had bags under his eyes from not enough sleep. Added to that was the fact that he’d lost weight lately. (His weight loss was absolutely due to a positive lifestyle change, but all of his aunts were walking around acting like I was forcibly starving him- although that’s another story.) “You look terrible;” his womenfolk told him. “Go and get yourself cured!” Even his mechanic buddy (the very honest but not very knowledgeable one) had told him that he really needed a cleansing, at least, to improve things with our car, too. We decided that a whole weekend without responsibility and caretaking might be enough cure in itself. So off he went to see the curandera in Juquila.

Getting curado de espanto is a much more elaborate ritual than the simple egg/basil/alcohol business that I’ve seen. A cleanse can be done by anybody who knows the ritual, but getting cured has to be done by an official healer. In Conan’s case, it involved crosses made of palm, many candles, and “some awful green drink,” among the other routine cleansing tools. The curandera analyzed the candle wax to determine what caused his fright, and whether or not he’d been cured after the first session.

The curandero also calls your spirit to return to you- which is part of the difference in this curing versus just getting rid of the bad energy of the evil eye. This ritual is to cleanse you and also bring this lost part of your soul back to you. This soul-seeking part totally makes me think of Peter Pan and his lost shadow. I picture Conan there trying to sew it back on himself and a little old lady laughing and shaking her head. The idea of a lost shadow- this lost part of the soul- sparked my thinking about the shadow parts of ourselves. Now I can see more clearly the beautiful and wise symbolism in this kind of ritual.

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Peter Pan trying to capture his shadow, all by his lonesome. Somebody go find that boy a curandera!

It took two curing sessions for the lost part of Conan’s soul to return. He also got a massage and a bath of rose petals. (I admit I was a bit jealous about that part.) The best part, though, according to Conan, was getting all that special attention- from the curandera, from his aunt, with whom he had good, long talks. I mean, imagine! A whole two days devoted to receiving TLC and being taken care of. Granted, you have to do what they tell you and stay under the covers in bed for like a whole day (not sure if I’m capable of that), but I can see how it could be worth it.

Conan conjectures that getting cured probably works so often in part because of the care and attention involved. Imagine being in the turmoil of adolescence and having some “fright” symptoms (aka normal teenage madness). Imagine your mama saying, “Come on- I’m worried about you; let’s go cure you. Stay home from school today, maybe tomorrow, too.” She cooks your favorite foods, she doesn’t ask you to do anything. Your whole family is extra nice to you, or at the minimum doesn’t bother you. You rest and relax for a couple of days, getting massages and special baths. You get the full dose of a placebo effect, too. That surely would cure me from an ailment or two.

I don’t think it’s going to cure diabetes, no. But what if it helped a person in a way that addressed the shadow parts of their spirit that were causing them to overeat and thus contributing to diabetes? I can see how it could be beneficial, even while I can doubt that it would be beneficial enough to be a complete treatment for diabetes. And I have no doubt that it can work for many types of problems. I don’t by any stretch think that all these curanderos are quacks, either. Some of them are herbalists, and I suspect that some probably have lots of other wisdom and healing knowledge to boot.

So did the curandera cure Conan? Her healing did not help our car continue to run. But Conan is certainly much better than he was, even if he’s still too skinny for his aunties’ liking. Can we chalk it up to the curandera’s powers? Who am I to say- it certainly didn’t hurt him, anyway.

Maybe I will get Lucia cured after all. If there’s a possibility my four year old will sleep better and whine less, what have I got to lose?

*I got examples of causes and some other good info from this really insightful page, which is for medical doctors and discusses respecting curanderos. It’s in Spanish.

 

 

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A Deluge of Generosity

20 Sep

Last Monday, my hands were shaking as I prepared to publish my weekly blog post. They trembled like the first few times I tried out my college Spanish on actual Spanish speakers. My heartbeat fluttered erratically like it does when I’ve gotten on a bus in a foreign country- sure I’m not doing it quite right and doubting I’ll end up where I was planning to go, but determined to go anyway.

I was scared because I knew this was important, and I wanted to get it right. I sensed that later I would recognize it as one of those moments that would separate major eras in my life. The same way there’s a before and after I got pregnant with Lucia, for example. There will be a “before” and “after” we announced our intentions to move back to the states. I knew this was monumental.

I was also nervous as hell because of fear and anxiety. I worried that our family and friends in Puerto would feel like we don’t care about them. I worried that people would say shame on me for wanting to leave after I’d spent four years building a life here. They’d say I was giving up on Oaxaca, or that I haven’t tried hard enough, that doing my best isn’t good enough. I was also feeling really guilty about asking people for financial help, because I know there are so many great causes and people who need funds as much as or more than we do. Because publicly stating that you need help, in our culture, is often mixed with all kinds of ugly, deep-rooted ideas about human worth and value- things I don’t believe, but they’re there, threatening me anyway.

With a lot of encouragement from some key folks, though, I hit “publish” on my blog. I posted to Facebook. Holly posted the GoFundMe campaign to Facebook. And there was no going back, no matter what people might think about my worth.

The fundraising campaign netted over $400 in the first hour after publishing- enough to retain our lawyer. Within 24 hours, the fund- you guys- raised enough for the whole first step in our immigration process- lawyer fee and immigration fee. Woo hoo! We’re already starting the process! We have a contract in hand and hope to have our first file sent in to US Immigration by early October. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for that, first of all.

More importantly, though, I was astounded by the seemingly limitless support. In addition to all the folks who were able to donate, people sent so much love and encouragement our way. People talked about being happy and excited to have us come back. People said our family deserves support. (Oh how marvelous it is to be called worthy, right? We are all worthy. An important note.) Folks assured us that we will make this happen! Some people shared details of their own migration process, and expressed their solidarity. People reminded us of something good we’d done for someone else at some point, which was a really helpful reminder that receiving help is part of the same beautiful cycle that is giving help. Folks called us out as part of their family- “Conan, my brother!” or “One of my favorite people, Julia”. One of my two favorite sociology profs from college publicly called me “an awesome sociologist.”

People shared my blog post like nobody’s business- and complimented my writing. My mouth was hanging open as I looked at stats from hundreds of readers, including folks in like 10 different countries, reading my blog. People I don’t even know shared my blog, and called me names like “amazing writer.” I didn’t even really believe that people who don’t know me actually read my blog, before this. I got all teary eyed thinking how proud my Nonna, the great storyteller, would be, when a friend publicly invited people to read some of my “incredible storytelling.”

I was Floored. Shocked. Almost speechless. Overwhelmed with gratitude. My cup was all runneth-over-style with love and joy. I almost woke up the kids that first night, running/dancing around the house, trying to “whisper-scream” to Conan, something that sounded like : “So!Many!People!F*#/ing!Love!Us!We!Are!So!F*/#ing!Lucky!”

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Imagine: Me, shouting for joy “really quietly” just like this little girl.

I am not very good at shouting in a soft and quiet voice, for the record. Not shouting was out of the question, however, because I was jubilant, EXPLODING with cheer. Gratitude and glee were radiating out of my pores.

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This was me, all last week.

It turned the tides for me in terms of my feelings about this process, too. If you read Ending our Exile you can probably feel the angst and anxiety broadcasting from my very words. I was already giving myself panic attacks before we’d even begun. I debated with myself about cancelling everything and living in Mexico forever, because it just felt like too much struggle for something that is no guarantee.

After we shared our dreams with all you lovely people, though, after we asked for help, you guys produced such a storm of support that  y’all lifted some of the burden from  our shoulders. Now my attitude and energy are more like: “Of course we can do this! Look at everyone who has our back! This has to happen. That’s all there is to it. Take that, bureaucracy! We got a whole lotta love!”

My community-induced endorphins were so intense that when I woke up to cat poop on the kids’ toys the next morning, I took it in stride. I washed Khalil’s diapers with a smile on my face all week. Lucia threw her typical irrational dictator tantrum about seating arrangements in the kitchen and I didn’t even groan. I was on a love high like I haven’t been on since Conan and I first got together.

I admit, I faltered a bit in my joy-fest when the baby had his first serious asthma attack towards the end of the week. I might have cursed our car as more punishment than transportation when it broke down AGAIN yesterday. And okay, I reverted back to the crying-in-my-office thing when faced with more evidence of state-sanctioned genocide happening in my country- wondering how many more Black lives are going to be lost before it’s enough evidence to change the system, feeling an enormous dread as I worry about my loved ones who are not only living with discrimination (as if that were a small thing) but also knowing that they and their beautiful, precious children are likely to be killed just for existing. In my country. The one I’m dying to go back to.

And yet I am dying to go back. For those very friends I’m worrying about, and loving and missing from afar. For all of you folks who are worrying about me and Conan, and sending so much love from afar. Because I have support. Because I give support. Generosity is a cycle. We have to continue to support and love on each other- not even just to make positive change, but also just because that’s what makes life really worth living.

And now I’m hungry for more; I want to do more! Your all’s gifts have made me more determined than ever to be exactly where I am and trust that it’s right. Even if it seems we’re always short on time and money, I can still find more ways to give. I can give a few pesos to that guy by the market with his drum and his eery voice. I can give more understanding to my students when they can’t get it together to study. I can keep trying to make my classes a rich and welcoming learning environment for all my students. I can bake an extra loaf of corn bread every time I bake, to have some extra for sharing. (Because maybe my dad was right about food being love.) I can be nice, amable, because it doesn’t cost a thing and it makes such a big difference sometimes. I’ll keep my eyes and heart open for more and more opportunities to do right by the world. Every day I can learn more, I can work more towards being the person that I dream of being- a person overflowing with love and generosity.

So the euphoric effects of everyone’s well-wishes, encouragement and assistance haven’t disappeared just because I’m not explosively elated 24/7. I’ve incorporated your energy into my being. Life is hard and unfair, true. There is so much suffering happening all the time. So much hardship in any given day. Days like today, when the negative seems overwhelming, I am somber but more sure than ever about my place in the world. I am more sure than ever of the world’s beauty, too. That I’ll get through this. That we’ll get through this- all of this hard and wonderful and important stuff- together.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am eternally grateful.

Love,

Julia

As an extra note, I want to share with you my reminder to myself, that I’ve posted in my office to keep me from crying excessively (or at least too loudly) when I read the news:

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now. Love mercy now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” – from the Talmud

 

 

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The Compass at our Crossroads

12 Sep

I was sitting at a kid-sized picnic table in my mama’s dining room in Louisville, Kentucky, eating something exotic like Brussels sprouts and red beans with my kids, when my mama started talking about moving to Savannah, Georgia. She’d been there before and really liked it. She and her wonderful partner, Dee, had come to the realization that neither of them could realistically work their jobs from Puerto Escondido all winter like they’d hoped, but they both really need a change. My mom and I were both doing a fantastic job of not discussing our grief about the impossibility of spending more time together.

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The first annual visit of my mama and Dee, back when we lived in Juqulia

Instead, we started researching Savannah. We delved into population and weather, colleges and parks, museums and general culture. “It’s close to the beach,” she hinted knowingly, “and you know your daughter is drawn to the sea like I am.” We started looking at houses. “Maybe a duplex,” said my mama, “For someday, in the future. For when you guys can move.” I nodded, trying to feel optimistic. “Yes. Perfect! Someday. Eventually. Hopefully. Maybe.”

The next thing I knew she was going through books to give some away, which meant she was officially a woman on a mission. You guys who know her know that she doesn’t easily part with any book from her library-sized collection. I realized immediately that she is moving to Savannah, and nothing can stop her. I had a blast talking and planning it with her. We’re still having a blast with it; just yesterday she sent me a message- “Did you know that Savannah has a bigger Hispanic population than Louisville? Yes, this is what I research on a Sunday morning.”

By the time I got back from our trip to Louisville, I was so taken with the idea that I found several different jobs I wanted on Savannah’s Craigslist. I was sending emails to my mom, like, “Look! I have these skills! I could totally do this!” and, “Look at this one! I would be great at this job!” I looked harder at colleges. “Look!” I wrote my mama. “Someday I could get a Master’s in Social Work or Adult Education! Choices! I might even want to study Public Health instead! So many possibilities for the future!!!”

I checked out all the public schools. I picked out an elementary school for the kids (a Montessori school, no less). I found the artsy high school I bet they’ll want to go to. I read lists of family-friendly activities, marveling at the thought of activities– museums, events, organized art functions, festivals- so many things that are rare or nonexistent here.

I nearly brought myself to tears in my office (it’s a theme for me, I know, this crying in my office) when I realized I could volunteer again. I found an organization I want to work for- an awesome place that works with immigrants and refugees and pregnant women and children, doing all kinds of work that I am interested and invested in. And I realized suddenly, even if I don’t get a job with them, I can still do that work. I could just sign up and then they organize everything and I just have to show up for a couple hours and bam! I get to do something meaningful and worthwhile. Aren’t you crying happy tears just thinking about it?

Conan and I started talking about it, and every conversation was more and more invigorating, more energizing, and more unabashedly hopeful, like a freight train of optimism slowly picking up steam. We started discussing topics that had become off-limits: the stuff that we missed so much that it hurt to talk about it, because it came with the reality that we might not ever have it again. Like potlucks. We could attend potlucks! Hell, we could host potlucks! We talked about stuff that we know of but have never even gotten to experience, since almost all of our parenting has happened here- like story time for kids at the library!

I told him how a friend made fun of me, for talking about how if I could ever move back, I was going to shell out the money for a moving van, by golly, all the way across the border. “I don’t want to start from scratch again,” I had told her. “Julia,” she reminded me, scoffing ever so sweetly, “You forget that we have Goodwill here. You can even find decent furniture in the alley during junk week.” I repeated that to Conan, and we giggled quietly, trying not to wake the kids, remembering, thinking how absurd and yet wondrous that fact is, comparing it to here where nobody throws out anything remotely useful, ever.

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This is what starting over looked like when we first moved to Juquila.

All of our conversations were pipe dreams, though. All my job searches, all my ideas and activities were just in theory. I mean, it’s not like my family can just pack up and move to Savannah. I’d had a consultation with a lawyer in Louisville and he confirmed that yes, there is a possibility that we could return to the US as a family. If we took on the task, it would take at least a year, probably closer to two (and it could always be longer). Cost-wise, it would take at least seven thousand US dollars when all is said and done (just for the process of getting Conan into the country legally, not including any moving expenses- for more info, click here). I put the figure into a currency converter to change it to pesos, and my brain exploded. In other words: impossible.

Then I had the privilege and joy to sit around on my mama’s front porch with my very bestest girlfriend in the world- all of our children sleeping soundly, just the two of us talking. I was telling her just how impossible it would be- how daunting the process itself is- even with a lawyer, and how the only way we could get that kind of money ever would be to become uber corrupt politicians and steal it from the people. Or perhaps we could put the kids to work washing car windows at the big intersection? Or maybe my mom would win the lottery? “It’s never going to happen,” I said.

But Holly, my BFF (best friend forever), that friend who’s always rescuing me in moments of need and doubt, came along and burst my little bubble of dejection. She went ahead and snatched the bubble wand right out of my hand. “Julia, we’ll ask for help,”* she said, in that gentle but obvious tone like when I remind my four year old that she has to close her eyes if she wants to go to sleep. “We,” she said, already including herself in the work. (I know. I don’t even know what I did to deserve such a good friend.)

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Me and my BFF! Funny faces are better than tearful goodbyes.

I started off telling Conan, “Holly thinks we could raise the money. Maybe in a few years we could give this a shot.” I side-eyed him tentatively. “How about now?” he responded, adding some speed to our freight train of hope. “I feel like I’m stagnating here,” he said later, and I would have fallen over in shock if I weren’t in bed already.

See, Conan’s spent the past four years carefully refraining from complaining, refusing to discuss his feelings about leaving the US, denying that he was devastated like I was. He’s gotten really good at shoulder shrugs and silence instead. Suddenly, with this lemonade shake-up in our possibilities, a rift opened up in the hard patch of earth that used to be the before/USA section of his heart. “Let’s do this,” he said, finally ready to talk about all the things in the US that we want for our family, for our children, for ourselves.

Every conversation we had about it added more steam to the engine of our pipe dream-freight train, and the next thing I knew we’d clasped hands and hopped right on. To attempt such a wild journey- trying to get permission for Conan to re-enter my home country- we’d need motivation galore. We made a list of reasons a mile long.

Which is not to say that there weren’t- aren’t- reasons to stay. There are- starting with Conan’s mama, who we also love dearly. But embarking on this isn’t as simple as leaving one thing for the other. We’re adding to our possibilities, expanding our family’s options. We’ll be able to visit each of our families all together. The door to our other home will finally be open for Conan again, and by extension, to all of us.

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Reason #1: Who wants to separate this awesome Papi from his children? Certainly not I.  This is Conan and Lucia in Louisville. (Just before we gave this couch away, lol)

Let me show you what some of our other reasons look like:

Because I want to see my mama’s shining face much more than a couple times a year. Because my dad passed away and I couldn’t even make it to the funeral. Because a cousin nearly died and I couldn’t go visit him in the hospital. Because I miss every single one of my niece’s birthdays. Because two years passed between soul-nurturing get-togethers of Team Julia (the aunt that I’m named for and me). Because my goddaughters barely even recognize me between visits. Because I have felt the reality of this short life a bit more acutely and I miss my family dreadfully.

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I want this more often, please!

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the other half of Team Julia

Because Holly promised me she could visit me at least twice a year if I lived in Savannah, versus the current situation where her chances to visit are zero. Because the possibilities for all of our friends and most of our family in the US to come visit is currently zero.

Because I can’t go visit the US at all unless my family pays for it. Because every visit gets more difficult financially, and our yearly visit without Conan gets harder for all of us. Because on our last visit Lucia said, “I wanna live in Kentucky with Papi,” and I couldn’t even answer her.

Because teachers here were on strike for months this year, and I learned that they’ve gone on strike every year for the past ten years. Because even when teachers are working, the Oaxacan school system is abysmal. Because I’m an educator and a mom and I’m totally depressed about three year olds copying words when they haven’t even learned their letters yet. I’m totally dispirited about all kinds of other woes of the curriculum and methodology in both public and private schools here. Because folks in the US think schools there are underfunded but y’all haven’t even seen schools where there aren’t basic things like desks, or there are no books, or the building is inadequate, or where some kid just out of high school is teaching because that’s all there is.**

Because we can’t get allergy testing for my asthmatic daughter here. Because if there’s a true and serious enough emergency, treatment might require a seven hour drive to the capital city. Because we’re lucky to have an amazing pediatrician for our children, but she’s not available 24/7 and I worry about what we’ll do if she moves away someday.

Because the healthcare provided by my insurance company is of such a dubious quality that I haven’t even signed my family up with them, and I avoid it like the plague for my own health, too. Because doctors here often don’t even assess you before they prescribe you something. Because even expensive, private clinics do things like send my daughter home in the middle of a critical asthma attack. Because paying out of pocket for our whole family’s healthcare is breaking our bank.

Because in the US there are libraries upon libraries, filled with so many books. Because our old home has used book stores (yipeee!). Because there is easy access to books and therefore a culture of reading there. Because I had easier access to books in Spanish in Louisville, Kentucky, than I do in Southern Mexico.

Because my work schedule here- this split shift, 8AM to 7PM with a weird break in the middle- is brutal for my parenting, for my social life, for my marriage. And there is no possibility of changing my schedule in this job. And any other teaching job that I know of is going to pay me less money, which is unacceptable since we’re barely getting by as it is.

Because seeing Conan have hopes and dreams for himself again is magical, and I want that to continue. Because parents with goals are happier people and set a good example for their children.

Because I don’t want to stop having dreams for myself. Because I labor at my current job with sincere enthusiasm and delight, but I’m already at my peak professionally; there’s no room for me to grow into some more challenging position later, because such a position doesn’t exist at my job. Because I can’t find any other job around here to get excited about. Because I feel like I have so much more to give and learn and share, so many skills that I can’t put to use or continue developing here. Because I have no chances of furthering my own education around here.***

Because during my last visit to Kentucky I got chills, a positive electrical charge shooting through my spine, being in close proximity to young, fiery activist folks just radiating with power and hope for our world. Because I want to keep feeling that excitement, that we the people can change our world for the better. Because I want my kids to grow up surrounded by copious amounts of that kind of heart and spirit.

Because there are 100,000 more people in Savannah than in Puerto, and I’m an extrovert, for crying out loud! I’m a people person, and a city girl through and through. Not a NYC or Tokyo or Mexico City kind of girl, but, say, a Louisville or New Orleans or Savannah, Georgia, kind of girl. I need people and activities! I want parks and museums and arts! I want to be stimulated and inspired by a more diverse crowd of people than what you can find in our sleepy, semi-rural beach town here. Here is just too small for my loud, extroverted self.

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This year’s potluck at Dee and Fausta’s (my mama) house. So much love! So much food! The best of all possible worlds.

Because this random, idle talk of moving to Savannah, Georgia, where neither Conan nor I have ever been before, slowly morphed into a very real goal, and it’s made things finally click into place for us. The lawyer gave me facts, and confirmation of a legal possibility. Holly gave me hope, and changed my certain impossibility into a concrete possibility. But I was driving around Louisville thinking, “Why does this feel off? I love this city so intensely and passionately. Conan loves this city tenderly. My children love to visit here. Why doesn’t it feel right to imagine our whole family here again?”

I realized, though, that it felt like backpedaling. I had spent too much time frantically praying to the universe to magically transport us back in the space-time continuum, back to our days in Kentucky when everything seemed so perfect for Conan and me. For so long, I would have given just about anything to go back to Kentucky, the three of us together.

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A trip to the zoo in Louisville, pre-children. Relationships are so easy without children, money stress, and immigration problems, right?

But it was partly a longing for my old life. And now I don’t want my old life. I want to keep shedding my skin and growing; I want to go forward. Conan and I are different people than we were four years ago- better and wiser and more loving than before. Our hearts and minds have grown, as has our family. I’ve lost my longing to relive my old life.

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What a difference a few years makes. Going back doesn’t mean going backwards.

My mama’s at-first-glance outrageous idea to move to Savannah changed my idea of what “going back” means. It gave Conan and me a new direction. The convergence of all these factors, all this hope, this love, this encouragement, brought us to a new crossroads, to paths we thought were closed. All these helping hands pressed a shiny new compass tightly into our hands, and asked us to look again, to reimagine the impossible.

Granted, I’m still trying to stifle the judgmental voice in my head that’s shamefully scolding me that that I should just keep trying to improve things here in Puerto, that I don’t deserve to ask for help because our situation isn’t as dire as some folks’. It’s a nasty, nagging voice also trying to convince me that I’m forsaking Conan’s family and all the other wonderful people that exist here in Puerto.

But we can love and appreciate people and aspects of our life here and still know that it’s best for our family to return home. We want to go back to the country where I grew up, the country where Conan learned what it meant to be an adult, the country where we started our family. We want to go back to the open-door, heart-on-your-sleeve, porch-sitting, conversation-with-strangers culture that is the USA. We want to go back to the country where both of us felt like we found our community, our people, those folks that share our values, those folks that we love and support like family. We want to return to the never-ending mix of cultures and histories and colors, the land of every attitude and opinion that you could possibly dream up. A country where we can make things better together. It’s not a perfect country and our lives there won’t be perfect, either. There is no true perfection; we get this about life. But this is what we want, resoundingly.

It’s going to be a lengthy and wearisome journey to get there. We need your help! This gargantuan change will only be possible because of our wonderful community on whatever side of the border you’re on. We need your cheerleading spirit to encourage us. We need a few bucks sent our way if you’ve got it. We need periodic reminders about how it’s going to be worth it to wade through this intense bureaucracy. We need continued accompaniment from all the fabulous folks we love here in Puerto.You, our gente, our families and communities, are our compass. Help lead us home.  Love, Julia, Conan, Lucia, and Khalil

*Click here if you are interested in supporting our journey to return to the USA.  

**Granted, the absolute worst situations like this are mostly in rural areas, which, despite all the farm animals on our block, is not where we live. That said, we still feel extremely disturbed about the quality of education that’s available for Khalil and Lucia.

***There are a couple of Master’s programs where I teach, but not in anything I’m even remotely interested in or qualified for.

Some Irreverent Cheer, in T form

2 Sep

I needed to focus on some silliness after 7 days of melodrama and frustrations, and what’s cheerier than irreverent and inappropriate t-shirt messages? Some superb ones can be found all over town here and I’ve been jotting them down for ages. Finally it’s time to share.

With Mexico being a neighbor to the US, you see lots and lots of people with shirts in English. Some things are new clothing that has something written in English because it makes it cooler- or something. I’m not really sure what the motivation is for making baby onesies, for example, that say “Handsome” instead of “Guapo.” We’re in Mexico, guys! Speak Spanish! Stop making stupid crap in English! Is there so much obligatory diffusion of ‘Murican culture happening that you can’t even get new clothes in Mexico in the national language? Geez.

Occasionally it becomes fun, though, when they start putting totally random English on shirts. I used to have a shirt that somebody bought me from the Canary Islands that was covered in words as if you were supposed to read it, but it was something like: Freedom butterfly go spider fly love pacore fun forever (totally unrelated crap with a totally made-up word for good measure). But it’s in English! Super cool.

Here are some other good examples of these kinds of shirts (from the interwebs, not from my camera, because I suspect it’s rude and an invasion of privacy to snap photos of people in their t-shirts all the time):

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I secretly hope that some aspiring English language learners sit around and make up these t-shirts. Like they just open up a dictionary and pick out words that sound nice to them. Or they open different youtube pages and the first word of each video is what goes on the shirt. However they come up with it, they obviously don’t care whether your English t-shirt is credible or not. It is the reason why I will never, ever get a tattoo in a language I don’t speak. Imagine getting something really deep written on you, only for it to be something like, “permited to going” or “vintage gonna” or so many much worse things. Okay, maybe it would be funny enough later to make it worthwhile. I won’t say never. Just probably not. 1527898-980x

Then there are the t-shirts in English that are second-hand, presumably from the US, usually with more legitimate English. Some of the ones I appreciate are messages that are a bit incongruous with the person wearing them, like the wasted-drunk guy outside the market wearing his “Franklin Elementary PTA” t-shirt. Or the grumpy old lady in the shop wearing her shirt that says “My heart is all his!” (Although, okay, maybe she felt passion in her cold little heart once upon a time.) There’s the construction worker with his Harvard Alumni t-shirt or the harried mom with her Mini Marathon for Parkinson’s Disease shirt. Sure, maybe they did those things, but it looks a little out of place in the moment.

I like the meant-to-be sarcastic ones, like Conan’s t-shirt that says, “I’m just one freaking ray of sunshine, aren’t I?” (But we bought it in the US, so maybe it doesn’t count.) “Everybody loves me” also falls into the “surely this is sarcasm” category, because who makes these slogans up? Could you be serious about that?

Usually when I ask my students about their clothes’ messages in English, they don’t know or they’re not totally sure what it says. Even when theoretically they know all the words on their shirt, they haven’t really bothered to decipher the message. I like to talk about them in class sometimes. “I’m not from Ireland but you can still kiss me for luck” was one that we all translated together, and then I tried to explain the significance. Other common messages include things like “I’m not short, I’m fun-sized” (totally apt on that particular wearer), or “chocoholic” (we agreed that yes, that was appropriate for her character).

There are accidentally ironic t-shirts, like my student who tripped on the sidewalk one day because she was focusing so hard on her phone. I helped her up and then I laughed at her, because her shirt that day said, “Textaholic” with a big cartoony cell phone on it. “Do you know what your shirt means?” I asked her. “No, what?” she said. Oops.

Hands down, though, the t-shirts that most cause my hysterics are the wildly improper and inappropriate ones, especially when the user seems completely oblivious. Like the seemingly nice and attentive father walking down the street one day holding his kids hand and talking to him in a gentle voice. He was wearing a shirt that said in big bold, all-capital letters, “Shut up and take it in the butt”- I am not even exaggerating; that’s what it said! I thought, “Surely he’s clueless. He has to be in the dark. Should I fill him in? What if he already knows?”  How many other English-speakers are walking around in shock about his t-shirt? Let us all be in shock; it’s kinda fun.

I also love that students in the strict, conservative university where I work wear outrageous messages on their clothing.  I’m always wondering, “Do you not get it, or are you using people’s assumed lack of English to wear really semi-scandalous or risqué things?” They get away with it, I imagine, because it’s in English. Like one of my little 18 year old newbies this semester that showed up the other day wearing a shirt with some cartoon character on it, but in all caps above the image it said, “FUCK!!!!!!!!!!” (Seriously, with like 10 exclamation marks) And below the image it said “I’m high” with another 18 exclamation marks. Based on what I know of her so far, I bet this student has never even seen illegal drugs in her life, but I love the accidental audacity of her wearing this in front of all these uptight administrators, these folks checking their clipboards, making sure nobody’s sitting on the lawn. Bless. It’s a bit like this shirt below, so inappropriate that it’s kind of awesome:

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A more mildly inappropriate one from a student has a picture of a toaster and a slice of bread in conversation. The toaster says, “I want you inside me.” The bread is saying “That’s hot.” Nice and cheeky. Unfortunately, since my students often don’t know what their shirt means, it lowers the cool factor a bit in my eyes. When it’s a naughty or outlandish message, I now prefer not to ask if they get it. I let myself assume that they know so I can appreciate their small rebellion.

Because the internet never ceases with its capacity to add to my cheer (thank you, Google images, thank you!), I found some more fun stuff to make my day. Below are some shirts I’m totally getting for my next trip to the US.

How about you guys? What ridiculous shirts make your day? Shirts in English? Spanish? Share the giggles!

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This reminds me of how my Nonna used to pronounce the video game system Neen-TEEN-do. I’m gonna sport it so all the Spanish speakers in the US can wonder if I have a clue what it says (it means, I don’t even understand). 

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Eres un pendejo means “you’re an idiot” hehehehe

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My Oaxacan Reality Show

30 Aug

Have you ever approached the mirror expecting to see a cockroach, because things are so bad you’re sure you’re living out a Kafka novel? I started my Monday timidly glancing towards the mirror, convinced someone had come along in the night and boofed-up my hair, maybe wiped excessive blush and three layers of mascara on me, because I undoubtedly am living some bad reality TV. Or perhaps the previous days were supposed to be motivation for me to write about my life for The Onion, everyone’s favorite satirical paper. I knew my life wasn’t a sitcom because it was too preposterous to be made-up.

 

This was my reality show script this past weekend:

 

Friday: The Absurd Car Saga Continues

 

We’re driving down the coastal “highway” (a highway covered in topes, aka speed bumps), cruising along nicely because we’ve already stopped twice since leaving our house to put water in and cool down the car. That’s the state of our car currently- the motor’s been totally rebuilt now, along with about 15 other things, but anything that we haven’t put in new in the 2 years that we’ve owned it is just waiting for its moment to break down. I could write 3 different blog posts about this lemon of a car and all the idiot/liar mechanics and how every time we fix something they break something else or something else breaks right afterwards. I could write about how it tricked us by not breaking down for a couple of months, and so we decided to do some more major repairs on it to make it last us, and it hasn’t lasted a full week since then. But Conan’s made me promise not to blog about the car. “It’s bad enough I have to live this experience;” he explained, “I really don’t want to read about it.” But the car was the start of this mad-house weekend, so, sorry, Conan, but I’ve got to tell a little bit.

 

So we’re driving to Lucia’s school to pick her up. Now, luckily, we haven’t had to make the trek to take Lucia to school and back every day, thanks to a super nice lady, J’s mom, who lives a couple miles from us. Lucia’s new school, which is fabulous for her, is like light years away from us. It’s as far as you could possibly get from our house and still be in the same small town. Taking a taxi there is prohibitively expensive. It takes two buses and a good amount of walking on both ends just to get there without a car, and then there’s the trip back for Conan and Khalil. So all the days when our car doesn’t work (usually, thus far), Conan takes Lucia down the road to J’s mom’s house. J’s mom takes her and brings her back to there in the afternoon.

 

Three weeks in, Lucia is used to going with J’s mom. She showed me the other day how she and Papi speed-walk down the street to the collectivo stop in the mornings. Conan showed me the video that he showed Lucia to stop her complaining, a video of some kids who scale a cliff to get to school and back. This is good, I thought. My kid’s in no danger of growing up too privileged for her own good. But J’s mom now has to start taking her older kids to school as well, which means she needs to leave an hour earlier. I refuse to think about the problem till Monday, though, because our life is a twelve-step program and we’re already dealing with this tricky moment.

 

We’re driving in our radically unreliable car because the plan changed too much in one day. Lucia was supposed to be getting a ride with a different mom because she was going to her new bestie’s house to play after school. Unfortunately, there was a problem on the other mom’s end and she had to reschedule. We’d already cancelled Lucia’s normal ride with J’s mom, and I knew Lucia was going to be madly disappointed. Thus, I thought it might soften the blow if I went to get her. I told Conan I was going to take the buses and such to get her, but he convinced me it’d be better to all go in the car- we’d just put water in along the way. So here we are.

 

The car makes it all the way to the school! J’s mom had had car trouble herself earlier in the day, so she arrives in a borrowed car. The borrowed car gets a flat tire right on the corner by school, so Conan tries to fix it. The car’s spare needs air and our spare doesn’t fit. J’s mom calls the flat-tire car’s owner and he comes quickly in J’s mom’s now-fixed car (how’d she get a mechanic to work so quickly!? I gasp). She has to go pick up more kids, so we take the flat-tire-car-owner to the gas station to get air in his spare. When we arrive at the gas station, we hear a big pop! from our car. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I yell, about to pull my hair out.

 

It’s not a flat tire, at least. Conan opens the hood. Some belt has snapped. But not completely- only part of it is torn. Conan gets out the dirty steak knife he apparently keeps handy and cuts off the busted part. We take off back down the road to the school where the other car is. We make a deal with the flat-tire-car-owner that he’ll pick up me and the kids off the side of the road if he sees us there on the way back to our side of town. With only a couple of stops to cool the car down- one of those stops to buy quick food, we make it home just in time for me to go back to work. Well, I’m late for the 8th time this week, but I get there.

 

Speaking of late, Conan’s going to be late to an important prayer service. The babysitter calls while we’re on the road, saying she can’t watch the kids that afternoon. That means Conan can’t leave as planned for Pinotepa, a coastal town a few hours down the road where his stepdad Arturo is from.

 

Here in Oaxaca, when somebody dies, there are nine days of evening prayer services for the deceased, with the ninth one culminating in an all-night sort of wake/prayer service. They repeat the process a year later, and this is the year anniversary. We already missed the original service for Arturo’s mom, so it’s important that we go. But I couldn’t even handle the mental images of a weekend purgatory with my insomniac children, all sleep-deprived and exhausted and expected to sleep on straw bedrolls when there’s an exciting wake going on around them. Plus we are all in the throes of a cold, just to exacerbate the potential misery. Conan was going to go alone, but this is like another sign from the universe. He decides to stay home and try to figure out the car situation.

 

 

Saturday: Blood and Gore and Electrical Outlets

 

Our most trusted and honest mechanic is unavailable. Sadly, this guy is slower than molasses in January AND the least experienced and least knowledgeable of the dozen mechanics we know down here, but at least we’re sure he’s not trying to rip us off, ever. We wait, as usual.

 

We decide on a family field trip to the library before our weekly venture to buy fruit and vegetables at the market. At the library, Khalil’s pulling books off the shelf with glee. I look at Lucia for a second and when I look back at Khalil he’s got his finger on an electrical socket and is trying to shove it in there. WTF? Who puts an electrical outlet in the children’s books? Or who puts the small kids’ books where the outlet is? Geez, Mexico, Geez!!! I know that safety is a joke here, but it’s a library, which really should be a universal safe space, don’t you think? Sure, they don’t have those convenient plastic outlet-cover things with that specific purpose down here, but this is a land of genius inventions!  Put some duct tape over that shit like I do, people! No wonder a kid’s third birthday is such a big deal here: if your kid survives that long, it’s obviously a miracle.

 

The rest of our outing is blissfully uneventful, not including Lucia’s meltdown in the taxi because I told her I’d buy her a treat “later” and then later never happened. “I wanted ice cream, too, but I bought fruit for you little people instead!” I want to scream, if only I could have my own meltdown. Instead I limit myself to furtive eye-rolling while I console her. Life is really hard.

 

Tensions remain high at home due to hunger and exhaustion. Voracious snacking happens while I prepare official lunch. Later Conan and I get in a fight over who is supposed to rinse Khalil’s poopy diapers. Conan escapes outside to do yard work. I attempt to put Khalil down for a nap.

 

I’m lying in the bed with Khalil when Conan comes up and asks if we have peroxide. I look up at him and there’s blood all over his shoulder and on one side of his chest. It’s coming from his head and it’s still flowing out swimmingly.

 

“What happened!” I shriek at him. “Do. We. Have. Peroxide.” He repeats. Then Calm Julia starts a wrestling match with Hysterical Julia. “Go in the bathroom,” I tell him, breathing deeply while my hands shake. “Bring some ice,” he says. I grab peroxide, ice, and the small, worn white “Él” (His) towel that was a wedding present, which just happens to be in the kitchen. I douse his head in soap and water and try to guess how bad it is. He holds the towel with ice in it on his head. The bleeding continues.

 

I’m flapping around like a chicken, trying to get things together to schlep him and the kids to a clinic. “Get your shoes on,” I tell Lucia. “Because we’re going to the hospital?” she asks, having overheard me tell Conan that I’m taking him. “Yes,” I confirm, and she is remarkably obedient. “I’m ready, Mommy,” she says, stunningly cool and calm.

 

Of course our car is not working. I am also out of minutes on my phone, and in my agitated state I appear to be unable to use Conan’s phone to call a taxi. Conan feels dizzy, which puts me almost over the edge. “Don’t pass out on me!” I tell him sternly.

 

“The neighbor,” Conan says, reminding me that we have a helpful neighbor. I try to call him instead of a taxi but my phone hasn’t miraculously gotten a top-up on minutes in the past 30 seconds. I can’t work Conan’s contact list still, either, and as I’m trying to push in the buttons and becoming less and less dexterous and sharp-witted (you’d think I got my head busted open, too), Conan says, “Go.To.The.Neighbor’s.House.” OH, right! I snatch the baby and go.

 

Luckily, the neighbors are home. The papá, Sergio, comes over to help. “It doesn’t look too bad,” he says, and Conan says, “Yeah, I don’t feel so dizzy now,” as if to say “Let’s just forget about all this.” I’m on the verge of screaming, “Your head got busted open by a heavy wooden beam! Have you already lost your mind?!” Instead I limit myself to a determined, “We’re getting you checked out.” The neighbor offers to give us a ride to the worthless pharmacy doctor down the street. That’s better than nothing, so we get in the car. Lucia stays with the mamá neighbor and their three kids to play, thankfully.

 

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Conan demonstrates how the beam was (we recently did some construction on the house and this beam was stuck extra tight until this moment)

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This is how the beam fell, except Conan was kneeling down to pick up the bucket right there. He has some amazingly bad luck. But better him than the kids, we agreed.

 

The pharmacy doctor is closed at the pharmacy in our neighborhood. The less-busy one downtown is also closed. We get out of the car at the next one, pleased because it looks like there’s no line. We tell the neighbor we’ll catch a taxi back and thanks for the ride. Turns out there’s no line because the doctor has just gone to lunch and won’t be back for an hour. Ooops. Now what?

 

The Red Cross is just a couple blocks away, so we start walking. I’m carrying the sleeping Khalil in my arms and Conan is shirtless and still messy with blood, holding the bloodied white towel with ice in it over his head. He says he feels “fine.” I am not assured.

 

At the Red Cross they clean and examine his injury and tell us he needs stitches, but they’ll have to charge us for the materials- a couple hundred pesos. They work off of donations, so that’s that. And they’re not doctors, so they explain that they can’t give us a prescription or any other care, so we might prefer to go to the Health Center (Centro de Salud). “They’re government run, so they don’t have any reason to charge you a peso,” the paramedic says. (I suppose he’s a paramedic. Whatever he is. Random guy who knows how to sew people up? Friendly apprentice to a Silence of the Lambs-style murderer? Who knows?)

 

We take a taxi to the Health Center and go in the Emergency doors. You remember the Centro de Salud, the one that was on strike for months? They’re not on strike anymore, thank goodness. Someone is in the exam room and there’s another couple waiting. The other guy’s having chest pains and he gets seen first. Conan tells the nurse he had an accident and got hit in the head. She glances in his direction. Analysis complete.

 

While we’re still waiting, the nurse comes over and asks, “Did you guys bring a vehicle?” I’m thinking “Did someone park illegally on the nearly-empty dirt road outside? Why are they asking this?” I give her a simple no, although I’m tempted to disclose too much information about the useless state of our vehicle.

 

“Well, it looks like we’re out of the thread for stitches, so you’re going to have to go to a pharmacy and buy it.” She informs us casually. The nearest pharmacy is something like 10 blocks away. I look slowly at Conan with his head injury and I look down at the sleeping baby in my arms. Do I go on this outing with the baby, which will take longer but be safer? Do I leave the baby with the head-injury patient? Do I send the injured party to buy his own medical supplies, with his bloody towel and topless, bloody chest, because our first walk-around wasn’t quite fun enough? IS THIS A SICK JOKE?

 

Of course it’s not a joke, though; it’s just how it is. This is not as bad as the time that a doctor sent us home during Lucia’s crisis asthma attack with her blood oxygen level still at a dangerous 89% and not responding to treatment. It’s not nearly as bad as my friend’s birth story. She’s a negative blood type and her baby’s positive, so you need a special shot, which you can get anytime between 28 weeks pregnancy to 72 hours after birth. Otherwise it’s dangerous if you might ever want to get pregnant again. The hospital where she gave birth (yep, those same scary fools that are my insurance company) kept telling her they’d get it for her soon, until her 72 hours were almost up and finally they admitted that they didn’t have it. Her husband had to drive hours away to go buy it and race back to get it to her in time. So, I think, this is not that bad.

 

Luck is on our side! The director finds a little bit stashed away in a closet somewhere. Hallelujah, amen.

 

The nurse won’t let me accompany Conan, probably because she doesn’t want anyone with non-injured heads to hear her inappropriate commentary or to be a witness to who-knows-what. “These glasses just don’t let me see right anymore,” is among her pertinent remarks. That was after she discussed with the other lady (nurse’s aide? Who knows?) this being her 2nd time giving stitches. When Conan asks, incredulously, “Really? Second time ever?” she explains that it was her second time with the other lady. Conan’s hoping that’s true, but it’s too late to back out of this anyway.

 

Meanwhile, the director, who’s the only doctor on site, takes me to a different room to complete some minimal paperwork. I give him basic info about Conan and what happened. He tells me he’s writing a prescription for an antibiotic and pain pills.

 

The doctor still hasn’t actually examined Conan, so I’m trying not to scoff about his antibiotics. When I ask him if antibiotics are necessary in this case, he assures me that they are, just like all the doctors here do, no matter the circumstances. They don’t even diagnose you; one doctor I saw limited herself to the question, “Injection or pills?” like they used to ask, “Paper or plastic?” in the grocery store. You have a cough? Antibiotics! Diarrhea? Antibiotics! It’s a miracle that there are still antibiotics that kill off actual bacterial infections here since they’re used for everything else instead. But I digress.

 

If I had known that my moment with the doctor would be the only moment for questions, I would have gotten it together to inquire a little more. If I had a peso for every time I thought “If I had known this sooner,” since we moved here, we would be filthy rich enough to improve doctors’ training in the entire state of Oaxaca. Although we’d only do that if we could ALSO buy a car that works.

 

Conan survives the dodgy nurse’s handiwork and we go to the reception/cashier area with a piece of paper. The receptionist charges us 85 pesos. I ask if that’s how much it costs despite his having this insurance- the Seguro Popular (insurance that covers you at this type of public health clinic). She’s like, “Oh, you have Seguro Popular?” Conan explains that he does but his paper is at home. Because that’s all it is- a printed piece of paper. It’s not like it’s something you carry around with you everywhere, or it’d be unreadable once you needed to use it. “Can’t you look him up in the system?” I ask, to which she probably should have burst out laughing. But instead she politely tells us that there’s no system like that; he just needs his scrappy piece of paper that anybody could print from a computer. I guess they’re counting on the fact that not enough poor people have the means to make their own ridiculous document for insurance coverage. Or they just don’t care.

 

“Welcome to Oaxaca!” I think, land where you better be at home with your shoddy print-out proof of insurance when anything happens or else it’s no use. What’s more of a joke, though, is that at no point did the doctor examine Conan’s injury, and no medical professional has given him any medical advice or instructions on follow-up care. No one has given us any idea of potential complications, what to watch for, tips on keeping it clean, or even when to get the stitches taken out. Nothing. I kind of assumed the nurse had told Conan some of that information. I must be somewhat in shock myself because I am not on my A-game with the demanding questions, and therefore we get zero information. At least he got seen, I guess.

 

conan busted head

It doesn’t look too bad after it’s all stitched up. Too bad it feels really bad still. We go out for ice cream down the street from the clinic before we get a taxi home. There’s the silver lining. 

 

Sunday: Dry like a Desert, No Oasis in Sight

 

Conan acts like he feels fine and starts to refill leaking fluids, add extra water, and beat on something to make the tail lights come on (oh, yeah, we have some electrical problems, too) so we can take the car out. We go to inquire about brand-new cars, because at this point I’m convinced that it will be cheaper than trying to maintain a car that never works. Unfortunately, the facts and numbers demonstrate my miscalculation. A new car is still unattainable. But my kids have fun playing hide and seek around the Volkswagon showroom and jumping on their couch. That’s what matters on a Sunday, right?

 

We drop the car off at the mechanic’s, who hopes to get to it today. He calls Conan right as we’re about to sit down to dinner that evening, because he’s about to get started working on it. Conan rushes off to the mechanic’s house. As soon as they start working, it starts pouring down rain and nothing can be done till the next day. (What, do you expect mechanics to have garages here? Bwahahaha.)

 

While Conan is out, we run out of drinking water. I still don’t have any minutes on my phone, so I can’t call him to bring some home. I’m worried that it’ll be too late to get any from the house on the corner by the time he gets back. I could leave the sleeping children alone in the house for a minute, but I’m scared of the dogs once it’s dark out and they get more aggressive. So I’m stuck, with my ragingly sore throat, and no water. I need tea now! Worse still, how will I get out of bed in the morning if there’s no coffee? I blow up a balloon for my imaginary pity party. For some reason, this small inconvenience feels like the worst thing yet.

 

Then I remember that it’s not my first day in the illustrious state of Oaxaca. It’s not even my first time with this particular problem. I get a big pot and put tap water on to boil. “It’ll be better coffee,” I think, “I’ll add some cinnamon to the pot!” I make my coffee the traditional way, letting the grinds sink to the bottom. It’s all ready for me to reheat when I get up the next day, thus assuring my 5AM wake up will be executed successfully. I make ginger tea with some of the boiled water, and it’s the perfect soother.

 

I plan the meals for the next day. Conan has a plan for Lucia’s school transportation for the next day. No further plans can be made. We’ve made it through this day. That is all. There’s no moral to the story, nothing special to be learned, because this is a REALITY show, folks. I go to sleep hoping for a better script and better hair tomorrow.

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A Spike for the Ego

21 Aug

I gave up being a stellar young volleyball player when I was thirteen, because it no longer fit my budding rebel image. I’d been the hot-shot player on my team, because I loved it and therefore I practiced relentlessly. But I traded it in for tentative puffs of smoke, for dancing in the mosh pit, for spoken word poetry. Sports were for jocks and that wasn’t me, I declared, with all of my tentacles extended to speculate and conjecture about my identity. Little did I know that years later, volleyball would save my life, imparting me with a concrete expression of myself as a real human being, when nothing and no one else around me acknowledged me as a distinct and singular individual.

 
Volleyball as refuge for me started in the itty-bitty mountain town of Juquila, Oaxaca, during that year of my life when I was lost in the abyss. I was whisked away in the shock, in the wonder and delight, in the anguish and growing pains of becoming a mother. I was in semi-exile from my home, trying to clench my fist around some solid piece of myself. I was locked away in solitary confinement, with an infant who couldn’t talk, a very depressed partner who wasn’t talking to me, and a small town full of folks who acted like I was an alien species.

 
Then I found a place to play volleyball.

 
It was at the hospital, up one of Juquila’s many steep hills. Everyone else who played regularly was staff from the hospital, but a neighbor who worked at the hospital told me it wasn’t exclusive, and I leapt at the non-invitation as if it were a red carpet leading me to my very own party. They were mostly younger folks hired from other parts of the state, and they were mostly a little more open-minded than many of the locals in Juquila.

 
Usually Conan would come with me to bring baby Lucia- who refused to take a bottle- in case she needed to nurse. Even though I wasn’t 100% free of my mother role, at least I was somewhere in my own right. It was a place to go with a legitimate purpose all about me, as a person who played this sport, as opposed to being Conan’s partner, or Paulina’s daughter-in-law, or just “la gringa,” a strange specimen to inspect and marvel at. It was a respite from both being ignored and being a side-show freak.

 
Not that I found a new bestie or something from going to volleyball once a week. We never had deep or intimate or intellectual conversation, nor many other things that I was longing for. Nobody ever invited me for anything but volleyball- and there wasn’t really anything else to do in Juquila anyway, except perhaps have a drink. But I got to use my body for something besides walking to the market and nursing the baby, and I got to be  part of a team. Being accepted into the volleyball games was enough. I eventually even got invited to be on their team for a big tournament. That was the most recognized and autonomous I ever felt in Juquila.

 

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Proof of my existence: My shirt even had my name on it for the tournament! Thank you, hospital volleyball players of Juquila.

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An action shot

When we moved to Puerto Escondido, I started from scratch again with my search for a social existence. There are a lot more people and options, as well as a different attitude, in Puerto. People are so much more open- it’s palpable. When I talk about Juquila, when I describe things and some people there, my shoulders hunch up, I shrink in on myself, fighting off the cold. But when I think about Puerto, my arms extend like wings, or like the surfer I’m not, out, open, free. What a difference.

I was invited to a volleyball team at the university where I work, too, but my existence in Puerto doesn’t start and end with volleyball. Granted, I still don’t have the incredibly fulfilling social life I pine for. But I am recognized in so many ways and spaces. I have a house that’s all ours, with electricity and everything, where I can be totally me and blast my music at 7AM. I’m not a novice Mommy-in-the-making anymore; I’m full-fledged, parenting with my eyes closed half the time. I’m a teacher with more than 5 years spent in classrooms, including two years under my belt using a curriculum that I helped invent. I get along royally with my students and I’m generally pleased to be at work, enjoying what I do. I have fabulous coworkers who I love to hang out with, at work and beyond. I know some other really cool folks who I almost never get to see because of this busy life- but at least I know really cool people! They know me. We exist in this social universe!

And I play volleyball, every Friday after work. I play to be outside of my Mommy role, outside of my Teacher role, to just be me, me and my body, little autonomous Julia. My muscles work hard and I feel sweaty and strong and glorious. My laughter erupts time and again, like yet another oil spill in the ocean, uncontainable, uncontrollable, its effects diffusing into all the realms of my being. I feel so alive, every single week. I feel like I belong, goofing off with staff and students and thesis candidates, other people shirking their normal roles to have a good time.

My volleyball skills are not what they used to be, although I’ve still got a surprisingly wicked underhand serve on a good day. More importantly, I feel legitimate and whole and right when I’m on the court: secure in my body, sure of my identity and place in the universe.

So I found myself getting pretty irritated with a small group of new students and their hot-shot egos who found their way to our games. See, in August and September, the university has a special introductory semester for new students while everyone else is on vacation. So right now there are just a few of us regulars and several enthusiastic new students. Bless their little hearts.

There is this group of those guys (almost always male, especially down here). We all know them: the guys who are confident that they’re more important than you. In volleyball, they are rampant, unapologetic ball-hogs. They’re flagrant court stealers, trying to play every position at once. They’re not only sexist (if you’re good, you’re good for a girl) because they also steal the ball from other men who aren’t as good/aggressive as they are- they’re equal opportunity in their discounting of all us “inferior” players.

They’re not amazing players in reality, though. At least half of these boys’ skill is brute force. They lose the point at least as much as they get it. Sometimes they blow the point because they hit it way too hard. Often they blow it because they’re so busy making sure some less-skilled player doesn’t mess up that they abandoned their own position and can get the ball when it lands there. And sometimes they just mess up, just because they’re human. But because they can spike, because they’ve got great hustle, because they’re overzealous, they’re really impressed with each other and uninspired by the rest of us. They’d like to think that it’s they’re game and we’re just there for show.

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Conan captured perfectly this ball-hog in Juquila stealing the ball from right in front of me. These guys are international, after all.

I am not there for show, however, thank you very much, chicos. I’m not a star volleyball player, but I’ve got thirty two years of budding and blooming personality under my belt, and no one can diminish that in me now. When I call the ball, I’m going to hit it, even if they get in my way. When they scoot in to my position before the ball’s even been served, I politely tell them to scoot on back out of my space. “I might miss it, but you might, too,” I told one of them this past week. Or when one of them tried to switch into the setter’s spot without asking me about it, I told him nicely, “Sorry, I like this position, too.”

I was feeling all irked about their presence, until I realized that those boys and I both have our egos all tied up in this game. Their stake is all about performing well for their buddies, whereas my stake is all about having a space to “perform” myself. I’m old enough now to not pen myself into a category. I can be an avid volleyball player and not worry about being a jock. I can be a devoted Mommy and still be a wild child rebel in my own ways and time. I can just be all of who I am now and most days I don’t give myself any complexes about it, thank the universe.

These poor boys, though, are not even having fun! They’re so busy trying to prove that they’re bad-asses that they can’t even laugh when they mess up. They either try to put the blame on someone else or they beat themselves up over it. Granted, it doesn’t make their behavior any more acceptable. They still need to learn that we all have a right to play, regardless of sex, regardless of skill level. But it does give me a little more  compassion for them. Here they are, many of them, separated from their old friends, out of their parents’ house, in a new town, for the first time in their lives. They’re trying to hang on to and continue recreating their own social identities. It’s hard. I get it. Maybe, with time, with more of us insisting that we all belong equally on the court, they’ll get that part, too. Maybe they’ll even learn to respect themselves more when they learn to respect others. Maybe they’ll even have fun during volleyball someday. We can only hope.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep holding space and pushing back at their infringement on my territory. For myself, for the other women who play, for the other not-so-aggressive players, and even for team macho themselves. It’s what my more-grown-up ego demands of me- to keep claiming my right to exist, to respect other people’s right to exist, on the volleyball court and elsewhere. Thank you, sports, and fellow players, for helping me rediscover my place.

P.S.   Semi-related bonus story: Recently Conan found out how it felt to live in the shadow of someone else and I don’t think he cared much for it. Some students of mine came up to him and the baby outside of my work and asked, “Is this the teacher Julia’s son?” (in Spanish). He said it was and they smiled at each other, said something between themselves, and walked off. “It was like I didn’t exist,” he complained to me.

My ego is too mature these days (maybe) to gloat about something like that, although it was kind of nice to feel understood. Luckily for him that’s not his whole existence in this town, because it’s no way to live. Love and solidarity, folks. Take care of each other, and hold space for yourself, and for others. xoxoxo, Your Humble Gringuita in Oaxaca

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Culture Clashes in the Bedroom

17 Aug

Theoretically, based on the title, this should be a racy blog about my Kentucky-bred self and my Oaxacan husband and something titilating in the bedroom. If only it were about that! When there are two small children constantly worming their way into your bed, your bed ceases to be the place for titillation.

Our household has four separate beds in it, but somehow the four of us humans are always in just one. (Thank the universe the cat sleeps elsewhere.) It’s a King-sized bed, but don’t be fooled, we’re sleeping like sardines more so than like royalty. There is always a child on either side of me, except when Conan successfully moves one over (while the child is asleep) so he can scoot in. Really, a child on either side of me is what happens on a good night. On bad nights the four year old is more on top of me than beside me, in her version of desperate puppy dog cuddling, and the baby is laying claim to my boobs for half the night, insisting that I really am still his pacifier after he’s already drained all the milk.

Imagine this but with a four year old added to the mix:

baby-sleep-positions

The other night, Lucia woke me up by rubbing her foot against my leg relentlessly. “Quit kicking me,” I told her.  “I have an ouchie,” (aka something irritating on her skin) she explained. “You still don’t have to kick me. Put some lotion on it and go to sleep.” I told her. Then she started whining louder. Then we couldn’t find the lotion for a brief moment, which made needing lotion a crisis equivalent to her hair being on fire. “I need lotion! Hurry, hurry! It’s hurting! My ouchie is hurting!” she’s screaming/crying. So of course Khalil woke up. He assumed it must be time to nurse- and if it’s not time to nurse, how about time to get up and play? Finally we calmed down both children and we’re all lying down again but I can’t sleep. I can’t even relax. I want to rise up and rebel! I want to scream back at my children. “Haven’t you ever heard of bodily autonomy?! How about boundaries?! Can I get some personal space around here?! Both of you people already lived inside my body for nearly 10 months! What more do you want from me!?” Like so many nights before, I dreamt of a whole bed, all for me.

co-sleeping-ecard

I seem to be the only one feeling like this around here, though. In Oaxaca, bed-sharing, co-sleeping, family cuddling- whatever you call it- is pretty much the norm. Often, dads are expected to sleep elsewhere for the first few weeks of a baby’s life, if not for longer, so that Mama and baby can safely share the bed. As time goes on, nothing changes. The baby stays in the bed (but Dad can move back in) till there’s another baby. The youngest in the family stays in the family bed until they get a girlfriend/ boyfriend and move to their bed together… just kidding. Kind of.

 

Seriously, though, bed sharing is not an “issue” here. In the same way that nobody cares or judges you for breastfeeding or formula feeding, nobody even talks about whether to share the bed or not. They just do whatever works in the moment. Nobody blogs about it. Nobody writes books about whether it’s good or bad. Nobody worries about how to put a stop to it, or what is the exact right age for getting your kid out of your bed. I’ve never, ever, ever heard the term “sleep training.” People don’t even talk about bedtime routines! It’s just not a thing. “No 18 year olds sleep with their parents still,” Conan reassures me regularly, shrugging, which pretty well sums up the attitude around here.

Not only is it not an issue here, but bed sharing is really practical and sometimes necessary. It’s perfect in households where you don’t have more than one bed, or where there’s not enough space in your house for real separation (like a cousin’s house where there are 3 beds but they’re all just pushed together). It’s just the way things are, at worst, and for many people it’s sweet and endearing to boot.

Not so where I come from. I’m from a culture where everything is an issue, and there’s a right side and a wrong side of every issue. Furthermore, your way is the right way and everyone who thinks differently is a jerk/idiot/fascist/child-abuser/etc. The co-sleeping hippies think the sleep trainers are heartless. The sleep training disciplinarians think the bed sharers are lax and lazy. And so on and so forth.

Here is how many people view it in the USA:

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Personally, I think that any way you survive, any way that the whole family can get some sleep and you avoid murdering your children is great. I have managed to evade that whole judging thing when it comes to other people’s parenting.

I want to be all laid back and/or charmed about bed sharing. I wish like hell that I was one of the parents I hear lamenting that their 8 year old wants to sleep alone. But alas, you can take the girl out of gringolandia, but you can’t take the gringa out of the girl. I don’t really want my kids all over me all night long. I want space! I want alone time with my partner in our own bed! I want to sleep through the night! I want to kiss my kids goodnight and leave them in a separate room, semi-forgotten till morning.

But I am a stereotypical Mexican mama all the way when it comes to babying my babies, coddling my sweet little angels. I want to be a drill sergeant who kisses the kids goodnight at the end of the bedtime routine and stoically marches out of the room till morning. But I’m the worst drill sergeant ever when it comes down to it, and not being a drill sergeant is really how I want to be.

So bed-sharing is still an issue for me, and I’m stuck in the middle. I’m like a wanna-be authoritarian granola mom. I’ve tried the in-between, no-tears, gentle and kind drill sergeant routine, too. It didn’t phase my troupe. They’re still both in my bed every night.

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The real culture clash for me is that judgmental attitude towards myself: Am I doing the right thing? Am I creating a monster by allowing this? Am I really heartless if I do this other thing? Why couldn’t I just luck into kids who are good sleepers?

I didn’t start out being a bed-sharer. But we all try to work some kind of balance between your needs and your kids’ needs, usually with theirs tipping the scale. There was a period of Lucia’s life when she fell asleep alone in her bed and stayed there (almost) all night. Then we moved to Puerto and slept in a tent for months (mostly inside our house- it’s a long story), and all the sleep training went to hell in a hand basket, and has stayed there ever since.

I’ve tried all kinds of stuff since then to make my dreams of solo sleep come true, and the bigger kiddo especially just doesn’t respond to it. She has an unending hunger for Mommy companionship. She’s a horrible sleeper who physically needs to feel somebody’s presence to feel okay.  I used to think it was all my fault for not doing the sleep training thing a second time, or for moving too much, or for that Diet Coke I drank during pregnancy, or whatever other reason we use to blame moms when kids don’t do what we’d like. Now I blame her Papi’s insomniac genes instead. Or better yet, I write it all down to save for her future therapist. Bwahahaha.

Meanwhile, I continue my back and forth, wishy-washy culture clash battle with myself. Inevitably, in the mornings I resolve to change things! We’re going to get this family in shape! And inevitably, at night, when my babies need me, I give in. “I’m gonna wait till I’m five to sleep in my own bed” Lucia told me decidedly with my last valiant effort. Five would certainly be better than 18. But I’m not holding my breath yet.

So please accept my rain check on the racy blog post. Someday, my bed and my body will be more mine again. Someday.

The Oaxaca-Kentucky Culture Jolt Extravaganza, Take Four

8 Aug

 

You know you’ve been living in small-town Southern Mexico for four years when your two-week-long visit to your hometown in the USA means….

You’re in the airport and…

-Your four year old is totally baffled as to why there are moving vehicles allowed INSIDE a building. We do love the “magic” moving sidewalk, though.

-Same four year old giggles her butt off because everyone is taking off their shoes (aka going through US security).  You try to make her calm down because you remember that these people take themselves very, very seriously. You watch them take away a lady’s new fancy, unopened lotions that she just bought in the other airport, and you turn away so that you can roll your eyes at how incredible safe that makes us all.

-You can’t figure out how to get one of those handy baggage carts out of their slot because there are no instructions on it. Why are there no instructions? Are you just given the gene of knowing how to work airport carts when you are born in the US?! You look around frantically for an appropriate person to ask, but people just keep walking by, averting their eyes at your pleading face. You start to question whether this really is your home country or if you are actually a foreigner now, and they’ve taken away your knowing-how-to-work-convenient-machines gene.

You’re at the grocery store and…

-You’re children are jumping up and down with joy about a grocery cart with a toy car attached to it. Seven minutes later they become overwhelmed with all the excitement and the 537 kinds of yogurt, and demand to be held instead. (Oh, wait, maybe that was the grown-up overwhelmed by all the products- but the kids most certainly did get overwhelmed by something and demand to be held.)

-It’s now part of  your homecoming routine to be in awe about the access to asparagus, brussell sprouts, “stinky” cheese, and blueberries.

-The almond milk and other things you can never afford where you live are a reasonable price, possibly because they are no longer considered fancy imports.

-Your children eat their first ever chicken nuggets because they are in total hunger/exhaustion meltdown mode and that is the best option in the deli section.

-You can’t drive this giant, stupid car cart. Who thought this was a good idea, anyway?

-You and your children are putting on hoodies even though it’s the middle of summer because it’s FREEZING in there.

Here are the monsters, having happy moments in the car cart before the meltdown:

You’re at your family’s house and….

-You’re wrapped up in heavy blankets because it’s FREEZING in there, too. It’s the same temperature as the average in your town’s “winter” weather, which seems to be shorts and t-shirts temperature for everyone else.

– It’s 95 degrees (F) outside and yet your four year old asks you, “Mommy, why is it cold in Kentucky?”

(Really, I cannot overstate how much of a shock to our little systems all the air conditioning was. It was nice to not be sweaty all the time, but if we had air conditioning at our house, we would probably keep it at around 82- certainly not in the 70s like everyone else in Louisville.)

louisville trip 2016 lu

complaining about the cold, so they gave her a bathrobe : )

-Your kid starts talking to another kid in Spanish- because that’s the language she speaks with all the kids at home. It takes her a beat to realize the other kid doesn’t understand and to then translate herself.

-Your kid says “Daddy” instead of “Papi” for the first time ever in reference to her father.

You’re in the car and….

-The baby is pounding on your chest to be nursed. He’s thinking, “If you’re in the back seat with us, you’re not driving. Why can’t you get me out of my carseat already?!”

-You’re driving and get on the expressway. Suddenly you realize that you are not wearing a seatbelt. Yikes! You and everyone else are driving about 40mph faster than you ever drive at home and you have zero protection happening. Whoops! You forget that most cars have seatbelts in each seat, not like in your car where only the kids’ seats are secure.

-Your four year old keeps excitedly insisting that the rental car, the fanciest car you’ve ever driven in your life, is the family’s new car. You try to break the news to her that it’s not, but you don’t really want to believe it, either.

-You are momentarily frightened by the speed with which you are supposed to drive, until you remember that 60mph is not so scary when drivers know that there are rules and try to follow them. You are impressed by what a smooth experience it is to, say, approach an intersection and know who has the right-of-way, all the while with other drivers also being informed on these matters. You are also happily shocked by the lack of speed bumps, rocks, ditches, and potholes all around you on the road.

-You let the car cool down by blasting the air conditioning before you even put the kids in it. You don’t even think about the environment, since you know it’s only for this short, little vacation before you go back to the reality of your busted car without A/C, which is always like an oven in the eternal summer that is your adopted town. The car seems to be the one place your four year old appreciates air conditioning, especially since it prevents the wind blowing hair in her face. “What the hell,” you think, “they’ll believe it was all a dream later.”

You’re here and there out in the big city and….

-You realize it might not be the norm to wear cut-off shorts and tank tops everywhere. You check to see if you brought any non-cut-off shorts, or shirts with sleeves. One outfit. It’s something until you make it to Goodwill.

-You spend three and a half hours at the thrift store to buy your year’s wardrobe. You are tempted to worship at the workers’ feet, in thanks for organizing everything so beautifully- NOT just thrown into one giant bin- separated by sizes and all. Then you decide it might put your clothing and accessory selection in jeopardy, in case they misinterpret your intentions, and so you pay for your clothes like a normal resident.

-Your four year old starts saying, “Well,” before everything. You’re surprised because at home she only picks up English speaking habits from her parents, and “well” doesn’t happen to be one of our habits. (“WTF” on the other hand, I absolutely take the blame for.)

-You buy all kinds of junky things in the dollar bins because it’ll be so useful! Or because another nephew of your husband’s will just love it! And it’s only a dollar! And even the junky dollar stuff is better quality than the junky ten pesos crap you get in your adopted town, for some reason. Then you take all your prizes to check out and realize you’ve racked up more than a hundred dollars on one- and five- dollar random things. You’re pleased as punch that you can pay with fake money! A credit card! Then you remember you still have to use real money to pay your credit card someday, and you return half the crap. Because they take returns, too! It’s like an alternate universe.

-You can’t stop staring at all the people. There are so many people! A wealth of different people! So many different skin shades! People of varying religious backgrounds! People who speak different languages!  And there are so many different fashion styles! Shoes that aren’t sandals!  You had forgotten what this was like- to see people from many varying backgrounds in one place. It feels so energizing, to be surrounded by such variation. You think of all the interesting conversations you could have if you could talk to all of these people here in the park. You realize that you might have a condition- something like Extroverts Trapped in a Small Town Syndrome. You fail to stop staring, despite reminding yourself not to everyday.

-You take your kids to their first ever protest! You’re so stoked to see community getting together in support of each other- and against racism- that you almost pee your pants. (But thank goodness for unlimited bathroom access in the USA!!! I can’t tell you how great that is- constantly.) Your four year old looks worried about the shouting till you shout-dance-smile it out, then she’s stoked, too, and trying to repeat the words.

-You go with some family members to scatter some of your father’s ashes, and you realize that closure doesn’t ever happen when someone you love dies. It’s just a long series of different kinds of goodbyes, of different adjustments to life without them.

-You visit with certain old friends and pick up the conversation like it ended yesterday. You get one-on-one time with certain family members. You speak openly, honestly, knowingly, powerfully- because you know each other, deeply, lovingly. These moments are are a feast after a famine. These moments- the kid-free ones especially, when you get to be totally you and not just Mommy with a side order of You- are the nutrients to replinish your malnourished soul. These people and the beautiful intimacy they share with you are the kindling for all of your chispa, your inner spark. This limited but glorious vacation social life- this basic necessity of conversation and recognition- is sustenance for your spirit. It’s medicine to eradicate the distance, and you soak it all up, hoping to store it away like vitamin D.

louisville trip 2016

Grown-up time with my dear Aunt Julia- the locally brewed beers were an added bonus.

……..

Going back and forth annually is not so much of a culture shock anymore. It’s more like a little jolt, like that sudden sensation after a shot of liquor- sometimes sweet and warming, sometimes sending you directly to the toilet bowl.

All in all, I think I’m becoming relatively adept at taking it in stride these days, in both parts of the continent.  (Thank goodness for that. Sorry to all my friends who remember me being heart-wrenchingly awkward and desubicada after long trips to other places.)

There’s plenty more I’m leaving out from this year’s stories- other fascinating experiences that can only come from leaving home and coming back.  Four years being more away than there gives such ample perspective. And I hope for even more next trip.

Till next time, my dear home country! Thank goodness we don’t have car carts and dollar bins down here!

xoxox

 

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