an even kiehl

Mexico, mucho gusto

2007-03-31T13:12:00.000-05:00

Tuve un tiempo fantastico. Muchisimas gracias.

A few of the many things I will remember:

1. Casa Gonzalez. I stayed in 14 different hotel rooms over the last five weeks, but I always returned to Casa Gonzalez in Mexico City. The courtyard was carpeted in fresh flowers brought in daily, the rooms were filled with heavy wood furniture and bizarre photographs (such as huge parade balloon devils) and every morning the owner would eat breakfast with the guests, advising us on our travel plans. All this for about $40 a night.

2. The Embassy Starbucks. Tucked between the Sheraton and the U.S. Embassy is the best Starbucks I have ever encountered. I was never a big fan of the coffee chain in the U.S., but here it became a comforting reminder of home. It helped that next door was a gift shop that sold the New York Times, flown in daily from Southern California. For a few dollars, you could (and I often did) get a Times and Frappucino and sink into one of the soft, plush armchairs. It was a complete delight.

3. The land. From the rugged mountains to lush forests to stark deserts, Mexico is a gorgeous country. I spent entire bus rides looking out the window, entranced, ignoring the book in my lap. The land also had the capacity to surprise -- and this was never more evident than during an interview two days ago in Cerro de las Tablas, a southern city on the Pacific coast. Sitting on a front porch, talking and drinking with several men, the land began shaking violently. My guide, Eduardo, leapt from the porch and ran into the center of the road. I was too stunned to do anything but reach down and secure my Corona. Later I learned I had experienced my first earthquake.

4. The coffee. I've never been a coffee drinker, but here they give it to you with almost every meal, whether you ask for it or not. Now I'm addicted to the stuff. Muchas gracias.

5. The cabdrivers. My basic Spanish was adequate enough that I could explain to a cabbie where I was from, what I was doing in Mexico and what I thought of the country. Without fail, this would prompt of torrent of Spanish I could never comprehend. One cabdriver, though, after I apologized for my terrible Spanish, said to me, "No, esta bien." He was probably just angling for a good tip. He got one.

(Fears of taxi kidnappings did not materialize for me. I was careful, though, in the taxis I chose, always making sure the driver had a crucifix dangling from the rearview mirror. Using this fail-safe method, I always reached my destination securely.)

6.The unhurried pace of life. Interviews that would start around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and that I assumed would take about an hour, had a tendency to extend well into the evening and sometimes involve transfer to a bar for much consumption of alcohol. I learned to relax and let these things play out naturally, but I also learned to ask the most important questions early on. A few hours into interviews, getting straight answers could prove challenging.

7. The kindness of strangers. I was constantly amazed by the unhestitating willingness of people who had less than me, who did not even know me, to offer me food and drink and shelter, and, in one case, the use of an excellent horse for two days. Beyond that, they were willing to open up their lives and speak to a stranger honestly and from the heart. Their stories are the ones I will remember the most.

I return home tonight. Hasta luego.

Comings and goings

2007-03-28T16:59:00.000-05:00

If I could take a luxury Mexican bus back to Baltimore this weekend, instead of an airplane, I would do it. I've come to love Mexico's intercity buses. They're cheap, fast and comfortable. They provide a stunning view of the country through large, tinted windows, and the best serve free sandwiches and drinks.

I can detect only one downside: the B-grade American movies that are played at a blaringly loud volume, which makes little sense because the movies are in English. Most of the passengers are presumably reading the subtitles to figure out what's going on.

I'm in Acapulco now, and on the five-hour bus ride here, we watched X-Men 2 and Extreme Ops -- loud, curious choices for a bus ride through Mexico.

Before this trip, when I told people that Acapulco was on my itinerary, they rolled their eyes, as if I was treating this as a big vacation. But if I was going on vacation, Acapulco is the last place I would come. Mexico City, with its cool, dry climate, abundant parks and delightful sidewalk cafes, is more my speed. Acapulco is hot, humid and noisy.

It does have to recommend it, though, the amazing cliff divers of La Quebrada -- a group of men who dive from a cliff at dizzying heights (30 meters or more) into a narrow cove. I paid $3.50 to watch eight of them dive last night as the sun set over the Pacific behind them. Stupidly, I forgot my camera, but the scene was so amazing that I'm returning tonight, and I'll be well-equipped.

My hotel here is $20 a night, but without air-conditioning. Sitting in the courtyard yesterday, sweating through some Alice Munro, an elderly European lady told me I could have an air-conditioned room for $5 more. I leapt at the offer, of course. I asked the lady, Nadia, how long she was staying at the hotel. "As long as the sea is good, I'll be here," she said. "When the sea turns, I'm leaving."

I had no idea what she meant, nor did I understand how she could be an invalid, as she claimed. I didn't think invalids walked 20 minutes to the beach twice a day for swims in the ocean.

My purpose here has been to arrange a trip about 200km south of Acapulco, to a small town where I think there's an interesting story involving dancers. I leave tomorrow for a couple days of reporting in this town, Cerro de las Tablas, then rush back to Mexico City for my flight home Saturday evening. That is, unless a new bus route to Baltimore opens by then.

Pyramid Questionnaire

2007-03-25T15:50:00.000-05:00

I visited the pyramids north of Mexico yesterday, and climbed the Pyramid of the Sun, the third-highest in the world. (They not only have stairs to make the ascent easier, but also handrails. An escalator can’t be far off.)

To imagine the work that was required to build these things, without animals or wheeled vehicles of any kind, just kind of stops you. This was a time when people really took their religion seriously, or just didn’t have anything better to do.

But any kind of sustained appreciation yesterday was ruined by the countless hawkers who roam the grounds of the ancient city, pushing all kinds of trinkets into your face with the word, “Barato!” (Cheap!)

I resisted them all with increasing irritation, so I was wary when two young teenagers approached and asked if I would help them with their English homework. For school, they had to ask a series of questions to English speakers. Since my livelihood essentially depends on people giving me their time and putting up with my questions, I happily agreed to help these kids.

One had a digital recorder, the other a digital camera. The questions started off simple enough:

What is your name? (Steve)
How old are you? (29)
Where are you from? (The United States)
Where have you been in Mexico? (Chiapas, Michoacan, Mexico City)
What do you do in your free time? (Read, listen to music, go to concerts, watch movies, drink with friends)

But then the questions got a little stranger:

Is addiction a bad thing? (Not necessarily, but to alcohol and drugs, yes. (Maybe, like in a choose-your-own-adventure book, this question was prompted by my response to the previous one.))
If you found something on the street, what would you do? (Try to find the owner.)
If you could be an animal, what would you be? (A dog.)
Why? (I think I would like all the petting, and the sleeping, and the playing. But the rat poison thing is kind of a deal-breaker.)

And then the questions got weirder still:

What is happiness? (Being absorbed in a job or task, being with people you love)
Do you believe in love online? (Sure.)
Do you believe in love at first sight? (I’m skeptical, but I won’t rule it out.)
Do you believe love lasts forever? (I'd like to think so.)

They seemed satisfied, took my picture (with them), and said goodbye. And I wondered if the questions I ask people are just as stimulating.

Line of the Day

2007-03-23T13:08:00.000-05:00

From an Editorial Observer column by the always wonderful Verylyn Klinkenborg in the New York Times:

"I waited for a blank noon on one of those Southern California days that are like a shallow bowl filled with almost nothing, a day when the main event turns out in retrospect to have been lunch at Donut & Burger."

Into the woods

2007-03-22T14:31:00.000-05:00

This was written for the IRP web site.

CHIBATI GUACAL, Mexico – By the time I was on my hands and knees, crawling under a canopy of branches that appeared to contain a beehive, I began to appreciate the challenge in guarding a mountain that sprawls over 3,000 acres. There are few clear paths, just dense forest filled with pine trees, vines, plants and bushes I had never before encountered.

There was no time to contemplate the white bumps that began swelling on my hand; there was too much work to do, too much land to cover. Every day of the year, the men of the Donacio ejido, an indigenous community in the central Mexican state of Michoacan, patrol the Chibati Guacal mountain to protect their forest from illegal loggers. The men work 30-hour shifts in groups of seven.

For a story on the battle between indigenous communities and loggers, I accompanied a group up the mountain one week in mid-March. We set out at 7 a.m., riding up the mountain on horseback, through narrow paths and up steep switchbacks. After nearly three hours, we reached a clearing and set up camp. This would be home for the next two days.

My host for this trip was Vincente Guzman Reyes, 50, who used to cut these trees before he began protecting them. For 10 years, he cut and sold the tall pine trees. But it slowly dawned on him that he was mortgaging his own future and his children’s. The indigenous communities that live on the sides of the mountains depend on the forest for their water supply. If there are no trees, there is no water.

For environmental groups, there is another concern: If there are no trees, there are no butterflies. The monarch butterfly migrates to the mountaintops of central Mexico every winter, drawing tourists by the busload. The butterflies essentially nest on the trees until March, when they head north by the millions. To stand in the midst of a cloud of migrating butterflies is an experience for which the word transcendental does no justice.

Vincente wants to protect the forest not just for the tourists and butterflies, but for the future of his community. Five of his nine children have crossed illegally into the United States for work. He wants to build a self-sustaining community they can return home to. So every month or so, with a 9mm handgun tucked under his waistband, he does his part on the mountain, looking for the tracks of loggers and for cuts in the barbed-wire fence that marks his community’s land.

There have been shootings and threats of violence, but Vincente is undeterred. “They threatened to kill me,” he said of one group of loggers. “And I said, ‘Kill me if you want, but I have to defend the forest because it is the future for my sons and grandsons.’ ”

When we came back down the mountain the next day, I was sun-burnt, bug-bitten and covered in pollen and dust. But that all would clear up, like the bumps on my hand that had disappeared overnight, and I would be left with a deep respect for these men who took seriously their obligation to make their children’s lives better than their own.

The people's protest, and car

2007-03-18T21:18:00.000-05:00

Americans could learn a few lessons in civil disobedience here. For the three days I was in Morelia last week, the main streets in town were blocked by hundreds of taxis and vans -- a protest by the drivers because the state will not allow them to raise their fares.

I realized the extent of the problem Friday morning, when I checked out of my hotel and asked the clerk to call me a cab. I needed to go to the final session of the annual monarch butterfly conference, to meet with a guide who would take me to several indigenous communites.

But the clerk said no cabs were available. She suggested I lug my huge suitcase to the street and hope to flag one down. I went to the curb and after 20 minutes found a cab. But we couldn't get all the way to the conference site because, of course, the roads were blocked. I walked the last few blocks myself.

Happily ensconced in the conference, with coffee and cookies, I learned that the whole operation was moving elsewhere because of the protests. 'It looks peaceful to me,' I told my guide. 'But in Mexico,' he said, 'you can never tell when a protest will turn violent.'

He went to fetch his car to drive myself and three others to the new site. His car turned out to be a 15-year-old Volkswagen Bug, and into this vehicle squeezed myself, the guide, three other people, their bags and my extra-large L.L. Bean duffle bag thing. I felt like the biggest fool in the world, and extremely American.

The trip to the new site took over an hour, because of the horrendous traffic and a series of wrong turns, one of which led us up a very steep, San Francisco-style hill. About halfway up, the Bug's engine gave out and we started rolling backwards at an alarmingly high rate of speed. I never imagined this to be the way I would go, but so be it. At last, though, my guide pulled the emergency brake, the car jerked to halt and we all climbed out to walk up the hill while he drove.

Later that day, after a three-plus hour drive up and down beautiful mountains, we reached Zitacurao (my present location). The hotel requires guests to pre-pay, and it was then, as I opened my wallet, that I realized I had left my ATM card in an ATM machine in Morelia earlier in the day. I am an idiot.

I called my bank and they are sending me an emergency replacement card. They informed me they are doing this for free because it is my first time to lose my card abroad. But if it happens again, I was told, they will not be so forgiving. I will now name my bank to shame them: Bank of America. Do not bank with them.

Anyway, the Bug has reliably carried us across many miles of bumpy, rocky, dusty roads over the last few days. Tomorrow, it's back to Mexico City, where flat, smooth pavement and an ATM card await.

On beauty

2007-03-15T21:05:00.000-05:00

Last night I had dinner with Bill Toone, the director of the Eco-Life Foundation and a man who has devoted the last 20 years of his life to saving the monarch butterfly. Before giving himself to the butterfly, he had traveled the world researching endangered species. But nothing, he said, prepared him for the beauty he encountered in the Monarch Butterfly Preserve in Michoacan, Mexico.

When he said those words, I dutifully wrote them down but I didn’t stop to think about them. I figured it was just what passionate people say when they try to explain their obsessions. Well-intended hyperbole, nothing more.

But then I went to the butterfly preserve myself. It’s a three-hour drive from Morelia, and as our van approached the preserve, we were swarmed by orange-and-black butterflies. The driver slowed down, and the swarm parted to make way for our little party. I wanted to stop and take photos, but we pressed on. When we got to the preserve, we parked and hiked uphill for nearly an hour, the number of butterflies increasing with each foot of elevation.

My wonder (and my heart rate) grew with each step, too, and when I got to the summit, I realized what Bill Toone meant. The butterflies are beginning their migration north, so they had alighted from the trees on which they spent the winter, and the air was thick with them – thousands, if not millions. I felt their wings brush against my cheek and I heard their buzz-like flapping sound rush by my ear.

As I try to describe the scene, I keep deleting what I’m writing because I can’t find the words to explain what I felt. They may not exist at all. But it was the most stunning display of nature I have ever experienced. I stood paralyzed for a while, unable to comprehend this amazing sight. Even when I close my eyes now, hours later, the blackness is filled with fluttering orange wings.

The monarch butterfly’s home in Mexico, though, is threatened by illegal logging in the preserve. About 100,000 trees are cut each year by the indigenous communities that live in the preserve, and countless others are cut illegally by loggers who gain access by bribing the communities or the wildlife law enforcement. And that’s what I’m here to write about – the threat the logging poses to the butterflies and the communities, which won’t have the trees to live on forever and are slowly realizing they must change their behavior. The new president in Mexico has also pledged a crackdown on illegal loggers.

But standing in the preserve, choked with awe and wonder, I thought, isn’t it enough just to save something because it’s beautiful? Maybe that’s an arrogant and patronizing attitude, and maybe it’s only felt by comfortable, well-off Americans who don’t have to choose between saving something beautiful or feeding their children. But there must be a middle ground, and anyone who comes here can’t help but want to fight for it.

The answer, though, is that just being beautiful or good is not enough. Journalists and foundations must concoct complex reasons for why something is worthwhile, to satisfy themselves and their editors and the people who write them checks. You can’t say: Save these butterflies because they’re pretty. There has to be something more.

But to stand in the preserve today was to realize, if just for a moment, that sometimes beauty alone is enough.

Busted

2007-03-14T19:32:00.000-05:00

I arrived in Morelia today after an amazingly pleasant four-hour bus ride from Mexico City. For less than $30, I got a seat on a luxury coach bus, with nonstop service to Morelia. The seats all reclined, drinks and sandwiches were served, and two movies were played, albeit dubbed in Spanish. We drove past mountains and lakes, and the whole experience was a delight.

While packing this morning, I tried to cull from my luggage unnecessary items, a constant process. Last week, for instance, I left my (unused) mosquito net in my hotel room in Tapachula. This morning, I left my (unused) poncho in Mexico City. I still have far too much stuff. Unlike Jessica, who packed two pairs of everything for her trip to Senegal and does laundry every night in her sink, I went with the more is more approach.

That meant 14 T-shirts, 14 pairs of socks, 14 pairs of underwear, three jackets, three pairs of shoes, half a dozen casual button-down shirts, half a dozen polo shirts, two pairs of jeans, two pairs of pants and countless other items I am certainly forgetting. The upside of this is that I went two weeks without having to do laundry. The downside (besides having a suitcase so heavy that some cabbies need help lifting it) is that when I finally did laundry, it was incredibly expensive.

Of course, I didn’t actually do it myself. The hotel in Mexico City had a service. So I bagged my dirty clothes and passed them off. I just now, in looking at my hotel receipt, am realizing what it cost me – $90, or about the equivalent of a two nights’ stay at the hotel. But everything came back so fresh and nicely pressed, it was worth it. When you've been without an iron for more than two weeks, these things matter.

There doesn’t seem to be a chance I’ll be taken for a similar ride at my hotel here in Morelia, which does not provide laundry service, shampoo, lighting in the hallways, or – and here’s the kicker – soap. In Mexico City this morning, I purged my bottle of Purell hand sanitizer, which I had barely used. Every hotel I’d stayed in had provided soap. I figured the trend would hold. I am an idiot.

¡Vive el presidente!

2007-03-14T00:37:00.000-05:00

President Bush is in Mexico, but he’s hundreds of miles away from the capital, in the very safe, very pretty resort town of Merida. Still, by the show of force here you’d think he was planning to lead a parade down Paseo de la Reforma in the heart of Mexico City.

The U.S. Embassy is ringed by 10-foot high fences and protected by a constant contingent of well-armed police. Today, their numbers multiplied many times over. There were several hundred police in riot gear standing in literal Revolutionary War-style columns on the streets around the embassy, carrying heavy-duty firepower.

I tried not to laugh as I walked by. The greatest threat I could see came yesterday, when people attached anti-Bush posters to the fences. (They were all Iraq-related, and a typical one read, “Bush is the terrorist president of the world.” I would have taken a picture, but there are numerous signs around the embassy saying, in numerous languages, "Photography Prohibited." Much as I love this blog, it wasn`t quite worth a night in a Mexican jail.)

By last night, the posters were wilting and the ink was running from all the rain. For most people, it seemed the soldiers and the posters were a source of amusement. Sure, the war isn’t popular here. But it’s not popular back home either, and no one’s storming the White House.

In between all the rain, I managed to find time for a bike ride on Sunday. After renting a rusty and ridiculously small (for me) bicycle, I pedaled over to the Bosque de Chapultepec, a huge park filled with museums, lakes and gardens. There was also a wonderful exhibit of black-and-white photographs of Mayan temples, palaces and stadiums, shot by Arturo Chapa.

I got lost a few times (I didn’t bring a map because I was trying to pack lightly) and taxi drivers seemed to enjoy brushing up against me, but with Voxtrot and Beulah on the iPod, there was no ruining my blissful state. I managed to return the bike just as the rain began. (It has rained for five straight days. To paraphrase Ryan Adams, it rains here like the way I spend money.)

Later, I found a bookstore with a small table of English-language titles. Most of the books fell into one of two categories: books I had read in high school or college (The Catcher in the Rye, Lolita, Mrs. Dalloway, The Great Gatsby) and more modern fiction I’ve read recently (Disgrace, Saturday, The Virgin Suicides). Eventually, I decided to correct an inexplicable oversight in my reading history. I bought Fahrenheit 451.

As I read it, this passage stood out (along with many others), a quote from Montag to his wife:

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”

Anyway, tomorrow I’m off to see the butterflies in Morelia.

Mexico unplugged

2007-03-10T18:17:00.000-05:00

Clay says not to worry about me because I seem to be spending most of my time in Internet cafes. I wanted to tell him this was an unfair allegation. I have a laptop computer, so I’m actually spending most of my time at sidewalk cafes.

I went to a great one yesterday, Caffe Toscano, on the southern edge of Parque Mexico. From a small table on the sidewalk, I looked out onto the tall trees, bushes and leisurely traffic of students, musicians and dog-walkers. To my right, a group of young men played dominoes. To my left, people sat reading the paper. And it helped that the orange juice was so fresh there was actually a seed in my glass.

It felt about as close to a perfect moment as I’ve had since I arrived here two weeks ago. (This is Spalding Gray’s influence on me: While I don’t dedicate my life to the pursuit of perfect moments, as he did, I try to recognize them and hold onto them when they come.)

After sitting a couple of hours at the café (between interviews), reading Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love, I took a walk through the park. I still have not gotten over the sheer abundance of dogs here; there were dozens of them in the park, on- and off-leash, running, playing, splashing and lying in the shade.

Later, after my afternoon interview, it poured rain as I walked back to my hotel. I felt violated somehow. This does not happen in Mexico! Certainly not on my day of perfect moments! I was soaked to the skin, and my backpack, containing my laptop, was drenched.

The contents inside seemed dry enough, but now whenever I try to connect to the Internet, using Wifi, my computer crashes. There is no Apple store here, so I called the Apple support line, where I found Rob. He told me I had not purchased Apple’s extended warranty, so it would cost me $49 to get phone help. While I pondered this, I described the problem to him and he said the shut-down screen I was getting was a “kernel panic,” for which there could be many reasons. Meanwhile, the idea of my computer panicking is deeply unsettling to me. For this relationship to work, one of us must remain calm.

Anyway, it seemed unlikely Rob would be able to help me. His best, free advice was to take the laptop to the Apple store in Baltimore when I return. Some kind of total overhaul, involving re-install discs I don’t have with me, is probably in order.

Sigh. This all means Clay may turn out to be right after all. It also means e-mail and blogging will be much more difficult and expensive. But just think of the fun we’ve had.

And this one?

2007-03-08T16:30:00.000-05:00

What are those little bushes with orange flowers? Thanks!

Help!

2007-03-08T16:28:00.000-05:00

Can anyone tell me what kind of flower this is? I will send you an empanada.

Tommy and me

2007-03-07T11:15:00.000-05:00

Whenever I interview someone on the street, I draw a crowd. The smaller the town, the bigger the crowd.

Usually, it’s harmless curiosity. I show the children how my digital camera works. I chat with the adults about politics and the weather. I tell them my background. They tell me theirs.

But two events over the last few days ended differently. On Sunday, I went to the town of Belisario Dominguez to talk to women whose husbands and sons have left for the United States. On weekends, the town’s main street becomes a busy, crowded marketplace where people from the nearby communities sell their goods.

After an afternoon of interviews, my translator and I were walking back to our car when I saw a woman I had begun to talk to earlier. Our conversation had been interrupted by a phone call. Assuming the call had been from the United States, I stopped to talk to her again. She had a stand at the side of the road, where she sold mangoes, oranges, watermelon and corn tossed with chili.

A crowd quickly gathered, and I did my best to ignore them and focus on the woman. But then a man demanded to know of my translator what we were doing there. Another man got in my face. His speech was slurred and I couldn’t make out a single word of what he was saying, but I knew it wasn’t chit-chat about politics or the weather.

I stood up and the man grabbed my upper arm. He held on and kept talking nonsense to me. I shook him off, said “Vamos!” to my translator and started walking away. We were followed briefly, and we didn’t linger in that town.

Before I left Tapachula yesterday, I returned to a shelter for migrants where I had spent some time last week, talking to the people who run it and the migrants who stop for a few days’ rest before continuing north. In the afternoons, the shelter is closed, so the men gather outside, just sitting around really, barely even talking.

When I got there yesterday afternoon, a man in a Tommy Hilfiger hat immediately approached me. I explained who I was and that I just wanted to take a few pictures. He said loudly that no one there wanted their picture taken. He said he was from Honduras, and people there don’t like it when you take their picture.

“There are no cameras in Honduras?” I asked. I figured the best way to defuse the situation was to keep talking to this guy until he calmed down. Besides, the shelter was on the edge of town, and unless a cab came by, there wasn’t anywhere for me to go.

Next, this man, let’s call him Tommy, walked toward a group of migrants sitting on some rocks and said to them, sweeping his arm across the crowd, “You don’t want your picture taken, do you?”

No response.

I tried to ask Tommy why he didn’t want his picture taken, but he seemed unable to explain himself. If he wasn’t drunk, he was barely literate. Then he asked me for money. I refused.

“You just told all these people not to let me take their picture,” I said to him. “You made my job harder. I’m not giving you money.”

He then asked me to follow him around to the side of the shelter, to see some people doing laundry. Again, I refused. By this point, the dozen or so migrants there were paying close attention. I wanted to hold my ground against him. But I also could tell that nothing would come from sticking around. There would be no interviews or photographs as long as Tommy was there.

A few minutes earlier, I had noticed a taxi with a couple people inside drive by. I figured the cab would have to come back soon, and that it would be empty. It did, and it was. I flagged the cab down and got in, Tommy following me into the street and closing the door behind me.

A common language

2007-03-05T00:06:00.000-05:00

I suppose it’s inevitable that after a week in a country where you don’t exactly speak the language, you begin to think about how we communicate as people. Several experiences this weekend made me think about our innate desire and need to connect with others.

On Saturday, after a few hours of interviews, my translator, Laura, invited me to her home for comida with her family. I met her two teenage sons, her husband, her mother and her sister, and for much of the afternoon we sat on her patio and ate, drank and talked. She made tortillas with mole and other delicious fillings, and we drank Coronas and Sauza tequila. But mostly, we learned how much we have in common, how the things that we want for ourselves and our families are the same.

The challenge of communication was not insignificant. I tried to speak in Spanish almost exclusively, getting help from Laura’s sons when I struggled for a word or couldn’t understand a question. To do this for three hours was exhausting, but also rewarding in ways I hadn’t expected. It was a feeling of having climbed a linguistic and cultural barrier to discover the wall was only in my imagination.

When I left, they gave me an ataulfo, a type of mango that originated in Chiapas. It’s green now, but they said after a few days it will be yellow, and delicious. Maybe it was the tequila that afternoon, but I left with a warm feeling inside.

(The photo above is of Elvia Garcia Hernandez and her parents. Elvia has two sons in the U.S., and every few weeks she comes to this building in the remote pueblo of Belisario Dominguez to speak to them by telephone. The calls are expensive, and the lines at this telephone station are long, but for Elvia, to speak to the sons she has not seen in two years, it is worth it.)

Dogs!

2007-03-04T09:50:00.000-05:00

Toy Dobermans love me.

What I've learned (part 1)

2007-03-02T22:29:00.000-05:00

A few lessons from an exhausting, stimulating first week:

1. When traveling in a foreign country, one should never dispose of English-language reading material, no matter how heavy one’s backpack. Before leaving Mexico City and coming here to Tapachula, I thought I would lighten my load by tossing out an issue of the Economist. This left me with only one magazine. Admittedly, it is the New Yorker, and the double anniversary issue at that, but even so, I am nearly finished.

2. We can land a man on the moon, cure polio and run a 4-minute mile, but we have not yet figured out how to consistently mass produce a decent pillow. Though I have come to expect it by now, I am still amazed at how many absolutely awful pillows are found in so many hotel rooms, no matter their price or location. My room here has two pillows, one with about as much give as my hardcover high school chemistry textbook, the other an odd mass of coils that resembles a nest of snakes. I went with the snakes, but put a towel over the pillow in case one of them tries to bite me in the night.

3. American music has a farther reach than other export, cultural or otherwise. In Ciudad Hidalgo yesterday, a dusty jumble of a town on the Suchiate River, bordering Guatemala, I stopped in a convenience store for a bottle of water. What I heard was James Blount’s “You’re Beautiful,” a song so ubiquitous it cannot be escaped even in the deepest corner of Mexico. And earlier this week, on the subway in Mexico City, a man boarded the train carrying a small stereo playing a cover of the Lucksmiths’ song “I Started a Joke.” (For those who would point out that James Blount is British and the Lucksmiths Australian, I would only say: Get over yourselves. You know what I mean.)

4. Crossing into Mexico is easier done than said. I took my passport along for my trip to Ciudad Hidalgo and Talisman, so that if I wanted to cross into Guatemala, I would be allowed back into Mexico. I thought about also bringing my FM3, a work permit I got from the Mexican embassy. Instead, as the photo above shows, you don’t need so much as an Eddie’s Sandwich Club card to enter either country. The woman above is jumping off a raft onto Mexican soil. She paid the operator of the raft 10 pesos (1 cent) to pull her across the shallow, narrow river. A few well-armed Mexican soldiers watched as hundreds like her entered all day long. No papers needed.

5. The universe has a way of righting itself. I might have learned this from Lost, but anyway: Early for an appointment at El Colegio de Mexico this week, I sat on a boulder outside the school, positioning myself so my laptop would get a good signal from the college’s free Wifi. Feeling vaguely guilty about stealing Internet access, I was about to close up my computer when I heard a splat! and saw, covering the Y and U keys, a pile of black-and-white bird poo. I wiped it up with a tissue, but some slipped between the cracks and I think my U key is permanently stained.

This was not as bad, however, as the time I was in Oakland, walking to an interview, and felt a wet, warm glop on the back of my neck. Bird poo again, and it slid down my neck onto my shirt collar. After glancing around to make sure no one had noticed my humiliation, I rushed back to the hotel for a shower and change of clothes. This laptop, though, will have to hold out for a few more weeks.

A drop in the desert

2007-02-28T23:08:00.000-05:00

This is Kevin Nahum, 5 years old and from El Salvador, who I met today at Casa del Migrante in Tapachula. Kevin's parents have been forced to leave their country because of threats against his father, an accountant. They are only two days into their journey. They eventually want to reach San Francisco, where a relative lives. They don't know how they'll get there, only that they cannot go back.

"When we need to walk, we will walk," Kevin's mother Caroline told me.

The casa is run by Father Flor Maria Rigoni, an Italian priest who speaks six languages, entered the seminary at the age of 11, has lived in Mexico for 22 years and recently was named by Mexico's president the Man of the Year for the Defense of Human Rights. Rigoni has a long white beard and a long white robe, and he walks barefoot around the grounds of his casa.

"We are speaking of millions of people," he says of those who pass through Mexico to reach the United States. "And behind every person, there's a family, there's an identity, there's a tradition."

Rigoni has worked in Tapachula for nine years, helping thousands, but he knows he cannot help them all. "We are really a drop," he says. "But nevertheless, a drop stops the desert from gaining an inch."

When I left the casa tonight, I said goodbye to Kevin Nahum and his family. I wished them luck, thanked them for their time and gave them my phone number. They said they would call when they reach California. I will be waiting.

Ta-ta, TSA

2007-02-28T00:42:00.000-05:00

Sitting in the Mexico City airport tonight, waiting for my flight to be called, it was announced that the flight to Tapachula was leaving from Gate T, at the end of the terminal. As I soon discovered, Gate T is not actually a gate but a bus stop.

We were told to go outside and board bus 86, which would take us to our plane. We got on the bus -- no tickets needed -- and in a few minutes an airport employee ducked his head into the cabin and asked, "Tapachula?" The passengers yelled back, "Si!"

The bus soon backed out of the station and appeared to leave the airport. We drove for about 10 minutes and I thought maybe they just decided to bus us to Tapachula. It's only a 20-hour ride. But at last we came to an area with some actual planes. We deboarded the bus, walked across the tarmac and climbed into one of them.

Again, I expected some kind of ID or ticket check. Instead, they gave us mints. After we landed in Tapachula, I took this photo of the plane. When I tried to take a tighter shot, to provide a full view of the playful smile painted on the nose of the jet, a man with a gun told me not to. I thought it best to obey.

That which doesn't kill you...

2007-02-27T00:11:00.000-05:00

Before I left, I was told that travelers who get sick tend to do so at the end of long trips, when their defenses are down and they are less vigilant about what they eat.

For me, that moment came on Day 2. For lunch today, I stopped at a crowded restaurant in Zona Rosa and ordered the enchiladas (again) and iced tea. I wasn’t worried about the water used to make the tea – a restaurant that plays Oasis's "Wonderwall" during the lunch hour would certainly use pure water. But it wasn’t until I had drunk half the glass that I realized something else: It was filled with ice.

I drank the rest of it anyway, and crunched the ice in my mouth for good measure. Make my day, parasites! I love ice in my drinks – the more, the better, and I don’t think I can survive five weeks without it. It’s been about 10 hours since lunch, and I still feel fine. Perhaps my immune system is tougher than I think.

After receiving some chastising about my choice of cuisine on my first night here (Subway, Italian BMT), I went to an Argentinian restaurant tonight, Quebracho, with Jim, another guest at the hotel. In response to his question about the thickness of the various ribeyes, the waiter returned with a slab of raw, gorgeous meat.

I had a tender strip steak, and it was delicious.

Tomorrow I head to Tapachula, near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, for reporting on various labor and migration issues. I’m sorry to leave Mexico City so soon. It’s not that I haven’t scratched the surface here; I haven’t even seen the surface. But there will be time for that in a couple weeks.

Bienvenidos a Mexico!

2007-02-26T10:55:00.000-05:00

(This was written last night.)

First, the good news: Bottles of Pacifico at the 24-hour convenience store a half-block from my hotel cost 75 cents. I loaded up tonight and figured I would share them with other hotel guests as we watched the Oscars at the Internet café just off the courtyard. (The rooms at Casa Gonzalez don’t have TVs or, for that matter, hot water. But the beauty of the hotel – actually a series of small buildings surrounding a central courtyard – and the graciousness of the staff easily make up for any shortcomings.)

Now, the less-good news: The Oscars cannot be found on the TV in the café here. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s time to cut all cords to America.

I arrived in Mexico City at 11 this morning, narrowly escaping a “wintry mix” that has apparently wreaked havoc and panic in the Baltimore-Washington area. I quickly cleared immigration, picked up my bag and grabbed a taxi. “Soy periodista,” I told the driver when he asked what I do. “Newsweek?” he replied.

Exploring the Zona Rosa neighborhood around my hotel, I came across more Starbucks than can be found in all of Baltimore. Tempted though I was, I resisted the call of a caramel frappucino and headed for a slightly more authentic option: VIPS, which seems like the Applebee’s of Mexico, only with free Wifi. Yay! I had the enchiladas, which were delicious, and bottled water.

I’m enjoying practicing my Spanish probably more than people here enjoy hearing it. After explaining to a Telcel salesman how I needed to buy minutes for the Mexican cell phone I brought with me, he said, “Do you want to speak in English?” Well, no, but I’d probably still be there if he hadn’t asked.

Otherwise, I found a bookstore that was playing Death Cab for Cutie and a music store, Mixup, that in addition to the usual music categories of rock, jazz and so on had the aptly-named Trash, where they kept the Slayer and Lamb of God. Later, I wandered down the Ave. Paseo de la Reforma (photo above), walked through a public park, sat under a tree and read Ian McEwan, watched some children play soccer and finally settled for dinner at Subway, the highlight of which was watching a French family and the Mexican employee speak to each other in English. “Cheese, please.”

Tomorrow, the work begins.

Once more down the 101

2007-02-23T10:50:00.000-05:00

I'm a sucker for finales.

I still remember the last words on Cheers: "Sorry, we're closed." I loved the final moments of Family Ties, when the camera pulled back, breaking the fourth wall of television sitcoms, and the cast came out for a last bow. I watched the Seinfeld finale with hundreds of other people at my college student center, then rushed upstairs to write about it for the school paper. I sat on the edge of my couch and trembled at the last minutes of Six Feet Under. And the ending of The Wonder Years ("After all these years, I still look back with wonder") captured the heart and wisdom of the show in perfect measure.

Naturally, then, I had high expectations for last night's series finale of The O.C., a show that burst into popular culture in 2003 with a first season that was nearly flawless. The premise was original, the writing sharp, the setting gorgeous and the emotions heartfelt. It was clever and funny and surprising. The popular school jock Luke (who delivered the show's trademark line) turned out to have a tender side. The ditzy Valley girl Summer fell for a comic-book loving, Shins-listening dork (as did the rest of America).

And it didn't hurt that so many episodes ended with hilarious fistfights.

But not a punch was thrown last night. No one got drunk and passed out in an alley. Not a single model home was set on fire or coffee stand mounted in impromptu declaration of love. Instead, we got a house-hunting expedition, two weddings, a childbirth and an undercurrent of homophobia. A gay couple in Berkeley decide to sell their house to Sandy and Kirsten Cohen, who have just had a baby and are therefore so much more of a real "family" than the gay couple could ever be. Even better: One of the men is a wedding planner, the other a midwife. I'm sorry, but I thought Will & Grace had been canceled.

The show had its moments, scarce as they were. The scene where Frank bursts into the church and yells "JULIE!" was a clever nod to The Graduate. And Ryan's final tour of the Cohens' O.C. house, in which he flashes back to his arrival there and reluctant transition to Newport, was touching almost in spite of itself. But the flash-forward that assures us everyone lives happily ever after was trite and insulting for a show that once expected its audience to know who Michael Chabon is.

My friends and I sang the theme song again last night, but when it was over Abby delivered the unfortunate but inescapable verdict: "Worst. Finale. Ever."

'Col. Mustard, in the library, with a Metrobus'

2007-02-21T10:07:00.000-05:00

Trivia night found the IRP crew rocking out the Colonial Africa category (match the European occupier with the correct African nation: fun!) but slipping out of medal contention when it came to sports. What male tennis player won the U.S. Open in both 1990 and 2002? I can now assure you it was not Andre Agassi.

It’s still a little unreal to think that at this time next week I’ll be in a small city near the Mexico-Guatemala border, beginning a five-week journey for which I still feel wildly unprepared. But I don’t know if you ever can feel prepared for this; there is always more to do, no matter how many lists you draw up and how many items you cross off.

As Chris said about how these things happen, “One day, you force yourself to get off your ass and fill out an application, and then you just go along.”

Washington has been fantastic, the perfect place to indulge my habit of book-spying. Whenever I see someone reading a book in a public place – on the Metro, in a coffee shop, in a movie theater before the film begins – I feel a burning curiosity to know what they’re reading.

The opportunities for practice are numerous, but the town is a little lacking in variety. Two sightings yesterday: A college-aged guy on the Metro green line reading What a Party!, Terry McAuliffe’s account of his years running the Democratic Party. And a middle-aged woman in Potbelly reading Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy. Clearly, a non-fiction town.

Voxtrot line of the day: “Baby, I’d leave you for the person you used to be.” Sing it, Ramesh.

A weekend in the city

2007-02-19T09:33:00.000-05:00

If you’re going to Mexico, the CDC wants a word with you. You need vaccinations. You need prescriptions. Sunblock, bed nets, iodine tablets, anti-diarrheal medication and laxatives are all recommended. Sufficiently terrified, I went to Baltimore this weekend to see my doctor and get everything I would need not to die.

The CDC suggests the following vaccines, in addition to anti-malarial drugs and prescription antibiotics:
-Hepatitis A
-Hepatitis B
-Rabies
-Typhoid
-Yellow fever

As I read the list to my doctor, he started taking notes, then he started laughing.

“You know, plenty of people go to Mexico without doing any of this,” he told me, “and they’re fine.”

“Yes, I know,” I said, “but the CDC…”

In the end, I walked out with only a prescription for Cipro, and not the anti-malarial pills you’re supposed to start taking one week before you leave. “If you get malaria,” the doctor said, “we’ll deal with it when you get back.”

I tried to explain my high susceptibility to illness, how I can catch a cold from an oscillating fan. He wasn’t buying. But, when I get to those fantastic pharmacies south of the border, you can bet I will be.

A snow day for Washington

2007-02-14T16:19:00.000-05:00

Today, as the city slumbers under an icy blanket of white, I'm creating a blog to chronicle my upcoming trip to Mexico for the vast array of people who want to keep up with me. (That would be you, Mom. Thanks for reading!) I leave Feb. 25, fly into la Ciudad de Mexico and then travel all over the freakin' place, until I run out of money, which will hopefully coincide with my return flight on March 31.

(And now, a word from our sponsor: The trip is made possible by the lovely folks at the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University, and I will be writing stories for the Baltimore Sun, or whoever else I can con into buying stories about Mexico.)

So far, my preparations have consisted of calling random hotel desk clerks and practicing my Spanish. "Hola! Necesito reservacionces, por favor. ... Um, hablas ingles?" I will be reporting on the serious issues of immigration, labor exploitation and drug violence. The fact that Modest Mouse will be playing in Mexico City during my trip had no bearing whatsoever on my choice of destination for this project.

I intend to post here as often as possible, whenever I encounter the sweet nectar that is WiFi, and until my laptop is stolen.

For now, Feliz Dia de los Enamorados! I am off to a Hugh Grant movie.