The First 15

While an all too common theme in this blog has been my commenting about the passage of time, I can't help it on this occasion.  Monday means one month in Mexico!  One down, eleven to go.  It seems strange to put it that way, actually.  To commemorate, I thought that I would write about the joys of my life living here in central Mexico City.  One joy for every day of the month.

1). The sensory overload of the streets.  Bright, bold paint peeling away from the walls.  Entire avenues dedicated to the sale of only one thing: shoes, tires, hubcaps, toilets, you name it.  Vendors and horns honking and couples with their over-the-top public displays of affection.  Piles of illegally burned movies for $1.50 positioned next to tables of post it notes, or belts, or tarot card readings.  Smells from endless food stands, music blasting, people of all ages and walks of life turning the corner as they exit the metro.  This sensory mosaic is true of life in any city, I know, but Mexico City is so... Mexican.  

2). Never being alone.  Waking up on any given day, I can take as much time to myself as I need before wandering down to reception and easing into the comfortable fabric of my community.  

3).  Greeting people with a kiss on the cheek!  As a girl, I am privileged enough to be able to do this with both men and women (Men kiss women on the cheek but shake each others' hands).  Just to clarify, the kiss is not an actually lips to cheek connection but rather a brushing of cheeks and a kiss into the air.  (This is something that I did not immediately realize in Ecuador, so my first month there, I might have seemed a tad overly affectionate).  I love greeting people with a kiss, whether they be people that you are meeting for the first time or people that you see everyday, because it is personal and human.  It is a special acknowledgment of someone else's presence and reveals a certain warmth and closeness in Latin culture.

4). Fresh fruit and juice stands.  Within a few blocks of my house, I can buy a bag (yes, a plastic bag) full of fresh squeezed orange juice for 50 cents or a cup full of mango and watermelon for $1.00.   I'm convinced that they eat mango with lime squeezed on top in heaven.

5). Orfila. I have a thing for cute older people, I always have.  There is an adorable grandmother type who comes around the Casa named Orfila, and she is just about the sweetest, most endearing little woman you could imagine.  She has a lilting voice and such a pleasant air; it's like she is eternally content.  She knits and sells her wares at the Casa in order to pay for her room when she stays here.  The interesting thing is, she does not fulfill one's typical image of a harmless older woman:  she's an activist from Peru who volunteered at the Casa herself perhaps 40 years ago.  She works with women's co-ops and never had kids because she couldn't justify bringing children into this troubled world.  

6). Tacos.  Tacos of every type, every possible meat, vegetable, cheese, and tortilla combination.  Tacos with blue corn tortillas, tacos splashed with salsas and crumbled cheese, tacos al pastor, tacos de picadillo, tacos con flor de calabaza... tacos on every corner spreading for kilometers across this expansive city.

7). Watching Giovanni dance. One of my best friends at the Casa is a part-time volunteer named Giovanni who happens to be one of the greatest dancers in the world.  Giovanni is quite a character because he comes from a completely different background than most of the other volunteers.  He's a 21 year old guy from the conservative Yucatan peninsula who's in Mexico City studying social communication and living and working at the Casa for free.  He doesn't speak English but gets along so well with the eclectic group of foreigners that congregate here.  To just sit and talk with him, you would never guess that he could dominate a dance floor because of his quiet, well-mannered composure.  Yet, there's a sight to be seen when he is spinning, twisting, and turning with a rate and rhythm that I could never dream of imitating.  

8). Tianguis.  The Mexican word for "market" which comes from Nahua, the Aztec language.  It is easily one of the greatest joys of my week to stroll through stands of the Saturday Tianguis two blocks down and buy fresh tortillas, a quarter kilo of cheese, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, etc.  You never know what you will find there. Chocolates, chile powder, bras, children's toys, soap, jewelry...

9). Mexican naming. In Ecuador, to the whole world I was a "gringuita," the affectionate form of gringa.  Ecuadorians added "ito" and "ita" to most of their vocabulary.  Those endings in Spanish often denote size (a "casita" is smaller than a "casa") or affection ("Juanito" is a loving nickname for "Juan").  In the same way that "gringuita" was not a pejorative word in Ecuador, I'm pretty sure that "guera" ("light-skinned", my Mexican identity) is not meant to offend.  Walking through the Tianguis, vendors call out to me, "What can we sell to you, guera?"  Can you imagine this cultural difference translating in the US?  In Latin America, it is not uncommon for people to name each other by their skin color or physical appearance (black, white, thin, fat, etc).  Anyway, what I most love about communicating with Mexicans, whether they be strangers or acquaintances, is that they are just as apt to call me "queen," "precious," "my love," or "my life" as they are to call me "guera."  

10). Sitting in the silence of Quaker meeting, and repeatedly hearing a truck with a loud speaker drive by to advertise tamales.  

11).  Washing dishes together in a huge group.  After community meals, there is a veritable procession line of activity to clean-up.  There's the table clearers, the washers, the rinsers, the dryers, and the runners who return the dishes to their places on the shelves.  

12). Answering the phone in the reception.  In Spanish, the cordial greetings of "good morning," "good afternoon," and "good evening," are much more standard than they are in English.  Until noon, I answer the phone with a chipper, "Buenos dias, Casa de los Amigos."  At 12, it switches to "Buenas tardes," and at some fuzzy point in the evening becomes, "Buenas noches."

13). Agnita. "Nita" is the almost one year old baby girl of Nico and Jill.  It may be bias and it may be simply a long time since I've been around a baby, but she is one of the most adorable little girls I have ever encountered.  She has a few words: "papa," "mama," "wow," "bravo," "hi", and "no" (to name the ones that I can remember), and she throws them around with such gusto that it is almost impossible to be sitting in a room with her without beaming.  She gurgles and giggles and chatters and bounces in all of her baby glory, and an interaction with her makes everyone's day, everyday.

14). Pesos. Again, it may be the novelty, but pesos are pretty cool as far as national currency goes.  The crisp bills can be blue, purple, red, or green, and the coins are gold rimmed in silver (or vice versa) as opposed to the pure copper or silver coloring of our small change.  Pesos are roughly 10 to the dollar, so 5 pesos = 50 cents, 10 pesos = $1, 100 pesos = $10, etc.  Despite the ease of this conversion, I sometimes get confused, and I think that it doesn't help that pesos seem like attractive play money to me.  It's the same phenomenon that makes me feel as if cursing in Spanish means nothing.  Not that I curse often (or ever) in Spanish, but on the rare occasion that curse words come up, the many, many existent phrases en espanol don't translate as fiercely to me as some of our four-letter gems in English.  

15). The Metro.  While I cannot claim to be any sort of expert on public transportation, the Mexico City metro seems pretty cheap, clean, and efficient for a subway system covering a city of 20 million people.  20 cents a ride!  Compare that to $1.45 for a Septa token in Philly, and it seems like quite a deal.  Additionally, there is no overriding urine smell, nor are there half as many hostile glares as are sometimes shared in the city of brotherly love.