I’m in a different country, this time, y’all!
 
Wow, I wrote that phrase sitting on the terrace of a cute hostel in San Salvador. That was when I was in the country of, well, El Salvador. After that I was in the country of Guatemala, and then I returned to my adopted home country, Mexico. It was a whirlwind of a couple weeks—with some incidents of narco violence in my area and some rumors and threats of more, my fragile state of emotional stability (due to impending mostly bitter bittersweet goodbyes) was turned on its head. Plans were changed and tears were shed, and now here I am in the air, I’m assuming at this point directly over the arid borderland desert.
 
Things are thankfully and momentarily tranquilo in the area near my (former) home, which is why I am going to skip over any dramatic details I could share right now and stick with the delightfully mundane details of the last week. On Friday, I had to say goodbye to some friends and colleagues in one of the rural comunidades where I have spent comparatively more time. Though (due to aforementioned circumstances) I had scheduled the visit with less than 24-hours’ notice, one colleague baked me a cake. Chocolate, a detail she may just have remembered from my drooling conversations with her about cake flavors. Got to say, I was touched. My brain was also slightly touched, in the jittery way, when I drank a cup of Coca Cola for the first time in months. Yikes, kids, stay away from sugar.
 
My digestive system was also unfortunately touched by this very short trip. I do not think it was the cake (nor the Coca Cola)… but that leaves the most likely culprit as a cup of café I enjoyed with breakfast at a friend’s house. Sorry, mom, my already-slim trust in coffee is continually slipping. The result of such unlucky consumption (could also have been of any number of things on Saturday or Sunday, I suppose) has been a steady increase in frequency and pain of abdominal cramps. Fortunately, I was already planning to de-parasite myself before leaving Mexico, so I swiftly took those meds at the beginning of the week. I have also tried Alka-Seltzer, Tums, Ibuprofen, té de toronjil, and an abdomen-specific analgesic. The last one seems to be the only one with reliable results, although I still think I’ll be due a doctor’s visit immediately upon setting foot on US soil. Classic, Jaltenango could not let me leave with a peaceful stomach.
 
Similar to the cold I also recently developed, a friend of mine (who kindly procured the té and analgesics for me) suggested the pain could be psychosomatic—you know, stressful safety situation and sad goodbyes and all not being the most peaceful events to deal with. I think my predicted nahual, received in a cultural museum in a town on Lago Atitlán, was correct in that I get sick when I don’t take care of myself spiritually. Of course, Jaltenango could not let me go without excruciatingly hot weather and changes in plans either. In fact, at the moment I was going to leave my house, some imprevistos came up and we ended up postponing the drive to Tuxtla a day, giving me 24 hours of greeting people with surprised faces and enjoying the unexpected hugs.
 
When we finally did leave, it was at 5:05am, still dark outside and the trash collectors’ bell sounding in the distance. We drove first towards a gorgeously giant, golden moon that was setting against the silhouette of Sierra Madre hills in the first traces of soft morning light. When the moon dipped below the horizon, over our other shoulder we could watch the colorful sunrise, its rays poking through mango tree branches dripping with small green mangoes. We saw people traveling on the highway on foot, on bike, on motorcycle, on horseback, in car, in pickup, in truck stacked so high with bags that it looked more like a ball than a vehicle with wheels. We sang along to Beatles’ songs and speculated on the newness of the truck behind us.
 
Arriving in Tuxtla, we breakfasted (desayunamos) at a veg restaurant where I took my chilaquiles rojos with a twist of almond cheese and cream. I have made a small effort to eat some things I won’t be finding quite as easily in many US neighborhoods: fresh tortillas, jamaica, tres leches cake, veggie enmoladas, delectably ripe mangoes, bean and cheese gorditas, pox, agua de carambola, those chilaquiles, and proudly, quesadillas (with three types of tortillas and two types of cheese) four times in a day and a half. Don’t worry, I have plenty of chocolate (and coffee, for my caffeine-addicted loved ones) in my suitcase for the many anticipated moments I will be missing my tropical home.
 
I will just end by saying that more than one person I talked to briefly in Guatemala immediately inquired about my “Mexican accent.” Safe to say I had really adapted here. Tough transitions (though also full of happy reunions) to come.
 
Signing off an officially re-patriated North American estadounidense.

​Guess why I’m writing today? You (if you’ve been following along) guessed it. No internet. I could watch the episodes of Gilmore Girls I preparedly (that’s a word) downloaded on my phone, but I’m challenging myself to listen to blues while writing some random thoughts. I’ve got some good typical Jaltenango sagas to relate today.
 
Primero, last week I almost super glued my fingers together. My Chaco, after having survived 8 years of both light and heavy use, split right across the Vibram sole. A concerned friend insisted I borrow super glue, with which I eventually attempted to glue parts of the sole back together… without having realized that the bottle had a hole in the side, just conveniently placed so that, when squeezed, it oozed more glue on my finger than the intended rubber location. When my middle and ring finger refused to separate, I finally noted the issue, with an instant flashback to Kindergarten. One of my vivid memories from that época is stapling my fingers together. I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as it sounds, because my fingers have no staple-shaped scars, but it was scary for a moment there. This time wasn’t so bad either, after frantically Googling “how to remove super glue from skin,” rubbing lotion and oil on my fingers for a good ten minutes, clipping my ring fingernail that got glued to the skin, and then deciding to just forget about the plastic residue left over, washing my hands and going to work. Aside from a little transparent material still stuck on my nail, the incident has been forgotten.
 
Segundo, I celebrated Valentine’s day (“day of friendship and love” or día de amor y amistad in Mexico) by reading a poem about love of one’s self at a concert the weekend prior to the 14th. It was set to guitar music in the background and read into a microphone with a backdrop of candles in front of a small audience—very *romantic*. Poem in Spanish (with potential to-be-developed English translation) will be posted soon. I then also celebrated said día with tinga vegetariana de zanahoria (mock tinga made with carrots instead of chicken) with some awesome Community Health Workers who brought the snacks to our meeting on the 14th. Highly recommend the dish, best served with chips / tostadas.
 
Tercero, I woke up to water dripping just centimetros from my head the other day. You see, the water tank on our roof doesn’t know when it’s full, so we have to manually shut off the water from the street to our house before it fills completely. The other day, one of us roomies opened that llave, and none of us closed it, so for the first time in a couple months, the tank did fill completely. Result? 7:20am drip, drip, drip from my leaky ceiling onto my pillow. As a friend said, “I know it’s a hard situation… but I’m also laughing because it’s so classic Jaltenango.” This place is the best gym for the soul, we’ve decided—plenty of workouts for those muscles of patience and resilience.
 
Cuarto, our washing machine broke. It will do most things now except hold the water in the washing machine (a slight downside if you want to wash clothes with water). Except apparently it will hold water in if you take the back off the machine and secure the plug that keeps the water in, and then manually unplug it when you do want to drain the water. The man that came to figure these things out for us recommended a replacement piece for the plug (to avoid the manual maneuvers described) and also pulled out several whole blouses that were stuck in the machine. Several. Blouses. None of them were mine, thankfully; I avoided that embarrassment.   
 
Quinto, we are back to hot season… highs between 92 and 95 each day. Gone are the days of closing my window or pulling on a blanket at night. Back are the times of fans and multiple showers a day.  
 
Sexto, and most excitingly, I rode a mule last week! I also learned how se corta café and how it is dried and bagged and transported, etc. A wonderful colleague of mine has a rancho on the outskirts of one of the communities where we work, and I just happened to have a Tuesday morning free. She generously offered up her mule for a half-hour ride to the rancho, where we made a simple breakfast of beans, tortilla, eggs, lettuce (because she knows I’m veggie) and, of course, coffee. We raked coffee to lay it out to dry, filled bultos with dried beans, rearranged drying cerezas on another patio to dry better, and ventured into the cafetal to see how se corta, pulling the cherries off the tree. I returned with a slightly sore back and moderately sore arms, sweat on my brow, and a better understanding of where this global enterprise of coffee all starts. Important note: people here know that the prices aren’t fair, that businessmen are making money off their hardworking backs. They know, correctly, that they deserve more.
 
Okay, more adventures para la próxima. Signing off just a little bit sweaty.            

​Today’s blog post will be devoted to complaining about men. If you’re a woman or a non-binary person, get your punching bag ready. And at the end of this, fix yourself a hot cocoa or a cocktail or something. If you’re a man, well… If you think you’re a decent man and you actually are, then I’m sorry you have to spend time atoning for other people’s sins. But since you also enjoy male privilege, I’m only a little sorry. If you think you’re a decent man and you’re actually machista, well then you probably won’t get much out of this because you’ll just continually respond defensively “I’d never do anything like that!” and then you’ll go about your machista life. If you’re a man and you know you’re machista then I guess I hope you can learn something and think about being better in the future. If you’re my parents, try not to worry too much—I have a great support network and strategies to avoid impacts of such sexism.  
 
We’ve got a series of stories of machismo for the week, folks. I’ll start with last weekend when a mototaxi followed me. More specifically, an annoying dude driving a mototaxi followed me. To set the scene: 9am on a sunny Friday morning. Two blocks from my home. I am taking a usual morning walk with my earbuds in, listening to NPR’s Up First podcast. A mototaxi rolls up beside me, obviously slowing down and the driver obviously staring at me. Note: this in itself is unfortunately not unusual, though at this point usually the driver decides, after a good moment of rubbernecking, to accelerate and go on with his life. In this case, the driver decided instead to pull over 10 meters in front of me. I pulled out an earbud, accelerated my pace, and passed the mototaxi, willing it to stay there or turn around or something. Nope. Instead, it rinses, washes and repeats: starting again, the driver passes me ever so slowly and, a block from the last location, pulls to the side of the road. He theatrically gets out of the vehicle and crouches down, “checking” something on the underside of the mototaxi.
 
After I pass him again, turning left onto my block, he predictably gets back into the vehicle and arranca otra vez, also conspicuously turning left. He passes me once more, though thanks to the higher volume of traffic on my street, is unable to go as slow as I’m sure he would have preferred. I duck gratefully behind a pickup across the street from my house and wait, watching, as the mototaxi continues, turns at the intersection, and rolls out of sight—when I finally slip into my house, hopefully unseen. One more objectifying gaze evaded.
 
The following Sunday, I sat outside the most bougie café in Jalte with another white gringa friend. An hour into our chat, a man who she had apparently met briefly once before sat down at the adjacent table, beginning to read and sip a cappuccino. All good until here. However, when we approached the waiter to pay our check, he informed us (with a concerning grimace) that the man outside had bought us refills of each of our drinks. My friend explained to me in English that the waiter had offered to give us those drinks to go, para llevar. I immediately answered yes, paid, and took our drinks, leaving only with a “gracias, bonita noche” to the smiling man on our way out. When my friend expressed a bit of embarrassment or remorse for leaving him hanging, I disagreed firmly, happy to have dodged another slightly subtler but still insidious gesture of machismo.
 
The other day, a friend of mine (who is a man) was walking me home at night, and I got to complaining about these very anecdotes. Coincidentally, as we stood literally on my doorstep rolling our eyes at annoying men (this friend is a decent man), a bolo/borracho/drunk (and also annoying) man wandered out of a house to stand on the curb nearby. He eventually came up with the ingenious excuse of asking us where there might be mototaxis. Given that one, at that very moment, was driving towards us on my street, mi amigo pointed and directed him to the obvious answer. The bolo half-heartedly stuck his arm out to call it, the mototaxi passed, and the man returned to the other side of the street. He proceeded to linger in the same spot until another mototaxi passed, to which he barely lifted a hand. When I finally decided to enter my house, along with my friend for the appearance of acompañamiento, my friend glanced over his shoulder and whispered to me that the bolo, defeated, had already entered the house across the street and closed the door. So much for wanting a mototaxi. On my part, one more machista avoided.
 
Other recent sexist anecdotes include: men sitting by, even asking to be served coffee from the pot sitting one meter from them, while women bustle in the kitchen making tortilla and quesadilla and tamal and café. Men not realizing that a song talking about a dude being the “owner” of his partner’s bed and the “teacher” on her own body is machista. Men convincing women they “didn’t realize” what impact their misogynist actions were having on other women.
 
So, my non-men readers, time for your drink or chocolate or bubble bath; you deserve it having read through all of that. Men, if you’re somehow still not convinced, please DM me with questions or for further illustrative examples. Thank you for reading. Signing off a just little bit lighter, desahogada.               

…and we re-take the list of 100 things I’ve learned this year in Chiapas:

1. A lot of health-related vocabulary in Spanish, and plenty of random words too
2. The many (confusing) uses of the word ahorita
3. New depths to my self-compassion
4. How lucky I am to have the parents I have
5. Always take the vereda (shortcut trail) instead of the carretera (road) if offered
6. How to not be so afraid of ticks (at least when they don’t carry the risk of Lyme disease)
7. Med school applications (and the whole process) are ridiculously expensive—making it clear how many roadblocks there are for some people to enter the profession
8. Corona makes non-beer products (e.g. spiked seltzer) (yay!) 
9. Though I used to think of myself as a TV show over movie person, I can really get in a good movie kick
10. A personal preference: living without (well, with minimal) social media is liberating, es un balance
11. The Chiapaneca intonation to “ah bueno” and the Chiapaneca versatility of the phrase “un detalle”
12. To carry toilet paper with me everywhere (well, at least that I should… not that I always do)
13. SO many things about café: refer to previous blog posts
14. I CAN drink coffee (i.e. when café de olla is offered upon entering basically anyone’s home in comunidad), I just maybe don’t WANT to often
15. What economic inequality really LOOKS like: traveling from houses with packed dirt floors to ones with bathtubs you can fill with hot water. From talking with friends whose loved ones make money manually harvesting crops that give seasonal incomes to ones who make money managing other people’s money
16. Belief in Santa differs along socioeconomic lines due to the differing ability of those groups to buy gifts (from “Santa”) and gift them to their kiddos
17. Mexico’s military is now in charge of all customs and some airports, the Maya railroad tourism project, collecting seaweed sometimes, transporting medicine other times, responding to violent crime, and more. (Refer to this article...)
18. Almost all of my amigxs mexicanxs personally know someone who is desaparecidx
19. How to play around with language in español to make things gender neutral: e.g. “amigxs mexicanxs” which out loud would be pronounced “amigues mexicanes” (and can also be written that way)
20. After an obstetric event (birth, cesarean, miscarriage, abortion), IUDs, implants, the day after pill, condoms, and 3-month injections are safe forms of birth control
21. The word “aborto” is used for both spontaneous ones (miscarriages) and chosen ones (abortions)
22. The word “planificación” is used more often to refer to birth control methods than “anticoncepción”
23. The rules to Super Uno
24. Lots of cool creative and collective writing exercises
25. How to dance to La Carencia (involves lots of bumping into each other)
26. How to dance to La Chona (involves pretending you have cowboy boots, a belt, and a cowboy hat)
27. When you cut potatoes and leave them out (or in the fridge) for a while before cooking, they can turn such a dark color they don’t look like potatoes anymore
28. Aforementioned oxidized potatoes are still safe to eat
29. Contract- and work-related vocab in español like finiquito, aguinaldo, prima vacacional, hostigamiento, and días económicos
30. The extent of Mexican bureaucracy (so many trámites) and how many of the processes have to be done in person
31. Some of Brandi Carlile’s songs are pretty sweet
32. Some of the words to—and a transferred nostalgic love for—classic songs like Mis ojos lloran por ti and Con todos menos conmigo
33. I really enjoy being able to shift frequently between English and Spanish (my brain now gets confused when I try to compartmentalize them)
34. Traditional weddings are pretty and enjoyable, but I do not want mine to be so traditional
35. Some people walk around with suitcases on the Año Nuevo to bring a year of travel, and some hide under the table to bring a year of love (I didn’t manage to learn the reasoning behind that one)
36. Sweetened yogurt, flavored yogurt, and even “unsweetened yogurt” are NOT the same as good ol’ natural, plain, sour-tasting yogurt
37. Bread becomes a much less appealing idea when your opciones are Bimbo or… Bimbo
38. Many ways to avoid, prevent, or shake off men making comments at me in the calles
39. The faces of gender violence, or rather of its sufferers and survivors (being the faces of some of my colleagues) and the breadth and depth to which it extends
40. Chilacayote is a large, watermelon-looking, squash-related vegetable that you can cook savory or sweet with azúcar y canela
41. Everything, todo, is teamwork: good teams really do make dreams work…
42. New associations with, and meanings of, the words home and hogar
43. I’ve killed a few plants here and there, but when I pay attention, I can take care of them alright, and they really make a difference in an hogar
44. Familia is truly central to culture and identity here, kids living with parents into adulthood, adults choosing jobs to stay near their parents, parents sacrificing jobs or money or health for their children or nieces or grandchildren
45. Courage, inspired by the mujeres increíbles I work with: to talk about things people don’t usually talk about, to sustain relationships even through challenges, to walk away from relationships that no longer serve me
46. Not constantly worrying what other people think of my [clothes, comments, appearance, language] feels like I don’t have to drag around a weight anymore
47. The importance of the interconnectedness of the world, a war in Ukraine affecting hunger in Haiti, and economic downturns in el norte affecting day-to-day prices on the streets I walk
48. How indispensable it is for me to surround myself with others who dedicate their lives to the wellbeing of others
49. Strong community heals most ills, collective care (and collective fun and conversation and struggle) being the most durable of support webs  
50. How to laugh without limit, sin frenos  

 
Thanks for accompanying me on this journey of a year of learning. Signing off grateful, as usual.