A week's worth of worthlessness (well, almost)

Where to begin…

It’s been a week since I last wrote, and I have to say, not much has happened concerning my project. Most of the time I’ve been holed up here in my room in Papantla, with the growing feeling that I was trapping myself in a self-created hell, a cage that I was too afraid to get out of yet hated being in. However, I did get to workout frequently, read a lot (4 books! And big, dense ones!), and did a lot of thinking that led me every which way on the philosophical and emotional road map- meaning of life, personal issues, goals, the world, animism, culture, etc. Each day, each hour, was a completely different experience- one moment I was overjoyed by the sounds floating gracefully through my open windows, carried by the heavy air; another moment I was lamenting my seeming incapability to do anything of use and feeling like a useless, unmotivated cad trapped in this god-forsaken hot hellhole and spiting life. Furthermore, my body was feeling awful from a combination of a lot of things- the chicken I had eaten at Don Santiago’s, bad and irregular eating, the heat, and probably an overload of stress and crazy hormones. Thank you God for making me a woman.

Luckily I got a few breaks from my pensive and rather unstable solitude; last week I had a wonderful surprise- Nelly, a student from Veracruz who will be living with me next year, just happened to be in town on her way to visit a campus of UVI north of here by about 4 hours in the Huasteca region. We met up in the morning in the middle of my juice breakfast with Gaudencio, the ambitious, scholarly, overfriendly and slightly irritating Totonac guy who had decided to befriend me probably because I am, as far as I know, the only white person in town and he wants to practice his English. I was quite grateful for the excuse to leave (sorry, Gaudencio!), and so Nelly and I met in the park to chat about the room and house and Austin and later moved on to a restaurant for some coffee with her other two companions, some higher-ups in UVI. They invited me to accompany them to the campus, and of course I jumped on the chance, eager for the company and change of scenery. And we went in a car! With air conditioning! I think I actually prefer buses though, with their smelly, rickety seats and windows open wide to the fumes and dust of the road and sounds and smells of the surrounding landscape, for better or worse.
The trip was long and trying, but finally we made it to the campus in a lovely small town with a neat church and graveyard whose name I can’t remember (really, you have no idea how hard it is to pronounce, much less remember some of the indigenous names). Nelly interviewed some students about their thoughts of the university and what they’re doing while I sat by listening and playing the now familiar role of the slightly silly and ignorant yet well-meaning American, throwing in a few garbled questions, comments, and thumbs ups here and there. The students were nice, though shy, and the interviews very enlightening; it seems that UVI isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Like so many “rural development projects,” its bark is bigger than its bite and the campuses still do not receive the quality education of services of city universities by a long shot. Nonetheless, most agreed it was a step in the right direction, they just wish the head honchos in Xalapa would actually spend some more investment of time and energy in the schools and not so much on their high-sounding rhetoric of sustainable development. On the whole, the trip was well worth it- it was great getting to know Nelly (who is super-cool!) and the two Davids (the guys from UVI) and I appreciated all of their hospitality (they paid for everything!).

After that day adventure, the next few days really began my anxiety and pensiveness, so to get a bit of fresh air and hopefully fresh thoughts, I decided to go to Puebla, a city in the highlands about 6 hours away to visit Coleman and see the town. He and a group of students were traveling to there and to Mexico City (DF) with their professor as a guide, so I thought it’d be a great opportunity to tag along. I made reservations for a hotel that was way overpriced and which later to my dismay I discovered it has its base in MacAllen, TX, and then booked it over there Friday just in time to walk around town for a couple of hours before dark. They city is great- so many beautiful churches (supposedly 365, and each one has a party each day of the year), good food, pretty safe, and blessedly cool weather. The next day we made the trek to DF, which I unexpectedly really enjoyed, despite the size and activity of the city. There were so many people that the chaos never seemed to stop- hippies and average folks selling jewelry and other imaginable trinkets on the streets (even bubbles!), all kinds of dances and performances, and marches and a sex shop on every corner. We visited the National Museum of Anthropology which was interesting, but a bit of an overload, then I finally got to see some voladores (the dancers/musicians who fly from a 20 meter pole) and then we walked around downtown. The best part (besides the bubbles) was the murals- we saw some of the first from the revolutionary artists of the1920s and 30s. They were spectacular, like reading a myriad of stories and messages and ideas all at once, intertwined, layered, and inscribed in the paint.

We returned to Puebla late and I got to bed even later because this lonely and annoyingly chatty American man wouldn’t leave me alone when I was trying to take care of computer business in the hotel lobby. He kept saying things like, “Well, they have some technology here, but not like in AMERICA,” and I first realized how much pride I had for Mexico as I stood up for this country and the people. Without much sleep, the next day wasn’t as enjoyable as I had hoped; my inner demons of rebellion, control, anxiety, and indecision got their chance to creep out of the closet, so after spending a little more than half the day with the Coleman and the group on an enjoyable trip to Cholula to see a church built on top of an ancient temple and another awesome church plastered with carvings of people, fruit, and saints all over the ceilings and walls, I began to feel the pangs of anxiety and felt I needed to return to Papantla to continue my work. After buying some bubbles and an ice cream for my emotional and biological hungers, I decided to catch the bus and head back to Papantla. Still not knowing what exactly I would do, I came back and spent yesterday in a similar state of panic, self-pity, and confusion, feeling lost and lonely as all hell and without a clue what to do. I finally decided to call the community this morning to arrange the first interviews, but alas! the calls failed. I ended up leaving a broken message in horribly butchered Spanish to the president of the coop- I just pray he never gets it…

But today came the big breakthrough- I FINALLY got to talk to my professor about everything, and what a relief! Her gushing confidence and excitement always manages to spill over onto me and gives me a boost of energy and motivation that makes me feel this is all easy-peasy, a cake walk, and I just have to get the ball rolling. I’d been feeling increasingly negative and wanted to get this over with: wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am and get the hell out of here. But now, we’ve decided on a new course of action; instead of staying here in Papantla I will go tomorrow to the cooperative and just ask if there’s someone who can give me room and board, and I will begin a series of interviews and walk-abouts with the farmers. Hopefully I’ll get to know the community more intimately and start doing some real work while feeling more personally connected to the project and the community. Considering the cool reception I received on my last visit, I’m more than a little frightened by it all, but isn’t getting over your fears what life's all about? And frankly, I’ll be glad to get out of Papantla; I think my landlords and fellow tenants have come to see me as a nuisance- the gringa loca who is always sitting on the stairs or in some equally in-the-way place using her computer because I can’t get internet in my room and half the time I'm either crying or on the verge of tears. And the smell and high-frequency yips of the freaking Chihuahuas is driving me to extremes of anti-dog sentiments, not to mention the mysterious appearance of a mammoth box full of trash and dirty baby diapers outside my door…

Anyway, wish me luck and love, peace, and mangoes to all!

Allison

And some random thoughts:

As I made my way back through the mountains from Puebla, passing countless little towns hidden away in secret valleys, the nearly full moon shone bright and everything became a different world. The beautifully sad face of the moon sparkled on the waters of the mountain streams and lakes, its dusty light filtered through the forests in an other-worldly glow. It helped me see that there is more to life than we are accustomed to seeing, more than one way to see the world, or perhaps more than one world.

There exists a world underneath this one, underneath the level of awareness we are awarded in this life there is that layer of reality in which time and place hold no governing power, where the spirit exists purely in its glory and light and celebrates the never-ending cycle life.

Bubbles- what magical creatures! To me they encompass all the fleeting beauty of life, that ephemeral joy of just floating along on the currents of wind until you pop or something pops you and poof! you’re dispersed into thousands of tiny particles that are absorbed back into the great ocean of air and matter. Plus I can entertain myself for an amazing amount of time blowing them and watching their life span unfold before my eyes, imagining the joy they might give to some unsuspecting passerby.