No weddings, a funeral, a confirmation, and a baptism (8/8/05)

I was worried last week that I wouldn't have anything interesting to write about for once. Leave it to the Catholic Church to take care of that. I then found myself not having any time to write about the crazy week. However, here I am trying to get in a short mass email before I leave my village on Wednesday. So as I mentioned, the Catholic Church made good on providing humor, the occasional fear, and a touch of irony. It all began last Tuesday when we were invited to a confirmation. While the actual church service is part of the confirmation, it plays a minor part when compared to the celebration that surrounds it. For the past week I’ve felt that they are fatting me up to ritually sacrifice me. and that wouldn’t' be too far off of a reasonable occurrence being that we have our own sacrificing pit left here by the town's ancestors centuries ago. Just when I think I’m about to explode, I’m force-fed more food. Luckily for me, the food is dang good. Anyway, we spent the afternoon eating, and eating some more. But this wasn't the highlight of the day (yes, I’m sure your surprised that food wasn't the highlight of my day since I’m always talking about what food I like etc etc). The highlight of my day was when I almost died for the umpteenth time. and while I was quite stoic during the other adventures, I was literally scared out of my mind this time when they presented us with a truck whose bed was filled with rows of dining room chairs. The seats were higher than the barrier. While this is a common occurrence here, I never thought that I would be riding on one of these chairs. All those stories I’ve sent about winding roads and projectile vomiting...well imagine adding sitting on a chair to the mix. To make matters worse, this is a road that is used by many trucks. Trucks drive too slowly for the average Mexican driver, so of course we had to pass ALL of them. Then it started to rain. Luckily, my 8 year old neighbor how was holding on to me for dear life was blocking most of the rain. When we arrived to the church, I crossed myself. Even though I’m not catholic, I had to make an outward symbol to show just how grateful I was not to be dead.

So we crowded into a church. My host cousin was getting baptized. But these services are like 3 hours long. My host brother and his wife signaled me to go outside with them for fresh air...we never returned. We actually spent the whole confirmation watching a girl’s basketball game that was playing at the high school next door. They used the excuse that it was raining and didn't want to get wet walking back to the church, but I think it was all planned for the beginning. We weren't the only family members that skipped out. Only my host mother remained. I’m under the suspicion that the only reason why people continue religious festivals is so they can eat well and throw parties.

Once we got back to our town (the service was in the neighboring city) we ate even more food. MORE I TELL YOU. Then we topped off the night by listening to the grandfather play the guitar as everyone sang along drunkenly. I was in bed at this moment, groaning from my impending sacrifice. Luckily, the sacrifice has been postponed indefinitely.

The next day there was a funeral. I must say, I like how Mexico does funerals. While a few tears were shed, people were more interested in eating and talking. Even from celebrating "day of the dead", I’ve been impressed by how the death of someone warrants the celebration of life, not wallowing in misery. While it was obvious people were upset that a community member had passed, that didn't keep them from enjoying themselves and remembering the good things of his life. There better be a party thrown when i pass away. I want lots of dancing..and of course, lots of food.

Saturday I went to a confirmation party and ate some more. It’s basically the same story as all my other church instigated parties I attended except this one included a cake. When I was looking through my host family's photo album, I was wondering why so many pics were of people buried in cake. I learned why on Saturday. For birthdays and other such celebrations, the guest of honor must take a bite out of the cake. They won't let anyone eat it until he or she dives into the cake. The shy victim this time took 10 minutes to take the plunge while old ladies yelled "que lo muerdes" (bite it) over and over. Again, I thought I was about to explode after I finally got my piece.

If you are wondering if I have gained weight...yes.

Then yesterday there was an impromptu party that began when my whole extended host family started throwing stuffed animals at each other. This lead to a pillow fight instigated by no other than Tio Tito (my host uncle) who walked in and started dictating who should be bombarded next. Then there was a coup. He was taken down. Then a reggaeton ´festival ensued. (I went to a club on Friday and since then everyone has been talking about my dancing...so now whenever I go anywhere in my neighborhood, they put on reggaeton music and force me to dance). This is all on film and photos btw). We had a conga line, a limbo line, forced my 16 year old and 10 year old male cousins to dress up as women. The younger one struggled for a while but was overpowered. He then started to enjoy himself right as his parents walked in. You can imagine their faces, seeing their little boy enjoy being a woman. I think we managed to corrupt half the town children in the 7 weeks we were here.

Tonight, we are having a camp out on top of the mountain. I thought this was a joke that came out of the craziness of last night..but alas, I think we will be freezing our butts off tonight and getting no sleep.

Today, I rode a donkey for 2 hours. I announced in class last week that I wanted to ride a donkey. The next day one of my students came up to me and told me that her parents gave her permission. She came to pick me up this morning and we walked the hour to her house. She was quite amusing as she would do things like rip half a corn stock, eat the cane, then mess up the part that was left and told us to tell her parents that a donkey had done it if they asked. I enjoyed my time riding the donkey through the corn and on the highway.

Anyway, I have much more to say but I have much work left to do. I will write as soon as I get back to Houston on Saturday. Btw, I finished the mural. The town is very pleased. I will send pics of that soon as well.

maya

It was almost the perfect crime (7/28/05)

Ok ok, actually I think this time it was the perfect crime. My fellow volunteers and i decided to escape from our small town to go to the beach. While the town was egging us on to go since they saw that we needed a break, Amigos rules keep us from leaving our villages for non amigos related activities. We have a whole list of rules, mainly because most of the volunteers are teenagers. So we decided to turn the list of donts into a list of dos. And we've been quite successful. Our escape to the beach that is about 9 hrs away consisted of much caution and many close calls. We had to change buses in Oaxaca where the supervisors' lair is. I knew this was a bad idea from the get go, definitely since we decided to up the stakes by spending about 6 hrs in Oaxaca, eating dinner, going to a bar (also on the list of donts), and basically putzing around. I donned my wrap on my head because I’m well aware that I can be spotted from afar, definitely in a land sans dreadlocks. This one detail probably saved us. As we were walking to the bus stop Dylan, one of the volunteer, came up behind me and said "watch out, the supervisor!" It was a joke. Little did he know karma would come knocking two seconds later when we were standing face to face with our supervisor. In a city of half a million people, what are the odds that you would run into the one person that you were avoiding? Luckily for us, he is the most spaced out kid I’ve ever met. He looked right at us but didn't see. And with our heightened supervisor avoiding senses, we jumped into the closest shop we found, a backpack store, and hid. The owner asked if we were in trouble. If we were, he would come out and help us. He was ready to get his militia of salesmen. We explained the situation and he strategically placed the sales guys at the door, obstructing any view of us. After the coast was clear, we met up with our new British friends that were going with us to the beach and headed for our van. The van ride was insane. Going around cliffs during the day is crazy, at night it's not recommended. But it was either the van or the bus. And apparently, the other Brits we had befriended and had gone to Puerto Escondido, the beach, before had had some troubles...namely coyote trouble. they were the last ones on the bus and the driver didn't feel like going any farther so he instructed these non-Spanish speaking travelers to get off and wait for the next bus...the bus that never came. So they spent the next 2 hours walking in the dark, which turned into running from dogs and coyotes, until they got to the next town. Coyotes or motion sickness? You choose.

So we get to Puerto Escondido at 4 am and all pass out on the beach until the sun rose. It was one of the best sleeps I’ve had. Then we found the youth hostel owned by this psycho French expat and I spent the two days eating nutella. (No, this is not a stereotype...this is I spent those two days) I also had the best prime ribs ever at this restaurant owned by these two Philadelphians (the cook was Georgian hence the good ribs).

So we lived the good life. I boogie boarded the whole time, remembering my summers as a child on Galveston Island. Well, I lived the good life. Everyone else got sick. lucky to know that my story about having a stomach of steel is actually true.

And then there was the ride back. I thought the bus ride down that mountain a couple weeks ago was bad. But we got a crazy driver who must have thought he was practicing for NASCAR. I’ve never seen anyone tackle mountains like that. Luckily for us the side of the road was covered with trees so we couldn't see the 50 ft drop. That didn't keep my friend Ana from projectile vomiting out the window. I must hand it to her, it was a clean projection. I think it also hinted to the driver that he should slow down. Apparently the girl in the seat behind me who was thrown to the other side of the van was not a severe enough sign.

btw, I slept through most of that ride. I’m beginning to wonder if I have narcolepsy.

So we made it back to san martin Huamelulpam, not before stopping in Oaxaca again and risking it all. But we are back, no one is the wiser, I finally have my summer tan, and things are on track. The mural is almost completed and looking great. The town has stopped complaining (I explained numerous times that the final product would be very different from the first coat but they still appeared very worried). My kids have helped paint it and I think they are very proud of their work.

Speaking of paintings, my friend's apartment where i was storing all my stuff including all my paintings, is collapsing. He was kind enough to have them on the top of the list of things that were rescued before the building is demolished. Unfortunately he and his roommate might lose a lot of things, and there might be some paintings still in there somewhere. So, if you know Anthony, send him a nice message because he is awesome. Also, pray. If you do that sort of thing.

Anyway, I’m going to go paint. Then I’m going to go find someone's donkey to ride.

mmuuaahh

maya

Chickens and turkeys and roosters oh my (7/19/05)

Hmm, there always seems to be recurring themes. The one for the past few weeks has been chicken. Last Tuesday a very excited partner ran up to me and said that he's going to kill a chicken at noon. Excitement and murder together is not something I really understand but I figured I would go along. I didn’t think he would really kill the chicken. apparently he had mentioned to my host sister that he wanted to learn how to kill a chicken after a friend of his did it in the Dominican Republic and she found the prime chicken killer in the town, a lady that lives a few meters up the road. But killing a chicken is much harder than you'd think. First you have to catch the chicken. Dylan, my partner, had to grab it by the legs and then scoop it up quickly. The chicken didn't like this much and decided to crap all over him. I’m glad I was just in charge of filming this. Then we had to tie the chicken up, correction, the old lady and he had to tie it up. Then, she slit its throat. It was probably good she did it because he was turning green at this point. While I don't mean to be graphic, it was quite disturbing watching the kitties and dog sitting under the strung up chicken and waiting for the blood to drop on their heads. They kept trying to get at it and it was my job to swat at them until the old woman could get the chicken into boiling water so that we...yes, I do mean we, could pluck it. Why did I come along? Meanwhile, this very ugly chicken was pecking at my feet. I think he was blaming me for his friend's untimely death although I had nothing to do with that. Then the lady boiled the chicken for a few seconds and then handed it to me and expected me to pluck it. So, I plucked it while scouring at Dylan who had managed to stand far away from the most unpleasant smell. Boys, they ask to be destructive and then run away leaving the problem to someone else. I can think of many examples of this in history, mostly dealing with war. I however managed to escape before the tripe extraction began. Somehow I don't think I’ll be so lucky the next time the woman comes a calling.

But worse than the chickens are the turkeys. If you know me well you know that I hate all birds. Pigeons are on the top of this list but turkeys are gaining ground. They puff themselves up really big and then cluck at you while walking sideways. They also have their hand in destroying my attempts at doing laundry. The turkeys love walking under my drying clothes and pull them down. And yesterday, they were running into the apple tree in order to shake it and make the apples drop. When they are not being destructive they are being even more destructive (basically they were put on this earth for destructive purposes) as they knock over the garbage can to the latrine every day. See, you don't throw toilet paper in the latrine, you throw it into the trash and then burn it when the trash is full. The turkeys always seem to know when it is full because that's the only time they knock it over. Blast these turkeys.

When I’m not worrying about turkeys I’m running from the children of the corn. There is a group of 5 children who always exit the corn fields when I walk by. It’s sort of like the scene in the shining when they come out of the bushes (I’ve never seen the shining but I have seen the Simpsons' shinning and assume it's similar). The last time I walked by they begged for me to sing a song. It was 10 pm, way past my bedtime so I told them I would sing as I was walking away. I got about 10 meters down the road when I hear this band of miscreants running after me. Of course the corn fields are pitch black so it was kind of disturbing hearing screaming kids but not knowing where exactly they were. My flashlight was on the skits. When I finally got it working i could see the screaming voices. Then I turn back again after having picked up my step and they had disappeared, back into the cornfields. I think they need more supervision.

As for my projects, things are going great. The billboard has been moved to the auditorium and primed. I have gotten clearance from the town president for my drawing and will be drawing on the billboard this week. Then I will be taking my class of highly artistic kids to help me out. This billboard is going out on the highway. I think this is the most ambitious art project I’ve done to date and am quite excited about how it's looking. I’m also working with the union of community museums in hopes to teach the youth about the importance of their town so last Friday I took the young kids to the pyramid to take digital photos. I then accompanied one of the other volunteers with her class to the mountain top for their digital picture taking training. Then a group of boys declared themselves my body guards and took me on a hike that ended at a coyote den. The coyote den didn't bother me much but the scaling across the side of the mountain was nother story. I need to start remembering to take my tennis shoes for these excursions. They made sure I stayed alive. I didn't even slide down my backside this time. Probably a good thing because it would have taken awhile to get to the bottom. My bodyguards then found what I speculate to be an ancient artifact. These pop up every now and then. By the way, if you want to learn more about my town go to http://www.inah.gob.mx/zoar/htme/za01709.html.

I’m also having the kids gather legends and myths from the town and having them illustrate these stories. These will go into a compilation that I will be presenting to the town along with an art contest that anyone can participate in. I’m so proud of my kids. Some of them are amazing.

This weekend all the volunteers met in Oaxaca City for midterm. The three of us got there really early so that we could eat our rotisserie chicken. Sunday we went to Monte Alban which is a bigger set of pyramids. Then I went to this petrified waterfall that had the most amazing view. The bus ride up there was interesting though. It was a one lane dirt road that wound around the mountain. At the turns the bus was basically too big and was practically hanging off the cliff. To make matters worse, every time he shifted gears we would slide back. I was asleep for the first part but the screams of the supervisors woke me up. I was amused by the whole thing because the bus driver was so calm, handling the wheel with one hand. I decided to start a dance party at the back of the bus on the way down because there is no point in worrying about your impending doom. And since he was playing good merengue music, I wasn't going to pass up this opportunity. So me and 3 others spent the hour ride down the mountain trying to dance merengue between bumps. At this point, it can't be worse flying off a cliff when dancing than when seated. So while most of the bus was terrified, I was having a blast.

Monday we spent the day enjoying the Gueleguetza, the dance festival that attracts people from all over the world. We met some great kids from London and this awesome guy from Guadalajara. We ended up bringing back the Guadalajaran with us to our town. He was a hot commodity since he's a masseuse. I milked that one for all it was worth. He’s on a year journey through central and part of South America. If I ever free myself from California state imprisonment, I will try to find him somewhere down south.

Anyway, I leave y'all with photos. I will be uploading more soon. This is through last week.

Oh, and it's not too late to send me snail mail although I guess all my friends are lazy. Anyway, I’ll be back in 3 weeks in case y'all were missing me!

the next installment (7/11/05)

So I thought I would stay away from talking about dogs this time but I can't. They’re all encompassing. I have a new dog pal named Caliman and I took a liking to him from the beginning because he was stubby, abnormally stubby, and I learned this weekend that he's a dwarf. The vertically challenged must stick together so we've bonded and now he follows me everywhere.

While you are always aware of differences when it comes to language variation depending on the country, sometimes you're not prepared for just how different certain words can be. For instance, I think half the Brits' vocabulary is wacky but they would just reply that Americans are backwards cowboys with no sense so i don't bring this argument up much...mainly because they aren't too far off. but please, if someone asks you in Spanish "eres china?" which in Spain would be translated as "Are you Chinese?" and you are black, you are going to be a little confused. After about the 5th time I was asked if I was "china" (mind you my partner who is Chinese was standing right next to me) I thought that something had to give. I explained to them where my ancestors came from and noted that no one had ever guessed I was Chinese. They looked at me strangely. I politely informed them that my hair was my own, not bought off some silky-haired Asian person. They looked at me even more weirdly. I finally squashed the assumption that I knew Spanish and asked them to explain to me what "chino/a" was. Lo and behold, china in Mexico at least in Oaxaca means "curly haired." Yes, I have curly hair. Go figure.

There was a chicken running on my roof last night.

I ate a whole chicken last Friday. Yes, that is not a typo unlike the whole rest of my email. Ana, Dylan (the other volunteers) and I went to Oaxaca city for a meeting about documentaries and indigenous groups and happened to get there very early (we found a new route that consists of jammed-pack white vans much like the ones I took in Senegal racing around fast mountain curves). Since we arrived at 8:30 am for our 11 am meeting and had just been talking the night before about how much we craved meat (we don't eat a lot of meat, just beans and tortillas mostly), when we spotted the rotisserie chicken in the window, we pounced. That chicken was gone in about 5 minutes. sooooooooo goooooooood. Now we're going to make this a weekend thing.

So, I’m really impressed with how well our town is working with us. Oaxaca has an interesting political system where each town has a committee that is made up of unpaid people that have been voted on. Anything that affects the town must go through them. This committee is mostly male so sometimes we have a hard time getting them to take us seriously (the guy in our group only speaks a little Spanish so the committee gave up on him). Slowly, however, we are showing that we (Ana and I) are just as capable as he would be if he could speak. Culture shock. having a committee also means that you have long long long committee meetings that basically consist of the same things being said over and over again each time someone shows up. CPT. So I was in shock when last Friday we had a 30 minute meeting that was to the point and productive (unfortunately, that was after we waited 2 hours for the president to show up...but anything is better than hearing the same information repeated 3 times.) In this meeting we basically handled everything that was on our agenda. We showed them how to fill out the forms to get money from our organization and from other funds. They are planning to build four spa-like structures that were used hundreds of years ago. They emit soothing vapors from heated rocks and the people inside are wrapped in leaves and other substances that serve medicinal purposes. I also convinced them to take down the large billboard on the side of the road at the entrance of the town, bring it to the auditorium, and set it up so I can paint it. It took the strength of 12 men and a truck but i now have my mural spot. I have completed one painting and have two more to do so that they can chose what design they like best. I will start painting next week with the help of my English students. The goal is to attract tourism to the village.

We have also finished translating a brochure and will start the museum translations this week. We got smart. We decided to each teach a class so now I’m only working 2 hrs a day and have the rest of the time for the million other projects we're doing.

So work is going well. Play is fun too. Saturday I went hiking to the top of one of the tallest peaks here and then had the pleasure of washing my extremely dirty pants and shirt on the washboard at home after I slid down the mountain on my backside...not on purpose of course. I’m also seeing if I can convince the AMIGOS powers that be to let us stay in Oaxaca city a couple extra days for the Guelaguetza, a huge festival that attracts people from all over the world for a week of singing and dancing. My biggest feat will be to convince those same powers that be to let me go to Puerto Escondido. On the surface it looks like its just a beach, but I have learned from trusted sources that there is a man there named Padre Glyn from Trinidad and Tobago who is the leading local scholar on the afro-mestizo population in the area. I’m getting back to my roots. Few people know of these villages and all the African customs and traditions they still hold. Most of these people came from the Yoruba tribes. They were brought to Mexico as overseers for the Spanish about 300 years ago. Quite a different face from the Africans brought to the U.S. Anyway, the culture is quite strong from the dress, to the dances, to the stories and I'm hoping to do some research as well as check out the artwork that I hear is spectacular in this region. And of course, some R&R at the beach.

Anyway, I will be back next week with more interesting happenings.

Maya

(7/4/05)

So, I’m not as secluded as I thought I would be...OK, let me rephrase. I’m in the middle of nowhere living with chickens, dogs, donkeys and other farm animals that walk in and out of the house, tucked away in the mountains of Oaxaca state, but I do have internet. I'm still not sure how that is possible being that I don't even have a toilet, but hey, go information age. And the donkeys don't necessarily walk into the house but everything else does. Our family owns a store and the first night we, my partner and I, were sleeping in the room just behind it when I started hearing weird noises and seeing strange shadows. This is my first night in this strange place so I didn’t really want to know what was creating a ruckus in the other room. There was chewing, breaking noises, and a symphony of other sounds as I got deeper under the covers. Then I saw it peaking its head out, one of the dogs had gotten into the store and decided to make a feast of some Doritos. But I was not sure if I had dreamt this because it seemed so surreal until I found the mess the next morning.

You must understand that dogs in Mexico are different than in the U.S. They are clearly not the masters like it sometimes seems to be in the U.S. They do what you say or face being pelted with a rock...and while this might seem cruel, I've never seen dogs obey so well. Perhaps corporal punishment is the way to go (there are no dog lovers on this list I hope). They definitely don't sleep in the house so the dog was being sneaky. For a people who doesn't really pay much attention to dogs, it's amazing how the city is running rampant with them. The dog next door just had five puppies, the other is pregnant, and the house where anotehr volunteer is staying has 7. I now know all their names and am allowed to throw rocks at them anytime I want. I've been initiated.}

But I'm sure you weren't waiting to hear from me so I could ramble on about dogs. So, I got to my town exactly a week ago. Its called San Martin Huamelulpan and it's spectacular. I go hiking almost every morning. I have my own Aztec pryramid to climb and a sacrificial pit to walk next to. The view presents a beautiful countryside dabbed with red clay, green trees and the deep yellow hue of the setting sun. The donkeys are always complaining about not getting fed and make sure everyone else knows about it as well. And the house I´m staying in is quite beautiful. It's open with lots of patios and brightly painted. Ana (the other volunteer) and I have been given the master bedroom so basically we have our own apartment. This wasn{t the plan but when Ana's cot refused to work the parents gave up their bed and have taken one of the sister's beds. Our trying to convince them that sleeping on the floor was just fine didn't work. Altho my back has never felt better after those two nights of trying it out. The only inconvenience is the latrine that probably should've been dug deeper. The fact that it's rainy season and always pouring doesn't help. But at least I have running hot water for the shower, unlike in Oaxaca city where we had training, and I have not reverted to bucket showers like in Senegal.

And we've been busy since day one. The first day was graduation for the primary school and all the kids performed traditional dances except for the kindergarteners who dressed up as chicks and waddled around. I was quite impressed by the realism of these costumes. Pictures will be coming as soon as we find the software to download the digital photos. The following day we began our English classes, what the town wanted
most. The way Amigos de las Americas works is we go into a town and talk to the committees to see what the town wants, we then implement the different projects based on the town's suggestions. Since the first day we knew English was key when we were dragging our suitcases up the 2 mile stretch and a truck stopped us and yelled "when do classes start?" We still hadn't met anyone yet! So now we are teaching 3 classes a day 2 hours each and have about 20 students in each class. I think everyone is enjoying it though. Most of the young men leave to work in the U.S. so they are interested in conversational English, and the kids as well as the adults want to learn also. I just don't know how we will get the other projects done. We are working with the local museum which is quite impressive. It shows archeological findings from earthenware to mummies as well as traditional medicines. One of the volunteers is in charge of translating from Spanish to English, another to make a brochure about the town to give to the tourist centers in Oaxaca, and I get to translate the museum texts into French. They are really into attracting tourists to their tiny village. I am also in charge of a mural project and will be getting the towns people to help me paint a building or a billboard on the side of the road. As for my personal project I am researching folklore in the area. I will be writing and illustrating a children's book around this folklore. As a long term goal I hope to get it published back in the states and send the proceeds back to the town. If anyone has any contacts in the publishing world, let me know. But I can worry about that later.

So I have a lot on my plate and I still need time to hike, hang out with my crazy family. Oh yes, they're crazy. I have two sisters 22 and 20. The oldest one has a 9 mo old baby. The husband is working in South Carolina. The baby has taken a liking to my dreadlocks and pulls them each time I walk by. Half the time he only wants me to hold him so I get stuck with him a lot. I also help out in the store. I’m a master of giving change in pesos now. We also laugh and joke a lot with the family who has really made us feel at home. Then there is soccer time with the school children. I’m always picked first now that they know I can play. We eat way too much. I've never had so much corn in my life, in the form of tortillas, this wonderful type of drink, soup, etc.

Oh, and I'm recovering from yesterday. Other than the fact that its rainy season and didn’t stop once...well it wasn't raining in the morning when I did my laundry (I think Ill try to avoid doing it for the rest of the time here. if anyone has ever washed with a scrub board, you will understand the backbreaking process). 24 hours later it decides to stop raining. But that didn’t stop the annual festival that started with a life brass band playing music all the way to church, a lengthy mass, and then about 9 hours of eating, drinking, and dancing before going back to the church while some members of the community carried wooden/paper mache bulls on their backs before lighting the firecrackers sticking out of them on fire. I felt like I was in a war zone. I have never had to dodge flying fire before. At 11 Ana and I escaped. We had already suffered dancing with all the old drunk men in the town. Remember, there are no guys are age here. They're all in America. It wasn't too bad though because the dances were fun and most of them involve nothing more than holding your partners hand while keeping 2 feet between you. I have some funny pics of this as well. Oh, I forgot to mention the mud. The town is covered in mud from the rains, which meant everyone else was covered in mud as well. I should've started a mud wrestling party...

And the party continued into the night. I think the music stopped at 3 am and started up again at 5. I didn’t get much sleep needless to say as the speaker was right outside my window.

Anyway, the computer lab is about to close. I don't check to often but I'll try to respond to anyone that writes. You can also send me snail mail!

Love y'all

Maya

I'm off again (6/22/05)

Hello my dear friends. I know I have been bad with keeping in touch with some of you…although then again, you’ve been bad at keeping in touch with me so I guess we’re even. Since I leave for Mexico tomorrow where I’ll be volunteering for 7 weeks in a remote village without internet access, I thought I would write and let you know what has been going on in my life. You can reach me however and I will place you on my everchanging love list depending on whether you send me something during the summer (no packages though and you must put the full address):

Amigos de Las Americas
Maya Smith
Apartado Postal 31334
CP 68000
Oaxaca, Oaxaca
Mexico

If you want me to send a post card, email me your address and I’ll see what I can do, although I won’t be checking email but maybe once or twice.

So, what’s been going on with me….Hmmm…I start my PhD at Berkeley in August for Romance Languages and Linguistics. I hope people will come visit me since supposedly I’m not allowed to leave the state for residency purposes. Boo. Save me! Can you imagine me not traveling? Not a pretty sight. (And those of you who think my life merely consists of traveling, I do do work, just on my own time. The French translations have been keeping me busy…but I digress).

As for big things in my life, it looks like I will have gallery space in the 6th arrondissement in Paris starting in the next few months. You can go to my curator’s website at www.fionasze.com and click on “her curating.” It’s not completed yet and I have not had time to get my pieces to Paris but they have made slides of all my works and I will worry about logistics when I get back from the great abyss. Those of you in Paris should try to stop by if you have the chance once that gets rolling.

So you’ll have to excuse the lack of creativity in this email. It’s after midnight and I just spent the last couple hours packing so all my creative juices have been stifled. Feel free not to read it all but it’s the last one you will be receiving in a while and the story is actually pretty interesting.

Not much more has been happening except for my trip to Greece, Italy, and Croatia, actually one of my best trips yet quite stressful at times. So, I was supposed to fly into Greece with a friend and travel up to Bosnia, passing through Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro etc. A last minute emergency meant I would be taking this trip alone. While this was quite nerve-racking at first, everything worked out pretty well and now I’m wanting to do things alone all the time! So much easier to meet people.

I ended up meeting a friend in the Athens airport (thank goodness he stands at a whopping 6’8” so that I could spot him in baggage claim since I wasn’t supposed to meet him there at all) who was a huge help being that I was in a less than happy mood since the Air France/Alitalia megamachine lost my luggage for 3 days after a missed connection due to air trafficking problems in New York caused me to be rerouted through Milan. Then I was informed by several calls to the Lost Luggage center that my precious bag was trying out for the transnational world champion pingpong tournament as it went from Paris to Milan back to Paris and then Milan again and then I think finally to Athens, only to get there when I was off on the Greek isle of Spetses. And oh do I have fond memories of Spetses…which I say quite seriously except for the slight undertone of sarcasm which subtly highlights how I stepped on a sea urchin and then preceded to spend the next 30 minutes with a sterilized needle trying to get all the spurs from my foot. 3 weeks later I can’t tell if they’ve all left my foot. But, I was able to walk with limited pain and return to Athens (which is not nearly as dirty as everyone says it is) to bask in my newly returned suitcase, rolling around in the clean clothes and deodorant with which I had been reunited.

Next stop: Milan, where I spent two relatively low-stress days with a friend of mine who graciously cut his vacation to Venice short to make sure I would have a place to stay. I had never been out of the Milan train station and was actually pleasantly surprised by what I was to find, although that was mainly because I got to visit dear friends who I don’t get to see that often. My next plan was to take a train to Ancona and catch an overnight ferry to Croatia, but was quickly convinced that this might not be a good idea since if I missed the ferry there would not be another one for a few days. Thus, I bought a train ticket to Zagreb, which was also quite nerve-racking as I was informed that my 16 minute connection in Venice probably was not sufficient since the Milan-Venice line is notorious for its unreliability. However, while I would be 0 for 2 on plane connections on this trip, I succeeded in hopping to my connecting train and took a seat in my reserved cabin. This is when things started to get interesting…

I was not alone in my compartment as a whispy-haired indifferent looking guy was sitting by the window surrounded my guitars and other miscellaneous items. He said nothing as I entered so I, a southern-bred woman, naturally said nothing back. 10 minutes later he peers at me from behind his strands of hair and in a gruff voice asks if I minded if he smoked hash. I simply told him to open the window and returned to my book. A few minutes later I noticed the ticket controller walking down the aisle and informed the boy who in turned thanked me by opening up and talking to me for about two hours. Turns out he’s from Croatia, currently living in the states (studying chemistry in order to learn as much as possible about drugs…I soon learned this seems to be a trend-- school=drugs--in Croatia, at least in the crowd I hung with). And while most of the time he was too far out for me, we did strike up this weird, albeit, shallow bond. But he was nice and told me that if I needed anything while I was in Zagreb, he and his brother’s dreadlock-sporting friend would be happy to help me out (and I actually think he wasn’t talking about where I could score hash by this point).

So after the conversation died down I fell asleep, sprawled out on three adjacent seats, only to be awoken by a very cranky passport controller grunting something in Croatian. I gave him my passport; he gave it back without really looking at it. While the world hates Americans, it’s still quite easy to get through passport checks and other fun state-issued activities with little problem. And since my new hash-inhaling friend was Croatian, I figured it would be the same for him…until the yelling ensued. While my Croatian is seriously lacking I understood words like “guitar” and “synthesizer” and “get all your belongings and come with me” (actually the last one I just inferred when Ilija (my new friend) abruptly gathered his stuff and left the compartment, not without turning to me and saying he’d be back shortly. 45 minutes later I arrive to Zagreb and still no sign of Ilija. So I have two options. Either I can forget about everything and go on my merry way, finding a hostel and taking in the sights, or I can do the more exciting thing and give my dad a heart-attack by finding the dreadlock-sporting guy Ilija spoke of, insuring that the adventure would continue. Intuition beat out common sense and when I saw the blond Croatian dreadlocked man standing alone and looking perplexed that his friend’s brother never showed up, I decided to go up to him and introduce myself.

He figured I was a traveling companion of Ilija’s and I didn’t think to correct that assumption. I told him what had happened and he asked what I wanted to do, head to his place and figure out this mess or go on my way. Yes, you all know me. I chose the former. So I get into his car with my luggage (yes, I actually have luggage in this half of the story) and go to his place, greeted by the sweetest dog ever. We dropped my stuff off and proceeded to call the border, customs, the train station, and everyplace else until we realized that Ilija was trapped in customs. Apparently, you are not allowed to bring non-personal items into Croatia and guitars are non-personal. Not having the money to pay the tax, Ilija was detained until he could be bailed out, instruments and all. So now that he hadn’t been thrown in jail for hash possession, things were looking up. We went back to Nino’s (dreadlock guy) and hung out with his wife, some friends, and the dog Bora.

Nino and I had a connection. He spends his days translating biology texts from English to Croatian, working from home on his own schedule. (he’s another one of those who decided to study science for drug related reasons…although he was much more coherent than Ilija). He also plays drums in a reggae band and promotes concerts and festivals. He ended up taking us to a bar that night where we stayed until almost 5, dancing and meeting people. I’ve never been anywhere where I was so openly accepted and taken care of. People would come up to me, introduce themselves and after short chats, give me all their contact info and tell me that if I was ever in their town, I had a place to stay. Go eastern European hospitality! Oh yah, prior to the bar we went firefly watching. While this sounds fun, and it was, it’s easy to second-guess your decision to venture into a pitch-black woods with two guys you just met a few hours prior. And with my sense of direction, I would’ve never gotten out of there by myself. But I felt much better as we’re sitting around the lake and hearing these weird man-made sounds coming from the bushes. However there was no light and the sounds had a nefarious ring to them. Luckily, I wasn’t alone in this assessment as I turned to them and said “maybe we should go.” They readily agreed and we ran out of there.

The next day it rained and rained so we stayed in listening to music, telling stories, and eating food. Sounds like a good day to me except for the part where the dog woke me up by licking my face. Ick!!! That night I took the 11 hour night bus to Dubrovnik on the coast in the south. It continued to rain the whole following day. Me, not being able to sit still at the private accommodation I was at (the woman was kind of weird, nice butweird. For instance, she showed me and the two Australian girls also staying with her these stones. We thought she had found them on the beach although they seemed suspicious. Lo and behold they were her gallstones. Who shows gallstones to people! We also rescued a kitty that was drowning in the flash flood. The rest of the day I spent walking around in the pouring rain trying to see much of the city as possible. I would duck into shops and chat with people. The English level in Croatia is quite impressive and the openness of the people is even more impressive. I got to talk with people about living during the war and hear stories of bombs and shells dropping while Dubrovnik was under siege in ’91. It was an eye-opening experience. By that night it had cleared up and the Australians and I walked around the old town looking for things to do. That’s when we heard the drums. Samba! These guys were playing Samba in the streets, hoping to make a little money. They asked me to dance and I sambad to their music, helping them make some money, which we then split on drinks. They were Portuguese college students studying in Bratislava for the year (those of you who have seen Eurotrip know all about Bratislava). So I got to spend the evening speaking Portuguese and trading stories.

The next day after basking in the sun that finally decided to come out, eating mussels on the shore, and tanning on the beach, I flew back to Zagreb, where I was met at the airport by Nino, and went out for another late night of dancing and meeting people. I must say, I was quite sad to leave.

Of course this is the abridged version of my trip but I should probably rest up before 7 weeks of mosquito hell. I hope you have wonderful summers and I look forward to catching up when I get back.

Kisses, besos, bisous, baci, beijos, etc etc

Maya