Three observations

In the interest of posting more photos for my family, here are three random observations of life in Mexico.


Firstly - Mexicans don't seem to have any shame in their use of a name to pursue the higher capitalist goals.

St Francis of Assisi has a chain of supermarkets, Ghandi a successful bookshop franchise, Our Lady of Guadalupe is often ringed in a halo of soap suds and folded laundry and Jesus has his own bus line (he lets other people use it though. Nice guy).

I guess perhaps it's an extension of the Catholicism here, which seems to fuse all elements of church and life - the dirty and the holy coexist comfortably. People have no problems playing bingo on the stairs of the cathedral, or of living sordid lives under the eyes of Santa Maria in their lounge room, encircled with flashing fairy lights. In Merida we found what seemed to be a very dirty love letter under the pews of a small chapel. I'm sure Christ would have been very happy here in Mexico.

Language. Our Spanish is coming along slowly slowly. The only problem is the more you know, the more you know you don't know. It doesn't have the deliciousness on the tongue as French does, but poetry in Spanish... utterly beautiful. We try to do a 30 minute lesson each day but somehow, crazily, we often don't find the time.  There is a library only 2 blocks away and so we often sit there and read to the kids, so we now have a large vocabulary of animals, dinosaurs and space-related terminology. Reading is easiest, then writing and speaking, but listening is the most difficult, especially when people don't stop after every verb to let you conjugate it. Mexican soap operas are great for listening practice - people talk slowly and say entirely clichéd, predictable things. The kids though, are amazing. I guess it's not surprising as they are so entirely practised at using the tools you need for learning language. They can understand a lot, are listening all the time and often come up with bits and pieces themselves in their play.

I blame some of this current little 'black' phase I'm going through on being isolated by language, and so at the moment I am a little cross with Spanish. I miss my friends and I miss the opportunities for random social interactions, of opportunities to express myself, to make an impression (in a small, literal sense) on the world. Never mind. Perhaps I need to embrace the silence some more. Take some inspiration from Ghandi (and his bookshops).

And finally - culture and patriotism. I am wondering why I find Mexican patriotism (and cultural pride) so endearing and genuine and the Australian equivalent (if it exists), so abhorrent. For example - every Sunday here, in Campeche (population of 100,000), there is a theatre that stages for free an extravaganza of traditional Mexican song and dance from around the country. The whole thing is elaborately staged and costumed and goes for 2 hours, and the theatre is full. There is an international jazz festival here at the moment which has entry by donation (to a charity) and class acts every night from around Mexico. As far as my Spanish extends, most of the performances seem to be dedicated to 'the glory of Mexico'. On kids' night they provided free hot-dogs as they knew it would be dinner-time. Several compositions are variations on Mexican folk tunes and having people singing along (quite hard to an experimental  jazz quartet) and applauding like wild. School kids seem to have at least one day a week where they show up in traditional regional dress (exceedingly cute). And every event, no matter how base (the carnavale in Merida, Campeche fun run) is accompanied by a performance of traditional dance. It is wonderful to see people so devoted to and proud of their country. And maybe a little confusing to an outsider considering the complicated mix of Mayan/Spanish/Mestizo heritage. How have they achieved this seemingly ubiquitous, healthy and perfectly balanced sense of nationalism I do not know. I guess I will try to find out.

That's it for now. We're still having a good time, despite my feeling slightly like an irresponsible parent for having my kids away from home/school/friends...? And slightly rootless at not knowing what will become of us on the other end. Pero no importa.

Soon our blissful days in Campeche will be over, and we will be heading to San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas via Palenque for the month of April.  We are all excited for the new adventure.

I will leave you with some photos of the Mayan sites of Uxmal, Labne and Edzna, and the Lol Grutas caves (all of which were very awesome).

Miss you all very much. xxx

Campeche

more...

(if you click on satelite, I think you can see the crater in the sea north of Progresso where the dinosaur extinct-er hit)

This post is entirely self-indulgent.

Drove from Merida to Campeche via some magnificent Mayan ruins (kids call them wreckings, and wonder why they get in trouble when they chuck the stones around, considering everything's already wrecked). I'll put some photos up of that trip later. It was fun to drive and have music up loud and to be out in the bush (except they call it jungle here). Saw a Yucatan woodpecker which was VERY exciting (but which I failed to photograph). They are gorgeous birds. I was alerted to its presence by the sound of wood being pecked.

But Campeche - what a beautiful city. This is what it's like to be a millionaire. The house we are staying in is completely beautiful - all the walls, beams, tiles are original and 200 years old. I have a newly discovered and passionate fetish for French tiles. These were brought over to Campeche as ballast on French ships, which took back chillis or sombreros or something. Every morning I run along the waterfront with the beautiful people, come home and jump in the pool, then frolic in the warm winter sun with my two perfect children while Andy makes me breakfast and coffee. The house is within the UNESCO heritage listed centro historico of Campeche - about 6x9 (?) blocks of beautiful old buildings, wrought iron, cobbled streets and pastel colours. It's beautiful and quiet (no buses in the centro, which is very welcome as you can imagine if you read my last post). The town has a history of fighting off pirates so there are cannons and gates and walls and all sorts, the kids love it. But to tell the truth mostly we are happy just sitting around in our beautiful 2-week home. I hate to be indulgent but most of the photos are just of the house. It is a bit naff I know. I think I would be very good at being rich, and this holiday is good practice.

So much more to tell you all - would like to sit everyone down and talk for hours on end.

Know you are loved,  xxx

Merida weekend

Drip-filter coffee, not so bad actually. Jog+cold shower+3 cups is very buzzy. We walked – stopped at a gallery with a new exhibition of erotic art. Some wonderful stuff out of Cuba – really WANTED a piece done in ink and lipstick. So far have failed to convince Andy to part with the necessary small fortune... but am in secret email contact with the gallery owner. Walked – to Merida's English Library, a lazy gringo haven with a kids' reading room, water, toilets and a big leafy courtyard. Friendly guy said – “Santiago for lunch” – another friendly guy said “want a lift?” (Wife owned a coffee shop, car smelt divine). Lunch was fantastic - huevos motelenos, sopa de lima, poc chuc. Then two hours lazing in the lovely ol' square – kids on the playground and chasing pigeons, fountain trickling, watching afternoon shadows fall over the wide, huge facade of Santiago cathedral. As the sun set we walked the few blocks to the Plaza Grande for a show and telescope viewing at the planetarium (exciting to see Polaris). Pollo pibil for dinner at El Trapiche. Yucatacan romantic seranades in the open air theatre, some mean finger-picking and beautiful, open voices. All free, all eclectically attended. Very late. Marvellously happy.

Sunday morning, ran all the closed roads of the old city along the Paseo Montejo and into town. Wonderful to jog without traffic, to watch the markets and music set up. Walked this same route then with Andy and kids, stopping at antique shops, one more look at my painting... Breakfast in Santa Ana square, between the fountain and the russett-coloured church. Markets, music, hot but shady. In town another free show - musical theatre. The Mexicans have an exceedingly wacky sense of humour - a lot of it seems to involve laughing at extremely caricatured simpletons and their crazy antics. Is it a way of laughing at themselves? Is it a way of embracing diversity? Or do they just think dumb fat people with big teeth are funny? At any rate the audience loved this, which was for us the best part. 

Can't remember what we did next... I am a little late in keeping up with this. I do remember that Andy and Artie got hit by a bus a couple of days later ( - quite literally, it mounted the narrow footpath - luckily, really luckily, all okay, Artie just with some bumps and grazes). We closed down central Merida with about 30 police officers and 10 times as many public - all wonderful people - the bus driver was this close to being savagely torn to pieces. A terrifying experience, but thank God everyone was okay.

This post is really an excuse to stick photos up for Ma and Pa. They include some from Progresso, 30mins north of Merida (directly off the coast of Progresso, about 15km away, was where the meteor that extinct-ed the dinosaurs hit. No one cares about this but Lucien and I think it's awesome!). Also some from Izamal, the yellow city, named, strangely enough, because every single building is yellow. Quite lovely.

Hasta luego amigos. xxx

>

Parque Miguel Alemán

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It's nice to realise that you have slowly come to know a city, at least a little. It happens gently, without realising it... you find a favourite coffee shop, recognise the houses, pick up new detail in the architecture, know the school times, the bus numbers start to make sense. And it's good.


When we felt comfortable exploring we ventured out into the suburbs and found this great park. 2 playgrounds, a skateboard park (Artie's new career, we're told, is as a famous skateboarder), loads of gym equipment (very cleverly designed), a lovely big ol' fountain for throwing leaves into, free WiFi and powerpoints (quite a contemporary Mexican image, people sitting in parks with laptops) and big shady trees for grown ups (complete with tree roots which double as dinosaur bones for budding paleontologists).


We sat around there all afternoon, doing not much at all. Watched the little kids come, then the bigger ones after school. The skaters and then the joggers, and as twilight grew a small fairground sprung up around us. It was very low-key, local and lovely. The kids really enjoyed themselves on these little motorised cars, it was great fun to watch.


That will do for this post. We have spotted another green patch on the map which we are off to explore. A huge storm has just passed through, purpley-black with spiky lightening. Nice after days of humidity (desert girl not used to it).


Much love.

Mérida

Wonderful city. The Paris of Mexico? (for those who don't know I am on a bit of a quest to see the 'Paris'' of the world. Buenos Aires - Paris of the south. Beirut - Paris of the East, though it may have been superceded having had the proverbial Paris bombed out of it. Tromsø claims to be the Paris of the North, and San Fran the Paris of the West.... not sure where this leaves the actual Paris).


Mérida does have a beautiful, wide and cobbled promenade - the Paseo Montejo - lined with mansions, cafes and big old trees, which are all lit up at night. On Sunday's they close it and half the old city off to traffic (could you imagine that happening in Australia?) so people can cycle and eat and enjoy it. The other day we went down there and they had all these free art and activity stalls set up for kids. And every single night there are at least two free, public events on in a square or at the cultural centre - dancing, concerts, theatre, music - it is incredible. There is a free zoo (just don't think too hard about the ethics of it, and bypass the freaked out birds - think 'turtles', 'turtles'...), free WiFi everywhere, considerate traffic, free beer snacks. This is a city that loves it's people. Which makes it a nice place to be.


So we are enjoying metro life - museums, cafes, galleries. I find it unfair that I'm putting on weight after walking at least 8km a day and most of that lugging a three-year old. Sure, our breakfast is cooked by a wonderful Texan man serving up down home potato rosti fried in butter with eggs, bacon and probably more butter.... walk along a bit, maybe a snack of tortillas filled with saucy pork and guacamole... getting hot, to the pub, what's this? 5 plates of food to go with my beer. Well okay.... Mexicans also seem to be cake lovers, and there's a 100 year-old ice cream shop on our corner. You get the picture. Actually we're hankering for a glass of wine and a piece of chocolate. Despite living near the home of the cacao bean there isn't a block of chocolate to be seen in this town.


Anyway so I was skipping and doing sit ups for a while but that's kind of boring, so yesterday I bought some flash new running shoes (bright blue) and a teeny weeny running skirt (tangarine) and some kind of alien-fabric singlet (purple). I am the colourfulest gal on the Paseo (they will call me the 'Paseo Parrot'. Or possibly just 'that ridiculous gringo').


The kidlets are having a great time and are very much loved by the general populace. Some guy even turned his motorbike around to tell us how muy bonito our kids were, and we had one wacky occasion of police officers taking photos of girl scouts who had stopped to cuddle our kids. They're enjoying the food and their Spanish gets better by the day. They have a great time accosting local kids in playgrounds and showing them they want to play (kind of like puppies).


The town is currently preparing for a great big Carnaval, starting this afternoon. We try to look disappointed when the retired Yanks next door tell us it's just a bunch of people drinking lots of beer and naked girls riding on floats. 


Sorry once again that this post is kinda boring... the computer isn't my priority really. But I do love you all! 


Promise to be more insightful next time. xx