This might actually work.

Things seem to have settled into something resembling normalcy here.

Friday, I visited an orphanage run by the Catholic Church. I had no idea what to expect, but I had a blast. The kids were all happy and well-behaved, and they seemed well-fed. Decent living accomodations. Hell, they're probably better off (materially) than a lot of kids in Cuernavaca. I basically just spent two hours as a human jungle gym. Kids were climbing all over me. I was launching them up into the air, playing caballo, playing monstruo, and two little girls continuously demanded "¡Atrapame!" "Catch me!" Okay, it was really easy, but you can't just catch them. You gotta run around until they're tired. Which is about the same time I'm tired. It was a hell of a workout. I also saw some little girl faceplant into the cement. Ouch.

I spent Sunday in México DF again. We had a mandatory excursion to see the Palacio Nacional (mostly just Diego Rivera's murals there, which were fantastic). The group then went on to visit El Templo Mayor and La Catedral. Since I visited those last weekend, I ran off on my own to visit El Palacio de Bellas (Belles?) Artes. It's a beautiful building, with a few more excellent murals inside. Poor suckers didn't even get to go inside the Templo Mayor compound. I am definitely skipping out more often.

Finally, we visited the National Anthropology Museum. I had to meet up with the group by taking a harrowing VW Beetle taxi ride across the city (in Spanish, "Meet us at twelve" sounds almost exactly like "Meet us at two." Oops). Once we got there, it was immediately evident that we were not going to have enough time. The place is gigantic, and jam-packed with artifacts of the numerous indigenous cultures of Mexico. I was frankly a little bored, because there wasn't enough time to piece together a living image of any of the cultures. Artifacts by themselves are pretty and all, but I want to know what life was like for those people. We just didn't have enough time.

Otherwise, things have been pretty uneventful. Spanish is improving, and should get a big boost this week: I have two hours of one-on-one conversation every day. Nothing is more useful. Reading is easy now, listening is improving, and I can speak fairly decently. I think that the key to speaking a language in a daily manner is essentially just repeating common phrases over and over until they're natural to you. When you're trying to express a complex idea, people will have patience; if it takes you 30 seconds to say "I agree," they won't. Taxis make for great practice, because I can just have the same conversation with a cabbie over and over again.

It should also be noted that my passion for poli sci has returned. On Friday, one of my professors was talking about how Chiapas has this really rugged terrain, and a problem with healthcare. It's very undeveloped, with a bunch of unmapped villages scattered throughout its mountains. Naturally, the Mexican government thought a good solution would be to build a central, high-tech hospital and then have people walk two days just so they could catch a bus for two more days to get to the hospital. Morons. As he said this, I felt the familiar tingling, and it finally occurred to me what to say when people ask me why I study political science. I do it because the governments of the world make so many idiotic mistakes that need to be fixed, and somebody's got to do it. I seriously had this urge to just drop what I was doing and somehow take over the Mexican healthcare system in Chiapas, to set it right. I spent the next three hours daydreaming about localized clinics, small pastures that function as helicopter pads, and EMT-trained midwives in every village. Sheesh. I need to play Tropico so bad.

By the way, I finally got some pictures up. I'm on Flickr under the username of, what else, McBearclaw. You can also view them in the context of the blog post they belong in, because I've added them in. There aren't many right now; there'll be more after the turn of the month, but unless my dear readers feel like chipping in to help me pay for Flickr Pro, it'll be somewhat limited. Maybe it's for the best. This way, you only see the nine most relevant/funny/beautiful photos I've taken, and not the 141 that suck. Anyway, check 'em out. I recommend viewing the Large size on some of them, because they look freaking awesome. I rule.

Bleeeaaaah

Well, this week has been pretty uneventful. I've been sick, classes have been interesting but forgettable, and I have eaten eggs for breakfast every single day. Alicia is trying to kill me.

I forgot to mention something about México D.F. See, in the Day Efe, there aren't any sidewalks. They've been covered by incredibly long continuous markets (which are a lot like cartoon backgrounds - after every hundred yards, you start seeing the exact same shit for sale). This forces pedestrians to walk in the street if they want to get anywhere. On one particular street, there are five lanes of traffic in one direction, but pedestrians had taken over one of them. I was walking on the outside edge this lane when all of a sudden, BAM! Something smacked my ass so hard that it gave me flashbacks to that one time I visited a dominatrix in Houston.

It was a car's sideview mirror. I got hit by a damn car in México. Fortunately, it was low-speed, and after two weeks of climbing hills in Cuernavaca, I've got buns of steel (still protected with layer of padding, courtesy of all those eggs). I felt fine after a couple of minutes. The driver was not so lucky; I saw his mirror dangling pitifully as he frantically drove off. Gringo = 1, Insane Mexican Drivers = Nada.

It's still hard to break into Mexican society. A lot of people get sort of a vacant look in their eyes when I tell them I'm a Poli Sci student; I've been thinking about saying I'm in sociology, or maybe Human Sexuality. Honestly, I have a hard enough time making new friends when I speak the same language they do; here, it's hard for me to get a non-American student to have a conversation with me, and I could use whatever edge I can get.

At the same time, I just want to stop worrying about it. The simple fact of the matter is, UNINTER's students are not significantly different from Iowa State's. They wear the same clothes, they listen to more American music than Mexican, they're vulnerable to the same kind of shallowness about appearance (if not more so - very few of these girls would dream about showing up for class in their pajamas, like Iowans are notorious for, and almost every single guy gels his hair 50s style), they probably come from wealthier families than the typical Cyclone, they're overly accustomed to international students; they just don't interest me all that much. The guys are much more interested in talking to the American girls, and the girls are much more interested in talking to guys who are not me (hm, yet another similarity with American women). I don't really feel the urge to push it. I'll just talk with random elderly people who don't have anything else to do, with cabbies, with Dutch people; with the people who live beyond the walls of the fortress-gardens.

It's not that the castle-dwellers aren't representative of some part of Mexican society; it's just the boring part.

Incidentlaly, when I get back, I'm joining some kind of ambassador program for foreign students. I never really realized how isolating it is, and how unsatisfying it is to speak only to your people. I'd encourage you all to do the same (no matter where you're reading this), but that's probably too much to hope for. Bastards.

As a final note: after taking a quick visual survey on the computer lab, I can confirm that Mexican guys seem to have the stupidest haircuts since America in the 1980s. It's like a freaking James Dean movie in here, man. Oh, shit. I just spotted U-Head. I should have guessed that there would be reefer madness in México.

Holy... well, holy shit, Batman! (Go to the bathroom and get a drink before reading this beast)

My God, I have had a thoroughly exhausting four days. I don't have much time to post (or email - tomorrow, Seuss) because the lab closes, so it'll be bit by bit.

Thursday night was El Grito, The Cry. Shit - I'm a little rusty on the names here, so forgive me. At 11pm on the original day of independence, a Mexican revolutionary leader (I want to say Morelos, but I live in Morelos) rang the church bells in the village of Dolores to summon his army of malcontents and Indians, who would eventually oust the Spanish. In honor of this, at 11pm on September 15, Mexicans across the nation gather in their respective Zocalos (town squares) for El Grito. I heard that there were some 50 (or was it 500?) THOUSAND people in Mexico City's Zocalo. Cuernavaca's was packed to the brim. People were spraying shaving cream into the air and getting into fights with it; Andrew and I joined in, and it was a blast. Observe the spoogmonation:

At 11, the governor of Morelos came out onto the balcony of his government's building and lead the population in a series of call-and-responses. It culminating with three or four "¡Viva México!", during which the crowd went wild. Fireworks went off - first, from the roof of the palacio, which I thought was a little close for comfort (100 yards or so). Then, I heard a tremendous thud behind me as they started firing the second round off maybe 50 feet behind me. It was deafening, and I had to look straight up to see the fireworks. They were beautiful. I could also see embers floating down into trees.

There aren't many lawsuits in México.

Friday morning, I went to la Ciudad de México, where I had an extremely surreal weekend. I'm going to try to get everything in here, but it's going to take a bit.

I arrived in Mexico City around noon. It's ridiculously easy to get to there from Cuernavaca. Buses (costing about 5.80 USD - and I'm talking coaches, complete with bathrooms and a movie) leave from Cuernavaca every fifteen minutes or so. An hour and 45 minutes later, there I was. Hopped on the metro (less than 20 cents) and arrived shortly in El Centro. Practically everything in the city (known simply as México to Mexicans) was closed, because Thursday night and Friday are when Mexicans celebrate their independence. Museums and everything. I found a little hotel that must have been at least 100 or so years old and checked in. 150 pesos a night (which is about 16 bucks), including a bathroom with a shower. And that shower had lots and lots of extremely hot water, which my home shower does not. The trip was worth the two really long, hot showers by themselves.

After I checked in, I set out to find a restaurant; the Tourist Info lady had marked a couple on my map. Well, not surprisingly, they were all closed. I wandered around Mex for something like two hours trying to find somewhere that I could eat without getting sick. Finally, I gave up and headed back to the hotel to ask advice. The clerk told me to go to El Popular, which was "below." Great directions, asshole - I thought. I walked downstairs and turned left, and immediately adjacent to the door of my hotel was the door of El Café Popular (open 365 days, 24 hours). Fuck.

I saw this when I was walking around - el Palacio de Belles Artes:

I sat down, ate some good, cheap food. At one point, this elderly gentleman sat down next to me. After awhile, he asked me for something - it sounded like "sal" to me, which is salt. But he actually asked for "salsa." We shared a polite chuckle, and then I decided to ask him what he thought I should do in the City. He suggested a few places to me, then we chatted a bit. His name is Jesús, from Guadalajara. He's got a daughter living in Dayton, Ohio. He's going to visit his sick sister in, of all places, Cuernavaca.

We finished eating and almost went our separate ways. Then I realized I would be a fool to not get a picture with him, and so we had someone take one.

And then he just decided to give me a tour of what little of the city we could visit Friday. We saw the Cathedral, which is beautiful and huge but slightly inferior to Europe's (too much baroque shit - give me that gothic style). In the same gigantic plaza (the Zocalo) where the Mexico City City Hall, el Palacio de Belles Artes, the Palacio Nacional (a huge Congress-White House-office complex), and El Templo Mayor, the remains of a gigantic Aztec temple where thousands of war prisoners were sacrificed to the gods. Freaking awesome, man. We also saw La Casa de Azulejos, which was a colonial Spanish mansion. It was beautiful. It had a magnificent courtyard, murals, and it takes its name from the beautiful blue tiles that line its exterior and parts of its interior. It's now a Sanborn's, which is the Mexequivalent of Macy's. But they take good care of the place.

After four or five, Jesús and I split up. But since there was nowhere else to be, we found ourselves back at Sanborn's - we bumped into each other in the bathroom there. We went to the Sanborn's cafe and he treated me to a cup of chamomile tea, which seems to be my drink of choice in Mexico. Soothes my stomach after I brutalize it three times a day (chiles for breakfast, lunch and dinner, man).

After that, we went back over to the big plaza, which was suddenly teeming with thousands of people. Vendors everywhere. It was chaotic, and gave some idea of what Times Square must be like on New Year's.

Then I went to sleep. Next day, off to see more sights. I went over to the Cathedral again (now open) and looked around inside. God, the chapels were hideously baroque. That's pretty typical, though. I have the same kind of desensitization to cathedrals that Andrea got towards castles in Wales. After St. Peter's, it takes something special to impress me.

On my way to the Alameda - which is a gigantic park, a la New York's Central - I bumped into yet another grandfather, this time named José.

Funny story about the Alameda. A parade passed by it the night before, and there were a bunch of small crates that people had stood on. At one point, I noticed these two boys playing with them (building forts, towers, etc), which was cool. And then all of a sudden one of these kids jumps up on a crate and starts shaking his ass like he expected people to stuff money in his sweatpants. Hilarious. There was also this statute of a really sad, nude woman who was doubled over in agony. Yet another little boy perched on top of her, laughing. Argh. I couldn't get my camera out in time.

Anyway, José was the opposite of Jesús. Whereas the latter was dignified, well-dressed, spoke slowly and used wit for humor, the former was a hyperactive, nearly incomprehensible school teacher. He saw me looking at my map, and offered to give me a tour of El Paseo de la Reforma, a huge avenue lined with monuments to Mexico's independence (plus the US Embassy, which I wanted to tour - Mexico City is the busiest embassy in the world, because all kinds of Mexicans want to get into the US). I dunno, I guess there are a lot of bored old people in Mexico City.
So after walking around and shooting the shit for a good three or four hours, José got a call from his sister. When she found out that I was with José, she invited me back to dinner. Yeah, I went. It was risky, but it paid off in spades. I got to sit around and chat with three honest-to-God Mexicans: José, his sister Rebeca, and her one-eyed husband Pancho (who knew some English because he had worked in Calgary for awhile). Plus, I got a free and delicious meal out of it, and felt like hot shit for not just being a tourist, for actually getting out there and meeting the people of the place.

The next morning, I ate breakfast. And as I sat at the counter with a bunch of other old, solitary men, I couldn't help but picture myself as one of them, sitting in a cafe somewhere in Latin America, helping to translate for young American couples in love while drinking my millionth cup of chamomile tea and dreaming wistfully of when I was young and in love. Basically, the same weird daydream I've had since my dad died with a new Latin twist.

Afterwards, I met José, who thought of me as one of his students and patronized me a little bit. He didn't think I could make it to the terminal on my own. Bah. We took the subway there, chatted a bit more, and so on. Pretty ordinary. And then outside of the terminal, he suddenly leaned against a trashcan. "¿Qué pasó?" I asked. He mumbled something. Then I noticed...

I really wish I was making this shit up, but I'm not. He was pissing his pants. You see, José is incontinent. I was sick, exhausted, and just wanted to go home, and poor José was pissing his pants. My mind was literally blown, and I couldn't say anything. Then we just walked into the terminal like nothing had happened. I was so mortified, that I just collapsed into my bus seat and passed out while watching the Spanish-dubbed version of "Dodgeball."

Now, I think it's hilarious. Then... it was just more than I could handle. Sick, exhausted, aching, mindblown, and after three straight days with no English (aside from a drunk-dial from Andrea), my Spanish must have been set back a year. I could barely put anything together. I slept like a rock last night, and in the morning, the trip to Mexico had become a really good thing once more. I met two really cool old guys, got huge amounts of Spanish practice, saw some great sights, got to eat a great meal with a slightly more typical Mexican family (one that isn't rich and with a constant stream of foreign students as guests), and picked up a great story. And you know I loves me a good story.

I think that about covers it all. Now that that's out of the way, tomorrow I will attend to the writing of emails. Whew.

¡Viva México!

Here's a clue for us Americans: today is the Mexican Independence Day. Not Cinco de Mayo. In fact, Mexicans don't even give a damn about Cinco de Mayo. It's like Presidents' Day for them, except I'm not even sure they get the day off. I don't even know if their stores have "outrageous" deals for Cinco de Mayo. Tonight, I'll be standing in a sea of Mexicans when the Governor of Morelos state gives El Grito de Dolores - México's cry of independence. I, along with a few thousand other people, will shout, "¡Viva México!" just before every bell in the city rings. Should be exhilirating.

I have recovered from the attack. It turns out that it wasn't Moctezuma's Revenge; rather, it was the mixture of pollo con mole and las cervezas I had Tuesday night. According to mi mamá, this is an explosive combination. Something like eating a box of baking soda and then drinking a liter of vinegar. I was an 8th grade science fair project. Anyway, a mug of té de manzanilla and some rest sorted me out pretty quickly. And I actually like té de manzanilla (which literally means butter tea, but I think it's chamomile).

Aside from the fact that I was a miniature El Popo yesterday, I also had some very surreal moments. On the way to school, Pepe was playing the Grease soundtrack. "Summer Nights," "Oh Sandy," you name it. Incredibly bizarre. Then that evening, after I felt better and had gone to a bookstore across town (I'll comment on that in a moment), I got a taxi ride back home. My driver was listening to American music - he had a system installed in his taxi, and I think he was playing MP3 CDs. That's pretty high class for México, I think. Anyway, he had a bunch of American music, and he asked me to translate one for him (since I ripped him off using the trick described below, I felt guilty and agreed). The song? "Hungry Eyes" by Eric Carmen. It was a struggle to not laugh my ass off. I might have pooped my pants a little. He was really into it, though. Incredibly surreal to be sitting in a cab in México translating that song (of all songs) into Spanish. So very bizarre.

"Ojos hambrientes," man. We listened to "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, too, which was much better.

Here's a useful tip for taxis in Mexico: if you know how much it costs to go somewhere, and have a reasonable amount of pesos in coins, you can use the pesos in coins to get a cheaper fare. For example, from the bookstore to my house would have been forty pesos. ¡Chingada! I don't think so. So I dug out my coins, and found I had $26. So I asked a couple of chaffeurs if they would drive me home for 26 pesos. The first said no, but the second agreed. This trick will also work with small denomination bills, but all the bills I had were $100+.

Know how we have an epidemic of big box stores in the US? México - or Cuernavaca, at least - has the opposite problem. Most of its stores are very, very tiny. I'm talking 20' X 10' here. There's a store I walk past regularly that has, I shit you not, eight fish tanks in it. Living room fish tanks. That's a pet store in Cuernavaca.

This is a good and a bad thing, depending on the kind of store. For restaurants, it's freaking awesome. I can get any kind of Mexican food on almost any street in El Centro, and choose from five different places while I'm at it. For bookstores, it's horrible. The best bookstore I've found is a long, long way from my house, and about half the size of an Iowan Borders Bookstore. There are absolutely no reasonable bookstores in El Centro. It blows. You can imagine how hard it is to find books in English.

I think part of the problem with the English books (aside from the fact that I'm in México) is that Cuernavaca isn't a very international town. Despite the presence of gozillions of Spanish schools, there just aren't that many foreigners here. And those who are here, are students without too much money. Cuernavaca just doesn't have any real international community. It's shocking to see another European, Asian or African face on the streets; I saw maybe four or five today in three hours of walking in El Centro.

I think I'm going to México this weekend (if you're in México and you say you're going to México, it means the City. Took some getting used to), so hopefully I'll be able to find a real bookstore. I've been thinking about seeing if I can tour the US Embassy, too, although they probably have security concerns. Should be a good time, though. A bunch of other foreigners are going to Acapulco, but, meh. It's going to be CRAMMED full of people this weekend, not to mention the fact that somebody was throwing grenades at police stations there last week. I'll pass.

Two notes to some special readers:

Iowans, I now have a cell phone. It's up on Facebook. It's fairly expensive - moreso than my calling card - but if you need to get ahold of me, I'll have it on me most of the time (honest!). And if you need to talk to me about something I can't discuss in front of, you know, a family, it's also a good option. And really, I'm saving so much money on other things (like gas - how high is that, now?) I can afford to splurge a bit on communications.

BbB - I now have two Dutch people living in my house, and I would really like to surprise them with a little bit of the mother tongue. Can you help somehow - maybe just write a quick guide to common phrases, or point me in the direction of a resource that's helped you? I realize we don't have each other's email address, and I don't really want to post mine here. Um, we can figure something out. I would reeeaaaallly appreciate it.

Actually, his name was "Moctezuma"

... not Montezuma. Either way, he's getting his revenge, and then some. I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say that I'm going to be out of action for a couple of days at least. You'll have to watch Univison or Telemundo to get your Mexi-fix. Incidentally, I'm probably going to be home a lot, so it would be a good time to call me.

Goddamn Cortés. Why couldn't he just leave the Aztecs alone?

Que maravilloso.

I walked an ungodly number of miles this weekend. Saturday, I walked to UNINTER (probably about two miles), back to home (+2), to the Cathedral to meet a group of gringos to visit El Salto de San Antón (+2.5), and then back home (it felt like ten; probably more like three, all steeply uphill). I was exhausted, and my legs ached like I had been half-run over by a steam roller. Naturally, the next day was the excursion to Teotihuacan, where I scaled three pyramids. I should probably treat myself to a taxi today, but instead I'm going to exercise and then walk home. And I might end up walking somewhere else, too.

I admit that I have a problem. What's Step Two?

El Salto de San Antón is a 35m waterfall that's basically just outside of downtown Cuernavaca. The river plunges from a shallow valley into a round pool at the bottom of a deep ravine. The entire ravine is filled with butterflies and vegetation, and birds swooped above the pool and bathed themselves at the edge of the falls. It was really beautiful and serene, only slightly tainted by the garbage that gets washed into Cuernavaca's waterways every time it rains. There were hand-written messages not to pollute. Mexican environmentalists have got a lot of work ahead of them.

Teotihuacan was spectacular. The Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon are huge, and I still can't conceive of people making them thousands of years ago. I can't conceive of people making them now. The vista of the pyramids set against a distant mountain was mystical, and the view from the top of the pyramids was spectacular. I managed to break away from the group and go exploring on my own, thank God. I blew two rolls of films (I've used four since I got here; I need to cut back). The pyramids invoked what I think of as the Cathedral Effect: when you're confronted with someone so awe-inspiring, you can't help but feel a little spiritual. All sorts of religions use the Cathedral Effect to help convince agnostics; it's a little depressing that something that has created so many intensely beautiful monuments has also lured people into social systems that universally require sacrifice to the priests - er, the Gods. Because the priests sure don't benefit from it. No.

Still, the thought of what Teotihuacan must have been like at its peak is incredible - huge, elaborate monuments; one of the largest cities in the world; the center of cultural influence for miles and miles. There were vendors all over the place in there, trying to sell the usual array of junk, but they actually served a purpose this time: many of them played little flutes that they were trying to sell. The music, and the hum of voices in a language I don't really understand, lent a very historic feel to place. It was easy to look down from the pyramids and imagine 50,000 people standing below, focused with religious fervor; or to walk down the Avenue of the Dead and think that some of the vendors were undoubtedly descended from Teotihuacanos, and that they could be selling crap - I mean, handcrafted objects of art - in the same place that their forefathers once did.

All in all, a very interesting trip. I got to try pulque, too, which is an alcoholic beverage made from the maguey plant. Pulque is more or less a wine made from the juice of the maguey; mezcal is the liquor made from the same; and tequila is a particular kind of mezcal made near the town of Tequila, in Jalisco (which isn't too far away from Cuernavaca...). I thought it was pretty good, but a lot of people were disgusted. Mmm. Gotsta find me some more pulque.

I also got homesick - really homesick - for the first time last night. The combination of my on-going frustration with Spanish and the sheer unreality of standing on top of a 2,000 year old pyramid finally made me realize that I'm a long way from home. And then, after not having internet access for a couple of days, I arrived to find that I hadn't gotten an email or even a comment here. Not that that's anybody's fault; I had just been looking forward to it as a cure for my homesickness, and it wasn't there. Anyway, I got an email from my mom not long after, and you know how moms have a way of making their kids feel better.

Also, I began el Programa Amigo today, which pairs an extrañero like me with a Mexican student. I arrived at the appointed time and sat while, one by one, people were paired off according to prearranged groups. Finally, there remained just one Mexican girl. She whispered with the program director for awhile, casting nervous glances my way, before we were introduced. Oh, fuckin' great. I felt like the last kid picked in kickball. Not helping the situation is the fact that I was having my laundry done at a cleaners, so all I had on at the moment was a plain white undershirt - meanwhile, Maricela was looking extremely fashionable, made-up, and anorexic. Not at all disposed to bowling. So much for the program's claim to pair people who will get along well. And she had a test to get to, so I missed out on Alicia's lunch for nothing. We have a meeting tomorrow sometime, so I'm going to try to make a slightly better impression as Maricela is probably my best shot at getting a foot in the door with Mexican society. I also signed up to put in a little bit of time at a local orphanage (finally, people who speak Spanish on my level), so I guess if Maricela decides I'm hopeless I can just chill with the niños. I bet they would love bowling.

Also, I finally did the little kiss on the cheek thing. Clarification for those of you who haven't been observing this habit for ten days: don't actually kiss the girl. Just put your cheeks together and make a little smoochin' sound. I felt like a moron when I did it.

Cuernavaca

I just realized that I haven't yet posted anything in detail about Cuernavaca itself. This blog is mostly for the benefit of my friends back home, but I'd like it to be useful to anybody else who might be traveling to The City of Eternal Spring.

Cuernavaca has, I believe, around 500,000 residents. It is the home of more Spanish-for-Foreigners schools than any other city in México, perhaps in Latin America. It is really beautiful.

Cuernavaca is a city of fortress-gardens. Outside of el centro, which is pretty typically urban, most houses and apartment buildings have walls. My house, which is larger than most, has both a front courtyard (guests staying in the four guest bedrooms have to walk through the courtyard to get to the main house - or maybe get to) and a backyard, which has a pool, a hot tub, and a gazebo. All the plant life is very lush (courtesy of the nightly rains, which go through October) and well-maintained (courteous of the plentiful gardners). That's a notable difference between here and Ames - back home, about all that most people care to do is keep their hedges halfway trimmed and out of the way of cars and pedestrians. Here, trees, bushes and hedges are all neatly trimmed (if they can be associated with a house, business, or institution). There are a huge number of plants growing wild, but a much greater portion of the vegetation is well-kept here.

As I've mentioned, UNINTER itself is much smaller than ISU, which is nice yet a little suffocating. It's like it's own little world, walled off from the rest of the city. Beautiful plantlife, naturally, and several fountains and reflecting pools. It's incredibly peaceful when there aren't many people here, but at least a quarter of the school seems to be on break at any given time. The restaurant here is fantastic, cheap, shaded and next to a reflecting pool.

That reminds me: there are essentially no "winter accomodations" in Cuernavaca, because they just don't need it. If it ever snowed here, half of the city's businesses would have to close because they don't have roofs, or have only roofs without walls. The weather simply doesn't get bad here, unless you count the nightly rains. But to me, a place with no rain has bad weather.

Even Mexicans don't drink the tap water here, if they can avoid it. Office-style water coolers are everywhere. The Mexiquivalent of the Culligan man must make a killing here. There's probably also a landfill full of little paper cones somewhere. I need to buy an easily-portable cup, so that I can avoid using so damn many of those things each day.

Many of those fortress-gardens are iced with concertina wire - one building even had some extremely nasty-looking glass shards glued to the top of its wall - and businesses are frequently guarded by "vigilantes" (private security). Almost every window is barred, even my bedroom window inside the wall. Despite this, the only crime I've noticed was when a cabbie ripped me off by five pesos because I still have trouble telling which coins are which. It's an interesting situation - clearly, there must have been some serious crime to warrant all this security, but now that it's there, you'd have to be insane to try to commit anything more than petty theft. So if the crime isn't there, why do people continue to hire the security? It makes sense logically - it'll keep the crime from coming back - but someone almost always slacks off, starting a series of desescalations until the crime comes back. Not here, apparently. Eh. All the concertina wire and walls creep me out a bit.

Well. I need to get to the gym so I can wheeze on some 1500m, super-thin air. If anybody has questions, you know, post them. I'll try to answer, and maybe even put some thought into it.

Mexican Story Time

Translated and slightly edited by me.

El Enano de Uxmal

Once upon a time, there was a witch who lived in a forest near the city-kingdom of Uxmal. She lived there with only her owl and her black cat, and because of this, she was very lonely (the owl could talk, but only about gardening).

One dark and windy night, the witch flew to see three ancient sages who lived in a cave in the mountains. She said to them, "O Learned Ones, I live only with my owl and my black cat, and I am lonely. Please, help me."

The most ancient of the sages asked, "What? Doesn't your owl talk? I thought witches' owls could talk." One of his brothers whispered something to him. "... only about gardening?" muttered the oldest, disgusted. "Okay, lady. We'll help you out."

Out of a basket, the sages produced an enormous egg. They surrounded it and spoke some magic words (hell yeah, they know magic). Then they told the witch, "Take this egg home, wrap it in a blanket, and keep it near your fire so that it stays warm. And for God's sake, don't eat it. Gross." She thanked them, and flew home with an enormous egg tied to her broom.

After months of resisting the urge to make the greatest omelet ever, there came a great day when the egg hatched. Out stepped a young child, walking and talking. "Ohmigod, you are SOOO cute!" cried the witch. "C'mere, snookums!" And she loved him and snuggled with him often, enchanted by his cuteness. Oh yeah, he was also really fuckin' smart. Like a PhD or something.

After 3 years, Snookums stopped growing. He was a dwarf. I'm talking Uno-sized here.

One day, while the witch was out drawing water from the well, Snookums contemplated the fire in their home. The witch attended to it very carefully, day and night. He decided to investigate. "Let's see what that old bitch is hiding from me," he said to the owl and the cat. The owl replied, "Dahlink, hast du seen meine geraniums this year? Simply mahvelous, ja?"

Snookums lifted the broad, flat rock that the fire burned on and peered underneath. There, he saw a gong and a mallet. "Fuckin' cool, dude!" he cried. He immediately grabbed it and rang.

The thunderous boom of the gong completely drowned out his shout of "Wuaaaaah!" The sound resonated through the forest. All the people of Uxmal heard the sound and paused, stunned. Most shocked of all was the elderly king of Uxmal. He, and all of his people, knew that whoever sounded the gong was prophesied to be the next king of Uxmal.

The witch arrived home at just that moment, and caught her puny son standing there in the Flying Camel fighting stance, gong in hand. "Snookums, you little shit!" she cried. "I'd get you a babysitter, except... well..."

"Well, what?"

Before the witch could answer, one of the king's messengers arrived, out of breath. "Smallfry... (pant) you're with me." And so it was the dwarf was taken to see the king, who awaited him underneath the oldest, grandest tree in his majestic garden.

The king explained the whole gimmick: if Snookums passed three difficult tests, he would become king of Uxmal. "So, um, whaddya say, Footstool?" the king asked. Snookums agreed to be tested.

"Okay, test number one: how much fruit is in this freakin' huge tree behind me?" Without hesitation, the dwarf replied: "Ten times one hundred thousand times six times two plus seventeen times eight."

The king stared. "WTF kind of answer is that, Frodo? Whatever, I'm keeping this crown. Guards, get Napoleon here out of my-" But before he could finish, the owl flew down and said, "But dahlink, ze kleiner Esel is right." The king begrudgingly accepted the judgement of the owl, who was widely known for her gardening prowess (what, you thought I just threw that in for no reason?).

For the second test, one of the king's most sadistic officials broke an entire basket of coocnuts over the dwarf's head, one by one. "What kind of test is this?" Snookums asked. "Ounno, I just hate short people. Haven't you heard that Randy Newman song?" replied the king. Unbeknowst to him, however, the witch had snuck an enchanted piece of rock into the dwarf's hair that prevented him from feeling any pain. He survived the entire basket of coconuts, plus a watermelon.

For the third test, the king left it up to the gods and his own bastardliness. "We will make statues of ourselves and burn them. Whichever one survives, will be declared king." The king made three statues of himselves out of three different, very hard, woods. He thought he was really fuckin' clever. Jackass.

The dwarf, on the other hand, made a statue of clay. Needless to say, the king felt like a dumbass. The dwarf was crowned king, but he had to wear the crown around his neck because it was way too big for his dinky little head. And the people rejoiced, because the main industry in Uxmal was political cartoons.

The moral of the story: La inteligencia se mide de la cabeza al cielo. (Intelligence is measured from the top of the head to the sky). Basically, short people are smart and tall people are dumb. And it really helps if you've got a witch for a mom and a Martha Stewart owl who isn't incarcerated somewhere.

But who will I take to Prom?

I have concluded that the worst thing about being here in México is that the things that should be comforting to me - my home, the family, the familiarity of student life - aren't there. Being here is vaguely like being in high school again. I'm somewhat obligated to be home for meals, to be in bed at a reasonable hour, to let my family know where I'm going. UNINTER, unlike the Iowa State campus, is tiny. The whole place can't be more than twice as big as my high school, and has only two thousand or so students. I had originally written some trash talk about the maturity of the students here, but you know what? It's just me wanting to bitch about something. Everyone has been very nice to me. So I erased it.

Mexico has no jobs or government loans that are suited to supporting college students. That means that all of my contemporaries at UNINTER are, for the most part, from wealthy families whom they still live with. I should note that it's very common to live with one's family long after leaving school. My family's son, Fernando, is 31, and lives at home with his girlfriend Dominique. Mexicans seem to be much more family-oriented than us, and much less interested in getting out of the house as soon as possible. On an unrelated note, my family watches a great deal of TV, and I've heard reports from other foreign students about their host families being the same way.

Today was actually pretty good - I had a conference to attend on cultural contrasts which was actually more of a lecture to women that Mexican guys were going to try to cop a feel. But it let me stay here at school. I ate lunch at the restaurant here, and it was the best food I've had yet - soup, chilequila, bread, rice, a little dessert, and a whole pitcher of "agua" (which is what they call bug juice, which is what I call any drink made from a powder) - all for three dollars, or 30 pesos. I read my book for awhile afterward, and felt like an adult again. It was nice to not have anyone expect me to be anywhere again. Back to high school tomorrow, I suppose. At least I'm old enough to drink.

I also found out today that I'm living with the Mexican equivalent of Republicans. My family supports PAN - a conservative Catholic party. Great. No politics at the dinner table, then.

For reference, there are quite a few parties in Mexico. Check Wikipedia for detailed info. PAN, as you know, is a conservative party like our Republicans and the European Social Democrats; Vicente Fox belongs to this party.

PRI, the Institutional Party of the Revolution, is the largest party and somewhat hard to pin down politcally. Basically, they ran México for their own benefit for most of the 20th century. You know whenever a party has either the words "Revolution" or "Institutional" in its name, it's trouble. PRI has both.

The other major party is the PRD, the Party of Democratic Revolution. Leftists, like our Democrats. See that Revolution? Again, bad news. The PRD is a populist party, out to keep itself in power by favoring the poor (who are vastly more numerous than the rich in México). The current mayor of el Distrito Federal, Obrador (AMLO), is from PRD; you might have heard of his little struggles here and there.

There's also a Labor Party (commies) and el Partido Verde - you got it, the Greens. They're everywhere, man. And let's not forget Alternativa and Nueva Allianza, who I know nothing about. These parties are all far too small to do any damage.

One of my teachers told me today that she didn't have the slightest idea who to vote for because they were all bad choices. That's pretty much true of politics in every single nation ever, not least of all the US, but I get the feeling that it's worse here. Corruption runs so deep in México's history, I fear that it will be years before they even get to the level of dismal governance that we have. Still, at least the stagnation of PRI's rule has been broken, and they have some hope for change. The US is going to be a two-party country for a long, long time, unless something really outrageous happens.

I've secretly been hoping that the Republican Party will split in two. I have a fair amount of sympathy for Republicans of a libertarian philosophy, but absolutely none for the socially conservative Jesus freaks. It is so damn ridiculous that a party with two elements that should be totally opposed could have enough coherence to control two branches of the government (and, let's face it, they're about to claim the third). In all fairness, though, there are probably a number of libertarians mixed with socialists in the Democratic Party. Politicians are essentially not idealistic, or else they would probably fail as politicians.

I think it would be fantastic if a big hunk of the best Republicans broke off, picked up the libertarian Dems, and formed a new party. I like to pretend that the next presidential election will be so divisive for Republicans that it will force a split. I'm fairly sure that the remaining social conservative party would become irrelevant, leaving us primarily with two parties who would agree on social liberty and would balance each other out on economic policy. Ahh. It sounds utopian. I'm sure there would be problems, because there always are. But a boy can dream, eh?

Missing the War

It seems I have missed out on some interesting news. Sheeeeit. I´ve only been gone for five days, and Rehnquist dies; probably when he heard that news that was mentioned in comments below. Needless to say, bad news for us yellow-dog liberals, but not surprising. Tolerable, even. Judging from this whole Roberts thing, I don't think Bush will be able to push through anybody too outrageously conservative; then again, it's always the sleepers who are the problem. Republican presidents have appointed their fair share of somewhat liberal judges, and vice versa, so you can rarely tell.

I'm sure some of you will be delighted to hear this, and I don't know how I forgot to mention it before. In México, you can't flush toilet paper down the toilet; you throw it in the trashcan (which is emptied daily, gracias a Díos). "WTF, mate?" you might ask. Well, it turns out that México's plumbing, just like the rest of its infrastructure, sucks. The toilets clog really easily.

Yeah.

Needless to say, my deforestation habit has already caused some problems.

Laugh it up, you bastards. You'll get yours.

Estoy viviendo todavia

I´m alive. Christ, Spanish keyboards are a pain in the ass.

I arrived in Cuernavaca Friday night. Remember how much I bragged about the weather? Well, what they don´t tell you is that every night, it pours. Traffic was crawling; the drive from the airport should have taken a bit under two hours. It took nearly four. Roads were flooded out. When I arrived at my house, the power went out.

Incidentally, my house is not the one I was originally assigned. It´s much further away, barely within walking distance of the University. My family is friendly, but there aren´t any kids my age. The food has been pretty good so far, though. Nothing spicy, but it´s been a looong time since somebody cooked me three meals in a row.

Driving in Cuernavaca is mayhem no matter what the weather´s like. Almost everybody here drives a peanut - there probably aren´t this many VWs in Germany - and drives like a madman. There are very few stoplights, but also very few accidents. I haven´t seen one yet. Crazy, but obeying a set of unspoken rules that seems to work better than our spoken ones.

The cost of labor here is seemingly ridiculously low. My family has a six-day-a-week domestic helper who cooks, cleans and does yard work. They also have a gardener. Their home is well-constructed and quite beautiful. Taxis are cheap (I pay about six bucks round trip to any place I´d want to go) and buses are practically free. Bottled water is 35 cents a bottle; my lunch today, a sandwich and a Gatorade, cost about as much as an American Gatorade alone.

On the other hand, technology and anything that requires a professional´s touch is much more expensive or difficult to come by. Telephone companies still charge by the minute for local calls. Internet access is mostly restricted to universities, businesses and cafes. My family´s water heater can bear about six minutes of showering before it starts trying to freeze my balls off. The roads are okay, but it is apparently cheaper to hire cops to stand at intersections than it is to install traffic signals. Calls to the US are more expensive than calls from the US. It takes a little getting used to.

So does Spanish. I hate to break it to those of you who may have studied Spanish in school, but you don´t know shit. After four days here, I can barely have a basic conversation with someone who is conciously going slow for me. Normal Mexicans are beyond my powers of comprehension. People ask me how old I am; I don´t know if I should say 21 or 6. That´s about how good my grasp of the language is. I have, however, started dreaming in Spanglish.

Anyway, things probably aren´t as bad as they sound. Everything is so much more difficult than at home, but I feel like I´ve accomplished something significant if I remember to say ¨Buenas tardes¨ instead of ¨Buenos días." Also, I want you all to give thanks right now that you were raised on English. Spanish is hard, but not nearly as bad as our mother tongue.

There´s a great deal more, but I´ll get to it later. Se porten bien, niños (dig that ñ, don´t ya? The only advantage of the Spanish keyboard is that I don´t have to dig for the accented letters. ¡Ay!).