Mexico- 

Day 1

Today has been amazing.  The flight was fine but long.   While we were in the air we passed over a larger body of water and I could see the edges of land.  I’m not sure were we were, maybe over the Gulf of Mexico but it was quite lovely.  After that I saw nothing but blue sky above and blue sky and clouds below, for I awhile I thought that we must be over the open ocean, but it was just so much blue sky.   The first things that we saw as we descended below the clouds were Mountains.  Tons of them.  And then as we neared the city there was so much color to be seen from the air.  Brightly painted houses in blue, orange, pink, a yellow water tower sprinkled the tiny streets.  Then we touched down and I could see them no more.  

There was a girl on my flight who was also heading to Mexico for the living routes trip and we stayed together after the flight.  It was nice not be be alone in the airport because when we reached the terminal, we went in the wrong direction and got lost in the airport for quite some time.  We discovered that my limited spanish didn’t get us very far, but after much huffing and puffing as we dragged our luggage along, we finally found our living routes leader, Giovanni.  We spent some time at the airport waiting for last last of our group members to arrive and then we left.  

There are six of us.  Five girls, and one boy- and this far everyone seems very nice. When we left the airport we took an airport taxi-bus thing all the way to the village.  We started at the North side of the city and crossed almost all the way across Mexico City.  The streets were once again filled with color.  The buildings of all colors were in various states; some shiny and new, one caved in and rusting from the top down.  There is no building code in Mexico. `Volkswagen taxi cabs, graffiti on almost every blank space, colorful metal sculptures of faces, cyclists, people, dancers, everything lined the flower crested median in the road.  There really were flowers everywhere.  Purple, yellow, orange and there were tons of red poinsettias growing everywhere (We learned that the are native here, and they grow to be very tall).  What I expected to be a scary city was really quite beautiful, and it wasn’t hard to forget the scary things that have been happing there.  The only reminder was the huge number of las policías- they were everywhere.  In the airport there were even federal police roaming around.  Still the city was beautiful.  There were Spanish signs and billboards plastered everywhere-Many hand painted.  There were also murals of the virgin mary with poems under them and spanish messages painted on blank walls.  We were moving too fast to read them (like 65mph through the middle of a busy city, with no stoplights-seriously) but I imagined that these messages were poetry too.  

We wound out of the city, driving South into the mountains.  The road clung to the side of the mountain as we steered up winding up around the sides, over the top and back down again giving way to vast breath-taking valleys, huge volcanos and the occasional tin roofed hut complete with clothes line.  As we rode all of us were so tired that we were nodding off, but we would all wake quickly when Giovanni would speak up to tell us a tiny piece of Mexican history.  After nearly being hit by a large red bus that was driving completely in the wrong lane, we turned off the main road down through a small rickety town and wound on further until we reached Huehue nearly hidden in the brush.  The town is spread out.  Our dorm is at the far end of a large open field and the houses are scattered around it in a sort-of circle that extends up the mountain.  The is fabulous stone work everywhere and the homes are made with beautiful brick, stone, and clay with glass work and colorful tile.  Many of the buildings also house local huge tree trunks as columns and banisters.

Everyone seems laid back and fun.  Our house parents Giovanni and his wife Kathy are wonderful!!!  They both speak beautiful Spanish and they are so open minded, and they seem very balanced and very at peace.  There are two women that cook for us and the food is magnificent.  When we arrived they had made us vegetable soup and cheese quesadillas.  Fantastico!  After dinner we met with Kathy our house mom, whom I already love.  We had a short group meeting where we met Svante, a Swede who has been their friend for nearly 30 years.  We finished our meeting by sitting under the giant sacred amate tree, “Mama Amate” and Kathy told us about the directions of the earth and what they meant. 

East-Fire-sun rises-new birth

South-Wind-prime of life-happiest times-adolesence-finding your way

West-water-scarce-adulthood-great responsibility and solidity-knowing your place

North-ancesters-grandparents-wisdom-age

Additional directions -Down=EARTH giver of life, Up=sky, Inside your self=Center, heart

It was like Mama Amate was holding my hand as I sat on one of her massive roots and as we were meditating on our intentions for this trip Mama Amate told me that mine should be learning how to listen.  She told me, I’m sure.-And she’s right.  Here I came wanting to learn how to speak spanish, but what I should focus on is understanding spanish and speaking will come with it.--I came expecting to learn leadership skills, but I already know how to assert myself, now I need to learn to hear what others have to say.  So I will do as Mama Amate told me to-I will listen.  

DAY 2 

It was a night of tossing and turing.  We sleep upstairs in the large center dorm/community space on mattresses lined on the floor.  It was pretty comfortable and warm but someone snored.  I ended up fighting with earplugs all night so that I could drown them out.  hahaha.  Still we all went to bed by nine o’clock because we were so tired and I got plenty of sleep.  Kathy said that we are all probably extra tired because we are at such a high Altitude and there isn’t as much oxygen as we are used to.  We leave our shoes outside on the tine metal porch out side our door that connects to tiny metal stairs that we take to get up there.  We have been warned to shake out our shoes for fear of the small native (not deadly) scorpions that live here.

I really think that I could live in a place like this forever.  It is a nice combination of old and new.  There is electricity, internet, lights, a dry latrine (very cool), and a stove and refrigerator.  Still they live very close to the land.  Everything is designed around the flow of water with gravity, and it leaves an untouched place for wildlife.  Fact: There are more than 100 species of birds that live here as well as many plants, flowers and bugs.

We had a delicious breakfast of Mexican style eggs with tomatoes and spices in them and bread with strawberry jam.  Then we have a brief class meeting where we continued get basics information about the village and class.  Svante told us the history of the village and his part in it.  There was a politically active group that had fled Mexico during a time of great unrest and they were traveling all over the world.  They picked up Svante in Sweden and traveled in buses all over the world ling in Europe, and traveling all the way to live in India for awhile.  They  met Gio and Kathy in California where they all lived for a long time and then when they got tired of the US they returned to Mexico to find their home.  The moment that they saw Mama Amate they knew that this was home and they built everything themselves over time,  learning as they went.  Then Svante took us on a hiking tour of the entire village, we visited all of the houses each more beautiful than that one before, he showed us how the water systems work.  (All of the community’s water is rain water collected during the rainy season and stored and used for the year.  A great deal of it is stored in an ancient pyramid that they discovered up the mountain).  We visited all of the storage areas including an old pyramid and their huge hand-made dam.  There are people from all over that world that live here, many Mexican, but Svante is Swedish, there is a South African, Gio is from Italy and grew up in Venezuela, Kathy is from the states, and a woman named Ria is Danish.  Most of the people here have known each other for at least 30 years and they started this village themselves.

We visited the lovely community garden (Hay mucha lechuga.) and I asked to help in the garden as well as cook in the kitchen so that I can learn as much as possible while I’m here.  

After a lunch of stuffed zucchini, tomatoes and rice, with a dessert of sweet crackers with caramelized goat cheese.  yumyum.  We  had a little free time. Afterwards we had our first class with Giovanni and we discussed the basics of a new type of leadership.  We have the rest of the evening off, but I’m going to help fix dinner and learn some Mexican cooking, before dinner at seven.

p.s. There is a bird here that trills starting on a hight note and working its way down to a low note -nine descending notes in a row-She sings a whole octave!

Day 3

Today has been long and tiresome, but very exciting.  First, today is New Years Eve!  We got up and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast of granola and fruit with scrambled eggs and unions.  Then after chores, we Giovanni took us on hike hike straight up the mountain behind the dorm.  The hike was brief but difficult and he took us to 3 amazing places.  First he took us to an old water hole that had been used for years as a place to wash laundry, but today is drying up.  The rocks around it were worn smooth from many years of rubbing and beating clothes on them.  I can’t imagine climbing up there with a bundle of clothes to wash.  Next we visited a sacred cave that locals had used to take shelter from the rain and that many shamans visit as they train.  Lastly we hiked straight up (literally) to the flat top of one of the mountains that juts up around the village.  We could see everything from up there.  Supposedly this spot, as well as some others near by, are popular UFO landing sights.  If hiking up was difficult, hiking down has impossible, it was more like sliding down and once I actually fell, but i was fine and I didn’t slide far.  I also stabbed my hand on a giant spiky plant that resembled a pinkish aloe plant.  

Eventually we made it safely down to the village and had class with Giovanni.  He is very fun and his lessons are always sprinkled with fun stories about his past and about Huehue and its inhabitants.  We talk about group dynamics and what a group needs to be functional and it really made me reflect on the “groups” in my life.  As I tried to put the lesson in the context of my life, I thought of my co-RA’s, my family and the people that I will be choosing to live with or not to live with.  Class was pleasant, but Gio assigned a huge amount of work for us to do and we had little free time because we were going into town.  I helped Dona Maria and her daughter prepare a lunch of salad with shredded apples and orange edible flower petals along with egg, onion and green bean patties, rice, and tortillas.  After lunch some went to visit Tonya, a Huehue resident, who had a famous guest over today, Marciel Camillo Ayala, and artist and activist, whose work is housed in the Smithsonian.  I was unable to meet him, but his presence was just further proof that Huehue draws in many wonderful and interesting people.  Then it was time to leave for town.

Svante was kind enough to accompany us into the town, Tetzoplan, and small market town.  We rode the public bust down the bumpy and eventually cobbled street into town.  There were many locals selling their wares in booths and shops down the street.  I shopped and bought myself a local poncho, and a small colorful throw hand-stitched by indigenous people.  I bought only locally made art pieces, no touristy stuff.  I bought tiny things for  my mom, dad and for my Keith. The town was so colorful!  We walked through two old cathedrals that would seem gaudy to us traditional westerners.  Inside everything was lined in gold with large hand-painted pictures and statues around.  At the front of one them was a large nativity scene that was lit with flashing colored lights and played the melodies of american christmas songs like Santa Clause is coming to Town and We Wish you a Merry Christmas.  It was strange, but festive and Svante explained that nativities are a big deal here everyone makes their own baby Jesus and they all bring him to be baptized.  Then he is housed in a small shrine in their home.   Svante also told us about some practices of the indigenous people while we were at the Cathedral (a mix of old tradition and new trends.  he told us about the practice of sending two young village men dressed in tiger suits to fight together in the square.  There they would fight to the death.  The male who dies was considered a sacrifice to the gods.  This seems terrible, but he said that people believed it was the only way to survive.  I thought that it was interesting that they dressed like tigers, almost as if they thought it was terrible too-to terrible for mankind, so they dressed as animals to take away the shame of murder (but thats just my speculation).  He also told us that old indigenous people still go up into the mountains to camp, meditate and pray for rain and after the rainy season they go back and do it again to say thank you to the gods for giving them tat rain.  Svante asked us to consider-What if no one asked for rain?  Would it still come?  Is is bad that society looks at practices like this one as old fashioned and superstitious?  I thought it was thought provoking and beautiful.

Our next stop was the market full of food, people, dogs, flies. smoke, vegetable stands, fresh meat, taco stands...Everything.  I tried a local delicacy of corn fungus and it tasted alright.  Sam, another Living Routes student, bought a goat taco from a stand.  The goats head was sitting right their on the counter watching her eat.  It was bizarre, but she said that it tasted good.  We took a rest in a small park in the center of town where there was music playing.  Couples were dancing in the square as we sat in the shade and it was very peaceful.  We continued walking and shopping as it got dark and then took the bus back to the village.

On our return, an Italian woman who once lived on Huehue and who is visiting this week cooked us legitimate Italian food and it was excellent. We ate a very late dinner fig pie dessert and it was so much fun chatting with current village members as well as those who have moved away but were visiting for the occasion.  We were al so punchy by this time that we were laughing ad cutting up ridiculously.  I feel very at home here and I’m at ease with these people.   Soon will be the New Years countdown followed by bed and hopefully a more restful night since the local medicine man tired to help our local snorer’s nose. Lets hope it worked!  haha

Day 4

Today I got up early to shower then we had oatmeal with apples for breakfast (happiness in a bowl) , we did our chores (my day for dish washing) and we had class with Kathy for the first time rather than Giovanni.  Before class, she had me arrange some flowers on a plate around a candle.  I picked them all fresh-Purple, red red poinsettias, and yellow. We were learning about listening skills.  To teach she had us do several meditative listening activities and the she taught us a song from the civil rights movement.

“I woke up this morning with my mind, my mind, it was stayed on freedom.  I woke up this morning with my mind, my mind, it was stayed on freedom. allelu-allelu- allelu- allelu-alleluia.”

We had lunch of broccoli soup with rice and chillies and plantains.  We had a very tiny bit of free time, before leaving for the Xochicalco ruins.  The Xochicalco were actually a pre-Aztec people, whose civilization fell to ruin after an inner collapse.  We got to walk all over and around the pyramids and afterwards we stayed for a “sound and light show”.  Sound like a tourist trap?  It was.  There were people dressed up very much like the original people with huge drums, Gigantic feather head-dresses, and long wooden horns with the heads of bears and panthers.  The dancing was excellent but it lasted a long time.   The light show was lacking, but I got to walk around pyramids so it still a wonderful day.