Recuerdos

?Los objetos estan mas cerca de lo que aparentan?

That is what is written on the rearview mirrors here. Objects are closer than they appear. Better than the English version. More suited to the mission of this trip. Mexico has become the American south. We are closer than we think.

Earlier this week, I came rumbling up the grassy road to a small town in Jalisco that rarely sees gringas, and has perhaps never seen a bonified white girl from the U.S. I dressed for the occasion, as I have since arrival, in one of two outfits I brought - hiking boots, t-shirt and pants of some indestructible synthetic fabric. Blue eyes behind brown glasses, my brownish hair tied back, I rode shotgun. Up the hill I came in an 88 Nissan driven by the local teacher, who also brought his wife and baby son. Activity at the school ceased as the car passed, we got out, and the kids rushed to ask their teacher: ?Why have you brought us this mu?eca?? Muneca means doll, but that is not what they were really calling me. They were calling me a Barbie.

I took a break that morning to walk up into the hills, wary of white tigers and the spiders, a hairy variety related tyo tranatulas, common to the mountains. On a path through towering palms Raulio found me. He was wearing a sweatshirt, shorts, sandals and his mothers rosary which he informed me would protect us on our journey to the river. We hiked beside, then trough the water as he told me about his games, his treks, his rope swing, how he helps his mother with the wash. He did not tell me, but I later learned from the teacher, that we once went to school. Three years they tried to teach him, but he could not learn, the teacher said. Then he got aggressive. With only three teachers for six grades at the elementary school, they had to send him home. They call him Cuco. The most aggression I saw was when Cuco chased some marauding horses away from the teachers wife. He is nine. But he likes to pretend he is four. He would like to go to school, he said, or at least learn to read.

Power has shifted. It favors the young, the nortenos, the immigrants, the fighters and green-eyed beauties of Jalisco. Objects are closer than they appear. Look back into the rearview mirror and they see: A 60 year-old man shining the shoes of a four year old for less than a dollar. Huichol, Otomi and Nahuatl beauties huddled under Coke and Fanta ads; before the visage of Uma Thurman in a department store entrance - mu?eca.

?Let show all things splendid in their darker nature splendid also.?

Molly in the news:

Was just alerted by Crimed Rich Tenorio that the latest edition of Havard Magazine ran that story I mentioned to some of you:

http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/030402.html

Do not know what happened to the photos. Ran into some former Eliot House residents at the Starbucks during the lengthy photo session in D.C., where we ended up despite my protests. I never go there. Really. I do not even drink coffee.

For all those scandalized, I obtained permission from both parents for the interview. I liked the story, and have no problem with any of the quotes. Write THAT on the wall...

Mexico as Panopticon

Signs that a culture of surveillance has taken hold:

*Towers in supermercado parking lots where guards patrol for thieves marked ?Vigilancia?

*Two major scandals involving politiciams caught taking bribes on tape.

*Another season of the American rehashed version of ?Big Brother?

*Videotape set up at eye-level of passengers as we board at the bus station, yet my bag sets the alarms off and no one bothers to stop me.

First motorcycle ride today (without helmet, sorry Ma) through a ranch. Caught a g?limpse of the sea from the mountains of Jalisco, but little more.

Deep-seated distrust of cabbies - Validated!

My deep-seated distrust of cabbies - Validated!

It was a tabloid headline kind of day. As the sun set here and teenage boys
took to the square to pester me (How do you say school in English? Pencil? Flowers? I am going to kill you?) I hailed a cab to escape. As usual, I checked the address and the price with him first. My hosts had advised me not to pay more than 15 pesos. I settled for 20, climbed in, and started to talk to him about his days working in NC tobacco fields. He seemed young, energetic, simpatico. Then I noticed we were driving in circles. He stopped a few times to ask directions at tiendas before telling me it was going to cost more because I didn{t know where I was going. I repeated the address, and made clear that the taxi driver who got me there yesterday had no problems (I did not mention that I paid the guy 30 pesos). Two more stops for directions and he gave me an ultimatum: Pay or he would stop driving. We happened to be in a darkened alley, not a soul in sight. ?If you leave me here, I am not paying you anything,? I said, underlining the point by slashing my hands mid-air. Fine he says. I get out and walk a block to the nearest tienda to ask directions. Turns out I was a block from home. As my hosts and I decided, it was only fair - worked out to 15 pesos a ride, the going rate.

Day 10

Question: What is my real name?

Molly is on the business cards I?ve been handing out. But as in France, people have problems with the pronunciation. I explain that my real name is Marian, Marian Jane after my abuelita, Mary Jane. Which they translate into Mariana, then Mariana de la Noche, a popular telenovela. Mariana is a natural strawberry blonde who, bucking the trend, does not appear to have had much plastic surgery. The guy romancing her resembles a young Sean Connery, and he?s already managed to stage a worker?s strike AND meet her in the forest for a dusk rendezvous. Inteligente y guapo, tambien. Check it out
Way to go Mariana.

After walking about five miles Saturday before finding a ride, I decided find one before leaving San Pablito today. That?s how I ended up clinging to the back of a pick-up as we bounced along, inches from the precipice mentioned in previous posts.

And to think, I thought I was lucky to snag the Carolina blue truck with the ?San Pablito? N.C. vanity plate
Still, I saved about four dollars (cha-ching, right Dad?)

Speaking of saving money: Am about to embark on a 14-hour journey by bus. Anticipate many high-volume, low plot action movies. Luckily, I spent an hour last night saying the rosary in Spanish (funeral rites for a friend?s grandfather). Sorry I won?t get to see much of the countryside, but I?d rather arrive in the a.m. than late at night.

Week's End

Day 7:

A week already. Time to address pressing questions. Such as: Is Molly single, why, and how long does she plan to stay that way?

At some point, every person I met here has asked: Grandmothers, ninas, boys on street corners, the hotel clerk, taxi driver, cashier, and of course, the priest. I tell them all the same thing.

Yes, I am single. No, I am not 30 yet. I am 27. I know 27 is old by Pahuatlan standards, but I am actually very happy. No, I do not plan to get married soon. I like adventure. I like feeling free. Yes, I am Catholic. Yes, I love children. But you know, I can always adopt.

This makes them smile.

You give what you get. How can I inquire into the intricacies of Pahuatecos? lives without sharing some of my own? I know that I am a preposterous vision here, a 5-foot-11-inch behemoth painted in pastels. I don?t want to fit, I want to find. Part of the reason I began writing in Pahuatlan was curiosity - a reporter from The News & Observer came years ago, and I needed to see the people and places he described. We are intimately bound. North Carolina is changing this place, but it is also changing us.

Not that I?m going to run out and get married (Sorry Ma ? no Mexican fixation yet). But I could be falling in love. Or maybe I?m just addicted to pan dulce and telenovellas?

Random Mexican moment: Someone is blasting that ?Hallelujah Hare Krishna? song. Who sings that? Who is playing it? Why do they love it so? With no ambulances to chase, I?m off in search of answers.

Day 8

Let?s talk about food.

One of the stories I?m working on is about two panaderias, so I have spent a lot of time around bread ? pan dulce, galletas, todos. Strawberry is still mi favorita. Of course, as during the nightly rounds that just ended, when it?s offered, I always pay.

But I have also visited a lot of homes. I stay to talk, and inevitably a meal ensues. Everyone waits for me to eat first. I decline, then offer to pay, but they never let me. I have tried bringing food, refrescos; gifts. People tend to act insulted. ?We are not so poor that we cannot afford to feed you,? one woman told me today. She was standing in the two-bed open-air shack that is home to seven family members. Her sister earns about $40 a month. And she was offering me mango soda, bread, hot milk, tortillas, beans and ham cold cuts.

Food-related: I learned how to hold a chicken in the curve of my arm at the Boleta de la Pila?s today.

I?m the under-exposed one in glasses, which are way better for riding in open-air trucks sin suspension. The blond tiger in my lap is Pancho. During the five mile walk back, I saw Mary Jane in situ for the first time. And NC glamour plates that read ?San Pablito.?

I was also stopped about six times by Carnaval roadblocks. I love Carnaval, the great equalizer. It?s one week when everyone - gringos, Mexicans, Spaniards, todos are harassed equally. What a vision: roadblocks of men and boys in embroidered blouses and skirts, their faces covered with silky scarves and sunglasses, their heads with cowboy hats sprouting multi-colored peacock feathers. Some wear rubber Halloween masks. All spin circles as fiddlers play on the corner, a sort of rachero square dance. As soon as a car approaches, they wave it aside and demand payment. Dancing traffic cops.

Day 9:

More evidence of the confluence of cultures in Pahuatlan, 1950s meets cutting edge:

*At the market today, among vendors hawking embroidered tablecloths, grilled lamb tortillas and calla lilies, rancheros poured from one speaker, disco from another and from a third ?Don?t wanna be a player no more.?

*Kids eating at the ?American Pizza? stand in San Pablito drinking Coke from foot-tall glass bottles, the girls in t-shirts and tapered dress skirts.

*Senor Dionisio Hernandez and his horse, Saraman, who insisted on a photo
and quick chat over limes picked from a nearby tree as autos passed at dusk. He wanted to get a picture of me riding downhill, but I didn?t dare inflict myself on poor Saraman, age 12.

*Plastic flowers and vases of calla lilies propped against ornate mausoleums, tiny white Taj Mahals built atop graves in the town cemetery, which I have wanted to see ever since I wrote that body shipping story.(link) I visited at dusk, almost as an afterthought.(link) It was the perfect time to go ? only a few loud black birds for company, the sky an anguished gray and bits of music drifting up from the village in the valley, (Sorry, the picture was too dark to post)

I will probably leave town tomorrow, with few posts for the intervening week.