SO YOU THINK YOU HAD A BAD DAY AT WORK?

A few years back, Zee was working with Patricia, the department chair here at the University, on a small archaeological survey in the nearby countryside.

Side note for those who don’t know (the rest of you can skip to the next paragraph), an archaeological survey can be either a surface survey, where you walk lines across an open area and collect everything you see on the ground surface, or a test pit survey, where you dig a series of small pits in pre-determined locations to see what is under ground. The idea is usually that you can narrow your area of focus before expending invariably limited resources on a large scale excavation. There are other reasons for doing the survey, but since this is a blog rather than a lecture in archaeological method and theory, I’ll spare you the details... You get the picture!

So Zee and Patricia were doing a test pit survey. They were out in the countryside, just the two of them, digging pit after pit. After the first week, they started having trouble. The men would come out from the villages with their machetes and stand around threateningly. When they arrived in the mornings, Zee and Patricia would discover anything and everything portable had been stolen. As time passed, the men got bolder, and they would surround the pit, machetes pulled, and demand to see everything that came out of the ground. Patricia and Zee were pleasant and placating, said all the things they should say, and showed everybody and anybody all the things that they were doing. Usually, this takes care of lingering doubts among the local population. Often, people go back and get their families for tours. Not in this case!

One Monday, they came to work and discovered that the pits had been filled with human waste. Apparently the entire village had saved up all their urine and feces in buckets all weekend, and came out very early Monday morning to fill up the pits that Zee and Patricia were working on, filled them up right to the brim. Patricia and Zee, being the sort of women who don’t walk away from a challenge, put on gloves and masks, got buckets, and did their best to salvage the excavation. They worked the rest of the week without incident.

Yeah, really. Those of you who envy us archaeologists for our exotic life of glamour and adventure can think about this next Monday morning when your alarm goes off. At least you aren’t going into work to haul buckets of shit out of a hole in the ground while angry men with machetes stand around watching... And just because it happens in Mexico doesn’t make it more fun!

The following Monday morning, they arrived on site wondering what was in store for this week. They were right to be worried. They approached their excavations and discovered that somebody, or bodies, had spent the weekend filling the excavations with concrete, concrete that was now hard set. Patricia and Zee finally admitted defeat. The excavations were officially closed. They were not terribly happy, however, and went into town where Patricia reamed out anybody and everybody with even a bit of authority. Most people just turned their heads away and shrugged, refusing to get involved. Finally, however, they found somebody who let them in on the secret.

Apparently, the week after they began digging, the local priest announced in Mass that the American women who claimed to be archaeologists were in fact spies in the employ of the American Government. He explained in his sermon that they were there digging holes into which, in the middle of the night, they would be installing missiles. He exhorted the townspeople, as good Catholics and good Mexicans, to do anything and everything in their power to prevent the American spies from filling the fields with missiles aimed at Mexico City.

To this day, nobody knows why this sounded like a likely plot to the priest who invented it or the people of the village who bought into it all. Regardless of why, however, the priest continued to harangue at every available moment and helped organize the people to chase off Patricia and Zee. He succeeded, of course, but the local higher ups of the Catholic Church were alerted to the, uhm, “unstable” priest out in the countryside. They decided to reassign him to a remote village high up on the volcano with people too poor to buy concrete, unwilling to waste good fertilizer, and prone to settling disputes with a quick and decisive short-range shotgun blast.

(One of the Anthropologists here works up in one of these villages on the volcano. I asked him awhile back how the annual fiesta had gone. His face lit up as he exclaimed, “Oh it was wonderful! And only three people were murdered this year! I can’t believe how much things have improved in the last ten years!” So I’m thinking that priest had his hands full and no time to be watching James Bond...)

This is my long-winded way of explaining how very important local relationships can be when you are trying to run a project. It is the most amusing of the stories I’ve heard and the only one that doesn’t end with somebody in intensive care recovering from a machete attack. (No, really, I’m not kidding!) And this is my roundabout way of explaining why you haven’t had any updates on my excavation work just yet. As I mentioned last time, I finally got the permit in time for the height of the rainy season. After returning from the states and ready to work, I contacted Don Antonio, the land owner from whom we have permission to excavate. I explained that we were ready and he said, “Oh, fabulous. That is just great. You know, it is the jicama harvest until after Day of the Dead and I can’t give you any workers until then, but otherwise....”

I took a deep, silent breath. Jicama harvest.... Right.... “So, you’ll have men available for the week after the Day of the Dead?”

“Oh yes, yes...” he assured me.

So I settled in to write some grant proposals for next year and apply for a job or two. The Day of the Dead came and went (another blog story on my adventures there, but you’ll have to wait...). We called Don Antonio right after November 2 ready to start work.

“Oh...” he said vaguely, “Uhm, we are still working on some things for two more weeks...”

Two more weeks!?!?!?! It was time to take extreme measures...

I should mention that the grant that is paying for the excavations has to be used up by Dec. 31st. If I don’t use it, I have to send it back. And if I have to send it back, I have no dissertation project. Extreme measures were indeed called for.

I went out and bought a very nice bottle of reposado tequila in a hand blown, hand cut bottle. Very pretty. I forged a note from Harold, the project director back in the states, all about how I was there to run the project for him and he was sending this bottle of tequila from his hospital bed in the United States in hopes that Don Antonio would be able to help poor little Elizabeth who is just trying to do Harold a favor because he is so very sick and misses the village and the hacienda so very much. I put the note on the bottle with a pretty ribbon. I collected my field assistant. We drove to the village in time to catch Don Antonio right after church.

(Harold, incidentally, is doing quite well, his treatments seem to have worked, he is planning a visit to Mexico for late next spring, and he is far from needing to write from a hospital bed, but I didn’t want to ruin the dramatic effect with excessive honesty....)

Don Antonio and his family received us well and with generosity. They found enough chairs for my field assistant, Don Antonio, and me so we wouldn’t have to sit on the dirt floor and opened three bottles of Pepsi. We sat in the windowless adobe room to begin three and a half hours of negotiations.

I’ll spare you all the roundabout discussions. No there was nobody, oh but we only need one or two, well maybe, but couldn’t you, perhaps, well how do you feel about working with a cripple, he isn’t much help with the harvest, oh a cripple would be just find we have no problems with the fact that he can only move slowly, etc....

Finally, after much negotiations, Don Antonio felt he could provide us with two workers to begin the next day. Hooray!

Don Antonio’s daughter joined us with another round of Pepsi’s. She sat down and we began talking about her time in the United States. She had recently returned from New Jersey where she, her husband, and their four daughters had lived for six and a half years. My field assistant and I asked her about her experiences there. She sighed. “Well, the money was good of course....”

We asked what she did. She explained that she worked in the kitchen of a fast food restaurant serving hot dogs and her husband had worked in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant. She said that she worked, seven days a week, from 7 in the morning until 11 at night, and her husband worked similar hours. “Oh,” she added, “But we got to go home at 6 pm on Christmas day.”

Adriana and I said that sounded like a lot of work. She shrugged. She said, “It wasn’t too bad. I mean, the money was good. We were able to send money to my father and help him and my mother. But I never got to see my children and that was hard.”

Adriana asked, somewhat increduously, her why she and her family had returned.

She sighed again. “I was lonely. I know the money is good and I know everybody here thinks I’m crazy to come back. But the truth is, I’d rather have nothing more to eat than a small plate of beans here with my family then the biggest meal, with meat even, alone in the United States.”

She hugged her father and went back to overseeing whatever was happening in the next room. Adriana and I firmed up or arrangements with Don Antonio, and we took our leave. We both felt happy to be beginning work the next day.

That night, Adriana called Don Antonio to confirm the hour we would begin and confirm that the town cripples were indeed ready to work. As luck would have it, they weren’t available after all. The peanut harvest had begun....

No, really, I'm not kidding. No jokes here....

The peanut harvest lasts until Christmas. Our options now are to either wait for the harvest to finish or to bring in workers from the outside. The problem with waiting, of course, is that we have to give the money back. The problem with bringing in outside workers is that we risk alienating the community as a whole, hence the story I began with.

In addition to running the risk of bringing in somebody’s grandfather’s arch enemy from the next town over and possibly showing up for work to discover an inter-pueblo riot in our tidy excavation units, we also have the problem that if salaries are going to people outside the village, the people in the village have no real reason to support the project. When you are paying 10 guys from the town two and a half times minimum wages, there is a certain incentive for the village as a whole to not, say, come out and rob you at gunpoint on payday (or fill your excavation units with human waste and concrete, or to attack you with machetes because they hate the guy you have working with you....).

So here I am. Firmly in between the proverbial rock and hard place and working the politics on all fronts in hopes of making something come together. We’ll see and I’ll try and keep you all posted! I need to go buy a few more bottles of tequila.....

NOTES FROM THE ROAD WEARY ROAD WARRIOR
Monday, November 13th, 2006

I imagine most of you have given up hope of ever hearing from me again! It has been a busy few months, but I finally find myself with some quiet time and figured it was time to write again!

Plenty has happened since I last wrote on uhm, blush, August 2nd. Best news, at least for my dissertation, we got our permit to excavate! Hooray! Just getting the permit was quite the adventure. I spent three days, eight hours a day, on the phone with the permitting people while a dozen people successively searched for our file. Eventually they found it. A little while after that, they faxed it to the university here, and I had my permit in hand. Finally! Just in time for the height of the rainy season. Since I’m not trained in underwater archaeology, I decided to wait until things dried up here (around mid-October) before beginning work.

This left me with a new problem. If I began digging in mid-October, I would still be digging when my tourist visa ran out. I decided to take the time until the rainy season passed and use it to drive back to the states, combining a trip to renew the visa and a trip to Michigan for Heather and Lenny’s wedding. In addition to enjoying a beautiful wedding and getting caught up with lots of friends, I got a taste of crisp, fall weather in the countryside. Quite the treat for an archaeologist exiled to the tropics.

The drive back was as eventful as the wedding, but much less pleasant! I took a new route this time through the Central Highlands of Mexico. I crossed the border at MacAllen, TX into Reyenosa, a really ugly border town. The immigration authorities were unpleasant about my wanting another six months in Mexico, gave me only three, and told me if I wanted to stay longer, I needed to get an FM3 Visa (for work or students or whatever. LOTS of paperwork!!!).

After fighting the immigration battle, I drove as far as San Luis Potosei. The drive was much easier than the coastal route, with two lanes in each direction in most spots, but also much less friendly. In San Luis Potosei, my hotel room was broken into and I was robbed. In the end, after much drama and nasty letter writing, everything worked out. My things were returned via DHL delivery to the University. At the time, though, I really had no hope of the situation being resolved and I was in a very unhappy mood for the second day’s drive.

I didn’t get out of the hotel until 11 am due to all the fuss. I headed south on the highway, hoping that by some miracle, I’d actually make it all the way home before dark. The prospect of yet another night in a hotel was not appealing! The road trip gods did their best to discourage me. After the eighteen wheeler in front of me blew a tire (sending the big bad tire straight at me, and me with no place to go thanks to the truck on one side and the jersey barrier on the other...), I missed my turnoff to take the circuitous route into the mountains to the east of Mexico City. It would have made for a longer trip on worse roads, but it also would have allowed me to miss Mexico City.

The key, of course, being “would have....” As I said, I missed the turn off. Before I’d even realized my mistake, I found myself lost in Mexico City at 4 pm on a Friday in my giant truck. The upside to being lost during rush hour in the largest city in the world was that nobody was moving very fast, which helped with nerves. That, and the traffic was so bad that people were selling sandwiches in the lanes for the hungry commuters, so I knew I wouldn’t starve. The downside was that I was very, very lost, and changing lanes to follow what few signs there were was almost impossible. As I trundled along, I saw a big gathering of federales, the federal highway police, in front of me. Normally, one wants to avoid the federales at all costs as they tend to be untrustworthy and out for bribes or worse.

But I was desperate. Really, really desperate. I decided to take my chances. I pulled over, got out of the truck, and walked towards them. Two guys broke off from the group and walked towards me. I decided to go with “helpless Elizabeth” and widened my eyes. They came up to me, and before they could say anything, I burst out, “Oh, I’m so happy to see you guys! I’m so terribly lost! I’ve driven all the way from the United States and I’m all alone and I don’t know where I’m going!” The wave of testosterone almost knocked me over as it surged towards me. They looked at each other, clearly thinking, “Well, now, the little lady needs our help!”

All joking aside, they were unbelievably and unexpectedly kind. While one drew me a map, complete with illustrated landmarks and approximate driving time with and without traffic between each one, the other called my truck description and license plate number in to all his buddies and told them to leave me alone. Once I was set with directions and ensured of a bribe and harassment free drive, they stopped traffic so I could pull out again safely. I watched them wave me on my way in my rearview mirror and plunged back into the hell that is Mexico City traffic.

There directions were excellent, and had I not had to stop for gas, the rest of the drive would have been uneventful. Unfortunately, my tank was low enough that I had no choice but to stop to fill up in Mexico City. I pulled into PEMEX and asked the attendant to fill the tank. I made the mistake of also asking her to check the oil. In the time it took me to pop the hood and climb out of the driver’s seat to supervise, three men had descended. They were taking apart my radiator and by the time I reached the front bumper, at a run, they were flushing it and had covered the pavement in hot radiator fluid.

One of the skills I have acquired in all my travels is the ability to yell at people in Spanish. I discovered my talent for bilingual loss of temper while backpacking alone through the highlands of Peru and have called on it regularly ever since. People don’t expect me to be able to do it, so it has an extra strong impact when the sweet, innocent girl standing before them turns into a howling banshee. I channeled my inner banshee that day. I stood in front of my truck and hollered at them while they put everything back together and restocked the fluids while trying to placate me. When they were finally done, I hopped into my truck and roared off into the diesel fumes.

In spite of all the drama, I pushed through and arrived home on the evening of the second day after crossing the border at about 9 pm. It was dark, it was cold, I had no groceries in the house (oh for pizza delivery...), but I was so happy to be home! Just writing this makes me dread the next drive at Christmas time, but for the time being, I’m home and still happy to be here!

Well, there is lots more to write about, but it is dinner time here, I think, and this entry is already pretty long. But check back later in the week for more news on things like the commercialization of day of the dead, how I ended up agreeing to be a professor in Business School at a major Mexican University, and why I’m still not in the field and what I’m doing about it. I’m going to try and get caught up and then stay caught up from here on out.

Just a Sidenote...
For those interested, my parents have just started a blog of their own. They are building a house up in Maine, and they have just begun chronicling the adventures. (And when I say building, I don't mean they hired a crew of guys to come put something together, I mean the pair of them are putting together a house on their own...) If you want to check out the trials, tribulations, and joys, catch their blog here: http://www.stonehamfirstday.blogspot.com/

LANGUAGE BARRIERS – AUGUST 2ND, 2006

A short preamble is required… I started writing this quite some time ago. In the meantime, I got distracted with, gasp, work (oh no, not that!), and fun writing sort of fell by the wayside. As a result, though this starts out with “last night”, none of this happened last night but rather about two weeks ago…. Still, here it is! Better late than never!


Last night, about eight o’clock, I went out to let Tofi back into Zee’s yard for the night. As I was coming back across the road, I realized I hadn’t checked the water level in the cistern for quite some time. I try to remember to look regularly so I can let the landlady know I need water before I run out completely. So, before I went back inside, I walked over to the cistern to see how much water was left.

The lid to the cistern is a concrete block about 24 inches by 24 inches by three inches deep. It has two pieces of iron rebar threaded through it to act as handles, and the lid itself is reinforced with more iron rebar. The entire setup weighs quite a bit, but effectively seals the cistern up from anything larger than a smallish rabbit, prevents unfortunate accidents, and just generally protects my water supply. I rate it pretty high on my list of important household items.

So last night, I squatted down, balancing on the balls of my feet, and hauled this lid off the cistern. It is too heavy to hold up while maintaining your balance, so I tilted it up to rest it on the edge of the cistern opening. As I did this, the concrete slid back on the rebar and caught my hands between the concrete and iron. This, as I’m sure you can imagine, was quite uncomfortable. Startled and in pain, I shouted a few words I won’t print here and let go of the lid, expecting it to settle back into the cistern’s opening. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the difference in size between the hole and the lid is minimal. As I watched, the lid slipped easily through the opening, creating an impressive splash on its way to the bottom of my half-full cistern.

There I was, rocking gently back and forth on the balls of my feet, contemplating the opening in the ground that is slightly larger than me and the very necessary and very heavy lid sitting on the bottom some 15 feet below ground surface. All I could think was, “I wonder how on earth I’m going to deal with this in Spanish! I’m pretty sure no lesson I’ve ever had covered this situation…”

I know it’s trite. Everybody knows on some theoretical level that the words you learn in a classroom rarely apply to most real life situations. Once you actually spend some time living in another language, however, you begin to recognize just how deep that chasm is. There seem to be a number of reasons for the disparity, many of which I’ve encountered in the last week or two.

The first reason I find myself struggling is simply that I never learned the necessary words. Yesterday, I was driving home from the grocery store, and my check engine light came on. This seems to be a poorly named light, because all it really tells you is that you might want to swing by the bank on your way to the mechanic. Whatever is wrong with the engine, transmission, or exhaust system is bound to be costly! And you’ve still got to figure out what the problem is.

I came home and asked Zee to call her mechanic and tell him she was sending someone over. Luckily for me, Zee has a mechanic (and has had the same mechanic for 25 years!) who makes his living repairing all the work trucks (which are all Rams as well) for the University here. But regardless of how familiar he is with the inner workings of my Green Monster, I still had to explain the things I’ve noticed about the truck over the last few weeks. Standing in the yard of Miguel Angel’s shop, I realized that not only did I not know any of the words for the various hunks of metal underneath the hood of my truck, but I also didn’t know how to translate the things we say to describe their functioning (or lack thereof) in English.

While idling, my truck has been running roughly. Kevan suggested that this might have to do with the timing between the transmission and the engine. How, I wondered, was I going to explain this in Spanish. To me, describing a truck as running roughly while idling is loaded with colloquialisms. Can you translate those words directly to Spanish? Or are there a different set of colloquialisms in Spanish? Or do I just not know enough about mechanics to figure out what works and what doesn’t?

Miguel Angel is truly an angel. He was as patient as patient can be, and with a great deal of pantomiming and lots of laughter at the ridiculousness of it all, we seemed to manage to communicate. He kept the truck for four days. At the end of those four days, I was happy to discover that the pantomiming had been successful, and the truck seems to be happy again. We’ll see how it goes!

Yes, that pun was intended…

Sometimes, the language barrier is less about knowing the words then it is about being prepared for a situation. A few weeks ago, the kitchen sink developed a leak. Luckily, it developed it on Wednesday, the day that Zee’s handyman comes to fix, fuss, and garden. When he arrived, I asked if he could pop by to help me with a problem when he was done. He readily agreed and went off to do his work.

In the meantime, I realized that I had no idea how to say the word “leak” in Spanish. So, I popped into the office and looked it up in the handy dictionary. Armed with my new, handy word, I waited for Tonio to arrive.

Two hours later, he came to the door. I led him to the kitchen sink, proudly proclaiming that I had a leak in the sink. He bent down, looked under the sink, and said, “No you don’t.”

Just an aside here. Tonio is quite convinced I’m a total, complete, utter, incompetent idiot. Some days, I’m not sure he is wrong, but I know a leak in the kitchen pipes when I see one! I wanted to insist. I knew all the words individually, but together? For some reason, this situation just struck me dumb. Trying to wrap my brain around the conversation that needed to happen proved impossible. After a few false starts, with Tonio looking more and more disgusted at each one, I finally gave up and told him I’d let him know if the mysterious leak reappeared.

“Si, senorita” he responded, with a barely concealed roll of they eyes. He walked out, leaving me to ponder the workings of the sink pipes in English solitude.

Still, sometimes the language barrier, or the assumption of one, comes in handy. When Kim was here visiting, we drove to Taxco for a weekend away. The route is relatively straightforward, though at a couple of points the highway signage leaves a great deal to be desired, even by Mexican standards! At one point along the route, we reached a toll plaza. A line of booths stood in front of us. In the four left lanes, the booths were marked as closed with big red x’s glowing above each lane. Off to the side, the two right lanes had big inviting green arrows glowing above. No signs were in evidence. I did what seemed to me the obvious thing and pulled into one of the lanes marked as open.

As a rule, I make conversation with the toll booth man by asking him if I’m heading in the right direction. It gives us both something to do while one of us fumbles for change. So, as I handed him my bills, I smiled and said, “Is this the road to Taxco?”

“Taxco? You want to go to Taxco? But you need to be over there!” He pointed at the four booths marked as closed. I watched a car sail through. Oh dear…

Apparently, the red x’s, which everywhere else in Mexico indicate a closed toll booth, here indicated that there was no need to stop and pay a toll and you should feel free to keep driving right on through on your way to Taxco.

Sighing, I asked the man at the Tollbooth how to get back on the highway from the exit I was apparently pulling off at.

He sighed. He explained that this was quite impossible. There was no way back on the highway, he insisted.

Now, this struck me as problematic and illogical. Surely, if you can get off the highway, eventually you can get back on…. I decided it was time to “not understand”

I smiled sweetly, nodded, and said, “Oh, o.k., and am I going to go right or left after that?”

He looked puzzled. He insisted again that there was no way out of the exit and back onto the highway.

I nodded eagerly and said, “Yes, yes, but then do I go right or left?” I was determined not to understand.

By this time, a crowd had gathered. The army man with the submachine gun who guards the toll plaza sauntered over. The vendors who sell everything from a windshield wash to fresh baked bread to the cars stopped at the toll plazas gathered. The men all looked at each other, they looked at me. They decided that the easiest thing to do was to get the 8 cars and 5 tractor trailers lined up behind me in the lane to back up enough that I could get back on the highway. It was either that or make the gringa understand Spanish, and given the choice, well… It was no competition.

So the vendors fanned out waving madly for all the cars and trucks to back up. The army man conducted it all with his machine gun. High pitched beeps filled the air as the big rigs started moving slowly out of the way. The cars sandwiched between had no choice but to follow along. Soon enough, I had crossed back to the highway and Kim and I were on our merry way to Taxco, leaving the confusion of the drivers trying to get back into line at the tollbooth behind. Sometimes, language barriers can be most effective!

This all seemed quite funny until a couple of days ago (and yes, now I really mean a couple of days ago…). I was talking to some Mexicans the other day and, of course, we were speaking Spanish. Then some Americans joined us and we were switching back and forth between Spanish and English. After a few minutes of this, one of the Americans turned to me and, to offer a compliment, said, “Wow, your English isn’t too bad. Where did you learn to speak it?”

All I could think was, “Oh my god, I’ve been here long enough that I make only marginal sense in any given language at a time!” My new biggest fear is that I will return home to face the same language barriers, but in English! So please, when you next see me in the US, be kind and patient with my fumbling for words and badly constructed phrases. And rest assured, I don't make any more sense in Spanish!

BACK AMONG THE LIVING - July 8th, 2006

After only five more trips back to the office, a mere nine phone calls later, just 38 days after my first visit to TELMEX, and ten days after the phone line was installed, I finally got internet access at home! I'll spare you the details. By now, you can imagine what was required.

The addition of high speed internet in the house has totally transformed my life. I'd like to say that it has allowed me to buckle down and be more productive. Unfortunately... Well... Uhm.... Maybe we'd better just stick with it totally transforming my life. So far, the things I'm really enjoying about it are:

1. Skype!!! (I'm not posting the number here for obvious reasons, but if you want to call me on the cheap, email me and I'll let you know how to find me...)

2. ITunes, which has brought Jon Stewart and real news back into my life!

3. Live streaming on MLB.com, which has no blackouts if you are accessing it from Mexico!!!

I'm also working my way slowly but surely through all those emails I haven't been replying to. If you are on the list of people I ought to have responded to in the last few weeks, I'll be getting to it soon! Promise!

All this has raised just one concern. Now that my house has the complete set of utilities, what on earth am I going to talk about here? TELMEX has provided so much material, though I hope they don't provide anymore... Probably almost as much as you do!

The only utility drama I have left is the water. For those of you who've never had to deal with water issues in Mexico, let me explain why this is an area of potential ongoing drama. Like many houses here, mine has no well or water line coming into it. I have a cistern underneath the house that holds a reasonable amount of water. There is a pump attached to it which moves water from underneath the house to a smaller tank on top of the house. Water for the house is supplied through this tank. When the tank on the roof empties, a float turns the pump on and water is pumped up to refill the tank.

It seems as if the tank on the roof always runs out of water when I am about halfway through a shower. The pump comes on, and I stand shivering, soap running into my eyes, waiting for the tank to fill enough to allow me to finish my shower. This system isn’t so bad when everything works. Every now and again, I hit a glitch. Sometimes the pump stops working. It pumps and pumps, but can’t get any water up to the roof. Sometimes the float malfunctions. In this case, either the pump doesn’t come on, or it doesn’t shut off (sending buckets of water pouring off the roof and me scurrying for the switch…). By far the most common problem, however, is that the cistern is empty.
To get it filled up, I have to call the landlady so she can arrange for the water people to come to the house. Unfortunately, her phone is out of service as often as it is in service, but once I get her on the phone and explain the problem, the situation is quickly resolved. Sometimes startlingly so!

Where does this water come from, you ask? Well, in my case, it comes from right next door. The people who live down the road from me are in the business of selling water. Basically, they moved into the neighborhood, bought a house, and drilled a well. Every day, they fill a big truck up with water and go out and fill up people’s cisterns. In so doing, they drain the water table, leaving everyone in the neighborhood to either buy their water or dig a deeper well. Eventually, the water guys need to deepen their well, too. The result is sort of like a cold war era arms race with all the accompanying social tensions.

I’ve learned all this over the course of the last few weeks since my first call for water! The first time I ran out of water, I called the landlady. The first dozen times I called, I got the voice of the TELMEX lady operator, who informed me that the phone was out of service, but please I shouldn’t call anyone because TELMEX was aware of the problem. (I now know that this is just part of the drill… Her phone is always out of service the first few times I call… Which, come to think of it, is probably why I don’t need to call anyone and inform them of the problem.) Just as I was heading to bed, after about three hours of trying to get through, I finally reached the landlady. I explained the problem, and she said that she would call the water people and I should expect them the next afternoon or the morning after that.

Happy to have the issue mostly resolved, I crawled into bed. It was still early, just 9:30 or so, but I had to be up and out in the field first thing the next morning. As I was drifting off to sleep about a half hour later, Kim knocked on my door. I got up.

“Yeah, is everything o.k.?”

Kim said, “Well, uhm, I think there is somebody in the driveway. They’ve been there quite some time…”

I went with Kim into the guest room and looked out the window. It was a water truck!

“At ten o’clock at night?”

I threw on a sweater and shoes and went out front. “Can I help you?”

There were two guys standing in front of the truck. They explained that my landlady called and they were here to put water in my cistern.

We had to shout everything over a barking dog. One of the dogs (Tofi) who runs with our street’s pack used to live in my house. Once upon a time, my house was rented by three astronomy students who were here working on their doctorates at Mexico’s National Observatory (which is a twenty minute walk from my house). They adopted Tofi and she lived here with them for quite some time. When they graduated and went on their respective ways, Zee took Tofi. While Tofi lives with Zee, she seems quite convinced that taking care of my house and keeping it safe and ready for the return of her beloved boys is part of her mission in life. If anybody comes near me or my house when Tofi is around, she goes nuts. On this particular evening, Tofi positioned herself between me and the water men and barked fiercely for the entire 30 minutes that they were here.

All this excitement brought the rest of the grownup dogs out of their beds to see what the fuss was about. Amber and Rambo, a pair of German Shepard sized dogs, ambled up, likely convinced that Tofi was getting more than her fair share of love or treats of something. Amber, always jealous, worked her way in next to me and Tofi. Rambo wandered around, sniffing everything and everyone. Alpha, a big, black, strong dog, emerged and hung around, lurking out in the shadows, keeping a wary eye on the proceedings.

Very few people here like or trust dogs, and the water guys were definitely not happy about my entourage. One of them hung back, his back pressed tightly to the hood of the truck, eyes wide, looking terrified as the dogs sniffed around. The other guy started to fill the tank and then, to kill time, tried to flirt with Kim and I over Tofi’s barking.

Kim asked me to ask him if he knew what the fireworks were for.

(We have fireworks here every night, always for some fiesta or other. And they shoot off firecrackers at the end of the mass. In an area of Mexico famous for its number of churches, there are always fireworks or firecrackers of some sort.)

The water guy rolled his eyes, and said, “Oh, some fiesta or other. The people here have lots. First they pray, and then they get really drunk and shoot off fireworks. You understand what I’m saying? First, they pray… (this is accompanied by a very amusing pantomime of piety) and then they drink… (pantomime of drinking and a bit of staggering to emphasize how much…)”

Kim and I giggle at his acting out the scenario, knowing it is quite true. In spite of Tofi’s barking, he is emboldened by our amused reactions. His eyes light up. “Then they dance! Do you girls like to drink and dance? I like to dance!” He leers suggestively while attempting a salsa step or two.
Tofi gets nervous at this last bit, she doesn’t like salsa apparently, she decides to buckle down and bark like she means it, throwing in a few growls for the hell of it.

“Dance?” I respond. “No, we don’t like to dance. Neither of us ever, ever dance.”

I bend down and tell Tofi what a good dog she is. She isn’t the slightest bit distracted by my pats and reassurances. She is a dog on a mission!

The water man recognizes he is loosing. “That dog, she sure does want to protect you!” he says, laughing nervously. “He,” pointing somewhat unsteadily at his colleague, “is really afraid of dogs.”

“Well,” I answer unmercifully, “she won’t bother you while I’m here. But yes, she takes her job of protecting me and the house very seriously. She is quite fierce about it.”

This didn’t sit well with either of them. They hurried to finish and packed up the hoses. They waved nervously, edged around the dogs, and took off. While they were totally nice, I was very happy to have Tofi there! It was late, and, at that time, I didn’t know they lived in the neighborhood. Never hurts to have a ferocious dog around…

Now I just have to hope they agree to come back next time!

Prostituting Myself for a Phone Line - June 28th, 2006

As you read the title of this blog, some of you may have found yourself thinking, “Well, gosh, Elizabeth! That seems kind of extreme! Surely phone lines aren’t that hard to come by!” But they are. As are TELMEX installation/repair men.

Last winter, Zee’s phone went out. She visited the office on a weekly basis, complaining of no service. Finally after TWO MONTHS, a repairman showed up and started to work on a problem that took him two more weeks to resolve (the connection to the main pole was no longer connected….). She has been telling me for the last four weeks, “I know they said they’d call you in 30 days, but you realize they won’t, right? You are going to have to go in and complain weekly until someone shows up…”

I knew in my heart this was true. I didn’t want to believe it. I don’t have the wherewithal for another seven hours in the TELMEX office. As the thirty day mark approached, a day in the presence of Mr. Bureaucracy was looming. And then a miracle occurred…

Yes, another miracle!

I got in from the field yesterday, hot, tired, and dusty after a day of ethnographic research and student supervision in the village of La Soledad Morelos. After a mango smoothie, I went straight for the shower to clean up. Just after I hopped out of the shower, I heard Kim shout, “Elizabeth, come quick! There is a TELMEX man outside looking at the pole in the street!!!”

I threw on a tank top and skirt, dashed to my lab where I grabbed my installation paperwork, and ran outside.

The TELMEX man was already in his truck, but when he looked up and saw a gringa in a flimsy, low cut tank top running towards him with a look of desperation on her face, he stopped. He leaned out of the truck, leered at me, waiting for me to proposition him.

“Hola, señor! Esta aqui para instalar mi línea de teléphono?” I bat my eyelashes madly, hoping that my bad Spanish is endearingly or adorably so.

Apparently, it works. Or the tank top does. He fixes his gaze firmly on my chest and says, “Well, now, that depends, who are you?”

I give him my name and whip out the work order. “I have my paperwork,” I explain, eyes fluttering and chest heaving.

He pauses, savoring the moment. “Well,” he finally answers, “I am actually here to install a telephone in your neighbor’s house…” He gestures towards Renee’s house. Renee has shown me every kindness and watches out for my house when he is working in his yard late at night. In spite of this kindness, I find myself thinking of ways to sabotage Renee’s TELMEX visit.

Luckily, there is no need. While evil, no good thoughts were running through my head, the TELMEX man, who’s name I later find out is Pedro, starts going through the work orders on his clipboard. He finally finds one that matches mine about half way through the pile of 75+ orders. He looks at it, he looks at me, he looks at my breasts, he looks back at the work order. He sighs. “I suppose I could come do your installation when I finish with your neighbor.”

If I were the sort of woman who jumps up and down and claps her hands to show extreme happiness, I would have. I couldn’t swear at this moment that I didn’t. I was awfully happy. I probably wouldn’t have thanked Pedro more effusively if he had just pulled me out of a pit of rattlesnakes.

I retreated to the house so Pedro could get on with his job. Kim and I pulled chairs up near the door so we could make sure he didn’t drive off. I think he probably thought our motivations were not based on my desire to have a telephone line installed and to not have that installation involve another trip to TELMEX. It didn’t matter. As long as he came back and didn’t leave until I had a phone, I didn’t care what he thought. After about 20 minutes with Renee, Pedro drives back to my driveway. There are dogs everywhere. I currently have seven living around my house and a couple more who visit regularly. He looks around him at the seven dogs and asks me nervously if it is safe to get out of the truck.

I look at the three Marias (three beautiful black lab puppies who are only a couple months old and who have only JUST learned to sit and not bite. Sometimes….), throw caution to the wind, and say, “Oh yeah, they are really, really friendly…” He gets out of the truck. The three Marias go crazy. The older dogs stand around, contemplating barking. I rush in to drag the puppies off Pedro, Kim rushes out to help me. The problem with the Three Marias is that they outnumber any one person, three dogs to only a pair of hands.

Pedro smoothes his hair. I’m afraid he is going to leave, but the puppy love is totally worth two gringas kneeling at his feet, even if they do have armfuls of hysterical black lab. Looking down at us, Pedro sees opportunity. He gets down on his hands and knees and eagerly starts petting and tickling the puppies, getting a few tickles in at the expense of Kim and I, as well.

Inwardly, I roll my eyes. But I don’t have a phone line, yet!

Escaping the puppies (and Pedro’s “accidentally” roaming hands), we return to the house. Pedro makes himself comfortable in the kitchen where Kim offers him a soda. We exchange pleasantries. Pedro decides to teach us some Spanish. “Do you know what niña bonita means?” he asks us.

I try not to groan. I nod. Kim, poor innocent, says no.

Pedro leaps on this. “Ah!” he says, “It means beautiful girl! You are both such beautiful girls…”

This goes on for quite some time. I keep trying to steer the conversation in the direction of telephone lines. Pedro will not be dissuaded. This beautiful opportunity is not going to be derailed by work!

It takes a full forty minutes of flirting before Pedro gets to work. After spending another twenty minutes installing the phone line, Pedro returns for another thirty minutes of flirtation. He gives me a one on one lesson on how to plug my phone into the outlet (seriously…). Finally, he can think of no reason to stay any longer. He presses his cell phone number on me. “This is my number. My personal, private, direct number. I always have it on me! Please call me! I can come and set up your internet when you get it! If your phone breaks, I will come and fix it! We can have dinner, and I can give you little classes of Spanish!” I smile and nod noncommittally, herding Pedro towards the door.

He doesn’t want to leave, but his play has been made. He backs up reluctantly, moving towards his truck, shouting pleasantries and compliments at Kim and I until the last possible moment. Finally, with a sad and lingering backward glance at my cleavage, Pedro drives off in a cloud of dust.

As he leaves, Zee pulls up. She gets out of her car, curious as to what all the commotion has been about. I walk over and hand her Pedro’s cell phone number.

“The TELMEX man was here. Next time your phone breaks, just call this number… His name is Pedro.”

“See You Sunday!” June 12th, 2006

Not much in life (at least as far as I’m concerned) justifies getting up at dawn. Late last week, however, I did it anyway. I thought there was one good reason to be up at a truly ungodly hour, but there turned out to be two! The unexpected bonus was the view out my bedroom window, which I include below.




The picture doesn’t really capture the utter beauty of the sunrise, but I hope it gives those of you who haven’t yet bought your plane tickets an incentive to start planning your trip!

The real reason for dragging my butt out of bed that day was that Kim and I were heading to the Pacific coast of Oaxaca for a long weekend. The university at which my students are all enrolled had their graduation ceremony this past Friday. Those not graduating got a day off, and as a result, so did I! I asked Kim what she wanted to do, since we had some extra time, and she said, “Let’s go to the beach!” I explained that all the decent beaches were quite far and spending 18-22 hours in a bus for a mere long weekend might not make for a very pleasant expedition. But Kim was determined and decided that we would fly to Puerto Escondido.

This decision, incidentally, was made at about six pm the night before we left. Time for ticket purchases was tight. We slogged through the mud over to the internet place to check ticket availability. Since it is the low season for the beaches, we had no problem. There were plenty of tickets available, but because of the rather last minute nature of the purchase, we had to call rather than book online.

This is where our problems began…

Kim doesn’t speak Spanish, so I had to do the calling, even though she was doing the paying. As a result, everything had to be translated back and forth, which probably didn’t add to the success of the endeavor. In spite of the complicated nature of the communication and the operator’s unwillingness to be amused by these complications, we got everything worked out. Dates, times, seats, etc were chosen, names, addresses, and phone numbers were given, all that was left to do was pay!

So I said to the gentlemen who was unenthusiastically assisting us, “We’ll be using a Visa card…”

“Visa?” He asks.

“Yep.” I say cheerfully.

“Oh, we don’t accept anything but American Express unless you are Mexican. If you are Mexican, we will accept a Visa or Mastercard, but for foreigners, we only accept American Express.”

“HUH?” I say, and turning to Kim, “Do you have an American Express card?”

“A what?” she says, confused.

“They only take American Express,” I mutter, my hand over the phone.

“I don’t! I mean, who ONLY accepts American Express?” she says.

I relay the bad news to the man on the phone, still puzzling over why Mexicana airlines (a not inconsequential international carrier) will only accept American Express from foreigners.

He says, “Well, that is o.k. You can come to the airport by 11 tomorrow morning and pay in cash. But you must pay in cash. I have made a reservation in your name, so give that to them along with the full amount of the ticket in cash, and you can still take this flight.”

I thank him for his “help” (however reluctant), hang up, and relay the information to Kim. We decide we will get up bright and early to catch a bus to Mexico City to deal with this in the morning. After all, the beach beckons…

We pack, head off to bed, and I remember that I haven’t called my usual taxi driver and now it is too late. “Not a big deal,” I decide, “I can just hail one out in the main street tomorrow.” Happily, I drift off to sleep, unaware of the drama in store!

In the morning, after some time with the sunrise, I head up to the main street a couple of blocks from my house to hail a cab. I figure it won’t be too much trouble. It is, after all, a major thoroughfare, and it is rush hour, too! I stand there for quite some time, finally flagging a taxi down. I tell him that I am going to the bus station in Puebla. He doesn’t want to go there, he only wants to do the run in between Tonancintla and Cholula. He takes off. I continue to wait. Finally, after much failed hailing, a second taxi driver pulls over. I explain where I going. He says, “O.K., but I have one more run to make and then I will come get you.”

I say, “My bus is at 8:30, are you sure you can do both.” [Yeah, I know, dumb me, but I’d only had one cup of coffee and it was still early! I thought there would be time.]

He insists there will be no problem. I take his phone number just in case. He swears on his mother’s grave that he will be at my house no later then 8:00 am.

Satisfied, though the tiniest bit nervous, I head back to the house for another cup of coffee and a bit more time contemplating the fading sunrise and still amazing sky. Kim and I kick back in front of the house, feet up on our luggage, and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

At 8:15, I call him.

“I’m coming!!! I’m coming!!!” he shouts without preamble before hanging up on me.

We give him five more minutes and then grab our luggage and head to the main road. Luckily, there is also a 9 am bus that should, barring traffic, get us to Mexico City in time. Hopefully, we can find a taxi quickly. As we round the corner on the side street that leads to the main road, we see a taxi careening towards us. He comes screeching to a halt (as much as one can screech on a dirt road), leaps out of the still-running car, grabs our bags, throws them in the trunk, and leaps back into the driver’s seat yelling, “GET IN!!! GET IN!!! HURRY!!!!!!”

Kim and I climb into the back seat, and I remind him that he was supposed to pick us up at eight and that our bus leaves Puebla in only ten minutes.

“I can make it, I can make it!” He shouts.

(More careening. I’m wishing that I was the sort of person who could find comfort in prayer…)

The taxi’s dashboard is stuffed with good luck charms, pyramids piled on stuffed animals piled on pyramids. I’m afraid they are there because he has repeatedly found himself lacking in good luck while driving. I imagine a scenario where he adds a good luck charm to the dashboard after every accident. I try not to count them while I fumble for my seatbelt.

“So where are you going?” he shouts back.

Once again, I explain that we are going to the bus station in Puebla on 4 Poniente. “The station with the buses to the airport in Mexico City. We have a flight from there. That is why we needed to be on the 8:30 bus.” I explain, hoping to simultaneously clarify and chastise.

“The airport?” he yells. “But the airport is right here in Huehotzingo! Are you going to the airport or the bus!?!?!? Would you just tell me where you want to go?!?!”

I suspect he is deliberately misunderstanding me to dodge the whole “late” issue. We argue back and forth for a bit until I say, “Oh, just take us to the bus station.”

Kim and I lapse into disapproving silence, possibly induced by the exhaust fumes seeping into the back seat of the taxi.

In spite of the fact that it is now past 8:30 and we have no hope of catching the bus, our driver continues at breakneck speed, running every red light he encounters with his horn blaring to warn off the traffic with the legal right of way. During one such incident, as he flies through the intersection, causing cars all around us to come screeching to a halt (yes really, more screeching!), he reaches into his glove compartment and, in a moment of breathtaking optimism, tosses his business card over his right shoulder at us.

“When are you coming back?” he asks as the card flutters into my lap.

“Uh, Sunday sometime.” I respond reluctantly. “But I don’t know when!”

“Well,” he announces, “You just call me! Call me anytime you need a cab, and I will be there to pick you up and take you where you need to go! Any time you want! I am very reliable.”

This last bit is relayed as we come to a halt in front of the bus station, a mere 30 minutes late. Just in the nick of time for the 9 am bus.

I run in to the bus station to buy tickets, leaving him to cheerfully cheat Kim out of 20 pesos in change.

We get on the bus. Sighing happily, I assume that we have had our “story” for the day. We spend the ride discussing the awful things we might do to his business card.

We arrive at the Mexico City airport shortly after 10:30 (no traffic!!!), and head straight for the Mexicana ticket desk. We approach the man. I say, “We have a reservation for today to Puerto Escondido.”

He searches in the computer, shakes his head, and says, “No reservation here, but I have seats. But they [pointing to two women at the next counter] may have cheaper ones. He shouts across the baggage scale to the woman next to him, who is on the phone, “Do you have seats to Puerto Escondido? They want to go to Puerto Escondido today.” She nods, points to the woman next to her who is doing nothing but her nails, covers the mouthpiece of the phone, and hisses what I assume is “Puerto Escondido” at her. We move down two spots, and the woman pleasantly takes all our information. She, too, is unable to find the mysterious reservation, but whatever, she has seats!

She quotes us a price that, amazingly, is $50 less per person! We are so pleased the reservations aren’t in evidence! Even more amazing, she doesn’t blink when we hand her a Visa card attached to Kim’s US address (let alone demand an American Express!)! She processes everything and hands us the paperwork. It is then that I think, “Huh, she never asked us for our return date.” I look at the ticket. Not only is it a one way ticket, but it is a one way ticket to Puerto Vallarta!

I relay the information to Kim. She suggests that this might be a sign that we are meant to go to Puerto Vallarta and not come back. I think maybe not. I think maybe it is just more tramite and am having flashbacks to my day at TELMEX.

I explain to the woman at the ticket desk that we have no interest in visiting Puerto Vallarta, but wouldn’t mind purchasing two round trip tickets to Puerto Escondido returning Sunday. We go through the entire process again. She is surprisingly pleasant about the whole fiasco.

Believe it or not, we did indeed make it to Puerto Escondido exactly when we had intended! We hadn’t quite counted on the pouring rain that greeted us, but enjoyed ourselves immensely in spite of the rather damp beach weather. We checked in to a lovely hotel and chose a very orange room with a deck looking out over the Pacific ocean. We settled in to the porch and spent the afternoon reading, watching the storm over the ocean, and knitting.

The next morning we got up and found that it was still raining. Desperate for coffee, we ran next door to a likely looking restaurant called El Jardin. It turned out to be a superb restaurant with an excellent menu and an espresso machine. The restaurant is owned by a slightly crazy Italian man who provides the entertainment for free. That first morning, we took our seats, and he came dashing up to the table, shouting in English with a thick Italian accent, “What are we going to fix for you today, ladies!”

He withholds the menus. This is not a choice to be made with quiet, solitary reading. No, rather, it requires careful, detailed negotiation. We negotiate my waffles for quite some time. He runs through a long list of all the things that he can put on them, repeatedly informing me that they will be the best waffles I have ever tasted, but they can’t be rushed! It will take some time, but I will remember the waffles for ever. We finally settle on waffles with fresh fruit (though he is distraught when he finds out that I don’t care for papaya, moaning, “And I thought you were perfect!”). I add a cappuccino to my order.

“Ah, a cappuccino!” he exclaims, throwing his hands even wider. “I myself, with my own two hands, will make your cappuccino, and it will be the best cappuccino you have ever had in your life!”

Kim decides to forgo the negotiations and have what I’m having. He promises to make her cappuccino, too. He whips around and relays the information, with much drama and detail, to the long suffering waitress, then dashes towards the cappuccino machine. Unfortunately for me, en route, he spies a couple looking over menus. He pauses for a moment, stunned and, I suspect, horrified that they could choose their food this way, then races over and rips the menus out of their startled hands. New negotiations ensue.

I turn to Kim. “I’m thinking the coffee is going to be a while…”

She laughs and nods. We wait.

Finally, he returns with a single cappuccino. He sets it in front of me with a flourish, insisting I will be amazed, and then dashes off to newly arrived customers daring to look at a menu.

Kim and I look at the coffee, we look at each other, sizing one another up. Who is more desperate for the coffee? Who is likely to win the fight? Will there be blood? The waitress, seeing the impending fight to the death, approaches quickly. “Uhm, did you order two coffees?”

We nod.

She takes a deep breath, “I’ll take care of it…”

She walks across the restaurant and stands just out of reach of his madly flailing arms, waiting for him to draw breath. When the inevitable pause comes, she darts in and reminds him of the other coffee.

“Oh yes!” he exclaims, and he dashes back to the coffee maker, leaving his latest customers in mid-order.

Eventually, we get and finish our coffee and waffles, leave an extra big tip for the waitress, and head out. We pass the day pleasantly enough, sneaking in a bit of exploring when the rain lets up for about an hour. At dinner time, it is pouring again, and so we head back to the same restaurant.

We sit, he arrives, we go through our negotiations. He approves of our choices. He says affectionately, “Ah, you girls, I can trust you! You do not order boring food! No, you order lovely, good food!” He hands the menus back to us, as if passing off a sacred trust. As he does, he pauses. He looks at me. He says, “But sweetheart, tell me one thing!”

“Yes?” I ask nervously.

“Today, it rains all day! Very romantic, but not so good for the beach.”

“Well, yes,” I agree.

“Then how, where,” he asks, throwing his arms even wider, “DID YOU GET A SUNBURN!?!?!?”

Before we can answer that we too have been wondering just the same thing, he dashes off to intercept another order across the restaurant. People, apparently, who he does not trust with the menu.

The Virgin of Guadalupe and Other Miracles - 6/6/2006
It has been a busy few days! After recovering from the experience at TELMEX, I spent the rest of last week running around trying to gather bits and pieces together for our resubmission of the permit request. This progresses slowly but surely. Today, I finished rewriting the proposal for research! Hopefully, I'll soon have the permit sorted out and productivity can begin!

I finished up last week by meeting with the student who is running the ethnography part of the program, and the two of us developed projects for the students who are working for me.

We began research in the village near the Hacienda yesterday. Mainly, we are collecting oral histories about the Hacienda, and the archaeologists are concentrating on the material "things" in the stories people tell to help contextualize our excavations. We are also collecting information on distribution systems, studying what things are available for purchase in the village and what are available at the market in town. We have a student who is, uhm, socially challenged (read "my cross to bear"), and we gave him the task of writing complete lists of items in the stores while Mary Carmen and I talk to the store owners.

This last strategy has worked out brilliantly. The student has totally risen to the occasion. I talked to him for a long time about what an important assignment this is (which it genuinely is, and unique suited to his personality, or lack thereof), and he is completely pumped up. He was actually showing enthusiasm and initiative (this is the second summer I've worked with him and I've never seen this before). Apparently the change in him, rumored due to being entrusted with important work, has been noted and gossiped about throughout the department. Zee came home today from work and said, "So I hear you have worked a miracle with that kid!"

We'll see if the miracle sticks, but at the moment I'm totally thrilled at the possibility of not only keeping him from alienating some of our informants, but also getting some really good data out of it! More on the progress of research over the course of the coming weeks! Keep fingers crossed for me!

And with all the work out of the way, it was and is off for some fun!

My friend Kim arrived from Boston Saturday afternoon. I took the bus into Mexico City to meet her and we spent the rest of the weekend enjoying the City. Saturday afternoon and evening, we wandered around the streets of the historic center in the rain, stopping for snacks in this cafe and that when the rain got to heavy.

Sunday morning, we got up and headed out for a day at the Basilica of Guadalupe. In addition to a profound religious experience, we expected to enjoy the opportunity to shop for great tacky kitsch. We were not disappointed. At least not in the kitsch department! All sorts of unbelievable crap was proudly displayed underneath bright awnings for blocks and blocks surrounding the basilica. One does wonder how great the demand is for a CD (designed not to play but to hang from your rearview mirror) emblazoned with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe cradling Pope John Paul II in her arms. Apparently, though, it sells quite well, as quantities of them were available at possibly a dozen stands (that I saw...). Also available was the much sought after Virgin of Guadalupe-in-a-walnut-shell-key-chain. For the younger set, many vendors were selling framed images of the Virgin Mary, but not just any framed image. The frame had a plug, and when plugged in, hypnotic, swirling lights flashed behind the virgin. I'm not sure what kind trip it is meant to send you on, but I doubt it would be a good one! The connection was unclear, but, while visiting the basilica, you could also pick up a life sized paper mache statue of the grim reaper to commemorate your visit.

Beyond the nasty commercialism stood the Basilica itself. The new Basilica is really, really ugly (this time, pictures will follow. I promise!), a monument to some self-satisfied architect who was probably determined to build something totally unique. In the stone courtyard in front, half a dozen people approached the Basilica on their knees, crawling towards the Virgin in penance and devotion (OUCH!).

Inside, the scene was one of quiet chaos. There were hundreds of people pressed in, trying to see the apparition of the Virgin. It seemed as if everybody had an infant in their arms, and a toddler underfoot. Everyone was quiet and polite and respectful. Curiously, Kim and I were the only foreign tourists I saw during our entire visit!

As we approached the cloak of Juan Diego, kept high up above the rabble and protected behind glass, we were all forced to step onto one of four moving sidewalks which allowed us to glide by the Virgin (not unlike a trip to see the crown jewels in England!). Reaching the end of the "ride", we stumbled up a ramp, and back into the courtyard, where we were greeted with the photo ops. Some enterprising people had set up huge cardboard cutouts of the Virgin. In front of these, they placed plastic horses. For a mere 30 pesos, you could climb onto the back of the plastic horse, don a sombrero, and have your digital pic taken with the Virgin by a fleet of men in grey lab coats and white cowboy hats.

I am hoping that somebody out there can fill me in on the relationship between horses/sombreros and the Virgin of Guadalupe? I'm just not up on my miraculous apparition stories, I guess...

And on that note, I should dash! It is getting late here, and I have a busy week ahead.

I hope this finds everyone well, with your own miracles of your choosing!

Hugs to all,
Elizabeth

Trámite – May 31, 2006

The Mexican term for paperwork is trámite. It is a word that I find easy to remember because, to me, it sounds like it falls somewhere in between the English words trauma and tragedy. And, in my experience, this is exactly what one feels when dealing with paperwork in Mexico; traumatized and tragic. This week has been the week of trámite.

As some of you know and some of you don’t, I’m deep in permit hell. When sending our application to dig this year off, Harold called the people who review them and asked if they wanted the images in digital format. “Digital format? Why would we want that! We can’t do anything with that! No, just send paper copies, please.” So we did as asked. And, of course, you guessed it, our permit was rejected based on the absence of digital images. So, we have to gather everything together, get the digital images put together, and resubmit the proposal. Then, we twiddle our thumbs until these people next meet (could be next week, or maybe next month…), and review the resubmission. Keep your fingers crossed!

In the midst of these negotiations, I decided that the unexpected time off afforded me the perfect opportunity to go to the TELMEX office and attempt to get a phone line put in so I could attempt to get internet service at my house. What is TELMEX? Those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of making their acquaintance may need some context. TELMEX is the telephone monopoly in Mexico. It is the best example of why monopolies are a bad idea that I have ever encountered. You are about to see why…

Just an aside, you are going to read the story below and think I’m exaggerating for the sake of the story. But trust me. I’m not. I was in the TELMEX office for SEVEN HOURS!!! Yes, that is seven. I offer the cliff notes of the day below. Those of you who have had your own dealings with TELMEX, feel free to support my assertion of their awfulness in the comments…

In my experience, the earlier you get in line, the shorter the line will be. I expected that the lines at TELMEX might be epic by midday, so I very intelligently went first thing in the morning. I took a number (like at the deli counter). I took a seat. They were on number 59. I had drawn number 63. What luck! Thank goodness I got up early! And there were five people at five desks helping people! This wouldn’t be too bad….

Another aside. I now suspect the 59 represented the number of people they had assisted during the month of May. When I left the office seven hours later, they had made it to number 73. Yes, five people had managed to help 14 people over the course of seven hours.

A mere 45 minutes after I took my number (yes, I brought two books), they made it to number 63. I went up to the open desk, and Mr. Bureaucracy kindly offered me an empty seat.
“How can I help you?” says Mr. Bureaucracy kindly and smoothly.

“Well,” say I, “I would like to have high speed internet in my house, but I do not have a phone. So I think I need to have a phone installed and then get internet.”

“Yes, yes,” agrees Mr. B., “You do need a phone. So where do you live?”

O.K., so here is the thing. My house is in a pretty rural location. As a result, I don’t have an address. The dirt road in front of my house has a name, and the house is in a town, but I have no house number. I asked Zee about this the night before I went to TELMEX. She said, “Oh, most people in Tonancintla don’t have house numbers. And since you are the only house on this side of the street it especially doesn’t matter! I have a house number, but to do that, I had to go to the Presidencia [the mayor’s office] and hire surveyors to come out and measure and assign my house a number.”

So I hand Mr. B. a form that I’d filled out for a new telephone line that listed my address as Calle Alvaro Obregon S.N. (the S.N. standing for “without number”), Tonancintla. This is the appropriate way of listing an address without a number.

Mr. B. squints at the form. I know I’m in trouble from the look on his face.

“Without a number! I’ve never heard of such a thing! All houses have numbers, you silly girl!”

“Uhm, well, yes,” say I, “That is what I thought, too. But my house doesn’t have a number!”

“Ridiculous! Your house must have a number.”

We go back and forth about this for approximately 30 minutes. He says, “Well, I’ll just have to get the plan of Tonancintla and we will have to find the number.”

This sounds like a fine idea to me, and I say so, applauding him on his excellent problem solving.

But wait. No. This would require him to get up from his desk and walk 15 feet to where the plans are kept. On second thought…

He smiles nicely and tells me that someone on my street must have an address. I admit that yes, my neighbor has a number on her house across the street.

“Well,” says Mr. B., “What is that?”

Stupidly, I didn’t have it. But I did have her name. And I had her phone number. And this is the phone company… So I suggest that maybe we could look in the phone book?

Mr. B. laughs at the stupid Gringa and patiently explains that in Mexico, many people have the same name. I admit this may be true, but explain that my neighbor is an American, and that on my street of five houses in the small village of Tonancintla, there may not be too many people of the same name.

He laughs again. Stupid American! “There are many Americans living here, senorita, this is not at all practical.”

“Oh, of course, how stupid of me. Then perhaps we could look at the plan?” I say hopefully.

“No,” says Mr. B., “What you need to do is drive back to Tonancintla and get the number of your neighbor off the front of her house and come back here.”

I sigh, realizing this is not a battle I am going to win and agree to drive back to Tonancintla.

He takes pity and says, “When you come back, just come straight to me, do not start in line again.”

“Oh thanks,” say I, ever so gratefully.

I get in the truck. I drive back to Tonancintla. I write down Zee’s address. I write down the number on the telephone pole. I write down the number on the street sign.

I go back and wait for Mr. B. to finish with his current victim (the same woman who he started helping when he left) for another hour.

I retake my seat.

He says, “So, you have the number?”

“Yep, here it is!” I hand it over.

He looks at it, laughs and shakes his head. “Oh, but senorita, this couldn’t possibly be the number!”

“Uhm, well, uhm, it is. It is the number that was assigned to my neighbor by the Presidencia.”

“No, no, senorita. Tonancintla is a small town. This number is much too high. It should be much lower.”

I agree that Tonancintla is indeed a small town, and that there may indeed be fewer houses in the entire town then this number seems to indicate, but insist that it is the number on the front of her house.

Mr. B. spends 20 minutes speculating on what the number might actually be, ignoring my insistence that it actually is that number.

Then we go back to the discussion of what my house number is. We spend another 20 minutes discussing the fact I don’t have a number when of course all houses have numbers.

And then we go back to the fact that Zee’s number is much too high.

I again suggest we check the phone book. Somehow it seems to me that we have enough information here to make the search possible. Of course I am ridiculously wrong.

“I think we need the plan…” suggests Mr. B.

“O.K.” I agree hopefully.

He wanders off to the front of the office. He stands there and chats with a pretty woman for 30 minutes or so. When he sees me pulling out my book, he comes back, smiles at me, sits down at the computer, and stares at the screen for five minutes. No, he doesn’t have the plan. He looks at the screen. He looks at the form I filled out. He looks at the screen… After five minutes of this, he, with one finger, types in my first name. Then he says, “Is this your name?”

I nod.

He nods in satisfaction. With one finger, he types in my last name. Repeat above.

He sighs. He stares at the screen. He sighs again. He goes off in a completely different direction from last time and reappears, miraculously, with the plan of Tonancintla. He opens it out. I locate my street for him. He stares at it for a long while and then looks at me and says, “But senorita, these houses have no numbers!”

I want to cry.

I´ll spare you the rest of the exchange, which ultimately resulted in him looking up Zee’s address using her telephone number (as I had suggested five hours earlier…). After much going around, and two more lines, I finally end up back at his desk ready to have everything signed off on.

“So when do they come to install the telephone lines?” I ask hopefully. I’ve already been told that this will just get me a phone. Then I come back and stand in line to get the internet part of it worked out.

Mr. Bureaucracy looks at me kindly and says, “In thirty days, someone will call you to arrange a time…”

Yes, I spent seven hours getting put on a list to receive a phone call in thirty days….

So the saga continues… I am currently exploring other methods of bringing internet to my house! What the hell. Until the permit comes in, I have plenty of time to stand in line!

Hope this finds you all with less paperwork then I am facing.

Hugs,
E.

Mangoes and Pineapples – May 28th, 2006

As promised… I’m all rested up (well, sort of…) and ready to write properly! The rest of the drive was uneventful. I made the journey from Tampico to Veracruz in just under eight hours (eight hours non-stop to go only 300 miles!!!). It is an awful stretch of highway! It was bad last year. This year, the hard working road crews have improved probably a grand total of 300 feet of it. The rest was just a year’s worth of wear and tear worse! They don’t seem to grade the roads in Veracruz so much as pat them down. Add in the heavy traffic of double tractor trailers, and, well, I think even my truck bottomed out on a few of those pot holes.

It is a truly horrible drive, but waiting at the end of it was an evening of people watching in the Zocalo of Veracruz. THAT part of the day was lovely! I was going to take a picture, but I suspect the image doesn’t translate without the rest of the sensory experience. I couldn’t figure out a way to pack in the heat, humidity, smells, flavors, and sounds of a Friday night in Veracruz. I’m afraid those of you who haven’t been are just going to have to take my word for it. (Or better yet, try it for yourself!!!)

The drive up from Veracruz to Tonancintla was easy (except for that ascent of 7000 feet in under two hours bit…). The road between the two cities is a two lane (in each direction) “super highway”, and you pay through the nose in tolls ($30+ for the four hour drive!) for its maintenance. That said, it makes for pleasant, smooth driving, something I was grateful for by yesterday afternoon.

The only stop I made, other than for gas and tolls, was to buy mangoes. It is harvest season for those wonderful, small, yellow, extra flavorful mangoes, and the breakdown lane was packed with people hawking crates of them for 50 pesos/crate. For those of you who don’t speak peso, that is just under $5 US. I figured I could peel, slice, and freeze them for months of smoothies to come. It seemed like such a good idea at the time…

So, uhm, anybody who has tasty recipes involving mangoes, please send them!!! I’m desperate!!!

I arrived in Tonancintla at about four in the afternoon. Zee did an amazing job getting the house ready. She got the family who works for her in, and they cleaned from top to bottom, painted furniture, brought in new furniture, hung pictures, and filled the house with plants and flowers for me to gradually kill over the course of the next few months. It looks great! And it was nice to arrive and be greeted by something that actually looked like a home (rather than a place to camp out while doing fieldwork…).

Since then, I’ve been settling in, unpacking, etc. Today I went to the grocery store to buy all the start up necessities along with regular groceries. I was wandering through the aisles aimlessly, cart full to the brim, trying to think of what I couldn’t live without, when a middle-aged woman dressed for her day at the market (and I mean DRESSED - coordinating outfit, perfect coiffure and makeup, big rocks on fingers, neck, and ears, spiked heels) comes up to me, and launches into this long saga:

“Excuse me, Senora, but I hope you can help me. You see, usually my maid comes shopping with me, but she didn’t show up today [imagine the gall, on a Sunday no less!!!]. Usually she is here to help with things, but she isn’t here, and I must have a pineapple for tonight. Without her, I have no idea how to tell if it is ripe. I noticed you have one in your cart, and I was wondering if you could look at mine and tell me if it is ready?”

There was a long pause, as I, with furrowed brow, wondered what was getting lost in translation, because surely this grown woman didn’t need me to look at her pineapple…

Tired of waiting for me to respon, she grabbed my arm and dragged me down the aisle to her cart where she presented me with a decidedly unripe pineapple. I gave the top a wiggle and said, “Well, if you leave this out, it’ll probably be ready by Tuesday night, but it won’t be good to eat tonight.”

She looked desperate, apparently, I was dressed enough like her maid to inspire confidence, “But how do you know?!?!?!”

“Oh dear,” thought I, “my Spanish is not up to this task!”

Somehow, though, with lots of sign language, two pineapples, and what were probably appalling constructions on my part, I communicated just how to tell if your pineapple will be ready tonight or not. She beamed at me gratefully and went dashing off to the fruit and vegetable section, clutching her “unready” pineapple, to wiggle the top of every spiny thing in sight.

And as I watched her go, I thought, “I’m definitely not in New Haven any more!” (and when I paid for my pineapple, which cost me about 65 cents, US, I knew it for sure!)

That’s it for tonight! So send me your mango recipes, along with your news!

Hugs to all,
Elizabeth

PS And to those master gardeners out there… If anybody has any suggestions for raising basil in the tropics, send them along too!

PPS For those of you following this story closely, the new water heater totally rocks! I have HOT water! Not lukewarm water, not tepid water, but actually will-burn-you-unless-moderated-by-cold-water hot water! I’m so happy!!!

Just a quick note for those who are wondering... I arrived this afternoon safe and sound to be greated by snow on the volcano and a new water heater (party time!!!). The trip was incident free, believe it or not. I´m totally exhausted and typing on an awful keyboard, so I'm keeping this short, but I will try and find time and energy to write more tomorrow between unpacking and peeling, slicing, and freezing a crate of mangos (more on that tomorrow....). Hope this finds everyone equally as well!

ROARING CAMP, MAY 25, 2005
When my sister and I were young, we used to go and visit our grandparents in northern California for two weeks every summer. Grandma and Grandpa were pros at entertaining us, taking us to all sorts of fun places like the San Francisco Zoo, Marine World Africa USA, and the Exploratorium. One summer, when I was perhaps eight or nine, the Grands decided to branch out and take us to a new spot. They picked the now infamous Roaring Camp ( http://www.roaringcamp.com/). I wish I could describe the horror that was that day at Roaring Camp, but somehow words fail me. (Cathey, if you feel up to the task, go for it in the comments!) In fact, I’m not sure the dictionary has words for it. The only attempt I can make is to explain that, for years after the trip, to this day, in fact, it is the favorite family threat.

"Behave yourselves or we'll take you back to Roaring Camp" said Grandpa on many an occasion.

And it worked! Cathey and I would turn pale and do what was expected because god forbid we should be forced to return to Roaring Camp!!! Anything, no matter how vile, was better then Roaring Camp!

If you want to know more then that about the family day at Roaring Camp, you will have to come to Mexico, share a beer with me in the Zocalo of some old city or other, and ask to hear more. But I imagine most of you are skimming this thinking, “Oh for goodness sake, Elizabeth, I’m not logged in to read about your not-so-traumatic childhood experiences! Get on with it…” So I will. Believe it or not, there is a reason I’m thinking of Roaring Camp today!

Few geographical locales have left me as reluctant to return as Roaring Camp. Most of the time, I can find some sort of redeeming feature to every place I visit, usually redeeming enough to make me want to return. My blind enthusiasm fails me when it comes to Tampico, Mexico, where I find myself tonight.

Tampico is like the Roaring Camp of my current reality. If ever you want me to shut up and do something unquestioningly, just say, “Elizabeth, if you don’t, I’m going to bundle you into the car, drive you to Tampico, and leave you there!” You will not hear a word of protest about whatever it is after that. I would probably do anything just to avoid a visit to this place.

Tampico is an industrial oil town about 8 hours drive south of the border. In addition to being hot and humid (which isn’t in itself disqualifying as far as revisits are concerned), it is dusty and gritty in that sand-in-your-teeth-at-the-beach kind of way. After about half an hour in Tampico, you feel like every pore is packed full of fine dirt. And then there is the smell… Tampico is an oil refining town and smells it! The traffic is a nightmare, the people are unpleasant, the streets guarantee that you will be lost, and since you’ve driven all day to get here, you are not just lost, but also hungry, tense, and exhausted. Basically, it is a miserable place with as yet undiscovered redeeming qualities! If only I could bring myself to look, but...

On the up side, I found a comfortable hotel which, while lacking air conditioning, has a restaurant and free wireless internet! The best part is that it is only two blocks from the highway to Veracruz, which means I don't have to go anywhere near the town proper when I leave tomorrow!

The last few days have passed quickly and, for the most part, pleasantly. After leaving Nashville (where last I posted...), I drove 11 hours or so to Lucy and Guido's in Dallas. I spent a couple of delightful days there with them (And Billy the dog, Fizz, Merle, Guerro, Izzy, and Darcy the cats, and the three tanks of fish whose names I never learned!). We went out to a sushi restaurant and had my farewell sushi/martinis the night before I left. Much merriment! But sorry, no pictures....

I left Dallas and made the relatively short (only nine hours!!!) drive to the Holiday Inn in Brownsville, spent the night last night, and crossed the border first thing this morning. I imagine the scenery is quite lovely between Matamoros and Brownsville, but I only caught glances of it. My full attention was, unfortunately, needed for the "highway" that runs along the gulf coast. I am happy to report that thus far the drive has been utterly uneventful!

Tomorrow, I leave Tampico for Veracruz, spend a night there (my favorite city in all of Mexico! But more on that in another post.....), and then do the last, short bit up into the mountains on Saturday. With any luck, next time you hear from me, I'll be writing from "home" in Tonancintla!

Hugs,
E.

PS - Matthew tells me that if you do something called RSS (I'm sure I'm mangling the construction of this sentence, but really I have no idea what I'm talking about....), you can subscribe to my blog. The address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/Mexico06-07 and apparently it will tell you when I've posted something new.... For those of you who just can't wait!

THE BIBLE FACTORY OUTLET
MAY 21, 2006
I was driving through rural Tennessee, or maybe Virginia, on my way to Mexico today, and I saw a sign advertising the "Bible Factory Outlet" a mere three miles ahead. Now, maybe it was that I had been in the car for way too many hours by myself, or maybe it was that there was simply nothing else to think about while driving down highway 81, but it seems to me that this billboard explains a lot about the current state of our country. Intelligent Design, the War, the Current Administration. Maybe America is basing its religious, and thus political and social, decisions on factory seconds!

I can hear the salesman now.... "Well, ma'am, yes, it is missing a few pages somewhere around Exodus 20, but surely you have the important bits memorized!"

Or maybe the one with missing pages isn't for you..... Perhaps they have some with slight printing errors for only a few dollars more? Say, missing letters or words here and there? Imagine the confusion that could arise from "Thou Shalt Kill" or the even more embarrassing, if somewhat less prosecutable, "Thou Shalt Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife..." (this last bit may explain all the Vasectomy Reversal billboards along the same route.....).

The moral of the story? (Of course there is a moral! We are talking about bibles here!!!) Next time someone starts spouting off about "God speaking to him," or, "the word of God," you might want to make sure he isn't quoting from the discount copy....

For those who are less interested in my political ramblings and bad jokes and more interested in my progress in Road Trip '06, I've made it as far as Nashville, TN, as of 8:30 pm CST tonight. Progress has been slow due to my excessive enjoyment of the company of family and friends en route. Those of you who were there to toast my departure with WAY too many margaritas in New Haven last Monday night may rest assured that those who followed you met the high standard you set (pictures to follow.... Check back soon!). I got a couple of good days in with my sister in Annapolis, met some people, saw some friends, had some good food and drinks (though sadly no baseball... We didn't want to get caught in the rain so we entertained ourselves other ways...).

From there, I went for a couple of ostensibly restful days at Lee's five star B&B (a.k.a. her house...). If ever you want a minimum of 12 hours of sleep, preceded and followed by home-cooked meals, just look Lee up! She'll take care of you in high style (she even asks your pillow preferences and remembers them on all your future visits!!!! I'm so totally in awe! Most days, I can't even remember my own name!). Lee invited a friend of hers up from Williamsburg on Friday night, and there was much revelry and knitting until 3:30 in the morning. (Melanie, feel free to post the link to your blog in a comment here!)

Yes. Knitting. And yes. At 3:30 in the morning.... And it was FUN too!

It was finally time to buckle down this morning, and, at 9 am, I left for the 12 hour, nearly 700 mile drive to Nashville, TN. It was delightfully uneventful (this year I DIDN'T abandon my purse in Asheville, NC....), though 12 hours with nobody to talk to but Gertie (my truck) and gas station attendants does leave one feeling the tiniest bit crazy.

Gertie, incidentally, is a much better conversationalist then the gas station attendants. Not to stereotype, but really, I swear to god, every one of THOSE conversations went like this....

"I need $XXX in gas, please...."

"O.K.... Well, little lady, you aren't from around here, are you? Are you traveling all alone???"

By the end of the day, I desperately wanted to smile sweetly and say, "I'm not little, and my jealous, ax-toting boyfriend is hiding in the toolbox..."

But I didn't.

And so 8:30 pm found me in Nashville, TN, irritated, punchy, exhausted, and checking into a hotel. I got a room, got a key, parked the truck, gathered all my necessaries, and got up to my room to discover that it was completely unmade. I mean REALLY unmade. After 12 hours in the truck, I wasn't feeling fussy, but there weren't even sheets and pillows!!! While the sheets might have been negotiable, the pillows just weren't.

So I picked up all my bags and got back in the elevator, where I ran in to one of the hotel employees. He looked at all my crud, looked at my face, and said, "So, they give you a room that wasn't ready, too????"

I said, "Too?"

He said, "Uhm, yeah, you aren't the first today...."

So then I was in a really, REALLY good mood. I went to the front desk, and explained, maybe not so patiently, the situation to the guy working there. He managed to make himself look very flustered and upset while apologizing profusely and searched the computer for a room that was both available and fully outfitted. As he stuttered and stammered his way through his fourth apology, I said, "You know, last year, I was traveling across country. I checked into a hotel in Mississippi, got some dinner, and crawled into bed to get some sleep. Sometime after I fell asleep, the hotel went ahead and rented my room out to someone else who, in the middle of the night, attempted to join me!"

He looked at me, his face went white, his entire, dreamed-of career in hotel management flashed before his eyes....

And I grinned and said, "See, so it could be a hell of a lot worse!"

And we laughed while he found me an extra nice room and took $20 off the bill for the trouble.

And now the king size bed is calling me, so off to bed! Tomorrow, I drive another long bit to Lucy and Guido's in Dallas. I'll try and write more just before I cross the border, so look for me on Wednesday night or later! Maybe I'll get around to putting some pictures up, too!

Hugs to all,
Elizabeth