Cuatro de Julio

In comparison to arriving in Cuernavaca versus arriving in Cabo, it is way different here.  Everyone is asking you to join this and that and it makes me wonder if someone who looked Latino and possibly Mexican were to walk out if they would treat them the same.  The only people that have spoken Spanish first to me have been the mechanics or maids here.  Everyone else is straight English here unless you specifically talk in Spanish with them and they are thrown off guard. 

I don’t think I’ve seen this many people dressed up for Fourth of July in the United States unless it’s a “Star Spangled Hammered” party or a bbq.  Everyone is decked out in American flag bikinis and clothes of Red, White, and Blue.  The hotel and restaurants have had firework shows and buffets and such.  It blows my mind that to come out of the country for vacation, you are still surrounded in English and Independence Day of another country.  During dinner the song “I’m proud to be an American … “ was playing and I laughed a little because of the irony.

I was surprised to see that the complimentary margarita’s we got when we entered the resort had chili powder around the edges, which I didn’t expect knowing it was out of the tourist “normal.”  Also the drink from Mexico City that I tried – Paloma – is also here but is renamed The Dove.  And thirdly, Cuernavaca and Mexico City had a lot of Aztec life going around – not for show but mainly for rituals and such, yes they may have gotten some tips because of the rarity but you could tell that they really believed in whatever God and beliefs they are pursuing.  In Cabo San Lucas, they have someone walking around overly dressed as an Aztec with a camera guy following him around asking for pictures.  I highly doubt he truly practices Aztec traditions.  This is one way that life is exaggerated for tourism and for the flow of money.  Lastly, I asked the cab driver about a salsa club around, he told me the name of one – La Hacienda.  This surprised me because I always thought that haciendas in the past were bad memories due to the debt peonage and such.

There was an excursion that my mom and I found online that took you to someone’s house where they taught you how to make traditional Mexican salsa.  During the classes she explained that she likes to keep her class availability difficult to find so that it doesn’t attract too many people.  She likes to keep the classes small so that they have people who truly care about Mexican culture and learning the art of Mexican food.  This was the only person throughout my trip that mentioned something anywhere near negative about tourism.  Everyone else was all about money for the majority of the time when asked how they felt about tourism.  One taxi driver said that he thoroughly enjoyed tourists because he liked to learn more about our cultures.  He said his favorite was the tourists from the United States, which he may have just said to get a better tip, but he said he liked learning about the history, geography, etc.  My homestay brother was somewhat similar as well – he was intrigued about the history of the United States. 

I also asked the taxi driver about the stereotype I learned earlier about American women being weak and he said what Dr. Flynn had mentioned earlier, that all they wanted to do was party, go out, and that they were easy.  I think the stereotypes tend to differ on the placement of the tourists or travelers of course but I also think there are several different stereotypes, just like all American women look like Kim Kardashian – which is a stereotype I heard while in Brazil a few years ago. 

Want some soy sauce with that?

We ended up having a party at the school after Taxco, which was pretty cool.  My teacher who’s only 23 was there along with some others and a few of the students.  We had so much fun listening to bachata music and talking about Mexico and such.  For the game I ended up just staying with the family because they had everyone come over – cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.  It made me so excited for my Cabo trip this Friday.  I’ve really missed everyone together and it doesn’t help that I missed the trip 2 years ago.  Although it originally was a vacation, it will help with my paper in comparison of the culture in Cuernavaca to the culture in a tourist-generated area. 

One thing I highly doubt they will have in Cabo is all of the chip stands.  One chip stand will have popcorn, potato chips, plantains, and more and then there’s a whole station of sauces and spices to put on it.  One thing that has surprised me is that everyone here thinks that all we eat is hamburgers and hot dogs, yet here they put way more on their hot dogs then I know my family does.  It’s the same with pizza.  The other night they had about 5 different kinds of pizzas, one was Mexican style with refried beans, a few different cheeses, and beef.  For the condiments they had about 3 different kinds of salsa/hot sauces, soy sauce, worstershire sauce, pico de gallo, and ketchup.  Now this isn’t just like let me dip this in some soy sauce, they drench their pizzas in condiments and it actually ended up tasting really good!  The hot dogs have pico and a bunch of different salsas as well as mustard and ketchup.  Also the beer and margaritas I mentioned before have chamoy sauce - which is like a candy with chile powder in it. In the beer is chamoy sauce and around the rim is chile powder with lime.  It's definitely an acquired taste ...  

On my last day Edson and I went to the museums around the city.  One of them is Robert Brady’s old house that was a collector of art pieces.  The entire house was incredibly colorful with masks and paintings and self-portraits literally on every wall.  It seems that every museum we went to was someone’s old house.  We went to Hernán Cortés’ old house, which is now a museum of the history of Cuernavaca and Mexico.  Another was the house of Maximillian, which is now a huge garden that apparently is used as a cheap date on Sundays since it’s free.  There’s a bunch of different tropical trees and a pond with boats and an auditorium like setting.  What’s been cool is that last semester I learned about all of these people in my Mexican history class and now I’m actually seeing all of the murals and the houses that I studied.  I’m not gonna lie, I absolutely hate history, especially if it’s about the United States, but studying another country and their culture is pretty exciting.  A big part of it is because I haven’t been taking the classes all my life but still.

 

What’s weird is how tired I’ve been here, especially towards the end of the week and I finally think I figured out why – the food.  Some people have said it could be the altitude too since we’re not used to it.  But if you think about it, when you go out to lunch or dinner at a Mexican restaurant you know you’re gonna want a nap afterwards because you’re just so exhausted and full.  Well I’ve been eating these kinds of meals all day and for every meal.  Breakfast yesterday was cereal and guacamole with tostada chips – basically flat hard shell tortilla chips.  The day before that was quesadillas with queso and pico de gallo and cereal.  Not gonna lie I’ve taken a few naps since I’ve been here. 

One big thing that I’ve always loved about Hispanic culture is the values they have.  In the United States, our lives revolve around education, jobs, and money.  In Latin countries it revolves around family and friends.  One way I noticed this was in the city.  In Atlanta everyone is moving and constantly headed in one direction, while in Mexico the city is full but of people hanging out rather than walking with a purpose.  But one thing my brother pointed out to me was that because of the value put on family, Mexicans are terrified of being alone – which I completely understand.  The amount of time families put into making their food for one big lunch with the family is actually really cool.  To have divorce or a falling out would put a big dent in their lives making them basically start all over – about the same as if someone lost their job in the United States.  That’s one big reason why divorce is so rare in these cultures.

Next I’ll be in Cabo on Friday to see how the culture of Cuernavaca – a modern day Mexican society, compares to Cabo San Lucas – a thriving tourist-generated site.

"We danced our asses off"

The salsa club was absolutely amazing.  We went with a girl we met at the hostel named Veridiana who is from Brazil!  The second we walked in we were already dancing.  If you want a break you have to hide or decline an invite to dance but I suggest you take every opportunity you can.  Everyone I danced with had a different style and it was cool to learn every time.  The ages were very different too.  I danced with as young as 20 to as old as my grandpa and they can all dance!  No matter how old you are, odds are you can dance.  There was a live Cuban band playing which was awesome.  Whether I looked like I knew what I was doing or not it didn’t matter, the dance floor is packed and everyone is sweating their asses off and loves it.

Sunday we saw Mexico City come alive!  We went shopping for a bit and saw a bunch of people in long white lab coats and one guy who had “Yo Soy #17” on the back which means I am number 17.  I asked someone about it and turns out it’s a protest in honor of a doctor in Guadalajara who was killed by a gang.  White represents all of the problems of Mexico and Guadalajara is district 17.  Therefore placing all the blame on Guadalajara.

 We kept walking through the city towards the big golden angel in downtown, stopped and got a 10 minute massage on the side of the street for about 50 pesos, and we noticed a bunch of bikes and no cars, at first we thought it was another protest against pollution or something but turns out it’s called paseo ciclista – cyclist path – where a large amount of roads are closed down every Sunday from 7 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon for bikers and exercise.  Next there was a huge march of people all chanting about animal rights with all their pets walking in the street and painted head to toe like tigers.  They all met up in the cathedral later and kept on with their protest.  At first I thought it was just a Sunday thing where are the protests come out but turns out it’s very common and I’ve already heard about so many more that are going on now, one actually a protest against the paseo. 

 

We left shortly after and drove to Cuernavaca with José Luís who talked to us a lot about the government in Mexico, bull fights, the United States, and much more.  There are about 6 or 7 government districts under the federal government and in each one they have different ideas.  In his opinion, he isn’t too fond of the government.  They took thousands of dollars from the linea ­– metro - which caused the station to go out of business they did not have enough money.  They now have a new metro system and who knows what will happen to it.  The government is also fighting to stop bullfighting, which is only supported by the upper class, yet the lawyers are fighting to keep it alive for the tradition and culture.  Our brother has said that he wouldn’t want to be in the US because even though everyone thinks they have freedom to him there’s more freedom in Mexico.  The US government gives so much money and support to citizens that they begin to depend on the government.  Yet in Mexico, the government is so corrupt that there basically is no reason for laws – therefore you’re independent here.  I’d never thought to look at it like that and usually government and politics isn’t exciting to me but all of the ideas here are so interesting.

The family I’m living with is familia Jimenez and they have a son, Edson, who is 24 and his brother Guillermo, “memo,” who comes for comida during his breaks from teaching.  Comida is lunch here and it’s their biggest meal.  You have a light breakfast usually with fruit, eggs, and coffee.  Our mom packs us a lunch to take to class, which we are at from 9-1 and then we meet with our professor and come back around 2.  And at night there’s a light dinner between 8 and 10.  One thing I’ve noticed with food that is different is when you ask for salsa, they bring you jalapeños, carrots, onions, and the juice of it all.  Salsa is nothing like the appetizers and munchies in the US.  Fried chicken is actually pretty big here too – the only fast food places are KFC and McDonalds.  Turns out the reason why there’s no salt and pepper on the tables here is because of the government – they’re trying to reduce obesity.

Today we went to Taxco - a big place to go for silver.  It is absolutely gorgeous with all of the buildings and houses white.  If someone’s house wasn’t actually white they had to pay a fine monthly and if they didn’t pay the fine they went to jail, then usually got out and repainted there houses.  There’s also a duplicate of the Christ monument from Brazil.  All of the taxis are vintage white Volkswagen bugs and the streets are so narrow that they have to do doble sentidos which means that they can’t even make a complete turn sometimes and have to reverse back to get onto the next street. 

My Spanish has been going really well!! Definitely improving on my grammar with the classes and it helps a lot that I’ve been translating for Dhara – who actually left this morning for New York!  Tonight there’s a party at the school with all the students and teachers and tomorrow is the GAME!!  I’m going downtown to watch it so it should be crazy.  Can’t wait!  Viva México!