Aaron Antrim’s blog

29 June 06

Still sick, so I think I will take the opportunity to slack off and journal a little bit more. When I wrote earlier in June, in the entry “Todavia estoy aqui en Parras,” I was getting ready to make a presentation in Spanish on sustainable transportation. As an experience in translating, speaking, learning, and sharing, I was pleased enough with my presentation and the others. My HSU colleagues presented on other ecological and technological topics, and a few Mexican UTC students presented on similar topics in English.

As you may know, I care a lot about the particular topic of my presentation, and I was excited to present the topic before an audience that, unlike an audience in Arcata, had probably not participated in a discussion about the ideas in my presentation. In Parras, bicycling is not a choice some people make for health reasons or ecological principles, but a mode of transportation which is the only affordable option for many poor people. For this reason there is a stigma against bicycling here. Conversely, cars, along with T-shirts printed with American English brands and slogans, are a major status symbol here. I shutter to think how much money people are shelling out for Lincoln pick-up trucks or Volvo SUVs. Some wealthy people, are though, but even for them I would think it would make a pretty drastic expenditure, as the general level of wealth, purely in terms of currency, not happiness or cultural heritage, is much lower than in the United States. During evenings, especially weekend evenings, “going out” on the town with friends often will mean driving around endlessly. This is not a habit only of young people who just got their driver’s licenses, but of early middle-aged people and families. Walking around Parras one evening I came across the same exquisitely cream-white Volvo SUV again and again, apparently driving in circles, blaring attention-getting music, filled with members of a family of various ages, out to see and be seen. Such a vehicle catches attention because it looks so odd and out of place on the narrow dusty streets of Parras, alongside donkeys and horses and triciclos. There are small traffic jams in Parras, only they don’t occur during a before or after work rush hour, but in the late evening on weekends, as everyone circles around the plaza, eternally check out the scene and looking for their friends. In all this scene, drunk driving is endemic. Not just drunk driving, but drinking while driving. I never ride my bike on a weekend night.

Because of the tailgate and Tecate social scene here, and because of the fact that motorists are almost never held responsible for injuring bicyclists, I included statistics about bike-auto collisions and injuries in Humboldt County in my presentation, my hope being that the audience might be a little bit shocked and impressed by just the bare fact that we bother compiling and publishing statistics about bike-auto collisions, whereas in Mexico, even in collisions between autos, rarely are offenders apprehended or information recorded, namely because everyone involved in an accident is immediately hauled off to jail whether or not they are at fault.

I also talked about bike helmets and showed some images (I have not seen a single bike helmet here), thinking that perhaps if biking were made safer, people with other options might actually choose to bike. I also talked about how nice bike lanes are (note: see what San Francisco is recommending instead of bike lanes) and showed some images of bike lanes in Arcata. Another point in my presentation was mentioning the use of public bike racks in Arcata. There are bike racks at the denim factory in Parras, where, presumably, most employees are unable to afford cars, but there are no bike racks on the streets or in other public places. I talked about how much I liked the covered racks at the denim factory, though, to highlight an intention to have a two-way, rather than one way learning exchange between Parras and HSU. It is important to remember we should be learning from the people here, not instructing in the ways of the United States. Many people and countries in the world have learned quite a bit from the United States already, and many of those lessons, for the sake of the planet and its people, might be best unlearned.

Even as we give these presentations and participate in this appropriate technology summer program, we HSU students recognize we are caught up in contradictions. I’m here in Parras trying to evangelizing sustainable transportation and yet to travel here I logged a good thousand to two thousand air miles. Michael Winkler, former Arcata City Council candidate and former Motorola engineer who cashed out and enrolled in HSU’s environmental engineering program, doesn’t fly anymore because of the environmental cost (on the greenwheels longhaul transportation page, see “important note regarding air travel”). He says that the climate change effect produced by flying as a single passenger in a full jetliner is equivalent as driving a Hummer, solo, to your destination. So, basically my arrival here could be considered to be something like this: I barreled into town in a giant military-class SUV, cut the gravelly-throated exhaust-belching engine, and then energetically hopped out and started riding a bike around and talking about the dangers of global warming and how nice it would be to have some bike lanes. Even without factoring in my use of Hummer-equivalent transportation modes, my ecological footprint (include link) in Arcata is very probably still greater than that of the average Parras resident, with my appetite for various high-tech tools and toys and weekend backpack trips several hours driving away.

There were many other presentations from both sides on world energy issues, global warming, globalization, trash, genetically modified food and seeds, consumerism, and animal care and spay/neuter programs. All the presentations were very basic, of course, because we were limited by time and Spanish-language ability. Angela’s presentation on animals was the most interesting to me, for a few reasons. First, is that it is one of the most immediately apparent situations were are confronted with on a daily basis. Street dogs are all over Parras, sleeping in sidewalks and trotting around the streets among people as if they are on an errand to get some duct tape in order to do solar collector testing. Really, it’s something to see. Dogs here are more like people, they always look like they are on a mission, never lost, when you see them walking in the street. They don’t seem at all distracted by the activity of the street or interested in the attention of people around them. Unfortunately, many of these dogs are extremely thin. What’s saddest is to see a dog who apparently has recently birthed a litter of pups whose ribs are clearly visible. Adding to the sad sight is that hungry dogs are usually that much more sweet, friendly, and docile, meek, and quiet. After seeing dogs on the streets in Mexico, I feel like I understand what statement the director of Amores Perros (literally, Love’s a Bitch) was trying to make with the title of his film. Often, I think about that movie and its old ex-revolutionary old man character with his dogs when I see a solitary hungry dog walking along the street. Amores Perros is an excellent movie. I’ve seen it twice and recommend it.

Anyway, Angela’s presentation pushed some cultural boundaries a little bit, and so I was interested to see how that went. It was difficult to judge the reaction of the audience, though. Even though there are stray dogs everywhere, spaying and neutering animals is not culturally accepted. I think it might have something to do with the (in)famous Machismo culture in Mexico. People want their dogs to be bad-asses, so some folks are actually offended by the idea of neutering dogs.

An interesting and bizarre parts cultural experience came at the conclusion of the presentations. Some UTC instructors showed a short film, intending, it seemed, to sum all the presentations up. It had very dramatic and loud music with singers and a classical orchestra. The music was very similar to the opening theme from Carmina Burana if you have heard that. It’s an appropriate comparison to draw, between these two pieces of music, because the opening theme from Carmina Burana is about the wheel of fate, which brings people to the heights of triumph as easily as it brings them to ruin, regardless of their own will. The music in this film accompanied visuals of the atomic explosions, environmental destruction, starving people, and then images in rapid fire succession of George Bush. the pope, and Jesus Christ. At first I thought the film was making some sort of an editorial on the intersections between religion and politics and how that can block us from effectively dealing with our political problems, or how spirituality that is disconnected from the bare facts of our reality on Earth can blind us, or something like that. But at the end of the film, I realized the film was not an editorial about any of these issues but an example of them. Near as I can gather, it seemed to be saying that the ecological and political events of the time are signs that the apocalypse is coming. The whole effect, with the music and the visuals, and whatever the intended message was, made my hair stand on end.

HSU students were justifiability upset by the frame this film put all our presentations in. In most of our presentations, we highlighted possible solutions and tried to represent a hopeful rather than dire outlook. Then, the cynical message offered in this film to sum it all up was that we’re all fucked anyway because the apocalypse is nigh. Frustrating as the subversion of our intended message might have been, it was still an eye-opening cultural experience. Mexico is a very Catholic nation, and my father says that out of all the forms of Christianity, Catholicism is one of the most idolatrous and ritualistic. Last year, the Parras summer program saw the tallest Jesus Christ statue in the Americas, near Torreon. My friend Ajay mentioned it in his paper at the Alexander von Humboldt Conference. He said it made quite an impact.

aaron :: Jun.29.2006 :: México ::