Aaron Antrim’s blog

2 de Julio 2006

After presentations on June 16th, the HSU crew and a few students and teachers from UTC went to General Cepeta on Saturday to look for/at dinosaur bones and other fossils. T-Rex used to roam these parts, as did a few others whose complete skeletons we saw at El Museo del Desierto in Saltillo a month ago. Those skeletons are truly an impressive sight. T-Rex’s mouth could definitely fit a whole human being if you’re into the whole Jurrasic Park thing. I’ve heard dinosaurs had extremely small brains, especially considering their large bodies, but maybe this is just a bias that has come from those recent Microsoft ads. Anyway, I’m really, really glad I’m a warm-blooded mammal without green scales. Also, the fact about dinosaur brains reassures me for the future of the world: it seems intelligence is destined to win out, or at least out-survive in the end. Or, more likely, the insects will take over.

Seeing dinosaur bones gives suggests something of the essence of the desert. The arid landscape with limited resources for life appears timeless, changing slowly. At the same time, its sudden storms and creatures and plants with various poisons, spines, or fangs, makes it volatile and dangerous.

Outside of the museum at General Cepeta we only saw a few dinosaur bones that archaeologists had neatly uncovered and laid bare. It was actually pretty cool and made me appreciate what archaeologists must do, because the skeletons don’t come all neatly laid out like you see in the museums. We also collected a bunch of rocks with tiny fossils of sea animals and shells at about 3,000 feet elevation.

The walk out there had been about 2km and was easy enough, but the walk back, even though it was easy, gave me a bit of appreciation for the power of the desert to make one uncomfortable, or, in extreme cases, dead. Even though I had brought a lot of water for this small excursion, I drank it all, and started feeling dizzy and weird as I was walking. When we returned to the tiny town, the only bottled water offered for sale was really reused, unsealed bottles of tap water. I ended up drinking some along with a lot of Fanta.

Very ready to cool off around this time, we visited a swimming hole Edgar, an UTC student, knew about. The bus had to navigate some gravel and dirt roads that were in less than great condition. Earlier, too, before we got to General Cepeta, we were barreling down narrow dirt roads. I was surprised and impressed the driver would take our huge bus on those roads.

The swimming hole was beautiful, fed by a small stream. Water cascaded from one medium-sized pool formed by rocks into a larger and very deep pool several feet below it. Above the pool, high rock ledges between 20 and 50 feet above the water allowed some of us to safely free fall into the soft and forgiving green water below. Vegetation surrounded the area, and there were even some cattails which are useful for marsh-based waste-water treatment systems, something that Parras program appropriate tech experts are dreaming of implementing in Parras. The knowledge that this plant species already grows in these parts was a joyous discovery for them.

The mention of waste-water treatment is not incidental to this narrative. The beauty I have described was marred not only by the styrofoam cup and cigarettes floating on the water but by some other foulness in the water, as well. We were told there were almost certainly human urine and feces in the water, but the swimming was so enticing that we couldn’t help but go in. Neither did it keep us from jumping off the rocks, which it might have, because it’s difficult to keep from getting water in your mouth when you go in. I don’t think any of us got sick from the experience, though, but those of us who had climbed on the rocks had minor abrasions which, strangely, were stinging when we got out of the water. Deciding it could only be something frightening in the water making this happen, we applied some antiseptic rubbing alcohol and were on our way.

Seeing this swimming hole’s condition made me appreciate how lucky we are to have many protected and clean natural places in the United States. However, as the most consumptive nation on the Earth, we are probably responsible for more environmental destruction and resource extraction outside our borders than any other nation. And there are plenty of places in our borders, too, which have been ruined, most often places where people who can’t afford to live anywhere else have settled. Yet, at the same time, we’ve done an effective job at protected wilderness as a national treasure for those who can afford to enjoy it. Wow, am I glad that somehow I just happened to end up on one side of the equation rather than the other.

That’s all for now. Hey! When is anyone going to post a comment on my blog? Does everyone just have better things to do, or are you clicking the links in my posts and ending up somewhere far more interesting than where you started?

This post was written on an antique laptop running Ubuntu Linux. Then it was edited and refined on a Macinotsh.

aaron :: Jul.03.2006 :: México :: No Comments »

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 :: 3 Comments »

With a sore throat and other symptoms, I’m feeling under the weather today – literally, as it has been overcast with intermittent rain all day and some of yesterday. Especially shocking is that it is actually a little bit cold, Humboldt County-style. I haven’t had to put on a jacket yet, but it is possible I still might be forced to tonight. Before now, whenever it rained in Parras, it made me wish I was in good old temperate Humboldt County, but now I want it to switch back to Parras weather, where I sweat whenever I walk somewhere more than just a few blocks, as soon as possible. The fact that I’m sick of rain and clouds, which should make me homesick, after less than two days has made me realize something – I am really starting to like Parras, and Mexico a whole lot.

I know my last emails and blog posts have whined and exclaimed about Mexico’s craziness and “backwardness,” but now I must have adjusted to the differences between here and the U.S. enough to not be bothered by the fact that toilet paper is not supplied in the bathrooms and more fully appreciate the beautiful kindness and generosity of people here. Being someone who, at times, counts every minute, and becomes frustrated if someone wastes just a portion of one of those minutes or distracts me from what I am trying to do, I am amazed when Ciero, the follow who is teaching us to make adobe bricks, sees me on the street, and chats, slowly peddling most of the way home with me at my slow walking pace, even when he could easily peddle his triciclo home at about 5 times the speed.

Now, this is not really all that irregular in the U.S. I know that I have walked my bike plenty of times to have a conversation, but there is a more widespread and consistent difference in pace of life here, which, admittedly, is both wonderful and extremely, incredibly, turn-your-hair-grey f***ing frustrating when you’re trying to get something done. But when it comes down to it, since we’re just here for the summer, it’s just a matter of adjusting and taking it in as a cultural experience along with everything else.

We’re in week 5 right now, which is a profound timemark to be at. Finally, we’re truly oriented, we’re amazed at how fast time has gone, and we’re thinking about the next half of the program, about the experiences and fun to be had, and, especially, about all the work that remains to be done. Kiva kindly brought my iPod shuffle back from Humboldt when she returned home for a week for a friends wedding. I’m listing to a track by Prefuse 73 (thanks for the albums, Eric!), which, I think, ends with a theme that is just the words Hola (hello) and Adios (goodbye, or, literally, “to god”) repeated again and again in a very beautiful theme, blended into one single word HolaAdios. At the half-way point, this about sums up the way I feel right now, like I have barely had time to say hello, and before I know it will soon be saying goodbye, and most likely (and strangely, I feel) leaving the people who I have met here forever. Unless, of course, I come back sometime. Hola - Adios…

There haven’t been blog entries or emails for the past few weeks because I’ve been busy and tired, but I promise to sit down to recall and write about all that has happened in the time I haven’t written. One of the dual purposes of this journal, too, is to give me something to work with next summer when I try to recall my experiences and synthesize them into a paper. This year my friend Ajay Tallam, who was a student in the Parras summer program last year, presented a paper on his Parras experience at the Alexander von Humboldt Conference in Xi’an, China. Next year, the conference will be held in Germany. I’m not sure if it will be at the Humboldt University in Berlin or not (no affiliation other than being named after the same explorer), but I would very much like to go and present a paper.

aaron :: Jun.29.2006 :: México :: No Comments »

Hi all,
Sorry this is such a mess. I’m sure there are grammar errors, and I know it’s a cyclone of disorganization. It’s almost 2am here, and I have a short presentation to make in front of almost 100 students in Spanish tomorrow. I want to send this out immediately so I won’t have to come into the computer lab this weekend, and so I can be freer to do other things.
-a

11 de Junio

(Esto ha sido una semana y fin de semana muy buenda.) This has been a very good week and weekend. My Spanish is past survival level but still terrible and limited, but even so as I write my vocabulary choices somehow tend more and more toward Spanish word, something which I will resist because my audience, for the most part, doesn’t read Spanish. To start:

The beginning of the week wasn’t particularly memorable — class, assignments, swimming, getting home at 11pm after homework in the computer lab. Then, on Thursday, we (the gringos) and a few others went to visit Hotel Perote, where I with two other ENGR 305 Appropedia Tech colleages will be refurbishing and redesigning a prototype solar hot water heating system developed and only partially implemented last year. Our goal is to come up with a system which will heat the hotel’s spring fed pool in the winter. This is an ideal solar system application because 1) The hotel has asked us for it, not the other way around 2) Parras gets more sun in the winter than in summer 3) We understand that freezing temperatures are very rare in the winter, meaning it may not be necessary to take precautions against pipes freezing such as using antifreeze and a heat exchangers. What this opportunity means is that we, my group members and I, need to get our asses into gear.

My host family had taken me to see Hotel Perote earlier, immediately after I arrived, but I hadn’t seen as full a picture as I experienced Thursday evening. The full picture being: Languidly sprawled white adobe buildings just outside of town, perched on the high edge of a desert valley over which the sun sets. After we hiked up to a hill we cooled off in the pool which we will be developing the solar water-heating system for.

Language note: Some English grammarians say one shouldn’t end a sentence with a proposition like I just did. I say that’s ridiculous and to hell with them, or as Winston Churchill said, “This is the kind of impertinence up with which I will not put!” I have to say here, this story is somewhat apocryphal, as Churchill did not actually say this and the sentence does not actually end in a preposition. “Put” is part of a two-word verb phrase in this case.

Anyway, after I had enough fun to injure only mildly (worth it), we went up to a ravine leading from a cave and watched as 8,000 bats (scientists have counted them) flew above our heads into the sunset. We ate dinner in an impressive building overlooking the pool. Its roof is a dome of bricks which seems to have been constructed in defiance of gravity. It is not a construction technique I would like to see used in earthquake-prone California.

Along with our dinner in these breathtaking surroundings, we also drank some truly horrible “vino,” for which the grapes are grown crushed, and fermented right there at Perote. Even though “vino” can translate to mean wine, it also translates more generally to mean liquor. I think we drank some Sotol (comes from agave) and something which was sweet like port (that’s probably what it was). Both are best mixed with coca-cola, which is perfectly common and socially acceptable, at least in South America, I’m told, and I hope it was at Hotel Perote as well. The alcohol brewed at Perote is intolerably sweet. Some varieties literally taste almost exactly like cough-syrup. I should (nay, it’s good I didn’t) have asked if they had a contract withe the company that makes Benedryl.

Then, we opened the french doors opening out to the desert, the pool, and the vineyards and we salsa-danced at our various skill-levels (but all at some level above zero, because one of the other students, an expert, is teaching all of us) on a giant glossy tile floor. Yes, it was almost that like that. I am trying to avoid overmuch exaggeration in these emails.

What I have provided so far is a mere plot summary — boring to write, as well as to read. I apologize.

More at the heart of my story here is not what I do, or how much the liquor tastes like cough syrup, but what I think and feel. This weekend I started out very withdrawn, which, at least to me, was very understandable, seeing as how I am working fairly hard, being inundated with new experiences, constantly struggling to speak Spanish, dealing with minor digestive discomfort from a new diet, and deprived of the independence, self-reliance, and time alone in my own house I have become accustomed to. My host family is great, but it is weird readjusting to life in a fully interdependent household. So I spend a good few hours composing my last email Friday, did some other stuff, attended a class, and finally hung out with other gringos at Edgar’s house (Edgar is a Mexican UTC student), but, still feeling quite introverted, left early at a quarter past one in the morning. Yes, a quarter past one is early. Kids (everybody, actually) will party until 6am. It’s understandable, because the air is so much more pleasant at night in this clime. The latest I’ve stayed out was until 3:30am. And on most weekend mornings I beat my Mexican host family in the race to get out of bed (but I think I am the only one who knows this is a competition, though).

Anyway, Saturday morning I woke up early, got some coffee and yogurt and papaya, and headed up the the UTC campus to do some of my own work. Last weekend I felt that I missed cleaning my house, because, for me, it’s an opportunity to clean out my mind at the same time. It’s an inventory taking time, an organizational opportunity, and a way of clearing things out so I can be more focused and less preoccupied. Naturally, if this is what I expect from cleaning, it also extends to the digital realm, which means that sometimes vacuuming and responding to and archiving unread messages in my email are two parts of the same process. Here in Parras, where my host family actually gets mad if I try to wash dishes, my only opportunity to process bits of my life in some more-or-less tangible way is digital, so that’s why I headed up to the lab, cleaned up a page on arcatacommunity.org, installed Google Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/ on the site (another of Google’s new offerings that continually blow my mind), sent a letter into the Arcata Eye about the free @arcatacommunity.org gmail and neighborhood groups, got the Eye editor Kevin Hoover to join the Sunnybrae group, and asked him if I can write an Arcatans Elsewhere column from Parras, a query to which I received an enthusiastic reply.

All this worked well as a substitute for the things I do to take time out to arrange my life and things when I am at home in Arcata. Having succeeded in gotten some time to withdraw, organize, and importantly, dedicate myself to something I am actually effective at doing, which, believe me, becomes a hunger after a while of trying to do things in an unfamiliar place with limited Spanish, I finished up in the afternoon, feeling reassembled and went on to do a few things. Track down Parras’s only weekly periodical, which I discovered is 6 photocopied legal-sized pages (for a town of population 43,000, I have discovered, from government documents). I also picked up La Pallabra from Saltillo as well, and was amazed that I could comprehend 95% articles on familiar topics in a Spanish-language New York Times insert. It was really confidence- and hope- inspiring to find my Spanish reading skills were there for me.

In the evening I went to work translating my presentation on sustainable transportation and alternatives to single-occupant vehicles with a Mexican student, Edgar, who attends our Appropriate Tech classes. Edgar, I’m convinced, must be the most intelligent student at UTC, which calls itself a technical school, but is pathetically like high school. UTC is intended the same educational purposes as a junior college in the states. Its students are between 18 and 21 years old. From the limited view I’ve seen, the state of Mexican education is pretty bad, but that’s a discussion I save until a planned email I’m going to write in character as ¨the ugly American,¨ filled with hubris, insensitive, arrogant and completely narrow-minded, who just totally rips into everything around him — the public bathrooms, the inaccurate clocks and widespread lack of an idea of punctuality, much less its practice, corruption, rampant drunk driving — wow, I’ll have quite a time.

Anyway, most of the students behave socially like they´re in high school, and approach academics the same way. I got incredibly frustrated helping this kid Hymie to translate a very short report in Spanish into English. He left out periods all over the place. It was difficult to translate from a language I barely speak and read when it was unclear where sentences end and begin. I ended up correcting his Spanish (well, adding periods) AND translating to English, AND getting frustrated again when he incorrectly told me an adverb was a verb, and we got hung up on translating it for a long time. Fortunately, Edgar, who greatly surpasses his colleagues, was willing to help me translate. Even though there are English classes here at UTC, it’s painfully obvious the students learn very little.

Edgar’s ability to speak English far surpasses other students, and he has learned on his own from English language T.V. programs and films. It’s good to talk with someone whose English ability is equal to my Spanish, because we can both face the challenge of the language barrier together, with greater understanding of it, and more ability not only to understand the other, but help and coach them.

I ended up taking us over three hours and, between us, several beers (alcohol is remarkably useful for operating in a foreign tongue) to translate only a single page of my presentation because we went off in all sorts of tangents related to my presentation topic and other world issues, differences between life in the U.S. and Mexico, and discussing differences between English and Spanish. I feel like this was my first or second real conversation in Spanish. Sure, I’ve had plenty of conversation that have gone on about different small topics: dinosaurs, the World Cup, Arrested Development (yes, my host sister says she’s watched it), Mexican politics, racism in the U.S., the high cost of beer in the U.S., how crazy my parents’ dog is, etc., etc., but I feel like they were all practice conversations: conversations I may well have had in the U.S., but without thinking much while having them or intending a whole lot. Since they were difficult conversations to have in Spanish, I had forced myself to make them, just in order to get language practice.

In Edgar, I found a conversation partner who is aware and concerned about global issues — one of his main concerns is global warming and he lent me a Spanish-language National Geographic on the issue. Cover story name: “Calentamiento Global.” Talking with Edgar about the issue helped me to understand a little more about the “global” part of global warming. It’s one thing to say the name of the phenomenon and understand some of the scientific reasons behind the name, but for me, it was something else to have a discussion about a problem I’m well aware of and concerned about in a strange place and in a foreign tongue. It was a slightly awesome experience to realize how many shared interests I have with over 6 billion other human beings on this planet, and that serious communication is possible as long as two people have the will. If necessary, language is inventable and adaptable on the fly.

The global scope of our conversation made me feel embarrassed to be an American. I was surprised to hear Edgar has strong feelings about the war in Iraq. I incorrectly assumed it was something that mainly the U.S., European, and Middle Easter nations paid attention to and cared about.

14-15 de Junio

Complaining about government is different when you’re complaining with someone from a different country because you’re both complaining about your respective countries’ governments. I found the scope of the complaining seemed to open up so that suddenly we found ourselves complaining about corruption and bad policy throughout the world over — a frustration so longer isolated to one nation but truly global in scope. It was a little bit awesome and scary to be a in a place and situation where I have less power and efficacy than I am used to having, and talk about the decisions of governments, my own, and those in which I have no citizenship and don’t vote, and to feel that I have about equal say in those where I do vote as well as my country of home citizenship. For a bit, I felt more helpless to effect change in politics than I have ever felt before. The sensation was slightly analogous to being a tiny cell in a human being’s hair follicle which has suddenly sprouted consciousness, and is troubled that the whole organism seems to be exhibiting some self-destructive behavior, but is totally powerless to change anything. At the same time as I was feeling this, I also knew I was having a conversation with a concerned smart young person in Mexico who is more sensitively aware of what is going on for human beings all over the world than I am — as I think I have taken an approach which has become mostly blind to human suffering, and instead focuses more on the mechanics of good decision-making and information sharing, on what change is actually possible, rather than what change is actually necessary. I don’t know what I’m trying to express, just basically apologizing for being (I’m sure plenty would disagree) a practical, realistic person — someone who, when the topic of staving people comes up, chooses to think and talk more about what E.O. Wilson had to say in Consillience (I have a blog entry here on it, scroll to the bottom with for the quote about the Rwandan genocide), and about our U.S. government´s food and reproductive health aid policies, not only because I think that discussing such topics is the most effective approach toward a solution, but because these topics, not the actual hunger itself, are topics which my brain can safely tackle and do something with, as effectively as it can analyze the syntax of a sentence, produce some HTML webpage code, or make a purchase comparison. This feeling, I suppose, is a curse and blessing of being educated: we are taught to solve problems in the abstract as much as possible, and they most frequently seem to be best solved that way, which can free one from making full emotional contact with the issue, and allow for rational decision making. The problem is, intellectual responses without an emotional response frequently miss something.

After having these thoughts and feeling then, and wrapping up translating with Edgar, last Sunday afternoon and evening I did some much-needed bonding with my host family. It’s not that we were at all on unfriendly terms, it’s only because my school schedule frequently is incompatible with their meal times, and because I’ve been busy with work and activity, that I have not shared as much time as I should have with my family. They are very sweet.

The youngest daughter, Jessica (5-7 years old, I think), is quite small and has an impish look like she’s always getting away with something, knows it, and enjoys it. The middle siblings, fraternal twins Jessica and Carlitos (about 9 years old, I think) are really fun. Carlitos (Carlitos is a nickname basically meaning Little Carlos, as Carlos is the name of his father) displays a good-natured, friendly, and slightly dopey look sometimes. Carlitos is probably the most emotional of all the children, equally prone to raising his voice when he is angry, when his speech will come out more slowly rather than increasing in tempo, as he is to crying. He is the only child I have heard do either of these two things. Jessica, who excels at school, wears glasses on a librarian-style beaded string around her neck, and has a confident intelligent look whenever she goes to work at something. She frequently looks bemused at my ridiculous and bumbling Spanish (I understand what David Sedaris was describing better and better after reading his book Me talk pretty one day on the way here). The 17-year-old daughter is very sweet and amazingly dedicated to her family. She’s always very nice to me, but I don’t think she likes having me around as much as the younger kids do, as she is focused on her own life, and my presence in the household frequently means more burden and work for her, I think. The oldest daughter, Ana, lives with her husband in a house near the center of town that his parents gave him. Further demonstrating the strong family ties , she and he frequently visit. I got to see their house the other day. It is a large old house with thick adobe walls and high ceilings. Despite that he was given the home by his parents, his work is at La Fabrica (photos of the bike racks at the factory here — they don’t normally let people take cameras in the factory so I was very proud my Spanish was able to get me into an office to have a secretary call a supervisor, who got another employee to let me into the main yard and snap a few), and despite that he is a factory worker who makes very little money, the house has 3 T.V.s, two of which are very modern Sonys hooked up to impressive-looking stereo systems. There are also two refrigerators in the kitchen, both plugged in, even though all the food in both could be fit into a mini-fridge. I laughed at Edwardo for having an unnecessary second fridge, and chided him about it. He was equally amused at how unnecessary the second fridge was, but couldn’t offer an explanation for it, which I would have been genuinely interested to hear. They know I’m a literature student so that gave me another opportunity to make a little joke of asking where the books are. If one thing gave the impression of the house being barren more than the lack of anything on the expansive walls, it was the lack of books. They are, I’m told by my family, quite an expensive item here. Whenever I ask about the cost of something “expensive” here, I end up reminded of the economic difference between the U.S. and Mexico. I don’t remember the price for books here, but it was quite low by U.S. standards. I always hate to imagine how they would feel if I said my Spanish or Calculus textbooks would cost about $80 if I was foolish enough to buy them new.

The mom, Ana Luz, is extremely sweet, and probably my favorite person to talk to. Her hair is died a fairly intense artificial red, somewhere between brick and watermelon. she has a high sing-song voice which is very pleasant to listen to, especially when she’s speaking to her children. It’s particularly nice because Spanish sounds very beautiful spoken, whereas English sounds quite technical, business-like, efficient and effective, but not nearly as pretty.

Anyway, on Sunday I spent from 4pm to midnight with my host family. Somehow it didn’t feel like nearly 8 hours. We barbecued at the public pool near the house, and I joined them for Tequila shots. We ate meat and more meat — a hot sausage stir fry dish prepared over a small fire around 5pm and then wide stringy slabs of cow meat around 11pm. As things were wrapping up around midnight, I biked up to school and worked in the computer lab on a portion of this email, among other things, and visited with some with Lonny our engineering teacher until I left around 3am. The guards who controll access to the campus at night must think we Americans are a lot of crazy workaholics, and they’re right.

I know this email has been long and rambling with irrelevant details and tangents which I should have edited out, but every time I sat down to write with a point to make, all that rambling would just happen as if I had no power to stop it. I decided to leave it in, possibly because I’m lazy (”I’m sorry this letter is so long, but I did not have time to make it shorter.” Mark Twain), and also because I thought the lack of structure actually communicates something about what it is like trying to make sense of my experience here.

As to why I am sending this as an email out to family and friends, rather than just leaving it as the original journal entries I wrote on paper: I was inspired by reading part of a book another student brought with her, “The Goldstein Chronicles.” It is a several hundred page compilation of emails exchanged between her and her brothers and father of the course of several years, as she and her brothers when on different high school and college exchange programs, as well as made trips outside of school to countries in South America and other parts of the world. What emerges is a story of global citizenship told through personal stories of family relationships and growing up, woven in with discussions of global political events. Each side of the story — personal and political — provides a context for the other. I was very inspired, I guess I’m trying to make something a little bit like that happen here. I truly am eagerly anticipating whatever response you may have, if any, whether you are in Humboldt, Idaho, or abroad in the world. Signing off, Aaron

I’ve got a few requests for pictures. You can check a few out here in Parras program online gallery.

aaron :: Jun.27.2006 :: México :: 2 Comments »

6 de Junio

Since one of the main purposes of studying in Parras is to study appropriate technology, the theme of development has preoccupied my mind. What is development? What is improvement? And what is undeveloped?

Parras is by no means the undeveloped world (putting aside the fact the terms developed and undeveloped really out to be discussed), as its residents have cars, electricity, running water, mobile phones, and lots of styrofoam cups. While one might assume that most of these amenities are recent additions, in fact the history of Parras´s development extends back a ways into history. For example, Thomas Edison installed a micro-hydroelectric system that served Parras before New York City had grid power.

9 de Junio (Continuing…) I´m writing now in the Parras town library, which is in a beautiful building and is a good place to work. Its meeting spaces, work spaces, and computers are well-used by the community, I think, but its books are very rarely used. Since its on my route to school, I dropped in a few days ago, and was unexpectedly given a tour of the library: its offices, bathrooms, children´s section, and every section going by 100s in the Dewey Decimal System — 100 Obras Generales & Filosofía, 200 Religión, 400 Lingistica, 500 & 600 Ciencias Puras & Aplicadas, 800 Literatura — I´m trying to give you an idea of the thoroughness and pacing of this tour. Each section occupies only a single bookcase in a library building which is much more spacious than the Arcata branch. Isabella (the librarian) would pull books off the shelf and deliver an impassioned mini review of the time, of which I would understand about as much as I would from reading the book myself.

I gather it might be a rare opportunity that someone shows even the limited interest I showed in the library and its books, because at one point she said that a lot of people (even teachers) are irritated by her expression of her bibliophilia. I must admit I could understand their irritation a little. More to the point I´m trying to drive at, though, is that their irritation underscores a theme about Parras and development. There are no bookstores in this town of about 23k-40k people (I´ve heard so many different population figures that I´m just going to state a range). T.V. is where news, info, culture, and entertainment come from. Parras has its own TV news program, which I haven´t seen yet, and a ton of internet cafés. There is only a single weekly newspaper (Lonny, the program´s engineering teacher, compared the paper to the Arcata Eye, and the guy who publishes the weekly to Kevin Hoover, the Eye’s editor, so I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy.)

Anyway, each morning I usually watch the TV news with my family over breakfast. We get an assortment of news about el Copa del Mundo (the world cup for soccer, which Mexico is crazy about, of course), drug busts in Monterrey, the current political race for Mexico´s president (the one-term limit means Vincente Fox will be replaced). There are almost always a few images of gringos in U.S. military attire as part of an update on the U.S.-Mexico border story. I am embarrased to say I don´t know much about this, and what´s more, don’t know much about the way Mexicans feel about this. I would assume that, unless you’re intending to cross to the U.S. it wouldn’t inspire particularly strong feelings, just like how in the U.S. unless you’re near the border it’s pretty easy to ignore. The news also has a horroscope segment given by a woman wearing jewels and interesting mystical headgear.

I´m pretty sure my family gets satillite T.V. but not really sure about this. In any case, they have a few very new Sony television sets, which is indicative of the fact that my family is probably the most modern of all the families hosting students for our program. This means that, with my host family, mean can wear shorts (even at meals); their home is quite American in its setup, with a living room complete with matching sofas; there is a T.V. in the kitchen/dining area where almost all gathering is done, the shop at el Mercado, the big air-conditioned supermarket; instead of a central tuled courtyard with fruit and avacado trees that opens onto all the rooms they have an indoor hallway; they listen to Spanish-language hip-hop and other popular Mexican music that I like, far hipper, I think, than anything MY parents would ever listen to in the United States, they eat dinner around 7pm or even earlier, instead of the more common 9pm dinner time around here (unfortunately, I´m often not home yet, and end up eating dinner later than the rest of the household). Their dinners are frequently American-style, with pasta, mashed potatoes, ham, hamburgers, etc. I think they served American-style food particularly frequently the first week so I would be comfortable, but the Mexican food Ana Luz makes is much better. If I have the option, I ask for Mexican style food for lunch or dinner, and that resulted in much tastier food. Carlos (my host-dad and the director of the Parras UTC campus, who is currently in China for the Alexander von Humboldt conference with Francisco, our Spanish prof, and Ajay, one of last year´s Parras participants) was happy to see that I can eat, and will enjoy, a generous addition of hotsauce to a meal.

Mexicans have a lot of pride in their country and culture. Before he left for China, Carlos burned a bunch of mixes of Mexican music to give to foks in China. Isabela, the librarian raved about Spanish-language literature. Politicians have slogans like ¨por Mexico¨ (for Mexico), and say things like they´re for the good of all Mexico as some abstract concept or aspiration, something that, to my ears sounds distinctly old-fashioned, seeing as how I am accustomed to a political schene where self-interest is more emphasized than patriotism (or rather, where the rhetoric of one has been used to hide the reality of the other, but I digress). On jeans, car windows, sides of buildings, you often see a giant currive M symbol, which presumably stands for Mexico, but I´m still unsure what it´s really about.

Along with all this pride, tradition, and patriotism, however, there´s still a strong urge toward development in such a fashion so as to mimic the U.S. Frankly, the dynamic makes me feel a little weird. People can be seen walking the streets wearing ¨Polo¨ brand T-shirts, or other US brands. These are extremely expensive, relative to income here. I saw a ¨American Idiot¨ album Green Day shirt a few weeks ago, which was kind of funny. Anything with an English-language word on it seems fashionable even though English is not very widely spoken. There are many US movies in the theaters, and El Codico DaVinci has been a conversation topic a few times. The kids at my house watch the Disney channel, which has a lot of repackaged American content, overdubbed with Spanish audio tracks. It must be strange to grow up watching TV shows where people´s mouth movements never match the sounds coming out of them. I´ve watched the Simpsons several times in Spanish, which seems like a good way to learn the language.

Anyway, I obviously stand out as a gringo, but I feel doubly self-conscious about it because of the fact that I must represent so many of these other notions people have about people and life in the United States. One thing about these notions is that, at least with me, my life, and Humboldt County, they are pretty far off-base. It is troubling seeing the level of influence the United States can have on culture, as much of this influence, I feel has been negative. I´ll take transportation as something that I care and know about: There are Fords and Chevys (esp. Fords, who maintains a large manufacturing operation in Mexico) all over the streets here. The other day I saw a Lincoln-brand Luxury pick-up truck. Autos have become an important indicator of status, and people are spending rediculous amounts of money to mimic exactly what we have done in the United States. It makes me truly sad that our country isn´t setting a better example. I could go on for a few pages on the topic of transportation in Parras, but I will save that for later. Next Friday, I will be giving a presentation in Spanish to UTC students about sustainable transportation. I´m planning on putting the English draft and translated version online.

Differences in transportation issues between Parras and Arcata are more profound than you might imagine. For example, one part of my presentation includes traffic statistics about bike-car collisions, and efforts to have irresponsible motorists who injure cyclists more aggressively prosecuted. In Mexico, the rule of thumb is if you can drive away from the scene of an accident, drive away, because both drivers will be thrown in jail when the cops show up. That´s for collisions between autos. Between a bike and a car — well, there´s an investigation going on to find out who killed a bicyclist a few weekends ago (of course, maybe it´s really no better than in the US - read this recent Journal article about a collision and injury suffered by a green wheels member). But, aside from that last unfortunate similarity in the Journal article, differences between Arcata and Parras sometimes make it hard not to feel like I come from a very different world which would be nearly impossible to explain to people here, or for them to imagine. And even though I´m here in Parras experiencing all this, a conception of what it would be like to live here permanently still hasn´t actually dawned on me.

My hope is to send about one email of this length every week. Writing these gives me additional opportunity to reflect and process, something I always appreciate. Soon, I´ll put these emails up on some kind of blog with pictures and links, too.

aaron :: Jun.19.2006 :: México :: No Comments »