Puebla, Puebla

A must-do for any Catholic missionary in Mexico is take a trip to Puebla, Puebla. The first town in Mexico to be founded by Spaniards is home to 364 churches and only about 200,000 people. On just about every corner you will find an iglesia ( which makes it difficult to keep up with the Catholic custom of making the sign of the cross everytime you pass a church).

Jessica and I recently made a weekend trip there, though not quite for religious purposes. Puebla is known for its blue and white ceramic pottery and for being the creation spot of mole--a thick, complex sauce made with numerous ingredients including chocolate. Jess wanted to pick up some of each as souvenirs for her upcoming visit home. We also wanted to relax in the town`s tranquil European-style streets and drink coffee.

We took a scenic two-hour bus ride to the city, riding past the volcano Popocatépetl. The trip is a blur of funky marketplaces, churches and seeing the body of St. Francisco. One of the things that proves he is a saint is the fact the his body is supposedly not decaying despite the fact the he died some 500 years ago. However, his body looked at a bit funky to me as well.

Overall, the churches were quite beautiful but some were bordering on gaudy as they were lavishly covered with gold. Jessica and I both had moral qualms with the amount of wealth actually in churches. One guide explained that hundreds of years ago, churches were decorated with gold in order to draw the attention of people since people were illiterate and books couldn't be used. On the positive sides, the churches are open for all people, rich and poor, to enjoy. (On another negative note, I found the church workers to be quite unforgiving as two repeatedly screamed at me after I accidentally used my flash when taking pictures.)




What stands out for me more is a our trip to Cholula. We went there in order to visit the Great Pyramid of Cholula--the world`s largest monument. Though we expected to take a bus directly to the site, we got lost and ended up in the middle of town. It all worked out as we attended Mass in a sedate church and found the town of Cholula to be more relaxed than Puebla and we were able to sit in a park.

After making our way to the remains of the pyramid, we climbed it and then encountered the Church of Our Lady or Remedies, which sits atop the pyramid. While catching out breath, we met an American minister who has been living in Mexico city as missionary for the past 22 years.(Making our two-year commitment seem slack.) We were able to get some trade tips from him-- advice and information on drug rehabilitation programs.

Then we explored the church itself--check out the translations-

Back on the ground, we went inside the pyramid and explored complex tunnels and stairs. Outside were remains of altars, stairs and game spots. The whole site followed the Spaniard custom of building religious spots on top of Mayan and Aztec sites. It was symbolic of the way Catholicism is in Mexico--people are outwardly Catholic, but beliefs are intertwined with native practices underneath.

The trip ended with a two-hour bus ride to Mexico City, followed by one and a half hours on public transpiration back to Santa Fe, souvenirs in hand. Good practice for Jess as she will soon be lugging all that pottery and mole back to the States.

More pictures!

How did this happen?

My fourteen-year-old English students laugh at me--they laugh when I try to speak Spanish, they laugh when I talk at them in English, and they laugh for various other reasons that I don`t understand. I don`t quite get them and vice versa. The difference isn`t cultural, it`s the thirteen years I have on them. They are at an age where if something is not a cause for tears, it is generally a reason to burst into giggles. Authority figures over the age of twenty-five (such as myself) are especially funny.

Admittedly, I do odd things. At work yesterday, I came upon Paulina riding on a toy tricycle. Instead of cycling on the pedals, she was using her legs to trudge herself along. I corrected her form and pushed her, but couldn`t get her to ride on her own. Wondering if the tricycle even worked properly, I tried it out myself and she then she attempted to push me along. That didn`t work, so I decided to demonstrate how one circles their legs. While lying on the ground moving my feet through the air, I thought of my peers spending their Wednesday afternoons in offices. I realized that within the span of one year (and without acquiring a husband or child), I have gone from being a hip, young urbanite to leading the life of a small-town PTA mom.

This is a typical weekend in Santa Fe: I go to the market to buy ingredients for a fresh raspberry pie that Jess and I will bake for an elderly neighbor. While shopping, I exchange pleasantries with co-workers and students that I encounter. Playing nearby is the parish dog wjp has followed me into the market. Minus my nagging chitchat with Lucius (the town drunk I`ve befriended), it feels very Normal Rockwell. On the weekend, I also make stops at the parish where I help lead youth group, chat with the church ladies and clear up after meals.

Ironically, one of the reasons that I didn`t do volunteer work abroad out of college is that I had the idea that I needed to settle down and start a family and this type of thing would hold me back. Realizing it is easier to obtain a family than to make this sort of commitment, I got over that fear and decided I wanted to try something exotic. Ironically, my life has turned
decidedly domestic.

When tell others that I am doing missionary work in Mexico, they conjure up images of me working in the jungle with native people or living in the midst of drug wars. Life is actually much simpler. At work I wipe noses, read children`s books and give hugs. At home, I cook meals with fresh food from the market place and entertain neighborhood teens who stop by. Despite putting aside my desire to start a family, I feel as if I have turned into a mother. I suppose my life is pretty funny.

Filling Out

Work is going pretty typically in the morning--I am outside pushing Gaby along in her wheelchair-- when I catch sight of my reflection in a window. Typically, a glimpse of myself is surprising as we have no full-length mirrors in our house. It is especially jarring this time as what our house does have is peanut butter and chocolate from the United States, and I have spent the last week consuming these items. ¨I can stand to lose a few pounds,¨ I think to myself.

I walk several times up one of Santa Fe´s giant hills during my afternoon break and then head back to work. An old woman with long gray braids and a brown, leathery face stops me and asks for anything--work, money and other items I don´t comprehend. It´s actually a situation I don´t encounter often since everyone is hard off and they would have more luck begging in rich areas.

¨Do you need food?¨ I ask her.

¨Si,¨ she says and then goes into a litany of what more she lacks. I tell her that I am on my way to a house of nuns who give out dispensas (pantry food) and they could probably give one to her. I want to lead her to aid to her that is more long-term than a few pesos, but to be truthful, I also don´t want the burden of dealing with her by myself.

She agrees to come with me, and as we walk, I have to remember that she is not a problem but a person. I force myself to walk at her pace and I ask her questions like her name (Amy) and if she has children.

When we arrive at the Sisters´ house, the door-guard won´t let Amy in and says she is always going door-to-door begging. I go inside and tell Sister Beth about her and she replies¨Yes, I´ll go take care of it. Thank you.¨

From there I am seemingly done with and can go about being with the girls, but I have an internal debate in my head. Why am I only comfortable around the poor when I´m in a delegated area? Isn´t Amy just as looked over as those inside the house who I´m visiting? I go outside with Amy on the doorstep and wait. Volunteers, priests, and nuns troop in and out and community members walk past us.

Generally, a lot of people come in to visit from outside of Santa Fe. There are college girls who are skinny, pretty and well-dressed. As I am likely to wear something to work that I also wore to bed, I feel frumpy next to them. There are rich women who have free afternoons since they have married well or retired from good jobs. They show up in cars driven by chauffeurs and carry bags of gifts. I think that I would´t mind living that kind of life. Sometimes, they all make me want to clean up my personal presentation and put more effort into my appearance. But as I am also surrounded by people whose own bodies have failed them and who would have nothing except for charity, I realize how blessed I am the way I am.

However, today I am wearing baggy sweatpants, a few layers of t-shirts, and carrying a misshapen bag of books that I brought to read to the children. Sitting alongside Amy, I wonder if people are mistaking us for a homeless granddaughter and grandmother and I am a little embarrassed. I also feel as if I am burdening the nuns and am inadequate compared to them as they are spending their lives devoted to the poor. I contemplate giving up everything the way they have (and then would put no thought into my clothing.)

At least, I should have tried to do more for Amy, since I am the one from a rich country. I remind myself that my family donates money to Catholic charities such as the one that the nuns run and that people in the United States give lots of money to the Missionaries of Charity. Thus the nuns owe it to me to give aid. This may be what if takes to actually beg--you have to talk yourself into a sense of entitlement.

Sister Beth comes out, assesses Amy and says ¨We give her a dispensa every month. We know her well. I´ll get something for her.¨

The guardsman tells me that Amy is from a really rough neighborhood, where everyone is on drugs all the time. Since she regularly receives food, I wonder if her children have forced her to go begging to support their drug habits or if she needs money to fund things like electricity and water bills. I am lacking in knowledge of things that could help me help her—of the Spanish language for one, and of social services available. My mind circles with with things that I should do to really bring about change that could benefit her—become a lawyer, a human rights crusader, an international development worker.

Sister Beth comes back with a few items of food and a small bag of hard candies. Amy insists on giving me a butterscotch and says she´d like to continue to listen to the children´s stories I have been reading. So after a introspective struggle about what my place in the world should be, it seems that I have only found what my place is for the moment—on the ground, reading kids´ books to a strange old lady while sucking on candy.

Though Amy may be taking advantage of people, there must be a loneliness to her life if she has no one to go to for help and she is constantly rejected by people. I hope I bring her a little comfort by reading. When we finish, she asks more for a few pesos. So maybe she was just sitting through the books in order to get more money. Wanting to invite her to my house, but not wanting her there, I tell her I´ll be at evening Mass and she agrees to come as well. (She doesn´t show.)

That evening, Jessica and I visit the Sisters of the Incarnate Word who live in Santa. Outside their door is Lupita, a neighbor who is addicted to drugs. She comes inside with us, reeking of chemicals, and eats tacos. Cessy and Nikko joke with her and seem quite comfortable with her. ¨Lupita look at me—you´re high,¨ says Nikko while laughing.

Lupita is in a chatty, amiable mood—due to the drugs, Cessy later says. Lupita looks at Jessica and I wistfully and remarks how pretty we are. She tells me that I look how she did when she was well. Now, she is skin and bones, dirty and bruised. Lupita says that she used to be gorda (fat) though Jess assures me she means it in a healthy, filled-out sense rather than in the manner I was worried about in the morning.

For about twenty years, I have been concerned about my weight and how I appear to others. I´ve seen tons of articles in magazines and on the Internet offering tips on how to not eat so much and how to win friends. What I really need now is advice on how to provide to others and befriend those no one wants to be around, but those sorts of readings are hard to find. Like many other people, I dwell on personal problems within myself to fix, perhaps because it´s easier than trying to face problems in the outside world. It´s here that I am slowly receiving a new education, and though hard, this is a good way to grow.

Little Angel

A few days back from vacation, I ask the physical therapist at work about one of the little girls I haven´t seen since before leaving.

¨Donde Angelita?¨ (Where is Angelita?)

¨En cielo.¨ (In heaven)

The news is sad, but not too surprising. At eight, Angelita was among the oldest children as well as one of the sickest. Her head bulged out abnormally as if she had a tumor on the right side of her head (I think she had a condition called hydrocephalus, which I learned about in high school anatomy) and she couldn´t talk or walk.

Despite her deformity, Angelita had a beautiful smile that literally took over her face. She sat most of the time in a special chair, rapidly blinking her eyes and occasionally giggling at something--babies, noises or toys. Once, when I was throwing rubber balls into a playpen while cleaning up, Angelita started laughing at the site of the flying objects. From then on, when I remembered and had time, I would throw the balls in the air in order to entertain her. It was a good feeling that my simple actions could produce so much joy.

Still, Angelita was easy to overlook. She wasn´t cuddly and prone to jumping on visitors the way the toddlers are, and she wasn´t a tiny object crying like the babies who seem so in need of being held. When it came time to bring the kids to the lunch area, Angelita was usually the last one carried out due to the effort it took to lift her. I would hold her on my lap, but not to often since she was heavy and sometimes soiled me.

There wasn´t too much happiness in her life and I know her future would have been painful. I miss her now that she isn´t here but know she is in a better place. I picture her as continuously smiling while her eyelashes bat like the the wings of butterflies, as she is encompassed by the love that escaped her on Earth.

Swine Flu By

As a university student in Washington DC, I should have been in the city during the 9-11 attacks. Instead, I happened to be studying abroad in Perth, Australia. While my fellow students fled from campus after a plane crashed into the Pentagon and lived through an anthrax scare, I dealt with the shock from halfway across the world and returned to a much different America.

I´ve discovered that I have a knack for avoiding being around crises of that incite global fear. Three weeks ago, I left for the United States to vacation, and during my first day home, news of the swine flu was everywhere. At first I was skeptical that it would amount to anything more then a weekend story. Though pictures of Mexicans wearing face masks bombarded television, I assured my family that masks are commonly worn in the country due to pollution and smog.

Reports of the swine flu escalted--and so did my tempature. Throughout the month of April I had felt run-down and believed I had mononucleosis. My symptoms were flu-like and my family joked that I was a carrier of the swine flu.

Unfortunately, my family is a bit neurotic, and being around them probably inspired more fear than if I had actually been in Mexico City. My sister forbade me from touching her personal items and shooed me away from my niece. My father took the opportunity to ask me where I would like to be buried and what sort of funeral I´d like.

I decided medical advice wouldn´t hurt and set about calling clinics for a mononucleosis test. Upon hearing my symptoms and my symptoms and Mexico City mentioned, receptions advised me to head for the hospital.

I checked into the emergency room and was given a face mask to wear. The attendent told me that the hospital was full of people worried about swine flu, but I recieved a little special treatment due to my place of residency.

Though the E.R.. hallway was full of both elderly and bleeding people, I was put into a private isolated room. Two doctors came in to speak with me, and while the concluded that I probably didn´t have swine flu, CDC regulations required them to test me. They also advised me against returning to Mexico anytime soon.

A nurse came in to draw blood for a mono test. ¨ It´ll proably take about an hour and a half,¨ he said. ¨I´ll be back¨

¨So I should leave and return?¨ I asked.

¨No, you´re supposed to wait here, I think. But I´ll check on that.¨

Then one doctor came in for a mucus swab, which is basically done by sticking two q-tips up ones´ naval cavaties. I flet like my eyeballs were going to be gouged out.

After the doctor left, I waited for someone to tell me if I could leave and come back. After about an hour, I realized I was waiting for results. I flipped through my Spanish book, which was the only reading material I brought because I wanted to force myself to study. It helped me fall asleep.

At one point a nurse came to the door with a wheelchair-bounc patient in tow. ¨Oh,¨she said, startled to see me. ¨Are you supposed to be here? Do they know you´re here.¨

¨I think so,¨ I said. ¨I hope.¨ She went to check things out, leaving me wondering if there was a misunderstanding and I could have left hours earlier. I imagined trying to leave and having spacesuit-wearing government employees grab and sequester me.

Finally, four hours after samples were taken, the doctor came to tell me she hadn´t forgotten me and would come back soon with results. Forty-five minutes, I was declared free of swine flu (and mono.)

I ended up extending my stay in the United States for a few days before nervously going back to Mexico City. I was heartened by reports that the virus wasn´t nearly as bad as originally thought and that one would be okay by taking basic precautions like washing your hands and avoiding unnessary touching.

One of the first things I did once home was to stop by the parish. Guillito was so exicted that he grabbed me, squeezed me and covered me with kisses. He showed more exuberance over my return to Mexico than anyone did upon seeing me in the States. Guillito is a 76 year-old chain smoker and while telling me about his fears that I would never return and his plan to go to the United States to fetch me, he coughed with his trademark hack. Though touched by how much he cares, I was also concerned by the fact that his excited declarations caused spit to fall out of his mouth and onto my face.

Then it was off to Mass, though first I greeted everyone I hadn´t seen in weeks with hugs and kisses. The service was a bit different than usual as hosts were token by the hands of recipents rather than the tongue and there was no sign-of-the peace (the period during Mass when hands are shaken.)

After Mass, I ate tacos with everyone in the parish kitchen. There were plenty of tortillas to grab from a communal pile in order to assemble diner, but soap was missing. I rubbed my hands with lime before eating because it is supposed to be a natural disinfectant. During dinner Antonio--the handicapped, previously homeless man who Padre has given a place to live--sat next to me and, as always, coughed without covering his mouth.

Normally, I pride myself as being rather go-with-the-flow and accepting of the circumstances around me, but my return put me on edge. Everything I had heard in the States was being disregarded and I felt as if I was wallowing around in a giant petri dish of bacteria.

Padre comforted me by saying that the swine flu was mostly hype. He thinks it was exaggerated by the Mexican government to keep people from protesting economic conditions. The fact that the United States didn´t close the border showed to him that the U.S.A. realized it wasn´t all that dangerous.

Most people think the swine flu is a hoax and there are all sorts of rumours spreading around. Apparently Pemex- Mexico´s publicly owned owned oil company-went private during this time and it wasn´t reported on due to the flu. It is been said that the government exaggerated the flue to stop people from rioting due to general bad conditions or to distract citizens from unknown shady dealings. Others think it began in the United States and was brought over when President Obama visited. However, everyone agrees that it has been a huge financial blow as the people who eek by selling whatever have lost their only sources of income.

I returned to work with the Missionaries of Charity on Monday, the first day it was open to visitors after shutting down for the flu. The kids were especially clingy and eager to be held, though confused by my required face mask andtried to pull it off. Despite half my face being hidden, the older girls seemed to recognize and be happy to see me.

The schools have reopened and the streets are filling up again, though they are emptier than when I left. Life continues on. As for me, I´ve been somewhat hypochondriac since arriving here and the flu has definitely caused this to increase. This morning, I had a late start to work due to stomach problems and while walikng there I felt feverish. I debated whether or not to go in as now is not a good time to be passing along any sort of illness, but I decided to forge ahead and I pulled out my face mask. It snapped as I tried to put it on, and knowing that it would take a while to buy another one , I decided that was a sign from God to go home and rest and take my temperature.

After a long chat with the pharmacist, I learned two new words today--termómetro and caído la máscara-- and it turns out I´m fine. All and all, things are cooling off here, though the possiblity of economic collapse, oil protests and economic riots have given me some new things to worry about, though keeping my circulation from being cutting off from beneath my caído la máscara is taking priority.