Possibly my biggest frustration

One of the most frustrating things for me here in Mexico is the internet connection.  Its not that they don't have internet, because they do.  They have internet just about everywhere: cafes, parks and even fast food restaurants.  The problem is that it seems not to like my American computer.  Or maybe its that my American computer doesn't like it?  (Thats about as far as my computer technology skills can go)

Regardless, the point is that it takes me so much longer to do the simplest things.  Like load pictures.  Or write a blog post.  If I'm lucky enough to establish connection, I usually either get kicked off before I finish what I'm doing or I my attention span gets the better of me and I quit.

This leaves me in my current situation: nearly a week behind on blog posting.  So I have gone to Segafredo's, the nearest cafe and my second home.  I have my cafe and I'm in it for the long run.  What follows are the posts I should have written about several days ago!

My Lesson of the Day: Falling behind is easy, but catching up always takes time!

The smallest little airport

I went yesterday to go pick up Linda, one of my best friends from high school.  She flew directly into Merida - aka the smallest airport I have ever seen.

I arrived early to pick her up, thinking that I was going to a normal airport.  I walked inside to find that I was not.  I think I was one of the only two people in the airport, minus the huge number of people working.  

I went over to check out the arrivals and make sure that her flight was on time.  The screen looked somewhat like this: there were a total of 4 flights coming in - one from Houston and three from Mexico City.

I thought maybe they only had four flights coming in at the time, but then I realized that it was a list of every single flight for the day.  Four flights come into Merida and four flights go out, making it the smallest, eight-flights-per-day airport that I have ever seen!

My Lesson of the Day: You don't have to be a big airport when your the only one in the entire state!

My run in with the Police

Last night I was coming home from a Noosfera (a club) with one of my friends from here.  It was really late at night and there weren't many people on the road.  Before I knew it I looked behind us to see the flashing lights of the police.

Now the flashing lights aren't really a bad sign here.  The police here always have their lights flashing, so I was hoping that maybe it was just a coincidence that they were behind us.  But when they got on the loudspeaker and asked us to pull over, I knew it wasn't so.  

The police made my friend get out of his car and checked his license and registration.  In the next 20 minutes the policeman proceeded to search the trunk of the car and continued to talk with my friend.  I had no idea what to do.  Should I get out of the car, should I stay in.  The police here aren't really the most trustworthy and they are quite intimidating in their bulletproof vests with their large guns, so I decided to stay put.

My friend came back to the car and told me that we needed to get money, which he had none of at the time.  I racked my purse and came up with 100 pesos (which is only the equivalent of about $7).  He payed the policeman and we were free to go.  I'm not exactly sure what we were paying to get out of - other than driving down the street at night, but it was a lot less hassle to just give the man money and not have to worry anymore.

This brings me to the point of this post: the reason why Mexico has so many problems with crime.  Why would you be afraid of doing something bad as long as you have the money to pay off the cop if you got caught?  If the people enforcing the laws are more crooked than those they stop, how are you going to find justice?

Its a weird, messed up system but thats the way life is right now.

My Lesson of the Day: Never leave home without enough money to pay off the cop.

Election Time

Here in Mexico its getting to be election time.  They have primaries this month (March) and then the real vote is sometime during June or July.  I'm actually embarrassed that I don't remember the exact dates because of the sheer volume of times I have seen the commercials.  

Anyway, what strikes me as interesting about said commercials is that they aren't like the ones we have here in the US.  There are commercials from both of the major political parties - the PRI and the PAN, but then a lot of the commercials are just very general commercials telling people to vote.

And when I say general, I mean very general commercials.  Most consist of people instructing you to think about it and then vote, or to weigh the options and then vote.  Oh, and they usually repeat the dates several times for registering and for voting. 

I think I like these type of ads a little more.  While I don't know a single candidate, I also don't know their icky past, their flip-flop voting patterns, or their love scandals.  I think that maybe we should take page out of this book come 2012.

My Lesson of the Day: This is more a question than a lesson, but: I wonder how differently we might vote if we didn't have to sift through the negative ads.

Where is my $13 million?

Today at work we had an interview with a British man who we are featuring in the next issue.  I was invited to join in on the interview and it turned out to be more interesting than I thought.  This man lives here in Merida and because of all the request he has received, he has started a web site where you can go to learn languages - the most intriguing of which is Maya.

The interview was very interesting and we touched on many different topics, but one thing stuck out in my mind: the issue of poverty.  While I fully recognize that poverty exists in all countries, here it strikes me as an even greater problem.  I think the reason is that the wealth is distributed so unevenly here.  In the U.S. most of us identify ourselves as middle class and there have been a growing number of people who identify themselves as so.  While Mr. and Mrs. Jones down the road may have a pool and drive a nicer car, they really aren't that different.  Here however, this is not true.  Mr. and Mrs. Gonzalez have at least 4 nicer cars, a huge house, a house at the beach, a security guard and a live in Muchacha.  Meanwhile 3 blocks down the road there are people living in one room houses with dirt floors - or worse. 

So anyways, back to the interview.  Our interviewee told me a fact that he had recently learned.  If you took all the wealth in the world, added it up and then divided it between all of the people in the world, do you know how much money each person would have?  $13 million.  Astonishing, isn't it?  

It really made me think about how greed and selfishness have affected our world.  While I don't really have the $13 million to give away or share with others, it made me appreciate my life and it made me wonder what kind of a difference I could make with what I have.

My Lesson of the Day: $13 million wouldn't be a lot if everyone else had it too. 

The Guest Speaker

Last night I headed off to UNID - one of the Universities here in Merida.  One of my friends from work had told me that her professor would love for me to come and talk to their psychology class.  Their class is all about psychology of the Mexican in the business world and her professor wanted to hear an outsiders perspective on what goes on here.

I was a little nervous when she picked me up last night.  I didn't really know what to expect (what to say, what language to say it in, etc.)  I got to sit in some of the class for about half an hour, during which I got to listen to some students present and discuss various topics.  All in all, it was a lot like a normal university level class. 

Then the professor asked me to come up to the front of the class, tell everyone a little about myself and we had an interview-style discussion where anyone could ask me questions. And did they ask me questions!  I think that the class of about 25/30 people may know more about me than some of my friends! I talked about my views of Mexicans, the workplace and what I have seen so far.  We talked about machismo and feminism, my views on the world, where I see myself in 10 years and so much more.  I actually had a lot of fun talking with the class.  I think was a really good experience for all involved.  

For them it was good for them to hear our stereotypes of Mexicans (some valid and some not) and also my opinion after living here.  I also think it helped them to see someone trying to speak spanish, enjoying the lifestyle here and having fun. It kind of helped break the drunk, partying american stereotype that they have of us (all thanks to spring break). 

For me, it was great to speak spanish in front of a ton of people for so long.  And the professor said that I even spoke really well - can you believe that?  He asked me to come back and speak to another one of his classes sometime if I wanted, but we'll see if my time limit will allow.  It was also really good for me because it got me thinking about things I haven't thought about before, like: what would I bring from Ohio to Merida or vice versa? What I'll miss the most and least?  For me, it was a great opportunity to reflect on my time here and realize what I'll miss and what I'll be happy to get away from.  It makes me realize that I really need to enjoy my last three weeks here in the peninsula, but also that I will be excited to return to Ohio, my home.

My Lesson of the Day: I've learned more about myself in one class here in Mexico than I have in 2 years at OU.  

Another weekend in the Jungle

Yet another weekend here in Mexico saw us adventure off into la selva (the jungle) of southern Mexico.  This time we were headed off to Calakmul, famous ruins site for many reasons.

First, the site is located in the 1,800,000 acre Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, one of the most important biosphere reserves in the world - second only to that of the Amazons.  Traveling into the reserve is like traveling back into time and getting to see the same landscape that the Mayans once walked through.

Our trip to Calakmul was not quite as easy as we had hoped.  While the ruins are one of the largest ancient Maya cities ever uncovered, it ceases to be a major tourist destination.  We ended up taking two second-class busses south from Merida for a trip that lasted about 5 1/2 hours.  We eventually found ourselves in the middle of nowhere at midnight when we encountered a small cabana for the night.  The biggest perk was getting to see the stars at night without the glare of city lights to obstruct the view.

Don Antonio, the sweet old caretaker of the cabanas told us that we should get an early start on the day if we were planning on going to the ruins.  He arranged for a cab, which is the only way to get out the ruins, and we headed off to sleep under mosquito nets for the night.

The next day we arose to the sound of roosters crowing and ate a nice breakfast prepared by Don Antonio himself.  We were in the cab by 7am and headed off to the site.

The site is so remote that tit takes at least an hour by car to reach the ruins once you enter into the biosphere reserve.  Along the road we saw a good amount of wildlife which consisted mostly of wild turkeys.  But these turkeys weren't like any I've ever seen.  They looked more like giant peacocks with blue and green feathers, a long neck and a small head topped with a crown of orange bumps.  They were much more beautiful than I expected.

We finally reached the beginning of the ruins.  From there you can take three routes, the shortest of which takes you right to the main attraction - the heart of the old city and the two big temples.  Calakmul was home to about 200,000 people during its peak, so the city is huge.

Both of the temples were equally impressive in size and height, but one is slightly higher than the other.  The bigger one holds the record for the tallest and I believe the biggest pyramid of the all the Mayan pyramids excavated.  Four tombs have been found inside, indicating that the pyramid grew in size throughout the years that the city thrived.

The view from the top of the pyramid made the long, hot accent worth it.  All you could see was jungle in every direction with the other temples poking out from the treetops.  From the top of one pyramid we ran into two mexican guys with binoculars.  With binoculars we could see the very tip of the main temple of Tikal, Guatemala.  (The site of Calakmul is only 30km from the border between Mexico and Guatemala).  So, technically, I can now say that I have seen a lot of Guatemala, regardless of the fact that I haven't stepped food inside of the country.

After spending about 2 1/2 hours at the site, climbing both of the big pyramids and running around the site, we decided not to keep the cab driver waiting any longer.  Plus we were trying to fit in as many sites as possible while we had the cab for the day.

We drove back out of the site and headed off towards Balam Ku's.  This site was a lot smaller than Calakmul but it had some really nice stucco work.  Back in the day of the mayans almost all fo the buildings were covered with painted stucco.  The site of Balam Ku's gave us a better look at what the temples used to look like.

From there it was off to Chicanná.  This site was much closer to where we were staying for the night.  Its big attraction was a huge building whose facade was shaped like a giant face - the doorway being the huge gaping mouth.  It was a depiction of the mayan god of the earth.

From Chicanná we headed right down the road to Becán, another small, yet impressive site.  There were many high pyramids with stunning views.  Becán was also the first place we really encountered other tourists.  We saw some mexicans at Calakmul and few other tourists at Chicanná, but nothing like the italian tourist group we saw at Becán.  I think that part of the experience of going to all of the ruins that we saw was that they were so remote.  It felt almost as if we had the ruins to ourselves.  It made them that much more awe inspiring and impressive.

Finally it had reached 5pm, which is closing time for the archeological sites.  I can't say I minded though because we had a long, exhausting day of traveling and I was ready to head back to the cabana.  Luckily on the way home from the ruins site we asked the taxi driver about bus rides back north so we could get to Merida.  We found out the Xpuhil (the closest city to the ruins) was so remote that only one bus left each day to go north and it happened to do so at 4am.  We were very thankful that we had asked or else we would have missed our only bus north.

We headed back to the cabana where we proceeded to watch a bit of "The Little Rascals" in spanish before passing out from exhaustion.  At 3:30 we woke up and Don Antonio drove us to the side of the road because he told us it wasn't safe for 3 girls to be walking alone in the middle of nowhere at 3 am.  There we waited with him until we could see the headlights of the bus and we flagged it down from the side of the road.

We were back in Merida by about 9 or 10 in the morning after some long hours on a bumpy bus ride home.  We had the whole day ahead of us, yet we felt as if it were bedtime.

My Lesson of the Day: Four ruins in one day is enough to exhaust even the most avid ruins enthusiast!