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beth and Omar body painting on the rooftop

January 31, 2004

i just took a walk through the town. it´s in a valley, but the streets are hilly, lots of steep little hills, up and down and up and down. there´s a lake, or a wide part of a river, on the edge of town; i haven´t been there yet. i said i wanted to cook beans and maria elena and i picked through them and then she showed me how she always cooks them in a ceramic jug. puts that teracotta jug right over the gas burner. when she used to live in mexico city she used a pressure cooker ("una hoya express") but she said it tastes much different this way. when i get home i´m going to have some.

the house i live in isn´t closed off to the outside. the bedrooms can be, but the central living space has the upper part of one wall open to a kind of second story courtyard where they/we do laundry by hand and hang it up. so part of the living space has a ceiling that´s effectively two stories high and that part´s roof is that wavy plasitc stuff like the roof of our bike-parking shed. my space is over the other part of the living room, next to the laundry courtyard. and if i go upstairs again, i can go on the roof of my room and look accross the tiles of many other rooms and to the hills all around. the sky was all dappled this evening, with little white clouds fanning out from the sun, set against brilliant blue. now it´s dark and it´s cooling off. it´s going to be darn hot here in the next months! i wanted to ask you about the symbol for the middle stone of my reading, the one about the warrior, the one about translating ideas into action. see, i want to plant a garden. i want that idea to become reality and i want to put that symbol on it. i think i know what it looks like, but not which way around.... email is clumsy for asking people about symbols that aren´t on the keyboard. i think it´s like a Z except tilted so that the middle part is vertical and the parts that are horizontal on the Z are slanted. is that right? and if that´s the right idea, is it a forwards or backwards Z tilted?? that´s all. i´m going to write my gramma back and then go home and eat.

February 7, 2004

first impressions: chiapa de corzo is a little town ­ in three directions i can walk out of it in a out 15 minutes. in the fourth it takes maybe 40. the edge of town to the south is the rio grande de chiapas, wide and green and cooling. it closes into a beautiful canyon just past the city. in all directions your view ends with mountains; this is the middle of "chiapas' hot, humid central valley" (lonely planet). it matters if you're from here ­ meaning at best that your parents were born here ­ people know each other. but knowing i'm here to study, people seem friendly and welcoming to me. yesterday morning i want downstairs to find out why a drum and fife were playing outside the door and along the street and i found myself invited into a 6:00 am birthday party of maria elena's cousin.

i live at maria elena's house, along with her and her daughter. she's been building the house room by room, loan by loan, since she moved back to chiapas from the DF 18 years ago. my room is on the third floor and i can spend evenings on the roof, enjoying the wind that always comes up at dinner time.

maria elena is friendly, a glad talker, and already practiced in speaking slowly and simply or spanish learners. i guess she likes having us cuz her daughter's hardly ever there. abigail works long hours and then goes out. she's stylish and quick in comparison to maria elena, who stops what she's doing when you talk to her, who sells mary kay products to supplement her pension and walks around the house with lipstick on her chin when she's been trying out products. she likes living in chiapa de corzo because she can take time for things, like cooking her beans for two hours in a terracotta pot instead of the pressure cooker she used in mexico city.

i have spanish class with taide ­ the first text she brought us to read and discuss was about the hardcore and ska scenes in mexico. this morning she and the other student in the class and i walked around town and out of it for a few hours and then had pozol and breakfast with her mama. i teach three English classes to people from age 6 to i think 20. one class is absolute beginners, from the littlest ones up to about age 13. they are such brilliant language learners, absorbing everything i say and then hardly retaining it but absorbing it just as readily the next day.

the stars shine brightly in this little town, the same February stars that i know and love, canus major and orion and Taurus and the pleades.... thursday night i lay on the roof and watched the full moon rise and listened to someone serenade a group on a roof across the street.... mango season is coming.... i think i´m going to like it here. much love to all of you. write me letters!!

February 22, 2004

so here's my new metaphor. i´m a tree like the pachota whose root-top i'm sitting on right now. (the maya revere the pachota as the connection between heaven and earth. it's huge, with angular twisty thick-ended branches and roots that separate like buttresses from the truck 2m above the ground and knarl their way into the earth as they spread out wide. this one is in the process of lifting the whole ring of the low concrete wall that surrounds it; between its silver branches the sky is a complicated tessalation of midnight blue polygons.)

i have roots going deep, going wide, twisted up in the roots of other people. my roots are my past. i can feel them going down thru my feet into the earth and connecting me. some re stretched thin by distance, some are new. i sent out a little root that hooked like a meñique, like a pinky finger around one of marty's recently. some are much more bound up, like i have lotsa roots twisted up with yours, sager. their ground is less fertile now than it has been, but they aren't any less bound. and that's the thing ­ if my roots are my past, they don´t ever unbind. different amounts or my life energy flows from and to and thru them in different seasons, but my connections to my school friends are still there underground, forever. the tangle i grew around claudia's less bent root is still there. a double loop around sarah hussein stays, tho i don't know where she is. deep and old roots bind me to my parents and those are still growing and holding. my roots grow and intertwine, or they don't. they don't retreat. and then there's this trunk and branches reaching up and out, testing trying exploring learning leaving, creating energy from the sun, depending on nutrients from below. that's me. i love you.

March 15, 2004

i´m feeling sad. today in my Spanish class we looked at the lies people tell each other, like “i´ll call you” or “you look great” or i´m sorry, i couldn´t make your party, my gramma was sick” or “when i stood you up i was caught in traffic, but i really want to hang out, how about wednesday?” imagine saying that when you don´t really want to hang out with that person and you didn´t want to when you made the original date either and you didn´t intend to keep the date you already missed and don´t intend to show up wednesday. i wouldn´t do that. but the other person in my Spanish class said of course they would and people have done exactly that with me here and it feels in this moment like the world is so full of lies. it makes me feel like a fool for taking yeses as yeses and nos as nos. at odds with a culture that teaches people that no doesn´t mean no, and so you have to lie to get rid of people… the people in my class explained that if you say no, people keep pursuing, so finally you say yes, without ever intending to do what you said you would. then you don´t show up and they get the message? how can people understand better that you don´t want to be their friend if you say yes and then don´t show up, but not understand if you just say in a compassionate way that you don´t want to hang out?? i don´t want to change or adapt to a world of that kind of lies. i want to say yes and no according to my own truth and then do my best to keep my word. and yes, recognize that my truth may change and perhaps let other people know that, too.

i used to say i wanted to be radically honest, and i had a firm vision of what truth was and there was one and saying something else was falsehood. i thought i had come to a place of accepting more the subjectivity of truth, that my truth shifts and so do other people´s and so i can´t say that simply if someone´s lying or not, or if what i say will stay true. but sincerity!!!

that´s what knocked me down these last coupled days. maybe sincerity is my present version of that kind of truth i NEED from people and expect from myself. and i assume it from people and realizing people´s insincerity is bowling me over, making me feel almost paranoid, like i can have no idea what´s real in the world and no idea what in the past was real or not, taking the ground out from under my assumptions about my past experiences and relationships. i assume people are sincere and that if they tell me they want to hang out tomorrow, they want that in that moment, even if they end up not doing it; and if they tell me they´re x-kind of person, that they really perceive themselves in that moment that way, even if they aren´t it consistently (or even hardly ever, maybe they just really want to be that way ­ i can understand that as a truth, too); and if they tell me some fact that isn´t factually true, it´s true to them on some level of wish, or what they think they ought to be doing or having….

and then here are these two wonderful women in my class telling me of course everybody tells these kinds of white lies all the time and you know what, i don´t. well i do, seldomly, and i judge myself for it when i do. [maybe i say “maybe sometime” when i mean “no” but i would never say “for sure, how about wednesday evening?” when i mean “no.” how cruel, really…] but what am i supposed to believe? who can i believe and how do i decide how to react to people when they might not even mean what they´re saying? and to me those lies are not “white” or harmless, because i don´t read their code and so maybe i keep pursuing someone who´s really trying to get rid of me and then feel stupid. but that´s why i said i don´t want to adapt. i don´t want to learn the code so i don´t misjudge people´s desires, i want to live in a different world. i want our yeses to be yeses. adapting is saying yes to what is. it´s just a converntion, really, this saying no with yes and yes with no; it´s just a language that i happen not to like. but ouch i say!

there, i feel a little bit better. thank you. what do you think? do you think most people are almost always sincere in what they say? that has been my operating assumption all my life. that i been extraordinarily naïve to have kept it this long? or can i keep it still? even if it´s not the case, that most people are almost always sincere and don´t want to hurt anybody, can i go on living as if it were so, just keeping the assumption and a grain of salt to go with it?

as i walked home from the payphone i remembered what my old Meyers briggs score had been: INTP. pre-germany. so then yesterday i found a free test online. it wan´t great, cuz all the questions were yes/no, and sometimes one can´t answer either way. but i took it and interestingly it came out INFP, but moderately I (that one was the slightest), N, and P, and “distinctly” F. so there´s my shift, i guess. and it makes sense. in highschool i used to cry when i was stressed, and i had convictions that i simply acted, but i really didn´t have emotions that i spoke about. whatever happened for me emotionally happened subconsciously. now i talk my feelings out and i think about them. even when i first got back from germany elizabeth commented (with appreciation) that i was so much more articulate. and what i was talking about was feelings and identity and shifts and what she was appreciating was that i was more accessible to her on the level of who i really am. because she processes those things externally, too.

hm, but isn´t someone who doesn´t talk about feelings or recognize or name or analyze them still feeling? thinking is the other pole of feeling in the test. but isn´t maybe thinking just another way of naming feeling, the way people who think name the way they decide what they want need, are going to do, while other people name it feeling?? hm. on the other hand, one could probably say that about all the poles of the test, that they´re different ways of naming the same process to oneself. and so i guess that´s what the difference might be about ­ they way we name and understand wht we are doing when we need contact with others or need alone space or make a decision or create our beliefs…

May 20, 2004

i have a new spanish teacher and i think class is much better. i'm really happy with it right now. we're reading something at our level, we're writing and correcting our texts together, we're focusing on grammar questions that challenge us, we're playing games where you play roles and situations to use certain types of language, esther corrects our mistakes and thinks before she answers questions. it's darn good.

today the seminar starts at the dojo. i'm excited. did i tell you the sensei gave me one of his old gi tops? i was wearing a t-shirt for two months and then last week (or week before?) i asked him where i could buy a top before the seminar and he said oh, i had just decided this wek to give you one that is too small for me. and that´s not a big deal, i mean he can't use it any more, but it makes me feel like my interest is recognized and cebrated, supported. i like it. and one thing about this dojo and this teacher is that nothing is free. i think i'd seek another one, if i didn't have a limited time here anyway. i don't like the attitude that everything has a price, and that's how the teacher is. it seems a little hypocritcal. but whatever. i have six weeks to suck the marrow out of what i can learn from him and from the other students before i leave and then i can figure out if and which dojo i'll seek in eugene. and i'm really liking aikido. it doesn't feel overwhelming to me anymore, it feels like a huge ocean of knowledge that i'm barely wading in, but now i've seen myself learn some of it, be able to apply and build on what i've learned, and that makes the bigness of it positive rather than overwhelming. and people at the dojo know me and i know whom i like to work with, and that makes me enjoy training too. people have such different approaches. there one guy who likes to practice the moves dacnce style without an uke first, and if he has to use any muscular force he stops and tries to figure out how to do it more correctly so that it's easy. i like his approach best. and there are other people who like to do it like a fight, so that their uke HAS to fall, and throwing in a kick if there's an opening. that's the other extreme and i avoid partering up with those people. some people focus more on breath, others more on body position. i like to pay a lot of attention first to what my feet are doing, and move up from there.

i'm starting to have a long list of things i want to do in eugene, like contuinue taking spanish, aikido, use my german, bike regularly, pottery or wood scuplting, continue gaining english teaching experience, live with my community, have one-on-one dates with kiter and rainyrain, dance and sing, not to mention whatever project we find all together.... that doesn't leave much time for working ;-) but it think it's good to have a long list, cuz then some doors open and some don't and you find out what you're going to do.

June 14, 2004

hi dear ones,
so the mangoes are here; and the rains and it´s all ever so yummy. the hills have turned bright green. one afternoon i lay on the roof and watched bolts of lightening unfurl across the sky. they´re so powerful and silent and random. lots of other fruits are starting their seasons too, papausa and guanabana and guava and mamay and chicozapote and lychee and rambutan. some of them have been around for a while and are now coming into their own. for example, esther introduced me to the zapotes (mamay is also called zapote colorado) but now they´re in the stage where people give them to maria elena. that´s how you can tell that a fruit is really in season: buckets of them start appearing in the corner of the kitchen floor and there´s mango jam and i´m going out to buy condensed milk to make nieve de mamay. i had my first guanabana just yesterday. it´s a funky shaped thing, with thick green skin and spines that look mean but are actually leathery soft. inside it´s creamy white flesh with mahogany seeds in chewy membranes and it tastes like.... well, it tastes like guanabana.

i have a different spanish teacher now. i like her a lot. on a personal level we think each other are cooler that tayde and i did -- we have the occasional affimation fest. and i really like her style of teaching. i feel like i´m speaking much better.

this weekend i took the first exam in aikido. so i advanced from the sixth kyu to the fifth. it´s nice to be able to concretize what i learned in my four months of practice here, but much more importantly, it was darn fun. i liked memorizing the names of the techniques before the test and clarifying for myself what i know and don´t know, and i liked being helped by more advanced students (what´s better in life than offering and receiving help?)

and i enjoyed the test itself and how hot and wrung out i was after it. that was the thing the examiners most remarked on -- that they could see that i was enjoying the challenge of the test, throwing joyfully. i´ll be here in chiapa de corzo about three weeks more, then i´ll travel for two or three weeks, and then in a little more than a month i´m comin home!

yay! so if you´re waiting to send me mail, you better hurry up, and if you´re gonna be in the bay area in july/august, i´ll see you then. much love!

July 18, 2004

hi y´all, so i just got back to san cristobal after spending 10 days in the poblado emiliano zapata, three hours past ocosingo. it was lovely there, the landscape, the people, the talks.... we were in a valley alongside a river that flowed clear green and fast, except after a rain when it immediately rose high and clouded with runoff. the mountains on all sides were steep, triangular, green, cloud-wreathed, the sky was big and dramatic. each one of the 38 families in the community lives on a plot with many one-room buildings -- kitchen, latrines, and various sleeping and storage houses. the buildings are surrounded by banana trees that shade coffee plants, support climbing chayote vines, and give way at the edges to sugar cane, corn , beans, flowers. at a little distance esch family also has a much larger piece of land to sow corn and beans, and the community also has milpas in common, to sell corn for community expenses and to support people who give their work to the education, health, or administration of the community. every morning several different people brought us a few tortillas each. everybody´s tortillas are different in color, texture, size, taste... i had favorites! we used the community kitchen to cook our rice -- i forgot our beans at the posada in san cristobal and we ate basically rice and tortilla and bananas for the first days, until a visiting doctor passed through and passed through again, bringing us the other half of our protein. the days passed slowly. kids came and played cards with us, or drew, or we chased eeach other around. the boys invited us to play basketball or soccer at first, but we disappointed them with our lack of skill in both games. in the evenings, men gathered in the cenrtral area where we also stayed and they´d chat with us or teach os words in tzeltal, if we asked.

béa and i came and left together. she´s from france and was a great companion. we have a lotin common and a lot of differences and the conversation flowed and we animated each other in our blah moments. she´s direct and opinionated and fun and a little bit grenzenueberschreitend, which i like. while we were there we overlapped with lotsa other people too -- a capacitation course for the promotores de educación of the whole autonomoous municipality, this doctor from mexico df / san francisco who comes twice a year, and the visitors who are stll staying there, from switzerland and chihuahua. it was fun to be in a group of four with four different native languages in which everybody knew a little bit (or more) of all four languages and we could play around with them. we had a great chance to learn more about the organization and about the day-in, day-out of one autonomous community. lotsa folks answered our questions openly and kindly, and also showed interest in us and our lives. mariano and remijio and little roberto stay in my mind.... some things were inspriring, others were reality checks. lots more details for whoever asks for them!

that's all for today. i'm feeling totally transitional now -- all i have in front of me in mexico is to pass through chiapa de corzo and say goodbyes, then tourist a bit in the df. in eight days i'll walk out of the airport and smell the bay.
much love,
beth, bety, betito