Social Work Professor in Mexico Goes to Cuba

My stay in Mexico has come to an end :( (although I will return next month to finish up some last interviews) but I had an opportunity to travel to Cuba with a group of social work faculty from the US.  I wrote this post in several chunks.  Instead of editing it into one coherent whole, I'm going to post it as-is, in the interest of getting it posted sooner rather than never!

Arrival

I arrived in Cuba two days ago with a group of 21 social work faculty from schools in the US.  It’s an interesting, diverse group.  At least three members of the group are originally from other countries (one from the former USSR, two from Argentina).  We represent schools in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Colorado and Utah.  But I don’t really want to write about the group or what we are supposed to be doing here—I want to write about my impressions of the country so far.  We are staying in Havana, so my observations to this point are of the capital city.

 First of all, I need to say that I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I have visited several Latin American countries and now have spent quite a bit of time in Mexico, so I guess I expected that there would be some similarities to other locations in Latin America.  A number of people I know in Mexico have been to Cuba, so I have heard different opinions, some very positive and some mostly negative.  The negative opinions had to do with the living conditions, specifically the lack of availability of food and/or the quality of food.  We had been told it would be hot, so I was prepared for that (I have, after all, been to India in the summertime (hot and humid) as well as lived in Las Vegas (hot and dry)).  I brought the coolest clothes I own, plus a fan from Spain and bandanas to keep sweat out of my face as much as possible.  I also brought socks and a fleece jacket, expecting that the air conditioning in the hotel might be too cool at times.

1950s Ford in Old Havana

 A few years ago, I saw a documentary made by a Cuban who left in the 1980s and returned for a visit in the 1990s or early 2000s.  The filmmaker talked about how Cuba had been when she was growing up and then was documenting how it had changed.  Cuba was very negatively affected by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the breakup of the Soviet Union, as the Cuban economy was tied into the economy of the USSR.  This documentary and the little bit of information I had received from friends in Mexico was about all I knew about present day Cuba.  I expected there to be only old cars (what would be called classic cars in the US) and that they would be in bad shape mechanically.

It’s not exactly easy for people from the US to get to Cuba—but I’ll write about that in a bit.  At this point, suffice it to say that we flew on a Delta Airlines charter with other groups of tourists and Cuban Americans going to visit family members.

 The airport seemed to be a single level and didn’t have jetways, but rather stairs were brought up to the plane.  Airports in smaller Latin American cities are frequently similar to this.  We entered and immediately got into lines for passport control.  The passport control agents spoke English.  Mine was polite but not friendly and didn’t speak Spanish to me even though I did to her. Picture taken and visa (but not passport) stamped, the next step was to be buzzed through to the customs and baggage claim area.  Carry-on luggage was x-rayed (as it is in Mexico), passengers went through a metal detector and also were wanded with a metal detector, a health form was turned in to a public health team and, if nothing suspicious had been seen during the luggage x-ray, luggage was retrieved and you were on your way.

Outside the airport, friends and family were waiting to greet their arriving visitors.  We were met by staff from the tour company, which is one of several—all of which are run by the government.  The government also operates many of the hotels and a good number of the restaurants.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara, a key figure in the Revolution

On the way to our hotel, we received the first orientation to Havana and Cuba from our guide.  We passed various monuments and the University of Havana.  The city clearly has several historical sections, some dating from Spanish colonial days, like many cities in Latin America.  I think I expected to see “Soviet bloc” style high rise apartment buildings and the like, but didn’t.  There are, however, high rise buildings, apparently built in the 1950s, some of which look quite well kept-up and some of which seem not to be.  There was a little traffic on the street, but not much.  We arrived at the hotel which is large (9 stories or so) and looks a little bit like an old hospital.  Later I decided it looks somewhat like a prison except without the perimeter fencing, guard towers, or bars.  We had a little tour and then it was off to one of the restaurant/bar areas for a welcome mojito, the signature cocktail of Cuba.  The mojito was good enough and the gardens of the hotel, plus the close proximity to the seafront, are very pleasant. 

 Some Random Observations

Let me tell you about the Russian “taxi”.  The official, authorized taxis are modern cars (not necessarily brand new, but probably not more than 10-15 years old).  Some of the 1930-50s American cars are also special taxis.  One night I went to a restaurant with several other members of the group.  We left the hotel in two official taxis.  One woman got the taxi driver’s number to call when we were ready to return to the hotel.  After dinner, she asked the server to call this taxi and the server said there’s a taxi right outside that will take you—he’ll make two trips.  The car was a Soviet-made model from about 1980.  One door had no handle on the inside.  There was no “interior” to speak of (whatever padding or material that had originally covered the insides of the doors was long gone), the windshield was shattered, there were no headlights and only one taillight.  What could go wrong with this?  The exhaust also seemed to come directly into the backseat.  The driver took side streets and let us out outside the entrance to the hotel grounds.  I can only assume that this is part of the relatively small informal economy.  It cost the same as the official taxi.

The name of this soft drink
is "Your Kola"

Some of the food we were served was worse than prison food (yes, I have eaten prison food while recruiting research participants).  Some, however, was very good.  Cubans apparently love ice cream, and it was very good.  The national beer is good (at least the brand I tried).  My companeros enjoyed the various versions of the national soft drinks.  The bottled water tasted funny to me but that didn’t stop me from drinking it.  There was almost no snack food available.  I did see for sale what I assume were “Pringles-like” potato chips—in cans that from a distance looked like Pringles cans, even down to the face logo.  (I never looked at it up close—possibly it wasn’t a face, but it was something black and white in approximately the same size/shape and orientation on the can).  I had a good hamburger, complete with shredded carrots on it.  The coffee was excellent and 7-year-old rum quite smooth.  These last two products are not allowed to be brought into the US; the other specific prohibition is against cigars.  “Informational materials,” including CDs and DVDs, ARE allowed, and I brought back several.

Theater where the opera performs

Cuba is the land of the Royal Palm.  The Royal Palm is the national tree and it is a majestic one.  Within a group of other trees, it stands taller than any other.  Many other species of palm grow here, as do bananas, mangoes, and other tropical fruit that may be unfamiliar.  The country has been through a very challenging economic situation since the fall of the Soviet Union.  While the Soviet Union existed, Cuba exchanged sugar for oil and most of the other resources that the country needed.  As Cuba struggled to adapt to new conditions and retool the economy, there were food shortages, changes in transportation (the bicycle was introduced as a major mode of transportation in the absence of oil), hitchhiking became so prevalent that it is institutionalized through several policies, and many resources formerly widely available virtually disappeared.  There were frequent, 12-hour power blackouts. This is called the “special period”.  Education at all levels was maintained as was medical care.  These two resources are considered critical and they have been exploited as exports, both for humanitarian and for economic purposes.  When suddenly oil became unavailable, the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers ceased because these also require petroleum.  Thus, Cuba now has a lot of experience with organic farming.

Artificial lake within a sustainable community west of Havana.  One of
the activities of the community has been planting trees for reforestation.

The US refers to Cuba as a “communist” country, but Cuba calls its political ideology socialism.  I wasn’t sure before I went there whether the ideology was widely shared or being imposed on people.  It seems that it IS widely shared and that people are very proud of the country and its achievements, even if they are disappointed with some of the current conditions or changes.  We heard many times, for instance, that the greatly lenghthened life expectancy (80 for women, 78 for men) is an achievement attributed to the medical system, but it is now also a challenge for the economic system as the aging population requires more and more expensive health care, which is free for everybody.  The birthrate is extremely low, divorce rate higher than in the US (we were told), and inequality is growing because of economic changes.  These are some of the internal threats to the population and the state.

Two senior women who are participants in a program called "university
for older adults".

The external threats to the state remain the same as they have been since the revolution:  the actions and political power of the Cubans who migrated to Miami at the time of the revolution and the policies of the US government.  I’m going to explain more about this because I think that these are issues that many of us in the US don’t know much about (I didn’t until very recently).

These are CUCs--convertible Cuban pesos, which is valued the same as the
US dollar.  However, you can't get one peso per dollar when you exchange
currency.  It's more expensive for Cuba to exchange dollars since they can't
use US banks, so there is a 10% fee (on top of the usual commission).  I
took Mexican pesos to exchange!

Although I understand the ideology of socialism, I didn’t know much about how the economic system functions in terms of the very concrete representations of the economy:  money, salaries, home ownership or rental, pensions, etc.  What I learned is that after the revolution salaries were paid by the state as all of the jobs were in state-run services or establishments.  Salaries were not equal across the different types of jobs, but the difference between the highest salaries and lowest were relatively small, compared to other economies.  The lowest would have been 200 Cuban pesos and the highest 1200.  With state-provided free education, free health care and subsidized food, 200 pesos was adequate.  Now, however, some government jobs are paid substantially more (although I’ve forgotten the figure).  A bigger source of economic disparity, though, is that some workers, because of the type of job they have, have access to not only Cuban pesos but also the other national currency that is directly convertible into other world currencies and has 24 times the value of the Cuban peso.  Workers in the international tourism industry, for instance, may still be paid salary in Cuban pesos but receive tips in the convertible currency (informally called “CUCs”).  Thus, people who perform services such as cleaning in hotels may have greater income than doctors.  It is increasingly important to the population to have a source of CUCs because there are some goods that are sold only for CUCs.  I’m not sure what all of these products are, but cooking oil was given as an example.  The government has allowed the development of several types of private, small businesses for the tourism sector:  restaurants in homes (limited to 12 seats) and guesthouses in homes.  More types of small businesses will soon be allowed.  These isolated examples of private enterprise function much as in countries with capitalist economies.  The government licenses them (at least in the case of the home restaurants and guesthouses) and taxes them.  There is also a fairly small informal economy.

I mentioned earlier that education and health care are being exploited as resources for economic as well as humanitarian reasons.  In humanitarian terms, Cuba provides doctors for developing and/or poor countries.  Sometimes Cuba works with other countries to provide specialized medical services, such as eye surgeries, to people who are needy in other South American countries.  One project transported people from Bolivia and Peru to Cuba for the surgeries.  Venezuela provided fuel for the airplanes and Argentina provided food for the patients while they spent time in Cuba recovering.  There also is a medical school outside Havana that provides free medical education to people from other countries who otherwise would not be able to afford it.  Students come from Africa, from Latin America, and even a few from the US.  For economic terms, doctors from Cuba go on medical missions to various other countries where there are shortages of doctors.  Cuba is paid for the doctors’ services.  The government retains a portion of the money paid and the doctors receive a portion in CUCs.  After serving for a period of time in international missions, the doctors are given a house or apartment in Cuba, if they don’t already own one.  Until recently, home ownership came from inheritance only (car ownership, too).  Now both cars and houses can be bought and sold.

It's somewhat difficult for people from the US to go to Cuba.  This is primarily because the US maintains an economic embargo against Cuba.  Although certain aspects of the embargo have been relaxed somewhat in recent years (e.g., it’s now possible to get a license from the US Dept. of Treasury to travel to Cuba for educational purposes and for research of an academic, non-commercial nature), after the fall of the Soviet Union the embargo was strengthened to further isolate Cuba. Ships that visited Cuban ports were banned from entering US ports for several years after a visit to Cuba, for instance.  The embargo also is the reason it’s not legal to bring certain products from Cuba into the US. 

After this short trip, I don’t pretend to understand all of the nuances of US-Cuba relations.  But I don’t like the active or passive interference with another country over a question of ideology.

An elementary school--parents were gathering outside to pick up the kids

Two of my colleagues posing with bust of Lenin

During the rehearsal of a children's theater group

A Soviet tank on display outside a museum and a row of antique American cars

The One Who Got Away (hopefully not for long!)

Research is hard.  Trying to do research in a foreign country adds to the complexity.  There's the language barrier.  I'm finally using the phone a little better (although still avoiding it when there's text or e-mail available).  There's public transportation--hot, sometimes very crowded.  (I shouldn't complain, since I've never lived anywhere in the US that had public transportation to the extent needed.)  There are cultural differences that render simple interactions indecipherable.  And there's trying to make connections with people/agencies in an unfamiliar city that is HUGE.  So let me describe my current target.

Actually, I have to back up a bit to give some context on what the process has been to make connections with the agencies/programs I came to study.  My main contact in Mexico is a social work professor who does many other things besides teach at the university.  For the first five months I was here, he also had an administrative position within Mexico City government social services.  He also travels extensively both in Mexico and internationally (he's been to Chile, Colombia, Spain and France while I've been here--and I may be missing a country or two).  He's very involved in politics and it's a year in which a new president and governor of Mexico City will be elected.  He is very knowledgeable and connected and the original plan was for the two of us to go to these agencies together so that he could introduce me to the directors who are all friends of his.  The personal connection and introduction is important, but has not happened as planned.

Here's what HAS actually happened:
Agency #1--I visited on a Sunday in November with a social worker (another friend of my main contact), her husband (who works for the government department that runs the agency) and an international doctoral student who also wants to recruit for a research project there.  Nothing was going in the agency that day (and the person I needed to meet was in Colombia, presenting at a conference with my main contact), but I was tagging along on the trip with the doctoral student and I at least got to see one of the locations.  I also learned a lot about what the program does and the development of other programs in its network because the social worker's husband is the architect who has designed many of the buildings in the other sites.

A couple of months later I met the director of the network of all the sites at my contact's birthday party.

Salvador Dali is big here

Agency #2--My contact said to meet him at 10:30 on a Saturday morning at a certain metro station.  I was running a little late (I forget to factor in enough time to walk to the metro and I hadn't had coffee yet either).  This particular metro line is partly underground and partly above ground.  One of the times it was above ground, my cellphone let me know that I had missed a call.  The number wasn't my contact's, but I figured maybe he was calling from home or some other location rather than his cellphone, so I sent a text back to the number saying I was on my way.  When I got off the metro, I saw a guy I recognized, but not my contact.  He had sent someone else to meet me.  Not someone I actually knew, although as I said I did recognize him from having seen him at a couple of events.  I asked where my contact was and the answer was that he had an appointment (or a date, not sure which because it's the same word) so asked his friend to go with me instead.  Okay, fine.  He is a nice guy and I enjoyed his company (and his dealing with getting us the rest of the way to the program in a taxi and then back to the metro via bus) but he wasn't known to the director of the agency either.  But I did meet the director and learned a bit about the program and got some GREAT pictures.  I still need to go back to that agency for interviews.

Grafiitti is one of the artistic media taught here

Agency #3--In about mid-February, my contact started acting anxious to actually do the visits he had indicated we would make.  After a couple of weeks of "we'll go on Wednesday--I'll call you" (neither of which would happen), one day he said that we had an appointment with the director of Agency #3 on Tuesday (when my main contact himself was going to be out of town for another speaking engagement).  Okay, fine--I can find my way there. 

I'm not sure now whether we really had an appointment or whether this was the next time that the director was going to be available to possibly make an appointment, but I decided to go with the "just show up" method of meeting people. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about going to find one of the programs on my own because I know they all are in pretty impoverished areas.  However, I knew that another of the Fulbright scholars here also had an interest in this program, so I contacted her and invited her to go with me.  She had described having difficulty trying to arrange a meeting with this director, so it seemed like a good plan.  We arranged to meet at a metro stop where the two lines we would be using would cross and go together from there. 

The pedestrian bridge over the highway

Before we exited the metro station nearest the program, I showed her where the agency was located on the neighborhood map posted in the metro.  We climbed the stairs to exit and found that there was a highway between us and where we needed to go.  Hmm, let's see if there's a way to cross this.  Ah yes, a pedestrian overpass.  So we climbed the two long flights of stairs on the overpass and turns out my Fulbright friend is a little afraid of heights--and this bridge.  But we made it to the other side.  As we started walking, she was nervously saying, "This neighborhood's a little sketchy."  I tried to reassure her,  "Oh, it's okay.  We'll be fine."  It actually did seem fine to me, but she's an artist, not a social worker.  Later I laughed and said she might think twice the next time a social worker invites her to go somewhere!

A view from the bridge on the way to Agency 3

Anyway, we found the agency, said we had an appointment, and did end up meeting with the director (even though he wasn't entirely sure my contact had set something up).  The director also then set a meeting with my Fulbright friend to talk about her wanting to offer a workshop in graphic design at the agency.

Agency 4 is in what used to be a cinema

Agency #4--A week or two after Agency #3, once again I was supposed to meet my contact at a particular time in a particular metro station.  I arrived just about on the dot, but I wasn't really sure exactly where to meet him so I went outside to send him a text message that I was there.  I fully expected that he was still on the way.  My text didn't go through, though, and the network message was that his phone was outside the service area.  So, unable to contact him but seeing the agency about a half a block away, I headed over to the agency.  I introduced myself and said that he and I had an appointment with the particular person but that perhaps my contact wasn't there yet.  Not only was he not there, the person we were supposed to meet with wasn't there, either.  So I'm looking like the crazy gringa again.  One of the staff showed me around a little bit and talked a little bit about the agency and its programs and then asked if I'd like to meet the director (turns out the guy I thought we were going to meet with isn't the director).  Of course I would!  Right after I got settled in the director's office, I got a text from my contact saying that he was not able to get away from the university but that I should go out of the metro station and over to the agency and introduce myself on his behalf.


The director clearly wasn't too happy about having me dropped on him, and I didn't have even the pretense that I had an appointment with him, so I asked if there would be a more convenient time for us to talk.  We set an appointment for a few days later.  I've now been back for some interviews.

Back to Agency 1 again--So now I'm getting brave.  I called the director of the network of sites and asked to set up a meeting, reminding him who I was and where we had met.  He arranged to meet me at the program site at a particular day and time the next week.  I exchanged texts confirming the time and date early the next week.  Then I went out of town, just overnight, but I would then be arriving back to Mexico City the day of the meeting.  While I was on the bus on the way back to Mexico City, I got a text for the director that he had to go to his actual office that day and I could meet him there.  Great--I was all prepared to go to one site and now I had to figure out where his office is.  It turned out okay--even though I arrived to call on him in his government office, in a government building, without ANY picture identification (I know better than this!).  I didn't even have the photocopy of my passport that I usually carry!  The security people weren't going to let me in but then they called the director's office and he said he was expecting me (the not-so-bright gringa this time).  I got to meet the site director as well as the overall director.  I've even been back to the program site for an event (this time I took along my husband and a friend of a friend visiting from Colombia)--good thing I hadn't needed to meet the director there for the meeting because it turned out that I didn't know what metro stop it was near, partly because I had gotten there in a car on the first visit.  I'm good to go there for some interviews now--hopefully this coming Saturday (and I know how to get there now).

Agency 3 again--I had managed to get a business card from the director when my Fulbright friend and I had visited, and it had the director's e-mail address.  I sent him an e-mail last week asking if I could meet with him again to get started with data collection there.  I said we would need less than one hour and I could be there anytime except Monday morning.  He responded with a time for today. 

This morning I got up early enough (for once!) and made the final preparations to my questions.  I arrived at the metro close to the agency at the time I was supposed to meet with the director--close enough to be culturally "on time".  I crossed the scary pedestrian bridge (I'm braver when I'm responsible for someone else being there, you see).  I recognized some of the buildings on the other side of the bridge and the railroad tracks that my friend and I had crossed (she hadn't liked that, either).  Then I wasn't entirely sure whether we had turned left for a block before continuing in the direction parallel to the highway/railroad tracks.  I started to go a block to the left, but it was clear that the first street I would come to was quite a distance--that just didn't fit my memory.  I decided maybe it was on this street parallel to the railroad tracks and started walking that way.  I knew I would recognize the agency when I saw it and, sure enough, there it was with the giant armadillo painted on the side.

To make the story a bit shorter here,  the director wasn't there when I got there, so I was waiting, reading e-mail on my US phone, reviewing my questions and making some notes about a few other things I wanted to ask about.  Other staff began to arrive, many of whom I had met on the first visit (but not sure they recognized me).  Finally one woman I think I had not met on the first visit said she would call the director to see when he was arriving.  She came back with bad news that, unfortunately, he hadn't gotten the appointment in his calendar and was at another meeting out of town.  He would have to contact me when he gets back, to reschedule.

So, that's the one who got away--this time!

As I said to start with in this post, research is hard.  Many times anything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong.  It may not have disastrous results when things go wrong, but it definitely is frustrating!

Earthquakes

The second earthquake to be felt in Mexico City since I got here just happened a little more than an hour ago.  We're okay--just a little seasick and we don't have any electricity.  Before living here, I had only felt an earthquake once, and I didn't realize what it was at the time.  With these, there is no doubt as to what is happening.  I'm sitting on the couch, which is where I usually work with my laptop or whatever I'm writing on or reading.  Doug was at the table, which is where he works.  I felt a sharp jolt, like the wall behind me had been hit by something.  The walls are poured concrete, probably highly reinforced because we are on the first floor of a six-story building, so I'm imagining that it would take a wrecking ball swung by a crane to make the wall feel what I felt.  Then the couch moved.  I said to Doug, "The couch just moved."  And then it kept moving.  I said again, "The couch is moving."  "We're having an earthquake."  It's really hard to estimate time in a situation like that, but the movement went on for a while.  The floor was sort of rolling under us.  We had both gotten under the table--I'm not sure why getting under the table is a good idea, except that it's supposed to protect you from falling objects or glass. 

This is standing just outside our door

After it seemed to have stopped (actually, we couldn't tell whether it had or not!)  we got out from under the table and collected up our cellphones and coffee and headed outside where people were gathering.  We live in a building that is very modern in style.  The front of it is black cut stone up to about 15 feet above the street and then glass above that.  One wall of our living room is glass--four glass doors that can be opened and folded back to make the room open to a narrow terrace.  Likewise, one wall of our guest bedroom is glass and also can open by sliding.  Suddenly as I'm sitting four feet from the window in the living room, a building that has a glass side doesn't seem like such a great idea.  Even worse is that when we leave our apartment, the door opens into the interior courtyard of the building--which has exterior stairs and walkways leading to the apartments on the upper floors.  One of these metal and wood walkways is above our door, so that's kind of scary in an earthquake.  There also is a rather large tree suspended about 30 feet in the air on this end of the building.  It's an interesting way to have some green inside the courtyard.  Again, though, it's kind of scary to have that hanging there where we have to walk under it--not exactly under the tree but under the heavy cables from which it is suspended.  Then the entry way to the building is glass on two sides.

This is looking up at the tree of death if it falls in an earthquake!

We went out to the street where, as I said, people were gathering.  Our street is an avenue with one lane in each direction and a wide median which has a sidewalk down the middle and plantings of tall trees and other shorther trees, bushes, and plants that we grow as houseplants in Ohio.  We hung out there for 10-15 minutes while the building was checked out by the maintenance guy and the doorman.  The power came back on after a couple of hours, but after the last earthquake in December, it was out until the next day. 

Now that the power--and internet connection--is back, I've heard from quite a few people here in Mexico, in the US, and in Sweden and England.  As far as we can tell, friends here are okay.  There seem to be some mostly minor injuries here in Mexico City from bricks falling and such.  The epicenter was a couple hundred miles from here, but Mexico City is highly affected by earthquakes because it is built over what used to be a lake and the fill over the lake bed is not incredibly stable.  (Some of the really old buildings in the central historic area quite noticeably lean from past earth movements.)  CNN is reporting that this is the strongest earthquake to hit Mexico City (variously reported as 7.4 to 7.8) since the 8.1 quake of 1985.  That one toppled many buildings and killed about 10,000 people.  Knowing that is part of what is anxiety-producing.

There's no place like "home"

I usually caution people who use a Wizard of Oz expression in conversation, that individuals with a connection to Kansas don't appreciate those expressions.  However, two graduate degrees, two years of elementary school and diehard Jayhawk basketball fan status surely entitle me to use one now and then.   But what does that have to do with this blog?  you might ask.  Well, in the movie, the Wizard of Oz, the main character, Dorothy, who has somehow been transported to Oz during a tornado (blatant Kansas stereotype), chants the phrase as part of her effort to be transported back to Kansas--home.  What she finds--SPOILER ALERT--when she wakes up in her bed is that the characters she's been interacting with in Oz actually are people from her life in Kansas and that she hasn't really left at all.  Still, it was all so real and so scary.  I had occasion to return "home" recently--not to Kansas but to Ohio.  Being back in Ohio but then returning here to Mexico City, I shared some aspects of an alternate reality with the movie.  No, there weren't flying monkeys or ruby slippers or a field of poppies; and when I returned here, I really had been gone.  The latter was clear from the reactions of a couple of people I see frequently in my daily life here who pronounced it a miracle that they were seeing me!  (I learned that that's what is said to someone you haven't seen in a long time, on seeing them again.)  The comparison to the movie is that somehow this life in Mexico City feels more real and more vibrant than my other life, even as I was glad to see and reconnect with friends back in Columbus.  (Remember, Oz was in color, Kansas in black-and-white.)

For one thing, things were weird in Columbus--my car wouldn't start because it hadn't been driven in five months; our telephone wasn't working; my office has moved in my absence, so all of my books and office crap were still in boxes and my computer is who-knows-where (I can still remotely access it, but I don't know its physical location).  I was in Columbus for just a couple of days before a conference in Washington, DC.  Although I've done a pretty good job of letting go of the doctoral program while I'm gone, interacting with other OSU faculty sucked me back in to thinking about things that need to be done.  (Seeing my current and former doctoral students didn't have that effect, probably in part because I have continued to interact with many of them.)  That version of reality isn't really real for me right now (no tears here over that!), so I was glad to "click my heels" (by which I mean fly from DC to Houston and Houston to DF) and get back where I want to be.

What's so great about it? someone asked me at the conference.  I gave an answer that probably didn't convince her, which was something like describing my day today.  I'm trying to stick to a schedule of working on weekdays, but today is Saturday.  I had plans to go to the gym and then work on non-research related tasks the rest of the day.  However, my plans changed a little, starting when I remembered that I was out of milk for cereal.  Instead of going out for milk, I just ate a handful of cereal and a banana before I went off to the gym.  The weather has been really gorgeous since I got back (highs in the 70s and sunny).  Today was a bit warmer than the previous days.

Mexico City has a program that places these "eco-bicis"
in various locations.  There's an inexpensive annual
membership that entitles members to take a bicycle
for a half hour at a time, to facilitate getting around
through the heavy traffic in a "green" way.

After I left the gym, I decided to have breakfast--real breakfast--before I returned home.  The gym is three blocks from our apartment in one direction; the place I went for breakfast is almost three blocks in the other direction.  After breakfast, I had to go get coffee, of course, being addicted.  The coffee place is in the same block as the gym (actually, on the first floor of the building while the gym is on the second floor), so that was several blocks back there and then two blocks back home.  A couple of hours later, I was thinking about going to see a movie.  There is a movie theater about four blocks from our apartment.  I haven't found a great way to see what's on there, so I walked over to check that out.  The only thing I was interested in seeing had a showing about 9 p.m.--a little too late for me to want to go there by myself (there's all kinds of security at the little mall it's in, including a guard with an automatic weapon--which doesn't actually make me feel safer!).  I had made a grocery list, though, so headed toward the grocery store, now six blocks away.  Before I got to the store, though, I decided that I was too hungry to buy groceries and then make dinner, so I would just have to go out.  I kept walking past the grocery store, finally ending up about a mile away from home at an Italian restaurant that was new to me.  I ordered pizza, which was really good!  Half of that boxed up, I retraced my steps and went to the grocery store, then carried three bags of groceries home.

This display of honey and other bee
 products is on a dolly that is
pushed around by a vendor.

While I was at the Italian restaurant, sitting outside, I was approached twice for a shoe-shine (I had on running shoes with white mesh uppers--clearly not candidates for shoe-shine);  once to buy honey/beeswax/bee pollen; once to buy cigarettes; once to buy various locally manufactured snacks; lottery tickets; large, long-stemmed fresh flowers; a battered CD of a street performer; big baskets; a book from a Hari Krishna; a copy of the Brothers Karamozov in Spanish, maybe something else I'm not remembering.  The Hari Krishna guy was wearing one of the stranger outfits I've seen--tennis shoes with orange socks; a long orange skitrtlike garment; orange tee-shirt; black glasses; and an orange fishing hat.  Earlier, I had almost been run over twice by the same taxi, the first time because it was backing up the street the wrong way as I was quite legally crossing it.  I think the driver was actually trying to back up enough to turn around to go the wrong way in the lane as far as the intersection; instead, the driver eventually went forward and whipped around a turn-through the median, whereupon he almost ran over me again.  I say "almost ran over me" but it wasn't really close either time.  I've gotten really good at avoiding traffic and minimizing the time waiting for it, much like other people here.

Cart of fruit, stationary in the park at this time,
but it is pushed around earlier, providing a snack
 opportunity.  Fruit is only one of several
types of food that are sold this way.

Returning from the grocery store, carrying my three bags of groceries, I observed the next cardio craze as I walked through the park--Aztec dancing!  Seriously, it is very high energy and would be great cardio.




The park is used for many things, including some combination of dog training and doggie day care:

This stand sets up here several times a week
to sell "nieve"--literally snow but it's an ice
product made in giant freezers like for
homemade ice cream

If I can put my finger on it, I think what I like about being here is the vibrancy.  There's always music--some of it is bad, of course.  Most of the time, there are people outside, coming and going, sitting in cafes, restaurants, the park, on an overturned bucket in front of a store or shop that offers valet parking, cooking or eating at a food stand, loading food onto the back of a bicycle or motorscooter for home delivery, making flower arrangements to sell, with cut flowers.  We can walk to almost anything we need (or take public transportation and then walk).  Not everything is perfect, of course--the sidewalks, for one thing, frequently are in bad, bad shape.  Clearly, many people are struggling economically.  Narco crime is in the newspapers, mostly in other cities.  Traffic can be horrenduous and public transportation full to the gills, so to speak.  Ohio didn't feel real, but this does.  For now at least, it feels like home.

(I drafted this post about a week after returning from a trip to the U.S. in early January.)

Theresa's Travel Tips

We just returned from vacation so travel is on my mind.  We had lots of interesting experiences, several of them not exactly what we had planned or hoped to do, so I thought I would write some about the places we visited, how we traveled around, mistakes we made, and how we improvised.  Don't worry, though, because our improvisation did not include any sleeping on the sidewalk!

Our first visit to Mexico, about eight years ago during the summer, was to Mérida, the capital of the Yucatan state, and to several other locations on the Yucatan peninsula.  Twice since then we have spent the Christmas holidays in Oaxaca, and we have also visited a number of other cities/towns in several other Mexican states, all to the south of Mexico City.  So for this Christmas holiday, we decided to go back to the Yucatan to visit places we had not been or that we had hardly been, and to see how our perceptions have changed. 

Here is a map of Mexico to give you some idea of locations I'm referring to;
Unfortunately, not all are labeled.  The highlighted areas, from left to
right, are Oaxaca, Villahermosa (little dot), Campeche.  Merida is to the right of
Campeche.

One of the places we wanted to go back to was Uxmal, an archaeological site.  On our first trip, we went with a large group from a conference to Uxmal for the evening “light and sound show”, thus, we really hadn’t seen the site.  If you ever have the opportunity to go to one of the light and sound shows at an archaeological site in Mexico, I encourage you to take a pass if you have anything else you could do that evening.  Anyway, Uxmal was definitely on our list of places to revisit, as was Mérida. 

We have been to a number of other archaeological sites in Mexico, places that were once cities or ceremonial centers for prehispanic cultures.  The various groups (Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec and others) built in different styles and in particular used different styles of decoration. 

Here's an example of decoration from
Kabah, as site near Uxmal

Several different languages were spoken (and still are—Spanish is a second language for a number of indigenous people in Mexico and another percentage don’t speak Spanish at all), but there was some interaction among the groups.  Thus, their religious and ceremonial centers also have similarities.  The sites usually have pyramids and one or more ball courts where a game was played with a ball.  The game wasn’t for sport or entertainment, but instead was a ceremony that included the sacrificial death of the winner.

The oldest sites belonged to people who are now called Olmecs.  They are distinctive for having altars (and other stone pieces) in the shape of heads, both human and animal.  We call these the “big, giant heads”, not, of course, a technical term. 

This is one of the big, giant heads
from La Venta

To give an idea of the scale,
here is us with one of the
big, giant heads (not the
biggest one even)

To make a long story shorter, I learned that there was a museum/park that contains most of the heads from an important site that was endangered by drilling for oil.  This is in the state of Tabasco, in the state capital of Villahermosa.  The site is called La Venta and it still can be visited.  After we saw the park with the heads, though, we decided not to take the two-hour bus trip to see where the heads used to be. 

Since we weren’t going to have to get up early to start out on that day trip, we decided to go to the hotel’s bar for some wine.  We were staying at a Quality (pronounced “coo-al-i-tee) Inn, so expected a small, quiet watering hole.  It ended up being a very enjoyable evening of people-watching and some live music, complete with backup singers and costume changes.  There was one group of about six or seven couples that reminded us of Tony Soprano out with his buddies and all of their mistresses.   There wasn’t really a dance floor, but people got up and danced anyway.  I love the dancing here and I really want to learn how to do it. 

When I had planned our itinerary, I first thought we should fly to Villahermosa and then rent a car to drive to the other places we were going.  Doing a one-way rental, though, was going to be a bit expensive, plus add the stress of dealing with driving in uncertain conditions.  So my next thought was to fly from place to place.  I axed that plan, however, when I realized that there are not direct flights between the cities we wanted to visit (Villahermosa, Campeche and Merida), but that we would have to connect through Mexico City.  Check out the map above and I think you'll agree that didn’t make sense, so I started looking at bus options. 

Day two in Villahermosa we spent finding the bus station, waiting in line, and buying bus tickets.  Oh yeah, and finding decent coffee (somehow the free continental breakfast at Coo-al-i-tee Inn had only decaf!) and seeing a bit of the town.  Finding decent coffee wasn’t really a problem—we had seen a coffee shop fairly close to the hotel.  However, after drinking our coffee, we weren’t in a very good location to get a taxi.  This was also one of the times when the travel guide book we were using was less than helpful.  The bus station was located, the book said, “a few blocks from the center” of the town.  It may have also said in which direction, but there was a discrepancy with what it called the main north-south street and the main east-west street (which seemed to have those directional orientations only where they intersected each other, and otherwise to be more or less parallel).  Also, it was hot and humid.  I know, I should not complain that it was hot when most of my readers were probably enjoying 38 degrees with a steady drizzle.  We started walking uphill toward the center of town.  We could tell it was toward the center of town because we could see the belltowers on the cathedral.  Every town we have been to in Mexico has a central plaza of some kind and a big church near it.  Did I mention it was hot?  Oh yeah, well it was.  After walking for 15-20 minutes, we finally saw a taxi discharging passengers and solicited transport to the bus station.  The taxi whisked by the cathedral (finally!) and then drove what I would consider to be more than a few blocks, dropping us off at the bus station. 

Christmas display that seemed
out of place because
otherwise everything
looked like summer

Now, the travel books will tell you that there is a website where you can buy tickets for most buses in Mexico.  I have actually used a website to buy bus tickets here a couple of months ago.  However, before we left Mexico City I had tried to use two different websites (one directly with the bus company that has routes in that area and one more general one), neither of which was functioning.  I try to do as much travel planning and arranging as I can via internet.  One reason is that bus stations are somewhat confusing.  There are several different bus companies and different classes of service.  Sometimes a particular class of service has its own ticket window, as do different companies.  Trying to figure out which line to get in is a challenge!  We wanted to have a departure time that was not too early but that would get us to Campeche before evening.  From my previous reservation attempts, I knew it was at least a five or six hour trip.  You can’t always buy tickets in advance because if the bus originates somewhere else, the company doesn’t know how many seats there will be at your location until the bus gets there.  The agent at the ticket window showed us her screen of what was available.  There was a departure at 10:30, so we said we would take that.  It was a different company than we had used previously.  She warned us that it was an “economical” bus with no bathroom.  I asked if it was air conditioned—yes.  Okay, let’s go for that one. 

Now, if one were an astute bus traveler, she or he might have realized that this was a second class bus, which make frequent stops and perhaps have seats in poor condition.  Unfortunately, we were not astute bus travelers.  The next day we discovered that you couldn’t check baggage ahead of time, but had to scramble with other passengers to get the luggage loaded into the bottom of the bus.  Also, the luggage area already had quite a bit in it.  One family or group had so much stuff in suitcases, boxes, and large totes that it wouldn’t all fit and they brought a lot of it with them onto the bus.  When we bought the tickets, the agent had showed us a screen with the seats available and we selected ones near the front (we’re astute enough to know this is a good idea; we also were prepared with Dramamine).  However, when we got on the bus, there were two women in our seats.  They "politely" assured us that seats are not reserved and they weren’t going to move.  The only two empty seats together were the row behind them.  One of the seats they occupied appeared to be broken in that it was leaning back practically in Doug’s lap.  I was not very happy about the seating situation but soon realized that we were lucky to have seats (!), as there was at least one person standing in the back of the bus.  He was later joined by other people standing in the aisle as the bus stopped and picked up additional riders.  At various points of the journey, there must have been 15 or more people standing in the aisle or the front of the bus, including a woman holding a baby.  When the bus would make a stop, vendors got on selling snacks of various kinds and soft drinks.  Contrary to the movie version, however, I’m happy to report that there were no farm animals inside the bus.  We eventually made it to Campeche as did both of our bags.  It was more like nine hours than five or six, however.

Downtown Campeche

Campeche historically was a port city.  It still is a fishing port.  It was a base from which the Spanish mounted their attempts at conquest of the Yucatan peninsula.  Because of pirate attacks, a wall was built around the city so that it could be better protected, and two forts also were built in strategic locations. Parts of the wall have been preserved, as have the forts.  These, and the colorfully-painted, restored colonial buildings of the walled portion of the city, are the primary attractions. 

This fort retains its ancient canons

We decided to visit one of the forts, which currently houses a museum of Mayan artifacts.  The fort is several miles south of the city.  The guide books suggest taking a taxi to get there and then picking up another taxi for return to the city.  It's often the case that taxis are available at historical sites.  As our luck would have it, though, there was not a taxi in sight when we were ready to leave the fort.  We looked for some shade where we could consider our options:  1. ask the museum staff to call a taxi for us; 2.  walk back to the main road where a taxi was more likely to pass by; 3. hitch a ride with other visitors returning to Campeche.  We tried option #1--staff said they didn't have the phone number for taxis (why didn't we think to have the phone number with us, or better yet, my Mexico cell phone AND the number?).  We considered #3 as we waited a while to see if a taxi would show up.  Then we decided to walk back to the main road...where there was a bus stop.  We hopped on a bus, not knowing really where it was going (but it was heading the direction back toward town).  Typically, local buses have a listing on the right side of the windshield of places along their route.  This will usually be on hand-lettered signage or painted on the windshield.  There's not much time to look at the sign, what with fumbling with change for the fare and negotiating the steep climb into the bus while the bus has already started moving again.  We were in luck this time, though, because the bus was headed--at some point--to El Centro (the walled portion of the city).  The bus driver was road-raging a little bit, stopping beside another bus, opening the door so he could yell obscenities at another bus driver.  When we saw one of the gates on the town wall, we got off.  We were kind of proud of having developed enough cultural competence to ride a bus, even though we didn't know exactly where it was going, and have it get us close to where we wanted to be.

Doug--"Dramamine, please"
on the way to Merida

Back on the road again we soon went for a short (2 hr.) ride to Merida. 

Christmas Day we spent on a tour to Uxmal.  I mentioned earlier that we were retuning because it's an interesting site and we hadn't really gotten to see it on our previous trip.  Doug was also interested in Uxmal because one of his "academic ancestors" died in a fall there.  The tour group consisted of three people from the US (us, of course, and another man we'll call "the hippy, dippy guy"), and four people who spoke Russian (a couple who had immigrated to Australia in the 1970s and two young women from Russia).  When the Russian Russians, who were in the front of the van, heard the Australian Russians speaking Russian to each other in the back seat, they both whipped around and embarked on an extended conversation in Russian.  Some tense moments, and a renewal of the Cold War, took place when the Australian Russian woman said to us, "I hope you don't think we're being rude, " as she leaned across a seat between Doug and the hippy, dippy guy, "but we haven't spoken Russian to anyone in such a long time." 

Why did we call him the hippy, dippy guy?

The hippy, dippy guy acknowledged as to how he actually did think it was rude to make all other conversation impossible.  That's when the Cold War began.  No more conversation of any kind until after we reached the first site we were visiting.  Things had thawed by the time we were returning to Merida, though, with one of the Russian Russians talking to me most of the return. 

Uxmal

We were interested to see whether our perceptions of things had changed--the food, the city, etc.--now that we have a great deal of experience with Mexico and speak Spanish.  For instance, we wanted to see if the traffic would seem as wild and chaotic as it had the first time.  We also wanted to test out our language improvement by visiting the anthropology museum again because last time everything was labeled in Spanish.  So, while we were in Merida, we ate Yucatecan cuisine for most meals. It is some of the most wonderful food and we tried several dishes that were new to us.  The traffic seemed much calmer, but we think that instead of a change in our perception, there has been a change in the city (more upscale development, a little less gritty).  We were much more comfortable interacting with people, now that we speak Spanish, but also experienced more people trying to speak English to us than we remembered.  In our final language test, we were disappointed to find that the anthropology museum has had a makeover and the displays now have both Spanish and English text.  And, in a demonstration of how small the world really is, I ran into Grace Johnson, an Ohio State colleague, on vacation with her family, at the anthropology museum and later on an excursion to a nature preserve on the gulf.

We shared a boat on the last tour and a table at lunch with one couple from the US and two couples from Mexico.  We spoke (almost) as easily in Spanish to the Mexican couples as we did in English to the "Americans".  What had previously felt so foreign that we couldn't figure out why all the streets were named "Calle," feels quite comfortable now.