(no subject)
I have a million other things I need to do right now, as I suppose most people who post to live journal do, but I feel like I need to write.
This weekend was fun. Intense, but fun. Gabriel and I went to Cuetzalan together which is one of the few truly beautiful places in central Mexico left. It is semi tropical and when you get there your skin starts to feel wet. Everything gets wet and nothing dries.
Gabriel likes to drive on the fourwheelers there, so usually we put on pants and old tennis shoes and I climb up behind him on his rediculously noisy, but fun, toy. Most of the roads are muddy with big rocks and lots of cow and horse poop, but then there will be a strech of road with perfectly flat gray rocks mortared down into random but organized shapes.
When I am there I am extremely aware of my circumstances. Not only am I probably one of the few white women some of the people have seen, but it is strange being able to peer into the houses of these people that are the size of my considerably modest garage. I love how even though they don´t have floors of wood or tile, they still sweep the dirt and have caged birds singing from the outside next to tin cans nailed into the walls and filled with flowers. It makes me think that maybe I do really have too much and maybe I want too much.
When we were eating lunch, several people came and tried to sell us their arts. Most of the time we say no, but if someone obviously really needs money we usually oblige. A girl came in trying to sell us a fossil. She was nine years old and she would try to sell the fossil, but she would get curious about us so she would change the subject and start asking questions. She stood there for probably five minutes before Gabriel asked her to join us for lunch. She munched on a plate of speghetti and ordered a coke and told us all about everything as only a nine year old can. She taught us a few words in nahuatl which is difficult. When we were leaving, Gabriel took 35 dollars out of his pocket to count out money to pay. When the girl saw that that was all he had in his pocket, she explaimed ¨Why you are poor too!¨She thought that 35 dollars was Gabriel´s life savings.
I could paint this town as a happy town, but that would be a lie. It is beautiful, but even it is destroyed. All the Jaguars have been killed over the last 40 years and all the deer have dissapeared as well. You can drive into the lush forest and be next to what seems to be a pristine river and there will be a broken bucket and a cola bottle. Not only is it becoming an environmental problem, but socially it is falling apart too. Almost all men my grandfather´s age get drunk regularly. Within 2 hours of being there I saw the aftermath of a drunken machete fight. It was not pretty, but the worst part was we could do nothing for either of them. One of them fell over at the spot into his stupor, and at first I thought he was dead but he was only drunk. Although his leg, head and hand were bleeding, I guess he can be considered the winner of his dual. We came across his opponent about 300 meters down the road. He was recognizable immediately by the blood running down his back from the gash he had recieved in the head. He stumbled over to a group of 10 men also dressed in the traditional white and children running around in pokemon pajamas. He basically fell into them, but they rejected him. There was no motion to help him and very little response to us.
Immediately I tried to remember everything I could from the few first aid classes I had taken, but I couldn´t remember what to do in a such a situation. They don´t teach you specifically what to do with machete wounds to the back of people´s heads in first aid, but we tried. We were the only ones with a vehicle, so we went for help. However, no one was willing to drive him because by taking this man to the hospital you immediately assume responsibility. If we had taken him, they would have accused us of running into him and made us pay.
It feels awful when you know what the right thing is and you don´t do it. I will never know what happened to either of them. At best the two were in parallel hospital beds waving their machetes at eachother. At worst, I chose not to think about.
There are so many more things I could say. It is hard being down here when you want to save the world, but you have to go one person at a time.
Today I held a sobbing three year old at the¨ state facilities for children¨ who had been separated from her abusive mother. She was screaming that she wants to go home and crying and crying. All the other children on the playground gathered around. I figure most of them went through the same thing although they can not express it as a three year old can. I am sure that most of their pillows get wet at night.
I was fine holding her, rubbing her back, telling her it was only temporary. The truth is don´t know what will happen to her. I wish I did. Suddenly I felt like I was going to cry. Not about her, but for her and all of them that are going through so much that no child should have to go through.
So I conclude aware of my extremely good childhood and ahouse in which I have my own room. I have clean forests and deer, police and soldiers who respond when asked for help and corruption that gets caught and prosecuted,not turned into a way of life. How lucky I am.
So I conclude
This weekend was fun. Intense, but fun. Gabriel and I went to Cuetzalan together which is one of the few truly beautiful places in central Mexico left. It is semi tropical and when you get there your skin starts to feel wet. Everything gets wet and nothing dries.
Gabriel likes to drive on the fourwheelers there, so usually we put on pants and old tennis shoes and I climb up behind him on his rediculously noisy, but fun, toy. Most of the roads are muddy with big rocks and lots of cow and horse poop, but then there will be a strech of road with perfectly flat gray rocks mortared down into random but organized shapes.
When I am there I am extremely aware of my circumstances. Not only am I probably one of the few white women some of the people have seen, but it is strange being able to peer into the houses of these people that are the size of my considerably modest garage. I love how even though they don´t have floors of wood or tile, they still sweep the dirt and have caged birds singing from the outside next to tin cans nailed into the walls and filled with flowers. It makes me think that maybe I do really have too much and maybe I want too much.
When we were eating lunch, several people came and tried to sell us their arts. Most of the time we say no, but if someone obviously really needs money we usually oblige. A girl came in trying to sell us a fossil. She was nine years old and she would try to sell the fossil, but she would get curious about us so she would change the subject and start asking questions. She stood there for probably five minutes before Gabriel asked her to join us for lunch. She munched on a plate of speghetti and ordered a coke and told us all about everything as only a nine year old can. She taught us a few words in nahuatl which is difficult. When we were leaving, Gabriel took 35 dollars out of his pocket to count out money to pay. When the girl saw that that was all he had in his pocket, she explaimed ¨Why you are poor too!¨She thought that 35 dollars was Gabriel´s life savings.
I could paint this town as a happy town, but that would be a lie. It is beautiful, but even it is destroyed. All the Jaguars have been killed over the last 40 years and all the deer have dissapeared as well. You can drive into the lush forest and be next to what seems to be a pristine river and there will be a broken bucket and a cola bottle. Not only is it becoming an environmental problem, but socially it is falling apart too. Almost all men my grandfather´s age get drunk regularly. Within 2 hours of being there I saw the aftermath of a drunken machete fight. It was not pretty, but the worst part was we could do nothing for either of them. One of them fell over at the spot into his stupor, and at first I thought he was dead but he was only drunk. Although his leg, head and hand were bleeding, I guess he can be considered the winner of his dual. We came across his opponent about 300 meters down the road. He was recognizable immediately by the blood running down his back from the gash he had recieved in the head. He stumbled over to a group of 10 men also dressed in the traditional white and children running around in pokemon pajamas. He basically fell into them, but they rejected him. There was no motion to help him and very little response to us.
Immediately I tried to remember everything I could from the few first aid classes I had taken, but I couldn´t remember what to do in a such a situation. They don´t teach you specifically what to do with machete wounds to the back of people´s heads in first aid, but we tried. We were the only ones with a vehicle, so we went for help. However, no one was willing to drive him because by taking this man to the hospital you immediately assume responsibility. If we had taken him, they would have accused us of running into him and made us pay.
It feels awful when you know what the right thing is and you don´t do it. I will never know what happened to either of them. At best the two were in parallel hospital beds waving their machetes at eachother. At worst, I chose not to think about.
There are so many more things I could say. It is hard being down here when you want to save the world, but you have to go one person at a time.
Today I held a sobbing three year old at the¨ state facilities for children¨ who had been separated from her abusive mother. She was screaming that she wants to go home and crying and crying. All the other children on the playground gathered around. I figure most of them went through the same thing although they can not express it as a three year old can. I am sure that most of their pillows get wet at night.
I was fine holding her, rubbing her back, telling her it was only temporary. The truth is don´t know what will happen to her. I wish I did. Suddenly I felt like I was going to cry. Not about her, but for her and all of them that are going through so much that no child should have to go through.
So I conclude aware of my extremely good childhood and ahouse in which I have my own room. I have clean forests and deer, police and soldiers who respond when asked for help and corruption that gets caught and prosecuted,not turned into a way of life. How lucky I am.
So I conclude