Due to political reasons, the weather, my computer, and the .mx http suffix, I had to move the blog elsewhere. It can now be found at:
www.dudemexicobro.wordpress.com
Thanks for reading,
-Randall
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Police
I attended a party this weekend. It was a pretty standard apartment party - lots of drunk young people in not a lot of space, bottles everywhere, cigarette smoke, loud music, and angry neighbors. I was outside, casually sipping a beer, talking with some friends, when all of a sudden the all too familiar figure of an automobile with lights on top of it turned down the street we were on.
In the States, over the course of high school and college, young men like myself cultivate an extra muscle that senses police activity in one's area, and then shuts off all functions of the brain as it tries to answer the question of "what do I do now?" which almost always results in awesome descision making under these circumstances. When I saw the cop turn the corner, the beer had already been thrown over my shoulder, I had changed into running clothes, and was in the process of trying my shoes, so very ready to do something dumb. Right before that happened, however, I realized that the drinking age was 18 and I was quite alright, legally speaking. I was still worried about this rambunctious party I was at, however. It was then that one my Mexican compadres explained to me the dynamics of the social relationship between the San Pedro Police and Monterrey's young people.
Compadre: Yea man, es de, the police can't really do anything as long as you aren't drinking in the street.
Randall: Really? Dude that's awesome. So if I just stand here (on the edge of the property), I can just hang out, maybe say hey. "Hola, policia, ¿como están?"
Compadre: Kind of. But don't say hey, that's bad. Then they can come in. Because you said hey.
Randall: Oh. Buzzkill.
Compadre: Yea man, es de, one time I was having a party and things got pretty loud, so the police came around to break it up - they can do that if they get enough complaints. Since it was my house I went outside to talk to them and just explained that the party was over, that it was my house and that we were all going to go to bed. The cop said fine, and left. Fifteen minutes later he came back, and I told him again that things were quieting down, that I was just getting people out and that everyone was going to bed like, pronto. He said fine and left. He came back again some time later, maybe like fifteen or twenty minutes, and by this point I was pretty drunk, so when I went out to talk to him I said "Sorry officer, I've been trying to go to sleep, but I can't, cause you see, es de, there's a party in my house..."
In the States, over the course of high school and college, young men like myself cultivate an extra muscle that senses police activity in one's area, and then shuts off all functions of the brain as it tries to answer the question of "what do I do now?" which almost always results in awesome descision making under these circumstances. When I saw the cop turn the corner, the beer had already been thrown over my shoulder, I had changed into running clothes, and was in the process of trying my shoes, so very ready to do something dumb. Right before that happened, however, I realized that the drinking age was 18 and I was quite alright, legally speaking. I was still worried about this rambunctious party I was at, however. It was then that one my Mexican compadres explained to me the dynamics of the social relationship between the San Pedro Police and Monterrey's young people.
Compadre: Yea man, es de, the police can't really do anything as long as you aren't drinking in the street.
Randall: Really? Dude that's awesome. So if I just stand here (on the edge of the property), I can just hang out, maybe say hey. "Hola, policia, ¿como están?"
Compadre: Kind of. But don't say hey, that's bad. Then they can come in. Because you said hey.
Randall: Oh. Buzzkill.
Compadre: Yea man, es de, one time I was having a party and things got pretty loud, so the police came around to break it up - they can do that if they get enough complaints. Since it was my house I went outside to talk to them and just explained that the party was over, that it was my house and that we were all going to go to bed. The cop said fine, and left. Fifteen minutes later he came back, and I told him again that things were quieting down, that I was just getting people out and that everyone was going to bed like, pronto. He said fine and left. He came back again some time later, maybe like fifteen or twenty minutes, and by this point I was pretty drunk, so when I went out to talk to him I said "Sorry officer, I've been trying to go to sleep, but I can't, cause you see, es de, there's a party in my house..."
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Lucha Libre
Last night, in the spirit of embracing Mexican culture totally and completely, I went to a professional wrestling event. When my friend asked me if I wanted to go see "Lucha Libre", I honestly thought it was the Spanish translation of the Jack Black film "Nacho Libre". Little did I know that I was in for the experience of a lifetime.
I've seen the signs that wrestling is a big deal in Mexican culture. When you browse the merchandise being peddled on the street, there's always at least one kiosk of wrestler's masks in a myriad of colors and patterns. I almost bought one once, just for fun. To be clear, when I say wrestling, I mean WWF/WCW/WWE/WTF? style, television driven, redneck fan base, sweaty, fake, man on man action inside a boxing ring with a softer floor and microphones to amplify the sound of man hitting mat. Not to be sexist, I also mean the kind with the occasional testosterone-saturated woman with fighting under a name like Rain or Luscious Lisa Fury.
We took a taxi to the Monterrey Arena, a large structure not unlike Phillips Arena in Atlanta, slightly smaller, but with events that are just as important (e.g. the upcoming Rhianna concert). We stopped and when I was halfway out the door, Andrea chimed in from the back seat, "oh no, I'm sorry, not the Arena de Monterrey, the Colisuem de Monterrey. " I got back in the cab and five minutes later we rolled up to a shabby looking building in quite the un-inviting neighborhood where the Lucha Libre was to take place.
I paid about five bucks (worth every peso) for a ticket and nervously waited for the rest of the group to enter. We arrived late (as everyone does for everything in Mexico) so when I walked in the lucha was in full force. I imagine that it was the exact same as being ringside at an HBO featured world title boxing match, only that the HBO was the live feed to the in house not-quite-so-jumbotron, the world class boxers were pretty normal looking Mexican dudes aging from 20-45, and ringside was more or less the only seating option. These warriors adorned garments ranging from almost semi-professional grade to blatantly homemade. Some examples include sparkly white body suit, red man-capris with skin tight red shirt (almost the same shade, but not quite), black body suit with flames and matching mask, Mexican flag themed sparkly suit, dude dressed like Jason - mask included, and black body suit complete with neon accessories such as hearts, skulls, and letters that read "Sex Machine" on the rear. Obviously the last one was my favorite.
We had an extremely good time yelling all kinds of things from the close proximity of the stands and the wrestlers were surprisingly interactive. Once I ran out of Spanish trash to talk (about 2 sayings into things...) I switched to English language insults like "The red guy failed kindergarten! TWICE." (Credit: Austing Grieb). Somehow, our antics garnered the attention of some people making a short video to air on Mexican cable TV this coming saturday, and they deemed it a good idea to interview us. In response to the question "how is lucha libre different from wrestling in America?" I rambled, in broken Spanish, something along the lines of "In America its just for television, but here it seems to be more a way of life." And I meant it.
In conclusion, taking into account all the sporting events I've been to in my life - the Georgia Blackout, the Thrashers, the Atlanta Knights, The 1996 Paralympic track and field finals - I must say that this was easily the best night of sport I have ever experienced.
I've seen the signs that wrestling is a big deal in Mexican culture. When you browse the merchandise being peddled on the street, there's always at least one kiosk of wrestler's masks in a myriad of colors and patterns. I almost bought one once, just for fun. To be clear, when I say wrestling, I mean WWF/WCW/WWE/WTF? style, television driven, redneck fan base, sweaty, fake, man on man action inside a boxing ring with a softer floor and microphones to amplify the sound of man hitting mat. Not to be sexist, I also mean the kind with the occasional testosterone-saturated woman with fighting under a name like Rain or Luscious Lisa Fury.
We took a taxi to the Monterrey Arena, a large structure not unlike Phillips Arena in Atlanta, slightly smaller, but with events that are just as important (e.g. the upcoming Rhianna concert). We stopped and when I was halfway out the door, Andrea chimed in from the back seat, "oh no, I'm sorry, not the Arena de Monterrey, the Colisuem de Monterrey. " I got back in the cab and five minutes later we rolled up to a shabby looking building in quite the un-inviting neighborhood where the Lucha Libre was to take place.
I paid about five bucks (worth every peso) for a ticket and nervously waited for the rest of the group to enter. We arrived late (as everyone does for everything in Mexico) so when I walked in the lucha was in full force. I imagine that it was the exact same as being ringside at an HBO featured world title boxing match, only that the HBO was the live feed to the in house not-quite-so-jumbotron, the world class boxers were pretty normal looking Mexican dudes aging from 20-45, and ringside was more or less the only seating option. These warriors adorned garments ranging from almost semi-professional grade to blatantly homemade. Some examples include sparkly white body suit, red man-capris with skin tight red shirt (almost the same shade, but not quite), black body suit with flames and matching mask, Mexican flag themed sparkly suit, dude dressed like Jason - mask included, and black body suit complete with neon accessories such as hearts, skulls, and letters that read "Sex Machine" on the rear. Obviously the last one was my favorite.
We had an extremely good time yelling all kinds of things from the close proximity of the stands and the wrestlers were surprisingly interactive. Once I ran out of Spanish trash to talk (about 2 sayings into things...) I switched to English language insults like "The red guy failed kindergarten! TWICE." (Credit: Austing Grieb). Somehow, our antics garnered the attention of some people making a short video to air on Mexican cable TV this coming saturday, and they deemed it a good idea to interview us. In response to the question "how is lucha libre different from wrestling in America?" I rambled, in broken Spanish, something along the lines of "In America its just for television, but here it seems to be more a way of life." And I meant it.
In conclusion, taking into account all the sporting events I've been to in my life - the Georgia Blackout, the Thrashers, the Atlanta Knights, The 1996 Paralympic track and field finals - I must say that this was easily the best night of sport I have ever experienced.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Weekend
This weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday), six friends and I took off for Oaxaca (pronounced woe-huack-uhh, who knew?) in the south of Mexico. The flight was pretty normal, I still think the same of airports and flying in general, see previous post entitled "Airplanes". At one point one could see a mountain peak out the right window with snow on it, and the ocean/tropical sandy beach of Mexico out the left window, which apart from watching the child in front of me bother his mother, was the highlight of my two hour long flight.
The trip this weekend, aside from its exotic destination, superb scenery, revealing cultural subtitles, stellar food, and amazingly low price tag, would have been no fun without my travel companions, so I'd like to take a moment to introduce the cast:
From the left we have Laura (Spain), Andrea (Spain), Nico (France), Jan (Germany), Atte (Finland), Myself ('Murica) , and David (Spain), who is actually shorter than all of us.
Jan, the world traveler extraordinaire and one semester veteran of Monterrey, handled most of the transportation and lodging arrangements. He booked us two rooms at what I referred to as a "Five Star Hostel", as this place had a large sundeck roof terrace, a superbly manicured fifteen by fifteen patch of jungle, a full three course breakfast included in the roughly $10 price tag (for the room), and the companionship of twenty students from the Rhode Island School of Design. The first night we were there, there was quite the party happening on the roof, so we decided to check it out. What I found solidified the fact that through my conduct and general demeanor, I have removed myself from the stereotype of Gringo tourist. The aforementioned twenty RISD art students were hammered, like one would expect a group of not quite-twenty-one-year-olds in a foreign country to be, dancing wildly and breaking empty bottles of tequila. When I ran into them again at breakfast, I was met with a few apologies and re-introductions, which made my morning.
That afternoon, we made it out to tour some ruins close to the town. The site was highly commercialized, and it cost a surprisingly steep $15ish dollars for the ride there, admission, and the tour. The tour was given by a woman in bright yellow pants who was extremely knowledgeable, a PHD in archeology I believe, but she made the horrible, horrible mistake of confusing us for people who cared a lot about what she had to say. This led to her giving us a solid twenty minute lecture before starting our tour, and regimenting our time quite strictly once we were inside so that she would have time to lecture further, which I deplored. She graciously gave us fifteen minutes to explore the main site. What a sweetheart. The ruins were old, abandoned, full of other sunburnt people, and fun to take pictures of. I recommend them.
The City of Oaxaca was a really agreeable place, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Prior to the show put on by the art school kids, we headed out to the town center (an awesome concept that's sadly absent from American culture) where there were tons of people milling about on a Friday night. In the middle of the square there was a group of about thirty people surrounded by numerous neon colored hands with uplifting messages on them (e.g. "Where is the Mexican Obama?" and "Arturo Garcia is a Sonofabitch") who, we soon found out, were on day six of a hunger strike against a corrupt local government (a concept not sadly absent from modern American culture). As I read their message between bites of my tostada, I couldn't help thinking how much it would suck to be on hunger strike so close to the wide variety of restaurants present in the square.
We pranced around town, taking too many pictures of everything, which made us hungry, which led us to a restaurant that I deemed too expensive ($7-$12) but Jan talked me into as we were going to eat food typical of the region. This was an awesome idea, as I now know that Oaxaca is home to the best cheese in the world. It's kind of like string cheese, only way better and not made by Kraft. It's white and thin in form, but it has a taste all its own. The best part is that it takes a solid minute or two to masticate through one of the slivers of cheese, which creates much value in your paying for it. The menu should state "Forty Five minutes of cheese...........45mxp".
That night we also decided to look into a car rental. I had seen youtube videos of a famous surf beach called Puerto Escondido and have always wanted to go try my luck on the world-renown waves. (http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ_S30Th1BI&feature=related). We rented a surburban for a sky high ten dollars per person per day and made plans to set off promptly in the morning.
As you can see on the map, Puerto Escondido is roughly 300km away from Oaxaca. That's roughly 186 miles. Let's be conservative in our estimate and call it 230 miles. If we push our Surburban along at a modest 60km/hour, that puts us there in 5 hours, tops. And that's going 60km. Which is slow if I'm converting correctly. So we planned to leave Oaxaca the next morning after breakfast around 9AM, which we did.
We reached Puerto Escondido that night around 9PM. Ouch. What happened? Topes (pronounced toepays) happened. This hellacious little Mexican twist on the speed bump plagued our journey from start to finish. Don't get me wrong, I like speed bumps as much as the next guy, but these were quite harsh, seen as frequently as metro Atlanta Starbucks stores, and placed in the strangest of locations. I'm talking the middle of a four lane divided highway, the on-ramp to a different highway, the middle of a deserted stretch of road, and tenfold in every town we passed through. The worst part by far about topes is that they were not very well advertised. Many times, the driver (Atte, Jan, or myself) would stumble upon one of these bad boys doing a stout fifty miles an hour and start shouting apologies to the rest of the car while forcefully applying the brakes in order to minimize the oncoming thump. At least its a rental. Apart from the topes, we had to cross some pretty serious mountains that I didn't know about. Should have looked at a geographical map. Not only was the road outrageously curvy, but there were topes here as well, sometimes a car length away from each other, so that just as one's back wheels cleared the first one, the front wheels struck the second one. Ugh.
The good thing about a car ride as described previously is that we had plenty of time to make fun of each other. Perhaps my favorite is David's impression of an American. I can't possibly do it justice here as I lack the ability to type his accent, but it went something like this: "Hey man. Get off my property man. I'll shoot you with my shotgun if you don't get off my property man." I fired back with the fact that he was the only one of us to bring two bags, girls included, and affectionately called him princess the rest of the trip.
The next morning, I awoke optimistically in Puerto Escondido, ready to realize my two to three long dream of surfing waves that aren't on the east coast of Florida. We walked down to a beach next to our four star hostal (this one was also very nice, had a swimming pool, Jan drove us there from memory - he had been a year before. Absolutely amazing.) and to my extreme surprise, there were no waves. Wrong beach. I asked where THE surf beach was, got directions, and arrived there shortly after. We rented some surfboards and I was ready to go. All the while that this was happening, I kept mentioning that the waves looked a bit small, that maybe we're just not in the right season or what not. The seemed to be about 3 feet tall and easily surfable. Next thing I knew, I was fighting for every joule of energy that my little shoulder muscles could muster in order to paddle out past the break. The waves were not 3 feet tall. One receives a true perspective on wave height when one realizes that he or she is about to not make it over the top of the next swell before it breaks. This happened to me during round one, and after the gallons upon gallons of water had pushed me down towards the sandy bottom, I thought to myself, "That was a tall wave." Turns out that the official surf report labeled them as 4-9 feet tall, which, by the way, is too much for yours truly. By the end of the day we found a stretch of beach with some more starter friendly swells and had a grand old time.
We spent the entire day on the beach trying our best to surf and when we all left the water for the last time is when all realized that the scoreboard looked like this:
The trip this weekend, aside from its exotic destination, superb scenery, revealing cultural subtitles, stellar food, and amazingly low price tag, would have been no fun without my travel companions, so I'd like to take a moment to introduce the cast:
From the left we have Laura (Spain), Andrea (Spain), Nico (France), Jan (Germany), Atte (Finland), Myself ('Murica) , and David (Spain), who is actually shorter than all of us.
Jan, the world traveler extraordinaire and one semester veteran of Monterrey, handled most of the transportation and lodging arrangements. He booked us two rooms at what I referred to as a "Five Star Hostel", as this place had a large sundeck roof terrace, a superbly manicured fifteen by fifteen patch of jungle, a full three course breakfast included in the roughly $10 price tag (for the room), and the companionship of twenty students from the Rhode Island School of Design. The first night we were there, there was quite the party happening on the roof, so we decided to check it out. What I found solidified the fact that through my conduct and general demeanor, I have removed myself from the stereotype of Gringo tourist. The aforementioned twenty RISD art students were hammered, like one would expect a group of not quite-twenty-one-year-olds in a foreign country to be, dancing wildly and breaking empty bottles of tequila. When I ran into them again at breakfast, I was met with a few apologies and re-introductions, which made my morning.
That afternoon, we made it out to tour some ruins close to the town. The site was highly commercialized, and it cost a surprisingly steep $15ish dollars for the ride there, admission, and the tour. The tour was given by a woman in bright yellow pants who was extremely knowledgeable, a PHD in archeology I believe, but she made the horrible, horrible mistake of confusing us for people who cared a lot about what she had to say. This led to her giving us a solid twenty minute lecture before starting our tour, and regimenting our time quite strictly once we were inside so that she would have time to lecture further, which I deplored. She graciously gave us fifteen minutes to explore the main site. What a sweetheart. The ruins were old, abandoned, full of other sunburnt people, and fun to take pictures of. I recommend them.
The City of Oaxaca was a really agreeable place, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Prior to the show put on by the art school kids, we headed out to the town center (an awesome concept that's sadly absent from American culture) where there were tons of people milling about on a Friday night. In the middle of the square there was a group of about thirty people surrounded by numerous neon colored hands with uplifting messages on them (e.g. "Where is the Mexican Obama?" and "Arturo Garcia is a Sonofabitch") who, we soon found out, were on day six of a hunger strike against a corrupt local government (a concept not sadly absent from modern American culture). As I read their message between bites of my tostada, I couldn't help thinking how much it would suck to be on hunger strike so close to the wide variety of restaurants present in the square.
We pranced around town, taking too many pictures of everything, which made us hungry, which led us to a restaurant that I deemed too expensive ($7-$12) but Jan talked me into as we were going to eat food typical of the region. This was an awesome idea, as I now know that Oaxaca is home to the best cheese in the world. It's kind of like string cheese, only way better and not made by Kraft. It's white and thin in form, but it has a taste all its own. The best part is that it takes a solid minute or two to masticate through one of the slivers of cheese, which creates much value in your paying for it. The menu should state "Forty Five minutes of cheese...........45mxp".
That night we also decided to look into a car rental. I had seen youtube videos of a famous surf beach called Puerto Escondido and have always wanted to go try my luck on the world-renown waves. (http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ_S30Th1BI&feature=related). We rented a surburban for a sky high ten dollars per person per day and made plans to set off promptly in the morning.
As you can see on the map, Puerto Escondido is roughly 300km away from Oaxaca. That's roughly 186 miles. Let's be conservative in our estimate and call it 230 miles. If we push our Surburban along at a modest 60km/hour, that puts us there in 5 hours, tops. And that's going 60km. Which is slow if I'm converting correctly. So we planned to leave Oaxaca the next morning after breakfast around 9AM, which we did.
We reached Puerto Escondido that night around 9PM. Ouch. What happened? Topes (pronounced toepays) happened. This hellacious little Mexican twist on the speed bump plagued our journey from start to finish. Don't get me wrong, I like speed bumps as much as the next guy, but these were quite harsh, seen as frequently as metro Atlanta Starbucks stores, and placed in the strangest of locations. I'm talking the middle of a four lane divided highway, the on-ramp to a different highway, the middle of a deserted stretch of road, and tenfold in every town we passed through. The worst part by far about topes is that they were not very well advertised. Many times, the driver (Atte, Jan, or myself) would stumble upon one of these bad boys doing a stout fifty miles an hour and start shouting apologies to the rest of the car while forcefully applying the brakes in order to minimize the oncoming thump. At least its a rental. Apart from the topes, we had to cross some pretty serious mountains that I didn't know about. Should have looked at a geographical map. Not only was the road outrageously curvy, but there were topes here as well, sometimes a car length away from each other, so that just as one's back wheels cleared the first one, the front wheels struck the second one. Ugh.
The good thing about a car ride as described previously is that we had plenty of time to make fun of each other. Perhaps my favorite is David's impression of an American. I can't possibly do it justice here as I lack the ability to type his accent, but it went something like this: "Hey man. Get off my property man. I'll shoot you with my shotgun if you don't get off my property man." I fired back with the fact that he was the only one of us to bring two bags, girls included, and affectionately called him princess the rest of the trip.
The next morning, I awoke optimistically in Puerto Escondido, ready to realize my two to three long dream of surfing waves that aren't on the east coast of Florida. We walked down to a beach next to our four star hostal (this one was also very nice, had a swimming pool, Jan drove us there from memory - he had been a year before. Absolutely amazing.) and to my extreme surprise, there were no waves. Wrong beach. I asked where THE surf beach was, got directions, and arrived there shortly after. We rented some surfboards and I was ready to go. All the while that this was happening, I kept mentioning that the waves looked a bit small, that maybe we're just not in the right season or what not. The seemed to be about 3 feet tall and easily surfable. Next thing I knew, I was fighting for every joule of energy that my little shoulder muscles could muster in order to paddle out past the break. The waves were not 3 feet tall. One receives a true perspective on wave height when one realizes that he or she is about to not make it over the top of the next swell before it breaks. This happened to me during round one, and after the gallons upon gallons of water had pushed me down towards the sandy bottom, I thought to myself, "That was a tall wave." Turns out that the official surf report labeled them as 4-9 feet tall, which, by the way, is too much for yours truly. By the end of the day we found a stretch of beach with some more starter friendly swells and had a grand old time.
We spent the entire day on the beach trying our best to surf and when we all left the water for the last time is when all realized that the scoreboard looked like this:
South Mexican Sun: 5 Light Skinned People of Various Nationalities: 0
Laura applied the skin therapy. Jan took it like a man, Nico took it like a Frenchman.
I apologize for the length of this, I assure you that much was left out, but I wouldn't be doing the weekend justice with a paragraph. The rest of my pictures can be seen here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/RJandsomenumbers/20090126OaxacaPuertoEscondido?authkey=ObYf8rW725Q#
All in all, as far as weekends go, despite two horrid journeys through the mountains to get to the beach, this one was probably the best I've ever had. Mexico is much more than tacos and immigrants, I urge you to look into it for your next vaycation. Just bring sunscreen.
I apologize for the length of this, I assure you that much was left out, but I wouldn't be doing the weekend justice with a paragraph. The rest of my pictures can be seen here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/RJandsomenumbers/20090126OaxacaPuertoEscondido?authkey=ObYf8rW725Q#
All in all, as far as weekends go, despite two horrid journeys through the mountains to get to the beach, this one was probably the best I've ever had. Mexico is much more than tacos and immigrants, I urge you to look into it for your next vaycation. Just bring sunscreen.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Liabilites
I was sure to encounter vast cultural differences during my tenure here in Mexico, and yesterday I did just that. I signed up for a once a week elective class for which I am unlikely to receive credit at UGA called "Introduccion a la Escalada" - Intro to rock climbing. I expected what came on our first day of class, which of course was a lecture about safety, procedures, and how rock climbing is much more than just climbing rocks - it is, and I translatedly quote, "an adventure towards the core of your being." We showed up at the gym for class number two, where attendance was taken and volunteers to drive were elected before we piled into to whoever's car and headed to La Hausteca, the nearby pass in the mountains.
Once we got there, the instructor pulled out some equipment, somehow got to the top of the rock pictured below, tied up some ropes, came back down, gave us all harnesses and helmets then asked us to follow him. We walked to to the base of a trail of sorts that lead to the 3 foot wide landing at the top of the rock face. Milton, our instructor announced in Spanish, "Ok compañeros, follow me carefully and watch out for the small plant with (something that I didn't understand) as it is will give you the (something else I didn't understand but it sounded bad)." Everyone laughed. I didn't, because Milton just told me to avoid a plant I can't identify or something bad that I don't even fully understand will happen to me. We scurried up the rock face, mostly on all fours until we reached the right height and could walk across to the ledge where the rappelling was to take place.
The trek was by no means easy or safe, and as I was walking on the two foot wide flat sliver of rock with a slick wall to my right and a thirty foot tall fast lane to lots of broken bones in a foreign country to my left, the aforementioned cultural difference hit me: I haven't signed a waiver, Milton isn't holding my hand, and no one thinks anything of it. At first I was shocked. There was no guide rope, no rubber mat to keep you from slipping, no steel handrail, nothing to hold onto, no handicapped access, and no moonbounce at the bottom. No "warning, falling off tall ledges hurts" signs. No yellow paint to mark the edge. No Lawyer's business card's sticking out of the rocks. When I recognized the absence of the business cards, the concept hit me. Mexico, my university, and the person who ass is on the line if I die (I don't know who this is, which concerns me), thought it a novel idea to leave it up to me as to whether or not I would enjoy falling off of a forty foot tall rock face today. Whaaaaaaaat? If Mexico means to say that there will be no one to sue except for me (and I'll most likely be dead or severely injured if there's suing to be had) if I should fall, who is to take the fiscal punishment for the irresponsibility for my actions? Beer me back to America, Pronto.
We finally arrived at the top of the ledge. Three of my classmates and I were up first, and Milton gave a lengthy explanation and demonstration of the procedure and left us to ready ourselves. I was fumbling with a caribeener and tightening some straps before I leaned back over a fifty foot tall ledge when Milton came by. He gave me the thumbs up and I leaned back to start the decent. He looked me over quickly and asked "Randál, entiendes bien el Español?" (Randall, do you understand Spanish well?) I stuttered when I answered "Si" which I'm sure was convincing. This was a pertinent question as I'm sure Milton was thinking "Yea, everything looks secure on this kid, but I would hate for this gringo to die on account of a faulty translation." I was thinking "Dude I am currently leaning at a 45 degree angle off of a sixty foot tall cliff, this is one hell of a time to ask." This did, however, make me think of a new assessment method for high school Spanish teachers. Bring your class to the top of a sixty food ledge, throw some rock climbing equipment on the ground, explain how to use it in Spanish, explain how to rappel in Spanish, and those who live pass. Underachievers have no fear, those who break bones and live will receive C's.
After I landed more or less safely, that is to say I passed with a B+, I looked back up the ninety foot tall rock face that I just rappelled with a sense of accomplishment. And that's the story of how I rappelled down a one hundred thirty foot tall rock face.
-Randall
Once we got there, the instructor pulled out some equipment, somehow got to the top of the rock pictured below, tied up some ropes, came back down, gave us all harnesses and helmets then asked us to follow him. We walked to to the base of a trail of sorts that lead to the 3 foot wide landing at the top of the rock face. Milton, our instructor announced in Spanish, "Ok compañeros, follow me carefully and watch out for the small plant with (something that I didn't understand) as it is will give you the (something else I didn't understand but it sounded bad)." Everyone laughed. I didn't, because Milton just told me to avoid a plant I can't identify or something bad that I don't even fully understand will happen to me. We scurried up the rock face, mostly on all fours until we reached the right height and could walk across to the ledge where the rappelling was to take place.The trek was by no means easy or safe, and as I was walking on the two foot wide flat sliver of rock with a slick wall to my right and a thirty foot tall fast lane to lots of broken bones in a foreign country to my left, the aforementioned cultural difference hit me: I haven't signed a waiver, Milton isn't holding my hand, and no one thinks anything of it. At first I was shocked. There was no guide rope, no rubber mat to keep you from slipping, no steel handrail, nothing to hold onto, no handicapped access, and no moonbounce at the bottom. No "warning, falling off tall ledges hurts" signs. No yellow paint to mark the edge. No Lawyer's business card's sticking out of the rocks. When I recognized the absence of the business cards, the concept hit me. Mexico, my university, and the person who ass is on the line if I die (I don't know who this is, which concerns me), thought it a novel idea to leave it up to me as to whether or not I would enjoy falling off of a forty foot tall rock face today. Whaaaaaaaat? If Mexico means to say that there will be no one to sue except for me (and I'll most likely be dead or severely injured if there's suing to be had) if I should fall, who is to take the fiscal punishment for the irresponsibility for my actions? Beer me back to America, Pronto.
We finally arrived at the top of the ledge. Three of my classmates and I were up first, and Milton gave a lengthy explanation and demonstration of the procedure and left us to ready ourselves. I was fumbling with a caribeener and tightening some straps before I leaned back over a fifty foot tall ledge when Milton came by. He gave me the thumbs up and I leaned back to start the decent. He looked me over quickly and asked "Randál, entiendes bien el Español?" (Randall, do you understand Spanish well?) I stuttered when I answered "Si" which I'm sure was convincing. This was a pertinent question as I'm sure Milton was thinking "Yea, everything looks secure on this kid, but I would hate for this gringo to die on account of a faulty translation." I was thinking "Dude I am currently leaning at a 45 degree angle off of a sixty foot tall cliff, this is one hell of a time to ask." This did, however, make me think of a new assessment method for high school Spanish teachers. Bring your class to the top of a sixty food ledge, throw some rock climbing equipment on the ground, explain how to use it in Spanish, explain how to rappel in Spanish, and those who live pass. Underachievers have no fear, those who break bones and live will receive C's.
After I landed more or less safely, that is to say I passed with a B+, I looked back up the ninety foot tall rock face that I just rappelled with a sense of accomplishment. And that's the story of how I rappelled down a one hundred thirty foot tall rock face.
-Randall
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Firsts
Life is starting to settle into a routine for me, so while last week everything was a first time Mexico occurrence, now the new experiences are a little less frequent. Here are a few recent ones.
First Mexican haircut: My confidence in my ability to communicate was seriously put to the test when I sat down in the chair in front of Alfonzo, a three hundred pound man with impeccable fingernails, and the familiar buzz of hair clippers filled the room. He asked me how I wanted it, and in my broken Spanish I tried my best to tell him my simple vision for my haircut: 1cm 3.7 mm on the sides with a gradual grade of 17% up to the top hairs, which should be sheared to a length of 2 cm 3.8 mm, and a Nike swoosh shaved into the back. He went to town for a solid thirty minutes while I watched aerosmith music videos on VH1. At the conclusion of my cut, he insisted upon my looking at my own head in two mirrors for a solid five minutes while he asked me questions about his work, which I approved of from the start. Then told me it would be 70 pesos. I gave him a 100 peso bill. Then he gave me 50 pesos in change. Maybe he noticed that I noticed his nails...?
First house party: La casa azul, the house I moved into, is notorious for being a party house. Everyone kept warning me about this, imploring me to reconsider living there, at which point I would tell them that I am in a fraternity, and they would laugh, be surprised, and ask me if I had to drink anyone's spit at any point. The house has room for 12 and has always had only international students living there. Right now, there's four of us living here, which makes for quite the awesome deal as I have two toilets, two sinks, and three showers all to myself. The party last night consisted of lots of Tecate, more bottles of cheap tequila than I care to think about right now, a horrifyingly bad mix of french techno music, mexican ranchero, Spanish language rap, and lil wayne, and total and complete destruction of la casa azul. When I was cleaning up this morning I discovered that Mexicans are the absolute worst about finishing their beers. There were more dead soldiers than the day after Antietam, and I had to pour them all out, pledgeship style. I also found four french people passed out in a twin bed - something quite impressive in itself.
First time I spoke in class: This was big for me. Apart from having to say my name, where I am from, and why I took the class I was in on the first day, Thursday marked the first time I have ever sat through a class discussion and not said anything. Its harder to be opinionated in Spanish. I generally refrain from speaking in class in order to maintain my bay-boy image and avoid being labeled a gringo because, surely, the moment I speak people will get it. In my last class of the day, aka the last hour and a half of silence I would have to endure, the opportunity presented itself to answer a question in three words, so I decided to pounce. I ran through what I was going to say 3-4 times in my head to make sure it flowed well and then I pulled the trigger. "Es muy internacional," I announced, in the best Spanish I could muster. The professor said nothing at first, and I sat, sweating, in silence waiting for some validation or rejection of my comment. Finally, after what seemed like years, the professor opened his mouth to say "que?". I had to repeat myself, which was disheartening.
First Mexican haircut: My confidence in my ability to communicate was seriously put to the test when I sat down in the chair in front of Alfonzo, a three hundred pound man with impeccable fingernails, and the familiar buzz of hair clippers filled the room. He asked me how I wanted it, and in my broken Spanish I tried my best to tell him my simple vision for my haircut: 1cm 3.7 mm on the sides with a gradual grade of 17% up to the top hairs, which should be sheared to a length of 2 cm 3.8 mm, and a Nike swoosh shaved into the back. He went to town for a solid thirty minutes while I watched aerosmith music videos on VH1. At the conclusion of my cut, he insisted upon my looking at my own head in two mirrors for a solid five minutes while he asked me questions about his work, which I approved of from the start. Then told me it would be 70 pesos. I gave him a 100 peso bill. Then he gave me 50 pesos in change. Maybe he noticed that I noticed his nails...?
First house party: La casa azul, the house I moved into, is notorious for being a party house. Everyone kept warning me about this, imploring me to reconsider living there, at which point I would tell them that I am in a fraternity, and they would laugh, be surprised, and ask me if I had to drink anyone's spit at any point. The house has room for 12 and has always had only international students living there. Right now, there's four of us living here, which makes for quite the awesome deal as I have two toilets, two sinks, and three showers all to myself. The party last night consisted of lots of Tecate, more bottles of cheap tequila than I care to think about right now, a horrifyingly bad mix of french techno music, mexican ranchero, Spanish language rap, and lil wayne, and total and complete destruction of la casa azul. When I was cleaning up this morning I discovered that Mexicans are the absolute worst about finishing their beers. There were more dead soldiers than the day after Antietam, and I had to pour them all out, pledgeship style. I also found four french people passed out in a twin bed - something quite impressive in itself.
First time I spoke in class: This was big for me. Apart from having to say my name, where I am from, and why I took the class I was in on the first day, Thursday marked the first time I have ever sat through a class discussion and not said anything. Its harder to be opinionated in Spanish. I generally refrain from speaking in class in order to maintain my bay-boy image and avoid being labeled a gringo because, surely, the moment I speak people will get it. In my last class of the day, aka the last hour and a half of silence I would have to endure, the opportunity presented itself to answer a question in three words, so I decided to pounce. I ran through what I was going to say 3-4 times in my head to make sure it flowed well and then I pulled the trigger. "Es muy internacional," I announced, in the best Spanish I could muster. The professor said nothing at first, and I sat, sweating, in silence waiting for some validation or rejection of my comment. Finally, after what seemed like years, the professor opened his mouth to say "que?". I had to repeat myself, which was disheartening.
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