Mexico City, 2013, 2

On 2013-03-03 6:14 PM, "Aaron Zacharias" <pajarohermoso@yahoo.ca> wrote:

The weather has warmed up after a night of below freezing temperatures and it felt rather like a late spring day in Vancouver, minus the rain. While taking a walk along La Reforma after breakfast three bright-face youths, two boys and a girl, perhaps age nineteen or twenty accosted me and offered me a hug (they were wearing big pink signs that said something like ¨If you smile it will guarantee you a good healthy life.  So without hesitation I said sure and so each of these three gave me a hug, I would say a very pleasant welcome to Mexico City.  Now I know that some people who read this might be thinking, ¨Whoa! Be careful there Aaron: You might not know what you are getting yourself into. They might be pickpockets or worse.¨ This reminds me of the shock and horror one individual expressed to me two weeks ago in Vancouver when he said to me:¨You mean to say that you actually interact with the local people who live there¨  I simply replied, well of course, why wouldn´t I?  Why should I even think of going anywhere out of my comfort zone in Vancouver, which I love maybe a little too dearly if I didn´t intend to meet and interact with local people.  But I suppose that different people have different ideas of what makes a vacation, or we could say one man´s all-inclusive resort is another man´s circle of hell in Dante´s Inferno. I spent the afternoon hanging out with a friend who lives here and we wondered around several neighbourhoods including Parque Chapultepec (very crowded this being a Sunday) and stopped for coffee in a couple places. It is very nice having a friend who lives here and there is so much too that he is teaching me about this fabulous city.

 Received: Tuesday, March 5, 2013, 7:08 PM

dear aaron - just read all your posts today, it feels like a journey in itself! very pleasurable. somehow spring seems to make people break out into prose, if not song.
  spring is progressing apace here, bulbs popping up all over, by no means all blooming, but plenty are. i even saw tiny native orchids  flowering in the gateway of comox's anglican church on saturday, when out walking with alisa and my nephew sammy, who is 18 months old. he's at that stage before stereotyping sets in, when flowers are still all right for little boys to be interested in.  he is just beginning to discover the word 'no', so will perhaps be less fun in future months. but that stage passes. his grandmother, my much loved stepmum ann, is very ill with the post-operative effects of cancer, so we were visiting to try and cheer her up a bit.. i don't think we were very effedtive though.
but at least shani(my youngest sister, on leave from her job in england to help with ann's care) got to go out for a while, while megan (my other sister, shan's twin) and i cooked a meal for the rest of us. meg made a wonderful dish  with purple potatatoes, tomatoes and other veggies, and dhal and rice, and i made chapatis with spelt flour.
we've been eating vegetarian quite a bit, as meg and her husband chris - the family farmers- have pretty well run out of their marvellous organically raised lamb, pork and chicken. in summer and fall we - alisa and i - baby sit and help in the garden and around the farm in exchange for meats and produce. generally happy-making. the farm is the one i grew up on, in merville, 12k north of courtenay on east vancouver island. alisa and i are living in courtenay itself, in a nice small apartment  building. i think the last time i wrote or talked to you i was living near megan in merville, but i'm not sure - my computer crashed a couple of times and i lost a lot of e-mails, including all of yours(grumble).
anyway growing paranoia-- fear of absolutely everything- drove me to live in town, and signing up for an early childhood education program at the local college prompted alisa to move back in with me. we are getting along reasonably well -she has been wondering if i have Fetal alcohol syndrome, and seeing how much caretaking by her, the offspring, of me - the parent, is going on i can see her point. we have been reading an excellent book about it, called damaged angels, written by a toronto journalist whose adoptive daughter was diagnosed with it some years ago. well and thouroughly researched, insightful and loving.
  looking forward to your next  post,
  chris p.
On Mar 4, 2013, Aaron Zacharias <pajarohermoso@yahoo.ca> wrote:

I just spent the afternoon today in one of my favourite areas here, Coyoacan and San Angel.  It was worth the crowded subway or Metro ride.  After passing a Wallmart and many street vendours making and selling tacos and other local food as well as people selling toys and other cheap goods made in China I turned the corner and passed more sidewalk vendours selling books then bookstores and I stopped in one where there is a cafe with a window view of the beautiful treed park across the street. After sipping an iced mango juice I went for a walk through this neighbourhood of old colonial houses hidden behind white walls festooned with almost indecently coloured flourishes of bougainvillea.  It grows everywhere here.  I call this place Bougainvillea Land and it beckons and almost frightens everywhere with its huge sprays of magenta, crimson, scarlet and purple flowers. The trees are narrow curving  and cobblestoned with beach size rocks that could trip and injure a Clydesdale.  Then I walked from San Angel to Coyocan on Calle Francisco Sosa a street of some two or three kilometres lined with brightly coloured turn of the century buildings housing people and restaurants and hidden plazas and gardens and art galleries and cultural centres.  Huge trees tower everywhere with brilliant yellow butterflies and birds singing well hidden in the giant trees.   In the park in San Angel, speaking of trees, there is a straight towering palm of seven or eight building storeys in height. Up to the third or fourth floor level it is totally covered and festooned in magenta bougainvillea.  If I get a chance I might do a drawing of it (I don´t have a camera and this is why I am writing this little journal). On Calle Francisco Sosa I stopped in this elegant restaurant called Ël Pause (pronouced in Spanish El Pawsay), wherein there is a garden full of trees shrubs and flowers I sat at a table in the garden drinking cofffee and eating a pastry much like a nanaimo bar only a bit bigger, softer and way more delicious.  I was also working on my first abstract drawing here when the owner of the establishment took interest in what I was doing. I must have spent nearly two hours there because once I get started on an art project and if I have time I get really into it and boy where does the time go?  I´m going to try to return.  I also eavesdropped on a table of eight or nine middle aged Cosmo girls.  Some of the whitest looking Mexicans I´ve ever seen.  Then another woman, American I think, joined them speaking English with them then Spanish and English and Spanish again.  It turns out they are all teachers, very passionate about their profession and I gathered quite above average intelligent.  I also reflected at the time on how easy it is to generalize and judge others by their appearance.  Sure they are likely much better off than your average Mexican but some of them could even be closet Mother Teresas for all I know. Of course the poverty is also visible in the street vendours and beggars and street musicians with their children helping them when they should be in school.  This country still seems to be lurching and struggling forward and who knows where it will end. I really don´t think people will change on their own without some change of the governing political social and economic systems in a way that would be more just and compassionate.  On the other hand we also need to change as individuals and take on a more compassionate, more empathic approach to one another.  I suppose it is chicken and egg. The subway ride back was intensely crowded and other riders didn´t seem particularly generous about giving up seats for elderly riders or people carrying babies so I did it myself, actually showing them available seats before someone who didn´t need it could grab it.  One to a frail looking man of around seventy and one to a young father holding his infant child. Police are everywhere.  I hear they are very corrupt here, worse than ours in Vancouver and maybe even as bad as our own RCMP. They are also present in the Metro subway stations but I somehow don´´ t find them intimidating or infuriating and menacing like our own transit cops in Vancouver.  Rather they stand on upside down boxes as though waiting for their shoes to be shined. When I did get off the train and was cautiously finding my way back to my hotel one cop gruffly asked me in Spanish where I was trying to go.  I told him and he kindly pointed me the way and gave me a big beautiful smile.