| I walked a lot today, mostly in Polanco and in Chapultepec Park. Polanco as I have already mentioned is a wealthy, not particularly interesting neighborhood, but it's clean, spacious, green, quiet and walkable. I try to alternate my days between education and relaxing. I realize, to my sadness that the poor disheveled neighborhoods, which are many in Mexico City are not restful places to be in. The naked poverty makes this impossible I think for even many of the residents there. There are also safety issues to consider because violent crime tends to be high in these neighbourhoods.
This brings to mind my mixed motives for being here. First, the Red Tree House, is in itself an attraction here. It is quiet, attractive, secure, and they treat their guests very well. Plus it is very easy to meet other travelers here and to hear their stories. The neighborhood is attractive and safe and walkable. There are many parts of Mexico City that I have been re exploring as well as visiting new areas. The opportunity of improving my Spanish is also an attraction, since most of my transactions with people here, outside of guests at the pension are in Spanish. I am also reading mostly in Spanish. I have almost finished Dorian Gray which I bought here on my last visit to Mexico City and plan to leave here at the bed and breakfast and I have also with me the full Chronicles of Narnia, in Spanish, by CS Lewis, which I bought in Vancouver, muchas gracias Enrique por venderme este libro encantador!
However I also want to know more about the people here, how they live, their history, their culture, their struggles, their government. I am endlessly comparing our two countries. What do they do better here in Mexico? What do we do better in Canada? How can we learn from each other? I think we have lots to offer each other, but I also fear that our having signed onto free trade agreements that do nothing to honour human or environmental rights and protections will paralyze social progress in both countries.
At the entrance to Chapultepec Park were three demonstrators with a huge banner protesting the negligence of the minister of health to provide proper medical services to the victims of violent narco crime in Juarez as well as the lack of access to free and affordable medical care for poor Mexicans. The young woman, a student, informed me that they were risking their lives doing this protest because the corruption is so deep that high ranking officials are not above having killed anyone they deem a nuisance here.
As a visitor it is hard for me to grasp this, especially while sipping gourmet coffee in one elegant cafe and a tropical smoothie to die for in another. But then I see the poor day laborers, the beggars among the many working poor and working class Mexicans here. Fortunately I do not have a problem with guilt, and I can enjoy some of the comforts here with a clear conscience, but I also will not forget those who struggle even more than I had to when I was desperately poor.
I have just returned from a lovely dinner outing with Craig and Jorge and a friend of theirs, Roselia, in an elegant restaurant. They took me out for my birthday and it was a great opportunity to get to know them better as friends, which they have become. My thanks to those of you who remembered my birthday today and please accept my forgiveness those of you who forgot.
It's been a very quiet day. I was feeling tired and drained from the late dinner out last night and I did not feel equal to dealing with the hot, noisy and crowded conditions on the metro so I stayed within walking distance, which for me can mean a radius of ten miles or so. I actually enjoyed myself and am very grateful to Craig and Jorge for taking me out for my birthday, though it seems a shame that I would have to go all the way to Mexico City for this to happen since with all the alleged friends I have in Vancouver you think that at least someone would bother to remember and maybe just take me out for coffee, but no, never, it never happens. Maybe it's time for me to meet a new set of friends.
What I was feeling today was very much the equivalent of a hangover, but I think it would take more than a half glass of red wine to do that so I think it's more that I'm no longer used to late nights.
So, I wandered through the quiet area of Chapultepec Park, visited the zoo particularly to look at the peacocks, since I'm painting one right now, and a close relative, a Himalayan Monal or Impeyan Pheasant, also spectacularly colored and if you don't believe me then feel free to google. I also saw flying wild among the trees a Vermillion Flycatcher, which is a songbird with brilliant scarlet coloration, and later a blue Morpho butterfly, one of those huge iridescent blue butterflies common in Costa Rica. This is the first one I've seen here in Mexico City. I wandered again into Polanco and sat again for an hour or so in Cafe Habana for a couple of exotic coffees, one made with white chocolate, another with sweetened condensed milk. It is a shame that lovely elegant cafes are generally only found in well off neighbourhoods but so it is here.
While I was on my way back I stopped for dinner at one of the usual places. Like many restaurants and cafes there is no clear division between inside and outside. I was seated just inside when a teenage boy approached me to sell me some chocolate peanuts. I told him that right now I really want to be left alone though under other circumstances I would be glad to help. Then an older fellow came around playing the harmonica very badly which sounded even more awful with the background music and then he asked me for money and I asked him to leave me alone.
I always feel very awkward in this kind of situation. I enjoy helping wherever I can, but I also expect boundaries to be respected. In their desperation to scrape enough together for a bite to eat and maybe a beer or two as well I'm sure that a lot of these desperately poor don't have a clue about boundaries and sometimes refusing them feels like I'm hitting a child. But in these situations I prefer to err on the side of boundaries, as I have learned both professionally and otherwise that there is often a huge price to pay otherwise.
I still had remaining from my day's self indulgences two one hundred peso notes and one twenty peso note, or the equivalent of just under twenty bucks Canadian. I knew where I could find an Indigenous family who are always sitting on the same bit of pavement near the Red Tree House, selling things but also accepting handouts. I thought I would give them the twenty peso note. I approached them and said hi and offered them something, but after I realized I had given them a one hundred peso note. But I also felt really glad about this because it was as though God had taken charge of the situation to make sure they got a bit more.
Of course there is absolutely nothing I can do to address or remedy conditions here, and of course I cannot even do this in Canada. But it's still the same pattern. A whole series of governments have been elected in the last thirty years in Canada and even longer in Mexico which have absolutely no interest in serving the needs of their own people. It goes without saying that both our countries have been hijacked and are being held hostage by the interests of the wealthy and corporate global business and banking Those who are left out and fall through the widening cracks not only have to live in misery but are also most likely to become criminals since making a satisfactory living on cheap wages is not going to be an option. So here in Mexico they fight drug wars with a body count of more than fifty thousand and in Canada their solution is to build more prisons and fill them as fast as possible.
I am only one person. But I have a voice. And I am going to use my voice to do whatever I can to effect change. I may never see the results in my lifetime, but even if I can strategically influence one person who can influence another and who can influence another then I will know my work has not been in vane.
You know it's like the parable of the talents. When Jesus told about the king who left ten talents of money with one servant, five with another and just one with another. The one with the ten talents invested them and made even more, the one with five did the same and made even more. The one with one talent was resentful and miserable about having been given so little and buried it in the ground and got nothing.
Even if I have been given but one talent I will not bury it, I will use it until it multiplies and fills the earth with the glory and love of God. |
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On 5 March 2012 01:07, Aaron Zacharias <pajarohermoso@yahoo.ca> wrote:
On 5 March 2012 01:07, Aaron Zacharias <pajarohermoso@yahoo.ca> wrote:
I started in San Angel trying to find the location of an Anglican church that I might visit next Sunday. I couldn't find it and so wandered in a rather uninspiring part of San Angel where there were both traffic and graffiti in abundance. Eventually I walked over to Coyoacan taking again the beautiful Calle Francisco Soza where I stopped for a coffee and a reading rest in an elegant are with prices almost as high as in Vancouver. I am reading the Chronicles of Narnia in Spanish by CS Lewis and it is a wonderful diversion as well as great language practice. From there I stopped in la casa de la Cultura, which contains a huge sprawling garden full of sculpture, with a restaurant and a box hedge labyrinth that I walked in. cerrar
Then I went into the Zocalo, which is really two huge adjacent plazas full of trees and gardens with a couple of fountains and tons of people enjoying the Sunday afternoon together. There were vendors selling balloons and multicolored pinwheels and musicians and the omnipresent organ grinders whom at times I would love to pay to stop playing for a while but they are part of the local culture here and I am constantly reminded here that I have to adapt to their terms and not vice versa. I'm not always successful here. While in the Casa de la Cultura I asked one of the security guards if they had any literature I could take with me, then his coworker got in my face with the cigarette he was smoking and seemed nonplussed and offended that I wanted to avoid his smoke. So I told him that in Canada most of us don't smoke and that's why we're so healthy. I don't think I made any friends today.
I stopped again in la iglesia de San Juan Bautista or the Church of Saint John the Baptist which is on the zocalo. As you can see by the image below it is stunningly beautiful.
I think it dates back to the seventeenth century. Then I walked further and beyond though some more beautiful cobble stone streets and through a couple of parks. This area seems to stay beautiful for many many blocks, unlike a lot of areas in Mexico City and I plan to return tomorrow for a fuller visit.
The metro was as entertaining as usual today. On the way to Coyoacan there was one young vender who didn't seem to mind shoving me out of his way and stepping on my foot as he was shouting out his wares so I told him to watch it and show some respect. Then an older vender came on, and was very polite and excused himself in order to get past me. Finally I found a seat when a musician came on, very good with a guitar and singing folk songs so I gave him a donation and told him to get famous. His song remained an enjoyable ear worm for me for the next half hour or so after I was off the train. on the train coming back we were held hostage by an evangelical preacher. Never in Vancouver as I mentioned to the fellow next to me but this is still entertaining. |
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| I went back to Coyoacan to further explore the area and it was rewarding. I finally reached the outer edge where it turned to a rather nondescript neighborhood with tons of traffic. There were also a two or three hotels, which to me seems like an odd location for hotels, but this area reminded me of Kingsway in Vancouver and there are a few hotels on Kingsway. It was the name of the hotel that intrigued me, "Hotel Montreal." Nearby is Calle Canada, or Canada Street. So I walked it on my way back and it actually reminded me of Canada. Very clean, the pavement was in good repair, it was cool and shady, well kept and rather boring. Just like Canada.
I thought I'd include here an e-mail I got from someone who has asked to be taken off my list because, well, I'll let his words speak for themselves:
"I have not written in a while, but I have read all of your e-mails from Mexico City, as always, with great interest.
What is troubling me this time, however, is the many situations you describe in which you told one person to do this and another to stop doing that, up to the point of insulting people. Of course, I am not travelling with you, and therefore I am a poor judge, but I am not sure if you realize how intolerant your e-mails from abroad tend to sound. This is puzzling, because, on the one hand, you write a lot about appreciating a foreign culture, whereas on the other hand, this appears to be a rather difficult (if not impossible) task on your daily outings. Be it a child that is crying too loudly, a boy on the bus refusing to give up his seat for the elderly (honestly, when I am really tired and listening to music, I sometimes do not care about who might need my seat either), or a smoker who has chosen a less healthy lifestyle than people might be used to in Canada ... no offence, but please do read through your recent e-mails and think about it.
What is also troubling me are your anti-capitalist rants that seem to grow in anger and bitterness. As you know, I have repeatedly critized that you do not offer any alternatives, and this is why I still believe that, as long as there is no better system, we may as well stick to the one we have which, even if only for many and not for all, has raised the standard of living and increased prosperity dramatically over the past few decades. If there is a God, I should be grateful for not growing up in North Korea, Cuba, China, Vietnam, Venezuela or former Eastern Germany, for that matter.
You know I have a critical mind, and I am grateful that you keep reminding me to put the status quo into question, but, belonging to the upper middle class (I guess), I must say I felt offended by some of your recent e-mails, where the affluent were depicted as being preoccupied with increasing their wealth and otherwise pretty useless.
I treasure our friendship and shall certainly get in touch again, but, for the time being, I would prefer to be taken off your mailing list."
So, there you have it. We can't please everybody and while I make no claims for being perfect I also like to be as transparent as possible, so this is why I am not shy about showing you all my flaws and hypocrisies. Also I happen to be assertive. Not perfectly, but really, whom among us is not a work in process. As for the politics, well, that like everything else depends on perspective.
So to my friend, or perhaps former friend who lives somewhere in Europe don't worry I will take you off my mail list, but I do want you to read this first.
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