“Oh, Para Estar Joven”

This fall marks the first time in over 17 years that I have not returned to school for another year.  It’s strange to say the least.  I think about where I went to college and what is going on there right now.  Freshmen are getting used to the routine.  The freedom.  The self-dependency.  Upperclassmen are coming back for more studies.  More friends.  More experiences.  In the Music Department at Stevens Point, rehearsals have begun again.  Parts are being learned.  Practice rooms are being occupied.  And music is being made.  I was recently clicking through songs on my iTunes when I came across Joseph Wilcox’s “American Overture”.  It was the first concert piece I ever played in college and it made me think of that time.

College was a great time.  In many ways, I had the time of my life there.  I made friends, learned more than I ever thought I would, performed music like never before, and loved every minute of it.  But there’s something that college does to you in a very subtle way.  Something that makes graduating very difficult.  Each year there are new requirements, new hoops to jump through.  Different classes to pass, accomplishments to achieve.  It’s a very linear way of life.  Do this.  Now do this.  Next do this.  Mess up?  Go back one square.  But this is not how life works.

In life there are unlimited options.  What to do.  Where to go.  How to do it.  People like me don’t like this.  In some weird and paradoxical way, the freedom is paralyzing.  We like better knowing what’s coming, what to expect next.  So much so that sometimes instead of become an adult, we choose to escape that by, say, volunteering to serve in a foreign country for a year.

In the U.S.  we are taught that from the time we’re 18, we are adults.  Or at least once we graduate.  Or at the very least when we are financially independent and employed full-time.  Or at the very very least when we start a family.  Our country puts so much emphasis on being independent that we put these artificial markers up to delineate when adulthood has been reached.  In Mexico, things are different.  In fact often the word ‘joventud’ – ‘youth’ is used to refer to someone even into their 30’s.

Being young is scary.  Because there’s something that “adults” know that we don’t know.  Life works out.  It’s the very reason grandparents don’t stress about whether their grandson Billy figured out how to use the potty when he was two or too old.  Eventually it always works out.  The same is true about life no matter what stage it is at.  Deciding where to work, what house to buy, and what to do when your significant other and you have a huge fight seem like insurmountable decisions to people my age.  But to our parents and older generations, those aren’t huge items.  They’ve made those decisions before and have realized that really, they’re not going to make or break life one way or the other. 

So.  To everyone my age or near.  There are no right answers.  But this doesn’t mean that you have to go through 99 wrong options until you find the one right one.  It means that there are lots of right answers.  So go try one.  Life will work out.

A veces hacer nada es hacer algo

“A veces hacer nada es hacer algo.”  This phrase is on several glasses at the host home I live at.  Translated, it means “sometimes doing nothing is doing something.”  I think back to when I was student teaching – the first bell rang at 7:30 and I was often at school before that.  There was class 1^st hour and then lessons back to back.  More classes and more lessons until almost 3:00.  I would go home to my apartment, make dinner, and then do nothing.  It always felt weird – like I was supposed to be doing something but never quite knew what it was. 

Today marks the completion of my first week at AMEXTRA.  A lot has happened since I started working Monday morning.  I have helped kids with homework, taught several English classes, helped build a concrete stove, visited a school with another AMEXTRA team member to plant vegetable seeds, and gone to the dump to hand out flyers for English class.   

But I have also done a lot of nothing.  Or what we would call nothing in the United States.  Sitting.  Thinking.  Waiting.  As this week comes to a close, it is good to remember that sometimes doing nothing is doing the most.

The Road to the Dump is a One-Way Street (Almost)

Today, we went to visit the site I will be working at for the next 11 months.  It’s name is AMEXTRA – the Associacion Mexicana para la Transformacion Rural y Urbana.  After a 30-minute Metro ride, a 20-minute light rail ride, and a 40-minute microbus ride that transitioned to dirt roads as we got close, we were there.  It wasn’t the first dump I’ve visited.  Twice this summer, I had the privilege of visiting the Waushara County dump where the camp I worked at takes its cardboard, plastic bottles, and scrap material.  There’s a neat place off to one side where things like water heaters, lawn mowers, and old motors go.  In the middle are two giant dumpsters for cardboard and plastic.  Two compactors receive the garbage.  Everything is clean and organized.

The dump we saw today is not.  Muddy roads meander around.  Diesel-belching trucks lumber through, downshifting to make the climb with a full load of garbage in tow.  Dogs, chickens, and pigs roam around.  And there are people who live at the dump too.  Many of them make their living doing this – either because they’re actually employed to sort the garbage or because they do it to pick out things to sell later.  Either way, it’s certainly not a pretty sight. 

But this is not the biggest difference between these two dumps.  The biggest difference between the dump in Wisconsin and the dump in Mexico is the road.  Not even because of the material that it’s made of, but because of what it means.  You see, I can walk into the dump.  But I can also walk out of the dump.  I can get on a train and go home.  For the people who survive in the dump, there is no real road out.  They don’t have the money to leave and even if they did, they wouldn’t have anywhere to go.  They have no education, no papers, no future outside of the dump.  The richest team of U.S. volunteers could chopper them out, hand them each a stack of $100 bills and they would still be no better off than they are now.  What needs to happen first is transformation.

Understand this: the people of La Puebla Perdida (The Lost Village) do indeed have something.  They have a life.  They have stories.  They have each other.  This is not nothing.  Only when we begin to understand that through working with others rather than for others will real change take place. 

What one-way roads do you walk down?

Tepoztlán

For one week, I live with Raul and Lucila in Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico.  It’s a progressive small town of close to 40,000 about an hour bus ride south of Mexico City.  My day begins by waking up to the ‘gallos’ – roosters – that live across the street.  Depending on what’s going on, the dogs might also be barking or fighting.  Most people have dogs as ‘mascotas’ or pets, but a few have them as guard dogs.  There are many that are strays.  The family, Gabe (another of the volunteers and I) take turns taking showers in the morning.  Quickly because water shouldn’t be wasted.  If the cistern on the roof runs out, we’ll have to turn the pump on to refill it.

After getting ready, we go down to breakfast which is a family affair.  It’s always a hot breakfast and usually quite substantial as well as it often must last until ‘la comida’ at 2 or 3 in the afternoon which is the biggest meal of the day.  Then it’s off to Spanish class for the rest of the morning.  We walk down the narrow cobblestone street flowing with dirty water from last night’s rain, car and truck exhaust everywhere.  Our family stays home – Lucila is a housewife and Raul used to work but doesn’t after his stroke.  Luz Maria, their daughter is a dentist who has an office attached to the house as well as in Cuernavaca. 

After class, we have been visiting one anothers’ sites in and around Tepotzlan.  Sometimes we can walk there but other times we take the bus.  It’s nice to be around each other and have a break from speaking Spanish. 

When we return at the end of the day, we spend time with the family, conversing in broken Spanish the best we can.  We talk about Mexico, the culture, the food, Tepotzlan, what each other did that day.  Lucila will want to know if everything went well, it we have homework, and if she needs to make us a packed lunch the next day.  When ‘la cena’ is over at 8 or 9 the day is mostly over.  Food is cleaned up and the TV comes on.  We watch the news, a sitcom, or a ‘telenovela’ – a soap opera.  Occasionally we’ll watch a U.S. show that has been dubbed – Ace of Cakes is on frequently.

Around 10 or so, we head to bed.  You can brush your teeth with the tap water if you choose or use bottled water to be extra safe.  There’s a bug repeller plugged in to the wall in our room but just to be sure, it’s a good idea to check your bed before crawling in for spiders, cockroaches, or ‘un alacran’ – a scorpion.  None of those will kill you but it’s not an encounter you look forward to having either.  Don’t forget to check your shoes in the morning either.  Falling asleep is the same as getting up – dogs, crickets, cars driving by.  But the bed is comfortable and soon enough you fall asleep.

Estadounidense

What do you call someone from the United States?  In Spanish, the word is ‘estadounidense.’  Literally, United States-ian.  In English, there is no word for this.  Some of you are now thinking that certainly there exists a word for this – American.  But keep in mind that America simply refers to one of two continents – North America or South America.  I’ll concede that indeed in Mexico I have been referred to as ‘un Americano,’ but the word isn’t entirely true.  Our country has no name.  It would be like calling Canada the United Provinces of America.  What does it really mean?

America.  Vast.  Patriotic.  Hardworking.  To most of us, this makes sense.  We identify our melting pot of heritages as being of those qualities fairly easily.

America.  Rainy.  Mild.  Seafood.  Catch my drift?  It may certainly be indicative of life in a certain region but of course it is not representative of our homeland as a whole. 

Now let me put it in context.

Mexico.  Resorts.  Poverty.  Drug cartels.  See where I’m going with this? 

When we believe a singular story, we fall into the trap of thinking that one source, one experience, or even one accurate account epitomizes the whole.  It’s a trap we can’t always avoid falling into.  And of course Mexicans do it to U.S. Americans too.  But it is still important to remember not to extrapolate what we know into what we might assume.  As my time in Mexico continues, it is my goal not to pass judgment on Mexico or the U.S. but to merely serve as a conduit for storytelling. 

Buenas tardes,

-Jake-