A Fond Farewell To Mexico

After a stirling turnaround by the British Embassy, the passport found its way back to our eager hands within a couple of days of arrival. So excited to finally be leaving Mexico, and even more so Chetumal, we rushed back to our dingy hotel to collect our belongings and get out of town before doing damage, either to ourselves or others.

Bowling along to the border in a taxi, spirits were high with the immanence of escape until, regrettably, we reached the border. Exiting the taxi at the Mexican exit stamp booth, I asked the taxi driver to wait a second with our belongings while we got stamped and transferred to a bus. Straight away we were descended upon by a smooth talking Belizian who dressed close enough to be a priest, in black with a white collar and the obligatory crucifix dangling from his neck, who proceeded to try and rush us through the process so that he could accompany us in a taxi to the other side of the border, a journey that turned out to be some 15 minutes long and would have, under his reccommendation, cost us 350 pesos compared to the somewhat more economic 20 peso fare for the bus.

Making it clear that we didn't need his assistance, language or religion, we arrived at the window to the booth, where an obese sour faced Mexican official bulging from within a sweat stained uniform checked our passports and decreed within seconds that my paperwork was not in order and as Lou had no entry stamp in her brand new passport we would have to return to Chetumal to pay the necessary charges. When I explained in my most restrained way that it was simply not an option to go back, he pounced with the inevitable proposition that he could "forgoe the hassle" with a simple payment of 400 pesos. Our pseudo-Christian friend stuck his head into the fray at this point to helpfully suggest under his breath that he was an undercover cop, and that we should play along so that he could gather evidence.

We were completely at the mercy of the Fat Official; under no circumstances would we return to Chetumal, and he knew it. With steam spiralling from my ears, I held out two 200 peso notes which he insultingly ignored for a while, busying himself with papers on the other side of the cubicle while muttering to himself about the outrage of being asked for a reciept for the costs incurred. The tiny exit stamp was placed in the passports, lacking the aplomb that I would have hope 400 pesos would have paid for, and I stormed away from the window to confront our taxi driver who, insensitive to our recent travails, had decided to charge us double the agreed fare for a 10 minute wait. My Spanish was suddenly released from its bonds of English decency and I let fly in a tumbling cascade of obscenity at the injustice of it all, sparing a little something for the Belizian "undercover cop" who was sidling around us trying to carry our bags and asking for some money "for the effort".

Lou sheparded me onto the bus as I scowled at anybody who I could make eye contact with and as we rolled across the border, finally, into Belize I reflected with a degree of sorrow that the last taste in my mouth of the place that I called home for 6 months was made bitter by corruption, greed and self indulgent opportunism.

Corozal, Belize
17th July 2009

Killing Time

So, after an excruciating day of trailing around Palenque town performing administative duties required to eventually get a new passport from the British Embassy in Cancun, Lou and I wearily put ourselves on the next bus to the captial of Quintana Roo, Chetumal. This dusty and soul-less town sits on the border with Belize, and would form our base for time unspecified as the dynamic forces of the Embassy processed Lou's passport application. After a single night, we realised that we would probably end up killing and eating someone if forced to spend a full week waiting in the same place, thus hiring a car and driving with enthusiasm towards the Carribean coast.

Our point of escape, with no particular form of planning, turned out to be Mahahual. Arriving on a blustery and overcast day, we were greeted to the sight of a deserted town bordered by acres of dead mangroves on one side and a classic carribean sea on the other. Two days was about all we could handle in our slightly fragile state, frustrated by our forced improsonment in Mexico by circumstances; the strangeness of the town was, in our particular state of mind, a bit too much.

Mahahual grew fast from a small fishing village into an overflow point for the more famous beaches to the north of Playa Del Carmen and Tulum, also developing a healthy passing trade in backpacking tourists. Things were going nicely until Hurricane Dean hit in 2007, flattening the entire town and tearing the life out of the mangrove forest that consequently delivered a crushing blow to localised marinelife and ecosystems. Since then life slowly recovered and Mahauhual regained some form of income as a cruise ship stopover, with up to 5000 people simultaneously flooding the tiny town at sporadic moments to come ashore, engage in drunken debauchary along the seafront and return back to their cabins after some hours. This, no doubt, was instrumental in breeding a very predeatory feeling to the place; one could not escape the sense that the locals watched you like hawks as you passed; not through curiosity, but sizing you up to see how they could get what they needed from you before you left.

Speaking with Evan, a young Texan expat with verbal diahorrea who was the proud proprietor of a new local bar/restaurant/cabaña setup, another sobering revalation came to pass. At the point of our initial arrival we drove up the coast in a bursting desire for exploration, and noticed a fine skin of rubbish littering the ungroomed aspects of the shoreline outside the main seafront in town.

"I've picked up some of the rubbish to check the labels when I've been wandering around the beach sometimes," explained Evan, "And it always says that it was made in a different country; China, Cuba, Europe, the United States. It never says 'Made in Mexico'".

It was saddening to realise the global impact of negligence in such wide scope, and got me thinking about the footprint of human activity at a time that was already more gloomy. Turning the car around and heading back inland, we once again began the search for a place to put our feet up for a few days, recuperate from our traumas and wait.

Chetumal
11th July 2009

Mexican elections

After an extensive, and no doubt expensive, campaign on television by the key political parties, the national ballots opened on the 5th July. Due to concern by the higher powers that the availability of alcohol would somehow inhibit the process of democracy, no booze was made available for 48 hours prior to The Big Day.

Perhaps due to their weekend festivities being spoiled or otherwise, the elections did not sit well with the population. In an overwhelming lack of involvement, 55% of the population (some 43 million voters) decided that it wasn't worth the effort, with another 5% choosing to openly reject the state of modern politics and vote null. Information regarding the election results is surprisingly thin on the ground, with this skewed article being the only item of significance after a bit of digging:

http://www.narconews.com/Issue58/article3665.html

A sad time indeed for Mexican national unity and the communication of the government with its people, especially in a country that has needed to draw together when under so much international pressure of late with the issues of drugs conflict and swine flu.


San Cristobal de Las Casas
7th July 2009

The End of The Beginning

Suddenly, with the fanfare of the end of term exams and the obligatory sugar-fuelled party classes on the final Friday, I was no longer a teacher; my semester had reached its conclusion. Memories still bounce around inside my skull of the final day, recorded with forensic precision in my personal journal; my smallest and roundest student from my 4pm class, Nimsy, participating only partially in the "construct a mummy" race as he stood in his giant heeled wheely shoes gazing with affection at the miniature donut in his hand as a team mate knelt at his feet, industriously wrapping them in toilet paper; the unexpected and terrifying wall of early teenage female hormones that doused me in tearful goodbye hugs as my 5pm class said their farewells; the highly dubious homemade money for my 6pm class game of poker, ranging in value from $73 per note to an ambitious $100,000.

Goodbyes were said all round; students, teachers, mexican family and friends amassed over the last 6 months, and with little delay I very nearly ran to the colectivo stop on Saturday morning in my final bid to escape the heat, dogs, noise and watered down local celebrity status of white, foreign, confused teacher.

How does one summarise 6 months of being dug into a small town, and reflect with brevity on the experience? Maybe a better Blog Scribe than I could achieve it, but I struggle. The fundamental things that shuffle into focus are the times of incredible challenge and difficulty trying to build meaningful relationships and assert oneself in a town which had no scope for English communication, the kindness and curiosity of the population of Chiapa de Corzo, the blistering heat and propensity for incessent sweating, the rollercoaster of teaching children and teenagers, a blend of teeth grinding patience, magical humour and dark longings for the return of corporal punishment.

It has been a true test of my self assurance and personal security, being given license to interpret every situation in which I flounder without the benefit of understanding on a daily and frequent basis as a positive, strengthening learning experience; grasping constantly for some hook, some point of understanding as to how those around me are feeling and how it is reflected in their relating to me.

With this first step away from the securities and familiarities that sit thousands of miles away back on the shores of Jolly Old England, even in these early stages of change I can appreciate in retrospect that all the struggle and difficulty has been for the benefit of, paso a paso, becoming closer to where I am.

San Cristobal de Las Casas
6th July 2009

Taking Corporate Mascots to the Next Level

Those of you aware of the loathsome cut price pharmacy chain Farmacias Similares will no doubt be aware of their cheerful quack mascot, Doctor Simi. In times ruled by the mobile phone camera and the tatty/glorious output of YouTube, the marketing geniuses of this company have decided to employ dispensing employees who have a natural affinity for dance and are willing to showcase their talents in the heat of the day inside a vast costume outside the numerous widespread stores that litter Mexico.

My first acquaintance with him was on the town square of Chiapa de Corzo to the sound of pounding techno music and I have long tried to capture the results on video, but a quick search of YouTube yields far more entertaining results, including the "anti-corporate" bunch of Mexican teenagers who have taken great delight in public mobbings of the cheerful (but now slightly wary) face of cheap dubious medical consultations.



Chiapa de Corzo
19th April 2009

A Well Read Gentleman

Hurrah! I've just finished my first book in Spanish! All ninety-something pages of "El Principito" (or "the Little Prince") are now conquered and I prepare to take on my next challenge, the abridged version of Alice in Wonderland; I can feel my reading age slowly increasing to the giddy heights of almost a six years old...

Chicahua
17th April 2009

Prologue

As the saying goes, the greatest journey begins with the smallest step. It transpires that for the past 6 months I have been tentatively shuffling forwards to what has turned out to be the proverbial high diving board; what I`m now facing is not the first step, but the product of the first few.

This began in earnest 6 month ago when, towards the latter end of July and disarmingly early in a Spanish holiday I made my decision as the product of a great deal of deliberation to to leave my job selling plastic suitcases to the under-five jet set and realise a slightly vague and deluded ambition to live and work somewhere that English was more likely to get you into trouble than into a job.

Decision made, I set about sealing my fate by informing just about anybody who would listen to my scheme (as a task in itself this was not too hard; my "elevator pitch" was deliverable within 30 seconds, owing to fundamental lack of one thing - detail) thus employing The Crushing Pressure of Potential Shame in the event that my optimistic plans fell into an untidy heap.

As well as bullying myself into a state of enthusiastic momentum, I endeavoured to find out exactly what it was that I would do with my abrupt change in direction. This, as far as I can remember, stemmed from the most part from one person; Louise Whitaker. Lou was (and probably still is) the elder sister of friend`s girlfriend, possesed by a drive and determination equal to that of a blind darts champion. She is a fantastic girl and I have no idea why but, in an act of incredible charity she took me under her wing, introducing me to every conceivable branch of her contact network and graciously labouring my rambling discourses as I attempted to flesh out the definition of my future. She`d been involved in the Fair Trade industry for some years and it gradually became apparent over time and conversations regarding topics ranging from microfinance to aid work and global exporting that I`d developed a very bankable set of skills during my relentless global pursuit of families aspiring to alleviate the screams of their children in transit. The second revelation to offer hope to my ill conceived ambition was that I really quite enjoyed the business of imports and exports, in which I was suitably steeped, and the possibility of a fulfilling career overseas engaged in such pursuits seemed to be almost within the confines of realism.

However, even as the froth of excitement started to accumulate on my lips, it became all too apparent from the range of meetings with Lou`s equally patient and kind contacts that despite my commercial nouse I was woefully lacking in any language aptitude, a skill apparently essential for any aspiring loon wishing to work abroad in Latin America, my shallowly considered choice of location. Despite my most sustained and determined application of optimism it became clear that to work in Fair Trade abroad I would have to achieve fluency in Spanish. Undeterred, I modified my one step plan to involve a preliminary step; my internal flow diagram of intended progress now read thus;

Become fluent in Spanish (1) - Work in Fair Trade in Latin America (2)

Having pursued 2) as far as could be reasonably expected, I turned my attention to 1). Reaching out to everyone I knew that had lived of worked in Latin America, visited or travelled there or looked like they had any vaguely useful scrap of information to impart, I drew the conclusion that my likeliest route to fluency lay in getting a job that leveraged my default asset of being a native English speaker. In teaching English, or at least helping others to teach it, I would be in a position to immerse myself in a Spanish speaking community and through some mystical process emerge from the situation in a state of fluency. Sailing along on the rosy cloud of assumption and an ill-founded prejudice against teaching qualifications, I duly dispatched applications to teaching institutions in Colombia and Peru, inviting the principles of the schools to hire me on the basis of rusty private tuition and water sports instruction experience and an ability to do rather well in making things up as I went along. As it transpired, this was strategically a poor idea.

In the months of fruitless pursuit of my applications the closest to a response that I managed to illicit came from the ill tempered headmaster of Newton College in Peru, in informed me in as many words that without teaching qualifications I would be better suited to an alternative line of employment.

By now it was December 2008, and with the Crushing Pressure of Potential Shame dictating a departure in January 2009 I was feeling my optimism gazing with a worrying lust as the emergency exit door in the back of my brain. I had no flights booked, no idea of the work that I might be involved with, and absolutely no idea as to which country I might end up in. It was partly the desperation at the uncertainty and partly an adolescent knee-jerk reaction to the sour-voiced headmaster`s comments that caused me to decide to book a flight without plans of employment post-arrival, but fortunately this idea was derailed before it had any opportunity to take off.

Fate has been watching me flail around for long enough, and it finally dealt me a good hand; a bubbly and patient Spanish teacher by the name of Claire. She had witnessed my single handed battle with her language of choice, Spanish, some 6 months earlier. She had relied to one of the many emails that I had sent out in in the "carpet-bombing" approach to information gathering that I had developed over the past couple of months, informing me by recommendation of a "language exchange" program run in a small town called Chiapa de Corzo in Mexico. This, it transpired, was exactly what I had been groping around for; daily Spanish lessons in exchange for English lessons administered by me to the unwitting pupils of the Dunham Institute, purveyor of the exchange scheme. I noted with relish on close inspection of their website that all teachers were placed with local families, thereby facilitating the "cultural immersion" that I desired. There was one complication, albeit a small one compared to some of the more sizable issues placed in my path by my unique blend of bloody mindedness and blind faith, that I was required to be qualified to the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) standard. This proved to be a problem easily circumnavigated however, as a single call to the director of the institute revealed that they ran TEFL training courses and delighted in training their own teaching staff. With the teaching semester for the exchange program running from February and the 4 week TEFL course neatly dove-tailing with this for my desired January departure, it finally seemed that things were starting to come together. For the first time in months, I was able to start telling my friends and family about concrete plans and the Crushing Pressure was sated.

The next month was a whirlwind of booking courses and flights and engaging in the organisation of the innumerable things that constitute the tying off of loose ends characterising an old life, and forming the arrangements that define a new one. As the date of my flight drew nearer and the frequency of goodbyes increased, from my work colleagues and friends from university and home, I could feel strange layers of numbness and denial slowly being stripped away as I slowly but surely came to realise that the improbable plan, hatched months ago and tinkered with as if I was a car fanatic doggedly and repeatedly resurrecting an elderly automobile, was actually going to happen and that I was going to leave behind some wonderful friends, a great job and a committed and loving family.

My parents, bless them, put on their bravest faces and drove me to the airport as I frantically stuffed what I deemed to be my most essential possessions into a rucksack in the back seat. All the way to the departure gate, I was incredibly privileged to receive a constant stream of messages on my phone wishing me luck and future happiness.

Owing to a disinclination to pay my remaining mobile phone contract, I was to dispense with my SIM card and leave my Mother the phone to use at her discretion. Having wiped the memory and removed the card, I said goodbye to them with a lump in my throat at the security desk.

As I sat in the departure lounge, turning over the SIM card in my hands I reflected on its electronic list of contacts, contained in a shell half the size of a postage stamp. Despite the knowledge that the world is a small place brought closer together by cheap flights, the Internet, VoIP phones, email and all those other incredible developments, I suddenly felt overwhelmingly alone.

As the sound of the call to boarding for my flight was heard over the tannoy, I folded my SIM card neatly in half and, walking briskly to the departure gate, dropped it in the bin.

Barcelona Airport
2nd January 2009