Sunday 1st November - (but who would know?!)

The place is buzzing - nothing like Sunday back home! Seized by the headache from hell that was actually making me feel sick and half blind, I was suitably zombified for the día del muertos - so headed out for breakfast (ahh, more pancakes and dead-head bread..mmm...), and sat next to a couple of construction workers who were happily tucking into a plate of enchiladas by all accounts. It must take years of training to reach this level of intestinal discipline...

I packed my things and wondered down to the centro historico - past a maze of beautiful, terraced, low rise coloured colonial buildings, (most of which were actually modern hotels and bars..) through a lush park full of touristas, fountains, street vendors and marigolds (and that pink flower..often seen in hot countries...dammit..) and zigzagged my way to the Santo Domingo cathedral square, even more animated than yesterday, and got a full daylight view of the impressive tapetes, multiple offerings to the dead and overflowing cafes.

It was around 10.45am by now, so time for 'almeuerzo' - the mid-morning snack to keep those hungry Mexicans going till lunchtime. (I'd had this notion explained to me several times, but somewhow, the multiple meal syndrome just kept escaping me. 'Breakfast' (desayuno) was the first meal of the day - typically desribed as 'light' and comprised of sweet bread or a patisserie, and coffee. Given that lunch -or 'la comida' doesn't waft it's tablecloth til about 3pm, they naturally get hungry around 11pm, so their elevenses (almeurzo) are a fairly substantial affair, with meat, 'enchiladas', 'tortillas' piled high with stuff, 'tortas', (Mexican sandwiches...that put Marks and Spencers to shame..), eggs, black coffee, fruit juice and 'atole' (a thick maize-based hot chocolate-like drink). Just to keep you going....

From the Zocalo, it was just a short walk past a man with a van selling scrapey-ice lollies (see Panama blog..) and improbably brightly coloured jellies in upside-down plastic glasses sometimes with bits of fruit (I suspect..) in to the Mercado del Juaréz - though once there, it took me a while to figure out how to get in. There were street vendors armed with sugar skulls and chocolate coffins blocking every passageway, and pán del muertos the size of, well, me, piled up high.

Not ones to pass up an opportunity to celebrate death, Mexican stallholders also had a quaint way of stacking the bread on long stretchers, over which they would cast a white sheet -consequently looking not dissimilar to a cadavre of a lately moved on earthling. Tasty...

The market was a veritable labyrinth of odours, noise and colours, from baskets of chillies of all colours and sizes (OK, mostly a variation on red..), baskets of powders, bowls of 'mole' paste and boxes of dried mole, bottles of 'Mezcal' with or without little worm at the bottom (Mezcal is an agave-plant liquor, fairly similar to Tequila - though don't tell the purists I said that..) , bags of quesillo and little woven baskets of 'queso de canasta', beautifully wrapped 'tamales', vintage market stall bags with 'la Catarina' skeleton and Frida Kahlo, potions, lotions, belts, sombreros, cowboy hats and boots, traditional dress and Halloween fancy dress, burning incense and smoking sausages and long strips of meat (some of which were so long and thin, they must have unrolled an entire cow from head to tail..)

At the food bars, entire families jostled for space around the pile of tortillas and plates of salad, limes and chillies onto which were being dished steaming hot meat, sauce, salsa and God knows what else.

Exhausted by the sheer fun of it all, I tried to find my way out of this part of town towards the mercado del slightly más rustico, but ended up in some possibly dodgy areas of town where ladies not unlike those we put on the front of our 'AIDS epidemic update' booklets, stood in very little garb on their doorsteps beckoning the cowboys to stop in for some...well, I don't like to think.

It was at this point I realised how cunning Hansel had been to leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind him, because the old town was a maze of similar looking streets, and it took me HOURS to find my way back to the little park by my hotel. At one point, convinced I was on the right track (yes, I definitely recognise that tree up there...definitely..), I found myself at what I thought must be a visiting funfair. Ha! EL DIA DEL MUERTOS strikes again!

This lively, noisy, strongly aromatic place with food, music and flower stalls was no other than the biggest cemetery (pantéon) in town! Huge swathes of people thronged through the street, and as I peeked through the cemetry gates, I saw the most cinematic, heaven-like scene of lightness and flowers, and colours and joy! It suddenly became clear to me, this manifestation of an old Indian tradition to consider life as just a passageway. Offerings of food would be left for the departed, to last them on the journey to the next life. In stricter Catholic families, prayers would be sent back and forwards among the family for whole month of November.

Of couse, this was all very well and nice, but it was getting late and my piernas were beginning to feel a bit numb, and since that wasn't the tree I thought I had recognised after all, I retraced my steps and finally found my way back to the hotel for a well earned rest. Of about half an hour. Before Jose Antonio turned up looking fresh and full of the joys of November. Sigh...

We had been invited to lunch that afternoon by JA's friends - an incredible locals-only typical Oaxacan restaurant in Zaachilla. I say incredible - it all turned slightly sour when a bowl of chapulines was plumped in front of me...grasshoppers. To eat. My table pals wasted no time in filling their tortillas with the crunchy red littles beasts, as I looked on in horror and gulped down some coke to calm my nerves.

"What's the weirdest thing you eat in your country Rebekah?" Um...(I would say supernoodles, but I'm not sure they'd get it..) fried mars bar? Tete de veau? Frogs legs? Snails? Finally, I guess we're not all that different...

After the trauma of grasshoppers, I opted for the mole negro - a thick, oozing black sauce made of over 30 ing

redients (cinammon, dried bread, tomatoes, onio

n, chillies, plantain, chocolate and 23 other things..). It was, delicious. One down, six other mole's to try.

Why oh why though did I try to finish it? No sooner was my plate removed, that a brandy snap type thing was plopped down in front of me, filled with sliced coconut and cream. A nice finish.

To try and wash away some of this greed that was soiling my insides, I agreed to coffee, and to taste a cafe del ollo (which I pronounced 'de oyo' to the delight of everyone present - though none of whom were willing to tell me what I'd said..) This is a particularly sugary, cinammon-flavoured coffee. A perfectly reasonable end to a perfectly unreasonable repas I think. What do you think?

My stomach now having assumed cartoon-like proportions, I waddled my way over to the car, and we headed off to prepare for the evening's fancy dress competition.

Several hours later, as the time approached for us to go out and party, I gutlessly withdrew, feeling neither able to stay up past 10pm, ingest another centimetre of anything or speak in any language known to man. A better choice for all concerned I told myself. Shame on you. But I did get a good night's rest. And Notting Hill is such a lovely film...

Saturday 31st October, 2009

After waking early, and managing to fall back to sleep (there was a chance I could have stayed awake, but what would it prove?), I was rudely re-awakened by a nice man from the phone company who was simply enquiring whether my newly acquired mobile phone was working properly. AT 8.30AM?? I DON'T SPEAK BLOODY SPANISH - NOW YOU CAN SEE ITS WORKING CAN'T YOU?! ADÍOS! Bloody foreigners...

I rose and dressed (showering, of course..) and at reception was handed a note from yet another kindly well meaning person who had been nominated my guide for the day! When would it end?

I moseyed down the road to the hotel restaurant (twice, as I wasn't quite sure I had understood, but it was indeed, down the road and on the corner) and was served a pile of delicious and thick fluffy pancakes ('hot cakes' in Spanish....go figure..), with maple syrup, delicious coffee, more pán del muertos (this time with a small head poking out - how cute - yet unappetizing - this one looked like Frida Kahlo..) and some watermelon (seved with a bit of lime - combination which I have yet to fathom - it's not Corona...but there's a bit of lime in it...but it's not Corona..).

Fully contented by this fabulous start to the day, I was then met by Lesvia (who has three other names but I can't tell you because I'm discreet...can't pronounce any of them, and have anyway forgotten them) and her son who would be back to pick me up at 11am for my days outing. So this is what it's like to be retired!

After a little stroll down the local park, past yet more skeletons, hanging bodies and traffic, Mme Lesvia returned and whisked me off to visit a local HIV AIDS clinic where she worked, the biggest in the county. We stopped to pick up her hubby on the way, who - God only could have arranged - just happened to be an English teacher who hadn't actually spoken properly (English, I'm assuming..) in years, so who relished the chance of speaking with me. Oh, go on then. If you insist...

The clinic was indeed mightily impressive, though some remarks made previously by JA did make me me wonder whether it was entirely right that AIDS gets 40% of the national health budget. I'm hoping I mistook that figure in my jetlag, although this spankingly new, fully-stocked and comprehensive health facility might just be evidence that I didn't.

After a full tour, we headed down the road to San Bartolo, home to Doña Rosa’s famous black pottery or 'barro negro' farm. They are pretty cool –amazing shiny black , mineral-like coloured pots, sculptures and other useless tools. We watched the son of la famosa Doña turn his hand to the pots, and also test his sarcasm on the group of grannies bussed in specially for the occasion. There is also an interesting urban myth surrounding this pottery, that it was tested for NASA as an appropriate coating for their spaceships. I can see how that might have slipped out of Doña Rosa Junior’s demonstration – and caught on as a verity.

I left with a small collection of random balls and vases, and we drove out to see the 2,000 year old ‘Tule’ tree named after the Tule village. Well, it’s a big tree. And 2,000 years old. But it still looks like a broccoli to me..

By this time, the pancakes seemed an eternity away, so I was taken to lunch in a wicked little local restaurant where they did the absolutely best thing in these circumstances, and ordered for me. I’m still reeling. For starters, a smorgasboard (what is the Spanish for a smorga?) of tortillas of various sizes, memelitas, filled with local cheese (quesilla), guacamole, salsa and pork scratchings (chicharrón, though how they’ve made pork scratchings such a success over here is testimony to the miracle of marketing …). This was enough for me, but this was just an 'antojito' (appetizer or tapas – appekiller if you ask me..), and I had a plate of finely sliced beef - tejado al carbon - (my favourite..) with yet more tortillas, refried beans and one of the town's seven famous ‘mole’ still to come.

Now as my friends will testify, I love getting my hands dirty – especially in times of cholera, so this was a real treat. That aside, it was all pretty tasty, just a tad ‘demasiado’, not to mention that it was getting on for 4 o’ clock tea (and we were a good way from lunch o’ clock thinly sliced beef..) Still, quite an experience, and I felt truly like a local. (The only possible giveaway was my constantly contorted shapes as I strained myself across the table in between bowls of green and black salsa to catch and then translate to myself the various conversations we were having..quite remarkable).
We dropped Mister off for his nap and then Ma’am and I headed into Oaxaca’s historical centre, to catch the contraverse (or something) – the ghostly, deathly procession of brass bands (which are NOTHING like our brass bands, and I’m not just talking about the moustaches…these actually make you want to listen..), followed by entranced ghouls down jiving the colonial streets to the main square (zocale).

Decorating the main square were enormous ‘tapetes’ – a huge sandpit full of carvings of skeletal and deathly yet comical images around which the band would dance, and dotted around, hundreds of altars, each representing a particular village from the surrounding countryside, and with their own speciality food. Manzanilla’s, walnuts, pomegranates, chocolate, more rarking pán, apples, plantain, and plenty of marigold petals. By this time, my brain was about ready to explode so we made our way home.

What will tommorrow bring. And will I have the strength to face it?

A ver.

Buena noches.

Friday 30th October 2009

OK, so a flight was a bit ambitious - and at first glance, the bus seemed like a good and inexpensive alternative, but after 7 and a half hours, (the first of which was spent feeling sick after a stupid, stupid choice of VANILLA flavoured cappuccino which was more like a heavy syrup that had only met coffee once in a distant and hungover past), in a tight, potentially H1N1 infested space subjected to Kung Fu Panda (in Spanish), I wondered whether this really was a totally sound plan. (I was going to struggle to hide my 'dolor de espalda' on Monday at the office...and would probably be frisked on entry for the flu.)

To make matters worse for my context-confused brain, I chose to lose myself in a great though tragic book on multi-cultural immigration in Britain, while watching an Asian themed, Spanish-speaking, American cartoon film. No wonder I ended up taking someone else's bag when I arrived in Oaxaca at midnight.

But before that realisation occurred, I was first met by a small welcoming committee of Jose Antonio's friend and her sons, both of whom had learnt impeccable English in Dublin some years before. (Is it me, or did I see a particular expectant look in their regard to me? Why wasn't I drunk? Why wasn't I in a short skirt? Why wasn't I swearing like a trooper?) Anyways, they hid their disappointment well, and ever so kindly took me to my hotel, checked me in, offered to take me to a bar or dinner (dudes? It's midnight! Duh!!) and reluctantly let me be.

It was only once I'd walked the full length of my ridiculously long suite that I received a call telling me I'd picked up the wrong bag at the coach station. I guess the 'PUMA' stamped across it in bold, and the smelly trainers poking out of one end should have given it away (I'd bought mine earlier that day at Woolworths - still going strong down here in Mexico..there'll never NOT be a need for penny sweets as long as 'el día del muertos' exists...) but it was dark and I was contextually confused.

Thankfully the kindly lady who's son's bag I had pinched happened to know where I was staying, as she'd spent the last two hours chatting with my lift as they waited for our bus to arrive. La honte. So they came to the hotel, they took their bag, their patted me kindly, and they went. And so to bed. Sandwich first. Then to bed. Oh no, wait, there's a film with Samuel L Jackson TV.....and the menu for breakfast...and I wonder if my phone works? And I wonder if I should hang up my jacket? Where's my charger? Oh, there's whats-her-face Hunt in this film too. Hmm...child-napping huh? Oh, it's 2am. Can't wait for pancakes for breakfast......

Thursday 29th October, 2009

As promised, Jose Antonio was to insist that I would speak only Spanish to his colleagues and they to me - (which has worked for the most part, as they now pretty much leave me alone.)

Upon arrival on my first day at the office, I was asked at reception if I had any fever/headaches other pains to declare, (I held my tongue on the slight backache incurred from the plane...I would know better this time..) and was given a free squirt of KY jelly into my palms (this is the National AIDS programme after all, I told myself, and nothing to do with H1N1...)

After meeting the population of Mexico and their assistant (the pile of names just slipped right off my brain after all that KY jelly..), I was shown to my office, just outside the window of which, a circus of Mexican muchachos were performing improbable (and un-secured) acrobatics on top of tall poles of wires, and making a helluva racket about it too.

I was dragged up and down the stairs a few times to collect more short-lived names, and then (finally) taken to lunch by the lovely Mauricio at around 2.30pm. A healthy vegetable soup and cottage cheese enchilada later, and my Spanish improving by the minute, I felt newly invigorated, until, (after a further 4 hours in the office), I could barely find the strength to keep my eyes afloat.
(Hmm..and it seems my office is on a slope. If only I had a malteser I could test the degree of the slant..or perhaps I've just been stocking all those 'pán del muertos' on my left side... )

At just after 7pm, as Carlos kindly sped me down the road to Jose Antonio's, my fatigue was mulled somewhat by news that the office were trying to organize a weekend trip for me (these guys are amazing...I can't tell you - though I do secretly suspect they were unsure what else to do with me given that I didn't speak bloody Spanish...)

JA would be off to Oaxaca - a poor state of southern Mexico but one of the most 'culturally' rich melting pots of Mexico, and a famous spot to watch the 'I see dead people' festivities unfold - on the weekend, and they were trying to find me a flight to join him. I celebrated this good news with a salad-bowl full of cinammon flavoured cereal followed by a glass of Hersheys chocolate milk (see above), and died a calcium-overdosed death in my sofa bed at around 9pm.

Bref changement de plan...

Wednesday 28th October, 2009

OK, so it's not Panama. But a few weeks in Mexico will do in the meantime while our plans reconfigure themselves...(spoken like a true person in charge of her destiny..)

As part of my 'personal development', the office has kindly agreed to post me off to Mexico city for 2 weeks to support the National AIDS Authority here and put together some sort of plan to provide techincal support for NGOs providing prevention services there. (Thankfully, at no time did the fact that my Spanish is dire seem to present any obstacle to this otherwise fine intention...)

A friend has kindly agreed to put me up at his for the duration of my trip - a decision I suspect, that he will come to regret.

A small indication of why he should regret this generous offer betrayed me at the airport, as before even leaving home soil, and in my nervous apprehension of the trip, I tried to convince the lady at check-in that I was a terrorist.

Standard question: “Did you pack anything for anyone in your bags Ma’am?”

(Flashback to the two bottles of vintage wine stuffed in for Jose Antonio…)

“Yes, 2 bottles of wine.”

Pause.

Surprised look from the check-in lady.

“I see. But you know the person?”

“Oh, yes…”

Idiot..

Good job I’m on top form for Jose Antonio…he won’t be disappointed. Especially if he was expecting Mr Bean….

After an uneventful flight (unless you consider watching the film 'Up', having a weep, eating my bodyweight in air-packed food and making the guy next to me want to kill me 'eventful'...), we arrived in Washington for a two-hour stopover. (I say two hour, but by the time I'd got through customs, given my fingerprints, eyeballs, shoes AND socks, inside leg measurement and parents' full birth certificate, I had about 45 minutes left...)

True to US form, the sheer impulse to buy - even in Washington Dulles airport lounge - was overpowering (am I weak?) and I spent the entire 2 hours (45 minutes) walking up and down the concourse browsing Obama and anti-Obama memorabilia...(guess what's coming in your stocking this year family and friends.."Don't blame me – I voted McCain and Palin!"), oversized bags of unfathomable sweets with six degrees of separation to a peanut, bottles of soda or milk/ice cream derivatives and bags of crisps that are purpotedly 'good' for high cholestorol. Heaven.

I finally docked aboard my final leg, and promptly fell asleep for the whole four hour flight. (That concept note is just going to have to wait..)

As I arrived in Mexico and navigated my sleepy way through customs, I was stopped by some guards, just as I approached the final lap, who drew me aside in front of a red button and asked me to press it. (Nuclear war? Who did they think I was?) As I pressed it, it flashed a green light, and they smiled at me and said "Welcome to Mexico". I still haven't figured out whether this was Mexican Russian roulette, or just a gag. What if it had flashed red?

Anyway, still a bit confused by that, I ran thankfully into Jose Antonio who came to meet me in a dashing green jacket and swanky diplomats car (which he claimed was a bureaucrats car...I beg to differ..) He drove me back to his yet more swanky and totally unscathed apartment replete with black leather and chrome interior design of my dreams, and perfectly untouched whitewashed walls, in addition to glass bar full of tequila from through the ages. Heaven #2.

We paid a quick visit to the supermarket downstairs where I bought some 'tuna' (not the over-fished variety - but the prickly pear sort), watermelon, blueberries, hersheys chocolate milk that I would come to regret, (see below) and 'pán del muertos', the traditional bread/cake (though careful with treading that line - this is 'bread' to Mexicans....which makes me wonder what 'cake' looks like..) for the upcoming 'I see dead people' festival the following weekend. Indeed, Mexico has a self- avowed strange relationship to their dead, though possibly a more healthy one than our own since the dead are spirits to be remembered and celebrated every year for a long weekend, and deserving even of their own national holiday, and not a scary force of evil to be used to bribe sweets out of people under a pretext of Halloween.

This special festival, possibly the largest event on the somewhat bursting-at-the-waist Mexican calendar, is celebrated across the country, with special altars being dressed up in honour of the dead, boasting orange marigold petals, 'pán del muertos' and other preferred foods of the recently or anciently departed, candles, incense, cigarettes, sweets, beautiful imitation lace paper cut-outs with comical skeleton figures in comical positions (think Funny Bones and you're there..) and skull-shaped sugar sweets, often with the name of the dead imprinted on their forehead. Nice.

Oh, and sometimes, hanged puppet dolls. Just to add to the joviality.

After scoffing my basket of supermarket goods within seconds, I flirted with the flashy Apple Mac computer in my room (JL hadn't emailed - bad husband - you're going to be demoted...) before collapsing into the sofa bed and dreaming of the terrifying Spanish-filled days to come.