The Madness of Getting Ready

It's overcome us. We have lists but far more to do than either of us has thought of writing down. We're leaving in just under two weeks. Somehow!

Some things are kinda fun, like setting up online billpaying through our bank.

Last night I chatted with a man who also loves Mexico. He cheerfully told me a hair-raising story of one of his adventures there, and I wondered if I wouldn't rather stay home and curl up under a thick quilt till spring comes to Colorado many months from now.

But today I started remembering some of our favorite places, and the warmth of the people. Back to the lists!

A compelling book on Mexico, history and more

It's rare that I become so absorbed in a work of history that I gobble the book up. But I've become absorbed in The Life and Times of Mexico, by Early Shorris, an American who has a fascinating depth of understanding of Mexican history and has had friends at all levels of Mexican society, all over the country.

There's an awful lot of tragedy and death in any country's history, and I've known enough about that aspect of Mexico's history that I almost didn't pick this book up when I saw it on the new book shelf of our local public library. But I did pick it up, and I have been saying, "Aha!" in every chapter. For example, it's widely known that in the Mayan culture, time was a central concept. Shorris brings this forward to here and now. Here's a quote:

Wars between the Maya forces were based on issues related to time. Entire city-states engaged in war and destroyed one another over questions of time all through the history of pre-Hispanic Mexico. And battles over time have not ended but continue in other forms in Mexico, reminders of the long shadows of history, the genes of culture. The mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and President Vicente Fox differed over the use of daylight savings time. As a result, all Mexico except Mexico City operated on daylight savings time. The argument over the control of time in Mexico City led to neighbors, businesses, and governement bureaus choosing different versions of the correct hours. Leftists and rightists set their watches to different times. It was both ridiculous and chaotic... Eventually the Mexican Supreme Court brought the left-of-center party (PRD) into conformance with the rest of the country.

This sort of tale is woven through the book. I highly recommend The Life and Times of Mexico, which just came out a few months ago, for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the historical contemporary forces in Mexico. I have had to skim over some of the military sections, but even in them, I've learned useful things.

The Huasteca Region of Mexico

Since the Husteca region is the first area we plan to explore, I've been websurfing and reading my guidebooks. The most interesting link I've found so far is to the Nahua Newsletter, published by the University of Indiana.

Not quite 1/4 of the way down the page, there is a review of a book called Exits from the Labyrinth: Culture and Ideology in the Mexican National Space. Here's a brief quote from this article.

The region has been marginalized from the national project and its history and culture are seen to differ from Mexico as a whole. Thus the region is defined in Mexican ideology as a frontier, a remote and lawless place that "has not yet been immortalized in textbook or mural" (p. 51). But the region is believed to have its hidden sources of wealth. Central Mexicans are convinced that Indian peoples of the Huasteca can predict weather or cure diseases that modern medicine cannot. The Huasteca is widely believed to be the location of hidden treasure or untold mineral wealth (it does in fact contain major oil resources). The region is a kind of untapped periphery that remains unexplored and unexploited. Yet paradoxically this reserve of physical and cultural wealth "is seen as quintessentially Mexican because it represents the great, dormant, untapped Mexico" (p. 51). The Huasteca serves national elites as a metaphor of untamed possibilities, both the strength and the potential of an unrealized Mexico.

Things are shaping up before our trip...

It's about three weeks till we leave for four to five months. The most difficult thing to do when we leave is finding house and petsitters and also someone who can fill orders for our small publishing company while we are out of the country. Wonderfully we've found a man who can do it all. He shares Kelly's passion for natural building, loves dogs and cats, and is very comfortable with computers and ecommerce. He needed a better place to live, so he is as delighted as we are with the situation.

With that settled, I've been feeling much more relaxed about everything else working out. And it has been. On other trips, I've had problems with feeling scared (make that terrified) in Mexican traffic, and this week I had a session with a local psychologist, using a very interesting technique called EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) or energy tapping. In less than an hour, my stress level about Mexican traffic dropped from quite high to barely there. Will this hold up once we get there? Wait and see, but I learned how to do this process for myself so I can do it as needed. Here's one website about EFT. I plan to experiment with it quite a lot more.

Another exciting thing, more directly related to Mexico, is that I've been emailing with a woman who has relatives in the Huastecan region of Mexico, not far from southern Texas. Kelly is giving a talk on natural building at an energy conference in San Antonio, so we will just be heading south from there. We already have an invitation from this woman's relatives to park our motorhome at their place! The Huasteca is a region of lush greenery, waterfalls, swimming holes, much music, and native peoples. Hmm, wonder if we'll even get beyond that area. It's a wonderful feeling to have no committments once we get to Mexico.

Doors are opening! And I'd better get back to the endless details...

Rosana

Teaching English in Mexico

In a comment to the last post, someone asked about teaching English in Mexico. When we were in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico, a couple of years ago, I had an interesting conversation about that, with an American man who was living there. He said that Presidente Vicente Fox had set in motion the process of teaching every child English in the Mexican school system. My friend said that this was creating quite a need for teachers who could teach the teachers!

In addition, he said that there was teaching available through the university there in Cd. Victoria. If Kelly and I had wanted to stay longer, he would have introduced us. He asked about my level of education, and when I said I had a Master's degree and a California teaching credential, he thought I would be considerably more employable than Kelly who has no degrees. The kind of teaching I could get would likely pay around 100 pesos an hour, which was very close to $10US an hour. Cd. Victoria is a prosperous, modern city. My friend also mentioned the state of Guanajuato and another state I have since forgotten, as likely places for teaching English, because the governors of those states had college degrees from the US and fully understand how knowing our language could open doors.

I would have been tempted to have a go at teaching there, as I've done volunteer ESL (English as a Second Language) teaching several times and greatly enjoyed it. But our trip was just a few weeks and so I didn't follow up on that.

Amazon.com: Books: Handbook for Teaching English in Mexico and Central America

I have this book and think it's quite thorough. I'm sure that there are lots of resources on the net for teaching ESL in Mexico. Here's one very good site for ESL worldwide:

http://www.daveseslcafe.com/

Rosana

Starting a blog for travelers to Mexico and people who might want to live there

Are you interested in traveling in Mexico? Or wondering if you would like to live there? This blog is written to share our journeys, reflections, and how-to knowledge with you.

Two years ago, my husband Kelly and I roamed around parts of Mexico in our small motorhome, and I wrote a book about the trip. We entered from southern Texas, went south along the Gulf of Mexico to the state of Veracruz, went inland to the great ruins of Teotihuacan, and returned northward through San Miguel de Allende and Chihuahua.

As well as selling the book, we put it up on this website... here's a link to the first page of the story of that trip. The full text of the book is online -- hey, writers like to be read! -- along with color photos.

This year we will be traveling with a bit more of a focus. Might we like to live part-time or full-time in Mexico? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

We encourage you to post your comments, and we'll reply as we can!

Rosana Hart