Since I first learned of the US terrorism attacks, Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" has been rightfully stuck in my head:

Father, father, we don't need to escalate
War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today

Lyrics for the rest of the song are here.

Grisha took off at 7:50pm this evening; I'm flying home Monday morning at 10:30am: Mexico City -> Dallas, then Dallas -> Columbus. It should be interesting...

Viva Mexico, Cabrones!

Grisha and I are back in the modern world after a brief trip to rural Michoacan. We were in La Manga de Cuimbo, a town of 400 residents and a single telephone line, a half hour by car from the nearest paved road, when the USA terrorism attacks began. It was quite surreal, hearing our host-Mom say "Gregorio, Eric! Escuchen! Bombas en Nueva York!" then tuning into the Mexican coverage of the events. We watched it all unfold on a tiny, static-filled TV via a "rabbit-ears" signal in Spanish. After watching for a little while, our host family went back to their daily tasks... I stayed glued to the TV for several hours.

Grisha is supposed to fly home tomorrow, and me on Monday. At this point, quien sabe? Alas, more time in Mexico. And tonight marks the start of the Mexican Independence Day festivities. :)

I've noticed a few Mexican cultural oddities since arriving in Mexico City I thought worth mentioning. In no particular order:

• fireworks: one can hear fireworks going off every evening, every day. It appears to be part of the whole fiesta thing.
• traffic: driving here is insane, and it's not unusual to see 10 lanes of cars crammed into 7 or 8 marked lanes on the street. And everybody is honking.
• taxis: since owning a car here is very expensive, and 20 million people live here, there are tons of taxis. All of them are old-school, manual transmission green VW Bugs with loud exhaust systems.
• shopping on the metro: at every metro stop, a different salesman hops on each car and offers some trinket or another, usually for around $0.50 or $1. Items I saw yesterday include flashlights, cds, nuts for snacking, pens and notebooks.
• t-shirts: I've seen some hilarious t-shirts down here, and unless their owners also speak English, they're probably unaware of the shirts' meanings. Walking through Tepoztlan's cathedral grounds on "First Communion Sunday" I saw one that said "In Golf We Trust." Another said "Die Yuppie Scum."

More later, as I become aware of them. I'm heading to Morelia in an hour to meet up with Grisha. It's about a 4-hour bus ride. The tough part will be navigating the D.F. metro with my backpack...

My quest for bandwidth continues amidst a relentless pace of travel. After the Vipassana course ended I took a week of Spanish at Experiencia (more on that later), then headed to Mexico City. I spent yesterday checking out all the sights in the Centro Historico- this is one helluva city; 20 million people, 4.7 use the metro each day. I'd provide links, but I can't figure out this bloody keyboard... In a few minutes I'm headed to Teotihuacan, home of the world's 3rd largest pyramid (that is also climb-able). That is, unless I hear from Gringorio (Grisha) RSN, who is wrapping up an 8-day Vipassana course today and either meeting me in Mexico City today or in Morelia tomorrow.

Serving a 10-day Vipassana course is as intense as taking one. And this is only Day 4...

I just finished uploading a little movie of Grisha telling a joke in Spanish (it's in pictures -> 2001 -> August -> 12th), but there are still a ton of pictures to go. Our meditation class starts today, so I'll likely be offline for the next 10 days... Hasta luego!

Mexico
[8/10 - 9/17/2001]

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