I offer no apology for the drought of blog posts for the last two weeks. Express your frustration at your religious services, pleading with your deities to refrain from showering me with various plagues. As we meander through the various stories of my final two weeks here in Mexico, I will have a real-time recorded experience of taking a laxative after not tirando la basura (throwing the trash, you get the idea) for over 5 days. Right now, before I begin to explain my various symptoms, I am going to drink 5 tablespoons of the laxative "Magnesio" that I bought at the Farmacia Ahorro from a very attractive and friendly empleada (female employee). The hour is 10:23 in Mexico, and down goes the pooping-potion.
Symptoms for the last week: Last Tuesday, I found out the the Spirit of Montezuma was not entirely vanquished, but surviving like Voldemort by living on the back of one's head or as a snake or in some other sinister fashion. The spirit came back exactly as strong as it did before. I wasted not time, rushing to the store to buy antibiotics via the advice of my Brother (this time stronger antibiotics--ciprofur or something like that), taking a bunch of asprin and pumping pepto bismal relentlessly. After a short episode of the diarrhea on Tuesday, I began to feel better. On the way to betterness, however, different afflictions presented themselves. My stomach started to hurt like a son of a bitch, probably due to taking lots of medicine without eating very much. During this period, I defninitely should have rested as much as possible, but since my brother was in Mexico for the first time in 2 years, I couldn't bring myself to bring down his experience thus. I pretended to improve and went out drinking Wendeday and Thursday night. Thursday night, with a vicious headache, muscle cramps on every part of my upper body, and not having pooped for almost 3 days, I came back a little earlier from the bars. That night, I spit a sufficiently sized wad of blood into the toilet. I'm not convinced that this is related to the illness, since it was bright red and thin, and it was a one-time occurrence. A lo mejor (most likely) it was a cut on the gums or my tongue or something like that. I did decide that if it happened de nuevo (again) that I would immediately seek medical help. Friday night we went out, but I declared myself on the wagon. I had to abandon the festivities at 10pm or so to return to bed, where it was discovered that I had a temperature of 100 degrees F. Graciously, after I had soaked in clothes dampened with ice-water for some time, a doctor friend of Oliver (to be introduced formally) came to see what he could do for me. He gave me some pills to bring down the fever and assured me that I was going to live. Since then, I have had nothing more than a riveting headache, which subsided this morning. However, I have now gone 5.5 days without usando el bando de dos (taking a number two), and we arrive at the present, with an ample amount of laxative barrelling through my intestines like a liquid John Henry, like a little Moses turd demanding "Let my people go!" before parting the Red Sea to arrive safely in the porcelane promise land. The time is now 10:49 and I have not yet felt the urge to defecate. I paid an extra 35$ to stay in my hotel until 7pm so that I wouldn't have to fight this battle in public bathrooms.
The beginning of the story. The last we have heard of the travels was of Lucha Libre. Sadly, those are also the most up-to-date photos that I have on my computer. Richard said he had been uploading his pictures frequently, but I overestimated the frequency implied by the word "frequently." I just forgot to ask Korey for her pictures before she left for Dallas. So, until a later date when pictures are uploaded to this blog, it will be dependent on the strengh of amatuer narrative.
Following the lucha libre outing, we ventured to Tonala, another small town that used to be outside of Guadalajara but has been swallowed up by the growing mass of sketchily employed people, to the extent that it is possible to reach Tonala in a city bus: from our house in Zapopan, two city buses. It is a town very much the same as Tlaquepaque, but with a few more things to buy and better prices. Glass products are very popular there, and one can watch the making of vases, wine glasses, cups, etc in a little artisan shop. It was there that I noticed that all the people blowing the glass were smoking cigarettes prolificly, sometimes blowing the smoke into the product they were making. Paco Grande, our father in house, assured me that this was intentional, to tint the glass. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that in the final month with the Espinosas, we realized that they often gave advice based on information from the 1970's or facts that had been completely fabricated. Once, Paco was completely convinced that the map in the Encyclopedia in front of him was incorrect, because a town that he though was to the north of Mexico City was shown on the map to be to the south of Mexico City. Also, each time I fall ill, Rosi refused to believe that it is for any reason apart from being crudo (hung over). Even though Richard, Korey, and I all had the same symptoms at the same time, she declared Richard and Korey to have gastritis and me to been hung over from the concert that all three of us attended. The doctor that we went and say, she said, was mistaken. Paco is also convinced that I am a raging alcoholic. I had hopes that my brother could convince him otherwise, but since Gordy asked me to bring him a drink for when he landed in Mexico, Paco was immediately sure that my alcoholism was a family issue.
The hour is 11:18. No urge to poop. I took a larger dose of the laxative and have begun jumping around to shake things up in there.
At any rate, if you want to know more about Tonala, read the blog about Tlaquepaque, and replace the word "Tlaquepaque" with the word "Tonala," lower the prices 20%, add in a glass factory, and there you have it. Ahh, and subtract the rain; the weather was beautiful.
I'm going to go try to fill the taza (toilet). ......10 minutes with no success. More excercise and the story continues. I've also decided to type standing up to see if that will help.
Exam week arrived. We returned from Tonala and put ourselves to studying. My exams were simple. For my conversation class, an exam with several essay questions over the topics discussed in class. I didn't study at all for that. For my grammar class, I was to construct a brochure that could be a guide for a person traveling to Mexico with the intent to study the Spanish language. The content was designed to instigate laughter, and the grammar was pretty darn good. Success in both courses. There was a third course, unfortunately, in which we suffered for 4 weeks only to be duped at the end to suffer more. The professors name was Christina. In all seriousness, she is a very kind and pleasant person. It's that she is very interested in things that other people find very boaring. I'm sure she is a very bright lady; she has published a few books that other people say are better than one would expect. As a teacher, she lacks talent in involving students in the discussion, choosing readings that present contemporary social issues (the title of the course was "Mexican Social Issues studied through literature"), and speaking about one thing for more than 5 minutes. In fact, the only topic that we managed to stay the course while 'discussing' was the topography of Mexico, for two hours, with only the sound of the fan, Christina's voice, and eyelids sliding slowly down over irises of various colors. The only instrument for inciting class discussion that Christina equipped herself with was the phrase "Preguntas? Comentarios?" (questions? comments?). She also said quite frequently, "Que mas?" (what else?), to no avail, because usually by the end of one of her 40 minutes explanations of a very fine and insignificant point of Mexican culture of the 1940's (like, why the men wore red socks at a festival to celebrate coming of age or something of that sort), we were all in another world. In this class, I learned to sleep with my eyes open.
But at that time I sympathized with Christina, who clearly wanted to research and write but was stuck teaching as well. She was a nice person who was forced out of her element, that's all, and her shortcomings could be forgiven and tolerated. This attitude changed on the last day of class. She informed us on Wednesday that we would not have an exam on Thursday because everybody did very well on their presentations. We were all estatic and that night we didn't review the 18 short stories that we had read in the last 4 weeks. She also said we would be out of class by 2pm. The next day, we did in fact have an exam and were released at 3pm. I don't understand the value of deceiving students in this manner. It was a dick move and I'm not happy with it. Thus ended the semester.
I have to pee real bad. With luck there will be more. The hour is 11:52. ......nothing. I'm beginning to get discouraged, but I have no idea how fast these things are supposed to work, so I am holding on to hope. A little more excercise and we continue. Maybe next time I will play some inspirational music to help.
On Friday night, Richard, Korey, and I went out with Edgardo to celebrate the end of classes. This time, there was no hunt for the bar that lasted a long time. We arrived quickly and easily at Botanas y Beer (snacks and beer), a Texan Bar in Guadalajara el Centro. There were 11 people there with all of Edgardo's friends, who I would like to say now are incredibly nice and interesting people who I am glad to know, and between we 11 we shared a 750 peso bill. Before you judge the competitiveness of that price, allow me to explain all that we received. 8 pitchers of beer, a torta ahogada (sandwich) for each person, a quesadilla for each person, some cheese dip, a few tacos, and some other snacks. The food was well worth the price and the company was priceless. Fantastic way to end the semester, thwarting Christina's efforts to leave us all in misery.
When we returned to la casa that night I began to prepare for the arrival of my brother Gordon, who had been away from Mexico for 2 years and was to arrive at 10pm Saturday night. I fell asleep that night with dreams of sleeping in late, which I did, until 2pm. I imagined that when I awoke, I would go to the store to grab a cheve (drink) for Gordy to calm his nerves after being in the airport all day (he's old, you know), call a taxi, shower, eat some dinner, and wait for the time to arrive. Instead, I awoke to a text message that said "Llego a Guad a las dos. A huevo, carnal!" (I get to Guadalajara at 2pm. Hell yeah, homie!). He had been flying standby and been the beneficiary of a miracle. I rushed through the shower, got dressed, asked Paco if he would give me some rum and coke (an experience I was hoping to avoid), and we headed to the corner to find a taxi. The cabi said we could get there in 20 minutes, which I knew was impossible but I admired his ambition so we got in the car. Gordy didn't wait long before we got there.
Heading to the water closet. 12:15 p.m. No sucess. I need to take a break to shower and such.
I return. Still no success in the area of passing 6 days of meals. The hour is 4:36. I feel a little bloated. The story continues.
Gordy arrived on Saturday night and was pretty tired, so we didn't do much apart from eating some food, meeting Rosi and Paco, and heading to bed. There were 4 of us, and only 3 beds. Somehow, we managed to save somebody from sleeping on the floor.
On Sunday, a group of mates from our salsa dancing class came to hang out and drink chelas in the garden. We bought two liters of Tequilla and Rum for this occasion, and ordered 2 family size pizzas. Fortunately, the homies came and hour late, so we ate all the pizza. Did I say fortunately? Yes, that's right. I like pizza. We danced some salsa and made merry, and even tried to get Gordy to dance salsa. Salsa music and Gordy don't blend well. It doesn't do anything for him, so they rythm really doesn't grab him by the ankles and make him shimmy. I don't fault him for it. If it were possible to dance to Heavy Metal, I still wouldn't be able to. I mean, sure, I can get in a fight, check somebody, or shoot a lead singer from the audience, but I wouldn't do it with rythm. The night wrapped up and we still had quite a bit of alcohol, but it brought some closure to the salsa chapter of Mexico.
On Monday, Richard left. We got up, went to the school, took care of some business, and saw him off. After the departure, we tooled around Guadalajara on foot, to the great lamentation of Gordy, who in addition to approaching 28 years of age isn't accustomed to incredible amounts of walking nor the elevation of Gualajara. At one point, we took a two hour journey to a museum that ended up being closed. It was a slightly fruitless day. We did, however, eat at Tacos Arabes, which is delicious. That night, we went out to a Jazz club with Edgardo which was really interesting, and a good opportunity to chill with the profe one last time before leaving the Republica.
Tuesday, the sickness arrived. In the morning, Rosi gave me a Mango to help. By the sick, twisted humor of fate, there was a big damn maggot in the Mango, that chose not to bear it's ugly head until after I took a couple bites. I took the said drugs, and we headed down to El Centro to see that museum and buy some porquerias (useless littel shit) for Gordy's students. I also hunted for a luchador mask for my sister, but the options weren't satisfying. The only affordable mascaras were for children and poorly made. Anything for an adult required the illegal sale of a body part to fund the purchase. The issue is that Mexicans take their lucha libre much more seriously than I do. That day we bought our tickets for the trip to Queretaro, and Korey decided to accompany us to avoid being real bored in Guadalajara.
Wednesday, we awoke and headed to Central Nueva (New Central) to catch our bus. We travel with Primera Plus, which provides decent in-house movies and episodes of friends along with comfy chairs and ample leg space. Oliver was there to pick us up at the airport. Oliver is a man who suffers no shortage of character. When he came to Michigan, Gordy took him to the Golden Harvest, an incredibly delicious, yet small breakfast joint in Lansing. There are 7 or 8 tables in the golden harvest, a one-story, one-room building about the size of an American living room. Oliver ordered the Hungry Man breakfast: bacon, eggs, hotcakes, and homefries. His first bite of food, clearly and act of fate, was from the serving of homefries. As he ate, he began to release euphoric sounds of "mmmmm. ...MMMmmmmm.....mmmMMMMM!" People were looking at him by now, and he asked Gordy, "Como se llaman estes?" (what are these called?). Gordy told him, and he repeated, "HOMEfrieeees. mmmMMM!" He finished his homefries before touching anything else on his plate. It was surely one of the most memorable events of the small but tastey Golden Harvest. Oliver is also incredibly intelligent, studying to be an engineer with one year of school remaining. He is an Aquilas fan, and when Gordy was in Queretaro the last time, Oliver had a caste on his hand from some work injury or something. During El Classico (the Aguilas/Chivas matchup), somebody asked him how he got his caste and he said "Le pelea a una de las Chivas en la cara." (I punched one of the Chivas in the face.)
So Oliver picked us up. I was a little tired and carried some pain in my body at this point. I greeted him last out of the three of us, and did exactly what Korey had done right before--leaned foreward and tried to kiss him on the cheek. Thankfully, I realized at the last second that I was making a mistake, and aborted, but it still must have seemed wierd. It wasn't spoken of again. The first stop in Queretaro was at a seafood restaurant. I got some garlic shrimp. Now, shrimp here in Mexico is a little different. It comes with eyes and legs, and above all, poop along the spine. Cleaning these shrimp to eat them reminded me of my work on the Long Term Care Unit of War Memorial Hospital, except I was surrounded with friends, not depressed, middle-aged women with kids nearly as old as themselves who had not only put themselves in a tight spot in life, but decided to have a horrible attitude about it and ruin as many days as possible. Therefore, I preferred the shrimp. I won't be able to eat unclean shrimp like that for a while, though. The idea that I ingested lots of little shrimp turds makes me uncomfortable. I will eat pre-cleaned shrimp only for a while. It's funny, if you know spanish, because the word for garlic is ajo, and the word for eye is ojo. When it came, I thought, "I asked for shrimp con ajo, not con ojo." aha! ha! ahhha. hm....
So that night we went out with Oliver, Marco, Chava, Kim, and Edgardo. Very classy people. Marco and Edgardo are studying to be dentists, Chava has a graphic design company, Kim teaches English here in Mexico (she was a student on Gordon's trip two years ago who just stayed), and Oliver as said is going to be an engineer. Here in Mexico, the beauty is that one doesn't have to act like their profession all the time. These are all fun-having people who are very good at their careers or their studies. One is expected to give up the good times at a certain age in the United States. Very sad. At any rate, it was hard from any of them (apart frmo Kim) to pronounce my name, and I was thusly dubbed "Junior." It was clear 5 minutes after it was suggested that I will forever be known in the states of Queretaro and Hidalgo as Junior. And there marked the rise of Junior.
It is better that I wait for the photos and vidoes of the next 3 nights to write anything about them. One could easily write a novel trying to create the images of Queretaro through the written word. I would gladly do so, but I don't think you all would get past page 20, so I'll wait for the pictures.
Tonight, I catch a 2am bus to teh airport in Mexico City. Don't worry: the bus station is connected to the airport, and it is 25 minutes north of the actual city, so my expected lifespan is still pretty high. I don't know how the statistics are affected if one adds constipation into the mix. Tomorrow then, I fly out of D.F. at 1:40 pm to arrive in San Deigo for a visit with the abuelo (grandpa.)
Best Wishes,
Stu
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