The Flying Men of Mexico

Hello Henry, Callum and Aidan!! 

I saw something very cool a few days ago and thought I would send you some photos. There were some men who climbed up a VERY tall and skinny pole. 

Can you see the yellow rope around the pole? They wound it up and wrapped it around the pole. Then...they tied the rope around their waists and jumped off! 

They spun round and round and their friend stayed on the top playing the flute. As they spun around the roap got longer, and they got closer to the ground. 

And finally they reached the ground again! They are called the "Flying Men of Mexico" (because "Mexico" is the name of the country I am in).

They really love magic and spells and ghosts in Mexico. You can buy special magic spray-cans which you spray around your house and it will bring you money or whatever you want!

Here is a photo of a man in his magic store. He is selling lots of herbs that you can use to put a spell on someone, and behind him you can see the magic spray-cans. 

Here is me with my New Mexican friend. I think she might be a skeletont! Should I be scared?? 

Would you like me to bring back something magic for you? I will see you all again in about a month. I am so excited! 

I will say goodbye with some more scary stuff...skulls! 

Xoxo em

Breaking Bad: Mexico

Hi all! 

A few photos from my last few months in Mexico. 

I started off in Mexico City, which has about 20 million inhabitants (so, almost the same as the population as Australia). It's a cool place (in both senses of the word). I think it's the world's highest capital city, around 2000 metres, and it's often called the "City of the Eternal Spring," which I think is a bit generous. I was there in the hottest month of the year and the sun came out for about an hour a day, so I'd call it the "City of the Eternal Extremely-Early-Spring (Practically still Winter)" 

Cathedral in the Centre of the City

I stayed in an apartment in an area which reminded me a bit of North Fitzroy: crumbling 1920's mini-mansions covered in vine, trendy cafés selling tofu-stuffed tacos and - of course - yoga and meditation studios galore. 

Easter Sunday in Mexico City

Then I flew to the coast to a city called Puerto Vallarta and stepped onto the set of 'Breaking Bad: the Burrito Edition´. Breaking Bad is a big US show about a chemistry teacher who became a meth dealer to fund his cancer treatment, but in my version of the show we had a guesthouse owner who was trying to become a pill dealer in order to fund the creation of a rehab clinic (or perhaps a ´healing centre´).  Yes, it was that insane. 

I spent a whole month listening to the other members of the house sit at a table outside my room while they talked  about their  various addictions, compared rehabs, spun conspiracy theories  and generally mastered the art of giving opinions without fact. 

View over Puerto Vallarta at Sunrise

This is the sales-pitch that the owner would give to try to sell his pills: "So guys, do you know anyone who's in chronic pain? A buddy of mine, who got shot in the face when he was four, sold me some of his extra OxyContins...so I can sell them to you for fifty pesos each. They're great for pain!"

Yeah...they are great for pain, because they're morphine.  They're highly addictive and the US has a huge problem with them at the moment because people get hooked on them really quickly and then can't get off them. So, this guy was importing Oxys into Mexico to sell to any random person who wanted to try them...as if Mexico doesn't have enough drugs!

 The whole month was totally depressing and I couldn't wait to get out of there. On the upside, the place had a nice pool, which the owner was planning to drain and fill with flesh-eating fish that he would then sell to beauty parlours in Mexico  --  who would use them to nibble the dried flesh off customer´s feet during pedicures. (Did I already say I couldn´t wait to get out of there?)

The pool, which has probably been drained and filled with pirahnas by now. 

Then I moved two hours up the coast to a little town called Chacala which was right on the beach. I stayed at a beautiful B&B where I got a lovely room at a bargain price, because it is summer here and for some reason no-one wants to come to the beach in Mexico in summer. 

Chacala Beach

So, for $440 a month I got to experience B&B life and discovered you meet a whole different type of traveler in B&Bs (basically, people with proper jobs). I met a psychotherapist from the US, a Dutch couple who run a fair-trade business in Mexico, a couple running a rehab centre, and a woman who works with migrants and refugees across Mexico. Lots of stimulating conversations! 

The view from my room at sunset. 

The woman running the B&B is originally  from the Ukraine and is currently setting up an online business selling fair-trade clothing -- so she was really interesting to talk to and we had a great month hanging out together. 

Jenia, the woman who was running the B&B

Last week I took a four hour bus-ride inland to Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city. Wet season has just started here and here are some photos from the bus -- it looks more like Ireland than Central America! 

I think I'm going to stay in Guadalajara for the next few months, because I really like it here. The people are really out-going and even though it's a big city they are still really friendly.

I haven't got a TV so I've just been watching World Cup matches on the TV's that are set up in the local markets and stores, which has been a great way to get a taste of the World Cup fever. They all give me a pitying look when I say I'm from Australia and say, "Ya se fue!" (They've already gone home.) 

So then I have to explain that soccer isn't that popular in Australia and we are pretty happy just to get to the World Cup. Anyway, Mexico has "ya se fue" by now as well, so people aren't feeling so sorry for me anymore. 

And, I can´t finish without my latest embroidery!

Last Weeks El Salvador

Hi everyone! 

I´m leaving Suchitoto in the next week and heading for Mexico, via Guatemala. To give you an idea of how small these Central American countries are, it takes 9 hours in a bus to cross half of El Salvador, go all the way across Guatemala and the cross the border into the bottom of Mexico. Of course, from there, its about a 346 hour bus ride up to the USA (Mexico is huuuge), so I´ll definiately be doing that part in a plane. 
  
 I have no idea where I´m going to stay in Mexico.  I had decided on a city but have since been told by Edy, who runs my house, that it is a den of people traffickers, illegal migrants, drug smugglers and Mexican cartels. (Poor Edy didn´t realise that this would just make the place sound more attractive to me...but since it is also stinking hot I think I´ll give it a miss). 

I had my last meditation classes this week, and one of the groups found out it was my birthday  and even had a surprise cake for me.  

At the end of the class I gave everyone a little embroidery, so there were surprises all round. 

Fly!

The meditation group at the Arts Centre, holding their little embroideries

Surprisingly, it has been the women in the other meditation group -- who all work at a local sewing cooperative and come from little villages around Suchitoto -- who have been the ones who have taken most enthusiastically to the idea of meditation. The other day I taught them a couple of little meditations they could do at home with their children. In one, you had to imagine that all your limbs were as light as a feather and you were floating up to the ceiling. After we´d finished, one of the women said, ¨I just floated up and up...through the ceiling and I could see the whole world and I was saying, ¨hello world!¨ and I didn´t want to come down again!¨ With this group, the wackier the meditation, the more they seem to like it.

Marina, one of the women from the sewing coop. (She just made this top for me).

I have been hanging out a bit with a refugee family from Mexico who are here for a few months trying to work out where they will go next. The dad is a lawyer and seems to have got into some trouble with a Mexican cartel. Sheila, one of the daughters, appeared at my window yesterday with half a banana and a pineapple...so cute! The day before this photo she had her hair cut - for the first time in her life!! 

Her elder sister, Dulce, is doing a bit of embroidery with me. They aren´t able to go to school here, so the mother is very keen on keeping the girls busy with little projects.  

Dulce and Leo in the ¨craft section¨ of my enormous bedroom

Dulce´s first embroidery

My friend Amy, who used to live in my house but is now doing volunteer work in the capital, also stopped by to get a little embroidery, and then we went out for pupusas - the national dish. I can´t get into it at all, it is just maiz flour stuffed with a tonne of cheese and pork rind, then fried. People here often eat these for breakfast AND dinner...the diet here is just appalling. If it´s not fried, salted, and stuffed with cheese then it´s not food in El Salvador.

The local pupuseria - this is where everyone eats. 

Talking about food, I was having lunch the other day with Edy and she was telling me that her brother died last year in his late thirties.  I asked what he died from, assuming it was something like a heart-attack or diabetes (very common here of course), but it turned out that he was murdered by four gang members. He was a farmer and was working, and the gang came to get money from him and ended up killing him. 

Other people saw it happen, and Edy said that by the end of the day all her family knew exactly who the killers were. I asked what the police did, and she said the family were all too scared to press charges -- her father works alone on his farm down by the lake and she has four teenage boys (and one of them goes to school with one of the gang members).  

But, there is some kind of ¨justice¨ in El Salvador: Edy told me that within three or four months two of the gang members had been killed because of internal fighting within the gang. She knew one of the boys quite well and asked him why he had killed her brother.  He told her he needed money; his mother and father were both in the USA and no-one was looking after him.  SUCH a familiar story here. 

This is Edy´s father, one of the original cowboys! 

Yesterday I came into town and there was a very raucous parade going on -- once a year the local school kids have an annual games day and they start it off with a marching band and lots of craziness.  (Check out the girl walking along with the xylophone strapped to her!)

There were also heaps of soldiers and policemen on the streets yesterday.  When I asked why, someone told me that a woman had be killed during the night a few blocks away, and one of her children went to the local school.  So, that gives a pretty accurate slice of life in El Salvador ...street parades, marching bands...and a bit of murder.

My favorite embroidery - this is a present for Edy

And, to finish, here are some photos from my going-away lunch...

Suchitoto No. 3 (or: How to Conduct Your Lovelife Over Social Media)

Hello everyone, 

So, as you know, I'm going to be teaching a meditation class here, and the whole debacle will be starting tomorrow.

Here is the flyer - it took me two hours to write this, so you can imagine how long it has taken me to write eight weeks worth of meditations into Spanish. 

I had to ¨sell¨ meditation a lot differently than the way it is sold in the west. In Australia/USA  it´s all about connecting with universal energy and finding a union with your true, authentic, spiritual self etc etc (eye roll).  I couldn´t get away with any of that stuff here, because people would probably think it was a cult. So, the flyer says that meditation is a simple type of relaxation practice that can help you to reduce stress levels and feel calmer. 

                                                  

I was putting the flyers up today in a few places around town. When I went into the women's sewing cooperative they asked if I could come and run a special little "grupito" for them once a week, at 7.30am! 

That class should be VERY interesting; I will be rolling out of bed, half asleep, to teach something I have never taught in a language I can't speak to a group of rural women whose conversation is made up of 99.9% El Salvadorean slang. Someones stress levels may be lowered, but they certainly won´t be mine. 

In other news, I got a three-month visa extension and went to the capital for the day, which looked a bit like this...

                           

And this (very like the USA)...

                         

I also bought a restaurant then went on an acid trip and painted it... 

                         

Then I went to the beach for a week to hang out with my little friend. I'm not sure what is in that bottle, but I suspect it's something a bit stronger than milk...(undies on the outside of tracksuit pants is always a bit of a giveaway).

                      

My spanish conversation teacher, Marvin, has turned out to have a crazy love life that is carried out primarily through email, text and Facebook. After spending 2 months practicing my Spanish with him, I've realized that El Salvador is the only country in the world whose soap operas are an understated reflection of what  goes on in daily life.

 A few weeks before Christmas he got on Facebook to make a passionate declaration to the love of his life, saying that he would be with her FOREVER, for ETERNITY, and would be buying a house with her in San Salvador where they would live together FOREVER for ETERNITY, etc etc.  

I thought she had hacked into his Facebook account and written it as a joke, but no, it was all him. (What better place could there be to declare your eternal love for your girlfriend of three weeks than on Facebook? There's no way that can backfire.) 

Then, a week later, around Christmas I was on Facebook and read, ¨I cannot believe that the love of my life is prepared to travel this world alone, and without me.¨  And, the next morning: ¨I have come to a momentous decision in my life; I will continue on with my family and my new baby.¨

A casual reader of Marvin´s facebook page might think, ¨Wow, the love of his life is all over the shop! First she´s buying a house with him, next week she´s traveling the world without him, and the next day she´s having his baby?! WTF?¨   

The ¨love of Marvin´s life¨ was all over the shop, but that is because she was three seperate women. Here is the crazy rundown, in a very brief synopsis...

Week 1 Marvin is in love with Ilsia, his girlfriend of three weeks and planning to buy a house with her. 

Week 2 Marvin´s ex-partner, Carly, announces she is 4 months pregant (to him). Ilsia dumps him...

Or does she?

Week 3 

Day 1 Ilsia tells Marvin (on Facebook) that she is pregnant to her ex-boyfriend. But, she doesn´t want to marry her ex-boyfriend, she wants to marry Marvin.

Day 2 Marvin finds out that Ilsia is lying about being pregnant to someone else to try to force him to get back with her. (WTF? How does that even work?)

Day 3 Marvin falls in love with Sarah, a beautiful American backpacker. I know this because he sends her an email asking to be her fiance (after knowing her for 24 hours) and she screams and shows me.

Day 4 Sarah rejects Marvin and the perfect place to share this rejection is on his Facebook wall: ¨I can´t believe the love of my life is content to travel this world alone, without me...¨

Day 5 Marvin gets back together with his pregnant ex, Carly, resumes his ¨family life¨ and announces it on Facebook.

THE END. 

Or is it...?

Week 7
I am at the beach and receive an email saying that a certain person is in love with ME. He gets avery curt email back saying that I am five years older than his mother (to be fair to both of us she had him at 13), and please $%&/ off. 

THE END

In other less dramatic news, I´ve been doing a bit of decorating in my bedroom...