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April 21, 2007
Mexicanization
It should come as a surprise that I was woken up this morning by the sound of that awfully loud truck—the one that passes by the streets of Garcia Gineres blasting information about all the promociones and descuentos available in the centro.
But it doesn’t.
It doesn’t come as a surprise at all because I’m living my life Mexicanized. I’ve forgotten what should come as normal to me and what should seem strangely odd, strangely Mexican. I’ve forgotten where the line stands between expected and unexpected. I’ve forgotten some of the differences between Mexico and the United States.
I’ve been here more than 110 days already and at this point, I can honestly say that I’m living like a Mexican. I can’t talk much about the United States anymore because honestly, I don’t really know what’s going on in my country; I have no real access to television, radio, or computers to find out about the latest day-to-day stories. But that’s okay.
Because I’m here to live it like a Yucatecan. And to some extent, I am…
That’s why it comes as no surprise when the bus shows up 45 minutes late and then the bus driver, while in route, decides to take a snooze on the side of the road with a bus full of passengers.
That’s why it comes as no surprise when I can automatically detect just who’s living in Merida and who’s a tourist—I see it in the way they walk, the way they talk, and the way they behave.
That’s why it comes as no surprise when I hear that Princesa, the UADY stray dog that lives on campus, menstruated on Dayna’s lap as she was playing with her in the courtyard.
That’s why it comes as no surprise when Dra. Shrimpton-Masson first approved my topic paper for my final essay, then I wrote it, and then she changed her mind. One day, there are no rules; the next day, there are rules.
That’s why it comes as no surprise when someone stopped me a few days ago and asked me if I was Russian. I’ve already been named Chicano, Palestinian, and now Russian.
And that’s why it comes as no surprise when I see Mexicans and other study-abroad students deciding to piss on the walls of buildings out in public, like Wallmart, for instance.
And perhaps because all these things don’t surprise me anymore, I’ve been living through the past few days as if they were the dog-days of August—one after another with little new news and little excitement.
Nothing has particularly stuck out in mind this week at all.—nothing but posters and posters and posters of Xavier and Ivonne, plastered at every angle of the city.
Oh, and we did have an interesting discussion in my Literatura Latinoamericana class about the role of poetry and about how we as readers are expected to differentiate between creative poetry and poetry with an intended meaning. It was actually really interesting and it made me think of my writing classes in Michigan and the student’s writing at Virgina Tech.
But not much more than that has happened…
Come to think of it, perhaps all the dullness of the last few days is what has motivated me to call home a lot this past week; it sounds like things are more exciting back at home then they are here…
Because as for the moment, I have lots and lots and lots of work to do; I’m writing some of my final essays and I have an annotated bibliography of 50 sources to work on.
Posted by jlsumich at April 21, 2007 11:38 AM