SLOW DOWN

A new British study suggests that people around the world are walking 10 per cent more quickly than they did a decade ago. And of course, as one would guess, this is because of our frenetic pace of life, speed of technology, unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others, etc. Notice no Mexican cities made the list...Hmm...

Top 10 Fast-Walking Cities

1. Singapore; 10.55s
2. Copenhagen (Denmark); 10.82s
3. Madrid (Spain); 10.89s
4. Guangzhou (China): 10.94s
5. Dublin (Ireland); 11.03s
6. Curitiba (Brazil); 11.13s
7. Berlin (Germany); 11.16s
8. New York (USA); 12.00s
9. Utrecht (Holland); 12.04s
10. Vienna (Austria); 12.06s

Time in seconds to cover 60ft (0.02km)

Kid's day!

I almost forgot, yesterday was Dia del Ninos here in Mexico, which basically means kids get presents and cakes and toys thrown at them by people pretending to be movie stars. This picture is from festivities in Guanajuato.

Gender Studies in Mexico

In an article about the newly passed pro-abortion law in Mexico City an American journalist recently wrote that in Mexico women were living in approximately the 60s when it came to gender equality. While I don’t necessarily agree with her – or know enough about Mexican culture to have an opinion either way – I have definitely noticed some interesting things here…



















First of all, there are cantinas everywhere, especially in smaller cities like Guanajuato. Cantinas are bars with swinging doors like in the Wild West, open all hours but to men only…but occasionally they will let a woman in if she is accompanied by a man. I’ve never been inside one, nor would I want to be, but I have heard drunk men singing behind those swinging doors at 7:30 in the morning..

There is also a very high value placed on the feminine aesthetic here in Mexico. Women, particularly young, well-to-do women, are often dressed to the nines, with loads of makeup, form-fitting clothes and plenty of accessories. High heels are essential, and a traveler such as myself would be hard pressed to find a pair of practical sandals in a local zapateria (shoe shop).

Another interesting fact. A few weeks ago an international study indicated Mexico had the highest percentage of teenage cosmetic surgery patients in the entire world (28.7%) and the fifth highest number of procedures (following the US, Brazil, UK and France). Given that in 2002 half the Mexican population was considered living in poverty, it's quite astounding that cosmetic surgery could be so popular. But at the same time it doesn’t really surprise me, given the gender dynamics I sense here.

My Mexican friend Monica agrees that while in Canada women can (at least in theory) do everything men can do, here in Mexico things are a little different. There are things besides going to a cantina that are not acceptable for women, such as apparently using certain swear words, for example.

Today in one of my classes the teacher asked what we didn’t like about Mexico…and while the complaint that immediately came to mind was the fact that it is damn near impossible to find a café open for breakfast and decent coffee early in the morning, the next thing I thought of was, of course, the machismo. No me gusta el machismo, I said.

The teacher (a young, attractive male Mexican) agreed that in Mexico men and women are not necessarily considered equal, but he said that feminism was growing, and that things were slowly changing. He taught us a word – mandilón – used to describe a man who does “women’s work”, like cooking and cleaning. When I asked him if it had a negative connotation, he said that it used to but it had faded a little. I’m not sure how much I believe him.

The people in my neighbourhood.

Guanajuato is a small city with a small, cozy downtown. After only a week and a half here I've come to know the characters who inhabit the city centre, by face if not by name. Some of note:

The musician with the red beret, who plays his guitar on the street and sings Hotel California very loudly with a Mexican accent.

The homeless man with the never-ending booger. We're talking six inches at least. I'm not sure if it is in fact a booger or sometime more serious, which worries me a little. The man has nappy brown hair and does not walk in a straight line.

The police officer who stands all day at the bottom Escuela Mexicana's tiny dead-end street, near a little plaza. He has a thin, serious face and a very big gun. He always say hello, but only if you say hello first.

The man with the short left leg, who wears black dress pants and shiny black shoes, one of which has a two-inch platform. He walks slowly through the city, sometimes reaching for the walls of buildings around awkward corners and narrow sidewalks.

Writing this, I'm realizing these people are all men. Perhaps that's because women in Mexico seem to keep a low profile, and I haven't noticed anyone particularly interesting.

On that note, I'll write about cantinas, machismo and Mexican plastic surgery in a few days.

Zacatecas

A weekend journey to Zacatecas, a beautiful and quirky colonial city north of Guanajuato. Like Guanajuato, the city's wealth was extracted from the earth, dug out of mines by Indigenous slaves under Spanish rule. The mine is still open and functioning today, yielding gold, mercury, copper, iron, zinc, lead, bismuth, anitomy and salt, as well as silver. The mine is also a tourist attraction and, strangely enough, a night club. Very, very bizarre. I wonder if the drunk clubbers need to wear the same yellow hardhats we had to wear on our tour. Not particularly sexy.

Also strange was a bar we visited, which had a theme: Mystico, a famous Mexican wrestler. The bartender and servers wore wigs and wrestling masks, and the decor included bright floral wallpaper, a clothesline with very large undergarments and tacky, flashing, Jesus and Mary lanterns. (What would Jesus say?)

Another small shock in Zacatecas...my friend Katherine and I visited an indoor market, and found ourselves slightly put off by the unidentified meat in jars, so decided to leave. As we came down the steps and back onto the street, we heard a deep voice say, "Permiso" (excuse me), and looked up to see a man carrying a massive skinned hog over his back. Massive, and entirely whole, aside from the skin, slug across his shoulders. Like he was giving it a piggyback ride, come to think of it. I have never seem anything quite like it.

We encountered a lovely street party in the Plaza de Armas Saturday evening. They are quite common here in Mexico; loud music and laughter can often be heard drifting across Guanajuato, as well as the occasional bang of fireworks. In Zacatecas, there was a six piece band playing Mexican music and tons of locals line-dancing and drinking Mezcal (like Tequila) out of little plastic cups. The children were particularly delightful. It was nice and a bit surprising to see little boys age seven or eight dancing together, swiveling their hips and dancing close, mimicking the adults and laughing. Despite the "machismo" so prevalent here, men are quite affectionate with one another. They have no qualms about being squished together on a bench in the bar, and one man might even lean on another, or wrap an arm around him when coming or going, the way a man would only do to a woman in Canada. I don't think I'd realized the extent to which men lack physical contact with one another at home (outside of the hockey rink, of course). Yet, at the same time, I don't think homosexuality is very well accepted here, on the whole. Although I can't really say for sure.

Que mas? A lovely bakery, slightly more aggressive men than those in Guanajuato, loads of sliver jewelery and a very, very long bus ride.

The people, as in Guanajuato, were very lovely, approachable, and eager to chat with the tourists. Although most of them were more interested in my friend Katherine, as I think her British accent is more of a novelty than mine. Although many Mexicans have told me, much to my delight, that I am not in fact a gringa. That term is reserved for the Americans, as it apparently comes from the phrase "green, go!", shouted to the green-coated American soldiers during the Mexican-American war of 1846-1848. Some things never change.

Little Rogelio

Esperanza, Muñe to her friends, lives in Guanajuato with her one and a half year old son and her mother, who is also named Esperanza. Muñe’s husband works in Mexico City and only sees his family on the weekends, when he has time for the four-hour drive to Guanajuato. He works in information technology – a good job by Mexican and Canadian standards. But there are no jobs for him in Guanajuato, a city full of government offices and mines.

Muñe doesn’t want to bring up her little son, Rogelio, in Mexico City because she says it is too dangerous. Instead she lives with her widowed mother in the beautiful city she grew up in. The women keep each other company, in a plain white house fenced in by a plain-but-rather-imposing white gate. During the days Senora sews first communion robes and other pieces of clothing, a little business she runs out of her living room full of Rogelio’s toys. Muñe spends her time chasing after Rogelio, a little angel/devil with curly blondish hair and green eyes. His favourite pastime, as far as I can tell, is throwing small objects into the empty water jugs that sit under the kitchen counter. They he makes this desperate little face until someone picks up the jug, turns it upside down and shakes it until the object – usually a bouncy ball or a toy car – falls onto the floor. Then he picks it up and does it all over again. Muñe and Senora don’t seem to mind this game, even at dinnertime.

On Monday evening I sat with Muñe and her mother and we looked at pictures of Canada in a book I’d brought for them. Muñe asked me if it was true that there were people from all over the world living in my country. Si, I said. We have a lot of immigrants, especially in Toronto. I told her that Canadian women don’t have a lot of children, and that some don’t even have any, which makes immigration necessary lest we want our population to start shrinking.

About an hour later, after more pictures and other conversations, Muñe asked me why women in Canada don’t have many children. I could tell she’d been thinking about it for a while.
No se, I said, slowly. Some women do, I clarified. But others…I don’t know, I said. I think they are very focused on their careers and…material things.

Muñe nodded. “We always say, money isn’t everything…but it helps!” she said with a laugh.

That evening at dinner, Rogelio was sitting on his mother’s lap, facing her. He kept placing his tiny hands on either side of her head and pulling it close to his, so their foreheads touched as they looked down towards their laps.

Mi companero de cuarto

I don't have time to properly write about my new place, the school, and my busy day yesterday. So for now I will leave my readers (a small but faithful group) with this striking image of my new roommate.

San Miguel de Allende, Dolores Hidalgo

I met the most incredible couple of Yankees at breakfast this morning. Randy Fay and Nancy Lewis, from Denver, Colorado, BIKED TO MEXICO FROM NORTHERN CANADA and plan on pedalling on to Argentina. They're in their early 50s and have grown children. They left from Inuvik last summer and plan on a few more years on the road. Unbelievable. Very lovely people.

After breakfast I headed out on a guided tour of San Miguel de Allende and Dolores Hidalgo, important historical sights for Mexican independence. The tour guide was a man named Juan, who had a grill in his teeth and a crucifix around his neck, but was very pleasant, and thankfully a wonderful driver.

First stop was a cemetery in Dolores Hidalgo, where Jose Alfredo Jimenez, a famous Mexican mariachi, is buried beneath this ridiculous tombstone. Yes, that thing on the left is a tombstone. The coloured stripes contain the names of his songs, and the sombrero is the actual gravestone, I guess. Crazy Mexicans.

There was an ice cream festival in the centre of the city, and I was actually recruited to be a judge by a kind man who spoke English and wanted me to use my foreign expertise to sample all the ice cream from all the vendors (16 of them) and rate them from 5-10. All the ice cream I could possibly eat before vomiting, for free! But sadly, I only had half an hour, and it would have taken a whole hour. It would have been hilarious, but I was also a tad relieved...I like ice cream, but not to the extent that the job would have required.

Instead, I wandered around a bit, and ate a reasonable amount of ice cream (but I had to pay for it, damnit), and watched some sweet young girls dancing a carefully choreographed routine. They were so focused I was almost nervous for them.

On to San Miguel de Allende, which is notorious for its American expats, mostly women middle-aged or older pretending to be Frida Kahlo. Lovely, very beautiful city, but too many tourists....which also means everything is for sale and everything is pricey. It was nice to see, but I am glad I'm staying in Guanajuato.

The highlight of San Miguel de Allende was probably these adorable children I met in the park. The little girl was selling raffle tickets for a cell phone, a fundraiser for her school concert. Her and her mother asked me if I would buy a ticket, but it would have been hard for me to claim my prize so I just gave her money anyway. And her and her brother posed for this adorable photo.

It's getting dark and this cafe is going to close, so I should probably head home to watch bad American romantic comedies with Spanish subtitles. Okay, so I don't exactly have friends here yet. But I am as happy as can be.

One last pic: me, with beautiful Guanajuato in the background. The woman at Smart Set made me buy the fuchsia shirt, I know it's out of character.

Anyway, adios amigos!

More pictures of Guanajuato

Spent today wandering the streets of Guanajuato. Walked up to el Pipila, where there is a huge statue of the Mexican hero and a beautiful view of the city.

On the way down from el Pipila...

All the streets are this beautiful.

Mexico, Day One

Hola Guanajuato!

I am sitting in a little cafe in Mexico, drinking a very good cafe americano, typing away on my little computer with the unbearable hum. This city is without a doubt one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. And that from my accidental touring yesterday, when I was lost and grumpy and very, very tired.
This is part of the view from my room at the Casa Mexicana, which is so empty it's almost strange. I guess it's low tourist season - winter is over, summer isn't quite here. It's great not to be surrounded by rowdy Americans, but at the same time I will certainly be looking for an English speaker of some sort to be my friend before I start to get too lonely.

A little more about my journey so far. I arrived at the Guanajuato airport to be greeted by Antonio, the school’s driver, holding a printed sign with my name on it. It’s so nice when that happens. A total stranger somehow becomes the person you desperately search for in a crowd – and then the stranger shows up!

Antonio drove me into the city in a blue pickup truck with a cracked windshield. He wasn’t one for words, Antonio, and I couldn’t tell if he was just a quiet guy or if my Spanish was actually that bad. (Likely the latter, but I can’t let that rattle my confidence.)

Antonio and I drove through the dry dusty countryside, on a well-kept highway packed with shiny cars. There was a man selling cowboy boots out of a van of the side of the road – an incredible selection, I might add, given that his store was a truck. Then there was another man, a big, bald man selling ornate furniture in front of a van covered in tacky gold mirrors. Horses galloping in a field of yellowed grass, their heads tied to their front legs with rope, which pulled their noses down with each stride, I'm not sure why. The small, makeshift houses of poverty. Restaurants with hand-painted signs, businesses that may have been closed for 20 years, or may not have.

Through to Guanajuato, under dark, never-ending tunnels dug right through the rocky landscape. The buildings getting progressively nicer. I actually would have been quite happy to settle near the outskirts, where occasionally a beautiful home outshone its neighbours. But no – no, no. The centre of this city, with its winding stone roads, beautiful buildings painted only the brightest of pastels, trees with purple blossoms, parks with fountains, Mexican students playing guitar and singing on the steps of the massive orange cathedral...I really couldn't have asked for more.

Like I said, I spent some time getting lost and found and lost and found again. Basically it went something like this - I had to buy a map to find my way back to the hostel (I had darted out with Antonio to the school without bringing my guidebook or anything, then couldn't find my way back). I got a map but couldn't pay because I didn't have any pesos. The toothless man selling newspapers let me take the map on the honour system, so I went off to find a bank. One bank my card didn't work. Then I decided to just exchange my Canadian money, and the next bank didn't do that...and I swear there aren't many banks in this city, and my the time I finally got pesos, and change, and found the man again, I still didn't know where my hostel was and it was at least an hour and a half later. Phew.

The people have so far been very sweet. I'm trying to speak Spanish but it doesn't always pan out. Most people have been patient. They are used to gringos coming here to learn their language, which I would imagine to be a better form of tourism exploitation than some others. At least that's what I'm going for.

I had a very long sleep last night. Just as I was drifting off I was startled awake by a tremendous racket of drums, yelling, singing, and maybe even bagpipes. I swear the whole city was outside my window, having a grand old time. I probably should have went out and joined them, but instead I put on my headphones and waited for the travelling band to move on.

Lots to do and see today. More soon.

Giant heads, tiny bodies

Went to the Ron Mueck exhibit at the National Gallery this afternoon. Unbelievably believable 3d renderings of human subjects. Each sculpture begged me to come closer, challenging me to doubt its likeness, while also threatening to start breathing, to look up at me, to reach out in desperation. Spooning couple, below, was one of my favourites. Love and sadness. Something familiar. Also the most lifelike.

Email addict.

I woke up to my phone ringing at 8:15 am this morning. My dear friend Julia had miscalculated the time her flight from Halifax came in (oh, that pesky one hour time difference), and she was waiting at the airport. We had a breakfast date, and I was her ride. I was happy to hop out of bed, throw on some clothes and come get her, skipping my morning ritual of email, coffee, newspaper. In that order.

Driving Without Coffee (DWC) is a dangerous offence I don't take lightly. But tough times call for desperate measures. So I got through it. But not checking my email - now that turned out to be a bigger problem.

When I got home around 10:30, after breakfast and running an errand, the Carleton email server was down. It was already much later in the day than I'd usually be checking my email for the first time, so this was not okay.

"We're experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later." Later? Like, in a few minutes? Okay, I thought to myself. I can check in a few minutes.

A few minutes later, no email. Huh.

I wasn't waiting for anything in particular. I was just all alone in my apartment, as per usual, with my email a fundamental link connecting me to the outside world. Without it, I was just a girl in a messy apartment with a cell phone. I tried to distract myself. I kept the page up and kept hitting "refresh". Nothing.

Around 3pm, I called the computer tech at the university. No, it wasn't just me. No, he didn't know when it'd be back up. Yes, they were working on it. Thanks. Goodbye.

At this point things were getting bad. Not because I needed my goddamn email, but because my dependency, my sad and useless addiction was so blatant, so shameful. I'm the same person who un-installed both Second Life and Facebook after having each for a few days only. I don't want to be that person. Real people. Full sentences. A sense of self that does not hinge on a computer interface. These are things I value.

But I have clearly failed. I should have already known. M. should have tipped me off while teasing me in December, when I'd go to check my email one more time before falling asleep (crawling OUT of bed to do so) and he'd look at me as if I'd become a monster.

The server's back up. I didn't even miss anything important. I think I'm going to go on a internet diet. Maybe later.

A gay old time in "Funtreal"

After four months of living 2 hours away from Montreal - or Funtreal, as my play-on-words-loving pal Brianna decided to re-name it - I finally made it down for a night. Went to a charming hole-in-the-wall Brazilian restaurant where I was serenaded by a lovely Brazilian dude with a moustache (see below) and an extremely eclectic range of musical influences, much to my delight. Also got my dance on, but was very sad that they'd switched from baby Michael and Stevie Wonder to Latino beats by the time I checked my coat and hit the dance floor, beer in hand. Talk about a let down. Still, jolly good time.

Credit for the pic goes to my friend Brianna. I think.

Who wants to buy an electric toothbrush?

No, seriously. I won the goddamn thing at the Baute Christmas gift exchange, and each time I used it it terrifies me. Why would I want to feel like the dentist is probing around in my mouth twice a day?

Oh, yeah. It's used. Just a little.

...I'll cut you a good deal?

What Makes a Cartoon New Yorker-Worthy?

This entertained me today. I've often wondered on what basis the New Yorker decides to publish various cartoons. I have to admit, sometimes I feel like I just don't get it. Although that's probably the point...Anyway, check out this article in the Washington Post about how the New Yorker cartoon editors do their job.

Zoom. Zoom. And more zoom.

Thanks to this video, my kid brother has now added flying to the list of evil and destructive consumer behaviours he refuses to partake in - a list that previously consisted of drinking alcohol or coffee, eating meat or chocolate...basically all the good things in life. But in all honesty, the video says a lot about modern day transportation. And pollution, if you can push yourself to consider the consequences of so many friggin' airplanes shooting non-stop back and forth across the planet. It's true that by flying on any given day an individual can pollute more effectively than by any other means. Yaay disposable income!
The sad thing about this video, as my little brother pointed out, is that a lot of people who watch it probably just think it is cool. Nevermind what it's actually showing us in terms of environmental costs. Scary, but true.

This cat has nine lives.

After Christmas, lounging in a makeshift bedroom in the den in my parents' farmhouse, I got around to checking out Second Life, the 3d virtual online world that gives regular Janes and Joes a chance to do it all over again. Sort of. Each user creates their own "avatar" - a self-created virtual character who can sunbathe on a beach in a foreign land, start a business, go shopping for outlandish things or screw a stranger with a giant colourful penis outside his (or her) pants. Not only are avatars spending considerable chunks of real-life individuals' time -they're also making their way into wallets. In the last 24 hours alone, Second Life's website tally says over $1,000,000 US dollars have changed hands through the program.



The only way to check out Second Life is to get a (free) membership and create an avatar. So I did. Her name was Audrey Vacano, and she was a "city chick" (what? I only had a few prototypes to choose from, and considering one was a fox...like the animal...city chick sounded pretty alright). Once I edited her appearance to suit my taste, I realized she looked a lot like me, but with green eyes and bigger boobs. She was dressed awfully modestly for Second Life - many avatars, I quickly learned, wear leather, spikes, lingerie, the above mentioned prosthetic external genitalia, or nothing at all. A sign of what kinds of goings-ons are common in Second Life? Perhaps. Perhaps, if I were a good person, I would have bailed as soon as I had the chance. But curious as I am, I ventured on.

The program begins with a training world, designed to teach you how to walk, talk, fly (yes, you can fly), teleport, use items, etc. Impatient and insistent that I was NOT getting involved with Second Life beyond the role of curious observer and journalist, I skipped most of this. Which meant that once in the "real" program, I had a tendency to run into walls and get stuck desperately on the muddy bottoms of large, unidentified bodies of water. Once I accidentally took my shirt off while talking to some dude in fake Amsterdam. I was generally incompetent and pathetic. Maybe if I had a little more video game experience I would have been better off, but alas, I never was a video game nerd. It's too bad, really.

All of this to say Second Life is, as I should have realized, all about sex. Of course there are tons of places you can go that have nothing to do with sex - like parks, model airplane hangers and I love Jesus cafes...but generally, the mood is one of rebellious sexual freedom. It's all anonymous, virtual, perhaps a little careless.

Which brings us to the obvious question: is having sex with a virtual stranger cheating? I couldn't help but wonder what real-life dissatisfaction leads people to do these things. Are they having sex online because they have a hard time getting it in the real world, or are they in stale, unhappy relationships and are looking for relatively-harmless alternatives? If they are attached, what does their participation in Second Life mean? In an era of virtual reality, what constitutes adultery?

I didn't let myself ponder this question for too long. I deleted the damn because it plain freaked me out. Weird.