Hola, chicos y chicas, y saludos de la Ciudad de México, D.F.!
Despite the craziness of life in Mexico City, I'm quite settled into the day-to-day... Every (Mon-Fri)day, my alarm goes off around 6, and at about 7 I finally roll out of bed into my work clothes, minus the high heels I carry in my purse. In my walking shoes, I brave the cracked and cratered sidewalks and run past the cars (mostly green and white Volkswagen Bug street cabs) that don't seem to share the "common" knowledge that pedestrians maintain the right of way. I'm proud to announce I have yet to be hit. Yet being a very operative word.
If I'm feeling particularly lazy, or late, I hail a pesero (micro-bus). These are sort of collective taxis, slightly larger than a mini-van, privately owned and with no set stops or schedules. Their ridership often slightly over capacity according to Canadian road & safety regulations, what with passengers hanging out of doors and crammed in horizontally and having to push past 20 or so people with elbows and knees and umbrellas to get off at their stop. Although Felix Cuevas is a one-way (west-bound) street, city-owned buses are allowed to use the south lane to go east. In the anarchic style typical of this country, the westerly drivers see no conflict in also using this south lane, despite the traffic coming directly at them from the opposite direction. Honking your horn as frequently and loudly as possible is viewed as a sensical solution to any problem/annoyance/whim encountered by drivers on the road. This makes for some interesting (in the way that being nearly hit by a large bus when you are captive in a micro-bus is interesting) situations during an average morning commute. Depending on traffic, my hiking boots are debatably faster and safer than the micro-buses, and definitely more comfortable.
At Mixcoac Station, I usually wait in the "Women and Children Only" section, where the male population is generally slightly less than 50%. Gives me reason to wonder about the effectiveness of voluntary compliance measures. Frequently, a man/teenager (or, less frequently, a woman) will enter the subway car and start repeatedly shouting an over-rehearsed spiel over the already substantial existing noise. For example (loosely translated): "20 great works of Classical Music here. Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, (more names)...Only 10 pesos. (Pause to see if there are any takers.) 20 great works of Classical Music here..." It's sort of impressive the way they can get their voices to repeatedly emit such high volumes, and eerily reminds me of the Shakespeare soliloquies Mrs. Diamond used to make us present in 12th grade English class while also doing something else, like bouncing a ball or disrobing. Needless to say, the acting suffers.
As I exit at M(etro) Auditorio, I pass the Auditorio Nacional, which is right next to President Fox's house. Consequently, I usually have to wade through a sea of police and military uniforms, as well as their accompanying vehicles, which clutter my way along La Pasea Reforma. I gave up on the Reforma peseros, worse than those on Felix Cuevas, as soon as I learned how to walk the route. It isn't uncommon for me (dressed in conservative work attire and sexy hiking shoes) to receive (presumably) lewd comments, whistles, too-loudly-cleared-throats or, least offensively, a polite greeting from any of a number of men I pass, including those in the aforementioned uniforms and respectable-looking ones in business suits.
When I arrive at the office, I am greeted by the doorman, who stands behind a thick wooden door with various locks and alarms and security cameras. (I discovered the other night, when I tried to leave the office late and the doorman was in the washroom, that the impossible-to-open door supposed to keep the "bad people" out can easily cage the "good" people in, instead.) I kiss past the co-workers who all know my name (I'm still working on many of theirs) on my way to my department's office (where I do know the 6 names), trying not to screw up my attempts at Spanish small talk. I then install myself at my desk, where I usually sit behind my computer for most of the day.
These days, I've been working on preparations for the Regional Meeting of GEO for Youth in Latin America, happening October 27th to 31st. Participants have already started arriving, and I'm going to be staying with them at the hotel as of tomorrow night. In addition to all the workshops and editorial conferences for the Capacity Building Guidebook taking place in Desierto de los Leones National Park (how much cooler than a downtown hotel boardroom is that?!?), we are going to be doing lots of fun stuff like a Day of the Dead dinner and a boat outing in Xochimilco. It's hard to believe that soon all this logistical work will materialize into an amazing (I hope!) international meeting that should result in some wonderful environmental educational initiatives taking place all over the region of Latin America and the Caribbean. I'm a bit nervous at the amount of responsibility being given to me, especially in that one of my duties will be to assist the (English-speaking) Caribbean representatives in understanding all that's going on in Spanish, but I'm also really excited.
In other news, things are going well outside of work. However, no time for details... I'm at the office on a Saturday and my new roommate Maria [pictured above] is here waiting for me and I have just been released by Luis, I'll sign off for now!
Mucho amor y besos,
Cara
