A different kinda Mex Tape

These groundbreaking negatives of Spanish Civil War photography were hiding out in Mexico City until a few years ago. Once again, a New York Times slideshow has introduced me to a new aspect of my inner nerd and totally knocked my socks off.

One day at a time

Don't wanna speak too soon, but it feels like things are looking up. The cafe is open. On my way here, only about a third of the people were wearing face masks. And the line at the juice stand was shorter. Based on this highly scientific survey of the epidemic, I felt more upbeat and decided that only a half-liter of juice would be sufficient for today's flu-fighting efforts.

Still trying to figure out what to do now that all my Danzón plans are cancelled. Can't advance in Son Jarocho studies, either, until the classes and fandangos resume. Well...guess I have no choice but to organize my photos. Here's one of my favorites, some wall art that I snapped while in the dentists' chair in Mexico City in February.

Today's headline: Enjoy Being Home

At least in Xalapa, the only thing that has worsened is my desire to spoon my eyes out. Not too much fear here, and hopefully still no flu, just boredom. My friends were planning to escape from D. F. and spend a few days at my place, but they're stuck at home as everything seems to have frozen to a standstill.

I was counting down the minutes until my jarana lesson today, which would have been quite the outing since it's a whole two blocks away. Upon arriving with my neighbors Katie and Riley, we found the courtyard deserted. We spotted our teacher's mom, Angela, doing laundry, but no sign of the other students.

Angela kindly allowed us to go through the motions of getting ready for class, taking us into the deliciously woodchip-scented workshop and turning on the lights. There we sat on stools and chatted for awhile, touching on all of the biggest Mexican grandmother topics, namely the flu and our marital status. We idly strummed our jaranas, until it became obvious that Angela's son was not going to show up. 

Katie, my neighbor, gave him a quick call on her cell. I found myself copying her frown as she spoke to our teacher sympathetically, "Yes, yes, stay at home with them. I hope they get better soon." So there would be no lesson today, instead just another moment of what we can only hope is needless concern. I wasn't ready to go home, but we thanked Angela, wished her the best for her grandkids, and left.

My daily source of excitement has been juice. For the past three days I have walked to the corner and joined a long line of people, some in face masks, all of us eager to drown ourselves in vitamin C. The juice stand is like a neighborhood institution, so I feel closest to being united with my Mexican neighbors in this crisis (not so much when raking the State Department website for travel alerts) when I'm waiting with them in line.

The girl in front of me carried two jugs to be filled with fresh-squeezed orange and beet juice. She's taking them back to her family, I noted with a twinge of envy. I didn't know that we could bring our own vessels, so I walked up to the counter and asked for my liter of orange-and-carrot in the customary eco-unfriendly plastic bag. While slicing my oranges, the young juicer's eyes seemed to glance at me curiously over his blue mask. I hope I didn't look as far from home as I felt.

Swine time

While I'm glad to not be breathing in their pathogens, I totally miss my friends in the capital. My weekends in Xalapa are pretty low-key compared to those D.F., and while this has been great for my work ethic, my freaked-out solitary self was not happy about it last night. 

I stayed in, taking a break from the Orwellian online updates with a novel. Between pages I tried to convince myself that, by moving to sleepy Xalapa two months ago, I should be grateful that I can now just hole up and wait for this thing to blow over. But dang it, I'm missing out on all the action! I want to go downtown and have a soldier give me a face mask! Chucking my novel aside, I fell into a funk. I realized that I've probably got a good deal of boredom and paranoia ahead of me, and only my houseplants to share it with.

At 10 o'clock I ventured out to a payphone to call my old roommate in the capital. Xalapa's streets were deserted, which is normal. I called her twice and she didn't pick up. Walking back to my empty apartment, I imagined all the small-scale rooftop parties that were probably springing up all over in Mexico City as an alternative to the closed theaters and clubs. Scared as they may be, no doubt people were excited on on some level— high-fiving over the obligatory two-week vacation, and cracking pig jokes from behind their matching cubrebocas. 

Audio Postcard: Midnight Fandango

Katie's Camp History:

• 1997: A nine-day trek along the shores of Lake Michigan with my 6th grade class
  
• 1999: A weeklong stint in the woods with other West Michigan teenagers (i.e. church camp)
  
• 2009: A weeklong series of workshops in Son Jarocho music and culture, on a sweltering ranch in Southern Veracruz, Mexico.

After each of the three times I've been away to camp, I always came back 100% jazzed about what I felt I had "gone through." I would scrapbook heavily on my experiences, making hideous collages out of leaves and gum wrappers. I organized my post-camp penpal correspondence with a Jeffersonian seriousness. I made frequent announcements that I was permanently cured of all bug phobias.

But looking back, I notice that my camp fanaticism consistently boomed and faded. I never did follow through on those plans to escape into the Upper Peninsula and live in a burned-out tree (1997), nor did I keep any promises murmured into my hand-knotted rosary (which I made in the craft tent to match my friendship bracelets) to grow up a devout and yet totally rad Catholic (1999).

But now, this time, at 24 years old, I am hoping that my camp hysteria will stick. Unlike at previous camps, last week's Son Jarocho camp, called a "seminar",was designed to equip me with a new skill: to play the jarana and learn the art of singing versos jarochos (verses from Veracruz).

At the same time, our teachers made no attempt to hide that some brainwashing was desirable. The seminario was as much as about getting a grip on Son Jarocho music as it was about adopting the cultural values from which it emerged. This meant learning to:

• appreciate nature [i.e. sleep in tents, bathe in river, and enjoy sporadic access to handsoap]
  
• eat rustic food prepared by local women [I will never eat packaged tortillas again]
  
• respect elders [sitting for two hours to watch a man weave a fishnet is a-ok]
• turn off technology [at one point, getting mildly sick of the sound of my jarana, I snuck away to my tent to listen to some Hank Williams on my iPod. It seemed so out of place that I lasted through only two verses of "Your Cheatin' Heart"...and yeah, the lyrics got to me]
• slow the heck down [see photo]

Daniel from San Antonio, TX, with his constant companion

Above all, our teachers aimed to reform us into respectful musicians. Our group was a confident mix of cosmopolitan Chicanos from the U.S., well-traveled Latin Americans, and two Fulbright scholars. With all of us itching to learn, it quickly became apparent in our lessons that most of us were raised on an American model of showmanship: try hard, try loud, possibly make ass out of self, eventually develop your own style, and stand out. Our teachers, who are painfully aware of this mindset having toured the U.S. and Europe several times, reminded us that Son Jarocho emerged out of the collective creativity of groups, not individuals.

Nowhere was this more important than at the fandango, the communal jam session in which Son Jarocho is traditionally played and danced. Every night, when the ranch was covered in total darkness, we used our flashlights to find our way to the tarima, the wooden dance platform around which the fandango would unfold and escalate until 3 in the morning. After a long day of structured strumming in the sun, the fandango was our opportunity to let the music take over; to surround ourselves with the sounds of more experienced musicians from the towns nearby, and to let our skills take shape in the dark.

Pause and play

Been rawther busy lately, which is precisely why I want to pause for a moment and put in a plug for my favorite podcasts. These are spectacular for cleaning, cooking, exercising, walking from point A to point B, lazying, folding, staring out of windows, etc. 

I had tried to get into podcasts in college, but always felt too busy or impatient to sit through an entire episode. But since moving to Mexico, I resolved to make more time for listening. Before I knew it, podcasts crept back in as an entertaining way to relax at the end (or the beginning) of the day. Also, they're handy for drowning out the sounds of dubbed Tim Allen movies on bus trips.

some tasty podcasts:

• WNYC's Radio Lab - science news you can understand and then impressively reproduce at dinner parties.
• WBEZ's This American Life - still cranking out the driveway moments
• WBEZ's Re:Sound - audio treats doled out by my former radio prof!
• WFMU's Antique Phonograph Music Program - crackles galore! (this show alternates with Surface Noise, which plays antique recordings from a little later down the road....oddly they don't have a podcast but you can stream their episodes here.)
• WFMU's Downtown Soulville with Mr. Fine Wine - sweet, sweet old soul 45's, perfect for accompanying any activity that requires getting off your lazy bum.

Any new suggestions welcome! Back to folding.