Hi Carolyn,
It would be a lie, pure, simple and barefaced. !
I wish I could say I was feeling down about not being back in snowy Ontario, Canada enduring the "record snowfalls" and "historic storms" that those folks on the weather network website are waxing on about. I just can't, though
Anyhow a bit about the outlook from here. First of all, those skeletal figures seen above abound as we head towards the season of Lent in this fundamentally Catholic region. They're All Souls Day inspired and represent all of those remembered and revered family members who have passed on and are now celebrated yearly at this time. If anything they are the antithesis of zombies.
We're spending the better part of February in the heart, or " Centro Historico" of the city of Merida on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. It's about a million people. The place we're in has been standing for a couple of centuries. The city itself came to be in 1542 and this structure is in the area that sprung up on the site of an earlier Mayan community when the Spanish first came here. From the street it, and the area, remind me of the time I spent in Europe because, from the street, it's entrance is simply part of a wall along a street that was in use for centuries before cars and trucks replaced horses and it was built long before people could even imagine electricity.
I'm tickling the keys, right now, in a room about 9 feet from a fairly busy street full of cars, motorcycles, buses and trucks but separated from that and from adjoining structures by 18 inches of stone and mortar with a single front door for entry and exit. People raising young families are physically a few feet away but I can't hear a thing. It's woefully small by our 21st century North-American bloated standards of what constitutes living space. Its design capitalizes passively on the abundance of heat and light that comes with the climate here, but attempts to keep out the rain that also comes as part of the deal for over half of the year. Plants just seem to jump out of the ground, I've been told. It really is a jungle out there! The Mayan ruins weren't torn down by conquistadors so much as they were worn down by centuries of hurricanes and aggressive greenery.
And there are plenty of reminders, beyond the language, of the forces that help drive the cultural wedge of colonisation here. The cathedrals are, like in medieval Europe, the dominant manmade features of the topography in the old city. But make your way outward from the centuries old city centre and religious cathedrals in the historic centro make way for the secular ones in the burgeoning outskirts - Wal-Mart, Costco, Sam;s Club, Home Depot and a whole raft of Mexican equivalents. And the automotive miracle mile is here too. The American big three, Volkswagen, all of the Japanesse and Korean brands, and some from Europe that we here in North America have either never heard of or forgotten about - believe it, consumerism is the new religion out in the 'burbs here too! How do young upwardly mobile Merida residents spend Sundays - go on, guess.
But rampant North-American style consumerism hasn't snuffed out cultural pride and tradition among the Mayans anymore than the Spanish colonial tide did. Certainly not on the Yucatan Peninsula.
In our first week we, and our hosts, went to the just opened Mayan Culture Museum. It's huge, completely high-tech and awash with uniformed guards. It created wonder and awe as any museum should. It also gave us a moment of head-scratching.
As we were making our way in, one of the uniform folks accosted Karen , my long-suffering spouse ( and a lifelong elementary school teacher ) from about twenty feet away, in a large and very acoustically resonant area. He pointed at his mouth and then at hers and said in a stentorian voice that echoed like crazy in the cavernous entry hall, " Chicklet, chicklet "
We were all initially stunned because he was quite officious and loud. As we got closer he pointed at her mouth and wordlessly made that hand gesture that all teachers in the primary and elementary end of the education world do instinctively - pull out the gum and get rid of it !! This was almost bizarre or surreal in a sense because he was just so unbelievably zealous and made her feel like she was smuggling crack or something. He couldn't have been any more over-the-top if he'd pulled his gun, knelt down, trained it on her and yelled " Freeze, Slimeball !! " There was not a sign anywhere to say no chicklets or ? !!
All part of the multi-cultural merry-go-round/roulette wheel, eh!
From now until forever she will be " The Chicklet Woman " in my mind's eye.
Anyhow, our time here is about half spent so there will be more later. Back to the tasty things. I got back to my riddle stash after arguing with a Wi-Fi setup that was temperamental and arbitrary at best, so here's the one for this week. I'd stick in two but I have taken up a good deal of real-estate here simply being Mr. greenhorn travel guide.
Illuminating and revealing
Signal to get busy
Hopes renewed
Vampires removed
Don.
P.S. I actually brought a paper book with me - A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking, and had time to briefly crack it open earlier today. It looks most interesting.
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