Les presento a: Pascual, el Pulpo

This blog post is dedicated to my new friend, Pascual. You see, Pascual is a special friend, he happens to be an octopus. But not just ANY octopus, he's a knitted octopus that like to travel around Mexico with me. I have no doubt that I'll be posting a lot more about him as we travel around the Mexican nation. He is definitely going to be a cool addition to my blog.

Now lemme tell you story of how Pascual came to be: An awesome friend of mine from Las Vegas named Natalia stitched him together with her own hands and sent him off to me late last semester as a homesick present, along with a Gryffindor screened t-shirt that she also made for me. To top it off, my other friends, Soraya, Antonio, Katie and Sam who were also behind this, stuffed my care package with starbursts and swedish fish to hold me over. =D

Natalia is a master octopus maker and has made other tiny-octopi in the past, and now I am so happy to be the proud owner of one. Plus, I sincerely believe that I have her best octopus creation yet. 

To welcome him, I gave Pascual a tour of the town before I returned stateside. Since the tour took place in early December, he got to see a more Christmas-y side of Puebla. And here are some of my favorites:

As my first week here was coming to a close, I decided that another tour of the city was in order, so once again my and Pascual took Puebla by storm! This time we went around the northern part of the downtown, but the two ex-conventos that I wanted to visit were both closed for remodeling. :( But we didn't give up. He set our hearts and eyes on a large hill before us and said 'forward march!' We ended up at Los Fuertes (the fort(resses) where the Mexicans fended off the French in the now famous Batalla de 5 de Mayo. On our way there, we also found an awesome church:

Pascual even made a few friends over at the Fuerte de Loreto:

 Today was a good day, and I can't wait to take Pascual all around!

Unpacking: Toothbrushes

As I continue unpacking my luggage, let me share another story with you all about my time spent at a certain orphanage:

There lies twenty-some-odd blue toothbrushes with smudgy black ink names etched into masking tape on their handles. They are all neatly divided and arranged into two rows, one for the boys and one for the girls. As I am putting the toothbrushes into their places, it comes across me that each one of these names, that each one of these silly toothbrushes represents a child, and a broken home. Looking at these rows of brushes, I realize that I know each one of these children. I know their faces, their smiles and the sound of their voices. 

Even though each toothbrush appears as a carbon copy of the next, the children who use these toothbrushes are entirely different from the other. Looking at the toothbrushes lying there on the sink, I knew that it was going to be my last day there at the orphanage, and that it would be the last time that I would be able to arrange these infantile hygiene utensils in order. After putting the last dab of toothpaste on the last brush, I guess I kind of just stood there, taking it all in. The mundane task of pasting the toothbrushes, something that I had been doing for months suddenly meant something so different to me.

I was very blessed to win a scholarship last semester which required me to volunteer at a local organization. The form only said 25 hours, but our program director told us that it would be 8 hours a week, every week for the duration of the semester. Needless to say, it was a big shock to me and my fellow classmates who also won the scholarship. After finding out about that, we were informed that the volunteering would be done at a local orphanage right next to the university that I go to. The place is called 'Casa del Sol' or House of the Sun, and is a joint German-Mexican volunteer operation that takes in orphans, neglected, abused children, and those who are in the middle of custody disputes. 

Each day was a different experience, and a different task. Some days I would match up and fold the baby socks (which was incredibly hard given the small size and the uniformity of the color and design of the socks), other days I would wash windows, or the plastic playhouse toys. Most days though, I would play with the kids, whose age ranged from new born all the way to about 10 years of age.

At my orientation meeting with the head bus lady on my first day, I was told that male volunteers were really needed. That many of the children would be able find mother figures in the many female volunteers and workers there, but that there was a scarcity in men and strong male/father figures. I am happy to say that I rose to that challenge and that hardly a day passed without me tossing a kid into the air or spinning them around super-fast to the point of near-nausea. I even tried out a few luchador tricks I learn at the fights that I went to.

I honestly believe that what did when I played with the kids wasn't just horseplay, but a form of male bonding. Because you know what, sometimes a child (especially a boy) just needs to thrown around, spun, and/or tackled. But with that said, I was also a comforter when a child would fall, or have their newly won pinata candy stolen from them. Yes, there was blood, and yes there were tears and yes it was hard, but I felt that I needed to be there for them.

Looking back on my last day there, arranging the toothbrushes, it scares me to think that just as the toothbrushes were uniform and (mostly) sterile, many people view orphans in the same kind of light, almost like they're numbers, or even worse, faceless and mundane tasks that simply need to be dealt with. 

When I first started volunteering at the orphanage, I'll freely admit that I wasn't a fan of the job, and that it definitely takes a special kind of person to work there on a daily basis with the kids.

But all of that changed about a month and a half into the experience when the kids there started asking when I would return at the end of my shifts and when they would start to scream my name (or a close pronunciation of it) when I would walk in through the front door. I hope that throwing them into the air and adding toothpaste to their toothbrushes made their lives and the workers lives better. I hope that I touched their lives and made being an orphan a little less painful, and that I showed God's love to them, who is by far the most perfect father-figure.

Volunteering at that orphanage is one of my fondest memories of my first semester in Mexico, and I know that I'll be seeing them again soon. 

I promised them a picture of a snowman, something that they're never seen living in Mexico.

:)

Back in Mexico - Tlatelolco

Hey everyone! It's been a minute since I updated you all last on my little fantastic Mexican adventure. I basically left you all clueless about my last month to month-and-a-half in Mexico last semester, and it seems like forever ago. But a lot did happen, and I am happy to say that I was able to personally and academically achieve so much in the last month amidst the craziness and chaos.

Thus, I've decided to share with you all some stories/realizations/experiences that I found to be especially poignant in my life, as I get settled back into Mexican life. So here's the first one:

Tlatelolco - La Plaza de Tres Culturas

 In late November I decided to pay Mexico City a visit to see British singer Kate Nash in concert, which happened to be her first time ever in Mexico. I was really stoked to be there once I got off the 15 1/2 hour long bus ride from the Pacific coast of Huatulco, Oaxaca . So anyway I got there super early and I needed a way to kill some time.

I had decided awhile back that once I was in Mexico City again that I would visit a place called Tlatelolco, which holds a special, albeit tragic place in Mexican history. I first heard about the place in late September, when I had two of my Mexican teachers mention an anniversary that was coming up. So us students had to research and what happened there October 2nd, at Tlatelolco.

First, let me tell you about this Tlatelolco place. Tlatelolco is an Aztec ruin site in the middle of the megalopolis known as Mexico City. It used to be the twin city of Tenochtitlan, the former kingdom of the Aztecs before it fell to the Hernan Cortes and the Spaniards. The Spanish destroyed Tlatelolco after conquering it and then decided to build a church on the site, using the rubble and ruins of the city as their building materials. Adjacent to the site is a modern 20th century high-rise office building, and a college. This special conglomeration of past and present is what gave rise to Tlatelolco's other name, la plaza de tres culturas, or the plaza of three cultures, represented by the three cultures present, the pre-Hispanic or indigenous culture (the remains of Tlatelolco), the colonial and Spanish culture (the church) and the present Mexican (office building and college).

Which that said, let me tell you what happened there on October 2nd, 1968.

The 1960's were a politically and socially turbulent time in Mexico and the rest of Latin America, sparked by Fidel Castro's 1959 Cuban revolution. It was an era in which power came into the hands of the people for the very first since winning their independence from the European imperialists. And Mexico was no exception, as nation-wide strikes and protests sought to win over some their basic civil rights and equalize the distribution of power. This national and continental-wide unrest culminated tragically for Mexico in la plaza de tres culturas in Tlatelolco on October 2nd, 1968. On that fateful night, college students and professors from UNAM and other Mexican universities who had gathered there to fight for their own rights, were fired upon by the Mexican army, resulting in some 20 confirmed and government-acknowledged deaths, with investigators and eyewitnesses claiming the death toll to be well into the hundreds.

It was a surreal experience standing there in the plaza where so many people had died and went missing, but what made it most surreal was the fact that this place had been the scene of yet another tragedy. It was the place where Cuauhtemoc, son of Aztec leader Moctezuma was defeated and over 40k Aztecs were killed, an event that assured the Spanish control of not only Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, but of all of Mexico too. I have a strange belief I guess that the place in which extreme trauma occurs, there is sometimes a residual emotion and energy, and I've been feeling it all around Mexico, because let's face it, Mexico has had a pretty traumatic history.

What probably touched me most was a plaque that sits over looking the Aztec ruins which reads:

"EL 13 DE AGOSTO DE 1521

HEROICAMENTE DEFENDIDO POR CUAUHTEMOC
CAYO TLATELOLCO EN PODER DE HERNAN CORTES
NO FUE TRIUNFO NI DERROTA
FUE EL DOLOROSO NACIMIENTO DEL PUEBLO MESTIZO
QUE ES EL MEXICO DE HOY"

In English it kinda reads: "Heroically defended by Cuauhtemoc, fell Tlatelolco to the power of Hernan Cortes. It was not a triumph, nor a defeat. It was the painful birth of the Mestizo town, which is the Mexico of today."

I was profoundly touched by this visit and will carry the memory of this place with me in my heart and mind for far longer than the concert that I had come for.

Stay tuned for more as I reflect while I unpack!