First Mexico Update
Hey Everyone,
I decided I would start my first post off with a little bit of a catch-up post. This post concerns the facilitating opportunity that I took in Mexico. This trip took me from Mexico City to Juarez Mexico and just about cost me my life. Here is that part of the story that will bring you up until just before the start of the conferernce, written by me as I sat in a hotel room.
I will put the other update (Mexico Part 2) in a few weeks after the shocks of my recent 2 weeks has settled and I have nothing much to write! Its long, and I can't really split it into the sections, but read on if you haven't read it. It really gives a lot of insight into everything I will be doing up until now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It is I, Devan Legare now reporting to you live from the 2nd floor of a hotel room on some area, some street, Mexico City, Mexico. For those of you who don't know me (or especially those who do) I ramble and talk about everything FOREVER… put up with it or stop reading... ha.
I have been waiting for this trip forever, sadly it has started the way that it has, but the experience has already been one that has changed my life and that I will not soon forget.
We will start from the beginning, with some of my thoughts on the 24 hour journey down here (you will note here… mistake number one) then progress to the current situation I have found myself in and some of the life lessons that I have no doubt been forced into realizing.
I started off with a 12 hour bus ride to Calgary, which made me realize that I was probably not made for bus travel, with no stops except for ma and pa's diner and no place to buy drinks or food it pretty much sucks to travel by greyhound. Oh and here are some other thoughts that I actually wrote down because they were so interesting:
• Everyone on the Greyhound HAS to stop for a smoke every second stop... including the bus driver.
• Thinking about putting your seat back? No way... that big dude behind you is going to boot you in the back till' your ears bleed
• There is always going to be a huge girl with faded red dyed hair with a cell phone talking about how badly she needs to get laid… on her cell phone… for 4 hours on the bus.
• Chances are… the 20 dollar savings for the 4 hour extra hours on the bus was NOT WORTH IT
Calgary was great, much love to the peeps there for a great time once again. A special thanks to the karaoke bar where we sang. It gave me the prep I needed to be the only white dude in a joint.
The flights were normal, without any mishaps, and were for the most part on-time (no Air Canada flights). Apparently I was on a flight/met the band the "Kumbia Kings" who are from what I have heard like a guitaring/pop band here in Mexico. Pretty crazy to be on a plane with Celebs... but all in a days work. By this time I am already exhausted and extremely hungry and thirsty because I kept forgetting to buy water when I touched down on my "sprint" to the next plane. I knew I was getting pretty sick… but I am heading to MEXICO... get pumped.
After arriving and being greeted by Fabian and Argentina (Hola!), it was off to the MC house for a nap. Upon arriving in Mexico City and taking the taxi ride to the MC house (about a 20 minute taxi ride through traffic) here are some of the things I noticed:
• Drivers are NUTS… you think Saskatchewan is bad? Forget that noise... Try going 120 and swerving back and forth between 4 lanes of traffic, holding down the horn and missing cars by inches on every side. Oh and traffic lights? I use the term "optional".
• Houses are as you would expect simple, no insulation and limited windows to monitor the heat. Electricity is a bit sketchy... obviously in a city of 20 million, brownouts are the norms. My personal favorite light-switch thus far is the bathroom switch at the MC house… ALWAYS dry your hands WELL before reaching for that switch... unless you really love 120 volt wake-up calls.
• Cars are mostly small cars... A LOT of beetles... because they still manufactured them here in Mexico up until last year (did you know?). Also a lot of models I have never heard of in Saskatchewan, which doesn't say much, but in all my travels I have never seen some of the cars that I have seen here before.
My arrival was well met, the MC house was good stuff and their dog Tyler (Named after Tyler Durden of course) was unlike any breed I have ever seen before. Plenty of wonderful people living in the house! I was really sick by this time, but imagined it was just sleep deprivation and the flight so I decided I would have a little nap.
My nap turned into a sleep, a sleep into 2 days. I only managed to make it to the airport to pick up Karrolyn (Western's like WHAT?) and to the MC office in the entire span of 2 days. I slept most of the time and my throat kept getting worse and worse. I get over sickness really quickly, sometimes the flu will last me half a day… but not this time. I couldn't eat because every time I swallowed it felt like drinking razor blades. I was in bed (not sleeping) for those two days, which given normal health, I would have been fine with. But no sleep + pollution + not eating + not moving = What happened on Wednesday.
Wednesday morning I felt better than I had the past two days, throat still killing, but I ate a banana and was ready to start the day. Karrolyn and I were off on the tour bus, of which I really did get some amazing shots with the camera. The streets were very busy with the tourists and shops, but we managed to make our way to the cathedral, the city square (second largest in the world) the monument of revolution (amazing) and various parks and the like. We also visited a Mayan temple the "Temple de Mayor" but I can barely remember being there if it wasn't for the pictures. I was really tired when we made it back on the bus. I sat upstairs on the double-decker bus in the sun to see if I couldn't bake the sick out of me, but obviously it only made me worse. Making a long, long story short we stopped at our stop and I got off the bus and couldn't breathe. The whole time I was on the bus I felt parts of my body getting numb and everything getting really quiet. The numbness started with my hands, then into my legs and slowly started climbing up the rest of my body. As soon as I could feel it hit my lungs I was getting nervous as my diaphragm felt like it wasn't working right… About the time I got off the bus my heart felt numb... and I could feel it slow down. I don't really remember much up until hitting the hospital bed except for the walk to the hospital (I refused to pay for an ambulance… money before health? You bet your ass).
To stop that part of the story short will only be for the benefit of my mother who will no doubt be freaking by now. Listen mom, I am fine! Plus… this is a good reminder to buy insurance before you leave any country, and this one barely cost me (2780 pesos). I was in and out in 3 hours and had 3 different IV's… but I got a prescription out of it... in Spanish no less!
Fun things about Mexican Hospitals (you may wish to skip 2 and 3 if you get sick easily or you are any sort of a medical practitioner including my mother):
• If you are an "emergency" everyone and their dog is there to be with you in the first few minutes to look at what is going to happen. At one moment when I woke up and there were at least 7 people in the 6*8 curtain room holding clip boards
• The foreigners get the med students doing their IV's. You laugh? I don't. The
dude I had butchering my arm was about a year older than I was and he had NO
idea what he was doing. Infact, I heard the head nurse (or from whom I took to
be the head nurse) laughing when he screwed up. And when I say screwed up I mean he might as well have stuck the plastic end in first because that is how much it hurt. I only remember because it woke me up good and quick. To make a gross situation summed up in 4 words: Blood on the Ground (also an excellent Incubus song).
• As an added bonus from that young man, he tried to put too much in my veins too quickly. What happened was something like a fountain shooting from the back end of the needle he had just added to my IV apparatus. Blood + IV on the ground. Oh... and that was more painful than him actually putting it in. The real doctor was quick to fix it after I started short "Senor! Senor! There is a spray coming from my IV" Of which he understood none of, but was quick to fix me.
• Hospitals are not immune to the occasional brownout… which brings a succession
of screams and moans from everyone around
• 1 person who looked after me spoke English
Today? I am sitting comfortably back in the American style I once was in a week ago. You may be saying… "Devan, all that way to Mexico and you are eating cup o' noodles and drinking Gatorade sitting in front of your laptop in an air conditioned room?" To thatI say only this… When is the last time you were on a bus for 3 hours convinced that when the numbness in your legs hit your heart you would die and all you could do to tell anyone about it was mumble incoherently? That's what I thought numbnuts I am taking my sweet ass time getting out of this hotel. I still got 2 weeks here.
Many thanks for reading thus far, you've made it through one of my common, rambly e-mails. The following will be random thoughts I have had today and throughout the course of my sickness. I promise the next update will be chalk full of tequila and Latinas… but this is the week as it stands.
• I know you are all asking yourself... how easy is it to break into your hotel room (that the hotel "suggests" you keep dead-bolted)? I have already worked this one out for you ladies and gents… Simply walk past the smiley security door man with an innocent look, walk up one flight of stairs, make a quick right on to the common balcony, and with a flat head screw driver... take my whole window out (makes for easy transport of my valuables).
• Mexican people love to keep the streets "clean". But they do it in the
craziest way. The sweep it with this brush that looks like a palm tree branch and then poor water on it (to keep the dust down). After that, they take the mop they have out and just wave it over the water. They do this with floors inside too. I have no idea what is with the waving of the mop (which doesn't touch the ground), so if anyone can drop me a hint that would be swell.
• I am the only white person for blocks.
• People that I talk with here have been nothing but accommodating when I speak to them in my broken Spanish. The people in the streets don't seem to happy to see me though. I get the occasional glare from an old man or heckle from an old woman which is needless to say a bit disconcerting. As I have told many of you this is just the experience I have been looking for though. I have never been discriminated against, and I have been living in my rich little world for far too long. So in no way should this make anyone feel sorry or worried for me. This is what white people put everyone else through on the daily; I should be so lucky to have to wait till now to feel like this.
• The cheapness: I haven't been to the market due to the sickness, but I have managed to make it to the local food market for some eats. Here is what I have discovered in a cheap/expensive basis: Water (bottled) – same, Fruit – DIRT CHEAP (we're talking cents a banana here), Electronics – EXPENSIVE (for the most part), Paper products – 2-3 times more expensive. Taxis – 25 minutes in the cab = $9.40. $9.40 doesn't buy me a trip to the university from my house (3 minute drive) not even by half.
• There is SO much more I can go through here but I haven't the time or the strength to continue. But I will leave you with the list I have set in my mind for each of the trips I take this year to give me for me to achieve my ultimate goal of "perspective". I will include this list at the end of every e-mail and put it on my blog when I finally get it up. At the end of my year travels I hope to have definitions of these 5 things that will remind me of what I set out to accomplish.
Perspective:
• Helplessness
o Sitting in downtown Mexico City knowing that if you don't eat something it would mean going back to the hospital in 30 minutes. Everything you swallow is like razor blades and you don't know Spanish. You head down to a restaurant where no one knows English. You have to order a soup (of which you have no idea what is in it) by pointing and head-bobs. You eat the soup unsure of what 50% of it was, coming to the realization that this is exactly what every person you have ever seen struggle with English in Canada must have felt like. Helpless.
• Hopelessness
• Desperation
• Hope
• Destitute
I decided I would start my first post off with a little bit of a catch-up post. This post concerns the facilitating opportunity that I took in Mexico. This trip took me from Mexico City to Juarez Mexico and just about cost me my life. Here is that part of the story that will bring you up until just before the start of the conferernce, written by me as I sat in a hotel room.
I will put the other update (Mexico Part 2) in a few weeks after the shocks of my recent 2 weeks has settled and I have nothing much to write! Its long, and I can't really split it into the sections, but read on if you haven't read it. It really gives a lot of insight into everything I will be doing up until now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It is I, Devan Legare now reporting to you live from the 2nd floor of a hotel room on some area, some street, Mexico City, Mexico. For those of you who don't know me (or especially those who do) I ramble and talk about everything FOREVER… put up with it or stop reading... ha.
I have been waiting for this trip forever, sadly it has started the way that it has, but the experience has already been one that has changed my life and that I will not soon forget.
We will start from the beginning, with some of my thoughts on the 24 hour journey down here (you will note here… mistake number one) then progress to the current situation I have found myself in and some of the life lessons that I have no doubt been forced into realizing.
I started off with a 12 hour bus ride to Calgary, which made me realize that I was probably not made for bus travel, with no stops except for ma and pa's diner and no place to buy drinks or food it pretty much sucks to travel by greyhound. Oh and here are some other thoughts that I actually wrote down because they were so interesting:
• Everyone on the Greyhound HAS to stop for a smoke every second stop... including the bus driver.
• Thinking about putting your seat back? No way... that big dude behind you is going to boot you in the back till' your ears bleed
• There is always going to be a huge girl with faded red dyed hair with a cell phone talking about how badly she needs to get laid… on her cell phone… for 4 hours on the bus.
• Chances are… the 20 dollar savings for the 4 hour extra hours on the bus was NOT WORTH IT
Calgary was great, much love to the peeps there for a great time once again. A special thanks to the karaoke bar where we sang. It gave me the prep I needed to be the only white dude in a joint.
The flights were normal, without any mishaps, and were for the most part on-time (no Air Canada flights). Apparently I was on a flight/met the band the "Kumbia Kings" who are from what I have heard like a guitaring/pop band here in Mexico. Pretty crazy to be on a plane with Celebs... but all in a days work. By this time I am already exhausted and extremely hungry and thirsty because I kept forgetting to buy water when I touched down on my "sprint" to the next plane. I knew I was getting pretty sick… but I am heading to MEXICO... get pumped.
After arriving and being greeted by Fabian and Argentina (Hola!), it was off to the MC house for a nap. Upon arriving in Mexico City and taking the taxi ride to the MC house (about a 20 minute taxi ride through traffic) here are some of the things I noticed:
• Drivers are NUTS… you think Saskatchewan is bad? Forget that noise... Try going 120 and swerving back and forth between 4 lanes of traffic, holding down the horn and missing cars by inches on every side. Oh and traffic lights? I use the term "optional".
• Houses are as you would expect simple, no insulation and limited windows to monitor the heat. Electricity is a bit sketchy... obviously in a city of 20 million, brownouts are the norms. My personal favorite light-switch thus far is the bathroom switch at the MC house… ALWAYS dry your hands WELL before reaching for that switch... unless you really love 120 volt wake-up calls.
• Cars are mostly small cars... A LOT of beetles... because they still manufactured them here in Mexico up until last year (did you know?). Also a lot of models I have never heard of in Saskatchewan, which doesn't say much, but in all my travels I have never seen some of the cars that I have seen here before.
My arrival was well met, the MC house was good stuff and their dog Tyler (Named after Tyler Durden of course) was unlike any breed I have ever seen before. Plenty of wonderful people living in the house! I was really sick by this time, but imagined it was just sleep deprivation and the flight so I decided I would have a little nap.
My nap turned into a sleep, a sleep into 2 days. I only managed to make it to the airport to pick up Karrolyn (Western's like WHAT?) and to the MC office in the entire span of 2 days. I slept most of the time and my throat kept getting worse and worse. I get over sickness really quickly, sometimes the flu will last me half a day… but not this time. I couldn't eat because every time I swallowed it felt like drinking razor blades. I was in bed (not sleeping) for those two days, which given normal health, I would have been fine with. But no sleep + pollution + not eating + not moving = What happened on Wednesday.
Wednesday morning I felt better than I had the past two days, throat still killing, but I ate a banana and was ready to start the day. Karrolyn and I were off on the tour bus, of which I really did get some amazing shots with the camera. The streets were very busy with the tourists and shops, but we managed to make our way to the cathedral, the city square (second largest in the world) the monument of revolution (amazing) and various parks and the like. We also visited a Mayan temple the "Temple de Mayor" but I can barely remember being there if it wasn't for the pictures. I was really tired when we made it back on the bus. I sat upstairs on the double-decker bus in the sun to see if I couldn't bake the sick out of me, but obviously it only made me worse. Making a long, long story short we stopped at our stop and I got off the bus and couldn't breathe. The whole time I was on the bus I felt parts of my body getting numb and everything getting really quiet. The numbness started with my hands, then into my legs and slowly started climbing up the rest of my body. As soon as I could feel it hit my lungs I was getting nervous as my diaphragm felt like it wasn't working right… About the time I got off the bus my heart felt numb... and I could feel it slow down. I don't really remember much up until hitting the hospital bed except for the walk to the hospital (I refused to pay for an ambulance… money before health? You bet your ass).
To stop that part of the story short will only be for the benefit of my mother who will no doubt be freaking by now. Listen mom, I am fine! Plus… this is a good reminder to buy insurance before you leave any country, and this one barely cost me (2780 pesos). I was in and out in 3 hours and had 3 different IV's… but I got a prescription out of it... in Spanish no less!
Fun things about Mexican Hospitals (you may wish to skip 2 and 3 if you get sick easily or you are any sort of a medical practitioner including my mother):
• If you are an "emergency" everyone and their dog is there to be with you in the first few minutes to look at what is going to happen. At one moment when I woke up and there were at least 7 people in the 6*8 curtain room holding clip boards
• The foreigners get the med students doing their IV's. You laugh? I don't. The
dude I had butchering my arm was about a year older than I was and he had NO
idea what he was doing. Infact, I heard the head nurse (or from whom I took to
be the head nurse) laughing when he screwed up. And when I say screwed up I mean he might as well have stuck the plastic end in first because that is how much it hurt. I only remember because it woke me up good and quick. To make a gross situation summed up in 4 words: Blood on the Ground (also an excellent Incubus song).
• As an added bonus from that young man, he tried to put too much in my veins too quickly. What happened was something like a fountain shooting from the back end of the needle he had just added to my IV apparatus. Blood + IV on the ground. Oh... and that was more painful than him actually putting it in. The real doctor was quick to fix it after I started short "Senor! Senor! There is a spray coming from my IV" Of which he understood none of, but was quick to fix me.
• Hospitals are not immune to the occasional brownout… which brings a succession
of screams and moans from everyone around
• 1 person who looked after me spoke English
Today? I am sitting comfortably back in the American style I once was in a week ago. You may be saying… "Devan, all that way to Mexico and you are eating cup o' noodles and drinking Gatorade sitting in front of your laptop in an air conditioned room?" To thatI say only this… When is the last time you were on a bus for 3 hours convinced that when the numbness in your legs hit your heart you would die and all you could do to tell anyone about it was mumble incoherently? That's what I thought numbnuts I am taking my sweet ass time getting out of this hotel. I still got 2 weeks here.
Many thanks for reading thus far, you've made it through one of my common, rambly e-mails. The following will be random thoughts I have had today and throughout the course of my sickness. I promise the next update will be chalk full of tequila and Latinas… but this is the week as it stands.
• I know you are all asking yourself... how easy is it to break into your hotel room (that the hotel "suggests" you keep dead-bolted)? I have already worked this one out for you ladies and gents… Simply walk past the smiley security door man with an innocent look, walk up one flight of stairs, make a quick right on to the common balcony, and with a flat head screw driver... take my whole window out (makes for easy transport of my valuables).
• Mexican people love to keep the streets "clean". But they do it in the
craziest way. The sweep it with this brush that looks like a palm tree branch and then poor water on it (to keep the dust down). After that, they take the mop they have out and just wave it over the water. They do this with floors inside too. I have no idea what is with the waving of the mop (which doesn't touch the ground), so if anyone can drop me a hint that would be swell.
• I am the only white person for blocks.
• People that I talk with here have been nothing but accommodating when I speak to them in my broken Spanish. The people in the streets don't seem to happy to see me though. I get the occasional glare from an old man or heckle from an old woman which is needless to say a bit disconcerting. As I have told many of you this is just the experience I have been looking for though. I have never been discriminated against, and I have been living in my rich little world for far too long. So in no way should this make anyone feel sorry or worried for me. This is what white people put everyone else through on the daily; I should be so lucky to have to wait till now to feel like this.
• The cheapness: I haven't been to the market due to the sickness, but I have managed to make it to the local food market for some eats. Here is what I have discovered in a cheap/expensive basis: Water (bottled) – same, Fruit – DIRT CHEAP (we're talking cents a banana here), Electronics – EXPENSIVE (for the most part), Paper products – 2-3 times more expensive. Taxis – 25 minutes in the cab = $9.40. $9.40 doesn't buy me a trip to the university from my house (3 minute drive) not even by half.
• There is SO much more I can go through here but I haven't the time or the strength to continue. But I will leave you with the list I have set in my mind for each of the trips I take this year to give me for me to achieve my ultimate goal of "perspective". I will include this list at the end of every e-mail and put it on my blog when I finally get it up. At the end of my year travels I hope to have definitions of these 5 things that will remind me of what I set out to accomplish.
Perspective:
• Helplessness
o Sitting in downtown Mexico City knowing that if you don't eat something it would mean going back to the hospital in 30 minutes. Everything you swallow is like razor blades and you don't know Spanish. You head down to a restaurant where no one knows English. You have to order a soup (of which you have no idea what is in it) by pointing and head-bobs. You eat the soup unsure of what 50% of it was, coming to the realization that this is exactly what every person you have ever seen struggle with English in Canada must have felt like. Helpless.
• Hopelessness
• Desperation
• Hope
• Destitute
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