Last days in Mexico

I have to admit that already for three weeks I think and dream of little more than my closeby return to the Netherlands.

After returning to my other ´home´ San Cristobal (see photo above), I passed a moment of melancholy and doubts under the heavy afternoon rains. Had I taken enough out of my stay here? Would I leave this place forever? Would I be able to adept again to the Dutch rythm? Do I want to? Maybe I have changed, maybe you have changed - maybe we do not get along anymore?

My eyes red and swollen by the dermatitis everyone stares even more at me than normally. I want to hide, to disapear. I manage to a little, by reading The lord of the rings, even taking it with me to the bar, to the restaurant where I sit in the darkest corner. I feel bad for not doing anything useful, a very North-West European addiction.

Returning to Fundacion Leon XIII is mixed. A few people in the office are annoyed with my informalism, my coming and going. The people that matter to me are mostly happy to see me. Braulio, a young guy from a community, comes to me:

¨Juanita, como estas? Look, we are at war, with those guys from the office. They want to stop the courses on medicinal plants, can you believe it? We had to do an exam and yes, many failed, but I got 8.6... The new docter says that we have to practise more in our communities, but how can we if we do not have the equipment? And how can they expect us all to pass at once, not everyone can study with such ease. Many of the women have not finished their primary education, but that does not mean that they are stuped, we just need more time!

But I will stand stand up and say my word. Aren´t we the basis of the Fundacion, I thought it was set up to help us!¨

Indeed, sometimes this development organization seems to be set up rather to provide people with work in a comfortable office. Don Juan, the herbal medic (I wrote on him in February or March ¨Medicina¨): ¨It is just that some people have other ideas on their mind. The people are enthusiastic, come every month for two days, pay their own transport, bring their own food. But see the office people think otherwise. But don´t worry, Juanita, the work will go on, with or without the Fundacion. It is my mission to pass on the old knowledge to my people.¨

On Monday I can tell Braulio and Gaspar (25 and 23, Gaspar having shared a few weeks with me in the Fundacion, sharing and exchanging our lifes experiences, he with a family of two already...) that our project for a small health house in their community has been approved: a space for their herbal medicine consultory, a place for the midwifes, equipment to prepare herbal medicines. Financed by Grassroots projects in the Netherlands (http://www.grassrootsprojects.com/). The people are happy, want to start right away and I start taking up money untill my daily limit. Mexican banks are cheating horribly on us: it is so expensive to take up money even for Mexican themselves. They even have to pay for having it on their account, so most of them do not have an account...

I get nervous, but manage to arrange transactions for the rest of the money, passing via Carolina with her Dutch and Mexican accounts and via Marcelino, my collegeau, who has become a dear friend. After we managed to forget again that we could be lovers. After our little history the amor de contrabanda (smokkelaarsliefde). Such a beautiful word, for a such a confusing thing.

On thursday I assist at the primary school graduation of Lazaro Jimenez Ruiz, a boy I do not know himself, but is a son of Sebastian from Rancho Salvador Allende, La Selva. To my surprise, not just Sebastian is there, but also Javier, Manuella and their kids (two of them at the same internado/ internaat) from Corozal and they seem happy to see me. These children have left their homes at about ten years old, staying so far away from their families in this internado in San Cristobal together with other kids from other communities.

The ceremony is very Mexican, including a lot of marching (yes, all Mexican children learn to march before they can even read well...), reciting at the flag, dancing, singing, naming the best students etc.

From the Selva comes worrying news. Doña Mica seems better now. But the army has entered Israel, entered San Gregorio and found `everything´, as Sebastian and Javier say. Everything means all the narco-traffico going on, including the air plane providing them with gasoline (from the same company we fly with... there is no other). Let´s hope it is the right people getting punished, those who make the money. Not nearby communities like Corozal, that are not involved, a fact that can easily be ignored by a government looking for any good excuse to evict them....

In the end of the week, I ´risk´ a one-day trip to Palenque the beautiful ruins and some waterfalls closeby. By tourist bus, as the docter says ¨I do not want you to go to these warm humid areas anymore than is strictly necessary.¨ I pay with a tearing, red eye, but it was well worth it.

Then it is time to go up North, finally. By sheer chance I have bought the same ticket as Marcelino and Gaspar who are going to give a workshop in San Luis Potosí. Hours never last so long in company, although most of them are past in half sleepy state. Goodbye is warm with hugs, thank you for everything, please take care of yourself, you too and of your families, guys. They promise to check their newly made email accounts (a rainy afternoon workshop I gave them), once in a while.

Visiting Puebla in a few hours, is like Michel says: ¨Nice those colonial cities, but not that special when you have seen Granada...¨ Being on my own, my eyes still hurting from the airco, I don´t really enjoy it. I go on to Tehuacan that same day and suddenly cannot take all the ¨güera, güera, hello, goodbye love¨, stares and hisses anymore. I feel strange and alone and count the days.

After eating in a (for me) too posh restaurant (where are the little eating stands?), I feel asleep deadly tired in the most expensive hostel I have staid in in my entire stay in Mexico: 9 euros. The cucarachas/ kakkerlakken walk over the floor.

But the next day is another day. I easily find the office for information on the Biosfera de Tehuacan-Cuicatlan and at 10 I walk in a beautiful cactus landscape. A friendly guide explains me that a cactus is not just a cactus, but that there are so many different shapes and names. And that you can eat them, can use them to make long trips through the desert (there are already given courses to illegal immigrants to survive their ´cross´ to the USA through the desert), that they have all kind of medicinal properties. And hallocunogenous, but think before you try them, because the most famous one el peyote is going in extinction!

What a respect grows in me towards them when I hear how slowly they grow: a few centimeters a year. So I am walking through a forest of a few hundred years old, some plants reaching 1000 years!!! And they survive with a few rains a year, and could do without them for a few years.

The world is still full of wonders.

In the evening I find the eating places on the market, so much more cosy. Lucy who attends me wants to go to the Netherlands, because she loves tulips. She will sell tortillas, enchiladas, enmoladas when she comes there. I like her dream...

Still hungry I eat salad in a more hygienic place. But when I eat an elote for dessert later in the street, the lady passes a small cloth over my corn ear to dry it. It looks as if it has a lot of bacteria, but I don´t have the heart to say anything. I am white and therefore too nice, too much in need of being accepted probably. I will chew some probiotics before going to bed tonight. These days, I consume family packs of them anyhow.

Tomorrow I will go to Mexico, my last destination. Have a look at the museums, staying with Carolina´s family (although she herself is away for a course). And then....

HOME!!!