Y DIME, ¿QUÉ PASÓ DESPUÉS?

MILK$$$ CALCIUM: FORTIFY YOUR LIBRARIES.

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The following post is from Friday afternoon, but I did not have time to upload it. The next post will include my weekend in Mexico City at Pride for the second time. Word.

Buenas tardes! It´s Friday and I am on the tail end of my first week as an intern here at CASA. The last 5 days have consisted of an orientation to as many of the 9 programs as I could cram into my schedule. I received a tour of the facilities, met the other fabulous interns, and was introduced to all the program coordinators.

On the third day I went out to la comunidad with the boisterous and wily ECOSS team, which delivers presentations on topics ranging from family planning to the environment in surrounding rural communities. We hit the road around 9am and the music started immediately. The ECOSS group own a handful of portable speakers with USB memory inputs, which enables them to lead Zumba lessons for children and señoras in the communities they visit. These same speakers also blast pump up jams en route. Depending on whose USB flsh drive is inserted, we listen to everything from cumbia to electronica to the theme song from Titanic (thanks Celine!) which brings tears to half the members’ eyes – they  immediately began to pretend to yawn. Hey… I understand, fue una pelicula muy triste.

After some 25 minutes in the van, Jose the chauffuer began dropping off duos in different pueblos. I went with Eddie and Ximina that first day and as we entered the small school compound a horde of little girls immediately came running and tackled Ximina . The lesson of the day covered taking care of the environment, and was followed by a 30 minute Zumba lesson led by Ximina. Although I was too shy to participate that first day, it was truly something to watch 50 school children dancing and twirling to music blasting out of the tiny speaker. It was also fascinating to watch playground dynamics all over again – little fights here and there, the rapid and dangerous transmission of cooties, the token bully who would prefer to stand arms crossed rather than participate, contrasted with the kids who are absolutely loving the opportunity to get their dance moves on lipsyncing and all!

After the Zumba concluded and school let out for the day a few hung around timidly staring at me. They crept closer and closer until they were near enough to whisper questions into Eddie’s ear, who would then relay them to me. Where am I from? Oregon- un estado al norte de California en Los Estados Unidos. What is my favorite animal? Elephant. Why? Pues, porque son muy intelligentes y tambien tienen muchos emociones…ellos lloran! Do I have a favorite color? Si. Azul. After this shy Q & A, the senoras started arriving for their lesson, again on the environment, followed by Zumba. I jumped in on two songs, but found Zumba a lot more difficult than it originally looked!

Around 2pm the rest of the team arrived to pick us up and we headed back to CASA, roaring with laughter every time Jose slammed on the brakes and we smacked our heads on the seat in front of us. He would grin at us in the rearview mirror and swear a dog had run across the road. I never saw dog.

1ST AND FOREMOST MILK$$$ CALCIUM:

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DJ LINDZ AND MILK$$$ TEAMING UP FOR PRODUCTION UNDER THE NAME KRAKEN. COMING SEPTEMBER 2011…

People ask me, “Why Mexico?” The other day a friend of mine said, “Jeez don’t you think it’s time for another country in Latin America?” Maybe. But maybe not. I think there is something valuable in going to one country and living there for an extended period of time or multiple times, in putting an effort into building relationships there, in making an effort to learn its history, the colloquialisms, the intricacies. Today I was invited to play soccer at Deportivo by one of the peer counselors. I intend to do so once my stomach calms down and I am eating regularly again!

Today marks the second day of working at CASA (Centro Para Los Adolescentes De San Miguel de Allende). I worked primarily with PESSANE, the sexual health peer educators team. They are doing outreach for an upcoming camp on sexual health, violence prevention etc… and we walked around the city for some 3 hours posting fliers and handing out quarter sheet pamphlets. This also served as an opportunity for me to get to know the 4 members who I went out with. I started by asking if they like chistes, (an action inspired by the brilliant jokester Wilfredo de Juventud FACETA) and they responded with a rally of puns and various jokes. I told one myself, “Sabes de Beethoven? Bueno. Que esta haciendo ahora?” Ellos-“No se…esta muerto…” Me-“Es cierto, entonces el esta descomponiendo!” I got some laughs.

Around la hora de comida, I brought out my soccer ball and it turns out they all play! We juggled in a plaza for a while before walking back up the hill to Colonia Santa Julia.

Then I retired to the office de desarollo to comb through an Amnesty International brief on the state of domestic violence in Mexico. My job was to summarize the main points in a write up and give it to my supervisor for review, who will then pass it on to a film maker who wants background info for a documentary about CASA.

I called it a day around 4pm and walked down the hill to catch the bus. I hopped on, took a seat, and settled in for the hour long rumble from Santa Julia to my house in Guadiana. I always marvel at the decorations each bus wears, a small testament of the identity of the driver. This particular bus had a bedazzled sun visor with the names “Karen” and “Jesus” in raised, silver letters. The names of bus driver’s wife and Savior? I can only guess. But I do love public transportation here.

I felt the euphoria begin to crumble as I sat in the apartment I had planned on renting and watched two cockroaches scuttle across the wall. I was so tired because I hadn’t really slept the night before. I had gone in and out of a delirious sleep, dreaming that I was spooning with a mega roach, when in reality I was just hearing them hurrying across the floor. In the morning I had red arms be-speckled with mosquito bites and just as I was about to pee, a roach climbed out from under the toiler seat. At 7am the American woman who lived downstairs, came pounding on my door, screaming my name. I opened the door with a confused look, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, when she burst into the place and declared that I had broken the internet. It had worked fine before I had arrived afterall so the logical conclusion is that my presence disables wifi. I told her my internet was working just fine and she left huffing and puffing. Later I learned her internet had been working the whole time, she had just forgotten to sign on. She never apologized. Between the roaches and the witch, it was clear that it was time to move again. I packed my backpack and left it propped against the wall of the apartment before I headed out around 2pm.

I walked down La Independencia towards el centro. A guy sitting on the doorstep of a tienda hollered at me. “Hola. Hola preciosa, que quieres?” I walked and walked, stopped to by a coke and continued on. The only lead I had was a room in a house at the top of a hill on the opposite side of town. The woman who lived there was named Pam and had showed me the place the previous Thursday. I walked through el centro and up San Francisco, until I was high above the town picking my way up the cobblestone sidewalk. I don’t remember all the things I thought about as I climbed that hill but I suddenly found myself in front of Pam’s gate around 3pm. She wasn’t expecting me and would certainly be surprised to find me on her doorstep.

I leaned on the great wooden door as I rang the bell. I waited. I could hear a television from inside. I rang again and still no answer. I finally knocked loudly on the door and she came hurrying to open it almost immediately. “Oh my gawwwwd Maggie! Come in ah you thesty? Have some mina-ral wata, sit down, sit down.”I told her I was in a bit of a pinch and would like to take her up on the room. She chatted my ear off about the crazy gringos in San Miguel and assured me that everything would be okay. She would call a friend who had a casita in Guadiana, she told me. “She’s a cah-ncert pianist, just a love-ely woman.” I left around 3:30 and started walking back towards Colonia Independencia.

I stopped in El Jardin, which is the main plaza in San Miguel in the middle of the centro. I watched as a professional photographer snapped photos of a bride and groom, directing his assistants to swap lenses now and then. He instructed the couple to start walking down the street, holding hands. He captured the colonial buildings and cobble street surrounding them as they walked slowly, freezing to hold steps upon command. Suddenly a great gust took hold of her veil and it was lifted from her head and carried high into the air. It floated carelessly, dipping down and then swooping higher as the bride laughed and pointed. Suddenly children swarmed the square, each waiting for an opportunity to jump for the veil when it dipped. One kid climbed a tree and reached out for the veil as it drifted by.

In light of all the apartment stress I found myself grinning from ear to ear. I walked all the way back to La Independencia and spent one last night with the cockroaches. In the morning I took a room in a house closer to the centro en la calle Gorrion. The woman who owns the place is very kind and owns 2 cats. I have a terrace off my room that looks over the city. I can finally rest.

MILK MONEY CALCIUM - GET IT! Here are a couple tracks for y’all. Blessed Bass- (Avicii+Big Boi+Nicki Minaj) AND Avicii- ID(Levels).

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In preparation for the trip I am getting hyped on house (explanation below). Avicii the 21 year old Swedish DJ has a newish track out (2 weeks old) called Levels that’s pretty tight. I dropped it around 2am at the last GLAM and everyone was drunk enough to appreciate it. Spoke to a promoter from Seattle looking to get some new DJs rolling through a club up there. John, Lindz and I will be tossing out bangers on June 4.

The last time I was in DF we hit an electro festival just outside of Teotihuacan.

We ride the metro from Tacuba to Zocalo and then to the very last stop north. At each stop our crew grows, as more friends heading to the festival hop on. Each carries a bag of rice, the entrance fee to the festival, “Para los niños, una buena causa.” Indeed. At the last stop we get off and walk a few blocks to this city transit bus parking lot where all these dying buses are rattling around and coughing exhaust into the air. Festival-bound clusters are chatting in circles, smoking cigarettes or haggling with bus drivers for a ride to the desert stage. The temperature begins to drop quickly and I hug my body, stamp my feet and blew throw my gloves.

Ademar finally secures us a small van for around 40 pesos a person and the 15 of us pile in. The windows won’t open, but that doesn’t discourage everyone from chain smoking. By this time it it’s almost midnight. Off we go, bouncing onto the freeway, weaving in and out of traffic as the city fades behind us. I only really know a handful of the people we are with - Ademar, Rafael, Brenda, and Eliot. One of the chicos who had joined us on the metro fishes his cell phone out of his pocket and starts playing psycho and psy-trance on speaker phone.

I fall asleep, in a cloud of smoke with my chin tucked in the collar of my coat to the cracking, strained speakers of a Nokia brick phone. Two hours later we are in a small pueblo outside Teotihuacan and nearing our destination with only a few miles left on the speed-bump plagued road. I continue to doze in and out. We arrive to the thump of the base and the glow of the lights which can be felt and seen half a mile away. We re-group on the side of the road and put on extra layers as the 27degree weather bites through. Hace muchisisisisimo frio.

We start walking towards the entrance to the gated fest, which is marked by a towering Corona tent. The crowd grows thick fast and our group links arms, as Brenda quickly makes a plan with Diana the 13 year old to meet us at the baños if we are separated. Suddenly the crowd starts pushing as if we are in the heart of the pit already. We are swayed a good 15 feet to the left and then the pushed right back. People begin hopping the fence and the security guards quickly lose control. It’s nearly 2am by this time and the crowd’s collective breath rises in a fog. Suddenly we jolt forward like an underestimated wave and I look down down as the trampled Corona tent crunches beneath me. I look to my right at a giant 15 foot mountain of rice bags and toss mine to the top as we pass. Eliot’s arm is wrenched from mine and I hold on tight to Rafael.

It is so dark that I nearly trip over a little camping tent in the field. Tents have been pitched everywhere and the crowd begins to disperse, some are running towards the stage, some stop to set up their own casas de acampar. The thump of the base and high pitched synths can be deciphered clearly now and I recognize a Swedish House Mafia track. We set up the tent and Ademar has one last cigarette before we wind through tents towards the stage. As we enter the crowd the temperature begins to rise noticeably and I look up. The constellation Orion sits directly above and it hits me, “This is absolutely wild. I am in the desert outside Mexico City at a hardcore techno festival with 13 strangers.”

I start dancing because my coat is not thick enough. We dance and dance and dance because if I stop I lose the feeling in my hands and feet. I watch Orion slowly crawl towards the horizon and I plead with him to go on and hurry up.

I can’t stop dancing because if I do I will freeze. When I need to go to the bathroom I pay the 4 pesos to use the portable trailer and shiver as I squat in the plastic piss-drenched cubicle, taking care to hold my breath. I fly outta there and head towards the heart of the crowd. It is 6am and Orion is finally receding. I am told that Eliot and Mike have left to hitchhike back to DF because of the cold. I buy a Styrofoam cup of warm, sweet rice milk to soothe my throat. The sun begins to rise and the flashing lights on the stage become less impressive. I continue dancing. 8am. Noon. 3pm. I have been awake since 10am the previous day and my throat is dry and scratchy, my body aches and my nose is running. But I am grinning because I am in the middle of a desert in Mexico in December, dancing to music I don’t care for all that much with a group of strangers and a few friends. By this point I can’t tell the difference between songs or even when a fade occurs. It all melts into one never ending level of the Need for Speed computer game I used to play with Scotty years before.

At 5pm the group takes down the tent and the last DJ mounts the stage. He is an Israeli house DJ who wears the Mexican flag around his shoulders. We sit on a nearby hill under a tree. The temperature is now in the high 70’s yet my body continues to shiver. My lips are parched and I accept that I am getting sick. Finally we board a charter bus back to the city. It is so packed with haggard festival attendees that the aisle and baggage compartment above the seats are packed with people.  Rafael and I perch on the dashboard, leaning our heads warily on the giant windshield, under a painting of Guadalupe and a giant mounted cross. It is finally quiet. I can rest. Until some die-hard fan passes a cd from the festival to the driver who pops it in.