Living la vida chilanga

Early on in my Spanish classes at the Instituto Cervantes, I learned the word atropellar, which means "to be hit by a car." This word was never particularly useful until now, for it describes the possible outcome of every attempt to cross the street in Mexico City. But I am growing fond of dashing across 6 lanes of traffic with my coffee and churros (those long, skinny Mexican donuts--mmmm!!!), although I usually tag along after someone else, presuming that person has a better grasp of the odds or can at least serve as a sort of human shield.

Mexico City is awesome. (I sound like Alex, but it is.) What a good thing I started my trip in Cuernavaca. Compared to this city, it's small, and was an excellent place to begin to learn Mexican ways. This is the big league of rutas (buses), subways, museums, street food, and street theater. I've seen men rolling in glass, swallowing fire, and performing Aztec purification rites in the middle of traffic to earn money. I've eaten fabulous tacos and churros from street stands. Although most museums were closed yesterday, I still saw the Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio Nacional and other intense murals on the subject of justice at the Supreme Court, and today I visited Diego Rivera's and Frida Kahlo's twin houses and studios as well as Frida's Casa Azul. Get this, Chicagoans--a subway ride of miles and miles and miles costs 36 cents. The economy of scale in action! And instead of 24 or so rutas, as there were in Cuernavaca, there are hundreds, all unnumbered. You just study the list of destinations, or ask the driver if he is going where you need to go.

I just got off a ruta that took me from the Frida Kahlo museum over to Avenida Revoluciòn, near the Lutheran Center, where I'm staying. A little boy on board was playing with a direction sign, and I figured out that this was the driver's son. Then I realized that the woman behind the driver was the boy's mother, and the driver's wife. Then I saw the infant carrier tucked in behind the driver's seat and the tiny head sticking out of it. And THEN I saw the tufts of hair of a third child sleeping on the seat. The driver's whole family was accompanying him on his evening of work. Life is amazing.

Briefly, I got here Saturday, driving up from Cuernavaca with Andrea and Luke, two colleagues from the ELCA. (I still fly under this flag though I no longer work there.) We picked up two more colleagues and had supper that night with David, who teaches at the Seminary here, and Alicia, his wife--all of us either current or previous employees of the ELCA Global Mission Unit. We got lost several times along the way and I began to grasp the scale of the city.

Sunday, Andrea & Luke & I went to Buen Pastor, the Lutheran church where the ELCA supplies interns and has a relationship with staff and members. After, I was taken out for lunch and an afternoon by Celic A., a very poised young lady who participated in the ELCA International Guest Program for the last two ELCA Youth Gatherings. (In 2006 and 2009 I was a counselor-leader-chaperone for 40 to 70 international teens, including Celic, at the big youth events that gather 25,000 - 40,000 teens and chaperones.) Celic and her boyfriend Santiago took me for a walking tour of the UNAM campus (the most famous university in Mexico) and then for a stroll and lunch in Coyoacàn, a lovely part of the southern part of Mexico City.

Sunday night I prowled the streets and taco stands with John B., a young man from Wenatchee who is volunteering at the Lutheran Center. We know each other from Holden Village, of course. Monday morning he and I got our breakfast on the street (serving number one of churros) and then took a ruta and the metro to the Zòcalo (the giant main square of Mexico City, used for celebrations and protests) to sightsee. The murals were terrific, but the best part of the day for me (after John had left for his Spanish classes) was climbing the bell tower of the cathedral. For 15 pesos, I climbed up an ancient stone staircase with 10 other people and a guide who told us the history of the bells and how they are rung. Then we got to clamber around the roof of the cathedral, admiring the view and taking pictures a couple hundred feet over the zòcalo. Unlike in the states, where insurance would prohibit this kind of adventure, in Mexico you are trusted not to do something stupid like lean too far over a parapet, or drop your camera on a tourist below. I didn't do anything stupid, and the photos are great.

Today I took the metro and a bus (coffee and churros in hand) and a cab to the Guatemalan embassy, where I found out that I don't need any visa or card to enter Guatemala. It was not a waste of time, because everything I do in Mexico teaches me something, and it's all Mexico. Then off to Frida and Diego land. This only scratches the surfaces of museums here. I hope to spend more time some day seeing more, but tomorrow I take the bus back to Cuernavaca to participate, with my host family Angeles and Fernando, in an event commemorating the 30th anniversary of the assasination of Bishop Oscar Romero. Thursday morning I get the bus to Oaxaca, where I'll be until next Monday.

"Chilangos" are residents of the D.F. (the Distrito Federal), aka Mexico City. I've gotten to be one for four nights, and hope to come back. Really, never mind the drug lords, the swine flu, the bad rap Mexico gets in the news--you should all come here, and soon, whether you are Lutheran or not!