Friday, November 26, 2004 6:53 PM
These series of entries has stayed in my draft box too long. I've added some stuff in the course of my absence from blogging. Hopefully, the effort of my late lunches shall entertain you.
poder joven
It means Youth Power. And if you go to www.poderjoven.gob.mx, that's the site of the Mexican Youth Institute, the people that co-hosted the event.
Actually the event is rather called the Youth Employment Summit, a twelve year campaign of the Education Development Center. It aims to reduce youth unployment by fifty per cent by the time 2012 rolls around. Big dream, yes, big impossobility? Judging from the 1,500 people that came, not really.
There were only two delegates from the YES Campaign in the Philippines. That's Soliloquy and me.
I was only gone for a week, but I think I've experienced more than what I bargained for. I do apologize for not updating as soon as I got back. I was swallowed by work when I returned, I ignored jet lag, and somehow suffered a withdrawal syndrome. I miss Mexico so much, a part of me didn't want to talk or blog about it, I just wanted to keep it for a while, it was too raw, too soon, too short, and too overwhelming. Although I applied for a visa which the consul happily gave since we had the same birthday, I was informed of my flight two days before.
Traveling to the other side of the world (literally a 12-hour difference) was not really all it was cracked up to be. On PR102 bound for LA, I was panicking at 30,000 feet, not because I was scared of flying (i got over this problem when I was ten years old) but I knew the possibility of no one picking me up in Mexico City was looming at 90%. I slept the whole ten-hour flight, waking up to eat from time to time, but completely ignored everyone. I was nervous and I was dealing with it in my nightmares. The US immigration took three hours, half of my transit time. I didn't really mind because I chatted with this Brit medical student transiting to Fiji. I cursed the flight attendants who didn't give me the immigration card because they thought I was carrying a US passport, it made the process longer than necessary.
At the gate of my Mexicana flight, I begin noticing the cultural distinction of the US and Mexico. This brings me to enumerate the things about Mexico and Mexicans that amused me the most:
1. All Mexican middle-aged men are in love with their cowboy hats. They wear them everywhere, even on the plane.
2. All Mexican youth (meaning those my age or are within the proximity of my age) have this thing with their hair --- longish on the top, shaved on the side, and slapped smooth with monstrous amounts of hairgel. Bench Fix will thrive in that country if they're thinking of having a target market outside the Philippines.
3. No matter how they hide it, you can hear the Speedy Gonzales accent when they speak English. And this fascinated me immensely.
4. If you watched Maria Mercedes, you will understand why she tried earning money as a clown in traffic. I saw one and I was amazed.
5. I never really understood why my Spanish instruction books always have conversations about meeting up in la discoteca. Mexicans live in them.
6. Mexicans love their cheese. And that is why Speedy Gonzales is a mouse.
could be an episode of globe trekker
Oh but the big adventure was when I got out of Mexican Immigration and confirmed all my fears: THERE WAS NO ONE TO PICK ME UP AT THE AIRPORT. Zilch. Or as they say in Mexico, nada. I guess they didn't get my fax twenty hours ago, which included my itinerary and flight number. I was there, lugging a suitcase, sporting a backpack, and struggling with a poster tube, walking through gates and lounges, looking for a sign that said "YES Mexico". After two hours of waiting around, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I called the hotel and the staff was not helpful at all. Not only did they not speak English, they wanted me to take the taxi. If only the hotel was just twenty minutes away like they said. what they didn't know was that I was in Mexico City and the hotel is in Veracruz, three states away.
The Mexican girl at the Visitor Information, after locking lips with her boyfriend, told me to get on a bus. Which I did after scrambling for a pathetic (but comprehensible) Spanish sentence. I regret not listening to my boss who advised me to review my Spanish before leaving. Buying a bus ticket exemplified whatever was meant by the phrase "language barrier". At the bus stop, this Mexican native (very Aztec-looking with really white teeth) asked me what time it was in Spanish.
Me: "Lo siento. No intiendo Español? Hablas Ingles?" Oh yeah. I'm dead.
Mexicano: "A little. You don't speak Spanish?"
Me: "I can only say a few sentences. But everyone here speaks so fast, I can't understand them."
And that was pretty much the dilemma everywhere. I met the last English-speaking Mexicano at the Airport bus stop on the way to Puebla where I was told to get on another bus. His name is Perforio, my Aztec guardian angel who made sure I get on the right bus to Veracruz. Wherever he is (I think he's in Tijuana now), God bless him.
correccion por favor!
The six-hour bus ride to Veracruz gave me good look at the Mexican countryside and the masses. Other delegates were lucky enough to get fetched by the Summit's bus transfers, but I took public transport and something tells me that the adventure made me luckier. I was smiling like an idiot on the bus, crazy enough I was neither nervous nor scared only insanely drunk by jet lag. I was open to the idea of getting lost because it seems that I left all other inhibitions on the plane.
I took a cab from the bus station to Las Playas Arcos where Hotel Mediterraneo resided in the climax of siesta time, when everybody was asleep and all the shops were closed until 4. Martin, the cute Mexicano university student, welcomed me with a kiss on the cheek, which I later learned was customary among Latin men, especially the aggressive ones. And of course, as with all the other Mexicans I met at the airports of LA and Mexico City, he was appalled to find a Catholic Spanish-named señorita who couldn't form a grammatically correct Spanish sentence, and scolded me so.
He called me Maria.
at the conference
Veracruz, I was told by a Spanish-Mexican chorale-mate, supplies one of the best Latin American coffees. The summit supplied extremely potent Mexican coffee in abundance as if the summit itself wanted to pulverize jet lag once and for all. I remember hunting down a cup on the second day, I had a rose in my hand (more on this later). The lounge resembled an African watering hole in the savannah. It was at the condiments section where I met my newfound friends from Ghana and Senegal. Christian names over a packet of sugar and a wedding announcement over cream. I remember stirring my coffee and wondering silently how a wedding takes place without the groom present.
Emmanuel (from Ghana) teased me relentlessly about the rose I was holding. He vowed to beat up the guy who gave it to me. Apparently, men from the northern parts of Africa suffer a shortage of women and they fight over who was available (or not). So here we are at the concluding rites.
Hmmm... yes that left hand does look a bit possessive. But I miss talking to him, even if he is a huge huge fan of Michael Jackson and sang "Heal the World" at the end program.
my nameless mexicano
I was pretty much pissed off that day because I woke up at noon. The Asian countries had a regional meeting until midnight and jet lag was getting the best of me. We were able to get to the World Trade Center, Veracruz for the free lunch. One Mexicano invited us to their table and stupid me (thinking that he was a waiter) asked him for "cubiertos". I learned he was part of the media with a degree in political science from the Universidad de Mexico. He was cute. Extremely cute. He gave me a rose after lunch. He kissed me goodbye on the cheek.
It's just too bad he couldn't speak English.
Anyway, I found this picture while surfing through the YES website. I believe he’s one of the guys that are in it. I can’t point out which one, (because I’m really bad at remembering faces of people I’ve only met for a short interlude), so take a wild guess.
the in crowd?
We noticed that the developing countries had a clique. It was funny, really, since we didn't plan on it, it just sort of happened. People from developing countries seem to understand and are more patient with each other. We seem to laugh at the same jokes, talk about the same problems (obviously), and feel as if we're just one huge family to the point that we look out for each other when we're out in the city or at the conference. The developed countries, we noticed, don't even have coffee together, they can't seem to agree on one thing. I've a feeling that even Singapore just talks to us because she's part of Southeast Asia. But some of us feel a certain animosity against her attitude.
Sud and Bhekie
In Veracruz, we had bodyguards. We just like to call them that because they're just the dearest guys you meet. The sort of male kabarkadas you'd have here in the Philippines. Anyway, we call them our bodyguards because they keep the aggressive Mexican guys away.
Sud is from Nepal and Bhekie's from Swaziland. If ever I were to visit all the countries that were represented in the campaign, theirs are a top priority.
we go places
We never had a picture together. So, we took this mirror image of us in the girl's restroom. This would be our second trip, which means a third one is bound to happen. (Hey, I believe in the rule of threes). I love my friends.
So here's my call for volunteers if you got this far in reading my entry. The Youth Employment Summit Campaign Philippines (called the Philippine Employment Network) is looking for volunteers to train people in entrepreneurship. If you think you're not capable of this but still want to end poverty by fifty per cent in 2012, just email the secretariat pyen_secretariat@yahoo.com. We need you.
