Californication meets Tranpacificism

Oh, and so it was! The end of a journey. (This is actually being written in December, but I’m trying to frame my mind back to mid-August
So.. yeah. Wow. I don’t remember exactly what I’ve said before, so maybe I’ll rehash a little bit. When I was taking “Spanish” in high school, Sr. McMurray (sp?) took a trip to Spain, and I thought that was cool. I’ve long had a dream of going to a Spanish-speaking country. Around the same time (’94), we took a trip to India and stopped off in France instead. I tried to convince my dad we should stop in Spain instead, but I could provide no greater justification than because I spoke some Spanish or some such, not a very convincing case, but it should have been. They were set on that anyways, probably with little or no knowledge of what’s going on in Spain. But they just had the Olympics in Barcelona two years prior, come on!! The language barrier ended up being an issue, since the French are apparently not very found of speaking English (like many of the students we encountered in Mexico!) And the trip ended up being not-so-great, but it was still kinda cool. Wow, it’s weird to think that all those pictures from the trip are in the house somewhere, not having been looked at in over 10 years.. Digital’s such a different world! Glad to meet ya, digital files!
So, the vision of visiting a Spanish-speaking nation persisted for some time.. I definitely wanted to improve my Spanish, and I couldn’t imagine a better way to do that than immersion, especially since book Spanish is different than real-world. One of the reasons new English speakers have so much trouble. When I thought about where I’d like to go, Spain was perenially on the list, and South American countries. Incidentally, the Spanish Club is planning a trip to Spain for July, but now I’m not interested in going! Partially for $, partially because that’s the same time I might be in China, among other reasons.. And Mexico? She was never very high on my travel list — Spanish-speaking or even the world travel list. Maybe partially because of the closeness of it, and because it just.. didn’t seem very interesting. Not sure why exactly, but maybe I viewed it as:
Poor — culturally and otherwise. And there are plenty of really poor nations to visit. In fact this was one that we had clearly dominated and taken much/most of its worth, leaving little left.. Both in the past with land takings, and recently with NAFTA. I remember friends in middle school making jokes about the worth of a Mexican peso, the big fiasco, I think it was a currently devaluation around the same time, NAFTA, etc.. things just didn’t look up for Mexico, it didn’t seem like a place of much worth in many of these ways.. I can’t fully explain or enumerate my reasons, or even know if these were the real reasons, but potentially, they were why I was uninterested in visiting Mexico.
[continued..]

And then Pat McAuley told me of this trip he was thinking of, to study AT and Spanish, wow! I was planning on making AT my concentration in my major (Env Sci), and it would be cool to refresh my spanish, which would of course be best done in a Spanish speaking country! Maybe I could even kill that DCG requirement to boot with the spanish, if I hadn’t already! Tight. But in México? Eh, it’ll have to do. It would be nice to get to know Mexico a little better too.
If you’ve seen my last update, then I think you know where my thought processes are now. Oh, and if I didn’t mention it before, I even got my camera back, which was stolen during what was simultaneously the best+worst week of my time in MX! (Without memory card, losing MY memories of that week though! But! That’s life..) And.. wow.
I have to say!
One of the things that led to it being one of the best weeks, and a climax/pivotal week, was classes that Dan Faulk “taught” us. Dan’s a Political Sciences Lecturer at HSU, and his “classes” could be thought of as the history of Mexico. Or should I say, Mexico: Herstory? WOW! It was amazing.. there’s so much history in Mx aside from the role of the US, and the Spanish role is much deeper than I could have ever imagined. Did you know they’ve had like 3 constitutions?! Which go with having numerous revolutionary figures causing revolution in various parts of the country, some simulataneous with other such events. One of the very famous ones was from the “little pueblo” of Parras that we were in!! Francisco Madero. I was lucky enough to take my trip to Saltillo a few weeks after these classes, whereas my fellow students visited Saltillo in our 2nd or 3rd week in Mexico, still fresh to everything, and only able to absorb so much of the trip. There was a fabulous painting (mural?) in the Saltillo Government Palace, as mentioned in my previous entry. You can look at the series of the tejano David Diaz’s mural pictures
to better appreciate.
It was so amazing. Such a beautiful and rich history, such an amazing people. They’ve fought so hard, done so much, it’s just.. the history, is breathtaking, and part of that is conveyed in the art.
It’s kind of hard to write this entry in retrospect, so I’ll call it quits for now, and just leave you with this..
I was so wrong, México is such a rich country. History, culture, even in resources (more so before the scandal of President Salinas ~94). Amazingly beautiful, and fantastic. So, chalk México up on the list of countries that I fell in love with, that makes two, Vietnam and México.. Where to next?

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