Extranjeros

I can’t help but feel like a bit of an outsider in Mexico. To which you are likely to respond, ‘no, really Harmony?’

Prior to this trip I had only visited Mexican border towns, and usually only for an extended afternoon (eat some street food, politely inspect the trinkets, dispense pesos to those whose eyes and hands are filled with quiet desperation, and return home). I don’t think I learned anything about Mexico in high school. There may have been a call out box of the Mexican-American War in one of our text books, though I seem to recall it being somewhat candy-coated (how gracious of them to sell half of their territory to us!) I learned fragments about Mexico in college, but a lot of it centered around colonialism, power, injustice, corruption.

At the locus of what we hear about Mexico in the news are debates about immigration reform, brutalities associated with the drug wars, the status of tourism in Mexico and negotiations surrounding trade-related agreements (think NAFTA). Not a very nuanced picture of this really incredible country.

It goes without saying that I don’t know a whole lot about Mexican history, culture, cuisine, music, cinema, fashion, politics, ecology, geology, etc, aside from what I’m learning now. I don’t speak the language particularly well (we’re working on that). I don’t know how to navigate social situations without feeling like I’m missing all of the subtext (along with most of the actual text). I don’t know how to be graceful here, to be tactful, to be interesting, to be funny. Some days I feel like a one dimensional version of myself, and it’s not always the most flattering dimension.

As far as fitting in goes, it doesn’t help that we really don’t look like anyone here. Both Jeff and I kind of stand out (for probably obvious reasons). In places that aren’t totally gringo-fied we’re pretty much always a spectacle; me with my sun-bleached blonde hair, Jeff with his incredibly curly (and on somedays very large) hair. Both of us tower above the locals in our finest Pacific Northwestern garb, trying to hide the dirt and salt accumulating on our skin, under our finger nails, in our hair.

In Los Mochis kids happily sucking on lollipops and paletas, let their sugary treats drop to their sides and ogled us, slack jawed, with interest and confusion. They would scamper to catch up to their mothers and ask them point blank, with fingers aimed, “who are they and what are they doing here?” Totally legitimate questions. Anonymity is not an option for us. We can’t simply be observers…we are the observed.

We’re skipping along from town to town without really sinking in and getting to know a place. This mode of travel has its perks and drawbacks. One of the perks is that you get to see and experience a LOT of new places. One of the drawbacks is that most places you end up, you only come to know on a surficial level. You visit the tienda or mercado to supplement your dwindling food supplies, maybe find a taqueria for lunch, locate a place to fill up on water and gas. You wander around saying hello to a town full of strangers (many who respond with an eyebrow raised) and wonder what your presence means to them, if anything. You glean what you can from any stilted conversations you’re lucky enough to engage in, then you pack it all up, try your best to process it and move along.

I’m glad to have the opportunity and the time to acquaint myself with Mexico beyond what I can find in books or on tv. There’s only so much you can learn from afar. The more I learn about this country the more I realize how little I know about the world and its inhabitants. It’s humbling to be an outsider and it gives me a new found appreciation for the challenges faced by those individuals who relocate, by choice or out of necessity, to a foreign place with a foreign language and foreign culture. I don’t think I ever fully appreciated just how difficult that is.