Ruthibelle's Rants ...

I Miss #Mexico

ruthibelle — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 01:39:00 GMT

Hello, Jamaica. Hasta luego, Mexico!

It's been two weeks since I've been back, and I'll tell you what: the magic hasn't worn off yet. I think of Mexico and smile. It's a happy smile, but it's a secret smile. It's a secret smile full of special things only people who went to my Mexico, and met my Mexico people, and did Mexico things with my Mexico people would understand. It's an inside joke only the ones who shared this experience with me would know. You had to be there to get that it was fun, and different, and special, and definitely worth smiling about.

It's an accomplished smile, too. It's a 'yes! I did it!' smile. It's a smile that reminds me of the friends I made, the people I met, the experiences I had, the ways I changed ... . It feels good to be home, but it feels good precisely because I was away. Going away makes coming home better in some ways; worse in others; different in every way. I can't wait to go away again! :)

Ah, Mexico. Mexico made 'foreign' feel like home. My experiences there make me feel 'foreign' now, at home! I'm still regaining my bearings. I still feel a little jetlagged - but in soul, not in body.

I have internal jetlag. Physically, I'm fine. But in my mind? In my emotions? In the depths of me? I'm still travelling. It's weird. But it's true. I don't even know if this is the kind of thing I want to be blogging about yet, because I'm still figuring out exactly what it means and how I feel about it. But maybe this writing exercise will help.

I've always heard people say that travel does things to you: widens your horizons, broadens your perspective, facilitates self-knowledge, self-reliance, strength, etc., etc. Know what? It's true. Travel does all of the above. And it's awesome.

But somebody should have warned me that once you've been to the mountaintop, anything less will forever seem ... pedestrian. Once you've lived even a little of your dream in a truly fullsome way, that taste - that way of being - becomes addictive. Nothing else compares. Nothing else matters. So, forget the cold, the food woes, the bumpy bus-rides. My mind has graced them with amnesia. Now, all I remember is being at the airport, boarding the plane, going ... being gone. Being there. Meeting that person. Living in that place. Trying that new dish ... the feeling of being in a foreign place ... that feeling of living in the beauty of the moment ... and completely loving it.

It's ALL I remember. That feeling. That way of being. And I'm grateful, and hopeful, a little sad, a lot lost, but mostly ... grateful. Hasta luego, Mexico. I'll see you again. Hopefully soon.

Too young to dance ...

ruthibelle — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 01:43:00 GMT

On Sunday, I was loaned a grandmother and grandfather for a day. They picked me up at the home I'm staying at and drove me to a beautiful seaside restaurant all the way in Chapala, Mexico. We walked along a seafront pavement overlooking a very murky lagoon; we saw many shops with artesanías selling some of the most exquisite pieces of hand-crafted work I've ever seen; we walked through the town and saw some truly ancient places. These pueblas have cobblestone roads - cobblestone roads!! And red brick houses. Like something out of a movie. And they have the cars to complement the era - Tatas, Volvos ...

I had a fish dinner, with fillet (pescado con mantequilla) and white rice and vegetable salad. Not too unusual. It was tranquil and all very kosher. Until the music began.

And I noticed the dais at the centre of the restaurant. And the couple moving in rhythm at the front of the room. Then another couple got up and went to the dais. Then another. And another. And pretty soon, that little space was crammed with dancing couplets, and a few singlets, stepping in time to the Spanish beat - some wielding their waists like weapons of warfare.

It was mainly elderly couples on the dance floor. You wanted to see those old men get down - dancing and prancing around their señoras with enthusiasm, if not youthfulness. I laughed so hard at some of the antics they carried on with: hunched shoulders, eyes wide, arms flailing. It was a blast from the past.

My personal favourite was la cumbia. Oh my word! It's a lively, uptempo jive that the musicians false-ended three times before finally completing the song with a trumpet and a flourish. So every time we thought the song was done and people started to leave the dance floor, they started again. And the fiesta would carry on ... . At some points, I could swear I saw people doing something very similar to the dinki mini.

I sat watching these people indulging their rhthymical senses on a spectrum that ranged from the very tranquil to the downright frenetic - and I had to just laugh. I declined my first invitation to join them, but the more I watched, the more I wanted to join in. So when the next uptempo song came around and my hosts extended their hands to me, they didn't have to ask twice. I got out there and stepped and shook and shimmied.

I swallowed pride, fear and all inhibitions and had me some fun. Know what? I really enjoyed it. Right up until my thighs started to feel like I had been treading water for more than an hour. I looked around me and saw jubilation and enthusiasm in faces that had forgotten more than I could remember and bodies that had seen age like I hadn't. I had to will my young legs to keep time, and keep up! After all, I was the young one there!

I wanted to take pictures, but my brand new Nikon CoolPics S2800 stopped charging after a whopping three hours of use. So I have to bring it back to the store and get that resolved. So I had no camera with me. Hence no pictures. But use your imagination. Think of old people - couples very much in love. The elderly gentlemen leading their ladies onto the dance floor, assuming the ready stance, then swaying to the music. Think of very young toddling granddaughters jumping with their prancing grandpas. Think of daughters and fathers dancing together at a respectable distance. Think of lovers throwing respectability out the window and getting as close as skin permitted. It was a wonderful mix of the old and the new, sharing in a moment of tranquil synchronicity. I really liked it. And, apparently, they do this every Sunday!

Would I go back? You bet!

Bus-ing the truth

ruthibelle — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 02:32:00 GMT

Jamaica has some large, yellow buses that are used for public transportation. These vehicles always sound like they're either hawking, coughing, sneezing or spitting. The journey can sometimes be an exercise in religious conversion: you start off expecting a peaceful ride to your destination, but by halfway, you get a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach that leaves you with an urgent need to get right with your Maker ... just in case.

Mexican buses are like the smaller cousins to that. Riding in one of them is like taking a roller coaster. Especially when there's a sharp stop. You jolt forwards and then rapidly backwards. You could get whiplash (a neck sprain). Don't get me wrong, sometimes the ride is quiet, sedate, peaceful. But there have been days when I was forced to remember that turbulence doesn't happen only in the skies.

I remember for one busride home, two toddlers got on with their parents. They all sat on the back seat. For the entire journey, their squeals of delight echoed through the bus as they laughed and shrieked every time the bus made a stop or a jolt. It was great fun for them, and I couldn't help smiling as I reflected on the innocence of children, and how something that was an inconvenience to most adults was wildly amusing to them. When they finally got off the bus, giggling and shouting in Spanish to their parents, the bus felt sadly quiet somehow. Even the jolts didn't seem as pronounced without the little squeals to punctuate every occurrence.

In moments like those, I realise the universality of humanity. That is something that could have easily happened in Jamaica, or, I imagine, the United States, or Australia, or China. That could have happened anywhere in the world because kids are kids, no matter where they're from. They're precious, innocent, amusing, affectionate and honest – before we teach them otherwise.

And, by extension, people are just people. No matter where you go in the world, you will meet comedians, jokers, tricksters, lovers, worriers, warriors, discriminators ... they're everywhere. And that's why I think I'm not too caught up in how I'm received when I go to new places. I understand that people are people the world over. And even if I'm meeting one particular sort in one place, I know other sorts exist there.

Since I've been here, I've met many wonderful people. I've met people who like my sense of style; I've met people who are crazy about Jamaica (I'm just starting to understand how truly significant that is); I've met people who are just generally nice to everyone, so it really doesn't matter to them where I'm from. And I've met people who are not any of those things – not crazy about Jamaica. Not crazy about black people. Not crazy about me. Maybe just crazy :).

The point is, the longer I'm here, the more similarities I see between my culture and here. And the more I appreciate that this is a universal truth: we are all more alike than we are different.

I'm shedding

ruthibelle — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 02:38:00 GMT

This is the skin with the melanin!
This is the body with melatonin!
This is the girl with the endorphins!
Guess what? She's shedding!

My skin is suffering. There is no other way to say it. My skin is suffering.

I have beautiful black skin which, moisturised once daily, usually yields favourable results. No need for reinforcements. No need to check to ensure that I'm not walking around with arms and legs looking like lizard scales. Usually.

What my skin is doing in Mexico is not usual at all. I have to be moisturising thrice daily. When that doesn't work, I have to wear leggings so that people don't mistake my legs for a crocodile's hide. The cocoa butter cream I brought with me seems piddlingly pitiful when pitted against the task it must now accomplish. My arms and legs look like dry leather. My face is losing moisture faster than a tank in the Sahara. And if something itches, and I happen to scratch, there goes a layer of skin!

I know it sounds gross, and it probably is (in a small way), but I am truly surprised at what my skin is doing over here. I feel like I have become a reptile. I'm moulting. I mean, I expected that higher altitudes would mean different levels of humidity, etc., so I brought reinforcements with me. I bought some of the best and strongest stuff I could find. But, alas, my skin continues to shed.

To be fair, there's a cold front passing over the country, so temperatures are abnormally low. But can you imagine my shock when I scratched my head and half my scalp fell out? (I'm going to stop with the gross references now).

I did a little research online, and what I found was surprisingly symbolic. One site says that shedding is nature's way of preparing animals for seasonal changes, and moulting prepares the animal for a new stage of growth. I read it and thought, 'hmm ... that's kinda true here.'

I'm exploring a foreign country by myself. I've never done anything like this before. It's thrilling and different, and my world view may be changing more than I care to admit ... . My life is literally being stretched. As is my capacity. New growth is taking place. And in the process, it's only natural that I am also shedding. I'm letting go of some old things. For good. Forever. I'm giving up on some stuff. For now. I'm releasing my grip on a lifetime of ... (let's not go there).

Why not shed? It's actually a healthy practice. It makes sense. And what better place to do it than in an environment where you are completely outside of all the familiar influences and truly on your own?

So this is the skin with the melanin!
This is the body with melatonin!
This is the girl with the endorphins!
Guess what she's shedding ... :)

A beer beer!

ruthibelle — Tue, 8 Mar 2016 02:34:00 GMT

If beer levels the vibes in Jamaica, it is the vibe in Mexico. One of the first Spanish words resurrected upon my arrival here? Cerveza.

I've come to realise that it is an important part of Mexican culture. The young and the old drink beer. It's like drinking soda or orange juice and fruit punch in Jamaica. Everybody has at some point. Every party host will offer it. And especially during holidays or when there is a guest, a bottle (or bottles, or cans) will be in the refrigerator. If you plan on going out at all in Mexico, you can bet on what your primary beverage option will be. It's all about the beer.

My first realisation of this was when a group of us 'foreigners' went out for a night. Silly me. I thought we were going to a nice, sit-down restaurant to enjoy authentic Mexican cuisine. In my mind's eye, I thought we'd be in this semi-upscale place with maybe a little jazz music, or Mexican souls or Mariachi oozing out of a sound system overhead, or from a live band. And we would talk and laugh and sample strange new dishes.

Instead, we ended up at a restaurant of sorts - of sorts, except that it wasn't a restaurant at all. It was really more like a bar. We got a table in a far corner overlooking the streets below. The view was nice. I should have taken pictures. Our hosts ordered a bucket of beer; then came time to take the non-alcoholic orders. They had nothing else except lemonade. No water. No soft drinks. It was either beer or lemonade. That was it.

I thought to myself, it must be a full night; they've run out of everything except beer. And that might have been the case. But still, it is assumed that most guests will want beer, which is most definitely a mainstay on the Mexican menu.

The beer options are manifold: Corona seems to be the most popular, but there's Victoria, Sol, Minerva, Modelo, Bohemia, Tijuana, Leon ... so many.

I was trying to explain this to a relative in Jamaica. We were speaking in Jamaican patois. I exclaimed: "A beer beer deh yah!" (loosely translated "there is nothing but beer here!"). I laughed afterward about the duplication of sound: "A 'beer' (the Jamaican patois word, functioning as an adjective, translated 'solely' or 'only') beer (the beverage, noun)."

A 'beer beer'. Funny :)

Vamanos

ruthibelle — Tue, 1 Mar 2016 02:35:00 GMT

I took a mental leap.
When I first heard about the programme, a seed of a thought was planted and I figured, Maybe I could do that. Sounds affordable enough.

The thought never left me.
In fact, it grew until I started to make imaginary plans in my head. I started to do research, to calculate what it would cost and whether I had what it took. I started to think, in a very real way, what if I could actually do this? And the magnitude of the possibilities began to outgrow and displace the impossibilities.

I saw a way.

The view as I flew ...
beautiful :)

I don't think I really expected to actually do it, but the more the thought lingered, the more my mind began to show me ways I might be able to make this dream real. It was a small dream - insignificant really in the larger scheme of things. But for me, it would be a step into an unknown that could either make or break me. This I know: to get where I want to go in life, I have to continually exercise faith that can literally move mountains.

I began.
I used to think those syllables were words motivational speakers used to manipulate people into thinking that complexities were simplicities. But those words are the markers that draw a definitive line behind the man or woman who becomes consumed with a cause to the point of deliberate, calculated action. I BEGAN. And the second I did, I think the unseen world was given notice that here came determination; here came unflappability; here came purpose. And it made way.

The view as I flew
over the United States.

I moved.
All the plans had been put in place. The ticket was bought. The relevant organisations were notified. All that was left was for me to actually pick up my little bundle and make the move. So I packed my little bundle. And I was ready to take that step. Then I realised what I was about to do, and ...

I balked.
Fear gripped me like a man in the throes of a seizure. What-ifs overwhelmed me. And my mind - the same mind that had been churning out scenarios of glorious possibilities - began to manufacture dark and sinister omens. I had to fight the feeling of losing before I had begun. I had to win the war in my head before I won the war anywhere else.

I fought. I won.
And before I could doubt myself again, I took my little bundle, kissed my country goodbye, whispered a prayer, and flew off to Mexico.

And now here I am.
Vamonos!