Mexico #9

So it seems like my time here has fallen into a pattern of work during the week, and adventures on the weekend, which I guess is good. This past weekend brought me to La Malinche, a mountain to the east. I went with 2 other Americans, a Brit, and a German who spoke english, and it was one of my favorite trips so far. One of the American guys had a connection in Huamantla (the town next to the mountain) and so he set us up with amazing accommodations for the night in an old Mexican hacienda. Apparently this place had been abandoned and then converted into a hotel (although they kept it very minimalistic). The place was perfectly secluded which gave me some of the first moments of true silence since I've arrived here, and was complete with expansive courtyards, towers with parapets, and an old church.

Me and two of the guys decided it would be worth it to get up early to watch the sunrise from the roof of the church, and it was incredible. I think that was the first actual sunrise I've seen in way too long, and I had forgotten how beautiful it was. To make it better, it was the night of a full moon (one of the brightest I've ever seen) and it was still hanging in the sky when the sun came up. It was like watching a painting come to life as color slowly spilled across the landscape, onto the rooftop, and up the neighboring mountain. I can't really describe it, but here's some pictures of what I saw (which don't do it justice):






That mountain in the bottom picture is Malinche, all 4445 meters of it (which puts it just a little bit taller then Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the 48 states). After breakfast, the 5 of us piled in a cab, rode 30 minutes to the trail head (~2000 meters) and proceeded to climb it. It was amazing getting out into nature again, and even better to have a physical challenge ahead of me. Long story short, we made it to the top in 4 hours exactly and it was an uphill climb the entire way. After we passed the tree line the dirt became loose, the air became thin, and every step became a struggle, but it was definitely worth it. From the top is a gorgeous 360 degree view complete with 3 volcanoes on the horizon. It was there that I also enjoyed the best mango of my entire life. Pictures of course were taken:





The hike down was also pretty fun, as I couldn't pass up a chance to do some shale sliding. I ran/slide/skated down the slippery section and it was actually kind of similar to skiing, but with more dust and danger. Much easier then climbing up as well, and I made it back to the treeline in about 20 minutes. Needless to say, I thought I was pretty cool. Now its the work week, which has its bonuses as one of my patients brought me tamales and coffee today! Best feedback I've gotten so far :). I had to reschedule some other patients so I don't have tomorrow off like I did last week, but I might still go visit the center of the city in the afternoon (it would be weird if I went my whole stay without seeing it at least once). Okay, I'm hungry, I think I'll end this post here (and apparently I have a love affair with parentheses today).

Mexico #8 (more pictures)

Here are some more pictures of my vida mexicana.

This is Toby, my pet grasshopper...

I ate him and all of his friends on a tortilla...

in my apartment.

This is the bosque de Chapultapec, sort of like Central Park for Mexico City.

This is the view from the nap I took there.

This is Brutus and me hanging out in Coroneo.

Some art I thought was cool at the Museo de Antropologia.

A big golden angel I saw on my walk to the museum.

Mexico #7

Whats that, its story time! Awesome!

So last weekend I took a trip back to Queretaro to get out of the city for awhile and hang out with an English speaking friend I met on my first trip. My first solo trip in Mexico, but I wasn't nervous, I mean, what could go wrong? Well apparently missing my stop and going to the wrong city was one thing that could go wrong. And while the first part of this did indeed happen, fortunately I was spared the second. My friend (who I will henceforth refer to as Arianne, since thats her name) called me while I was on the bus to ask where I was, so I asked a fellow passenger and he told me, "Queretaro". Great, I thought, I'm almost there. So then we stop at this little dinky market and a bunch of people start getting on. "This can't be my stop," I thought, "since Arianne told me I'd stop at a big bus station in downtown." Well whether we did or didn't stop there before, I don't know, but I honestly don't remember stopping there, so I'm pretty sure the bus driver just forgot that he had a passenger going to Queretaro. Confident that it wasn't my stop (which it wasn't) I stayed on the bus. But as we pull away I notice we are leaving the city... Queretaro... where I wanted to go. I'm confused, so I ask again, where are we going? San Miguel? That small tourist town an hour north of Queretaro? Uh oh. So I run to the front of the bus and tell the driver to stop, I figure wherever we are is better then ending up in San Miguel. Well where we were was about a kilometer outside of town, which made for a pretty relaxing walk back to the bus station. I called Arianne to tell her that I had no idea where I was, but I was on the side of the road somewhere, and for some reason she got really nervous. So I told her to relax, eventually made it back to the market, and had a guy call her to tell her how to get to where I was. 20 minutes later, everything is fine, although apparently that market district is notoriously dangerous (however I found the people to be quite friendly).

The rest of the trip went great, really relaxing and fun. Also, her brother has a 10 month old pit-bull named Brutus and we are best friends now. On Saturday we went to a big lunch her mom had organized with old high-school friends and their kids. I got to practice my Spanish a lot that day, but the whole group was really fun, and I even won some flower pots in a game (and came in second place in a "best legs" contest). The return trip was much more uneventful, but I got to watch Transformers 2 in Spanish on the bus ride back. I think I was only able to enjoy it because I couldn't really understand what they were saying half the time. And that was my weekend!

Then this week I finally got to revaluate my first round of patients. The results were way better then I expected. We evaluated them using the "Fugl-Myer" scale, which is a standard clinical test of arm mobility on a scale of 0-66. The scores of my patients changed from 31 -> 41, 20 -> 36, and 15 -> 26. My control group had 2 people go down (4 points and 1 point) and one person go up 4 points. Typically a change of ~5 is considered good, but I had one patient increase 16 points! Pumped. Lets see how the next round goes!

Now for this weekend, well, last night I went out to a bar with a bunch of couchsurfers, which was awesome, and subsequently got invited to go to a Lucha Libre match tonight! Thats Mexican wrestling if you don't know, with the masks and shouting and craziness. So I'm really excited about that. Then another guy offered to help me with my Spanish so were meeting up to review tomorrow. Then on Sunday I'm going to a soccer game (Pumas, local team in the top league). Other then that, no big plans, although I got to play soccer for a bit today too. Except now I'm sweaty and gross and theres no hot water in my room. Stupid shower.

Mexico #6

Well its been awhile, but for the past two weeks, things have basically been on autopilot with my study. But this is the last week of exercise for the first group, so by this time next week I’ll have my first solid data (standard clinical measurements) on whether or not the device is actually doing anything! Although all 3 of my patients have shown improvement in the quantitative test I created and they all claim that their arms feel better after treatment, so I’m hopeful.

In other news, I went to the visit the pyramids at Teotihuacan this past weekend. It was awesome, got to climb to the top of them, beautiful view with strong winds whipping around us. Me gusto. I also found out there is a large forest/national park right by the institute, so I went to check that out last week. It was refreshing to get back into nature for a little bit after being surrounded by all the craziness of the city.

So now to go in a different direction then normal, in the few weeks I’ve been here, I’ve gotten a chance to talk to a lot of different Mexicans about their views of the United States. Naturally I didn’t expect many of them to be fond of the US (our reputation is often less then stellar abroad), but I was actually kind of surprised at how many different opinions I encountered. Although in retrospect I guess I shouldn’t be, since there are just as many different opinions of Mexico in the States.

The first opinion I encountered was not a good one. My friend did not like the idea of so many of his country-men leaving to work in the US. He recognized that there were more jobs available there for the poor in the north of the country, but he felt like the US often discriminated against Mexicans and didn’t think having to live in that kind of environment was worth the financial benefits. His words were, why would he want to move to a country to work where he would be at an immediate disadvantage because of the color of his skin. He also recognized the years of bad history between our two countries, and desired an improvement in our relationships, even if that meant letting go of many wrongs he felt were committed against his people during the early development of our countries (see Texas, California, etc…). He also thought the new law in Arizona was garbage, and I have to say I agree.

Later, I met a guy who had lived in Chicago for 42 years and was now back visiting Mexico during his retirement. He worked in maintenance in an office building there, and had worked his way up to make a decent living. He told me that he raised his kids in the States, and for them that was their home, his son even served in the Army. However, they also had roots in Mexico, and his son had made strong friends down here during vacations. For the dad, Mexico would always be home, but he appreciated what the US had to offer and was glad his family was making a life there.

After that I was talking to one of the doctors at the clinic, and he told me that a large number of graduates from his school left to work in the United States. For him, it wasn’t worth leaving home (plus it is very difficult to get a work visa, even for a doctor), but he understood why they did it, especially since the economy in Mexico was rocky at the time. Like another friend told me, when the US gets a sore throat, Mexico get bronchitis (referring to the economy). He went on to tell me that most of them left with the intention of working for awhile to make a little more money, save up and pay off debts, and then coming back to Mexico. And while this often happened, many of them ended up choosing to stay in the States after getting comfortable at their jobs and establishing roots there.

The fourth opinion I encountered I didn’t really expect. I went out to a night-club this past weekend with a group of students who were part of the wealthier crowd. I was talking to one guy, and he started using a little bit of English, so I asked him if he’d ever been to the States. So he pulls a ticket stub out of his pocket showing a recent flight from Mexico City to San Francisco, and went on to tell me he took a weekend trip up there a few weeks ago. So I asked if he had any family up there, but he told me that the entire purpose of his trip was to go shopping, because, apparently, Hollister, Armani, etc... are difficult to find in Mexico. Nice.

Now to insert my own little political opinion, which is actually something I hate doing, I’m beginning to think more and more that we should open up the borders between the US and Mexico. If they want to come and work, I say let them do it, and legally. Want to cut down on illegal immigrants? Make them legal. Most of them are just trying to find a better life for themselves or their family, which is kind of the point of the Unites States, no? Also, by improving our relationship with Mexico, there could be less of an “us vs. them” mentality, since I know many people think that they come to the States to work, but don’t really want to be one of us. My experience forces me to disagree. Furthermore, we are neighbors. While many of them see problems with policies or groups of thought in the US, everyone here has been incredibly welcoming of me and knows that there are many Americans that they could consider friends. And I think it would be great to cultivate this kind of relationship with our neighbors and to encourage the sharing of cultures which is already taking place. In fact, I’m not sure why Spanish isn’t taught more rigorously in schools (learning other languages is common practice in many other parts of the world). I think too often we accept the way things are as the way things should be. And thats pretty much my main point.

Mexico #5 (pictures)

Me at Teotihuacan, from the top of the Piramide de la Luna.



Arbol de Pajaros... The bird tree in the reservoir at Coroneo.



The church at Coroneo (where I vacationed during independence day)



My arm exerciser attached to the chair!