Rumbo Norte

In the first step in our campaign to end discrimination against credit-card debt, we adopted Gandhi's "be the change" mantra and bought a motorcycle. A yellow motorcycle. A small, 100 cc, chinese-built Jinsheng motorcycle. Rationality aside, our newfound debt has had absolutely spectacular effects on our lives, as we have zung through the silver cities northwest of Mexico city to find a land of colonial remnants where money seems to flow from the pores of cobbled streets. We have found that in Mexico, unlike South Africa, cars will actually change lanes to pass a motorcycle. We have found that in Mexico, the little yellow lines on the atlas are not terciary roads, but 4WD dirt, rock, gravel, mud tracks over mountains where horseback men sporting sombreros and cigarettes dangling from the most impressive moustaches I've witnessed reside. And we found freedom from the exorbitant prices charged by bus companies who insist that every traveler wants reclining seats, heating or air con, movies, and comfort to instead hop on back of Trasera, as she has been dubbed, and roll 45 kilometers on a single liter - albeit slowly.

And in the meantime, as urban cultural metropolis turned rolling silver citied hills turned expansive cactus'd deserts, we were whisked swiftly away from the Mexico of memories. Here, there are no tourists - no swarms of Americans searching for sun and relaxation, or for anything else for that matter. There is not free-flowing booze, there are no real tourist attractions except reality itself; and the forced realization that northern Mexico looks like New Mexico in Architecture because they were, not long ago, connected in the same line on the map. Northern Mexico looks like New Mexico in Geology because they are still connected despite GW's ambitious plans for walled segregation.

As we weaver through the hoards of chevy's, fords, and jettas as the only motorcylce duo to be seen for miles, we also wonder at how we had associated Mexico economically with the likes of lands where none can afford cars or trucks, when this 100 million strong population throws a trillion dollars around its economy every year. Perhaps this money just flops down from the US - as a vendor in Jerez explained, "No one here hasn't been there. We used to sleep on the floor, then we brought money from there and bought beds." Indeed, virtually every single person we meet has been in the US for years (a slight change from the typical "my cousin lives in Chicago" bouncing around the rest of the globe), and has now returned by force or choice to this not so underprivileged land. As we thrust our minds back home, we ache to ask immigrants the questions - "WHAT is so bad about Mexico that you want to leave it so badly?" My guess revolves around revelations that not all are built to see opportunity. Around the world, people line up to complain to us about lack of opportunity in their own country, while right next door their neighbor is making his way to wealth, or whatever other success he defines. Just that in Mexico, perhaps even more than the rest of the planet, the US brand of Opportunity shines so brightly so as to convince the masses that chance only exists north of the border - so they ignore the less glaring options nearby. And as they emmigrate, money drips.



Culture, too, drips. As we moved northwards, and closer to November 2, we inquire repeatedly "What do you do to celebrate the day of the dead?" and the responses invariably were "I don't know. Go to the bars. Some people make altars. You should go to Michoacan, maybe chiapas." Far from the imagined reality of returning spirits and souls, we found kids dressed like scarecrows and skeletons wandering the streets of Jerez, Zacatecas asking for Candy (though the "Oremos Oremos queremos los muertos" is much more pertinent than "Trick or Treat"). People stroll by the five or so three tiered altars of offerings constructed in the central gardens only mildly interested - and none of the interest stems from belief that dead will return, but rather from the chosen personalities to whom altars are offered. Cuahtemoc, other aztecs, a journalist from the 18th century - each with an explanatory page or two posted beside. In Jerez, Dia de los Muertos has become historically interesting rather than spiritually invigorating.

But what else is to be expected in this land where Aztec Calendars on coins or persistence that the US society lacks history are, essentially, ignoring that half of the blood here we historically share. So as European values infringe further on ancient Tenochtitlan, we should not be too surprised, (or, perhaps, disturbed for that matter as the true crushing of culture occurred as the colonies up north were setting up shop.) Just don't tell the Mexicans in Zacatecas, speaking spanish, proclaiming their Aztec heritage.

Some genuine history does exist, it seems, in the hills of the Copper Canyon. Here, perhaps 300 miles south of the US border, the Tarahumara women sport traditional dresses with ruffles and folds reminiscent of the high Andes. Along a pot-hole-less road, men walk from town to town amidst pine forests, and hoards of travelers sit silently amidst their baggage awaiting the next bus. Here, we understand the ideas roaming through the minds of Argentinians who thought Bolivia was so very far removed, while our traveler minds grouped the two together. Here, in Mexico, we find the boundaries our own minds had drawn around our comfortable home existences.

One year ago, I could not have told you where Chihuahua was. Today, here I am in the big city, 3 hours south of the border, ready for the push home in whatever way the big bad bureaucracy will let it unfold.