Lost Days
San Cristóbal de las Casas is an impossibly beautiful colonial town tucked away in the mountains of Chiapas. Unfortunately, we didn´t get to see any of it today.
We did, however, have a rocking good time last night.
Yesterday started innocently enough. We wandered through the charming cobblestone streets, stumbled upon a municipal market where I was so tall that I kept hitting my head on the tarps that served as a ceiling, and did not buy anything from the indigenous children who would approach us with belts and friendship bracelets. The market was incredible. It went on for miles, twisting and turning and overflowing with oranges and squash and corn and fruit that I have never seen. It was exhausting and overwhelming, so we returned to our hostel and fell asleep.
That night, a fellow hostel-mate had a birthday party in the garden behind the hostel. For the first time, Sarah and I found a way to mingle with our fellow travelers. We met an effervescent couple from Norway, two women from the UK, a woman from New Zealand, a few Canadians, and a sweet French couple. We learned that I could pass for Canadian but Sarah has a ¨hard¨ American accent and couldn´t. We confirmed our suspicions that people would be more welcoming if we weren’t American, when the Québécois hippie literally turned and walked away when he heard where we were from. (He came back and we had a conversation about how crazy evil Bush is. Our work on the 2004 election gave us a little cred…) Then we downed a few too many tequilas and went with our new friends to Cafe Revolution where a nearly full brass band was accompanying a Spanish rapper. It was the best bar I´ve been to in a long time. Packed to the gills with Mexican fashionistas and travelers in quick-dry clothes. I even got into a short, choppy Spanish conversation with a woman in line for the bathroom. She kept saying ¨que chilo!¨ which I hope means ¨cool¨ and not ¨what a stupid American!¨ On the way, the effervescent Norwegian woman traumatized several small Mexican boys by forcing them to dance with her in the town square. It was a great night.
Today, not so great. We made it a pretty early night, thinking we´d be able to tough it out in the morning, but a combination of dehydration, poor nights sleep, and the tequila made this a wasted day. Well, there´s nothing but time.
-Megan
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Tags: American Identity, Chiapas, Health, México, Mexico, Photography, Tequila, Travel
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hard accent, eh? ask sarah to pronounce the word “no” in an australian accent. she can’t do it, no matter how much tutelage i’ve given her.
Perhaps saying “eh? after every other phrase will help simulate a Quebec accent, eh?
… and a couple of aspirin and a glass of water might help in the morning.
Glad to hear you two are having fun and making friends.
Tom,
Megan has, in fact, heard my incredibly inept ¨austrailian¨ accent and she has given me just as much of a hard time as you have. But… then again, I do deserve it. It is particularly horrifying.
Dad,
I´ll try the ¨eh?¨ and report back about its efficacy. I´ll also start saying ¨soorry.¨ We´ll see.
-Sarah
I find Canadian self-righteousness pretty hard to stomach, myself, and anyone’s choice to act as if they are, individually, their nation, turning their back upon you, who are also somehow individually your nation . . . downright ridiculous. That happened to me in Germany all the time. People flying up into the boughs when they heard my accent. Because that’s such a great way to protest national and international politics. I went right home to the president and told him to treat those Germans better and he said, “oh me oh my, how could I have been so remiss?” And Quebec is no bowl of cherries in all sorts of ways. BUT playing the “which first world nation gets to be considered ‘nice'” game is one of those games that is bound to end in tears. Why? Because if you say anything against the US I’ll hurt you! And your little maple leaf flag, too! Arrrgh! Uhh . . .just kidding . . .
Today in my grad course one of my students explained that the army is paying for her graduate degree — the price, THIRTEEN YEARS of service, every other year of that in Iraq if the war lasts that long, and at the end of it the promise that she’ll teach at West Point. So there you have it.