Just For Fun
Meri and Mary Rain, volunteers at the Casa de los Amigos where Barbara and I stayed in Mexico City came to visit me this week. They were great fun and kept me company on my birthday as we sat in the zocalo to watch the march and commemoration activities of the June 14, 2006 police attack. Mary Rain, incidentally, is from Oregon and will begin a graduate program in urban planning & community development at Portland State in August. Meri will take a consulting position in San Francisco with the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit providing leading-edge management strategies, tools and talent to help other nonprofits and foundations achieve greater social impact.
After siesta yesterday, we spent the evening with Mica and Bardo and a Zapotec weaver from Xachilla and one of his 10 young sons. Over mescal, beer, tacos and ranchero songs, and many laughs, Meri and Mary Rain inspired them with their fluent Spanish to expound on Uses & Custumbres, village life and Mexican politics. Bardo, baracho by this time, kept getting Meri and Mary Rain (who calls herself Lluvia…Spanish for rain) mixed up so Meri solved the problem this way:
Anyway, Meri turned me on to this web site:
Guy named Matt dances a goofy dance all over the world.
From “About Matt” on his website:
“Matt is a 30-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. He achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he’d saved to wander around the planet until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.
A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt the idea of dancing everywhere he went and recording it on his camera. This turned out to be a very good idea. Now Matt is quasi-famous as “That guy who dances on the internet…
The response to the first video brought Matt to the attention of the nice people at Stride long-lasting gum. They asked Matt if he’d be interested in taking another trip around the world to make a new video. Matt asked if they’d be paying for it. They said yes. Matt thought this sounded like another very good idea.
At the end of 2005, Matt left on a 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents. In that time, he danced a great deal.
Matt dances very badly, but most people don’t seem to mind.
Matt is not rich. Matt also doesn’t have some magical secret for traveling cheaply. He does it pretty much the same way everybody else does.
Matt currently lives in Seattle, Washington, where he still works in videogames from time to time as a writer and designer. Matt recognizes that this is not the worst job in the world, but he prefers traveling.
Matt thinks Americans need to travel abroad more.”
…”
Tags: Dancing, Mexico, Oaxaca
Zoe
Leave a Reply