10 Ways to Know If You Have Spent Too Much Time In Mexico

You Know You Are a Long Term Mexican Resident When:



1. Your cousin/friend is named Chuy and you dont think 'as in Bacca, right?'

2. You follow the smartest neighborhood dog to cross the street

3. You genuflect not only at Mass, but outside churches and in theaters on instinct

4. You think the local things tourists find as 'quirky and quiant' slightly annoying

5. You are no longer scared to ride in the car with Mateo Cunao

6. It does not bother you that a policeman is holding a rifle and is texting at the same time

7. You know the words to horrible Banda songs...and even worse, it has some relevance to your life.

8. You see a "Day of Dead" altar with Coke and think 'they could be mine'.

9. You find nothing out of the normal with taking the kids to the graveyard for lunch

10. You stop noticing when someone parks a donkey in your parking space

Faces of Pre Existing Conditions

After a series of minor crises south of the border (including a small incident at the Oxxo, another round of insurance battles and La Osa's dog eating 10 of my diuretics) I am bit tired today.

However I suggest you visit a fabulous new blog. Not just because my mug is up there but because we are the faces of the consequences of political action or lack thereof.

http://facesofpreexistingconditions.blogspot.com

Waving from Mexico,
La Coja

Swine Flu--Is It Time to Pull a Suzie?

Mexico has declared a "National Alert". Israel has called it the 'Mexican Flu'. Indeed when my Mom starts investing in Sam's Club amounts of masks, Lysol, and sanitary gel, I begin to think there might be something up.

From what I have observed in the last month, the Mexican government has done an excellent job of containing what could have been a spectacular death toll. When epidemiology reports in Mexico City showed an exponential multiplication of the virus in April, the government made a courageous decision to shut down the schools and government for two weeks. The government has also launched a major campaign involving adorable fliers, sanitary gel in all public places, and supposed fever detectors in the airports. However, despite all the effort, the numbers of suspected cases have more than doubled since August.

Given I am far from a public health official but this is what I have observed. When I became sick with the swine flu, I had excellent, if overbearing, care. My American rheumatologist immediately pulled me off my drugs and I was able to afford the Tamiflu prescribed by Doctor Kansas City. However, it must be an uphill battle for lower class immuno suppressed people for several reasons

1. The city and regional buses are hotels for germs. We are packed in there so tightly you can feel the next person cough. Only students, my family and the poor ride them.

2. Upper class people have sewers and/or maids, the rest have trash cans .

3. Medicine, especially non generic, can be most or all of your paycheck.

4. Many lower income people work outdoors and live in drafty houses.


It may be a "national emergency" for Obama but for the Mexican poor and immuno suppressed, its just another day.



For more information, take a look at Mexico's Secretaria de Salud Report
http://portal.salud.gob.mx/contenidos/noticias/influenza/estadisticas.html

What You Gonna do When They Come for You?

The Cervantino has come to town. While it is a fabulous event for tourists, the "situation" here has become worse for the rest of us. Although there is very little violence in the capital here, the government has nonetheless pulled out all the uniforms/disguises out of storage. All the streets to the capital are cut off with police check points, yet the backroads, oddly enough, are not.



http://www.festivalcervantino.gob.mx/

Tree of Hope, Remain Strong

As an American business woman with a disability living in a Mexico, I am strange fruit. As I go about my day, writing, translating and creating, not only am I challenged but I am in love with what I do. However this does not mean that this joy is seen as normal or even conceivable.

People from both sides of the border have seen my gait and questioned my ’common sense’. Some people in my family wonder if at the end of the day, I will be rendered dependent in some way. Even my Mexican cousins and friends brag about me as if my situation was one of a kind.

I am becoming somewhat of an urban legend in my little town in the Bajio of Mexico and it is simply just that---an urban legend. At least one strong, creative, woman with a disability came before.




Frida Kahlo was born in 1907 in a suburb of Mexico City. According to several sources, Kahlo had two disabilities. At age six, her ability to walk became difficult when she contracted polio. Then in 1925, she was in a Mexico City trolley accident that broke her spinal column, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, right leg and foot. Although she would eventually regain her ability to walk, she would go through more than thirty five operations and spend months bedridden.

Kahlo took disability and made it into an art. Her art focused mainly on self portraits because, as she pithily commented “it is the subject I know best”. Exploring self-image is a tough task for anyone especially in an ableist society, yet Kahlo navigated it with honesty and color.

In almost all of her paintings, she wears bright and richly made skirts. It has been suggested that she wore these skirts to cover her scars and develop a sense of self. It also seems she become more comfortable with an identity as a woman with a disability as time progressed. Self Portrait with Loose Hair lets the world see her physical fragility while also managing to express her strength. Self Portrait with Dr. Farrill even illustrates Kahlo painting in a wheelchair.

Several of her paintings portrayed her disability in all its pain, challenge and glory. The painting Retablo depicts her trolley car accident and the fear that accompanied it in an almost religious quality. Her self portrait, Broken Column expresses her excruciating physical pain with an Ionic column through her back and nails driven through her head. Perhaps her most striking painting is Tree of Hope, Remain Strong. In this self portrait, Kahlo sketches two reflections of herself. The Frida on the left is a Frida recently rolled out of the operating room. She is bedridden, maimed and cut in half in more than a literal way. The Frida on the right however, is a confident woman triumphantly holding the surgical corset in her hand. Tree of Hope, Remain Strong hangs on my desk as it reminds me daily that I have several parts to my disabled self. Through painting her self image Kahlo gave, if not a name, a place in historical memory for disability.

Today I am Fat Elvis

I try to have a strict no-complain policy regarding my disability. However, I am violating that policy because I believe today is one of those days we can all relate to. Today is a 'no move' day. That means my body is refusing to climb any stairs, take a shower or change clothes. My left leg in all its metal grandeur told me and my desires where to stick it today.

What is causing the pain could have several causes. Among them - the metal reproduction of 'The Last Supper' that hit my left leg, trying to keep up with 'normal' people, and effects of riding on a city bus driven by a fourteen year old.

As most people who identify as having a chronic illness and/or disability do, I have 'no move' days every so often. This has led to the parting of self. On days when I feel that I can take on the world and even do laundry, I am Hot Elvis--the Elvis of the 50s that charmed people, danced, and made movies. On 'no-move' days, I am the 300 lbs Elvis of prescription drugs, the Elvis they found dead on the can in the 70's.


Saludos,
La Coja

Dodging Airport Jackasses- Art or Sport?

Although I look like the Ghost of Christmas Past, I am proud to report that I am now back in Mexico. If you have ever traveled via airplane or even watched the local news reports during holiday seasons, you are then familiar with certain characters that tend to populate our travels. The following I tend to attract on my travels although this is by no means a through nor complete listing. Please feel free to add your very own jackass to the list.


1. The Talker
As Harry always says " Do I have a sign on my forehead that says 'Please crazy man, talk to me about your delusions'". This particular airport creature likes to show pictures of his kids, dogs, non existent girlfriend and occasionally shots of his surgery.

2. By Low, Sell High
This inhabitant is a product of the 1980s. Entering his early forties, he loves to talk loudly on his Iphone until takeoff, peppering his conversation with 'risk' 'take off the hedge' and 'buddy'. He dresses in his casual to travel selecting expensive jeans his girlfriend bought him, black patent leathers, and usually a pink or paisley shirt. Sitting with this man takes extra skill. Must decide early on to pet his ego or put laxative in his Coke.


3. The Bluetooth Pervert
This man, unlike the others, has no interest in talking to his seatmate. Usually utterly good-looking and well-dressed, he whispers into his bluetooth until takeoff. When we have reached altitude, he reaches for his phone to text some very inventive things to some lady friends on the ground.

4. The Screaming Toddler

She is the only traveler I understand. Sometimes you just have to scream and punch the person ahead of you.


Feel free to add