Videos of the Voladores in Cempoala

Veracruz Update #2

I’ve been seduced by the lure of being busy. It’s easy really. I make lists of things to do and places to go and as I travel this lists just get longer. For every item I check off, I meet someone or see something that adds another three items. Since last I wrote I have visited the Naval Museum and the Veracruz City Museum, found a really cool looking arts cinema, and attended a traditional afternoon dance at the Zocalo. I also met some scary clowns, was offered a job teaching English to local tour guides, and inadvertently attended a hot air balloon race (from the ground.) I went to the beach again and finally put my germafobia on hold long enough to enjoy time in the water. With all that accomplished I still have not managed to complete one single phone call to any of the people I am supposed to be in contact with. Is mercury in retrograde?

Despite all the new experiences, I don’t feel overwhelmed or hurried. I contemplate my plan, but once I know what my day is about I just go to it.  I am more present here and now than I have been in a long time. This is what travel does for me. It’s like an ongoing meditation. I pack a book and my journal in my purse because I eat most of my meals alone and today I wasn’t sure how long I would be on the bus, but I didn’t read a single page.

I realize reading is what I do to escape and here I don’t want to escape anything, I want to engage. Yesterday was my big adventure. I set an alarm to wake up at 7:00AM, but I was awake before then. I took my time getting ready, but then I caught a cab to the second class bus station and got on a bus to Cardel. There is something a little nerve wracking about getting on a bus to a place you’ve never been before. I’m always afraid I’ll miss it or I’ll fall asleep, but to my surprise this time I didn’t feel the same anxiety. While I am definitely a gringa with a very non-Mexican accent, my Spanish is clear enough and I ask a lot of questions. I felt confident that I would arrive where I needed to be and like magic, an hour later I arrived in the main plaza of Cardel, a small town just waking up. Most of the shops were still closed, but I bought a ham and cheese pastry from a street vendor, it was still warm, and I sat on a park bench enjoying the quiet of the morning.

Two men approached me, one in a wheel chair. He handed me a flyer and launched into a well-rehearsed spiel about how this organization had helped him get a job and could I donate. He couldn’t get all the way through before finally giving up and saying “Your hair. It’s like cotton. I just love it.”  The other man agreed and they had a short conversation about it that made me laugh. I gave them a few pesos, but they lingered to chat with me about the US and the weather, nothing deep. Then I said my goodbyes and caught a cab to the ruins of Cempoala. The cab driver looked a bit like the Mexican version of my Dad except that he had tattoos on both arms. He was also chatty and eager to tell me how to catch a collective cab back for a fraction of what he charged me. He showed me where to wait and what to say then left me at the door of the ruins.

It was a bit creepy. Unlike the crush of people loitering on the boardwalk, enjoying the beach or cramming the sidewalks to shop in the plazas and the Zocalo in Veracruz, Cempaola at first glance was empty. Sunday in a Catholic country…nothing looked open. Even the ruins didn’t look open. There was no one at the door to the park or the museum, so I just let myself in. Thankfully I found a tour group mid tour, so I tagged along and caught some basic explanations about the Totonac people and the layout of their city. What’s left of it was buried, exhumed, and in some part reconstructed by the government. There were no fences. You could easily climb to the top of any of the temples, but the guide implored us not to in order to preserve the sight for future visitors. The sun had just begun to peak, so I found a grove of short palm trees to shade me as I listened. Too soon it ended but then came five men dressed in brightly colored garb playing drums and the flute. Four were there to perform a Totonac special ceremony; the fifth was there to collect 15 pesos from anyone who wanted to see it.

I gave my donation, but asked him to at least explain it to me. From where I stood it just seemed like they were playing and dancing around a pole. Turns out each man represented an element…earth, water, wind, air and they were all integral to asking God to send rain and bless the crops with fertility. In order to do this the each climbed up the pole which was pretty tall, then took some long ropes and wrapped them around the top of the pole.

“Van a volar,” The fifth guy told me. They are going to fly. And so they did…I took video.

After that the tour left and I was really on my own. It was nice to get to visit the ruins that way. Peaceful.  I stopped by the small museum and then put my cab driver’s instructions to good use by wedging myself into a cab carrying no less than 7 people. From Cardel I attempted to catch a bus to Quiahuitzlan, but when I tried to tell the lady where I wanted to go she didn’t know where it was (bad sign). She decided I need to be on a bus to Villa Rica, so that’s what I did and it took me right to the entrance of Quiahuitzlan.

As soon as I got off the bus, I kind of wished I hadn’t. Quiahuitzlan is in the middle of nowhere. Literally, it’s a bus stop on a highway. As soon as the bus pulled away there was no traffic in either direction just a sign with a pyramid and an arrow up an empty road. There were signs on both sides, so I crossed the street because on that side of the road there were two houses and what looked like a farm or a ranch. I was told I could catch a cab that would take me up the mountain to the ruins, but looking around I realized that was an overstatement. There was no cab, no truck, no bus, no traffic. I lingered a few minutes but the only sound was of cicadas. I walk a little ways up the path and ran into an elderly couple sitting outside beneath a tree.

Man: Hey.

Me: Hey.

Man: Where are you going?

Me: Quiahuitzlan.

Woman: To the ruins? (As if there were anything else in the vicinity)

Me: Yeah.

Woman: How are you going to get there?

Me: I thought I’d catch a cab.

Man: Probably not, they both laughed revealing a handful of teeth between them. It’s a long walk. Walk slow so you don’t get too hot or you can ask the lady at the hotel.

Woman: Where are you from?

I still don’t know where this mythical hotel is. And it was a long walk, all up hill, winding through a quiet forest with very large spiders and noisy lizards skittering through the underbrush. The road was paved. I don’t think I would have dared if it weren’t. And just when I thought I was really alone, a car would appear out of nowhere to drive past me. I don’t approve of hitchhiking in general, but when you’re hiking up a big ass mountain to get to the exact same place that every car is going to….well don’t worry mom no one picked me up. I walked every step and was covered in sweat from head to toe.

At the top was an incredible view. I could see all the way to Villa Rica. Then as is usually true, from the mountain climbed were the steps of the mountain left to climb. I took a break by the tombs. A man was selling fresh coconut, but I opted for water and sat in the shade to catch my breath. When I was ready I continued to explore the ruins, walking up stone steps to find another set of tombs mostly inhabited by large frolicking butterflies whose wings clapped as they ran into each other.

 The other tourists were all Mexican and tried to stare at me without staring. At first no one would look me in the eye…then finally a woman approached me and apologized to me.

“We saw you walking, but there are 10 people in our car. I felt so ugly to have passed you.”

That broke the ice. Then everyone wanted to talk to me and take my picture. Turns out the lady lived in Canada for several years and had been to Seattle. She was on vacation with her husband and his family touring the sights the way we might go to Yellowstone.    

“Why are you so strong?” she asked me. I didn’t know what to say. “You walked all that way. I couldn’t do it,” she said.

I don’t feel particularly strong. In fact, Mexican bootcamp has a way of showing me just how out of shape I am. Today I went back to Zumba and yeah...it wore me out. But something I did notice, they maybe has nothing to do with the strength it takes to walk up a big hill is the unexpected absence of fear. The first few weeks I lived in Spain, I would enjoy each day to the fullest then come home and in the privacy of my tiny room, hyperventilate from all the newness. It was the same when I arrived in Japan. It’s like when you look up at the sky and realize just how tiny you are in comparison. Traveling has a way of illustrating the immensity of the world. It is so big and there are so many people in it living so many different lives. Yet those small connections and seemingly trivial conversations bring the world back down to a manageable size.

That’s the point right? Strangely I have arrived at a place in life where the world feels manageable and even with all the complications of busses and telephones and the great unknowns and unexpected, I just have this feeling that everything is working out exactly the way it’s supposed to. Today after Zumba David and his cousin Gabriel invited me to their home for lunch. We talked about my program and he has several families he thinks would be interested in hosting our youth. I have prepared an application and will hopefully be hosting a meeting to introduce myself to them this weekend. In the meantime, I am headed to Xalapa tomorrow. It's coming together. :)

Veracruz Update #1

Saludos de Veracruz!

Day 3 in Mexico is at an end and though my feet are sore and I am sweating like a roasted pig after my first outdoor Zumba class (stay tuned for a post about that), I am all smiles because this trip has been awesome and it’s just the beginning!

Before I continue, I just want to say thank you again to the over 50 people who donated online and offline to make this happen. Through your generosity I exceeded my goal and raised $3,340 (and apparently there are still a few checks in the mail)! Amor Spiritual Center is officially my fiscal sponsor which means your donations are tax deductible and you will be receiving an email for your records sometime in the fall. J

I am especially grateful for the extra money we raised because I will be traveling within Mexico a lot more than I had originally anticipated. My first foray will be Sunday. I will be visiting Playa Chachalacas and the Pyramids at Quiahuiztlan. Then Tuesday I head to Xalapa to meet with Jesus from Agrupación de Derechos Humanos, a local non-profit dedicated to working with indigenous groups with regard to Human Rights. I anticipate visiting Cordoba, Yanga, and also Puebla.

In the meantime I’m getting to know Veracruz. I arrived Wednesday morning and caught a cab to my hotel. It was too early for me to check in so I just left my bag and hit the ground running. 

Veracruz is blue skies and palm trees. I love the way the sea salts the air. The heat sneaks up on you. It feels good, the warm damp air, then suddenly you are practically melting. I don’t know if there is an official siesta, but you don’t see a lot of non-tourists moving quickly throughout the day, it’s not until night time when the boardwalk is really packed with joggers and families out for snow cones by the water. Everyone takes advantage of the mild temperatures. It doesn’t get cool exactly, just cooler and then the music starts to play and it feels like an ongoing party.

Everyone here is very excited about the aquarium. It was the first thing the hotel staff told me to go see. Fish are cool and all, but when I got to the aquarium I realized I had zero interest in actually going in. The aquarium is set inside a mini mall of crap next to a Wax museum (that is creepy in every country) and a Ripley’s Believe it or not Museum. If you are 12 years old, need to eat icecream or buy something cheap and touristy, the Aquarium is the plaza for you. It is truly a one stop shopping for tackiness and children that make you temporarily forget that all humans are a blessing. The only redeeming feature besides its proximity to the beach is that in the depths of all that there is a chair massage parlor with new age Mexicans dressed in all white waiting to work their magic with flute and mystical wind music playing just loud enough to drown out the singing mechanical clown I wanted to destroy with a pickax.

After a massage and some cold water I felt like a human being again. Having seen enough of the Aquarium I walked back past my hotel until I found a sidewalk café. It was empty, which usually isn’t a good sign, but I took a chance because it was a weird time to be eating. The waitress was kind of weird towards me and seemed irritable when I ordered shrimp. We don’t have that she told me…and I could feel myself getting annoyed, but I asked for a recommendation and she said mojarra. I still don’t know what kind of fish it is, but I love it! My first meal in Veracruz has so far been the best. Mojarra frito al ajillo with rice, avocado, tomato, lettuce, and warm corn tortillas. Actually all my meals have been great and half of them have been mojarra. I did try seafood stew today and some kind of spicy pork medallions. Yum and yum.

I digress. While eating, a man named Luis came to talk with me. He was the first person to introduce himself to me and even took the time to introduce me to the seemingly surly waitress whose name is Elena (turns out she was just kind of shy and afraid I didn’t speak Spanish). Luis is a jewelry vendor. He has a push cart that he walks up and down the beach.

“Veracruz is international,” he told me. “We are a port so people come here from all over the world.” While I know this is true, the more I walk around here, the less true it feels. There are lots of tourists here, but most of them seem to be Mexican and from other parts of Mexico. Even here at the hotel, I haven’t seen one other visibly foreign person. Moreover I have so far seen only 1 person I would classify as Afro-Mexican. Though when I bring this up everyone points to their nose and tells me about their African grandfather who was coal black.

Despite the rich history of African heritage hidden in bone structure, the Afro-cuban salsa blaring from every restaurant, and the hints of Africa in the well-seasoned food, I am clearly an anomaly. People stare at me openly. It’s a bit disconcerting. At first I thought it was just people trying to sell me things, but now I realize it’s actually everyone. Some guy actually took a picture of ME with his camera phone while on our bus tour of Veracruz. And he was not the last, people can’t wait to ask me where I’m from. So I have taken to putting on make-up and wearing dresses ‘cause I want to make sure they get a really good show. Though it is hot here so mostly I’m cute for the first five minutes and then I am a sweating mess towering a foot over everyone in all my voluptuousness complete with my orange afro. Nope… not inconspicuous at all.

But the men seem to love it. “Mi linda, mi reina, mi morenita,” they call out as I walk by. Yesterday I was serenaded with Celia Cruz songs. Once again I am “Morena”- dark one. The women look at me too. Today the comment that most touched me came from a tiny wrinkled old woman who smiled at me with such a face of delight and told me I was beautiful and black. It made me think what it would be like for a 15 year old black girl from Seattle to be walking down the streets of Mexico to have her beauty affirmed by complete strangers.

After lunch that first day I walked four hours (literally). I walked from the beach down into the historic part of town which is more in alignment with what I expected to see. Pastel colored buildings, white sidewalks, bustling streets. I walked past the Yacht club and the Naval Museum, past the Cathedral with the Black Jesus, the marimba players in the plaza, the market place, and the Zocolo just breathing in the city and trying to see it not only through my eyes, but through the eyes of the young people I hope to bring here.

One of the gifts being a study abroad leader has given me is the chance to orchestrate the magic of travel. There is a lot that goes into this process. It’s helpful to know where things are and what to expect, cultural tidbits like whether you should tip or not or how to identify safety concerns. So far the most dangerous parts of my trip have been trying not to choke on fish bones and trying to figure out when and how to cross the street. I found a cool bus tour that took me all around Veracruz. I also went to the Museum and met a woman name Carmen Cruz who was a well spring of information about this entire region and cued me into the cheapest ways to get to the Pyramid and also to the fact that there is a public dance hosted in the afternoons. I will be going to that tomorrow.

In terms of the program. I have come up with a home stay family vetting process and a tentative 15 day itinerary. Meeting Carmen really gave me more ideas on youth appropriate activities and tours. So I am pricing everything and working on my budget. My hope is to start vetting folks in Yanga next week while checking out the Festival de Negritud! I hear Yanga is a small town, which is ideal for home stay experiences because they kids are forced to spend time with their families.  As always there is so much more to say, but this is already pretty long. So just know all is well and unfolding beautifully. Thanks for your continued support.

Also please check out my website for my updated calendar. www.rejjarts.com  I will be giving an interview on the Ms. Camay radio show in September and in October I will be giving a vision boarding workshop at East West Bookstore. Sometime in between I will be facilitating another self-publication class and doing some writer’s workshops TBA. Message me if you are interested in any of those workshops.

The Year of Why Not?

Something happened. One day I woke up an thought why not? Why not live my life the way I have always dreamed? Why not write books and publish them? Why not take kids abroad on my terms? Why not travel the world? What the hell am I waiting for. Nothing. No more waiting. Time to do it right. 

December Soul Writers

Greetings Soul Writers. For you those of you not able to make it yesterday, we reviewed some basic parts of writing. We talked briefly about alliteration, assonance, and simile, before diving into a metaphor exercise. I was inspired to adapt an activity from Rob Blair's blog: http://robbieblair.com/9-metaphor-exercises/

Create a metaphor using the following three starters.
Life is...
I am...
My heart is...

Once you have a list of a few metaphors, really draw them out. We did this aloud with a group. Here is an example.

I am a mountain.

From there expand: I am a mountain, forged in fire, filled with impenetrable secrets, a fortress hiding in plain sight, a monument to self sufficiency.

Often writers fall into the trap of assuming all people will understand imagery in the same way. The purpose of this practice was to really dig into the metaphor to figure out what we really wanted to convey and to be precise with our language.

Our main free writing inspiration came from Mindy Nettifee's Glitter in the Blood: A Poet's Manifesto for Better Braver Writing. If you don't own this book yet, I highly recommend it. Mindy is an incredible poet. I had the opportunity to see her perform at the Seattle Poetry Slam. Some of her strengths include incredible imagery, narrative poetry, use metaphor, and specificity. Her work stays in my head long after I've read it and as a writer that is one of my big goals, to make a ripple in someone's brain. I read an excerpt from the forward then shared a list of objects to be included in the free write as the prompt. Here is the list (located on pg. 48):

• an antique pocket watch
• an elevator button
• a letter opener
• a restaurant match book with a phone number written in it
• a magnifying glass
• a Gordian knot
• a snow globe with a miniature city in it
• one earring
• a small statue of the Hindu deity Ganesha
• a mineral rock of some sort you cannot identify
• an old dictionary with the entire "R" section ripped out
• an old cassette labeled "To Jackie"

Enjoy the prompts and I hope to see you next month.Soul Writers meets on the first Sunday of the month from noon-1:30PM at the Amor Spiritual Center 2528 Beacon Ave S. Seattle, WA 98144.  All are welcome. We are a drop in community of writers coming together to find inspiration, set goals, and to make time to write.

Here is what I wrote:
I fell asleep with the elephant cradled in my palm. Having the tiny God of remembered truths, God of cleared pathways, a God beyond obstacles right there in my palm print was a comforting lullaby. But when I awoke Ganesha was gone and the city had disappeared. Another God had crept in during the night and ladled out a thick gray bisque that settled swamp like at the edge of my porch where the yard used to be.

I wandered from room to room peering through windows and finding nothing. No neighbors, no neighbors dog, no neighbor's soda cans rolling down my driveway, no driveway. No neighbor's dog shit land mining my yard. No yard. No street. As though the Rapture had come and sucked up everything in its path leaving me and my house as the last remaining island.

His love had come upon me just as suddenly and uninvited, settled in swamplike at the periphery of my heart and mind, but stealing closer inch by damp inch. I pulled on boots. This was rain boot and wool socks weather. A cup of tea and a good book was tempting, but a part of me needed to know that the world was still out there somewhere. Instead I found the gray, a chill biting into bare hands. With every step forward a space cleared between me and the fog. There were in fact trees all around me, sidewalks, houses, tall metal street lamps glowing like halls cough drops. A tight globe of visibility moved with me as though I were fairy in a glass jar lit just enough to see my own footsteps and the nothingness moving in to erase them.

GPS only works when you can see the streets and the signs marking them. I was lost in him already, a foot beyond my house and wondering how some place so familiar could suddenly seem so foreign.

Soul Writing Prompt of the Month

Soul Writers is a drop in writing circle facilitated by yours truly. All are welcome. It is free and takes place on the first Sunday of the month from noon-1:30PM at the Amor Spiritual Center at 2528 Beacon Ave S. Seattle, WA.  If you are ever in a mood to write and want to join us, just come on through. The format is as follows:

• Check in/ Welcome to any new writers
• Prompt or exercise of the day
• Writing time
• Sharing and critique
• Goal Setting

This month our exercise was inspired by the lyrical genius of the Indigo Girls. One of my favorite songs begins with "I heard you were drunk and mean down at the Dairy Queen." I don't know if you have ever had that particular experience first hand or as a witness, but it always kinds of makes me laugh to think about it. This got me thinking about how I could chronicle my life by my iTunes playlists. Songs to fall in love by, songs to hate your ex with, songs to bemoan the misery of another suck ass winter, and so on. Poets like Jimi Hendrix and Joni Mitchell steal my heart, so what better way to do a prompt for an exercise in memoir writing than to steal a few song lyrics, drop them in a hat, pull them at random and write about the memory that comes up. 

Here are some of the lyrics that were in the hat in case you want to play along at home:

1. All we are saying is give peace a chance.
2. You'll always know the reason why we couldn't have the moon and the sky.
3. Exercise your right to enjoy life. You don't need an invitation.
4. I could drink a case of you darling and I would still be on my feet.
5. Can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.
6. She runs through the streets with her eyes painted red, under a black belly of cloud in rain.
7. The city I live in, she's my companion. I walk through her streets, she knows who I am.

The lyric I chose:

Sometimes I wished that I smoked cigarettes so thinking about you wasn’t my only habit.

The piece I wrote:

I’m sitting here wondering  which one of my exes takes up the most space in my brain. What a pointless exercise, looking back across the grid of converging and divergent journeys. There are no medals, no Olympic gold winners to stand on platforms waving, just snap shots of time, fragments of what happened mixed with what I wished had happened so jumbled they come across as dreams. The answers aren’t really anything I am willing to admit. So I will let you be my easy answer for today. I will remember you for the simple purpose of forgetting you tomorrow. It’s midevil, like blood letting. I bleed our memories with the intent to purify, but it only seems to make me feel weaker.

Maybe had I met you at another time and place I wouldn’t have needed to know you. A woman needing a man is like a fish needing a bicycle, impractical, a Salvador Dali painting waiting to happen. But I needed something and you were a close fit, an easy smile, a boisterous laugh and oh the way you cooked. You tasted like home. I didn’t mean to fall in love. I didn’t try to set my heart by your metronome; it just fell into the simple ticking of you.

Should I tell you its fall now and how the season nestling dark around me makes me think of you? The cool caress of wind across my cheek, the stinging absence of the warmth of your hand. Should I ask you if you even remember our accidental date? Would you admit that I felt like home to you too? That you took my hand, not the other way around? That you let me borrow your last name and lay your head in my lap and let me ease you the way only a woman like me can? I am no shallow comfort. Me with love like the endless pools of molten rock that live in the core of our earth. Me with a heart like an anchor that wouldn’t sink you or weigh you down, but would center you and ground your soul. Could you say the same about the woman you gave your name to for keeps? I wondered if it was because you didn’t see me, but in retrospect I know it was precisely because you did. When you held me, we both knew the truth and when you walked away, I learned to repeat the lie of you not choosing me, the lie of you not knowing how to love me back. But the truth endures long after the lies have burnt to ash. That really happened. We were us, if only for a brief moment in what will be a much longer journey to come.

Sometimes I wish for an addiction with a twelve step program. No matter how many steps I take, none of them lead me any further away from you.

Chapbooks vs Self Publishing

Though I am a fan of spoken word, my first love is words on the page. For as much as I travel, I should probably own a Kindle, but truth be told I prefer having my own copy of a book to dog ear and highlight, to write notes in. Since I can remember it has been my dream to be a published author. I was in high school when I first started publishing articles and poems,  not just in the school paper, but in the Madison Times. I even got a piece accepted in the Feminist Quarterly. And it was exciting to see my name in print, but what I really wanted was to go to my favorite bookstore and see my book on the shelf.

So I started writing books. Actually as my parents have pointed out, I have been writing books since I was a kid, but 3 years ago, I actually finished one. This was still not quite the book I dreampt of. I also envisioned myself as a novelist, but when my mom asked me what I was going to do with all the poetry I had written, I printed it all out and realized I had written enough to make a book. Then I went about the process of deciding which pieces made sense and which themes were represented by my work, hence the title God, Hair, Love and America.

Self Publishing was kind of an accident. All I really intended to do was make a Christmas present for my mom, but when my friend showed me how to do it and then suddenly my book was available on amazon, I realized...well that this was something bigger. Here were my two fundamental hang ups: If I self publish it's like admitting it wasn't good enough for a "real" publisher. How am I going to market my book?

I am still wrestling with marketing, but self publishing turned out to be a very empowering experience. I finished a draft of my novel a couple years back and started sending it out to agents, just to get rejected. While everyone had told me not to take this personally, I did, because that is where my head was at. I got several really great letters praising the quality of the writing, but explaining that it wasn't a good fit for that specific agent when I realized that rather than be bummed about the rejection, I should be happy that people who didn't really see the value in my story weren't going to be the ones trying to take it to that next level. I don't want to work with anyone who doesn't believe in me or my work. And I realize that part of self publishing was making a declaration that I believed in my work and was not only willing to put my name on it, but my logo as well. I also liked having complete control over the process from the type and size font to the cover art.

The difference between a chapbook and being self published is reach. The benefits of chapbooks are that they can be short and simple. You can make them by hand and re-produce them yourself usually at low cost. You can also be creative. If your chapbook isn't being mass produced you can play with formats that don't fit into standard size templates. I had one creative artist tell me he wanted to do a pop up book...which sounded both awesome and time consuming. Disadvantages...chapbooks usually don't have ISBN numbers which means you can't put them in the library or sell them online easily. (You could still maybe do ebay or etsy or something, but again your reach is limited).

With self publishing it would be really difficult or expensive to do a pop up book, but if you just want to make a standard book shaped book with a cool cover and whatnot, you could not only do that but them be able to sell them around the world.

With that in mind I designed a four week finishing workshop for poets with chapbooks or stacks of poetry they would like to turn into book. It starts tomorrow and I am getting excited.