My Life in Mexico

I’ve been in Mexico pretty much exactly two weeks and I’m sitting down to write about it for the first time.

Which is arguably pretty typical of my relationship with getting things done in general, so maybe I should cut straight to the actually-writing-about-it part. And miss a good opportunity for circumspection and self-examination? Nah…

So I’ve been feeling a lot of things, running the whole gamut of emotions from nervousness to terror in fact, and occasionally other things including happiness and miserableness and unease and excitement and loneliness.

But, in other ways I think I’ve been feeling not very much at all. And I think my brain’s been cleverly avoiding feeling very much by telling me I really really want, no need, to read trashy detective novels and watch TV, and that unaccountably I just can’t work myself up to writing any of my vast mental list of unwritten emails, or starting my blog, or reading poetry. But brain, I’ve got your number.

The kick that woke me up is that today I was in the most filthy mood – sad, lonely, annoyed with everything, hypersensitive. And I knew there was no real reason for it. There were reasons – tiredness, sunburn, hormones, faulty brain chemistry, that Monday morning feeling, the baby bird I found on the ground that ran off into a thick bush (I was then racked with worry that its parents wouldn’t find it to feed it and guilt and the unbearable sadness of it all)… but nonetheless I knew first thing this morning, walking across the dewy grass, that my emotions were something else on top of that, and that my feelings had been kind of blurred and blunted for a while, and that it was sort of good to have them back.

So anyway, sorry for being dead. I have also been taking up any and all vaguely sociable activities that get thrown at me, and feeling really tired, especially the first week – altitude I think.

So, Mexico…

It does weird things to time, travelling. A blur of finishing off, tying loose ends, the pursuit of the hallowed visa, packing, final goodbyes, no time at all… and then suddenly this big flap of time, meaningless in-flight movies in a big metal bubble… all garlanded with queues and queues and queues.

I arrived in Mexico exhausted, at the tail end of a Big Storm and my first (and so far only) impression of Mexico City was of darkness and bad air and flooded roads and long queues of traffic. Another guy from the centre was being picked up on the same trip and I chattered at the poor man most of the journey with the animation that I only seem to manage when it’s dark outside and I really need to be asleep, gazing out of the window all the while at darkness and lights.

And then, gates, and someone meeting me with a key and carrying my suitcase and bits of Spanish and bits of English. My reaction, when opening the door to my apartment, was somewhat like that of Dorothy opening the door into technicolour Oz. Actually, I don’t remember that bit of the film all that clearly, and there were no small dogs, but what I’m trying to convey is that I was quite surprised and excited and a little bit overwhelmed. My apartment is really pretty nice – a bit sparse and hotellish with that slight (70s?) timewarp feeling of the developing world, but nice. I have a double bed and my own bathroom and a big living room with a dining table and a kitchen along one wall with a slightly eccentric choice of gadgets (blender, icebucket, no kettle) and a big bowl of fruit waiting for me and a TV and even a sofa bed for visitors (hint). Also, wireless internet – woohoo! – though I only got that working this week. Anyway, if anyone’s desperately interested in my habitat I’ll post some pictures when I remember to take them. For the first little while or so I wandered about looking at things and opening cupboards (I have loads) and going Ooh. Then, in my state of extreme, near collapse tiredness, I decided I MUST (a) unpack and (b) check the itemised list of everything in the apartment (I know there is a proper name for this kind of list, damnit) for return to the housing office. So there I was, counting plates and wondering what a scratcher was (cheese grater!) and checking bedsheets until unable to actually stand. Go figure. It amuses me that I didn’t get a spatula, but a cheese grater is considered essential kitchenware. Mexicans LOVE cheese. Also sugar.

I had a bit of a weird moment when I found a contract I was supposed to sign agreeing to rent of over $700 a month, most of my salary. Now this threw me into a bit of a panic, and I was angry with myself for thinking I’d have all this money, and angry that I would only have just enough to live on and no money for having fun. I was in a really bad mood for the rest of the evening and resentful and questioning whether I should have come. It turned out the next day that I didn’t have to pay the rent after all, the paper was just to show the terms of my tenancy, but it illustrates how much control money and money-fear has over one’s/my happiness. Bah.

So the next day I got my first sights of the campus. The core of the centre is a big building full of lots of offices, the library, an auditorium etc – like any building but with that slight timewarp feeling, and lots of plants. Around that there are labs and the genebank (I’ve been inside – very cold, lots of seeds, weird being inside something built to withstand earthquakes) and big areas where seeds are stored and packed and distributed. Then there is a three-minute walk with trees and grass and the football field and you’re at the housing area. Where there are houses, surprisingly enough, and apartments and a block with rooms for temporary visitors and a posh old house for posh (old?) visitors. Also there is a big canteen and a room that turns into a bar on Fridays, and a playground and a tennis court and a small gym and a small swimming pool. Surrounding all this are fields and fields of wheat and maize.

It is a pleasant, safe place to live and work, so generally I think I ought to be happy at where I’ve landed. On the other hand, most people live and have lives in the surrounding villages, and the people who live here are fairly self-contained. It’s a ten-minute or so walk to the main gates, and then a short bus ride into Texcoco, the nearest town. Which is not inconvenient, but nonetheless I have the fear that I will end up living in a bubble and not doing things or making friends and watching a lot of Friends on the Warner channel. I know that it’s up to me to make that not the case, but none the less, I have The Fear. It’s uncomfortable not having proper friends yet and wanting the time that these things take to just get on with it, but on the other hand people are all very friendly. It’s also just a little unsettling being amongst such hardcore scientists who are fascinated by wheat diseases and genetics n’stuff.

The most terrifying thing about arriving here was whether I could be good at the work, or whether now would be that moment (you know, the one you’ve been waiting for all your life?) when I would get found out and my fraud would be exposed and everyone would know I’m rubbish after all. It occurs that I should probably clarify what I am doing: I am interning at an international agricultural research centre in Mexico for the next 12 months. I’m working for the communications team, so I’ll be spending my days writing and editing and proofreading and so on. I should probably be able to sum up what the centre does in a pithy sentence or two, but it’s late and if you're really interested I can point you at their website, which probably does it much better. Suffice it to say that it’s not all wheat diseases and genetics, the aim of the game being providing ways for poor farmers to improve their livelihoods.

Rules number one and two in the Big Book of Blogging must be “don’t give away personal information in case you get stalked” and “don’t mention your work in case you get sacked”, but, really, I can’t see this working if I don’t. Oh well. Please don’t stalk or sack me.

The build up to my first actual piece of work didn’t help my nerves, as I spent the first few days being shown round and given a computer and reading endless annual reports for background. And then my first assignment was pretty odd – interview one of the guys who works at the centre about him also being a chess master on the side, and write about it for the centre’s weekly internal bulletin. I was so very nervous – I’ve never interviewed anyone before – but it actually went well and was relaxed (I won’t go so far as to say fun…) and then Mike, the Proper Writer, really liked my piece. The relief and elation were enormous – I couldn’t stop grinning – and the guy subsequently asked for a high-resolution copy of the PDF so he could keep it for posterity! Since then I’ve edited/proofread a few things, and it seems that I can do that too, which is, again, maybe not a huge surprise objectively – I did think I could do this writing/editing thing, after all – but nonetheless SUCH a relief to know that, yes, this one thing, I can actually do.

This is clearly going to be the longest post in the world, and if you had any curiosity about My Life in Mexico, I’ve killed it nice and stony dead. Sorry. I promise subsequent posts will be shorter, if not more interesting.