An Adventure; A Mission To Absorb People Places And Things

Day one in Chiapas: Today Chrissy, Michelle and I embarked on a cultural scavenger hunt designed by or Professor Gary. He wrote out some directions of street names, rights and lefts, on how to get to specific things around San Cristobal without the use of a map. We were on an adventure to observe sights, sounds, people and smells. We visited several churches compared there architecture and color, visited a library where we looked through the collection of literature where I selected a book from the history section, sat down among what looked to be the high school students and some scattered adults, and began to flip through the book. Obviously the book was written in Spanish so I tried as best as I could to find the words that I recognized then paired them with the illustrations of that page and drew a very rough idea of what I was reading. The words were not the focus for me though. I sat in this small library surrounded by the local people of this area and focused on being present. As I looked through the pages of the book and took in the history from the illustrations in its pages I couldn’t help but wonder how many people from the area had chose this book to read before it landed into my hands. I looked up from its pages and scanned the room of young people and felt a sense of difference knowing that i was a unique traveler; I knew that not many travelers to this area would spend any time in a small public library reading about the history of its people, surrounded by its people.

Later we walked together down the streets talking about the atmosphere and what we were seeing and feeling. Without knowing it we were avoiding every ‘normal’ touristy activity; which is in most cases is wrapped up in consumerism. Are goal for the day was to explore and absorb and that is what we set out to accomplish.
We stopped along a walkway to watch a man dancing it this huge character costume that represented a chain of pharmacies here in Mexico. This particular person in the costume was really giving it his all and had attracted a small group of people as we approached. Shortly after we had stopped we were approached by a few guys who spoke English! This is kind of a big deal when you are surrounded by a foreign language. It gave us a sense of a familiarity. They asked what we were doing here in San Cristobal and we explained that we were on placement for school, learning about the culture of Mexico, studding the affects of poverty and strategies to help people sustain a life that they hope to have, as well as our adventure we were on today. They we very supportive and interested in our journey and told us that they were on a journey themselves. They were a small group of people who were driving several vehicles from the USA to Costa Rica to deliver supplies to one of the offices of the organization. It was an amazing feeling to stumble across people in the street thousands of miles away from home that had similar ideals about life and had chosen a life path that I could relate to. We exchanged information and agreed to meet up later and talk more about one another’s adventures. We would have stayed to chat longer if we were playing the role of a tourist but that was not on our agenda for the afternoon; we were on a mission to explore and absorb.

We made our way to the zocolo and sat at the steps of the cathedral. The girls sat down first and were almost instantly surrounded by woman and children trying to sell them their craft and homemade, beautiful, cloth and jewellery. I decided to not sit with them to avoid the awkwardness of turning them away. It is not an easy thing to say no to a woman or a child trying to sell you something and asking you over and over again to buy, dropping their price each time. I know that they rely on these sales for survival; for food and clean water to drink. As they begin to drop their prices from 50 pesos to 25 to 15 pesos (which is less than a dollar and a half Canadian) you begin to realize the desperation of the people here. Furthermore it is one thing to turn away a grown woman but it is quite another to turn away a child. On my first trip to Mexico the sight of a child approaching me to buy from them broke my heart and I couldn’t say no, I couldn’t walk away. This year I was challenged to look at the situation from a different perceptive. Some families live in such poverty they are forced to send their children out onto the street to sell to tourists. When young, adorable children come home at the end of a 10 hour day with a handful of money from tourist who couldn’t turn away, who couldn’t say no to their little faces it shows their parents how profitable a young child is. The next day, they will send that child back out to the streets because they can potentially make twice as much as their parents. not because of what they are selling or because they have excellent salesmanship skills but because first world people feel to ashamed to turn the other way, and really how can you in good conscience say no. The reality of the situation is if you are buying things from children you are enabling the problem.
These children should be in school, they should be playing, they should be having a childhood but instead they are sent to the streets to sell because they generate profit. When we, as tourists, buy things from a child because we feel sorry for them we are showing their parents that they are right; children are profitable. After that revolution I vowed never to purchase anything from a child again. That being said the girls politely said no thank you to the woman and children trying to sell their goods and they left. After all today was not a day for buying there will be time later for that.

Once the sellers had cleared I joined the girls on the steps of the cathedral and we began talking to a man a few steps up from us. He had an aura about him that radiated the air around him. A kind of content and peace that was hard not to notice. He began asking us question of what we were doing and we explained the cultural scavenger hunt we had been on all morning that lead us to this point. In return we asked him what he was doing here in Chiapas. His response was pure and simple; he was on an adventure with no particular agenda in mind. He was traveling on motorcycle to where ever the journey took him. This man was one of those rare people that can truly be in a moment and appreciated it for its simplicity. We spoke of many things touching on traveling, adventures, déjà vu, and the concept of experiential learning. I asked him where his final destination was. His responce was ‘well I’m going to die one day’. That was the best answer i have ever heard.
We parted ways with him and continued on our day. We wondered through the wavers market which was a place where many people gather each day to sell their crafts. It was an explosion of colors and textures, truly a treat for the senses. We continued through, not buying just observing and taking it all in. On our way back to the main zocolo we stopped to look at these carved out coconuts that where shaped into different animals. The man who was making them spoke English and he asked us where we came from. We in turn asked him where he had learnt to speech English so well and he told us he had learned it from selling things on the streets. Things seemed so hard to wrap my mind around. These past few weeks I have struggled so much with the language I couldn’t imagine the amount of concentration it must take to learn a language that way. We said our good bye and continued on or day. As we left he said to us ‘don’t work to hard girls; if you work to hard you will get old fast’

Later on when we were debriefing with Gary about what had happened on our cultural discovery scavenger hunt i realize something. Today we were tourists but not in the typical sense. We had been on an adventure, a mission to absorb people, places and things and to avoid being sucked into the temptation of the almighty consumption. In doing so we met some very interesting people. On our journey not once did we approach people but rather people approached us. These incredibly interesting individuals recognized something about us and were intrigued to know more. By not being a tourist and by having a purpose for our day, without even realizing it, we were radiating energy that attracted people to us. Our energy was pure and transcended to other like minded people who were perceptive to that energy. As a result we had real human connection several times today with people whose tales I admire and respect.