Can You Wash My Hair Please

Day three: today Chrissy Caila and I went for a morning walk, without the large group. We focussed on fitness today as opposed to exploring and picture taking. We got back from the walk with enough time before breakfast to have showers if we wanted. I chose not to have a shower and asked Mel to wash my hair. Having someone wash your hair is not something you encounter often as an adult. It’s a very caring process or at least it felt that way. I appreciated it very much, not because it was a huge task, but because it was a bonding personal experience between the two of us. This moment was not drawn out or intimate per say but looking back on it seems precious. It is one of those things that I have found are unique to group living or travelling with people who you become close with. At least in my experience these types of interactions tend happen in times that you are living in close quarters with individuals. Small moments like this one validate the importance for me to go on journeys like the one I am on now. The journey presents opportunities for these types of interactions to happen between people but the magic is not the interaction alone but being able to recognize the moment and appreciate it that is truly remarkable. Having the clarity of mind to see these moments and feel them is what makes travelling so important to me. I think it is the lack of technology and distractions that come with living in a first world that intensifies these moments.
It has become so important for me to ‘un-plug’. My head gets so cluttered with the fast passed busy world I call home that moments seem to slip away with hardly an acknowledgment that they even happened let alone understanding there importance. I want to be able to find a balance between the two worlds I find myself a part of; the world I was born into and that I know well and the world I gravitate towards to find peace of mind and to re- center the importance of me being alive and part of the world. I need to work on finding a way to mend these two realities together. Why is it so hard to find a balance?

After breakfast we took a bus to the Zocalo in Cuernavaca and walked through the cathedral. We tried to climb the stairs to the top of the bell tower to see the view but unfortunately the door was locked. So we made our way to a garden to have some relaxing reflection time. The gardens were beautiful and lush. There were some people there selling different things but for once there was no pressure to buy. They really just let people be. Chrissy and I walked the grounds and talked before meeting up with the other girls. Then Michelle Caila, and I decided to take a small boat ride, row boat, around a pond in the garden. It was a great time once we figured out how to paddle correctly. After we split up Michelle and Mel went to the internet cafe and Caila, Chrissy and I went on a hunt for pizza and cerveza’s! We were successful with the pizza but before we had a chance to have the cerveza’s Caila realized she had lost her wallet. We all went back to the last place she had had it but we all knew that the chances of us finding her wallet were very slim. Needless to say we had no luck.

Later on in the evening before dinner a speaker came in to talk to us about her efforts and the efforts of many other naturalist organizations in trying to preserve and protect the water forest here in central Mexico. There was a lot of information and I would be here all night typing if I regurgitated it. But it was a very well done presentation; I have pictures of some of the slides to jog my memory later

It’s an early morning tomorrow so this is where I will leave it....

All In a Mornings Walk

Day two: I had my first morning walk today, and it felt good to start the day early with some relaxed physical activity, which is not something I have done a lot lately. I decided to join the large group for the walk this morning which I quickly felt was not the same as our smaller group walks from last year. There was a group of at least 10 people which seemed like more of a travelling posse in the wee hours of morning in the streets of Ahuatepec than a relaxing reflective walk.

This I think put me off a little bit. I felt incredibly awkward walking the streets with this large group of people, not because of the individuals in the group but rather what the large gathering of white English speaking people all walking together represented. I felt touristy and somehow it took the authenticity away from the experience. I found myself walking slightly behind the group so as to try and hide the fact that I was a part of the group; a part of the tourists. In away I didn’t want to be discriminated against. I didn’t want to be placed into that category. I felt judged in that group and I wanted desperately to not be associated with that. Being in a group that large strolling down the streets, passing the store owners who had just begun to set up for the day, seemed intimidating. We were looked at as, well, a bunch of silly tourists. I felt like if I had been walking down the same street, passing the same people that morning by myself they might still think tourist but there is also that mystery factor. Why is she here? Is she a tourist or does she live here? Maybe she’s visiting someone? Or maybe she is just a silly tourist. But somehow being by myself made me feel less judged and I suppose a little more unique.

Later when I was reflecting on this I thought it was quite odd that at home in Canada I feel the exact opposite. If I am alone whether it be for a walk or out to dinner or to a movie, I feel judged. Why is she alone? She must not have friends? I feel bad for that girl who is all alone, poor her. But when I am out with a group there is a certain comfort within that circle of people. Being surrounded by a group of people makes me feel important and wanted; part of something.

After breaky we took a bus to...... which is an ‘orphanage’. So it is basically a place for children whose parents or parent cannot take care of them or cannot provide for them. Some of the children there do not have parents but most do. We entered the metal gates to this, let’s call it group living, and we’re greeting by several small children how only took a few seconds to familiarize themselves with me before throwing their arms around me in a quick hug around my waist. I was surprised and a little taken back by their affection so quickly. I didn’t have to prove myself to them, I didn’t have to earn they trust to gain affection. It was just given freely and instantly.

Although there was a great deal of wonderfully loving things going on around me today, being surrounded by children who just wanted attention, I felt closed. I felt, no I was, just going through the motions but I wasn’t open to it. I had hit a wall that I was unfamiliar with and that I could not name. I was frustrated that I wasn’t experiencing this day to its full potential but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t break through the wall; I couldn’t open myself up. I went through the day and played with the children, hugged them, watched them play and interact with my fellow travellers, I watched the excitement they get when I gave them my camera to take pictures with and from the outside looking at me you would never know that I was struggling with the day but I was. Later in the evening during debriefing with Gary I discussed the way I was feeling in the group and conversation turned to a memory that Michelle had had years earlier involving a friend’s mother, her friend and herself. Her friend’s mother was a DSW and at time would invite the two girls to come hang out with her and some of the people she supported. Michelle said she would say no thanks, and realized that it had been because she didn’t know how to act and was a little scared to be around them. This made me think about the first time I walked into placement for Katimavik. I walked into community livings adult day program and was greeted my 20 or more intellectually challenged people all coming at me at once and I was absolutely terrified! I remember realizing later that I had been so scared because I did know or understand how to communicate with them or what to do or how to act; I was walking in to a situation disabled in a sense. This memory of being scared was similar to the feeling I had when I was visiting the children. They were all taking in Spanish and I didn’t understand anything that they were saying, not one thing. And I found myself, not ignoring them, but not trying to figure out what they were saying either. I felt so disabled. I found myself frustrated and shy at the same time. This may have been a reason why I began to feel so closed. But it’s just a thought.


Later in the afternoon we jumped on a bus and grabbed a bite to eat near the Zocalo. After Chrissy and I took a walk through the Zocalo to check out what was going on. There was some kind of drumming and dancing show in the center that we stopped to watch. We ended up meeting a young woman named Paola She spoke English so we began talking and she told us that she was from the US but had moved here with her parents. She had only been in Cuernavaca for one week though so she didn’t know many people. We explained to her what we were here doing and invited her to come join us for an afternoon while we were exploring the churches and museums. She loved the idea and offered to be our translator if we needed. So it worked out well, she was new to the area and didn’t know many people and we were definitely new to the area and didn’t speak much Spanish, it was a match made in traveler’s heaven; we could explore together!