The literal heartbeat of just about any Mexican village (second to the church of course!) has to be the Internet. Without it we are all cut off from the modern world and isolated in ways that we can't even fathom if we've not left the US for more remote parts. In the Nahua Indian village where I lived when I first arrived in Mexico last year, I had one electrical plug to support my Macbook Pro laptop, my Canon camera, my HP 3-lb. field printer (what a jewel!), my iPod combination charging stand and speaker unit, and - fortune of fortunes - an electric fan. My kind friends had strung a line from a nearby electrical pole, across Dona Martina's barnyard and into my hut. All of this equipment fit nicely into one of those tiny, rolling carry-on bags, so I didn't have to risk losing my entire world by checking my baggage. Many of you already know this from the early entries in my blog, from those days of shock and wonder spent exploring the bat caves and turtle nests along the ocean's edge in that paradisical world of fishermen and their nets, hog wallows and outhouses, and iguana dreams (I have posted many videos from the village on facebook and youtube under Mia Pratt).
I arrived in the Nauha village prepared to write my blog and send entries and videos back to the US every week, as a way of sharing my impressions as I underwent the culture shock of truly primitive life. Unfortunately, what I envisioned and what I got were two different things; there was one Internet cafe in the village, which was located about a mile from my hut, and it didn't have high-speed internet - so all I could send home were e-mails, with no photos or video. It took me a month to figure out how to get my physical CDS out of Mexico and back to the US; I had to walk from the village up to the highway, wait for an antequated bus, and then take it to a town called La Placita 1 hour away, where I had to wait for a second bus to take me 2 more hours into the town of Tekoman (you remember the Tekoman stories!!!) in ridiculously hot and humid temperatures - where I then had to walk and take a cab to an Estafeta office (like UPS) where for a mere $50 US I could send out a little stack of CDS.
I think back to those days and have to laugh at myself - my naivete, my stubborn determination, my sheer gringa-ness. One day trudging through the sand along the beach to the Internet cafe in flip-flops, toting my 10-lb bag-o-electronics, I was really feeling sorry for myself knowing that I had to go through all of this annoying discomfort just to send an e-mail which I could never even be sure was possible until arriving at the cybercafe, since about 50% of the time the system was down. So as I approached the last leg of my walk, complaining to myself under my breath as sweat dripped down my neck and blisters rubbed on my feet, here comes this tiny little Indian woman who had to be at least 80 - and on her back she carried what I can only describe as a portable hut; it was a bundle of sticks and canvas so large it protruded out on both sides for at least 3 feet and was a good yard deep. She looked like a dog being ridden by a polar bear! As we passed each other on the beach, I felt a tremendous desire to throw down my electronics bag and help her get her load home, but I could not - with my purse and computer bag, I was maxed out with no place to stash my stuff while I helped her home. As we passed she smiled at me with a wide, gold-toothed grin and nodded her head, adding some friendly greeting in Nahuatl. After she passed I had a sudden, visceral reaction that spread through my veins like a double-shot of tequilla, giving me a kind of hot, dizzy feeling. I sat my bag in the sand, dropped to my knees and started crying like a 12-year-old, right there on the vast empty beach as egrets waded nearby and the waves crashed on the shore. In that moment I realized how out of touch I was with reality, and with humanity; I'm not sure how much of my little breakdown was about the old woman who was allowed to carry such a load by her village peers, and how much of it was about my shame over my own shallowness and self-centeredness - or perhaps in seeing her, I recognized feelings I harbored about my own life - that I, too, was destined to carry a heavy load alone through life, one that often felt too large to bear. After a few minutes, I dusted myself off and continued down the beach, my sadness replaced by a lightness of heart at the irony of our two worlds crossing in this remote place. That day, I got over myself - I let go of feeling sorry for myself, or seeing myself as somehow separate from the rest of humanity. That day, something inside of me was liberated.
Here in this village, with the luxury of cobblestone streets and Internet right in my own casita, I live in the lap of luxury; there is no scorpion-ridden outhouse to navigate, no giant sink in the middle of the barnyard needed to wash my clothes and dishes. I have an actual porcelain toilet and running water...right there inside the house! I own only enough possessions to fill 3 suitcases, not counting my books - and I like it that way. There are moments when I feel frightened because I have no car, no house, no big savings account, to one to rescue me if a single domino falls and starts an avalanche that carries me beyond what I can control - but then I remember the woman with the bundles on her back, and I realize my good fortune. I have love, I have friends, I have family, I have faith, and I have happiness. These are my new possessions, and I need no luggage to carry them with me on this honeymoon for one.
