These few weeks have been intense. I’ve been in a unbelievable number of SNAP related meetings, but I am grateful that my state is trying to make up at least some of the gap. Our call volume for food related needs rose dramatically from September to October, every single sort of food category experienced at least a 50% increase over the one month period. UPDATE- seems like Oregon may have distributed benefits in full on the 7th.
One of my lines is going to be launching a program, like now, to help support the most vulnerable with food access. Standing up a new line in 3 days is actually something I have a fair amount of practice at these days, and actually it’s a space I thrive in, but nonetheless it’s also kinda a lot.
Unfortunately this occurred in conjunction with Day of the Dead Weekend.
Friday night, I went for tacos and then to a cafe with Liz, Isabella, Adam, and Adam’s friend Aaron. This is my hiking crew. They are Mexican, American, & French. They are all older than me, they all speak more Spanish than me, and all but one have also been divorced. We talked about life here, about politics in America, about our llves, about sex, about our work, and we did it all in Spanish. It was really nice, and actually my perfect learning environment. Everyone is bilingual and no one wants to go to a loud ass club or bar, which definitely makes a multi person convo in Spanish much more feasible for me.
I did sneak out for about last Saturday to go down to San Angel with Fran. This is an older, wealthier, stupidly charming part of town that has a big Saturday market. This Saturday it was loaded with ofrendas.
Ofrendas come in all shapes and sizes. Most are a private area affair set up in a home to invite a loved one for the holiday. From what I can tell they always have marigolds, they often have at least two tiers, sugar skulls, pan de muerto, and some kinda alcohol. In homes, they generally have an item or two specifically geared toward the person or persons the ofrenda has been made for. Public ones are an art form. They are found in public squares, in restaurants and shops, in parks.
Sunday was mostly work oriented, but I did manage to pop down to Mercado Cien for some tomatoes. The walkway in the middle of Alvaro Obregon is housing the Craneos. There’s so much art associated wtih this holiday, particularly in Mexico City, and the merging of private grief with public acknowledgment of everyone having suffered loss is just really beautiful and resonates deeply with me. I know this deep sense of loss is temporary.
This last week continued to be busy at work. A manager who works for me is on leave and a lead submitted their notice, so a little extra stuff for me to support and the SNAP drama has only continued. It’s continued to be a rough week emotionally as well. But I managed to make myself do some things.
My treadmill arrived and I ran on it. Not very and not very fast, but you start somewhere.
Wednesday I went to dinner at Ceci’s, her mom is in town and made us mote de queso, a Colombian soup traditionally found on the coast. From what I can tell there is no other type of mote. It’s made with yucca, yams, and queso costeño. She also made some epicly good coconut and beans rice. Fran did not go so I was the only one who prefers English and Ceci’s mom does not speak English, so everything was in Spanish. This was a difficult environment for me. They all know each other well and tend to talk over one another and lean into long standing jokes and chisme that is all over my head. But it was fun and practicing listening at length is always good for me. Ceci’s new apartment is quite nice with a stunning view of the city, though the building security is a little over the top and required our IDs.
Saturday, I went with Liz and Ian on a hike in Hidalgo at Cascada Dos Mundos. Hidalgo is the state to the north of Mexico and is home to some very lovely scenery and lots of water, but it’s also a bit of a trek. So we started at 6am and drove and drove and drove. On the way out we saw the hot air balloons beginning their ascent over Teotihuacan. Dozens of them lifting off in the skyline. It was really quite remarkable.
Then we got a wee bit lost.
And then we found ourselves.
This a smaller park and looks maybe family run? There is one restaurant, one artisan shop, one dude running a zipline, some campsites and some cabins. A maybe 13 year old girl came out and offered to be our guide for tip alone. We were decked out in hiking gear. She was wearing pajamas and converse.
The view up top is of a deep ravine and very cool, very modern bridges that traverses it. Our guide led us downhill in the opposite direction. There were hosting a “Night of Terror” and the beginning of our trek was thus themed with spiders and skeletons dangling around us. The trail was muddy which was an amazing difference from the dust around the city.
The trail took us through a jungle like environment with Mexican tree ferns, bromeliads, and a variety of flowers in the open spaces. We followed the river from waterfall to waterfall which roared after the rains.
Being around water always brings back up that Mexico City is not my forever home and it feels like there’s things I want to do here and want to experience while I’m here, but maybe after those, I move on. And I think there’s a power and a beauty in getting to a point where I’m so at home in myself that restarting, rebuilding- all the “re” words- feels like opportunity and doesn’t just sound exhausting. Not there yet, but I think it’s where I’m trying to point this boat.
Regardless, it was a ridiculously beautiful day and outside of the city the sky was brilliantly blue and refreshing. Maybe that’s the other half of knowing my time here is limited, how happy I always am to leave the city. As much as I love its vitality and its art, its food and eccentricities, sometimes what I love best are the moments and spaces of quietitude I encounter, all the more precious for their scarcity. You don’t quite realize the white noise that’s accompanied everything until you hit one, like early in the morning on the weekends in Parque Mexico. They talk about the amount of tech, of devices ruining our ability to pay attention to a single thing. And in some ways Mexico City has long been that, just a constant stream of inputs, from the smells, to the sounds, to the non stop movement and the sheer fact that you cannot just walk without paying attention or you will trip and fall. To cars dubious relationship with red lights, to murals covering walks, and trees uprooting the sidewalk, its a constant flood of sensory information and sometimes its lovely to just be aware of maybe just one or two things.
After seeing the falls and traversing a suspension bridge, we began heading back up toward the parking lot and across down to a trail that would take to us a waterfall under the highway bridge. This was a new trail and the beginning was a bit exposed, I slathered sunscreen all over my pasty self, but the flowers and butterflies were all about it, dancing through the sunlight. This trail was less used and we found ourselves quite alone as we descended, which was very nice. It was, I think, both farther and steeper than anticipated but opened to a river bed with rocky shores and an impressive waterfall.
Ian spotted a tree frog and we all took an excessive number of photos of the little guy. I’m not sure why he was out in the sun, seemed to exposed for a tree frog. But there he was tucked on a rock, basking away as though he were a lizard.
We stayed by the fall for a bit, letting the mist hit our faces before beginning the trek back up the ravine. While most definitely up, it was not as brutal as I’d anticipated. The whole ravine has little rivulets running down and mini wooden bridges to traverse them but it makes for a very lush and fresh feeling hike, even up.
We ate at the restaurant back up at the top and then headed to Acaxochitlán, the road took us through small towns, mainly agricultural. We drove past squash and lean tos, past greenhouses that looked full of tomatos and field upon field of dying corn.
Ian learned what a “tope” is.
Acaxochitlán is one of the Pueblos Mágicos. This a program developed by the Secretariat of Tourism to recognize and promote the economies of small towns that offer “cultural richness, historical relevance, cuisine, and arts n crafts.” With over 170 designated towns, some are not so mágico. And while pleasant and cute, this one definitely fell into that category. We grabbed some coffee and strawberries with cream (this is like a thing in Mexico) and hit the road.
Sunday once again found me headed to Mercado Cien, this time on my bici! I stopped by Maque, a panaderia for their pan de muerto and might have just encountered my favorite. 1. They have a mini option. 2. There’s candied orange in there. I scarfed it down so fast that you don’t get a photo. But afterwards I wandered to Huerto Roma and they still had their altar up.
Kacy & Mike got in late last night. So we will be embarking on a week of adventure and tourism. I am so happy they are here and really need the time away from work.
Tacos of the Week. El Taquito Sotelo
This is the taco joint Liz took us to. There’s a juice place attached. You go to the caja, pay, get a receipt and then take it to the taco stand or juice stand and receive your item, then you take it to the other one. These were very good tacos, but I don’t know that I’d ever make the trek again for a taco stand. Both the beauty and the problem of a taco stand is that it’s not particularly hang out able- although this may change. I have not yet developed the Mexican habit of continuously ordering more and more tacos. I just order how many tacos I think I want. Mexicans seem to order a couple tacos at a time, with the expectation that they’ll get more tacos.
Year One Project 
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