The biggest feet in Mexico

I have done this before. I remember hitting India after two months of backpacking and wanting to claw my eyes out. I recall telling Alec that I wanted to make a public address to the Indian citizens about how they could run their country a little better. And we had eight months left to go of our trip. Three months later, as we rode out of Calcutta in a taxi, I felt strangely sad. India was setting up shop for another day in the life and I wasn't going to be there to see it. Culture shock is a strange thing - you may understand it and anticipate it, but it doesn't make it go away. You just know that it will at some point.

I remember a guy at the Fulbright conference that reacted to my TJ placement by saying "Tijuana! That's the United States!" I personally have never seen the army patrolling the streets of Atlanta armed with machine guns, nor have I seen men blowing fire out of their mouths for money at home.

Little things just seem so difficult. I went to grad school in Spain - nice, developed western country- and remember a point when I was sick of a simple task taking all afternoon. Or two days. And I still don't know why dog owners in Madrid allow their pets to shit on the sidewalk. Most tasks here have taken me two or three shots to complete. When the pinche gas tank behind our house sprang a leak, it took two extra trips from the gas men, with their singing truck, to repair it. Paying the utilities was a nightmare. "Just go to OXXO" everyone told us. We discovered that you can't pay for everything at OXXO. Especially when all of your utilities have massive back charges on them. Walking, trudging through Villa Fontana and up and down Cucapah, hunting for some certain place where we could pay our bills. I am a little concerned about my landlord's financial situation. Back charges with the electric company, water company and overdue mortgage payments. I was surprised when I saw her mortgage bill. She is charging us about seven extra dollars a month. I think the goal is simply that the mortgage gets paid, not to actually make money. Apparently a lot of people don't pay their mortgages here; the company posts the overdue bills on the outside of the mailboxes, name, house number, everything, for all to see. A repo man came to our house to take our landlord's car, but she doesn't live here, we do.

I wanted to start using some audio in my classes. In order to play "Seven Nation Army", I bought a little boom box. Surely it would have good sound, judging from the booming speakers I have heard screaming from inside cars, from on top of cars, mounted on a plane that flies over our house and on various street corners. No such luck, if the kids moved their chairs we couldn't hear it. One classroom didn't even have a functioning electrical outlet. One enterprising student noticed an outlet up by the ceiling, scaled the wall to plug in the crap ass boom box and created a tower of notebooks to balance it on, all just to hear the White Stripes. I bought a set of computer speakers. They have come out of their box once after hearing the meager sound the produce. HOW COULD THIS BE? My printer seems to be suffering from the same, fuck you Hilary virus and will now only print from Alec's computer. I bought ink for it and after opening the package, found a mispackaged cartridge that wouldn't function in the printer. WHY, WHY, WHY?

I also appear to have the largest feet in Mexico. In desperate need of a pair of work shoes, I entered shoe stores all over Tijuana, only to be told that they don't carry my (gigante) size. "Look at her feet, they're pretty big" Alec pointed out repeatedly as we hunted through TJ. I finally crossed over to Chula Vista and bought a cheap pair of shoes from Target. They leave my feet covered in bloody gashes, but I guess I look a little better than the day I went to school wearing a pair of Pumas with my work clothes. No one said anything.

There is this nice lady that works at the OXXO by our house. She schools the kids that work as baggers about how I bring my own cloth bag to avoid plastic consumption. I avoid her now, because I fear she is monitoring my massive beer consumption. We, well I, ripped through their supply of Bohemia and had to turn to Sol. As I grabbed the last six pack of Bohemia, a man commented "That's the good stuff!" as he walked by with a 20 ounce can of Tecate. It's good to know all the right people. One day, I snuck in during the afternoon and quickly ran out with my six pack, thinking that I had missed her. And there she was, hopping out of her car, waiving, a knowing look on her face.