Two documentaries/Shameless self-promotion

Two in-the-works documentaries that I'm indirectly and directly involved in:

The first is a feature-length film that Matt has been working on for the past few months. This past January, he spent nearly two weeks climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with a film crew, an army of Tanzanian porters and two physically challenged athletes - Tara, an amputee with a prosthetic leg, and Erica, who became the first female paraplegic to summit the mountain. The production was organized by and made for the Challenged Athletes Foundation out of San Diego, and they'll premiere the documentary in California and Ohio in May. A full trailer and more info can be found at http://throughtheroofmovie.com/

The second is a short project Matt and I are working on to submit to the ViewChange Online Film Contest, which seeks documentaries reporting how international projects are working to complete any of the UN Millennium Development Goals to eradicate poverty. Once films are submitted, viewers will have the chance to vote for their favorite video from late April to early August. Naturally, I will send you a link where you can vote for OUR video, be it the best or otherwise :) We've selected maternal mortality as the topic of our documentary, as nearly 60 maternal deaths in 100,000 live births occur each year (compared with around 5 in the United States and in Canada). The kicker, however, is that more than 80% of these deaths are very preventable, meaning the woman probably wouldn't have died if she didn't live in Middle-of-Absolutely-Nowhere, México.

To fill you in a bit on the project, last weekend, the two of us traveled to San Cristóbal de las Casas, a beautiful colonial town in the southeastern state of Chiapas (and 3 hours from the Guatemala border). From there, we teamed up with Merit, the local director for Kinal Antzetik, an NGO that promotes maternal health in indigenous communities. She took us on a 2-hour, bumpy, swerving taxi and pickup truck ride to the small community of Carmen Zacatal, where we met with around 10 traditional midwives in the three-room, one-floor concrete home of one of the midwives. Through interviews we learned that these women are essentially the lifeline for pregnant women out there. A proper clinic is hours away, and many times families have to pay a hefty sum to hitch a ride. Other times, über-traditional husbands won't let the women leave the house, especially if it means a strange man will be searching her most intimate of regions. Most of the time, the midwives aren't paid for their work, but they do it anyway because they feel their profession is a God-sent calling.

However, groups like the one Merit works with - and midwives themselves - over the past few years have greatly improved the training and education of midwives through workshops and classes. This way, they can better attend to the women at home and also recognize warning signs, particularly those that require hospital care. Organizations are also working with hospitals to better incorporate indigenous patients and midwives, as many of these women are often turned away based on lingering discrimination and/or an overly-swamped staff and/or under-qualified doctors. The midwives in Carmen Zacatal in recent years have actually reduced maternal mortality to zero, as they very proudly stated.

The women were also very happy to have us follow them on their rounds, which meant us walking into a one-room house with a camera and boom pole and watching the midwife jostle around the patient's fetus from the outside. We even saw the baby's head as the midwife repositioned the body to make sure the niño exited the right way when nine months hit. Of the three mothers whose belly-massages we witnessed, all were my age (24) or younger, and all had two other children. There's nothing really alarming about this from a health perspective, it's just weird for me, as my situation dictates that I can hardly care for more than two houseplants, let alone a human being.

The rest of the trip was very laid back; we interviewed two experts on Saturday and formally interviewed Merit on Sunday. I was hoping to get footage of a house in San Cristobal where women can go to give birth in the care of midwives, but no one was there on Monday. So, instead I just decided to get a stomach virus and mope around town miserably all day until our 8:50 p.m. flight. Next stop on the UN documentary road trip is Guerrero, where hopefully we'll be able to show how traditional midwives and modern hospitals are working collectively to combat maternal mortality.

What happens without CVS

I lament to inform you all that I've developed an ouchy cold sore (it's not herpes!!) on the inside of my lip. In the U.S., I would simply walk or drive down to the nearby CVS and grab some fancy Blistex from off the shelves. In Mexico, I walked to the closest pharmacy and showed the lady behind the counter the a list of the main ingredients in said fancy Blistex. She produced some major cold sore ointment, but then told me I couldn't use it on my gums. Fortunately, the people in line behind me suggested I apply sodium bicarbonate (or baking soda, for idiotas like me) directly to the wound. I was then instructed to some weird little sub-pharmacy within the pharmacy where you can buy raw ingredients (perfect for any residential meth lab!). For 10 pesos (80 cents), this was Mexico's answer to the no-Blistex solution:

(Not so) Tropical Tryst

...bueno, it wasn't really a tryst since I went by myself, but that's the only alliteration I could come up with for the time being. The weekend of Valentine's Day, I decided to travel solo (for the first time) up to Xalapa, in the Caribbean state of Veracruz and about 4.5 hours northeast of Mexico City. A co-worker of mine had lived there for a year while studying, and another friend had also explored the area by himself a few months earlier, so I figured it'd be worth a shot to escape the weekend doldrums.

Saturday morning began with a 6 hour bus ride to Xalapa, as severe flooding in the State of Mexico from heavy rains several days earlier had basically made a lake in the middle of the highway. As we crossed into Veracruz, the hills became greener and the skies foggy. At first, I was hoping they were low-lying clouds because I was in a mystical, tropical cloud forest (!!). But, once the rain picked up, I realized it was just airborne gloom. When I stepped off the bus at the station around 3 p.m., the weather was in the high 50s with a 24-hour drizzle. I realize this doesn't sound nearly as bad as, oh, say 2 feet of snow, but I was expecting to be carried off on a Banana Boat or something. My plan for the day was just to walk around in the sunshine while soaking in some colonial charm, which is what I did, but with a raincoat and soaked tennis shoes instead. After searching around for the hostel, I finally found it, paid my 150 pesos and set down my pack. Then I rushed in a cab to reach the Xalapa Anthropology Museum before it closed. I observed Olmec monoliths and other unearthed goodies, including slanted and flattened skulls (which, I'm told, looked hot 2,000 years ago).

After walking through the plazas and narrow brick streets while ungracefully holding a giant sandwich and cup of coffee, I came back to the hostel for a power nap. My dormmates were three very nice girls from Quebec all on separate travels throughout Mexico. Later, I searched around the hostel for some Lonely Planet-recommended bars, which ended up being either closed or hidden. Instead, I found a big bar-restaurant replete with plenty of red-and-white, heart-shaped balloon sculptures and a cover band. Sipping some wine and reading a novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, all in all I had a decent evening alone.

The next morning, I woke up early to gulp down some free hostel coffee and a jam-smothered croissant, then I hopped on a street bus to a stop where I could catch a ride to Xico, a quiet town 20 minutes away that features waterfalls and coffee farms. However, once getting to the bus stop I realized I'd left my cell phone on my bed, so I had to go back, retrieve it, and repeat all steps listed above. It was still a tad chilly, but fortunately Sunday was dry and relatively sunny.

After hopping off the bus at Xico's main cathedral and stumbling around through the streets, I hitched a ride on the back of a motorcycle from a woman who works in Xalapa as a photojournalist. She took me to the trailhead, which I happy-go-luckily wandered down for an hour, picking ripe red coffee beans off the plants and dodging the occasional car that raced past me. Then I followed some muddy trails to the tall and thunderous Texolo waterfall, and further down to the much smaller Monjas waterfall. On my way back to the park entrance, I stopped to buy some macadamia nuts from a local coffee farmer who was selling fresh grounds from a styrofoam cooler resting in a wheelbarrow. As he smashed each individual nut with his hammer against the concrete, he went on to explain how he often gave marriage advice to young people and families in the community. For women, it's most important to pick a man who doesn't drink, smoke pot or cheat. For men, it's vital to find a woman who will run the house well and also not cheat.

Once back inside Xico, I sampled a few cough syrup-size plastic cups of "torito," the local variety of wine that still leaves me questioning if there are actually any grapes in it. With a near-empty stomach and seven samples down the hatch, I felt the need to purchase a 1.5-liter bottle of berry-flavored torito (which I have still yet to open). I grabbed a bus to Coatepec, an even quieter town halfway between Xico and Xalapa, and ate a tasty cheese enchilada lunch around the courtyard at a very charming (yet utterly empty) restaurant, where I also bought some organically grown coffee to take back home. After wandering through the plaza and perusing the artisan market, I was disheartened to see the small, souvenir-size bottles of torito that I could've bought instead. I was also impressed at my resistance when faced with coffee and cocoa treats of all stretches of the imagination. Back in Xalapa, I made a loop around Los Lagos, a manmade lake where families go to rollerblade, teenagers go to make out and creepy foreigners go to stroll. By 5:30, I was on a warm and dry coach bus home to D.F.

Condesa Market of Wonders

I had always been meaning to check out the Tuesday market in Condesa, but, like many other things (i.e. buying a bike and expanding my Spanish vocabulary), it had yet to come to fruition - until this afternoon. I needed a bunch of fruits and veggies for a little fiesta I'm hosting to welcome back my friends Nick and Emily, who reported from Haiti for the Wall Street Journal and as a freelancer, respectively, and Grant, who's heading there on Thursday to cover for various outlets. I decided that rather than buy the overpriced and gross produce from the Sumesa grocery store nearby, I'd take advantage of the half-hour break before I needed to zip on over to the office.

It was magical.

If I had had more than a mere 20 minutes to spend there, I probably would've stayed for hours, stolen my rent money back from Paul and bought everything within site. Fortunately, someone else has already spoken for this market, so read more on Mark Bittman's blog.

Adventures in Mountaineering

After a couple relaxing yet essentially uneventful weekends in Mexico City following my wonderful Christmas/New Year's home visit, I finally ventured out into the great unknown. Although we didn't reach the destination originally intended for our camping trip, my 4 hiking cuates (buddies) and I still walked an enjoyable line between arduous and relaxing this weekend.

The plan was to summit Tlaloc, a 4,100-meter high inactive volcano on the eastern rim of the Valley of Mexico. We took a 1.5-hour long bus ride towards Puebla, getting off at the unremarkable town of Río Frio, a tiny pocket of a community that, despite living at the base of Tlaloc, has a limited desire to climb the mountain (unless, of course, for illegal logging or sprinkling cow pies down on the woods like rain). We got off the bus and hopped in a cab with Pedro, who regaled us with tales of his unbridled passion for pizzas and Whoppers from San Francisco, all while taking us to a really far end of the mountain (or, a 7-plus hour hike to the summit). We hiked and hiked and hiked, occasionally seeking directions from villagers guiding donkeys burdened with firewood down the trail. With a 30-pound pack on my back and short stubby legs, I managed to remain in last place for most of the time. But the tasty pasta salad I was carrying was worth the hunchback.

We hiked uphill for a few hours, mostly on paths or in small riverbeds but sometimes through steep rocky brush. Realizing we'd never make it to the summit in this lifetime, we aimed for some pretty-looking cliffs instead. On the way, we found a nice flat clearing to set up camp, which just to happened to be positioned directly in front of Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl, respectively the third and second highest mountains in all of Mexico. Distance but clear views could be seen of the snowy tops of La Malinche and Pico de Orizaba, Mexico's sixth and first highest peaks. You would have thought we'd aimed to find this spot, the view was so spectacular. Tents pitched and bonfire started, we sat around on fungus-y logs as the hot and sunny day blended into a clear chilly night. The mountains turned pink, then purple, then black as the sun set, and an impressive number of stars far exceeded the measly three or four bright spots that peek through the Mexico City smog at night. We even roasted smushed PB&Js in the fire, a last-ditch effort to both salvage the misshaped bread lumps and to simulate making s'mores. Nighttime involved me snuggling blissfully into my brand new sleeping bag (replete with a hood), until the wind against the tent sounded like angry cows laying more pies and the rock-solid ground slowly ruined my ethereal fetal position.

In the morning, we slept through the glaring bright sunrise until 9 a.m., then polished off the pasta salad and granola bars (er, and Snickers) before setting off on an amazingly easy and quick hike downhill (isn't that always the case?). On the breezy descent, we looked out across the valley and saw the summit, the faintest hint of Aztec ruins appearing through the pines. Then we (I) cursed Pedro and his affinity for hamburgers and disdain for the great outdoors. Our exit led us through the makeshift humble homes of the nondescript Río Frio; after stopping for a quick quesadilla break, we caught a bus back to Mexico City off the highway. And showered immediately after we got back.

Going out in Mexi style

It's incredibly hard to believe that this time last year, I was just coming back from a two-week trip in Mexico following my three-month internship with the Associated Press. This time around, I know for sure that I'm coming back to the D.F. and I have a job, no matter how dubious or lackluster it might be. End-of-the-year trips in Mexico have included a tranquil, lazy weekend in the colorful colonial city of Guanajuato, a toasty long weekend in Puerto Escondido with Matt and his parents (who stayed for 10 days, lucky), and a Sunday hike to Ajuso, a mountain just outside Mexico City and reachable by a series of 2-peso metro rides and 4-peso bus rides for a 1.5-hour journey. Here are some pics. Perhaps I'll add witty comments when I feel like it.

El Pípila in Guanajuato
Santa Fe hotel with the Peters in Puerto Escondido
Being cold in the forests of Ajusco.

Choonimals for Charity

As most of you probably know, my boyfriend Matt and five of his friends own Choonimals Clothing Company, a T-shirt company that prints "abstract" animals onto American Apparel gear. This December, the company is designating 10 percent of all sales to La Casa de la Sal, a Mexico City orphanage for children and teens living with HIV/AIDS.

We kicked off the event by making a US$500 donation and publishing a subsequent promotional video (www.choonimals.com/charity). The goal is to raise $500 more to make a second donation.

Five hundred bucks is certainly a lot of money for most people in Mexico - it's a lot of money for me. It was definitely a weird feeling when we purchased $500-worth of medicine for the pharmacy and left with around 10 small boxes of prescriptions that fit into one petite plastic bag. Considering the average cost per child there is 10,000 pesos a month (about $775), with 25 kids at the orphanage and 40 enrolled in the home-care program, 500 bucks is kind of a small clink in the proverbial bucket. The nurses, however, were incredibly happy with the work we were doing for the orphanage, and it was nice to know that at least they thought we were making a difference even if to me it felt like a trivial act of charity.

That said, buy some Choons and help the niños!