corrective action

No, I am not interested in corrective action (I am referring to the comment on the blog). My father would be, I believe. My father stops people on the street who smoke and tells them that they should drop the habit because it will kill them. It seems to be a norm among people of my father's generation to tell other people what is best for them... at least in Poland. It requires much patience on my part... My hometown Poznan looks really nice: streets are extremally clean, there are many new buildings and the old ones are nicely restored, there are many cafes and restaurants, etc., etc. but I have noticed tension here which I haven't encountered during my previous trips. People are nervous and I can feel their impatience and irritation... maybe because I got here just before the elections for the Polish government and Poles are very much affected by the political life of their country. They always were but now the political life got very complicated... There are many political parties and the people who are in them don't have "clean hands" - most of them were or are involved in acts of corruption... I decided not to cast any votes because I lost contact with the Polish political arena and I don't know some of the people who run for the various posts. The presidential elections will be held in two weeks. I am really curious what the future will bring for Poland...

I spent most of the past week visiting the family of my father. I didn't have much contact with my father's family when I was growing up. I knew the father of my father was one of the 16 kids but he and all his siblings died before I was born except the youngest uncle who was the 16th child (I met him when I was 10 years old). My father's family came from Krolewiec (on the Baltic Sea) around the First World War to the area close to Poznan. Krolewiec is a very interesting place since it changed hands many times and was influenced by Polish, Russian and German culture. Now it belongs to Russia and is named Kaliningrad. When it belonged to Germany it was called Konigsberg (it was part of East Prussia). We found out from one of my father's cousins, aunt Halina, that one of their uncle had 23 kids! And some of them are still alive hence extensive trips to visit the family... The area in which they all live is very beautiful. There are lots of pine forests, farmlands, meadows, little towns and villages, many palaces and arboretrums... Most of the forests are state-owned and one can just stop at the edge of the forest and go for a walk or to pick mushrooms. I also walked around Poznan as if I was a tourist and found many interesting buildings around the old market square and I went to see the very old townhouse which my grand grand parents built (the parents of my father's mother) and in which my cousin lives now. I also visited Golebia Street (The Dove Street) where the ballet school is and you can see through the old beautiful windows the ballet dancers practising and a woman accompanying them on the piano, just as I remember them practicing and accompaying long long time ago, when I walked through Golebia Street when I was a girl. I also found a nice cafe Kawiarnia Krolewska which serves deeeeelicious hot chocolate.

I am also spending time with my mom and my doggies Buffcio and Maksio. B&M are having wonderful time in the forest behind our house. My mom takes them there every day for running around, chasing each other and bathing in the Rusalka lake (Rusalka is a kind of a water ghost, a bit like a mirmaid but not entirely). I went around the lake Rusalka with my dear friend Hania, who has been my friend since we were 10 years old, and we spent a wonderful evening talking about our lives and enjoying the lake and the forest, as we always do when we meet there. There are things in life which are everlastingly wonderful - we probably made a 1000th trip around this lake and every time we go around (or run as we used to be running around it before I left Poland) I feel as if I was walking around it the first time and at the same time it's so warmingly familiar...

More about Poland soon. And I haven't forgotten about the end of the trip in Mexico and "Mujer. Divina y Humana." I will write about it soon.

Poland

After many hours of travel I got to Poland yesterday evening so it took me two days to get here from Mexico City. I went through Miami, Zurich and Warsaw. In Mexico City it was about 20 degrees Celsius when I was leaving, in Miami it was 32, in Zurich 9 and in Warsaw and Poznan about 12. Warm, hot, cold, warm. I flew with American Airlines first and then by Swiss Air and AA to Swiss is like a one starr hostal to Mariott five star. AA is dirty, the food is disgusting and the flight attendants look as if their work was some kind of sacrifice... Swiss Air is the best. My favorite airport is still the Helsinki airport but the Zurich airport is very nice as well. It is very elegant and was designed with great care. The Warsaw airport is, well... one of the worst I have seen and its shabiness hit me after flying there from the Zurich airport... It is also very disorganized and it's hard to get any information there... And so is the main train station. The direction to the bathroom stated that it's upstairs. After I climbed the long stairs up I found a typical wc lady (who since the deep communist time is called the "toilet granny" - czyli babcia clozetowa) sitting in front of the wc door who informed me that the bathroom is closed and I have to go down and outside of the station where there's another one. I wonder if paying the toilet granny just to provide this piece of information, instead of putting a sign downstairs regarding wc operation, is a way to cut unemployment... I decided that the surrealism which accompanied life in Poland before the system transformation still exists to the same extend... just slightly different... It looks like the whole Warsaw is covered with big billboards advertising politicians running for different posts in the government, many of them being disgraced in the past for involvement in various large scale corruption scandals. There's this really good Polish author and playwright Slawomir Mrozek (who lived for a long time in Mexico) whose work involved the absurdities of life in Poland and every time I encountered some absurdity I thought that it was, as the saying goes, "straight from Mrozek." I think I am so sensitive to absurdities in Poland because I spent the most of my life here and I saw the people's struggle for independence and the transformation of the political and economy system and it pains me to see how divided people seem to be now and how the old ideals have been lost...

I will write more about this and about my last days in Mexico City soon. Swiss Air is the best but the only thing I can complain about is that they lost my luggage. It went to Rome instead to Warsaw and I have to go home and wait for its delivery. It's been fun wearing my mother's clothes but I prefer my own stuff...

Coyacan

Today I was in Coyacan again and I found this really nice cyber cafe and wrote a lot about the other places I saw in Mexico City and a lot about the sacred feminine and... it all disappeared because the electricity was cut for five minutes. I felt like bitting my bottom - it's a Polish expression (ugryzc sie w tylek, jak to pieknie brzmi) but it's translatable and I think it shows my frustration perfectly. So, I will recreate what I wrote either tomorrow or when I get to Poland because I am leaving this Sunday, first to Miami, then to Zurich, then to Warsaw and then by train to Poznan. I was supposed to go next week but I got the worst allergy reaction in my life to what seems the pollution in Mexico D. F. I can't breathe, my body is puffed up and the eye infection has been lasting since I came here. I feel like the anaphylitic shock is on it's way so I am just lying low, waiting for the plane on Sunday... trying to stay away from the meds... I will go to Wiselka to visit Michal and I am sure the fresh air of the Baltic Sea will ventilate my lungs thoroughly. I will walk on long and wide deserted beach, contemplate my past travels and prepare for my next adventure...

I have not been writing many individual e-mails lately but I promise I will write more from Poland during my rest there.

Oaxaca and Mexico D.F.

Continuing my story about Oaxaca. I didn't stay there very long because the atmosphere was missing... It's a beatiful city but there was something missing, that something which makes me want to stay in certain places longer than a day. During the day I stayed in Oaxaca I wondered around the streets, churches, and plazas. I also went to Mounte Alban - it's a Zapotec culture city located about 20 minutes' drive from Oaxaca. It's quite big and it's possible to see the pyramids, walls, tombs and sculptures (also of sacrifices, as is the case with all such bloody cultures). I walked and walked around and then lied down on the grass shaded by a few trees and had my customary "Nap on the Ruins." When I wake up from such a nap I am always full of new ideas - must be the ghosts of all the people who built the city and lived there who wisper into my ears while I sleep... When I came back to the hostal a new person came to my dorm room - Lorraine from France who is travelling for a few weeks in Mexico. Later in the evening we went to walk around the city by night and sat at one of the restaurants facing the main plaza. Seth from US and a Spaniard who prefers to be an Englishmen and lives in England but whose name I just totally forgot and can't recall however much I try... joined us and we discussed... globalization! Seth spent some time in Oaxaca five years ago and was telling us how the city have changed in these five years. For example the old cobblestoned streets around the main plaza are being replaced by walks made of modern concrete tiles. Sad. And little cafes are replaced by restaurant chains. Sad as well. We parted at midnight and on our coming back to Hostal Fernanda Lorraine and I found everything closed and dark... We knocked and knocked ("Wiiiiiiillma! let me in!") and just as we were beginning to be curling down on the footsteps like the doggies who come home too late after a day of running, one of the tourist staying at the hotel opened the door. What a joy! The next day I set out to Mexico D.F. and after another ride through the beautiful Mexican nature I got to the city at around 6 pm. The subway system works very well. In a flash I got to the historic center and found Hotel Republica - an old hotel but the cheapest I could find. The people who work there are very nice. It's probably the noisiest hotel I have been staying in. There's some water pipes construction going on beginning every day at 6 am, the tv in the lobby displays soap operas, if the tv is not on the radio blasts romantic music, and there's usually a bunch of people hanging around the reception area talking, laughing, telling jokes. I have been waking up several times at night because of all this hustle and bustle but the people are so nice and goodnatured that I just smile and fall asleep again and don't have any murderous inclinations toward them... they let me use the phone, adjust the hot water for me since it is on and off because of the contruction, tell me about exhibits and how to get to the various museums... they are really good people - laud but good. I started feeling like part of the community here on Calle de Republica Cuba. When I got here it was raining hard so I went just right across the street to a small taquerilla and got friendly with three men who run it (they all look like "a sentence of five years just for the look" as my friend Viola used to say and I named them for myself "the three little inmates"). It's a tiny place with just three tables but the food is good and the drink made of fermented fruits makes me fall asleep fast regardless of the noise. The area reminds me a bit of the Getsemani in Cartagena. It's old part of the city with many tiny stores, snack and juice places, women cooking on the streets... It's looks very similar except in Getsemani brothels ruled (in terms of number per square km) and here what rules are the stores with "Everything for the bride." There are huge store windows with hundreds of wedding dresses which give me goosbumps and langerie to be worn under these dresses which give me even bigger goose bumps - all kinds of very elassssstic supporters for waists, boobs, bottoms... It looks like everything in and of the bride has to be squeezed and hm... lifted up? Can a bride breathe in these? From the cultural point of view it is interesting to see the wedding traditions and all the gadgets that accompany it. The elastics and all such must exist everywhere where there's the tradition of a white wedding dress but I think it's just not displayed in a big window for all passers-by to see (do the grooms not want to hit the road when they see them? I would...).

I am fascinated by Mexico City. Of big cities Buenos Aires is still my favorite one but Mexico City is the second. It resembles BA in that the different districts of the city are cities of their own. I visited Coyoacan, south of the Centro Historico, and it will probably be my favorite part of the city because it is like San Telmo in BA - a bohemian place full of artists displaying their crafts. There are, of course, used books and records stores, coffee, tea and beer places, mimes and street artists, and lots of people walking laisurely admiring this great atmosphere. I went there with Rodrido whom I met on the way to the Mueseum and Home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera (but only works of Frida are displayed there) and he showed me around. Rodrido and I very much enjoyed the museum which is a really nice home with a beautiful courtyard and a fountain and many artefacts belonging to Frida. I wanted to go the museum because I admire Frida as a person and a painter. I admire her strong character and the courage to do whatever she wanted, regardless of what the society might think of her and her actions. And at the same time she was a very sensitive person, I am sure of that... her paintings show it. She suffered so much physical pain during her entire life and so much pain inflicted by the ones she loved most and still she wrote on one of her painings: Viva la vida! I felt good visiting her home... a home of a soul I understand.

I also visited the Presidential Palace. First on my own and then with a friend Alejandro whom I met in Argentina when he was on vacation there and who lives in Mexico City and works in the Presidential Palace. Alejandro showed me the offices inside the palace and a beautiful courtyard with grass and trees which is the cafeteria for the people who work at the palace. Very nice working place, yes, indeed. I spent a long time at the palace when I went there by myself, looking at Diego Riviera murals. They are really amazing. They tell the history of Mexico, from the pre-columbian cultures until the present or rather the time in which he lived. His strong ideas regarding politics and social systems show in the murals. His style is beautiful. I spent a long time standing in front of each mural: so many details, so many connections, hidden and open meanings... He really was a master. I also saw his murals at the Belles Artes museum, and murals of other Mexican artists. The museum is architectonically beautiful and the galleries inside display very nice works, most of them modern.

Today I walked all the way Avenida Reforma which is the modern part of the city with skyscrapers, banks, hotels. In the middle of the two-way street there's a park so the area is very green and welcoming. I went as far as the museum of anthropology which is one of the best museums I have visited (my favorite still being the Metropolitan Museum of Art). It is very interactive. There are lots of artefacts but also a lot of information on all aspects of anthropology, culture, customs, traditions, history, linguistics - well, all that concerns humans. I started with the gallery on "how it all started" and how a neanderthal evolved into a homo sapiens sapiens. Regarding the "missing link" I read somtime ago that it is the homo sapiens sapiens who is the missing link and I tend to agree with it. But that's the beginning of another entry in the blog because the missing link writing these words is so tired after walking up and down the Reforma and the miles and miles of the incredibly huge museum that it will go to bed and continue soon on the wonders of the museum (and things connected to the sacred feminine, as promised). Buenas noches.

Chiapas, Oaxaca

I stayed two days in San Christobal. On both days I went to the Museum and Clinic of Mayan Medicine on the outskirts of the town. The first day I visited the museum, herbal garden and pharmacy. In the museum there was a movie shown about midwifery and childbirth. It was very interesting. In Chiapas women give birth kneeling down, resting their heads on their husbands who support them by holding their shoulders. The placenta is carefully deposited in a hole buried in the earthen floor of the couple's house. The midwife pushes down the baby out of mother's belly by adjusting a woven belt around her belly. Very different technigue from the western style. There are different types of doctor in Mayan medicine: the pulsador (who by checking the pulse diagnoses the illness, which is similar to the Chinese medicine. He also uses acupuncture and the "needles" are sharp edges of agava plants), the herbalist, the midwife, the person who prays for different causes on top of the mountains (a type of shaman), and a person who deals with broken bones, sprains, and bone and ligament pain. The next day I went to see the doctor pulsador and he told me I was fine but a bit weak and my kidneys needed some enhancement as well. So I got herbs for strength and to purify the kidneys. I think the Mayan medicine works in a similar way the Chinese does but the Chinese medicine is more precise, more scientific.

From San Christobal I went to Oaxaca. The bus travelled on another extremally beautiful road through Chiapas. Chiapas, and particularly the road from Palenque to San Christobal and from San Christobal to Oaxaca, is another of my favorite mountain-valley sights (together with the Sacred Valley in Peru and the Cauca Valley in Colombia). What is amazing in Chiapas are the clouds which are layered, layered, layered... The different layers have a different shape and texture and through them you can see the lush green mountains. The road is a very winding road; it's basically only turns, right left, right left, right left, the head is spinning, the body sways to both sides (in Polish there exists this term "to hold the peacock on a leash" - peacock being the vomit, so colorful it is when it does get off the leash... - and that was what I was doing half of the trip). On one of them we saw a Coca-Cola truck which looked like it didn't make the turn and hit a stone wall and some of the crates went flying down into the valley. The local people immediately gathered at the place of the accident and looked like ants, carying the crates with the bottles which survived full. It remainded me of the road between Warsaw and my home town in Poland which is a road to Berlin and many TIRs are on it and many similar accidents happen and people carry the goods away in the same ant-like fashion. We saw two trucks with police on its way to stop the Chiapas people and I thought they should just leave the people alone... they were not stealing, only taking away what was half-damaged. I got to Oaxaca at 7 am and got picked up at the bus station by someone offering rooms at a Hostal Fernanda he works for. It was a very nice place and the group which was on my bus and the people we met at the hostal were nice as well. I was tired but decided to walk around the city. Oops, the internet place is being closed. I got to Mexico City today. Rest of adventures in Oaxaca and Mexico DeeFe soon.

Huehuetaltenengo, Todos Santos, San Christobal

I got to San Christobal de las Casas in Mexico today. I am staying in the same youth hostal I stayed when I was hitchhiking in Mexico in December 03 with Michal. It's so nice to see the old familiar places: the streets, the markets, the cafes... and reflect on what have changed in my life and in me during the time I was not here... I got to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and saw my face, with a smile, partly that of a Cheshire cat, partly that of Mona Lisa... a smile of a person who has travelled many thousands of miles and has the mental picture of all she saw, touched, smelled, tasted, experienced... and the secrets of places she learned...

On Friday early morning Mike's friend Gulliano (who is from Italy) came and Mike woke me up asking if I was ready to go to Mexico and so I packed my stuff quickly and Mike, Gulliano, Todd and I set off west toward the border with Mexico, to Huehueltenango. We stayed there for the night in a rather shabby hotel but with a tv so we could watch CNN and see the latest on the hurricane in the US. The next day we went to the Mirador, a place high in the mountains above Huehue. It is above 3,000 meters above sea level so it's passible to see what looks like the entire mountain range. Very beautiful view. The road to the top gave me goose bumps and I was hissing at Todd to be careful and don't look at the view but at the road - it was extremally winding. Later we went further into the mountains, on a dirt road, to caves which Mike and Gulliano wanted to explore in search of insects which are a passion of Guilliano's. They went to the caves (and Todd accompanied them to the entrance) and I just picknicked in the car, surrounded by the beautiful view, since that type of altitude makes me weak... They didn't find any bugs but came back happy just from the fact that they got down to the caves. We then went to the village Todos Santos (All Saints). The view on the mountains and the valley was magnificient during our drive there but when we got the the village I thought it was a very depressing place... It was Saturday evening and the fiesta was going on witch basically ment that men were drinking on the streets and lying about in places in which they passed out. A village full of drunken men... it was raining, the shabby buildings looked very gloomy... the dogs were fighting over every little scrap of food they could find... It was a sad evening to me. I wonder why some villages, however poor, have this energy and life in them and others seem like a place of total degeneration and sadness... I think I mentioned this before that in some places people wake up happy, sweep the floor in front of their houses early in the morning and sing, and in other places people just aimlessly wander around in heaps of garbage around their houses... Todos Santos is the later. It is also a place infamous for the fact that some time ago a Japanese tourist and a driver of a tourist group were stoned to death by the villagers. There was a piece of news on the radio that Satanists were running around stealing kids and the Japanese tourists were taking pictures of kids and that's how the villagers thought they were ready to steal them... a very sad story. How was that possible in a village full of pious people? But that's not the first time in history where pious people, who are thought to love the other as thyself, killed... I think people are just people regardless of where they live and what their background is. I think that in every place, under any altitude and latitude, there are people who live according to their internal code of decency and are guided by compassion and people who seem to be living according to such code but will go berserk when opportunity comes and there's no one to check whether the code is exercised. Like in New Orleans... people looting other people's houses and shooting each other on the streets struck by the diseaster.