Rainy season thoughts

This entry was written before I got ahold of a paper that told me about the invasion and fall of Baghdad that was happening as I wrote, but its timeliness is impressive.

Sunday, March 23, 2003 in El Taxin, Mexico

I think the rainy season started this weekend, as did spring, in theory. Spring (in theory) starts everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere on the twenty-first of March, when actually the weather stays pretty much the same as on the twentieth. But, I don’t think a date was ever set for the rainy season of the tropics. You know when it’s here. Not that it was totally dry before. But now, it actually rains some. Before, it was this awful stuff called chipi-chipi, which is mist rain that just stays and stays. Rain is highly preferable to chipi-chipi because you get the wonderful comforting sound of droplets hitting your roof, immediately underscoring the fact that you are warm, dry, and safe. And even if you’re outside, you hear the drops on the pavement, the puddles, your rainjacket, your umbrella, the roofs, which all make a sort of lively music. Rain is lively. Chipi-chipi is gloomy. Not that chipi-chipi goes away in the rainy season. No. It’s usually there when it’s not rainy (for instance, now).

Earlier this weekend, it was less welcome when I was camping. I’ve camped in rain; it’s not so bad. But, when you’re in a leaky tent with a stupid person, it’s hell. Luckily, we were allowed to re-pitch the tent in the barn of the guy whose land we were camping on. The guy’s name was Carlos, a swell vaquero, who later helped us out of another messy situation when we returned to our tent in the middle of the night to find it invaded by ants for a crumblet of food my compañeros had mistakenly left there. Incidentally, they were entering and exiting through the holes Victor (our Mexican friend – or rather, Kayla’s.) had foolishly punched in the bottom of his own tent to drain it. Any dweeb-face knows this does not work. The entire weekend, I simply thought Victor was an idiot. I still do.

The worst thing about Mexican ants is they all bite. I have yet to encounter ones that don’t. I do not know the difference in evolutionary histories between the sweet, docile, harmless ants of North America and those of the tropics. I’ve no idea what benefits one for having stinging powers or not, or whether they’re just a separate gene pool altogether, but whatever it is, I wish the damn things didn’t bite here. And there are so many more here. But, to be fair, Mexico does have harvester ants, which I consider incredibly cool. And they generally do not invade houses and tents because they resourcefully grow their own damn food. They just trundle about in long lines carrying viper-green pieces of leaves three times their size. Amazing creatures....

I miss home. I want to feel American here, in the very best sense of the word. I’m not talking about the America that ruins small towns with Wal-marts and whose corporations fund the bombing of innocent Arabic peoples. No, I'm talking about American: the frontier, the land, the opportunity, the diversity, I dunno, Geez, loyalty to your buddies and using good sense, and, hell yes, independence. I guess I love it because I’m a classic American girl. And not in the 1950’s sitcom sense, nor the aforementioned power-mongering political machine sense. Being in Mexico, I’ve found a new love for my country and a new loathing for my government. It's amazing how few people in the rest of the world understand who an American really is.