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the final countdown

Posted in mexico with tags on February 6, 2009 by markschaumann

 lonely_1

I have been wondering what the last few minutes of my life will be like. Will I have a lot of regrets about the things I did or did not do? I have a fear that there will be a sudden realization that most everything I have done was pure folly and of no account, followed by a deep regret that I should have spent my time here completely differently. I can see how that could very easily happen.

As I get older and closer to my time, my perspective has changed. I have noticed that shiny things don’t have the same allure they had in my youth. I am more aware of missed opportunities. I am more cognizant of how much of my time is spent taking care of my possessions- it’s almost like I don’t own them, they own me. I work all week to pay the note on the house, and then spend the weekend cutting the grass, cleaning, and maintaining it. An inanimate object dictates what I will do with a large portion of my time……………..this bothers me.

 Last year I spent four months alone in Spanish speaking lands, amongst people who have a much harder life than me, and then I had a near death experience. I suppose it is these events that are causing my mind to rest on my mortality and ask these questions. What is the totality of my life going to add up to? Am I investing in people or pursuing vanity? I am not struggling to survive like most of the world is… I feel an obligation of sorts because of that. Am I glorifying God with my life? Is there a way not to have any regrets in the end?

I think I need to form a plan for the rest of my life (don’t laugh, better late than never)

However it goes, my time will come, this is certain. I am sure of one thing, in those final few seconds one thought I won’t have is “dang, I wish I spent more time at work”.

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bike yucatan

xray

 

The framebuilder in New Hampshire did a good job. I didn’t think it could be repaired, but it is almost perfect again… almost. The wheels don’t quite track perfectly, a silent testament of what happened and to be more careful.

Many doctors in two countries had a hand in putting me back together. I am not good as new either, my collarbone healed a bit shorter causing my arm to work a little jerky, and there is a laundry list of other items that will never be the same, but my body doesn’t have to last forever, I get a new one at some point, and I’m better than halfway there.

Did I mention that I can ride? Yup, that’s the good news! God willing, there are lots of miles left to do. I am not getting much saddle time because it’s like an icebox here, but two weeks from today I will be arriving in Merida for a short tour and ¡Carnaval!

Stay tuned, I can hardly wait….

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opportunity

Posted in mexico with tags , on August 25, 2008 by markschaumann

 

 

 

What do you regret more? The bad you have done or the good that you know you should have done but didn’t? In crossing Mexico an “opportunity lost” occurred on the Veracruz zocalo. It was mid morning, and I was sitting on a bench sunning myself and people watching, the most popular pastime on the zocalo for last several centuries.  There were many people about; the shoeshine kid, numerous vendors selling their wares, jovenes doing what jovenes do, maybe even a gringo or two, but the focus of my gaze was a young woman by the stage.  She was resting her arms on the stage and crying.  Her niño must have been 3 or 4 and was running loose with no regard to his mother’s state. She was an attractive girl, probably early twenties and near hysterical. She would take two or three sidesteps to the left, then to the right while leaning on the stage and then she would look into the air as if there was some help there if she could just find it. She was clearly not in control of her emotions, this was no show, she was the picture of DESPAIR. I seemed to be the only one who took notice of her. What was the problem?  I wanted to know so bad. I wanted to fix it if I could. If I couldn’t fix it, maybe I know someone who could.  Maybe just a sympathetic ear would help.  But I didn’t do anything. So we will never know. 

A similar situation presented itself weeks later on “otro lada de la bahia”. Underneath the big smile and animated persona there was a tension, a desperation. I went fishing for the problem. With nothing to lose, the sad story was divulged.  I saw flashes of anger as betrayal and broken promises were recounted.  As the tale was told she was reminded afresh of her predicament and the hopelessness of it. Tears welled in her eyes as she concluded with the words, “I have a hard life”.  She was willing, even hoping, to leave everything familiar and go North into the unknown in search of a better life. I dismissed myself to my room to escape the heavy air, but the sorrow followed me there. Now I was a part of the story…..what role should the gringo play?

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it is hard to leave…

Posted in chiapas, mexico with tags , , on March 31, 2008 by markschaumann

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The “camionetta” is the mode of transportation and prized possession  of the campesino. In Chiapas state they are mostly little red pickups with the bed enclosed with corrugated stainless steel sheet on the sides. They are always clean and in good repair reflecting a pride in ownership.  The roof is open so everyone standing in the back can look over the sides or cab and view the scenery as they barrel down the mountainous roads. If it is raining they tie a tarp over the top so everyone stays dry.  Across the top of the cab is lettered a message such as:
God is love
Jesus saves
Jesus is the way
Gift of God
Only God knows my destiny
All we want is God
Thanks to God
Guide me Lord
Lion of Judah
There are many more that I don’t remember or can’t translate readily. Emblazoning a reference to God across the front of their prized possessions indicates to me, that God has a prime position in their lives.

As I study this society, I notice that in some regards it is like what America used to be. I am not saying everything is good about that, but I can’t help take notice how children are more obedient and respectful. The family unit is closer. The reverence towards God. Little evidence of drugs. The lack of crime (and this means when they immigrate to the USA the crime rate goes down where they settle). Abortion is illegal. Everyone values their job and tries to excel at it.  Authority is respected.

My Spanish instructor at the Latin Community Center also instructs the police department in the Spanish language and some cultural sensitivity issues they need to now about. She said when a Hispanic individual is pulled over in a car, he will not look  the officer in the eye. He will look ahead or down as a sign of respect. (I have no doubt that many cops have taken this as a insult requiring a call for backup and some flashlight therapy). I see similarities here when I encounter people younger than me; often I will hear someone say “de donde viene?” but I am unsure who said it and weather they were talking to me, because nobody is looking at me.

To some extent, I am seeing Mexico through rose colored glasses.  Not being fluent in the language I miss a lot of what is going on around me and I am just not too observant. To understand the culture, one needs to be involved in peoples lives, and all my relationships so far have been superficial. I see all the big smiles, but I don’t look far beyond them; but I am beginning to slow down and study things better. My lingual ability, (or LACK of lingual ability) is the big obstacle in getting to know people better.

 With all that being said, it’s still very impressive that I have had zero bad experiences in the months that I have been here. Sooner or later SOMETHING has got to happen that will tarnish the sparkle; however, it doesn’t look like its going to happen this trip, shortly I will be closing the door on Mexico and entering GUATEMALA! I hope its a lot like Mexico.

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San Cristobal de las Casas

Posted in chiapas, mexico with tags , , , on March 24, 2008 by markschaumann

Chiapas comedor

San Cristobal de las Casas has its hooks in me. “Desire” moves me from one town to the next, and “desire” has been absent since I arrived here. The climate at 2200 meters is a pleasant change after the heat of the Yucatan. The people are most friendly with a large indigenous population. While there are a lot of tourists here, if I ride my bike several kilometers out of town and stop at a roadside comedor for a Coca-Cola, I am once again an oddity that must be investigated. I enjoy these encounters immensely. I approach them with a big smile and gregarious attitude. First, there is initial shock that there is a gringo is at the door shouting “buenas dias” and wanting a soda, after they recover from that, they fetch me a drink and watch from a distance. I make myself comfortable at the plastic table and chairs that are always in front of each comedor and act like I got all the time in the world. Often times the first one to get up the courage to check the gringo out is a child. If its a boy he will always start by looking at (but not touching) the bicycle. If it’s girls they will say the one English word they know, maybe “hello” then run away giggling. I have had some interesting conversations with Mestizo women at comedors, they are often very curious about me. the indigenous women less so, they tend to remain aloof and watch from a distance (but not always). Spanish is a second language for many of the indigenous. The lengthiest conversations I have had have been with other men who are on break from work and stop and share the table with me. Usually they come in groups and there is often one who has worked in the States and knows a little English and is eager to use it. I have never had a bad experience at these roadside rests. I can’t ever remember someone giving a mean look or treating me like I wasn’t welcome there . It’s always a rich cultural experience that both sides enjoy and often culminates with the realization that we are not much different. Same problems, same joys, same aspirations.  

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Good Friday

Posted in chiapas, mexico with tags , , on March 21, 2008 by markschaumann

christ carry cross

He died so that I will live

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and he gave his life as a ransom for many others.

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But the story didn´t end here, hang on, Sunday is coming…..

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a visit with the doctor…..

Posted in chiapas, healthcare, mexico with tags , on March 17, 2008 by markschaumann

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The doctors office door 

With the USA presidential campaigns in high gear the healthcare issue is at the forefront of political debate once again. The healthcare system in the USA is expensive and complicated. I had an encounter with the Mexican system this week and I will share the experience with you.

My eyes have been bothering me for the last year or two. At the end of the day they hurt. I blink a lot and can’t stay up late watching the television. The problem has got much worse over the last two months. I’ve been riding south into the  sun and its has took a toll on my eyes. They are completely bloodshot, I look like a dope addict. (lil’ sidenote, speaking of drug  addicts, I saw a GOOD movie this week called “Things We Lost in the Fire”  Benecio del Toro is a superb actor, and Halle Berry, well she is ***Halle Berry***, ‘xcuse the interruption, but I just had to tell someone about it) Back on point-

 I can’t sleep at night, it feels like I have sand in my eyes.  I decided it was time to see the doctor. There are three options for medical care that I know of: go to a public health clinic, go to the Red Cross, or see a private doctor. To visit a private doctor is the most costly, but still should be cheap. I asked the folks that run the Posada where I am staying where they thought I should go. They recommended an eye doctor that was close and they called and made an appointment for me. I set off  for the doctor early in case I had trouble finding him. I found the intersection where the office should be without  problem, but there was nothing there. I asked a guy who was walking by if he knew where the eye doctor was. He pointed at a red door in the stone wall running along the road. The door had no markings or signs. I pulled the cord that was hanging on the right side and it rang a bell. A couple of minutes passed and a little window in the door opened and a child asked what I wanted. I replied I had an appointment with the eye doctor. She smiled and said, “you want the señorita” and closed the window. Hmmm…. So the doctor is a señorita, I begin to wonder what she looks like. Five minutes go by and the niña doesn’t return, but an old guy shows up with a key to the door and he lets me in. Behind the wall, on a very large lot, is what looks to be a stone house with a tile roof  but it is too big to be a house. He points to the sliding glass door where I should enter. I enter and have a seat in a chair and take in the surroundings. It is dead quiet. The stone wall isolates the street noise and there is no noise coming from within, not even the hum of a refrigerator. The floor is polished brick, the walls are cedar tongue and groove with a painted ceramic tile cove base. There is no ceiling, leaving the underside of the roof exposed. Large rough hewn beams support the roof. There is an open courtyard in the center of the building.

 The doctor is late, but that’s OK, I need some time to think about how I am going to answer the questions she will have for me. I get my electronic dictionary out and figure out how to describe the problem. I hear the doctor entering the building, then she appears in the hallway. She starts with the questions as soon as she sees me. She speaks fast. This is going to be difficult. I take my glasses off and show her my eyes. I see sympathy and understanding in her eyes. We go to an exam room and she give me the E chart exam (you know, the one where you point which way the E is facing), I score perfect with my glasses on. Then we go to a different exam room, where she turns out all the lights and peers in my eyes with a tiny light. Then we go to a third exam room where she looks in my eyes with a microscope of sorts. Then we go to her office. On her desk is a mechanical typewriter, not a computer, not a electric typewriter, but a mechanical typewriter, I haven’t seen one of them in a while. She draws a diagram of my eye with a pencil and puts a lot of dots in the white area and explains that I have lesions on my eyes. She says a lot of things but most of it is going over my head. We get to the treatment phase and I need to understand this perfectly. She realizes this and slows down a bit. She writes the name of the two drugs I need on a pad and goes over how to administer them, it’s kind of complicated, so she goes over it a few times and then has me repeat it back to her to show that I comprehend the instructions. And that’s it. Total cost 200 pesos ($18USD). She compliments me on how well I speak Spanish (ha ha) and sends me on my way. The drugs cost me 90 pesos at the pharmacy; I’ve been on them for three days and I definitely feel better, I am sleeping better than I have in a long time.

So, how does that compare with the healthcare system that you are dealing with?

I’m thinkin’ maybe I ought to visit the dentist while I’m here….
   

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Merida

Posted in mexico, yucatan with tags , , on March 7, 2008 by markschaumann

Every town has one. The Zocalo is where it all happens. Sometimes its called El Centro, or Plaza de Armas, but its all the same thing. The square in the center of town where everyone comes together. When I enter a town I always find the Zocalo first, then start my search for a hotel. I want to be as close as possible to the center of activity. There is something romantic about a plaza that has seen couples dancing on it for decades, even centuries. Presently I am in Merida, which has a huge Zocalo named “Plaza Grande” with near constant organized activities, usually music and dancing, on top of all the ordinary action. The Latinos elevate music and dancing to level of importance on par with food and water. One of my favorite blogs is by a gringo who lives in a small town in Mexico. He lamented in one post that when the town’s water pump broke and it took eight months for the town to round up the money to fix it; but they had several concerts in the meantime. Money for music, no money for water. It´s all about priorities…..

pablo montero

Pablo Montero on the Merida Zocalo, the crowd went nuts!

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San Francisco de Campeche

Posted in campeche, hostel, mexico with tags , on March 3, 2008 by markschaumann

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San Francisco de Campeche was worth staying for some extra days. Campeche is a World Heritage Site and is one of  two remaining cities in the western hemisphere with fortified walls.  It is small enough that you can walk anywhere, yet big enough to have all the conveniences. Situated right on the gulf of Mexico, it has an excellent Malecon with bikepath, a great place to meet people or watch the sun set into the ocean. I stayed at the Monkey Hostel located on the plaza. The staff was laid back and friendly and there were few guests, just a few Europeans to while away the evening hours with.

On my last night there they had a convention of the governors of Mexico on the zocalo. It felt like we were presiding over the affair from the balcony of the hostel. The police sealed off nine blocks to traffic and sealed off the zocalo to anyone who was not invited. The governors arrived one by one in white Chevy Suburbans. When they stepped out of the car they were surrounded by the press with lots of lights, microphones, and cameras. Eventually, they all assembled on the plaza at little tables and had dinner and watched some fine folk dancing. It was a regal affair. Later, I awoke to the sound of fireworks, too bad I missed the show, but cyclists have to get to bed early.

As I was preparing to leave the following morning, an old guy from Calgary who was  staying at the hostel  [never did get his name] started a conversation with me. He had rode his bicycle to Uruguay (from Calgary), it took him a year to get there and now he was riding buses home because he could “see the bottom of my wallet”. His was a low cost trip, no hotels, sleeping in fields each night, but he said he enjoyed that a lot better than riding the bus with the tourists. He looked over the instrumentation (cyclocomputer, GPS) on my bike and made the comment “I didn’t even have an odometer on my bike”. I showed him my cyclocomputer even told me my heartrate. He said “well I definitely would NOT want to know that” <g>.  He offered me advice on the best route to take through Central America. He had basically took the flattest route. I am not sure which route I will take; it is not unusual for me to make up  my mind at the last minute.

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déjà vu

Posted in mexico with tags , , on February 21, 2008 by markschaumann

crazy wabbit 

It was a cool night, and I was stalking a rabbit on a grass lawn. You have probably done that at some time when you were a child and know what that is like. As soon as I get close enough to grab the little varmit, he would take off in a zig zag line then stop and gaze at me with one unblinking eye, as if he was saying “wanna try again”? I knew from my youth that this  pursuit would prove to be fruitless. But this wasn’t a full grown rabbit, he was just a little brown bunny, perhaps he would make a mistake and I can snag him. I try a different tactic and SLOWLY ease my way towards him, looking away, as though I have no interest in him. He is almost in my grasp. I draw my forearm back like a jaw of a trap. He is MINE! I let my arm drop like it had spring tension behind it. I fully expected to feel his furry body and little spine and ribs in the palm of my hand. I can picture his little legs scrambling to get out from under my grasp.

But none of this happened. Instead what I heard was the sound of my hand slamming the wood table by the bed and the heavy glass ashtray on it bouncing off the end and hitting a spoke on my bicycle before it hit the floor. Wow! I wonder if that woke anyone up. Good thing the wife (if I was married) wasn’t lying next to me I would have clocked her.

The mefloquine I have been taking for the last month has made dreamtime most interesting. When I sleep, its as though I was awake; and when I wake, I can remember every detail of the dreamscape. They have not been unpleasant dreams, just ordinary dreams, ENHANCED. Its like the difference between watching a 32″ color television and the IMAX theater experience.  Some of the pieces of the dreams I can identify as being a result of the days events; other elements surface from somewhere deep in my subconscious. There could be other sources too….. While I have never had prophetic dreams; I have had instances of déjà vu and precognition. Now, déjà vu means “second sight”, or the unmistakable perception, down to the smallest detail, that I have seen what I am seeing now, before…..now if I saw it before, where did I see it? If I saw it in a dream, then that would make it a prophetic dream…right?

“It seems we stood and talked like this before.
    We looked at each other In the same way then.
    But I can’t remember where or when…
    Some things that happen for the first time
    Seem to be happening again.”

 Lorentz Hart
Richard Rogers

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How it goes….

Posted in mexico with tags , on February 16, 2008 by markschaumann

Focusing on the people I meet is what I primarily want to do here; however I am sure that some of you would like to know what it is like to travel like this and how I am faring so this seems like an opportune time for a post on that subject.

One thousand miles of Mexican road has past under my wheels in the past few weeks. I still have a lot to learn. Bicycle touring is relatively new to me. Back home, I commuted to work on my bike and went for long Saturday rides, but that was it.

 When I started this trip, I ate when I was hungry and drank when I was thirsty, but I have discovered that it is necessary to fuel my body with copious amounts of food and water before I feel the need to eat or drink. Sugar also plays some sort of role that I don’t fully understand. There was a day in the Tuxtla mountains when all my energy disappeared. I stopped and drank a 16oz Coke and felt like a new man. I must have been suffering from a low sugar level.

 The weather here is scorching, and this is one of the cooler months of the year. It’s necessary to get on the road early, preferably right at daybreak and try to be done by noon (but it never happens). Twice now, I have experienced symptoms of heat exhaustion in the mid afternoon. Frequently, I will ride past field workers taking a siesta under a tree in the heat of the afternoon, they look at me like I am crazy, perhaps I need to join them and cool it during the hottest part of the day.

The bike is working good. I’ve had three flats on the trailer, and broke a chain. I made the repairs on the side of the road quicker than a Mexican could stop and help me (that’s fast). I haven’t significantly overpacked or underpacked. Thanks to my employer giving me plenty of notice of my last workday, I had a lot of time to prepare for this trip. The preparations that I did are paying good dividends now.  

My route plan changes by the day. When that missionary back in Tamaulipas asked me where I was going, I replied “I dunno, but I have a lot of time to get there” <g>.  I study the map a lot but I remain indecisive as to which way to go.
 

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