Tales of a Female Nomad (3 page)

It is frightening to be so sick in a place where I don’t know anyone. And my Spanish is not good enough to ask all the questions I have. I keep asking myself if it is safe to be treated by doctors trained in Mexico; I have no idea about the quality of the medical schools here.

Before the doctor arrives, I sit with a dictionary and prepare a list of possible causes. I am terrified that those village women who propositioned John, have given him, and me, a disease. I’m embarrassed to mention it to the doctor, so I bury it in the middle of my list.

varicela
food reaction
water reaction
cat allergy
venereal disease
reaction to Aralen, the malaria pills I’ve taken twice
hives
some tropical virus
a skin disease

The doctor examines me in my room. I hand him the piece of paper. “It is not chicken pox,” he tells me. He looks at the rest of the list without commenting. “I don’t know what it is. I will have to consult my colleagues.”

When he leaves, Pili says, “My father is a doctor. He gets back from vacation tomorrow. I’ll call him.”

Pili’s father doesn’t venture a diagnosis either. He sends me off the next day to the top dermatologist in Cuernavaca. By the time I get to his office, my skin has changed again. It is not hurting anymore. Now it is peeling, and when I take off my shirt in the office, thousands of tiny flakes of dead skin fall off onto his floor. I am snowing.

“It is a reaction to something,” he says. “But I have no way of knowing what. It is not chicken pox or a virus or venereal disease. It is probably a response to the malaria medicine. Stop taking it.” He prescribes prednizone, a steroid. I ask if my illness is contagious. He says no.

As I ride home in a taxi, I am trying to decide what to do. “Probably” is not very reassuring. I cannot, will not, go back to Los Angeles to my family doctor. I’m not even going to call my husband. This is my trip, my freedom, my problem.

I feel very alone. Not only have I never had such a strange illness, I’ve never gone through
anything
on my own. I decide that if I don’t get a confirmation of the diagnosis, I will go to Miami, where I have a friend who is a doctor.

I walk in the door and Pili greets me. Doctor number two has called. He and his colleagues are calling my condition Stevens Johnson syndrome, a reaction to medication, probably the malaria prophylaxis, Aralen, although none of the literature discusses this side effect. He too prescribes prednizone. OK. There’s consensus. I decide to stay.

My condition gets worse. The fever brings on hallucinations and my vision becomes blurred. My legs blister so badly that when I stand still, the pressure and pain are intolerable. I have to sit on the shower floor while I bathe and brush my teeth because when I stand still for more than a few seconds the blisters feel as if they are going to explode.

Midway through this ordeal, I begin to see the illness as some kind of Herculean challenge that I must endure in order to become a new woman. I have also convinced myself that I am not in serious danger. (Months later, when I see my doctor in L.A., he tells me that Stevens Johnson syndrome is, in fact, extremely rare and dangerous. He has seen it twice, and both times he hospitalized his patient. The danger is infection; people die from it. He also tells me that the illness can do permanent damage to the patient’s eyesight.)

After two weeks, I still cannot stand still. I have to sit with my legs up to reduce the pain. Occasionally I go for walks, pushing the baby in the stroller. One day I go to the bank and discover that there is a line. I jog in place like a runner at a traffic light.

Every inch of my body is peeling. The more delicate parts of me flake onto the floor. Even my nipples and my ear lobes are peeling. The skin on my fingers peels off, like the skin of a snake, intact. And my legs are still blistered. I have turned into one of those hideous pictures in a medical book.

Then, as I lie in bed one night, burning up and in pain, I get the first spiritual message of my life: in shedding my skin, I am being reborn. I am symbolically peeling away the person I have become and releasing the woman who has been trapped inside all these years. Soon this new me will be going out into the world on a journey of self-discovery.

The next night Pili and the baby go to bed at nine o’clock and I sit with Raul, my feet up on the coffee table, until two in the morning. Until now we have never had a conversation in depth. We have talked about food, about school, about his baby, and my illness; but language has always prevented our conversation from going beyond the superficial.

Tonight is different. We talk with dictionaries on our laps, and we share an extraordinary conversational intimacy. We are not an old American and a young Mexican. Nor are we man and woman in any sexual sense. There is certainly a mother-son component to our discussion; but it is more than that. We are friends, sharing feelings.

We begin when I tell him my revelation about rebirth. Like most Mexicans, he is Catholic, but he has never thought much about what he believes. We talk about souls, inner selves, the basic nature of human beings. He asks me about my marriage and I tell him, with tears in my eyes, that I don’t know if my husband will want to stay married when I return, and that I am both afraid and challenged by the thought of being alone in the world. Raul confides in me his fears for his own marriage. Ever since his son was born, Raul has been noticing other women, wanting them, fearing his fantasies. We talk on and on, much of the time with tears in our eyes. Somewhere in the middle of our talk, I realize that I am comfortable speaking Spanish.

Slowly, I heal. My fever disappears; my blisters dry up; my skin is renewed. From beginning to end takes less than three weeks. When I am well enough to go back to school, I have no patience for the classroom. I no longer want to study. I am ready to move out into the unknown, to experience life with a new sensibility, to embark on my journey of inner and outer discovery.

On the Sunday morning before I leave, Raul, Pili, the baby, and I pile into the car and drive off for a farewell tour of Cuernavaca. The first stop on our tour is to buy
chicharrón,
fried pigskin that’s been boiled for hours in a vat of lard, left to dry, and then boiled again. You can buy thin, non-fatty pieces, or the fattier middle part, or you can look around for pieces that have a little meat attached. Raul buys a huge bagful and I reach in for a hunk.

I’ve been a health-food nut for years. I can’t remember when I last had bacon in my house, even though I love that crispy smoky meat surrounded by mushy fat. I banished it years ago when I became concerned about what went into my kids’ bodies. But now, it is my body, and my host can’t wait for me to taste this Mexican treat. Neither can I.

I crunch through the tasty, crisp cells that have puffed up into a light airy snack; it’s wonderful. I reach into the bag for another piece, feeling exhilarated when I bite through sections of fat.

I feel no guilt as I demolish some long-cherished no-fat rules along with the
chicharrón.
I’m not sure why I am guilt-free. Perhaps it is the setting; rules tend to reduce their grip when you cross borders. Perhaps it is the
chicharrón,
crunchy, light, and bacony; it’s easy to put aside guilt in the enthusiasm and taste of the moment. But more likely, the joy I feel at this guilt-free moment is a sign that I really have peeled away the old and begun the process of self-discovery.

As I reach into the bag for my third piece, Raul informs me that
“el
domingo sin chicharrón no es domingo.”
Sunday without
chicharrón
is not Sunday. With
chicharrón,
he affirms his place in a stable world.

My experience of
chicharrón
is a different kind of affirmation. It suggests that I have let go of the old and given myself permission to move on.

CHAPTER TWO

IN A ZAPOTEC VILLAGE

Pili and Raul drive me to the bus stop. There are six other backpack-ers headed to Oaxaca. A man from Denmark, and three women, one from the U.S and two from Germany, are sharing information about places to stay in Oaxaca. I join them and am immediately included in the conversation.

There is also a young couple off to the side by themselves, speaking Spanish.

This is my first encounter with “the travelers’ network.” It’s made up of young people, mostly Europeans, who are on the road long-term, from a few months to several years. They travel cheaply, stay in backpacker places, and are nearly always looking to meet other travelers. During my Central American travels, I meet and hang out with dozens of backpackers, forming quick and easy friendships and sometimes going off together for weeks at a time.

Once I discover the travelers’ network, I have no more problems about eating dinner alone. In fact, I’m almost never alone, unless I choose to be. My mistake in Mexico City was looking for companionship in the better hotels.

Hotels are the domains of tourists on short-term vacations. They see the sights, eat in the best restaurants, and sun by the pool. In backpacker places, people are more relaxed, more frugal, and friendlier. They travel as much to meet other travelers as they do to see the world. Many of them are traveling without companions . . . and no one really wants to eat dinner alone.

The typical backpacker is unmarried, educated, but not yet on the career track. Among the backpackers, there are always a lot of young Europeans who work for a year or two at home, save their money, then travel until it runs out. Canadians and Australians are also backpack travelers; so are Israelis, taking a year off after serving in the army, and New Zealanders on their great “OE,” overseas experience. There are Americans as well; but the Americans are usually on a tighter schedule, and I find them less friendly, at least to me.

I also discover on the backpack trail that the age barriers we live with in the United States are not shared by the rest of the world. I am forty-seven; they are mostly under thirty. And it doesn’t matter to anybody. I love the energy of the young, and they accept me without hesitation. The variations in age add spice and depth to the conversations.

From time to time I meet other women my age who are backpacking, but I rarely meet men over forty who are traveling alone. Older men, it seems, are not as courageous as women; all those years of being responsible have diminished their capacity for adventure.

When the bus to Oaxaca makes a snack stop, I sit down with the Spanish-speaking couple, Miguel and Ana. They’re from Medellín, Colombia; he’s a lawyer, just out of school. With his jeans, long hair, and soft features, he looks about sixteen. He’s also a musician, carrying a guitar and trying to decide whether to go into his father’s law firm or work toward a career in music. Ana, his fiancée, is a teacher and spectacularly beautiful—dark sparkling eyes, and straight, shoulder-length black hair. She thinks Miguel should go into music, at least until they have children three years from now. If he hasn’t made it by then, she says, he can join the firm. But he owes it to himself to follow his dream, not his father’s. They’re a nice couple.

When we get to Oaxaca, my busmates and I check into a hostel. I serve as a translator for Miguel and Ana so they too can be a part of the group. My Spanish is far from perfect, it isn’t even good; but I feel so pleased that I can communicate. I’m really happy I took the time to study and practice in Cuernavaca. Already it has opened a door to people and a story I would never have known.

We are all put into the same dorm room. As soon as our beds are chosen and our things are stored, we wander the streets together. By the time we go to dinner, we are old friends. Friendship happens quickly on the road.

I learn that the American woman is taking a six-month break between undergraduate and graduate school; she’s studying psychology. The German women are college professors on a four-month trip. And the Danish man is a mechanic; he’s been traveling for eight months. No one is over thirty. The seven of us wander together, split up for a while, and meet again for dinner. Then we all go to a bar to hear Miguel play and sing.

As I listen to the music, I look at myself, sitting there confident and comfortable with five interesting people, all of whom know my name. I have come far in the few weeks since I stepped off the plane, afraid of being alone. I can’t wait to find out what’s ahead. Then I hear my name, as Miguel dedicates a song to
“Señora Rita, la escritora de los estados unidos.”

After four days with my new friends, I decide to act on the resolution I made in the anthropology museum. I am going to leave the group and try to find a Zapotec village where I can settle in long enough to connect with the people and get a feel of their way of life.

I know nothing about the communities in this area. I haven’t read a single book about Zapotec culture; nor have I studied any Zapotec language. If I were a scholar, I’d have spent a year learning all I could about the people I am about to visit. Instead, I know only that Oaxaca is surrounded by Zapotec villages, and that I have spent the last four years studying anthropology and yearning to live in other cultures. I’m really not interested in “studying” anybody. I just want to slip into another way of life, not as a tourist, not as an academic, but, as much as possible, as a part of the community.

I look at a map and blindly choose a village about forty miles north of Oaxaca. There is a road that goes to the village, but no one can tell me when or where to get a bus, so I start out walking. If a bus comes along, I’ll stop it. If there isn’t one, I’ll hitch. I have never hitchhiked before, but this seems like a good time to start.

The sun is blistering hot; the road is hilly; and the fields on both sides, as far as I can see, are brown and withered. I’m wearing sneakers, a baseball cap, and jeans; and I’m carrying a small backpack and a bottle of water.

After only fifteen minutes, I’m dripping in sweat. Not a single car has passed. Finally, after about forty-five minutes, a car approaches. Relief, I think. I stick out my arm with my thumb up, a move I’ve seen millions of times from the inside of my car. It’s not an easy gesture. Feels a lot like begging. The car whizzes by me. Then two more pass. Then two trucks.

Now I feel even more self-conscious. Who would’ve thought five drivers could ignore a forty-seven-year-old woman trudging along in the hot sun? I wonder what they’re thinking as they speed by. Aren’t they even a little bit curious?

A part of me wants to go back to Oaxaca and join my friends; it’s so much easier being part of a group. But I have dreamed for years of living in another culture where I am the only outsider. I want to know what I will do and how I will go about connecting with the people. I have read dozens of ethnographies over the last four years, vicariously living in the shoes of the anthropologists, sharing their experiences. Now I want to do it on my own.

So I keep sticking out my arm, thumb up. Two more cars go by. After a while, I’m not embarrassed any more; I’m just hot and desperate.

I’ve been walking for more than an hour when a white rusted pickup stops. I tell the driver the name of the village where I’m going, and he motions for me to get in the back with three turkeys in a cage and about ten cases of beer and Coca-Cola. I toss my backpack in, but I can’t get my body in; the truck is too high. I can’t even get my foot into a position where I can swing the other foot over the back. The driver waits. Finally he motions me into the front seat.

We talk in Spanish amid rumbles and rattles and a muffler with a hole in it. Where am I from, where am I going, and why?

“I’m writing a book about life in Mexico for American children,” I lie. “I’d like to include a chapter about a Zapotec village. I’m hoping that I can stay in the village for a month.”

The driver is intrigued when he hears that I want to live in this village. He tells me that I have to talk to the
alcalde,
the mayor. After about an hour, we rattle into a village, the center of which has two stores in what used to be living rooms. The driver stops the truck in front of a group of men and talks to them. It is twelve noon. Five men, beer bottles in hand, greet me.

“Buenos días,”
I say. “Please, may I speak to the head of your village.”

One of them approaches. “
Hola,
Señora.
I am very sorry. The head of our village is in Mexico City. He will be back the day after tomorrow. Please come back then.”

Shit.

I tell them that I would like to stay in the village for a month and that I will return in three days. “Oh, yes,” they tell me. “The
alcalde
will be here then.”

“Do you think he will give me permission to stay?”

The men shrug at each other. One speaks. “If he can find a place for you to live.” Then they all start to talk in Zapotec, presumably about places where I could live. I don’t understand a word.

“I would be very happy if you would tell the mayor about me.”

“Por supuesto, Señora.”
Of course.

The thought of turning around and going back to Oaxaca doesn’t appeal to me. But no one has suggested I can stay, even for one night.

I buy a cold Coke. “Can I walk around a little before I leave?”

“Por favor,”
they say. Please.

None of the men walks with me as I walk up the gravelly paths and down. It is a village built on hills. The up part isn’t too bad, but I keep slipping on the down.

There are women in the village, but none of them greets me when I pass by, smiling and nodding. In fact, they run. Every once in a while I catch someone looking out a window or peering from behind a tree.

There are children playing. As soon as they see me, they take off, like a flock of birds. It is clear that I am not welcome. I feel like a disease that must be kept at a distance. I walk around the village for about ten minutes. Then I go back to Oaxaca.

Turns out there is a bus that goes back and forth to Oaxaca. I find out by accident. As I’m walking, it just appears and stops. No one in the village bothered to tell me.

When I arrive three days later, the same men are standing in the same place. This time it is ten in the morning. They are all, once again, holding beer bottles.

“Buenos días, Señora,”
they call as I walk toward them.

The head of the village welcomes me. “We are pleased that you wish to visit us for a month. José has a room for you in his yard.”

José is a small, muscular man with a mustache and wavy black hair. His wife will take good care of me, he says. The small house where I will be living is very safe, he tells me as we walk. It is made of concrete and there is a strong lock on a heavy metal door. I wonder why his first words are about security.

He tells me that he would like to give me the house for nothing, but it is the dry season and he has no money. He asks me for seven dollars a day for the room and food. It will help him feed his family. I’m sure it’s a fortune to him, and I’m also sure that everyone in the village thinks that he’s ripping me off. I don’t try to bargain.

My house is a one-room concrete shed about forty feet behind the house where José, his wife, and his three children live. It is clean except for a big black mass of something in one corner of the ceiling. The bed, a piece of foam rubber on a board, turns out to be firm and comfortable. The only openings in the room are the door and a two-foot by one-foot barred window above the door.

Margarita, José’s wife, arrives with coffee, trailed by three children under four. The children don’t speak Spanish; their mother speaks just enough to get by. (The language they speak is Zapotec.) I ask her to sit while I drink. She is twenty years old. She was born in this village and she has been to Oaxaca only once when her mother was in the hospital there.

When I finish the coffee, I ask about a toilet. She walks with me out the gate, across a dry, rocky field, and down a little hill to the cracked riverbed. The toilet. There are a couple of trees to squat behind, but I am wider than both of them. The rest of the foliage is mostly low and practically leafless. I decide to hold it in for a while longer.