Of Weddings and Weather, Fire and Feathers

Greetings dear readers!

Apologies for the long absence once again; it's been a crazy few months full of drama, good and bad, here in Isla Mujeres.

I don't know that there is any sort of cogent theme to this post (aside from some convenient alliteration), but I just want to catch you up on some of the events since my return in January--my posts have been away from my little island for far too long!

First of all, the weather has been all over the place since returning. Isla Mujeres is by far the windiest place I've ever lived--and our weather is completely dependent on which way the wind is blowing. We mostly get gusty southern or northern winds, which determine if we're warm or chilly. And chilly? What does that mean here? About mid-60s. Go ahead and laugh, but you should see how the mothers dress up their babies for this bitter chill; it looks like they're going for winter walk in Wisconsin! It has been windy nearly everyday for at least 2 months now, so bad many days in early February that the port was closed to all boats but the ferry. My poor friends who work in dive shops became pretty despondent. And accompanying the wind, some strong rain as well. And, you know, there is really only so much to do in a place like Isla Mujeres when the weather goes bad. I mean, once the sea and the surf are cut off and you're wearing a sweater, doesn't feel so much like paradise. Not that that's a complaint, just that it's not the kind of Isla Mujeres you would slap on a postcard. Anyway, the increasingly warmer sun each day is promising, and I am optimistic that the weather will make a definitive turn for paradise again soon.

In the midst of all of this relative cold and discomfort, a tragedy struck a few weekends ago. On a Friday evening, I stepped out of the house around 10 to catch a cab downtown. A few blocks away over the trees, I could see blazing orange light and flickering flames. I couldn't make out what it could possibly be at first, too surprised to react to the obvious: FIRE! As soon as I recognized what it was, I raced up to the roof of the school and could see the giant palapa of a very wealthy expat's home on fire. It was a big circular structure, and in the flames it looked for all the world like a volcano from some sort of Epcot ride. Just in front of this home--fodder for a talk about Isla's wealth inequalities--sits the "Guadalupana," or cardboard shack community of Isla. Ray and I have several friends and a co-worker who live in this colonia, so we quickly made our way as close as we could to find out what was going on. As most everyone in Isla Mujeres knows someone who lives there, cell phones were ablaze themselves, everyone calling with information and misinformation and general panic. Isla Mujeres has no regular fire department, only volunteers, the police, and the navy. These forces were in action, thankfully, by the time we got there. Regular potable water trucks were working to put out the blaze, as there are no fire trucks, and the police and navy were keeping the curious at bay. Since there was little we could do to help, we went home and went to bed, too sobered by the unknowns of the fire to want to go out for the night.

As we learned in the morning, a cooking gas tank in the Guadalupana exploded the night before, mercifully hurting no one, but sparking a blaze that, with the strong wind's help, rapidly ate up 18 cardboard homes in the Guadalupana. Again, mercifully no one was hurt, but the flames got so big so fast that they caught onto an electrical wire strung between the community and the mansion next door. The flames, incredibly, traveled along on this wire until they reached the palapa of the mansion. Given that a palapa is a roof covering made of woven, dried palm fronds, you can be certain that it was ablaze almost instantly. Though I don't know this expat and wouldn't wish harm on anyone, there does seem to be some poetic justice in the fact that even this fortress of a home would be vulnerable, alongside some of the most vulnerable homes on the whole island. Unlike the residents of Guadalupana, this man undoubtedly has insurance on his possessions. The 18 families affected by the fire do not, and many lost everything but the clothes on their backs. One of the homes that burned was that of our school secretary. She had literally just finished rebuilding it the week before. Our school and several other local non-profits quickly went into gear to see how we could help provide necessities to these families. The school's doors were open all weekend, and we accepted donations of clothing, toiletries, cooking supplies, school supplies--anything you can imagine you might need if you lost everything in a fire. We also recruited a small sandwich-making legion and sent ham and cheese sandwiches down to the Guadalupana, which is after all just a few blocks away. The first-response efforts have since ended, but the families are obviously still working to rebuild all that they've lost. As they are mostly squatters on the land, they cannot or are afraid to leave their plots for even a night. So some are even sleeping out on the ground directly, unwilling to risk whatever investments still remain on the land. The temperature has gotten down to the mid-fifties some of these nights, and with a strong wind and a drizzle, this is miserable! People are nothing if not resourceful in a crisis, however, so I've been relieved to hear of progress. Ultimately, the greatest blessing remains that nobody was hurt!

Despite the off-putting weather and dramatic blaze of that Friday night, nothing could stop the juggernaut of that weekend's festivities: Carnaval! Isla Mujeres had been gearing up for this party for literally months, even giving grades in some of the schools for participation and performance in the dance groups.

Carnaval is obviously associated with places like Rio de Janiero, but has a strong presence in other parts of the Caribbean and Latin America as well. There were a lot of towns and cities in Mexico celebrating the last hurrah before the start of Lent. As I mentioned, Isla's celebrations revolved mostly around choreographed dancing in incredibly elaborate costumes; explosions of sequins and feathers and synthetic fabrics. This year's theme was "Birds of Paradise" so the plumage factor was even more exaggerated than in other years.

There were also some other events and a few parades, but given the small number of streets on our little island, these "parades" were basically traffic jams of feathers and pumping bass and eyeliner. Thanks to the number events and dance nights held during Carnaval, I ended up with a 5-day weekend out of the deal, right through Mardi Gras. Tough life, I know it.


Some of the dancers racing along on their inevitable motos to the parade/traffic jam.


Some girls waiting for the parade to start, with their music blasting. For the whole 5 days of Carnaval, trucks full of feathered and sequined girls would roll around the island sporadically, pumping out music. It was pretty amusing.


These teenagers look like they're in some sort of elaborate bird-mating ritual; as if teenagers needed encouragement to dress provocatively in front of one another...


These ladies were one of the favorite dance groups during Carnaval. Their costumes were meant to look like toucans, and they had some of the most ridiculous headdresses I've ever seen--they were at least 3 feet tall!

Soon after Carnaval, I went on my very first night dive! My closest friend on the island recently married a man who runs a dive shop here in Isla. Thanks to their amazing generosity, I on my little teacher salary still get to do some really great diving. We went out as a small group to a reef on the southwestern side of the island last Monday night and rolled in once we couldn't see the bottom anymore. We had flashlights to guide us and to see the wildlife--and what wildlife we saw! We must have seen 50 lobsters, whose eyes glowed orange when you shined the flashlight on them. We saw the most enormous puffer fish ever (with a head the size of a huge bowling ball), tons of fish, 2 sleepy sea turtles, a spotted (and grumpy) moray eel, a big nurse shark, and--my favorite--an octopus! My friend had said they looked really eerie in person, and I would have to agree. Before the dive, I had been concerned that I would get panicky. I mean, it is dark, there are sharks, and you are under meters of water completely reliant on gear. But I am always amazed by just how calm and logical things seem underwater, as counter-intuitive as that may seem.

Though I found this photo online, this is what the eel looked like...funny how they look so much scarier in pictures than they do in life.

Last weekend, the fun continued. The school was offered the opportunity back in December to bring some of the young students (my students) and some chaperons for free to a kite festival near Cancun. I took the opportunity, and held a competition (based on vocabulary memorization and attendance) to decide which students would go. We ended up with 11 kids and 8 chaperons last Saturday. It was held in a place called Isla Blanca, which is not actually an island but a narrow little peninsula north of Cancun. It is beautiful there, relatively quiet and lush. There's a perfect little beach strip, popular with kite surfers, where the festival centered. Conditions were perfect; too perfect in fact. The wind was absolutely out of control! It kept picking up the sand from the beach and blasting it into our faces and hair--I won't need to exfoliate for at least another month, though it did take 3 days to get all the sand out of my hair.

Some of my amazing students taking the car ferry across the bay to Punta Sam, the closest point to Isla Blanca.


A few students getting their first kite attempts into the air. The outrageously strong wind broke more than a few of them, and prevented us from seeing some of the cooler, huge kites the organizers had brought along. Kids being kids, they got a bit tired of the kites for a spell, and started an impromptu soccer match on the beach between some beach chairs. Naturally, they kicked the ball into the surf at one point, and were not big enough to reach in and grab it. I heard calls of "Teacher! Teacher!" and went over to see what had happened. I figured the ball was still just in my reach, and when it didn't prove to be, I decided to swim in (fully-clothed) after it, since we had borrowed it from another group. Unfortunately, given the wind's affect on the waves, the ball quickly carried well out of my reach, and has undoubtedly reached Havana by this point. The kids spent the rest of the day periodically touching my clothes to see if I had dried yet.


Two of my girls learning kite tricks from an expert who helped organize the festival. It turned out to be a very fun day!

The moment we returned from the festival, I rushed home to change. One of the school secretaries announced she was getting married back in January, and chose last Saturday as the date. As I had already committed to the festival, I couldn't back out, and I knew I could at least make the second half of the wedding/reception by 7:00. The official signing of the registry and the reception were held at the beach, which ended up being windy and about 55 degrees that night--not the most hospitable for wedding clothes! She looked lovely, however, and seemed to enjoy herself.

Her wedding was a particularly interesting experience for me because I have worked several weekends with an American wedding planner who does destination weddings here in Isla Mujeres. These weddings are planned for non-Mexicans who decide they want the whole "barefoot in the sand at sunset" approach. While the geography is different, these weddings are still distinctly American; timely and fancy and pretty formal. Our secretary's wedding was a different experience entirely. Nothing started on time and at one point the groom even left the wedding to track down the wedding planner so the night could go on. We ate spaghetti off of styrofoam plates for dinner, with the bride casually squeezing a chair between Ray and I to quickly down her food. Following the bride tossing her bouquet for the "senoritas," the groom had his own little traditions, much more interesting than the staid little garter belt. All of the single men were to move, conga-line style, around a chair upon which the groom was standing with a full bottle of vodka. As the men passed under the bottle, they opened wide like baby birds, and he poured away. Once they had finished a lot of the bottle, they then forced the rest of the bottle on him, and then forcibly carried him away to the bathroom, where they literally removed every single stitch of his clothing. This clothing was then carried out to the bride, in front of all, and she returned to the bathroom to redress him--I'm trying to imagine how that might go down at an American wedding. A further "tradition" which I'm still wrapping my head around is the "show." The "show" is a drag show, which openly either mocks gays or mocks homophobia--which one I haven't figured out yet (though it shows an unfortunate inclination toward the former). There were 4 men involved, one dressed and acting as a man, and the rest as three huge, platform-heeled and vampy women. They did some lip-syncing and strutting, but then put on such a sickening parody of domestic abuse, adultery, and disrespect toward women that I was stunned. What kind of symbolism is that to start a marriage? I've mentioned before that Mexican humor is generally a bit bawdy, but this was beyond my laugh range. The show was between dinner and dessert, but by the time that came around, I'd lost my appetite and was on my way home. While this is obviously not indicative of all Mexican weddings and I really like my co-worker, I'm afraid that I will remember this evening for all of the wrong reasons.

Beyond all of these events, the day to day of Isla is lovely. I feel content and unstressed and I get more than enough sleep and sunshine here--something I could never have said in Washington. My students are super, and I am really having fun in the classroom. The one big variable is the number of volunteers and visitors we get this time of year. Many of them are good people who make great additions to the classroom, yet there are a few who leave some to be desired. A few days ago, that desired property was privacy. I had come home from a morning walk with a friend just before the doors of the school opened, and I headed upstairs to take a shower. Soon after, the secretary let in some visitors, and didn't keep an eye on them or explain to them that the upstairs quarters were private living space and not to be entered. I had literally just come out of the shower and was toweling off when suddenly, without knock or warning, the door to the bathroom opened! The two visitors had come upstairs and felt it appropriate to begin opening doors to rooms which were obviously NOT classrooms! I was horrified, though they seemed surprisingly unruffled themselves. My boss has since made a huge sign stating that visitors are NOT to come upstairs!

Despite these hiccups, as I mentioned, things are going well here. I am really excited to have my family down here next week! It will be a blast to show them around and travel a bit with them. It will be the first time they visit me while living abroad.

I must say, I am shocked at the speed at which 2010 is already flying. It makes me nervous for just how fast the rest of my time will pass here as well. Perhaps you've noticed, but my list of "Isla Mujeres Goals" on the sidebar just keeps getting longer and more ambitious. I'm not ready for the time to fly away! With that said, I do hope that spring visits all of you in colder climes soon. Thanks for reading, and catch you again pronto!