Missionary Kid Moments

I've been in Mexico for a week and a half now. Before coming I thought, "Surely I'll find plenty of things to write about for my blog." I've come to the realization that it's hard for me to write about Mexico. From that was born the knowledge that it's hard for me to talk about Mexico. I don't mean hard in the "painful" sense. I just mean that words do not come easily. When people ask me about Mexico, I stumble along answering as best I can, but I don't ever feel like I've answered well. That's not to say I don't like being asked; when people take an interest in the place I come from, they take an interest in a vitally important aspect of me, one that all too often feels like it has no bearing on my life in the States. Even with my close friends, the things that are unusual about me are attributed to the fact that I'm a quirky, idiosyncratic person. Of course, this is just as often correct as incorrect. Even I can't always separate the things that come from being me and the things that come from growing up in a different country. I know it's easy for people to forget that my childhood was radically different than most of my circle of friends. I don't have an accent or a different ethnicity to remind people that I am Other. I struggled a lot in college with the knowledge that if I did anything socially unacceptable, no one would make excuses for me because I grew up in a different culture. Most people didn't know I had. If I made cultural mistakes, I'd come across as awkward and socially ill-adjusted. That thought was detestable and humiliating to me. There is little more frustrating and embarrassing than saying something completely in earnest and having your friends find it hilarious (and I've always felt thunderously angry at those people who say, "Aww, you're blushing!" People who think blushing is cute are clearly not blushers themselves). But that wasn't what I set out to talk about. I was talking about the difficulty of verbalizing Mexico. Some people, I know, just aren't particularly interested. That's fine; I don't spend a great deal of time asking them questions about their hometown or upbringing either. When I am asked questions, though, they are usually some variant of "What's it like?" The simple answer, which the asker already knows, is "Different." And what he's really asking is, "What's different about it?" How do you describe something someone has never experienced? But it's so important to try, it's so important to who I am to try.

So here's a try. I'm sitting in a little hotel in a city called Oaxtepec, where my parents are having meetings with some other missionaries who work with indigenous people. The courtyard I'm sitting in is surrounded on three sides by two floors of rooms. The third side is the parking lot. There's a swimming pool. I don't know all of the plants in the garden surrounding it, but there's oleander, and little roses, and palm trees. I'm at a cast-iron patio table sitting just outside the hotel restaurant. It's quiet and a little warm and breezy. This is the source of my frustration: what I've just described could be anywhere, and I struggle to find the details that set this in Mexico. The building has a sort of Mexican colonial look. Painted bright yellow, with a dark green scrolled railing around the second floor. Heavy, dark wooden doors. Arched windows. Red tiled roof supported underneath by heavy wood beams. Although visually this area is completely isolated from the city, I can hear buses rumbling by on the street just outside the courtyard. The waiters in the restaurant speaking Spanish to each other (a no-brainer, I suppose, but it's the most comforting sound). The clicking of the lighter as they're getting the gas stove lit for lunchtime (which, by the way, is preposterously late here...I used to eat on that schedule, but now I'm ravenous by lunchtime, which is at about 2:00), and the little whoosh as the gas catches fire. The smell of tortillas heating. The generously applied perfume of the lady sitting at the table next to me, which reminds me of how dearly Mexican men love their cologne. To this day, a whiff of strong cologne stops me in my tracks because American guys hardly ever put on enough for me to smell it. There's a secret look into the mind of Emily you probably weren't expecting. I laugh at myself every time it happens.

Anyway, there's my best attempt. It's time for me to get my stuff put away and go to lunch, where I will eat delectable food that is different from American Mexican food in ways that I will never be able to describe. That's a feat I won't even attempt. I told my mom the first day I was back and she took me to the street market for lunch, "Eating real Mexican food is a quasi-religious experience." Why not? Every good and perfect gift is from above, including Mexican food.