Down and Out in Tulum-pt 3

Sisters of Tulum

After a shower and changing into clothes I think might´ve been clean Saturday, I head across the street to real Mexican food. I know this because Diego told me so and there was not ONE tourist in this joint. Just the way it´s gotta be.

I spent half my remaining pennies on steak tacos and guagamole, approximately two pounds of it! The Guag was as expensive as the tacos, but if I´d known it was that much, that´s ALL I´d have ordered.

Waited down with all that avocado-I´d order extra chips to snag every last bit-I needed a walk. It was cooler here, windier and I was tired, but could do for a bit of air.

Passing one loud bar with rock and another with Salsa I continued on to the Times Square—Parque Dos Aguas—another block down where the rhythmic drumming and the gleeful cries of a group of young and old partied under the brightest lights I´ve ever seen in a small town park. I mean Vegas isn´t this bright!

Three guys kept a great beat going and ended a dozen minutes later. As they walked the crowd collecting tips I wandered to the far end of this obviously newly built, work-in-progress park. One guy was throwing up a semi-inflated kickball missing the hoop miserably. Children were playiing on the Jungle Gym and I was thinking, it´s awfully late. It was Midnight! Still, I can see how anyone can get confused, the lights and all, it felt like high noon.

As I circle back around from the church, a beautiful white thing, with no door only a wrought iron fence, with a heavy rusted pad-locked Caín keeping “worshipers” out. Looking through to the alter, I heard the drums again, this time in the far corner of the park, just in front of the HSBC Bank.

This time three taller lighter tourists are clapping and one Pierre is dancing while the other Pierre, his younger brother, is sitting next to Sista Mayela, the ¨good witch¨, Sista Chely, holds her bike. She´s the therapist. And Sista Narmin, who works at a hotel and also does masajes, jaunces from side to side.

I start dancing and it isn´t long before things are going off. Pierre Henrí, turns noticing me, the only other black dude in Tulum, and begins dancing even harder. Narmin and Mayela are bopping and Charles, Walter and others are clapping and swaying to the growing faster beats.

“it’s great to see another brother here!” Henrí exclaims. “My brother and I have been traveling a while and you’re the first black person we’ve seen.”

¨Ya, ya Tulum,¨ the drummers start chanting and then adding verses in between.

We party like this for another good sweat, and tipping the drummers they keep saying they´re off. Yet they stay and Mayela dives into this great conversation about how those beats and the African culture is all of us.

¨Most Mexicans don´t understand how important this music, this culture is. I´ve lived in Jamaica, Belize, the States and I´ve studied how the black roots have been denied us. They´ve buried everything that is black in our culture and that´s why it´s great to see you all here.¨

While I´m going into this debate, Pierre Olivier translates to older bro, Pierre Henrí in French, as they´re from Cameroon, though studying in Montreal. Pierre Henrí explained that Pierre Olivier, the younger, has been traveling in Mexico and Central America a few weeks longer than Henrí. The Dutch and Swiss guys have gone off to the Moloko Bar that the Swiss teacher, Rafael, knows is the happening club for a 2 X 1 Tuesday night. The two Pierres are keen on getting to that that club/bar on the roof that I´d heard coming here to Parque Dos Aguas.

“Diaspora”

¨The Diaspora is so important to all of us,¨ Mayela continues. ¨Before there were the drums there was the creator.¨

¨This music is in our...blood, ¨ Henrí says.

“Diaspora”

“Diaspora”, this was Mayela's word which immediately brought me back to other highly erudite women. Reading bellhooks, in Dr. Jaime Skye Bianco's collage courses where she emphasized technology, sci-fi, deconstructionist theories and feminist criticism through Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood ande ven pedagogical and scientific texts.

Relax a bit, hooks! Get jaded, Ms. Independent! Smoke a fatty and laugh a bit. While I'm all for smart women of color plunging into these and other lines of discourse, I also believe in the healing power of endorphins released through laughter and sex.

This bottled seriousness reminded me of my great friend, Paola's, ability to turn whatever term or topic into something evil. We were riding back from a dinner at our boss's house-"The Hive" of this queen bee, another self-proclaimed savior of the oppressed- who has also done some incredible things to improve the villaje through example and self-empowerment. Anyway, I may have mentioned "recycling" or some other seemingly innoxious term and Paola would somehow deconstruct the word which "naturally" led her to believe those who recycled were unwittingly part of some diabolical conspiracy theory.

Needless to say, she's learned to laugh a bit more since then, taking her far from that bad place she was in, back then.

"Anyone can be a leader," Mayela continued. "You, me, him, anyone like us can stand up and lead."

"Yes, but fear blocks us all," Henrí countered. "The reason why you or I or he doesn't lead is because we all value something, someone. We're afraid and this fear controls us. If I have a niece, someone I love, they can take her away from me. This is the fear that separates us from those who lead. The only difference between these "leader" and I is he doesn't fear the consequences."

She would not be stifled.

"The only thing I know is this town is run by drug lords, corrupt people running this area and I say live life because it may not be here next year. Where we're going is not good. You watch, live and enjoy today, but come next year we may not be here!"

Both stood their ground, daring the other to stand and deliver. Yet, it starts with dialogue, intelligent conversations that are not egocentric; openly sparring without clear solutions. Which became our segue attack on tourism that is anything but eco-centric and definitely not based upon an erudite pursuit of historical, biological, arcitectual or anthropological connections. In a nutshell: The Human Element to travel.

Henrí commented a day or so later how just four or five blocks off Avenida Tulum, the main strip, there were squalid communities, deprivation and poverty that most never care to recognize.

"If you want to see the Real Mexico, go to Oaxaca the next time you come, or Chiapas and talk to the REAL MEXICAN,” Mayela attacked the fascade that Avenida Tulum represents. “Even better go to Puerto Angel or San Luís Potosí if you wish to learn about the true Mexico. This, here, is not real."

As a disclaimer, I want to quote several people, "It all depends what you're looking for."

Exactly!

That's why I'm on a quarter-filled bus to Tizimin near Río Lagartos as I write these edits to this piece originally written last Wednesday morning (7-29-09).

Still, what Mayela was saying and what Henrí experienced a few blocks off the main drag was the dichotomy of tourism.

"I can remember wanting to come here to learn more about the Maya and the Aztec when I was 10 and first learned about them,” I said agreeing with Mayela. “But now I come and there's hundreds of others. It seems more are here for diving, snorkeling and everything BUT the historical aspects from these cultures."

“This is what it's all about; people, the REAL Mexican,” Mayela said. “The food, the music, not places like this where all these tourists [come to exploit] the sites!"

A bit later, as Olivier went off talking to two other women and we strolled toward the bar where the two Cameroonians were hedging, Mayela summed up the entire night.

"What we're doing now, making connections with each other, the people, this is what you need to do in other REAL parts of Mexico."

I recall what she had joked about 30 minutes earlier when the parting began.

¨Come to us if you have any problems,¨ Mayela says.

¨You are the full package,¨ Olivier says.

¨You are the body, Narmin-the massuse. You are the mind, Chely-the therapist and you´re the spirit.¨

They didn´t seem to want to leave, though they had work and ¨husbands¨ to get home to. Near the end of that conversation, we lost Olivier, chatting it up with two younger women, with a child in tow. It had to be nearly 1 a.m. and what were they doing with a little kid out like this??

Once again I found myself yearning, craving la comunidad, la gente, la comida y los ritmos del PUEBLO. Of course I was "supposed" to be right there at that time to meet these three women, dance to African jams, with brothers from another mother, created by still more local artists and grow from each experience. These were the connections that were essential and, in a way, could only have happened in this touristy place.

This, too is not the same as all those who'd traded e-dresses with me and dozens more. Like Devin said that first night I showed him Salvador Goméz’s barrio and we found the best Mojitos in Habana Vieja, "It's strange how you can meet someone and have a deep conversation with them, be changed forever, than never see that person ever again.” For, though we made plans to see each other, those next two nights Chely, Narim and Mayela were NOT to be found.

Really, I’m Not Hungry

They didn´t join us to Moloko Bar.

¨I don´t have any money. I´ll go, but I won´t drink,¨ I told the older, Pierre Henrí.

¨Don´t worry about it. We´re in the same situation, and I don´t want to drink beer either.¨

Three rounds later, we were leaving with the European friends to get something to eat. They kept buying beers and food and round after round, the Swiss dude, Rafael, who was plugged into the scene after only ONE day, guided us to the loudest restaurant, literally three doors down from my Kukulcan Hotel.

Once again, ¨Hey, I´m NOT hungry. Really, I just had two pounds of guagamole and some tacos at the place next door. Plus I have NO money, remember?¨

¨Don´t wory about it.¨

We picked up three women throwing water at each other outside the bathrooms, and another trio of French women also staying at the Weary Traveler and they—Charles, from Holland, Pepe and Rafael from Switzerland—kept ordering rounds, two of the hugest shrimp cerviches I´ve ever seen and chicken tacos, meat and chicken quesadillas and rounds of XX! They even bought rounds for the Mexican workers, all in white, who came in an hour after us.

¨I´m not hungry,¨ I kept saying as the shrimp just sat there, calling my bloated belly....

The female DJ was putting on some great local and Old School jams which had Henrí dancing before the food arrived, though he would NOT be called away from his Happy Feet! Noticing the stacked ¡Viva Mexico! Somberos of varying sizes and decorations on the counter, I grabbed a dozen and ran around throwing them atop everyone’s head.

“It’s too bad no one has a camera,” Pierre Olivier called.

I went across the way, let myself into my room without waking Diego up—he was on the door, or rather sleeping on the bench his son slept on four hours before—to get my camera.

The Dutch guy, Charles, hooked up with the cutest of the local girls and two of the French girls refused to dance with anyone except themselves. The other was cool....

We closed the place down and I got home, across the way around 4 a.m.

I suppose in a warped way, El Mariachi Restaurant, from where I’d first worried about the blasting music, had kept me awake, dancing and laughing my first crazy night away.

!Viva Tulum!