read it with your eyes

and do not judge, he said as we stopped outside the Seri community in Punta Chueca, Mexico.

just read it, don't judge it.

such powerful words to hear before any such trip.

i recently took a four day trip to Mexico. a few posts back i talked about my expectations of the trip. recently i read a quote that i will paraphrase and in doing so will butcher but you will get the idea. it goes something like this... when you travel to another place for a week, you will come home and have a whole lot of solutions for what they (in the other country) are doing wrong and how to fix it. if you go for a month you will write about your experience through your own lens of perspective. but if you go for a year you will write nothing at all.

although i was in mexico for only four short days, it felt like i was there for a lot longer and on my arrival back home i thought to myself....

damn, i don't know. there are no answers.

so i have a few disclaimers for this post.

1. this is only one view of a very small part of a small experience in mexico. although i have been multiple times, it is always a different experience and it in no way reflects all of mexico or even close to all of anything.
2. it is from my point of view.
3. i can't write about all of it because it is either too personal and i can't put words to it or i feel like there are a parts of it i don't want to share because they are not my story.
4. i have no answers.

the purpose of the trip was to go to parts of Sonora, Mexico with a group of teachers from Phoenix and Tucson to experience culture and education in Mexico in order to understand our students, parents, and Mexican culture a little bit better.

the first few days were spent visiting classrooms at different kinds of schools. the last few days were really focused on getting a small glimpse of sonoran, mexican, and indigenous culture. although i am an educator and i learned a lot about education in mexico, the most powerful experiences for me were the last few days. we drove out to part of the Seri community and visited Altar, which is the major staging place for immigrants coming to the U.S.

i have taken many trips in my lifetime but none that left me as speechless. to be honest i feel a really deep pain, a profound longing for people to become aware, for people to understand each other. i feel a sadness that i feel has yet to manifest itself completely. i feel overwhelmed. i feel a crazy mixed up sort of grace and faith running through the lives of many people who are seemingly different and yet the same. i feel the complexities of it all. and i don't even live there or live in it.

as one person said on the way home, i can leave it all, while some people live in it everyday.

i do not write this with a sense of pity. there are so many beautiful things about mexico. those of you who know me well, know how intricately i am tied to it and love parts of it. but in the midst of the beauty there are some deeply disturbing, perplexing and dark things that are inextricably linked to all who live and work in mexico and the united states.

i know very little about the seri people and claim no such abundance of knowledge. they have lived in the sonaran area for over 2,000 years and have been largely nomadic hunters and gathers until the spanish arrived. they used to inhabit tiburon island, the largest island in mexico, until it was deemed a wildlife refuge. they can no longer live there but it is still part of their land. this is an odd thing to say about a people who lived off the land and with the land all over sonora, who probably never believed they owned the land to begin with. they own the fishing rights off of the coast there and have survived many years of conflicts with the spanish and later mexicans. they seem to be a resilient people. when we arrived the women rushed toward the van with their necklaces, bracelets, baskets, and ironwood carvings to sell. their baskets are incredible and woven tightly with beautiful designs. i bought several necklaces there. we went with someone who has a connection with the seri and were able to tour the town. they offer education via satellite there in a small building. this brings up many questions of what really is a viable and important education for the Seri children. it brings up questions about assimilation, conceptions, the difference in the definition of education. all of these are further ponderings for another post.

our trip to Altar was...

well. i really don't know what to write. i feel as if that is another post for another day.