Relative poverty and self-reliance
Published: Fri, 11/04/16
Downside of staying in Mexico. I am not going to claim that staying in a fairly luxurious, all inclusive, beach resort is an experience of the ‘real’ Mexico. Talking to our taxi driver and keeping my eyes open when on days out from the resort it was clear that ordinary Mexicans have quite tough lives. Houses are often small and obviously self built. It is surprising how many buildings are, at least partially, constructed out of lashed poles and thatched with palm leaves. A technique that has probably been used for literally thousands of years. From what I saw there was relative poverty but a lot of self reliance.
The Mexicans who worked in the resort were always very neatly turned out, very polite and attentive and appeared to be very hard working. It is an odd experience being looked after like royalty even though the cost of staying there was actually incredibly reasonable. There was some muttering about socio economic injustice from a few members of the party, personally, I am not sure I can judge one way or the other.
One thing that did irritate the hell out of me, although I found myself laughing about it after a while, was the musical rocks. Yes, musical rocks. Every few yards along the paths from one block to another, was a dark grey rock. At very first glance in the dark you might actually be fooled into thinking it really was a rock. But, exactly five yards later would be another, identical rock and each one had a circular panel in the front. From each one came inane pop music, sometimes obviously Mexican, sometimes western pop standards. Every five yards, musical rocks, I guess someone must have thought it was a good idea!
On the other hand it was great to see creatures like this handsome fellow http://oxfordstavclub.co.uk/images/iguana.jpg just sunning himself on the lawn. I will tell you about the Agouti’s sometime too.
The real downside has been coming home. I don’t mean I am not happy to be back in Somerset but my body is still adjusting to the time difference which means getting to sleep isn’t easy and 7.30am seems very early to be getting up. I am just grateful for the hour going back making it a 5 hour difference instead of 6. Yes, it is a small price to pay for the experience we had. It also shows how we are tuned in to our environment, the seasons and how our internal rhythms should match the world we live in. Travel to the other side of the world for a week and I realise what a dislocation it is regardless of how idyllic the new environment is.
Now I am back I am getting on with some important projects. First, I have just created a course which I am going to run for the first time in December. A foundation training day in Crewkerne supported by a study programme. This will give you a chance to learn the stances, discover how to study the runes. Introduce the key bind runes and how to learn from them. Also, a very basic martial practice for exercise and to show the lines of the web. Full details here http://iceandfire.org.uk/foundation.html
regards
Graham