Culture is important

Good evening (or morning...or night...depending on when you're reading this ;) )

Just an update on my life here, together with a brief description of my first days in this interesting country. Yes, interesting, especially for an italian girl. Mexicans are, in fact, quite similar to italians on several aspects: warm (I do miss that when I'm in Northern Europe!), Christians, not so keen on rules ;) , etc... Our two peoples are also, however, extremely different from each other. I'll start from the silliest difference: Mexicans eat eggs ALL THE TIME. I mean, seriously, every day. My mum always told me not to eat more than two eggs per week, and I don't think I'm the only one I've been told this (although I do cheat sometimes and eat more!). In general, as I think you all know, the cuisine is very different from the italian one. No pasta, unless you dare go to an italian restaurant (I don't, I'd rather wait till I'm back home!...by the way, while proof-reading the post I realized this is not true: I went to an Italian restaurant just over a week ago! In my defence, i was hungry and in a hurry, and it was the nearest restaurant). They eat lots of beans, and cheese, and tortillas...My favourite food here is Quesadillas, the two tortillas with melted cheese inside. I'm also trying to learn how to prepare Guacamole, it's supposedly very easy but I'm still not happy with the result.

Moreover, Mexican people dance. A lot. And the best thing (for me) is that it's not only girls who like to take the floor, but guys too! In Italy (and, to be honest, in much of the Europe I've seen), when a guy likes dancing, we immediately assume he's gay...and often we are not far from the truth! If it tends to be true, I don't think it is because dancing is for girls, but because only guys who have already distanced themselves from societal stereotypes can actually enjoy something that is deemed "feminine". Here, on the other hand, that kind of stereotype does not exist (well, I can't speak for all of Mexico, but certainly that's the idea I got from my experience here), so anybody is free to like (or dislike!) dancing. It's really one of the differences between Mexico and Italy that strike me most. As a salsa-lover (salsa the dance, not the sauce), I'm particularly happy about this! :D

Lastly, their way of living Christianity is a bit different from the way italian Christians' live it. Oh, I'm extending this to Central Americans in general, as it's something that has come up a lot in my work with migrants. In a way, they are very religious. It's very common for them to say goodbye with "que Dios te bendiga!" (="may God bless you"), and if you ask them how they're doing, they often answer "bien, gracias a Dios" (="I'm fine, thank God", similar to the arabic "mashallah"). They always assume you are Christian too (why wouldn't you be?) and they truly believed God is saving them, even if they haven't had food or water for days. I've never met a migrant who's told me "I used to believe in God, but why would he leave us in these conditions?". Also, mums are always praying for their kids who are on the camino. However, they don't really follow the Christian doctrine in their lives, or at least not in the way we understand it. The most obvious way to explain it is by telling you that sooooooo many of these Christians have several kids, from several women, who often haven't been their wives. In Italy it would really be a shame to have this kind of family situation (I don't think it's a shame! I'm just saying what Italian society often believes), but they talk about it in a very normal way. The guys with the guitars that I told you about in the other post, for example, were very connected to some kind of church, as I told you. So when I interviewed one of them and asked him "are you married?" he said something like "no, I am a Christian so I am waiting to find the woman who I'll be with all my life". Therefore, when we got to the next question, I was quite confident in saying "you don't have any kids then, right?" and he shook his head "I do...Two!". My bad...prejudice! But yeah, I find it very interesting. Today a guy told me he had 7 kids from three different women, one of which was his wife, the others (more recent, in the USA), no. Mhh...makes me think a lot about stereotypes.

Ok, I wanted to talk about my first days here but I'm very tired so I'll leave it to the next post. Just one last thing: in these days we have, at the comedor, a prophet. Yes, you heard me, a prophet! Well, that's what he thinks he is. He says he's from Israel although it seems a lot like he's from the US. He's searching for some kind of treasure in a Mexican city, that the Aztecs left and that will change the fate of the eternal battle between good and evil, God and the devil. He says the Aztecs were, in fact, Israelis too. It has been a good distraction from the usual stories of migrants being robbed in their journeys to the North! ;)

Hasta luego

Caterina

P.S. speaking of cultural differences...the other night I was having dinner with some of my colleagues and they told me that at a party a few nights before, they were all choosing one song each, to be fair to everyone. Most of the people were putting latin music, so they were all dancing to the rhythm...until this German colleague of mine chose her song, a German one, and everyone suddenly stopped dancing and they decided it was a good moment to take a group picture! You gotta choose the right music ;)