The Harlem shuffle

Finally typing up some of my New York notes. Feeling nostalgic ...

It’s raining when we emerge from the subway station; a dense, feathery drizzle. I squint through it as we pause on a street corner to get our bearings, huddled over the Lonely Planet. We choose a direction and stride, heads ducked to keep the rain from our eyes.

Fast food restaurants flash by – McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s – and I realise how rare they have been on our New York journey so far. In fact, if it weren’t for the distant view of skyscrapers, I might think we had left Manhattan behind. The buzz of Midtown and the moneyed bohemia of Greenwich Village have given way to grey streets and cheap storefronts. No more tourist kitsch or studied cool.

The faces we pass are increasingly Hispanic; taco vendors stand in the drizzle. Shop signs are in Spanish. We are walking in the wrong direction, now deep in so-called Spanish Harlem, rather than the traditional African American district we are heading for, where we hope to see Malcolm Shabbazz Mosque (where Malcolm X preached) and eat home-style Southern food. Time is short and we’ve just come from Mexico – we don’t need to linger here.

Back past the subway station, and over the invisible border to Harlem proper. Harlem is in the process of being gentrified; in New York as in Sydney, real estate prices and hot new neighbourhoods are the talk of the town. Our New York friend, D, tells us that a couple of years ago you could pick up a Harlem brownstone for $200,000-$300,000. Now, you’d be lucky to pay a million.

So, the general shabbiness of this million-dollar New Neighbourhood comes as a shock. The Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Market is the first stop on our Lonely Planet tour, described as a popular marketplace and recommended for ‘alfresco shopping’. Rainbow-painted, flag-topped twin domes rise above green and yellow columns at either side of the entrance, bordering a yellow plastic sign adorned with an Islamic star. High-rise commission flats tower in the background; immediately next door, a grey brick building is sheathed in scaffolding, scraps of plastic sheeting flapping in empty windows. The market is shielded by wire mesh gates; the aisles rooved with metal frames slathered with blue plastic and hung with fluorescent lighting. The stallholders huddle in their alcoves behind card tables piled with the woollen caps, scarves and beanies we’ve browsed on Manhattan street corners, or folded African tunics in cheerful colours. There is gaudy jewellery and hanging racks lined with more tunics. The ‘alfresco’ atmosphere is sombre, to match the weather perhaps. The stallholders offer us the guarded smiles I recognise from the more touristy parts of Mexico; not friendly, but ready to pretend, in order to make a sale. They’re not delighted by our presence in their neighbourhood, but tolerant.



We browse quickly, sparsely, and move to the corner of Lenox Street, simultaneously known as Malcolm X Boulevard. We are looking for the mosque where he preached; both The Husband and I devoured his autobiography some years ago, and both of us it count it among our favourite books. (In fact, I used to tease The Husband mercilessly that he was ‘pretty fly for a white guy’, given his intense interest in African American culture.)

The mosque should be ‘next door’ to the market, according to the Lonely Planet, but we don’t see it anywhere. There is a fish market, an apartment building and a giant food market (actually a supermarket), but no sign of a mosque. We cross the street, in the direction of a grey and red brick building topped with bulbous green plaster domes. It doesn’t really look like a mosque, but we’re getting desperate. It’s not a mosque; it’s a community centre and a row of businesses: a shoe repair store, a business outreach centre, a school.

Starving and soaking wet, with the rain increasing in density overhead, we give up and head for a nearby ‘soul food’ restaurant, Amy Ruth’s. Yes, it’s listed in the Lonely Planet. And, for the first time since we’ve left the subway station, the Lonely Planet doesn’t disappoint. As I sink into my chair and wipe my glasses clear, I feel the gloom of the morning melt away. The walls are hung with glossy framed photographs of Oprah in South Africa. In one picture, her arm is casually hooked around Nelson Mandela’s neck. The power relationship suggested by the gesture makes me slightly uncomfortable.



The waitress brings us menus decorated with a sepia photograph of the eponymous Amy Ruth – and thumbnail happy snaps of the owner with all the famous customers who have passed through these doors, from Alicia Keys to a satisfied-looking Bill Clinton (who has an office in Harlem). The menu features a lot of fried chicken, a delectable-looking line of waffles, and a variety of foods I’ve read about but never eaten, like collard greens and cheesy grits. Our orders are taken with an air of polite servitude by a determinedly surly waitress. I don’t know if she’s having a bad day, if she hates her job, or if she doesn’t like tourists (or all of the above), but it’s plain that she is determined to fulfil her job description nonetheless. The waitress at the next time is warmer, more genuine.

A puffy white couple sit before fried chicken sandwiches, chewing expressionlessly. The woman wears square wire-frame glasses and a red parka vest over a white turtleneck. A greying mullet laps the nape of her neck. She knocks her drink over the table, liquid dripping from the table’s edge and onto her jeans. She dabs at her knees with a napkin as their waitress materialises and inspects the woman’s sandwich, bobbing in a lake of water.
‘Ohhhhhhhhh no, I’ll get you another one’ she clucks.
‘No, it’s fine.’ The woman is obviously keen to be free of the attention.
The waitress soon brings out enormous slices of pie and the pair continue their meal.

Wedges of steaming yellow cake are laid before us as we await our orders. Corn bread, compliments of the house. Something else I’ve read about, but never seen, let alone tried. It is unbelievably good, made better by the cold outside and our breakfast-free stomachs. It is 1pm. The Husband and I have been money-conscious and ordered fried chicken sandwiches, This, too, is fantastic – crispy, succulent, nothing whatsoever like the ‘southern fried’ chicken exported around the world. Curiosity has driven me to order cheesy grits as a side. It looks like couscous floating in liquid, and tastes something like that, too. Only with cheese. Fluorescent yellow, sticky processed cheese. The whole thing is curiously tasteless. It’s my least favourite thing, and I only manage a few lacklustre mouthfuls.

Out on the street, we are refuelled and ready to find the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque. We walk in a small circle, from the restaurant, past the domed building, back to the market and back again. Not a sign of a mosque, though we do spy a few churches nearby. (There’s a saying: in Harlem, there’s a bar on every corner and a church on every block.) Eventually, in desperation, we enter a nearby pharmacy to ask for help. The shelves are sparsely stocked, the aisles deserted. Nobody behind the counter either. We stand by the till and shout tentatively into the back room. A small, white-haired white man shuffles to our aid. We explain our dilemma and ask if he knows where the mosque is. He squints and shakes his head.
‘I drive my car here every day from Queens, I park my car across the street, I go home. I’m sorry, I don’t know the area at all.’
We ask at the supermarket next door, where we meet a knowing look and step-by-step instructions.

Strangely, we still can’t find it. We walk up and down the stretch of road where the mosque should be – in front of the green-domed building. Only the businesses, and the school. We walk to Amy Ruth’s and back. A string of passers by wear traditional African dress – floor-length robes and pillbox turbans. Some of them turn and enter the school.
‘The mosque MUST be here,’ says The Husband.
And suddenly, we see it. Or rather, he does. The small white sign over the school: ‘Malcolm Shabbazz Masjid. Sister Clara Muhammad Elementary & Secondary Schools.’ Masjid is mosque in Arabic. It was right in front of us all this time.



Look at the sign on the far right: that's it!

A few men mill around the entrance, talking. They look hard-edged, serious, huddled into parkas and beanies. We don’t go in. We cross the road and take photos instead. From the unprepossessing shopfront, it doesn’t seem that the people who live here are particularly keen on attracting tourists to the site.

We pass a discount department store as we round the corner onto Malcolm X Boulevard and head for the next site, The Liberation Bookstore, a well-known independent community bookstore specialising in African American culture. I duck backwards, past the woman selling newspapers outside who didn’t know where the Malcolm Shabazz mosque was (we asked around a bit) and zip past the armed security guard and into the store. The Husband follows. I want an umbrella. There is no umbrella in sight, but I do see $10 hooded parkas. I squeeze between the clothing racks and a mirror and peel off my own damp jacket to inspect myself. The parka is fleecy on the inside; fake fur lines the hood. I am warm and dry. Even if I can’t fit this in my bag and have to leave it behind, it will be worth it for the afternoon. Other customers eye me with a blend of curiosity and suspicion as I queue and pay. We are the only white faces in the semi-crowded store. I guess even the tourists who do make it here don’t generally detour to buy clothes. At the doorway, as we leave, a small crowd has gathered. The security guard, the woman selling newspapers and one of the shop assistants are confronting a shoplifter. They are offering to not call the police if he gives back the stolen goods they are convinced he has hidden. The shop assistant is dominating proceedings, shouting at him as if she's a Jerry Springer guest.



We pass beauty and hair braiding salons, greasy spoons specialising in fried chicken and a soul food catering service. There really IS a church on every corner. A sign outside on one them reads: ‘It’s More Than a Symbol, It’s the Solution. Bring Your Family Back to God.’ Obviously, gentrification is in its early stages; there are still plenty of non-millionaires here. It’s obvious from the people walking by, from the 99 cent stores, and from the lack of polished-wood coffee shops. We pass buildings in various stages of disrepair: tired-looking red-brick buildings, boarded-up brownstones, and other brownstones elegantly restored (or preserved). Sometimes, we peer down side streets lined with gorgeous Queen Anne brownstones, bare-branched trees and – inevitably - parked SUVs. These pockets of full-blown gentrification are mirror images of Brooklyn’s Park Slope.



When we eventually reach the Liberation Bookstore, after pausing to glimpse the Apollo Theatre (famous for hosting the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown and the Jackson Five early in their careers), it is well and truly shut.* Iron bars cover the windows and door. We look mournfully through the windows and read the sign on the door that confirms, according to the hours displayed, that it SHOULD be open. The windows are plastered with political pamphlets and stickers. One declares against the war in Iraq, following up with (something alone the lines of): ‘the only terrorists OUR community has ever known are the NYPD’. It’s interesting, and sobering, after spotting the NYPD t-shirts and coffee mugs all over Midtown and the spontaneous declarations of love scribbled on the streets of Brooklyn and much of Manhattan. Like the vast painted wall in Park Slope given over to: ‘God bless the NYPD and FDNY’, with an American flag flying in the background.



We are tired and somewhat despondent. We walk a few blocks further, before pausing in front of another flowering of commission flats behind a supermarket.
‘Shall we hail a bus and go?’ asks The Husband. I agree. It’s entirely likely that we missed the best of Harlem by not continuing on. But two disappointing cultural landmarks were enough for one day.

* As an anonymous commenter kindly pointed out, the Liberation Bookstore has been shut for several years. (I did wonder after googling and finding some articles about the fight against its impending closure, but as these were dated 2003 and the Lonely Planet was published last year, I figured it must have somehow survived. Apparently not.)

Why I'm glad I don't have a girl

They don't look very nice to me.



Because I'd LOVE my pre-teen to list her three top activities as beautifying, shopping and hanging with the girls. (The last one is just fine, of course.)



Once again: sleeping (fine), doing her nails (?!), gossiping on the phone (at least she's not TXTing - joke).

Where are these gems of pre-teen wisdom to be found? The Bratz Door-Hanger Book. Honestly: what high school girl would be caught dead playing with Bratz, let alone proudly hanging Bratz on her door? Meaning this stuff is aimed at little girls. Probably aimed squarely at girls my son's age (seven, nearly eight).

My son made a sign for his door earlier this year. It said 'Science Boys Only. Experiments in Progress.' Later, he added: 'NO GIRLS ALLOWED.'

If my son is out, he's probably playing some kind of Lego or footy. He might be making posters or comic books or footy cards. He might be in the shed listening to Wolfmother or playing his guitar or reading Andy Griffiths books. We might be at the beach or the playground or in the park. At worst (if it's a weekend - no electronic media during the week), he might be playing Play Station or surfing the Lego Club website.

If I had a little girl instead of a little boy, I'd hope that her 'nice' friends would not be wearing fishnet stockings and tutus with crop-tops and stilettos laced over their ankles.

I'd hope that if she was out, she would be in the park or drawing pictures or playing with dolls or reading books. Or just something, anything, that KIDS do - rather than anorexic Paris and (no-knickers era) Britney clones.

I hate this shit.

Can it be a GOOD thing ... ?

My brain broke this afternoon.

I answered The Husband's Skype call from Mexico with this information. After patiently listening to me for a while, he suggested I go for a walk in the park with the dogs to clear my head. I meekly agreed.

He called me back half an hour later. I hadn't gone. He STRONGLY ADVISED I go to the park, and quickly.

Brain still broken (of course), I gathered up the dogs, my purse and my backpack and firmly shut the front door behind me. Which is when I realised that I had locked myself out of the house.

***

Two weeks ago, I locked F and myself out of the house as we began our walk in the park. He scaled the back fence and got stuck in the part we'd blocked off with chickenwire to stop The Evil Dog from escaping. I climbed onto the garage roof and jumped off into the backyard. I let F in through the side gate (he wasn't VERY stuck). We tried all the windows, hoping for an open crack. There was none. We tried jiggling the frames (or at least I did). No luck.

'Mum,' said F solemnly. 'We might have to break a window. Shall I do it?'
'NO!'

After twenty minutes and another search through my backpack, I found the key. Crisis averted.

***

Two weeks later, today, the backpack was well and truly empty apart from my purse. So were my pockets. And I knew, from recent experience, that the house was pretty inpenetrable.

This time, the garage rollerdoor wasn't locked. At least I didn't have to scale any rooves.

I didn't break a window, but I did break down the door.

If you try to break down your door, and the lock quite easily snaps off*, and the now-obviously rotting door-frame crumbles around it ... it means you can get inside. So, it's great news. At first.

But, if you live alone (apart from a seven-year-old) and it's that easy to break your door down ...

can it REALLY be a GOOD thing?



* By the way, I banged the lock back into the door-frame with a hammer and it's seemingly back to normal now, so it's not like I'm COMPLETELY without household security. Just in case you were wondering.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I'm typing at my computer with my legs crossed on the seat, yoga-style, because I've just spotted a mouse sneaking its way behind the printer.

And yes, I screamed. Loudly.

The dogs are now roaming about my feet. They don't seem to much care about the mouse, though. I wonder how long it will take before I can walk around the study comfortably. I suspect the rest of the day (in which I have much work to do) will see me creeping about the house in the manner of the mouse.

I also predict that the dogs will not catch it.

My happy place (at least for now): Williamstown

Williamstown is a strange blend of identities. The ‘Toorak of the west’: home of the rich. ‘St Kilda of the west’: a seaside suburb that families from surrounding suburbs flock to in the summer months – and on sunny days in general. I lived in Williamstown for five months (winter months, mostly) and discovered yet another identity: conservative Williamstown. A place where newcomers are carefully watched by neighbours who have lived in the area for years, and report on their quirks and foibles. (I was almost evicted because I refused to remove a couch from the front porch – both my landlords and neighbours found it unsightly.)



It's a suburb with the feel of a country town, within sight of the CBD towers and the shores of the inner-city seaside stretch between Port Melbourne and St Kilda. Perhaps it’s the geography of Williamstown – a suburb largely bordered by the bay – that retains its small-town feel. That flavour is cleverly helped along by the heritage-listed buildings housing the shops and restaurants along Nelson Place, facing the wharf with the view of inner Melbourne across the bay. Like St Kilda, Williamstown has its own Botanic Gardens adjacent to the beach, and generous parklands running along the waterfront. (Unlike St Kilda, the public transport is awful – to travel to the city outside peak hour, the traveller must change trains at Newport station, one stop after North Williamstown. Try it on a cold winter night.) You can quite easily walk from one part of Williamstown to another - and on your way from, say, the library or the local Coles, to the beach, you’ll pass parks, playgrounds and picturesque stretches of seaside. It is a wonderful place to explore with a child. And yet …



I moved out of Williamstown four years ago, unspeakably relieved to escape the isolation of that beautiful suburb across the bay for the haven of a tiny flat in North Fitzroy. But since I’ve returned from overseas, one month ago, I’ve gravitated there for rest and respite. I’ve been there four times – an average of once a week – cycling to the train station with F on the back cushion, travelling two stations, enduring the still-frustrating train change at Newport, then disembarking. And every visit has granted me the mental equivalent of a deep breath before continuing on my way. I return both invigorated and relaxed (though often exhausted from cycling around with a nearly-eight-year-old and two heavy backpacks).



Today, Anzac Day, ‘Willie’, as we’re affectionately calling it, is packed with families. It’s a gorgeous spring day (even though it's autumn): flawless blue sky, golden sunlight, crisp air. The beach is crowded with toddlers and pre-teens ankle-deep in rock pools. Middle-aged men and women settle contentedly on the sand beneath wide-brimmed hats, books or magazines in hand. Dog owners meander along the shore in tracksuits. Two elderly Mediterranean women, round as grapefruits in sleek fifties bathing suits and shiny caps, wander along the fringe of the waves. A bronzed, white-haired man, also Mediterranean in appearance, strides in the opposite direction, chin raised high, swollen belly resplendent above royal blue Speedos. The parks across the road and further along the path, where sand blends into grass, are fragrant with the aroma of barbecue. Women in headscarves and ankle-length skirts stroll along the beachfront as I huff past on my bicycle. They nod hello to the Middle-Eastern family pedalling before me in single file.

A teenage Asian couple, self-consciously hip, pose for photographs against the backdrop the sea and sand. She wears black lace leggings under her skirt; his blazer-style jacket is teamed with blue jeans. A pair of forty-something parents walk backwards, two steps ahead of their infant daughter, who totters along with a red bucket, her face framed by a matching sunbonnet. Their hand-held video camera is trained on her every move.

A young mother, early thirties, strips self-consciously down to her two-piece bathing suit and follows her primary-age son to the conspicuously empty sea. He shouts excitedly and kicks at the shallow waves with one toe, spraying water back towards her. She resolutely looks at him as she kicks back, then out at the water – anywhere but back at the sensibly clothed adults on the sand.

‘Let’s SWIM!’ shouts the boy, as the water rises to his knees, then his waist, as he barrels towards the horizon.
‘Do you think Mum can do this? It’s pretty cold.’
‘Of COURSE you can!’

Of course, this is us: me and F. I do eventually submerge myself in the cold water. Despite Melbourne’s proximity to the chilly Bass Strait (and Antarctica beyond), today, the ocean is pretty okay. That’s relative, of course. It’s still bloody cold.

F flees the deeper waters before I do.



We collect shells in the rockpools. I inadvertently collect shards of glass, some of them dangerously angled upward, and deposit them in a bin on the footpath.
‘You DO care about the environment’ observes F, admiringly.
‘Yes’ I reply. ‘And I also care about people’s feet.’
We build a sandcastle with a fort and a dug-out pool. It is messy but elaborate. As I scoop out tunnels and get increasingly muddy (in my hair, up my legs), F declares that I am obviously an EXPERT at sandcastles.
‘Well’, I say, trying to sound authoritative. ‘I HAVE been doing this for thirty years.’
He thinks about it.
‘Since you were ONE?’
‘Um, yes.’ I have forgotten that I am thirty-one, now.
We eat a fish and chips picnic on our spread-out towels.



And then we pile all our books, towels, magazines, shells and wet towels and bathers into backpacks and onto my bike (with F on his back perch) and cycle across Williamstown to Nelson Place, where we buy ice-cream cones from the Williamstown Ice Cream Factory, choosing carefully from over fifty flavours.
‘Mum, I don’t want to swap a SINGLE lick with you!’ announces F, sweeping his tongue over a mound of iridescent Blue Heaven.
‘Good’ I reply, absolutely sincerely.

We eat our ice creams in the park opposite, overlooking the boats moored in the harbour and the CBD skyline across the bay. Evening is falling. The colours of the sky sky blend purple into mauve into dusky pink, then powdery blue over the sea. The lights come on over the tennis courts adjacent to the playground. A small boy sits on the end of the slide, chin in hands, watching the players with rapt attention. The dogwalkers and cyclists and joggers and shrieking children dissipate. F swings up and down on the flying fox. Across the playground, under a tree, his mother sits under a tree and scribbles in a notebook, pausing at intervals to inhale the evening air or listen to a magpie’s last call. Not really watching him.

‘MU-UUUUUM!’ he hollers. ‘PLAY WITH ME!’

Everything old is new again

It's week two of my new (old) job, editing a fairly unglamorous monthly publication, which I have returned to after two months overseas and one year working elsewhere.

Despite being absolutely exhausted; despite working from approx 9am until 1am every day for a week (with parenting breaks in between); despite the fact that adapting to a new publication design has meant lots of fiddling and readjusting and completely replacing every single image in the document after finishing them all; despite the fact that a change to the scheduling is resulting in a part of the publication being finished the weekend before we go to print (Monday!), at a time when I should be home with my son but instead will be bringing him to work - despite ALL these frustrations, I am really really pleased to be back.

Deeply pleased, in a way that convinces me, in my heart of hearts, that I have done the right thing.

In my previous job, despite the fact that they tried to be flexible, it was a full-time, 9-5 (okay, 8-4) office job, and I was the member of a tiny team charged with holding the office fort. There's only so flexible an employer can be within those constraints.

Even though - strictly career-wise - that previous job was a leap forward and this one is (comparatively) a step backward, this one is the right thing for me, right now.

I had always wanted my old job. It satisfied what I thought was the place I wanted to be in the world, where I wanted my career to culminate (or nearly - culmination is pretty final). But the day after I accepted it, I sat in bed and cried - really sobbed as if my heart would break. (Giving myself an enormous headache into the bargain.) I felt sick. I felt as if I had betrayed my son. Deep inside, right at my core, I felt as if I had given a part of him away, or decided to neglect him in some meaningful way.

I'm not saying anything about what women should or shouldn't do. It's just how I felt.

This week, I feel good. That deep core of me is at peace. My heart is glad.

I know this sounds very flowery and cliched, but - pah! - I'm too tired to do much more than type what comes to me.

In my new (old) job, I work bloody hard - ridiculously hard - for one week, relatively hard (but not quite full-time) for one week, and barely at all for the other two weeks of the month. I'm in the Bad Week now. But, because I've done this job before, I know how the cycle will settle in.

And apart from all the lovely picking my son up from school AT 3.30PM and taking him to his classroom door in the morning, the being able to bug him to bring home his reader and chat to his teacher about his behaviour, the watching how he interacts with other children and with school staff ... apart from all this, I am also very, very happy to do be doing the actual job again. I love the fact that I know everyone. That people are glad to see me back. That I really like and respect my colleagues. And the work is deeply interesting - to me, anyway.

I am tired and delirious and incredibly overworked today. But I'm also ridiculously happy.

Post office surprise

Went to the post office this morning with one of those slips from the mailbox in hand, curiously addressed to Mr F [Surname].

I'd forgotten. My mum asked last week if she could buy and send him a fortnightly comic she thought he'd like, because when she was a girl, her far-away grandmother used to do that for her.

Today is the first instalment, now waiting on the kitchen table for when F finishes school.

When the Express Post package was handed to me over the counter today and I saw my mother's familiar handwriting, I wanted to cry - for just one little split-second moment.

I have no idea why.

The Evil Diaries: 1

10pm

Since The Husband left, I hate this part of the evening. I open the back door - just a ruler-length wide - and shout into the blackness for the dogs. Every time I open that door, I can't prevent the thought rushing through my head that something else might come in - that, ridiculous as I know it is, there might be an intruder on the back porch, waiting for this opportunity. Though I also know that if there WERE an intruder, the dogs would have gone crazy.

The Good Dog shuffles quickly into the house. No sign of the Evil One. I peer into the night, into the far reaches of the backyard. Not only no sign, no sound either. It's obvious. He has escaped to the front yard again.

For some reason, I don't repeat the process at the front door. I return to my computer, the Good Dog spiralling at my heels before finally wamdering off to stalk the kitchen for mice.

11pm

Work finished for the night, I've settled in to read the last gasp of my book in bed. Outside my wondow, I hear movement in the front yard. Wood clanking, softly but unmistakably. Is it someone trying to open the front gate, getting stuck on the fortress of wooden palings plugging the gaps at the bottom of the white picket fence? No, it's the Evil One, nosing around and trying to escape.

I am tired, especially of That Dog, so I go back to my book, dropping it on The Husband's side of the bed and switching off the bedside light when I'm finished. I fall assleep quickly.

2.30am

A dog is barking out on the street. Barking so loud that I am wide awake - along with half the neighbourhood, I imagine. It's a familiar bark. The Evil One has somehow made his way out of our amateur fortress.

I leap out of bed, past the Good Dog, who is shaking the sleep from her eyes and rising from her plush basket at the foot of my bed to see what all the fuss is about.

I follow the sharp, high pitched racket beyond the gate and to the footpath, where I spot the Evil One on the street corner, poised for flight to the park, spotlit by the street light. His ears and tail are pricked, his chin tilted as high as it will go, his tone defiant. He seems to be shouting at the dogs on the corner, the ones whose fence he flies at in incandescent rage when we pass on our daily walk.

I squat on the pavement in my pyjamas and coo at him to follow me. I have to ease my way to within an arm's length of him before he trots over - then sprints past me towards the house and through the front gate. He's Evil, but he's not stupid.

2.45am

I am back in bed, now wide awake, a cocktail of anger, adrenalin and self-rebuke (I should have dragged him in at 10pm!) tumbling through my veins. I really hate this dog - firmly The Husband's. It's the first day of school in the morning. I have so much work to do I'm worried about how I'll possibly get it all done. I can't sleeeep ...

The Good Dog is curled up assleep in her basket.

The Evil One is in the laundry - the sin bin - intermittently rattling on the door.

Mercifully, F is still silent in his bedroom.

Raising money: kid style

'Maybe we should have a garage sale,' I mused to F, as we ambled our way home from the milk bar.

While I was in Mexico, his father had taken him to the pub and set him up as a busker, raising money for his World Vision child. His father has also, in the past, taken him to the local newsagent and encouraged him to ask them to sell his hand-made comics for $2 each. And then ask the newsagent every week if they had sold any yet, or ask why they're not displayed on the counter. (The Husband felt so sorry for the newsagent - who was across the road from his bookstore - that he snuck in there one day and bought the comics to give them some peace.)

So, I wasn't surprised when F announced that he was going to sell the seashells he found on the beach yesterday for $2 each.
'We won't find any customers on our street' he told me. 'You'll need to take me to the pub.'
'I'm sorry, but no one will buy those shells for $2. And we're not selling shells at the pub. It's not quite the same as playing your guitar at the pub for World Vision.'
'Okay.'

F reappeared with his guitar.
'Let's go to the pub. I want to raise money for [World Vision child]. He doesn't have any Lego.'
'I'm sorry F, but no. We're not asking people we don't know for money.'

***

I remember how my cousin and I used to haul her white plastic ghettoblaster onto the suburban council strip, turn up the volume, and dance and sing - hats laid upside down on the grass.
'Do you have any change?' my cousin once called to a neighbour scurrying by.
'No, sorry.'
Ten minutes later, the neighbour scurried past again, head down, bulging shopping bag in hand.
'NOW DO YOU HAVE ANY CHANGE? We'll do a dance and sing for you!'
He stopped and dropped fifty cents into one of the hats.
'I'll pay you NOT to dance and sing' he muttered as he hurried off.
My aunt was mortified when she caught us.

I guess that now I'm my aunt - or my mum (who would have been equally embarassed).

***

'Wait a minute' says F, as I head for the front door, wrestling with a dog lead in each hand. He is leaning a piece of white paper against the wall, writing intently with his new lead pencil. 'I'm going to sign people up to the [Surname] Corporation.'
I watch him write 'name' and 'phone number' and picture him handing these out on the street. I know what he's doing. He's going to ask them to sign up to donate money.
'I'm sorry, you can't do that. You can't ask people to give you their details and send you money.'
'Why not? That man did it to you yesterday.'
He watched me sign up to Amnesty International yesterday on the main street of Yarravile. The 'man', a twentysomething who talked enthusiastically about the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie - which we were on our way to see - had stopped us as we walked by on our route to the cinema. F had been very curious about why I would agree to give $15 per month (every bit counts) to a man on the street.

'Amnesty International and World Vision are not just people on the street. They're groups that help people.'
'I'm forming a corporation. I'm going to help [World Vision child].'
'Yes, but people know those groups. They know that the money will go to poor people. I know you'll give the money to [World Vision child], but they don't know that.'
'Oh.'

He is deflated, thoughtful, on the short walk to the milk bar. He drags his hand along the fences we pass, lets his designated dog pull ahead, leading him like a horse dragging a cart.
'How would I get a job in advertisements?' he asks, suddenly.
'Um, you have to go to a modelling agency. Why?'
'I need money! I really want some Bionicle Battle Machines.'
'I thought you needed money for [World Vision child]. Was some of that money going to be for you?'
'Only a bit of it.'

I tell him that he can save his pocket money, that maybe he can do some extra chores.
'Models have to sit nicely and their pictures taken' I tell him. 'You hate smiling for the camera, don't you?'
'Yeah.'
Thank god.

On our way back from the milk bar - drinks in hand, milk in my satchel - I suddenly blurt it out: 'Maybe we should have a garage sale.'

I do have green garbage bags full of old clothes and toys piled on the verandah. I don't mean to reinforce the message that he can sell things to get toys - it's more that he's given me an idea.

'You could get a lot of money for that mattress under your bed' F observes, sagely.
'Hmmm.'
'I could make up little bags of my toys, like they do at Savers. I have four Action Men and an Action Man top and an Action Man vest I don't want. I could make Action Man packs!'
I am a little disturbed by his savvy marketing idea.

'How will people come?'
'I'll put an ad in the paper.'
'Mum, if you have Microsoft Word, you can make signs on the computer. And we can put them up on poles. Do you have Microsoft Word?'
'I do.'
'We can say: Boys! Get Your Action Man!'
'Maybe.'
'And Mum, I have a great idea for a sign.'
'What?'
'Is it your wife's birthday? Have you got her a present? Come here! We have unwanted jumble for every kind.'

I'll say it again: I am disturbed by his savvy marketing mind. Even if it is a bit misguided.

A day in the life of a work-from-home contractor (or: signs that you’re not going to get any work done today)

Another mother kindly spirits your child away for a couple of hours so that you can do some work. You then spend one and a half hours talking to your husband on Skype. The remaining ten minutes is spent in the shower. You open the door to the kind mother and your returned son wrapped in a bath towel.

You allow your son to sit in your bed and watch the football game you taped for him on the weekend, eating crackers and cheese from a plate and dribbling crumbs on your quilt. On the way to your desk, you are sidetracked by the plotline you glimpsed on Dr Phil when rewinding the football video. You switch on the television and before you know it, you’ve watched the whole show on ‘You’re Not the Hot Person I Married’. (Ironically, this is the only television you’ve watched all week. Obviously, when you’re bad, you’re very, VERY bad.)

A courier drops off some papers for you to read before a meeting next week. You solemnly accept the box and put it down beside the front door, before retreating to the couch to read your book.

After answering some work-related emails, you are sidetracked by your daily Salon.com e-newsletter, and end up enthralled by Camille Pagila’s reader question-and-answer, particularly her dismissal of global warming as a left-wing beat-up. ('Man is too weak to permanently affect nature, which includes infinitely more than this tiny globe.') You are reminded why she is your least favourite feminist. And, in your opinion, not much of one at all. Or, evidently, much of a ‘liberal’.

Next, you end up reformatting your blog a little – just playing with the colours, really. You’re about to get back to work. Okay, start work.

Your son discovers you and asks to look at his blog. You acquiese. He wants to upload a video. You don’t know how. He wanders off, unimpressed with your limited skills.

You have a minor squabble with your son. You write a blog entry about it – your first in weeks. Procrastinating about work has ended your procrastinating about your blog.

You sit at your computer and answer another round of emails. You fill out your employment forms. You really must post them. You’ll need to go out.

You look over at your son, wandering about the house complaining about how boring you are and asking how long before he can go to his dad’s. (For the record: two and a bit weeks.) You look up the local cinema’s session times on the internet.

You put your work forms in your bag and holler to your son to get his shoes on. You’re going out.

It’s 3pm. Your work day is over.



** Disclaimer so as not to totally reinforce the opinion polls and recent media chatter: I’m working part-time from home. The work will get done. It will just be later, and late at night. And yesterday was much better … despite the presence of my child plus guest all day and for sleepover that night. (In fact, I think it explains my fatigue.)

*** Disclaimer 2: The mum who spirited my son away was the one whose child I had been minding for the past day and night. Otherwise I would have felt bad about having her watch F while I chatted to the Husband. (Really, I promise.)

School holidays: Week Two, Day Five

F: Mum, I'm writing a letter to DA [Disney Adventures] and no one will stop me from posting it.
Me: Uh huh. Why would I stop you? Are you writing a letter about me?
F: I'm writing a letter that says I have nothing to do because Mum won't let me play the Play Station.
Me: Oh. Right.
F: Yeah, and I might ask them if they have any cheats for Lego Star Wars the video game.
Me: Yeah, you might as well do that while you're there.
F: You can't stop me from posting it.
Me: I'll take you to the post office and help you post it.
F: Mum, if they publish my name, will you let me buy DA? [He hasn't been alllowed to have kiddie mags for about a year, in a delayed response to the awful consumer crap content, advertising directly - and scarily effectively - to kids.]
Me (sarcastically): Absolutely. If they publish your name. I'm sure DA will be very concerned about your not being allowed to play the Play Station.

On reflection, I bet Nintendo are one of their advertisers. I bet they WILL care about his Play Station being banned. I bet they will publish his letter and give him tips on Lego Star Wars the video game (along with the game's price and availability).

And I'll have to buy him the magazine.

Teotihuacan: marketing the pyramids

They say that Teotihuacan, like Egypt, is plagued by terrier-like hawkers who will practically take the pesos out of your purse for you as they shove their wares into your arms. And ‘they’, in this instance, are absolutely right.

One hour after boarding, we disembark from the bus at a nondescript patch of dirt beside a tollbooth. The plain is populated mainly by cacti, with verdant scrub-covered mountains in the near distance. We pay at the booth and pass through a two-storey cafeteria/restaurant that opens up onto another stretch of dust – and the start of the pre-Hispanic ruins we have come to see. We quickly ascertain that the food and drink at the upstairs bar is priced for maximum profit (of course) and minimum value, so we content ourselves with a bottle of water and join the swarm of fellow tourists outside, hung with cameras and backpacks and armed with sunglasses and spreading straw hats. But first, we must run the gauntlet – a corridor of souvenir shops selling hats, Aztec icons, jewellery and emblazoned mugs and t-shirts. We only have to glance at a stand or an item for its vendor to overwhelm us with a list of goods boasting a litany of attributes: ‘pure obsidian’, ‘only 100 pesos’, ‘you want a hat? I have lots of hats’, or simply ‘please – come in’. The Husband genuinely wants a hat, but faced with the desperate flood of cajoling attracted by his interest, he soon gives up on the idea and flees, hatless, to where the ruins begin.

A trio of twenty-something French boys stand delicately amidst the dust, reading the first sign telling the history of the site. One of them brandishes a green umbrella over his head, parasol-like. A mocking macho voice issues from a clump of tourists in the far distance: ‘what’s with the umbrella?’
Our first stop is the remains of a square complex, La Cuidadela, believed to have been the residence of the city’s supreme ruler. We stand amidst the dirt, the sun harsh overhead, and gaze around us, taking it all in. If not for the roving vendors and ant-like swarms of visitors, we could imagine we were in the middle of nowhere instead of at the outer edges of one of the world’s largest metropolises.

Our first pyramid is here, in the middle of the square – the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (listed in the Lonely Planet as Templo de Quetzelcoatl). This temple was once thought to be dedicated to Queztelcoatl, the most important deity in pre-Hispanic culture, because of its many plumed serpents (associated with the god). According to the sign here, recent investigations have proved otherwise – that the building is instead dedicated to the computation of time and the calendar. The serpents carry a mythological alligator called the ‘Cipactli’, a symbol of time. There are 364 sculptures around the building.



We climb the platform adjacent to the remains of the four surviving steps of the structure’s earliest façade (as with many Mesoamerican relics, there were various stages of construction) and look out over the sculptures. A sign explains that unfortunately visitors can no longer approach the sculptures, as work is currently being done to preserve them. I quickly brush off my disappointment – it feels churlish to be annoyed that I can’t see something right now because it is being preserved for future generations. We peer over the surrounding wire fence.



As we make our way to the steep stone steps leading back downwards, another French trio approaches – a couple and a young child. We pass them to begin our tentative journey down, as they look away from something at the bottom of the steps and move on. To my horror, a stroller containing a curly-haired toddler is parked there. The child sits passively, but my mother’s brain can’t help but play a reel of the scenarios that could happen. The Husband and I exchange looks as we pick our path down. And then it happens. The toddler starts to wail and lurches out of the stroller, throwing himself at the steps. Howling, he begins to climb. I dredge up my high school French.
‘Arrete!’ ('Stop!') I call. ‘No!’
He keeps going, of course. I drop my satchel on the nearest step and haul my camera from my neck in order to move faster, leaving it beside the satchel. The toddler looks at me in alarm and pitches his wail even higher, louder, running still more frantically up the steps.
‘C’est d’accord! (It's okay)’ I shout, helplessly, wishing I knew more exactly what to say. I reach for the child, but he dodges me and runs upward, tottering precariously. A woman below yells at me. Hotly embarrassed, even in my panic, I shout back: ‘he’s not mine!’ (I think she’s telling me to get the child down.) The French couple appear above us, the father running towards his son. He catches him as I run behind, trying to line myself up to catch the kid if he falls.
‘Thank you’ he says, in English, visibly shaken as he scoops up the child to carry him to the top.
I mumble something along the lines of ‘it’s nothing’ as I turn to join The Husband at the base of the pyramid. It takes a few moments before I am breathing easily again. Apparently the woman who yelled was calling for someone at the top to get the parents.



The Avenue of the Dead from above

We walk down the Calzada de los Muertes (Avenue of the Dead), the ‘main drag’ of Teotihuacan, past the dribbling Rio San Juan – barely a creek, let alone a river (rio), to explore the arteries of a ruined building that has been opened to the public. Surrounded by flourishing cacti, protected from the elements by an incongruous aluminium roof, the structure is artificially bolstered within by steel shafts and modern-looking columns. It interferes somewhat with the atmosphere, but it is mildly reassuring to know that the ceiling won’t come crashing down on your head. Obviously raised on a diet of too many pop culture plots revolving around ‘the mummy’s curse’, I pause before venturing underground. As it turns out, there’s nothing much to see.



The main attractions here are the two big pyramids – the Piramide del Sol and Piramide de la Luna. The larger Pyramid of the Sun, the third biggest in the world, is visible from most of the current archaeological zone. Though it looms large from any angle, it is the main feature of the east side of the Avenue of the Dead, and the point at which a path crosses the great avenue, leading to exits and souvenir stalls in either direction. It is in the approach to this pyramid (and the stretch between here and the smaller Pyramid of the Moon, at the dead end of the avenue) that the vendors are most numerous and most persistent.
‘It’s practically free today!’
‘Just one dollar!’

I am finally won over by the offer of an ornate obsidian turtle for a dollar (the turtle a silly private joke between me and my mother).
‘Okay’ I relent, pausing as the eager vendor withdraws the object from where he has thrust it, inches from my face. I withdraw the embroidered moneybag I’ve stuffed beneath my t-shirt to take out ten pesos (equivalent of a dollar). As I hand it over, he amends his offer.
‘Yes, that’s twenty-one dollars.’
‘What?’
‘Okay, I take one dollar off. Twenty dollars.’
‘But you said one dollar’ objects The Husband.
‘I meant twenty-one dollars.’
‘No, sorry.’ I put my money away.
‘All right, 150 pesos!’ he calls after us. We don’t look back.



The stairs leading down to the plaza before the Pyramid of the Sun are carpeted with resting tourists and displayed goods. An assortment of rugs is spread to one side. As we walk past the first-aid van bearing the universal red cross parked alarmingly at the base of the pyramid, a woman steps in front of us and, with a practised flourish, unfolds a lace tablecloth patterned with the Aztec wheel.
‘No, gracias.’
A sign at the base of the pyramid warns against children, pregnant women and people with heart problems climbing it.
‘I hope those French people don’t leave their baby at the bottom of this pyramid’ I huff, looking seventy metres into the sky to its summit.



View from first platform: Pyramid of the Sun

The Husband has been apprehensive about this climb. Stinging from my very uncool sobbing reaction to Mexico City last night, and well aware that he is unimpressed with my hedging fear of danger here, I am secretly (shamefully) delighted. This is my chance to be the intrepid adventurer I know I am in my heart of hearts.
‘You’ll be fiiiiiine’ I say, deliberately breezy. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
Impressively, after much thought between the first pyramid and here, he decides to feel the fear and do it anyway.
‘I’ll be so angry with myself later if I don’t do it.’
And he is fine. I quickly discover that while The Husband has a psychological hurdle to overcome here, I have a physical one. It’s a tough and breathless climb. There are four platforms, and the stubbly ruins of a former temple (now a heap of rubble) at the top. At the first platform, I sit at the edge and try not to wheeze. The high altitude and bad air quality don’t help matters, I’m sure. The view is already breathtaking. Looking down on the plaza below, surrounded by stone walls and marked at its centre with an immense stone platform, I begin to get a sense of the layout of the site. The Husband is safely edged up against the wall of the next level.



View from the top: Pyramid of the Sun

As I haul myself up (behind The Husband), I note the retirees so plentiful here having obvious difficulty with the task, and realise why the first aid van might be stationed here. At the top, we join the triumphant crowd stumbling over the uneven rubble, or sitting and enjoying the view. The Husband sits, while I stalk around the perimeter taking photographs. It’s not long before he joins me and we take turns posing in front of the Pyramid of the Moon. Smoke curls into the sky in the far distance – probably a cornfield burning off the remains of the last crops. The ground below is like a model city; the trees and people vaguely plastic and unreal from this height. Smog haze strokes the far mountaintops and smudges the colour of the populated plains in the foreground, as if slowly erasing them from a vast blackboard.



A couple huddle together, mugging for the camera, in the prime front-of-pyramid position we have just vacated as we prepare to begin our descent. They wriggle to position themselves so their lens will properly capture them, each stretching an arm out to hold the camera in position.
‘Would you like me to take your photo?’
My spontaneous burst of generosity is prompted by my memory of kind strangers taking my photo in front of tourist spots on my solo trip over, but I also plan to ask them to reciprocate for us. They are so pleased, though, that I don’t, deciding not to shatter the illusion of me as a wonderfully thoughtful person. As we climb the stairs downward, my eyes firmly on the rope railing and on my feet, I overhear two separate people telling their companions how they were too scared to climb this in the past, but are glad they did it now. When we reach the bottom, I relay this to The Husband.

We encounter a strange gathering as we rejoin the Avenue of the Dead: a crowd of white-clad pilgrims. Apparently, they come here every year around this time – thousands will be here in just over a week (March 19-21) to celebrate the vernal equinox. The white clothing is meant to absorb the mystical energies believed to converge here. Or something like that. Later, we trail behind the pilgrims at the on-site museum and I notice how incredibly upper middle-class they seem, their white clothing discretely expensive, gold and silver jewellery at the wrists and necks of the women.
‘They don’t look like cult members’ I whisper to The Husband.
‘They’re not’ he says. ‘It’s a pretty common Mexican thing.’



A pair of pilgrims, outside the on-site museum

In front of the Pyramid of the Moon are twelve temple platforms. Some experts think that the number thirteen (the platforms plus the pyramid) is symbolic – thirteen is a key number in the day-counting system of the Mesoamerican calendar. The largest platform, directly opposite and below the pyramid’s front flank, has already attracted a small crowd.



View of temple complex from Pyramid of the Moon

A grey-haired North American hippy in flowing clothes that partially disguise her ample figure stands dramatically at the centre of the platform. Her arms are thrown open and upwards to the sky, her head tossed backward in submission. Behind her, the great stone pyramid rises in sharp relief to her pale figure, gathering stormclouds still darker behind it. The sky is navy grey with streaks of white. A friend jumps up to join her, both of them seemingly howling at the sky. By the time we reach the top of the temple, the friend has trailed off and the original sky worshipper lies prone and silent on the ground, her eyes reverently shut.

In the place where she stood is a gaggle of Japanese tourists, young men on the border between adolescence and adulthood, excitedly waving digital slick cameras. The Husband and I each find one in our hands, a stream of chattering Spanish and English asking us to take their group photo. To our great surprise and amusement, they strike the same worshipping, Christ-like pose as the hippy, but with a rock star edge – more Jim Morrison than someone’s idea of an ancient Mesoamercian. This time, we ask them to reciprocate and get the typical tourist shot to frame in our lounge room at home.

The road to ruins

Our first morning in Mexico City begins with a free buffet breakfast at the hostel. Scrambled eggs with chopped ham, toast and jam, fruit salad, tea and coffee with powdered milk. A pair of twenty-something girls, a punk and a hippy chattering to each other in German, soon take the spare seats at our table in the cafeteria-style kitchen. The punk, a Swiss girl with cropped green hair, black-framed glasses and black skinny jeans, speaks English in clipped, confident tones as we exchange stories. The (German) hippy, huddled over a bowl of green tea, has dirty blonde dreadlocks loosely tied back with a fat tube of hair. She wears a loose, olive green cardigan and is more laid-back, less aggressive in her opinions. The flow of conversation is turgid.
‘So, is Mexico City dangerous?’
‘Yes, it’s dangerous, but no more than Costa Rica or Guatemala or Honduras. They’re really poor. In Guatemala City, the streets are empty after dark. Here, it’s okay to be walking the streets.’
We ask about food.
‘Oh, we don’t eat out. We eat street food. It’s delicious. And we’ve been fine.’
We talk about what we’re doing today. The Husband and I are going to Teotihuacan, to see the pyramids.
‘I don’t need to see any more ruins’ scoffs Green Hair. ‘We’ve seen Mayan ruins in the jungles of Guatemala, and in Palenque [in the south of Mexico]. Nothing could top that.’
While I’m fastidiously buttering my toast at the counter, The Husband talks about his upcoming trip to the Yucatan, where there are more Mayan ruins, as well as amazing beaches.
‘Why would you want to go there?’ sniffs Green Hair. ‘There are so many tourists!’

We part with the usual pleasantries. Back in our room, as we gather our things, we decide that Green Hair especially is too cool for school.
‘She’s got attitude’ concludes The Husband. ‘Just because something’s popular doesn’t mean it’s not good. And anyway, we’re all tourists. What do they think they are?’



Hostel interior: overlooking the TV lounge from the second level, near our room

Unsure about how exactly to get back to the bus station (to catch our bus to Teotihuacan) we approach an Information Counter near the hostel. The Husband begins in tentative Spanish. The uniformed attendant answers us in flawless English, his accent a curious blend of upper crust British and Mexican Spanish. He flourishes a map and points out how we can get to the quickest bus route, mentioning landmarks we will pass along the way.
‘You will see some beautiful buildings.’
He is charm personified, his easy professionalism and smooth conversational patter mirroring that of the tourism staff I encountered in the US.



The city streets are transformed from last night’s siege atmosphere. Most of the shops here open at 10am, but some of the roller doors are already rising, and the cafes and restaurants are buzzing with breakfast clientele. The smooth stone-paved roads and footpaths are clean and neat, crowded with suited professionals powering their way to work, tourists ambling, beggars sitting beside upturned hats or paper cups, and store and café owners splashing soapy water on their doorsteps. In fact, cleanliness is our biggest obstacle, as we gingerly step over foaming suds and gathering puddles. An aproned woman in a café doorway sloshes a bucket over her sandwich-board sign, looking directly at us as the water envelops our shoes as if to say ‘so what?’ The entranceway and half the tiled floor of a sports store, lined with sneakers and emblazoned with Nike, Adidas and Converse logos, swims in watery detergent. I can’t imagine how a customer could enter some of these places if they wanted to.

Pairs of uniformed police are stationed at every street corner, directing traffic with the aid of sharp whistles, which they blow with seemingly joyful abandon. At the great square just steps away from our hostel (the Zocalo, or town centre), another pair of police stand at alert, surveying the area for signs of disorder. I am both comforted and vaguely disconcerted by their presence: the Mexican police are notoriously crooked, renowned for their shakedowns. I’ve heard at least two direct personal anecdotes about tourists bribing their way out of trouble; the threatened arrest somewhat warranted in one instance, manufactured in the other.



The clean streets and courteous tourist officers, the noticeable police presence, are all part of recent attempts to clean up the city’s notorious crime statistics, and its corresponding world image as a den of vice. In 2003, a group of private business interests, headed by Mexico’s richest man, hired former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, who had famously fixed New York’s similar crime problem a decade earlier, to advise them on how to do the same in Mexico City. Guiliani handed down 146 recommendations based on the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy he implemented in New York, which were enthusiastically embraced by then mayor (and recent presidential candidate) Lopez Obrador, along with the city’s police chief. A comprehensive makeover of the historical centre was a central part of Obrador’s plan – repaving streets, bolstering security and improving traffic flow.
‘This reminds me of New York’ marvels The Husband as we edge our way along the narrow footpaths of Avenue Madero.

Lazaro Cardenas, the central artery where we will find our bus, is crammed with street vendors and newspaper stands on either side of the road. Some of them spread their wares on the concrete, at the base of the city walls, others are more permanently set up with portable tables under rooves of flimsy plastic sheeting. It’s the usual fare of jewellery and knick-knacks, along with pirated DVDs and second-hand books (in Spanish, of course – sadly). Some vendors display an odd assortment of old shoes, random items of clothing and household goods.



Across the road from where we stand, on the corner of Lazaro Cardenas and Avenue Hidalgo, is the Palacio de Bellas Artes – an enormous white wedding cake of a building topped with a red roof and a tripartite sunset dome. It is flanked by manicured gardens at its front entrance and bordered by Alameda Park (Mexico’s version of Central Park) to its right.



View of Palacio de Bellas Artes (with Alameda Park border) from the air

The bus costs a few pesos and arrives every few minutes. We stand wedged between vendors and easily hail one down (or at least, The Husband hails it down). The journey is uneventful. I start to breathe a little easier about the whole danger thing.

As we enter the bus terminal for the second time in two days, we are addressed by a booming American accented voice. A meaty, broad-shouldered moustachioed man with mutton chops at his cheekbones leads a family of four – his wiry, bird-like wife, a pony-tailed, wholesome-looking teenage girl and a beanpole of an older brother, in glasses and a green polo shirt. The boomer asks us for directions, then, catching sight of the Australian flag pinned to my satchel, begins to enthuse loudly about Australia. When he hears that we are from Melbourne, his grin stretches so that his face can barely accommodate it.
‘Oh boy! Mel-born. I LOVE Mel-borrrn. It was our home base in Australia, especially north Melborne. We stayed in a hostel there – you know, the main one.’
I take a chance.
‘The Nunnery? In Carlton?’
‘That’s it! Oh, it was wonderful. We love Australia, it’s the place to go!’
I stayed in The Nunnery for two weeks when I first arrived to live in Melbourne, and ended up making friends there that would form my core for my first six months there (until they all wet home to England and Canada!) – so I join his enthusiasm. It turns out that they are going to Teotihuacan too, so we follow in the lead of the lanky teenager (who seems to be group leader, despite his relative youth) as he expertly locates the correct ticket office and orders tickets in Spanish. We talk about Australia to the father all the way to the bus, though we form two separate groups again as we take our seats.

Down and out in Mexico City (okay, not VERY down and out)

Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I was terrified of arriving in Mexico City. The worst crime rate in the world: drugs, pickpockets, bus hijackings, cab drivers who rob their passengers. City of slums; last and desperate refuge for Mexico’s poor. Overflowing centre of Mexico’s population explosion.

I think I probably read too much and listened to too many people beforehand.

‘Going to Mexico City huh?’ observed our not-Australian fellow traveller when he ran into us for the last time in Guanajuato. We were standing on a street corner eating ice cream, loaded down with all our luggage. ‘You’d better be careful or that camera won’t last long.’

The Mexico City bus terminal, scene of our first impressions, swarms with travellers. It’s 9.30 pm and raining for the first time since I’ve arrived in Mexico. Catching a taxi to our hostel proves complex. The Lonely Planet warns against hailing cabs on the street – it is not uncommon for cab drivers to kidnap passengers, drive them to ATMs and force them to withdraw all their money. Sometimes, they keep them overnight in order to get around rules governing minimum withdrawals. To get around this, you pay your fare in advance at a booth in the terminal, then queue with your coupon and wait for a cab to roll up. A man rescues us from the languishing queue to pull us ahead to a better position, explaining what to do in English. As the driver he flags down pulls up by the kerb, our guide scribbles on our ticket.
‘This is the cab number. If you have any trouble at all, phone this number here and tell them the cab number.’

It’s both disconcerting and reassuring at once to have such close attention paid to your safety. Comforting to know that someone who knows what they’re doing is watching out for you; not so comforting to know that danger is so prevalent that such precautions are necessary.

We drive past the national university, Universidad Autonomo de Mexico (UNAM). The walls are topped with menacing coils of barbed wire. It looks like a detention centre, without the gun towers. Of course, UNAM has planted the seed of more than one rebellion here. Subcomandante Marcos, leader of the Zapatista rebellion and continuing thorn in the side of successive governments, is among its alumni. The Mexican army infamously opened fire on student demonstrators in 1968, killing hundreds and jailing thousands. And as recently as 1999, the army forcibly ended a student strike that lasted eighteen months, in which the strikers barricaded themselves into the university.

The streets of Mexico City, or DF (federal district) as it is locally known, are eerily empty. Rubbish tumbles along the footpaths. At one street corner, it forms a lumpy pile on the concrete. The shopfronts, too, are forbidding in their absence of life; most of them are resolutely hidden behind garage-style roller doors.

Our monosyllabic driver winds his way through the city streets, moving in lazy circles. He has the name of the hostel and the street address, but somehow he still can’t find it. Eventually, we pull up in a lit doorway under the sign ‘MEXICO CITY HOSTEL’. As we buzz reception to be admitted past the iron gates, The Husband confides that he was getting worried about what exactly was going on. This makes me very happy.

The hostel itself is brilliant. Internet access, friendly staff, clean bathrooms, funky decorations – ceiling-high murals and Mexican tiled stairs. Our room is slightly weird in the typical Mexican way. We have four double beds and six lockers. A tinted, curtainless glass door opens out onto the iron balcony overlooking the unfriendly street.

We brave the streets for dinner, after gathering tips from the hostel staffer on where to go. Just finding out somewhere that will be open is useful. I grip The Husband’s hand tight as we make our way to the café nearby.
‘You’re really scared, aren’t you?’ he says.
‘Uh huh.’
We pass one other dark figure on our journey, and he seems utterly uninterested in us.

The windows of the café are crammed with pastries, donuts and cakes. The booths are packed with both Mexicans and obvious tourists. It’s not just the white skin or the accents that mark out our breed. It’s our sandals, backpacks, fleecy windbreakers and Lonely Planets. My order of tacos arrives, drowned in sour cream (which I hate), the tortillas slick with oil. I peel one open and recoil at the greyish scraps of chicken. A sad tomato rests on wilting lettuce at the edge of my plate. To my horror, I burst into tears. I slept for just two hours last night (too much thinking, too many roosters) and every meal I’ve ordered today has been horrible. I am tired and hungry and I hate Mexico City. The waitress avoids the table as I blow my nose into the serviettes and The Husband bewilderedly tries to comfort me.

In the hotel, I sniffle and sob my way to sleep.

Shabby chic: Guanajuato by day

In the daylight, Guanajuato is still impressive, but not so glaringly affluent. The buildings that first charmed in the flattering lamplight are still attractive under the sullen autumn sky, but less glamorous. From the rooftop terrace outside our room, the multi-coloured buildings are inviting in their old world shabbiness; seductively chic despite their fading paint and dishevelled demeanour. As in the rest of Mexico, dusty yards and rooftop terraces are hung with laundry and scrappy dogs bark from rooves or wander the streets alone. Imperious green and blue-tinged mountains loom above the patchwork landscape, occasionally punctuated by cross-topped chapels and grand stone buildings. A lavender flowering tree spreads its branches to dominate a dirt backyard below, rimmed by a crumbling stone wall. Cacti mix with leafy European-style trees, and the odd Australian eucalypt.



In the kitchen, an older couple are hunched over a spread-out Spanish textbook. The Husband chats amiably about learning Spanish and Mexican tourist spots while I prowl the terrace and snap photos of the scene below.



On our way from the hotel, as we pass through the plaza, I am caught short by the flat vowels of what sounds like an Australian accent. It belongs to a deeply tanned man in sunglasses and a blue shirt, with a white-grey moustache beneath dark grey hair. He is holding forth on some subject or the other.
‘Do I sound like THAT?’ I ask The Husband.
‘I don’t know’ he muses. ‘I’ve been told that I hardly have an accent at all.’
‘I’ve been told that mine is really strong.’ In the US, of course.

The day begins with breakfast at the café where we ate last night. The meals are generous – they come with coffee and orange juice for an average of 350 pesos (approximately $4 Australian). This morning, there are no fairy lights of course, and less students. Perhaps they are still sleeping off last night. Retired couples and families promenade the street below. Above us, on one of the cast-iron balconies, an older woman, her hair in curlers, emerges in a dressing gown to bring in her laundry. More directly above us, a missile of birdshit narrowly misses my hotcakes, hitting the table with an audible SPLAT and a splash of white. The couple sitting across from us, chatting in fluent Spanish, look over and laugh, shaking their heads in sympathy and anxiously glancing up. It seems that toilet humour is one of those things that transcends language and cultural barriers.

Below us, at the base of the sweeping stone stairway, an old man sits in the gutter. His grey beard contrasts with his dark skin; his bedraggled clothes stand out in this oasis of Mexican affluence. So – it’s not all tourists and students and those who serve them, here. I watch the old man as I drown my hotcakes in maple syrup and stir the cinnamon deep into my cappuccino. Schools of holidaymakers swim by, oblivious, as he stares at his feet. Eventually, a man with a clubfoot, noticeable by his misshapen black boot, stoops to drop something by the man’s feet and limps on. A few minutes later a squat, shabbily dressed old woman passes and stops to talk to the man. Soon, she is seated beside him in he gutter, deep in conversation. The man looks distressed; she seems to be commiserating with him. When we finish our breakfast and leave, they are still deep in conversation.

The big thing that The Husband didn’t get to do on his last trip was visit the Diego Rivera museum, so we head there first. I keep stopping along the way to admire a flash of multi-coloured cubes on the hill, viewed between road crossings, or simply the pattern of gently sloping buildings along the road – a pleasing configuration of colours of a particularly charming cluster of window boxes.
‘Sorry’ I tell The Husband as my camera stalls our journey, again and again.
‘That’s fine. I did the same thing when I first came here.’

We are sidelined by an intriguing little shop, stocked with peacock bright scarves, painted figurines dancing with colour, glittery kitsch Frida Kahlo matchboxes and jewellery boxes and a selection of beautifully produced art books and postcards. I resist temptation.

Our meandering journey comes to a sharp end at the Diego Rivera Museum, where a queue of mostly elderly, mostly North American tourists winds down the road. We decide to come back later and visit the market instead.



On our way, we pass an imposing stone building flanked by uniformed security guards.
‘That’s the other place I want to go!’ exclaims The Husband. It is a colonial granary, now a museum, the site of one of the bloodiest battles of Mexican Independence. Silver jewellery and junky icons – painted green frogs, wooden Mesoamerican discs – are lined along the base of the building, far below the stairs that lead to the entrance. A young boy playfully punches the covered head of a man who lies prone, bookended by merchandise. He could be any age. The boy’s mother frowns at him as we edge delicately around them.

On the other side of the granary building, people wander the plaza below the towering stone wall. More dark skinned women sell jewellery, huddled under patterned scarves that cover their heads. Below a cascade of carved stone steps, another vast grey plaza. It is packed with local kids playing a raucous game of soccer against the tremendous backdrop of the historic building and the sprawling patchwork hills.



At the bottom of the hill, stretching past the soccer game, is the commercial heart of the town. Tacquerias, ice-cream stores, souvenir shops of every kind, cafes and restaurants. The streets throng with tourists – like us – and street vendors, mostly indigenous, hawking paintings, rugs, scarves and printed t-shirts bearing the names of Guanajuato or Mexican soccer teams. Both groups are sharp-eyed, alert for opportunity; the tourists for a bargain or a unique find, the vendors for a sale. We have only to pause in front of a stand or casually finger a product to have a vendor appear, armed with a thick stream of cajoling Spanish. Prices often tumble as you walk away from a stand. ‘Okay, 1800 pesos. No, 1500 pesos.’



The market itself is vaguely disappointing. I’m beginning to learn that the markets (and many souvenir shops) in Mexico are all very much like each other. We see the same ‘hand woven’ rugs and multi-coloured fringed blankets, the same embroidered peasant tops and painted wooden boxes, the same soccer t-shirts and woven scarves. Still, there’s always the possibility of a find; usually something to charm the pesos out of your purse. I buy Felix and Jacob studded leather wrist bands, and nearly buy myself a cap. It’s too big, though the stall holder tries to convince me it’s just fine. Some things are always the same – from a changing room in Melbourne to a market in Mexico.

On our second try, the entrance to the Diego Rivera Museum is blessedly clear. The building is Rivera’s childhood home, restored and preserved as a monument. Cameras are allowed, on the proviso of no flashes. We wander into a series of sparsely furnished rooms, some bearing plaques in Spanish. A bedroom with an iron bed, snow-white linen, a crib and a rocking chair.
‘Look’ murmurs an American behind me, reverently. ‘There’s a crib. It must have been his parents’ room.’
A dining room, complete with wooden table and chairs. A long study, with a bookcase lined with leather-bound editions and an ancient typewriter. I snap photographs, even as I wonder why. I’m not horribly impressed.

Upstairs, things get interesting. The rest of the house is given over to gallery space – mostly Rivera’s work, but a small showing of other artists on the upper levels. In the presence of the artwork, I stow away my camera. It would feel disrespectful to snap away at paintings as if they were interesting buildings. The artworks displayed here range from early, very European still life portraits and realist landscapes to slight pencil sketches that were to give birth to paintings. There are portraits of Frida Kahlo, stylised depictions of peasant life and a series of interpretations of the Mayan Popol Vuh.



The highlight of the museum is in a small, dimly lit room at the top of the building – a seated mini lecture theatre. In this room hangs a reproduction of one of Rivera’s famous murals, Sunday Dream. The painting depicts almost one hundred figures from Mexican history and Rivera’s own life, gathered in Mexico City’s Alameda Park. Rivera himself features in it twice, once as a young boy, standing in front of his wife Frida Kahlo and holding the hand of a skeleton in woman’s dress. A mentor from his early days, Jose Guadalupe Posada, famous for his drawings of skeletons, takes the skeleton woman’s other hand under his arm. Other figures include conqueror Cortes, revolutionaries Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata and former presidents Benito Juarez and Porfirio Diaz, all connected in some way with the history of the park. A number key below the painting explains who each figure is.

The low point of the museum is the upper level of the main gallery, adjacent to the wide-open public bathroom. The stench of shit wafts through the rooms, presumably from the balled-up used toilet paper in the open bins next to the toilets. Truly the worst thing about Mexico – for the privileged middle-class tourist.

Down in the museum shop, we spend a long time choosing gifts. Tasteful and well priced. At least, I hope the recipient of the Frida Kahlo mousepad finds it tasteful …

It is 3.30 pm when we deposit our shopping in our room and descend the flights of stairs to the street, on our way to a very late lunch. I have become strangely accustomed to infrequent meals (hence the lost weight that will no doubt balloon back on my return home), but The Husband likes to eat three times a day and he is starving. We pass the Australian guy on the street, who we have since spotted in the hotel. The Husband says a casual hello, and asks if he is indeed Australian.
‘I’m a European citizen’ he says, in his unmistakable Strine drawl. ‘But I was born in Australia.’
‘We noticed your accent’ says The Husband.
‘Yeah. I noticed yours, too.’



We end up standing in the street and talking for well over an hour; nearly two. The not-quite-Australian travels the world full time.
‘I don’t want a job’ he says scathingly. ‘Who wants to work? Not for me. Go to the office every day – pah!’
As if it’s a lifestyle choice, as easy as that to make. We both wonder later where he gets the money for such a life. His litany of destinations and temporary homes makes my head spin. Mexico is no good for cheap living anymore, he says. It’s no cheaper than Australia or the US, really. The majority of Mexicans don’t use any of the services or facilities we buy here – they couldn’t possibly afford to. So luxuries like bottled water, restaurant food and toiletries are priced for the miniscule middle class and the tourists. Costa Rica and Guatemala are the Latin American countries to go to, apparently.

Our new friend talks about US politics, the border, strip searches, the relative cost of living on the ski fields of Denver and New Zealand, the Iraq war and much else besides. He takes us to a restaurant he recommends, opposite the university entrance, and we stand in the doorway talking until past 5pm.
‘We don’t have time to eat’ I say regretfully. ‘We were planning on getting to the lookout before dark.’
So we walk together to the Teatro Republica, near where we need to catch the hydraulic lift up the mountain. We stand and talk about New Orleans, San Francisco and homelessness in the US. It is 5.30pm.
‘I’m sorry’ I eventually blurt out. ‘But we’d better go before it gets dark.’
‘Oh. Okay, bye. See you later.’ He looks a bit hurt and disappears.
‘Did that seem rude?’ I whisper.
‘A little’ says The Husband. ‘But I’m glad you did it, or we’d never have gone.’
‘Do you think he’s offended?’
‘Nah.’

The hydraulic lift shaft is carved into the side of the mountain and it’s made of glass on three sides, so you can watch the town recede as you rise. Not recommended for anyone with vertigo. I peer past outgrowths of spiny, tube-like cactus as we jerk our way to the top, both marvelling at the view and imagining our crashing descent. The journey is swift and we soon emerge into a tunnel lined with souvenir shops.

At the mouth of the tunnel, we ascend a volley of stone steps, leading to a plaza overlooking a breathtaking view of the city and another row of souvenir shops across the road. The debt this picturesque town owes to tourism is abundantly clear. The Lonely Planet tells us that there is a restaurant/café, overlooking the amazing view, so we eagerly search it out. We find a ramshackle milk bar selling souvenirs, beers and soft drinks, run by a cranky old woman and her equally grizzly husband. I buy a Diet Coke for twice the normal price and sit at the edge of her tiled deck, peering at the buildings below and watching the light shift on the mountains. The pair glare at the drink-less The Husband, and we soon leave, after snapping a few hasty shots. The next nearest thing to the promised café is a souvenir shop down a flight of dim stairs, misleadingly boasting a foot-high ‘RESTAURANT’ sign painted on the side of the building. Perhaps this was it?
In the end, we seat ourselves on the paved stairs below the plaza, below the scaffolded statue of a revolutionary hero, and watch the sun set along with the rest of the camera-heavy tourists.