Wednesday, October 16 - Getting Lost

This week we needed to get the posters and flyers ready. Getting to the printer was difficult, expensive and time consuming. Half a day would go by just for that one errand.
We got lost. We got lost every day. The line most likely to be heard from our car was, “Where are we?”

On the way to the printer, we had our first encounter with the Mexican Law. We had been warned about the Mexican police. In fact, we had been told that the only people who were going to cause problems for us in Mexico City were the police. This seemed to be the day for it.

Traffic was heavy and we were not moving much, so I decided to film the madness, sitting out the window of the passenger seat. After about a minute, we started moving slowly towards the intersection where a cop was trying to direct traffic.
He was waving at us to pass when he realized that he could get money out of this situation. He stopped us to list our infractions: sitting out the window in moving traffic, not wearing a seat belt, and passing the pedestrian crossing (that he was telling us to pass).

In the past, I have been able to talk my way out of sticky scenarios like this one. Being the only person in our group that spoke Spanish, I pulled myself out of the car and went to try and talk our way out of the predicament. The officer threatened to tow our car because of our “three infractions”. The officers had an old uniform with buttons that were ready to be popped right off by his belly, and he had the mandatory Mexican mustache. He carried the conversation smoothly, attempting to get a deal, “una mordida” (a bite). He was as corrupted as they come. $400 pesos ($40usd) later he gave us our papers back and we drove off.

We got to the printer, located in one of the city’s sketchy barrios. As we waited for the printing, we had the opportunity to talk to some kids who were playing street soccer. We started to play soccer with them, these kids who have very few resources, and rarely get the chance to kick a ball around with others. We realized that these kids don’t get much attention from their parents because they work 12 hour shifts and spend at least two hours on public transit to get to work. By devoting our attention to the kids, the love that we received was unconditional. We had nothing to offer but time, and in this case, time was enough. These kids were so important to us, and we let them know. They were the only kids that we were able to spend time with in Mexico City.




We also had a pretty cool car that any kid dreams of having. These kids signed the car and drew on it, then jumped on it. We figured as long as they were having fun, we weren’t worried about the car getting scratched up. We finally got the posters and flyers and got out of there right in time for evening rush hour. That day I think it took more than two hours to get to the other side of the city, going home would take longer than from Vancouver to Hope.