Mexico City, June 2013 - #2: The wonderful gringa quality of believing everything will work out

Well, its my second weekend in D.F. (Mexico City is in the Districto Federale, D.F. for short) and I'm starting to settle on in. This week, I had to take advantage of my friend Cecilia being in town so we did lots of fun exploring together! This fun exploring meant I got to know the public transportation system well, probably better than I should have...but I'll get to that later. To start, I will give you a little peek into why I'm actually here and what I'm doing at work.

I'm working at Mexicanos Primero, which is housed in a gorgeous office in a kind of modern looking building called Torre Prisma. My "roomie's" business partner thinks it looks like where Batman would live...I'm not sure I agree but I understand the sentiment :) The view from the office is amazing. You can peer out over Mexico City on a clear day, and on a rainy day you can see the city through rain-streaked windows.

 The directors of the organization have been out, and the one I work most closely with was sick for the first week. He told the woman who coordinated my internship that he felt really bad for missing my first days at work, but that he noticed that I had the wonderful Gringa quality of believing everything would work out, which I think is true! What can I say, I'm gringa through and through!

 My official title is Investigadora Legal, or legal researcher, and I'm doing comparative legal research on international and national cases that have to do with either the right to education or the right NOT to join a union. My supervisor is a really cool lawyer who has worked in policy and government and in litigation. She's starting to build a couple cases to try to get through to the Mexican Supreme Court to enforce the right to a quality and equal education for children in Mexico. She's also working on a case challenging teacher hiring practices on behalf of a teacher who was not hired because she did not belong to the teachers' union. The teachers' union in Mexico is very corrupt, and has completely captured the education system. The leader of the union was recently arrested (several months ago), and at the same time Mexico passed a number of significant education reforms, so it's a really exciting time to be here and be working in education!

My desk in the office

 My office mates are all wonderful, and I'm really enjoying working at MP. The people there are so passionate about what they're doing, and they are so good at conveying complicated ideas about education in simple and appealing ways. I hope to soon get more involved in the day to day evolution of what they're doing in addition to more distant legal research, because the organization's leaders are constantly at the Senate and in meetings shaping the direction of education reform in Mexico. It's incredible! As for my work, I had some exciting breakthroughs where I found a case asserting a negative right of association in Mexico, which means the right of free association means that you can association with anyone or no one at all, which could have important relevance to teachers and the teachers' union here. There are a small number of cases about the right to a high quality education, but they are very limited, which is both daunting and exciting, because we're charting new territory! So work is really exciting, exactly what I wanted to be doing, and full of wonderful people!

The other thing I did a lot of this week was get to know the public transportation system. In Mexico City, everyone drives everywhere. And parking is usually very difficult. (Presumably why this Starbucks on my way to work has its own valet parking!) Everyone drives partly because there is not great public transportation, or at least not enough of it for all the people that need to get to and from work everyday. Another reason is that public transportation is a magnet for petty theft. Even the most vigilant have been pick-pocketed and everyone talks about it and has warned me about it multiple times. So what is Mexico's grand solution for pick pockets on public transportation?

 Ladies Only! The front of every bus and subway car is designated for women, children, the elderly and handicapped people. Obviously. It's the perfect solution! So all those male pick-pockets can only prey on each other (and the unfortunate non-pickpocketing men who are also relegated to the sketchy cars) while us ladies and other vulnerable classes can enjoy our rides in safety up front. I make fun, but actually there is something very comforting about being in an all women's car, and for some reason, it does feel a little safer. I may get pick-pocketed, but I probably won't get groped, which is somewhat reassuring. But the reason I spent so much time on the subway and metrobus is because Cecilia was in town and staying on the opposite side of the city, so we did a lot of meeting in the middle, which entailed facing my fears born of the dire (but somewhat exaggerated) warnings I got from everyone about public transportation. Getting to the various metro stops entailed walking through new neighborhoods, which revealed surprising discoveries...

Harvard Grad School of Education nursery school discovered on my walk to the metro! Imagination villa...sounds fun!

It also meant embracing my terrible sense of direction and, as a result, riding the metro bus in the wrong direction multiple times. The plus side? I got to see lots of Mexico City! There are some really nice sports arenas and funny blocks of strange stores. The down side? Well...it took me forever to get anywhere when I spent at least half an hour riding the bus in the wrong direction. And from what I gather from reactions of Cecilia and my roommate, it was perhaps a little bit dangerous. But now I have learned how to use the metro bus and metro, and I also know all the stops for miles!

And I got to visit the city and experiment with public transport guided by the expert Cecilia, which was really fun! We ate at Sanborns, the oldest department store and restaurant in Mexico City, had dinner with my roomie and a French guy who was staying here for a few days, and visited a free museum housing the private collection of the richest man in Mexico (Slim) which is attached to a fancy shopping mall that he built right next door. The museum building is really cool and is surrounded by a gorgeous rose garden.

In the museum there is everything you could imagine, from Mexican and European artifacts to paintings to Dali and Rodin sculptures. We found a particularly funny explanation of two old photos in the section of old stocks and photographs. If you can't read the descriptions, the first says "This is a typical Mexican woman but not very beautiful." The second reiterates, "This is also a Mexican girl but not very beautiful." Well, I guess at least they're immortalized in a museum, guapa or not. We also saw a description of the printing company Cecilia's grandpa used to own (Galas Printing)! It was really cool!

 

The last new and exciting thing I did this week was to buy a delicious fruit smoothie from a street vendor. My roomie told me exactly which one to go to so that I would not get sick, and after my weekend run in the park (quickly becoming my favorite part of the week, and also very informative - I found yoga classes that take place in the park every day!) I ordered a Jugo Verde, full of yummy fruits and apparently low in all things bad for you and full of all things good. All I know for sure is that it was the perfect refreshing reward after my weekend jog. 

 So that's the update for this week! My goals for next week are to go to a yoga class (and make it through in Spanish...) and really work on improving my language. Oh, and seeing more museums and markets of course! More to come and thank you to everyone who sent me notes! I loved them! Abrazos de Mexico!!