Los Tiempos del Señor – (Ep.3) El nuevo orden mundial
Proyecto iniciado el año pasado. Capitulo tres. No ha sido fácil, es un ejercicio de humildad, aunque parezca lo contrario.
Los tiempos del Señor (Ep. 2) Día de Muertos
Este es un diario en linea, hago mis entradas en desorden, cuando quiero
Los Tiempos Del Señor (Ep. Piloto) – El Paciente Ingles –
Acabamos de iniciar un potcast con mi amigo Tomas Calvillo. Este material fue grabado en octubre 2019. Seguiré posteandolos en este blog. A ver como evoluciona este experimento.
Liquid Lands
This is a video about my photo project Liquid Lands. I spend about 5 years living in different cities of the Mexican Caribbean, studying the newborn societies there, made with individuals from all around de world.
I had lost this video in a hard drive some years ago, but just found it back. Better get it online this time. Sorry for the quality, is my only copy.
Better late than never
Parque Fundadores de Playa del Carmen, una tarde de verano del 2014, justo antes del atardecer. Kim y yo estamos sentados en una banca viendo hacia el mar.
“The first time I came to Playa on vacation was ten tears ago. My son was nine years old, and we went to an All Inclusive resort in Playacar. It was a good place for kids, they had something like a camp, but I did go out of the resort that time. There was no 5th avenue, it wasn’t pave. There was only the Blue Parrot, a couple touristy places to by hammocks, and the Blue Mosquito Hotel; witch is one of my favorite hotels here.”
El “Blue Mosquito Hotel” (que en realidad se llamaba Mozquito Azul) era uno de los hoteles mas representativos de Playa del Carmen. Exclusivo y céntrico pero, sobre todo, con un servicio muy personalizado, estaba dirigido a una clientela de clase alta con aspiraciones bohemias, el publico que hizo de Playa del Carmen un destino turístico “chic” y de moda que algunos no tardaron en llamar “la Ibiza de América”. Ese hotel, igual que todos los negocios antiguos de Playa, pertenecía a una personas física, o, en todo caso a una asociación de personas físicas. Pero de eso hace ya mucho tiempo, se trata de los años románticos, antes de que todo fuera vendido a conglomerados gigantes de capital anónimo que no tienen ningún interés en personalizar el servicio, obstinados en alcanzar el éxito económico por el camino mas efectivo y eficiente. De hecho el Mozquito Azul fue vendido, derribado y remplazado por un edificio mas grande, mas robusto y mas glamuroso, aunque por lo mismo mas vacío, con menos alma, destinado a un turismo menos exigente y menos atento a los detalles.
Como sea, no se lo menciono a Kim, no viene al caso en nuestra conversación, no creo que ella pueda percibir todavía ese tipo de cambios ya que hace apenas siete meses que llego aquí, por lo que sigue en el proceso de descubrir el lugar. Además ella esta aquí por sus propias razones, no por como evoluciona Playa del Carmen y su cada vez mas abundante infraestructura de servicios turísticos. Por ahora todo eso sigue siendo secundario en su vida.
“Playa has changed a lot, but for me is good, I like that there is a fast passé, an international side besides just the Mexican culture, because it’s kind of a city and a lay back town at the same time. I like it, I can see how it can get to big but I like that. Unlike Cancun, they have set some limits on the building.
“I’m living here because my son is in university now and I felt that my life was becoming too stagnant, very stable, very home. I needed a change -an adventure if you will- so I considered a lot of places, and for several reasons I decided to stay here. First of all, I like the Mexican culture a lot. I would have live in Europe but it was to far away from my soon, to expensive, so Playa is great; its beautiful, you get your money’s worth, and it’s just a two hours flight home if a I needed to be there.
“I like to travel, I always did, I am bored very easily and I had this problem my whole life, I need to see and experience new things constantly. My mind needs new information; I have to read a book every day because it takes me somewhere else. When I was first adopted my mom said she would buy me as many books as I could read, but eventually she could not afford it any more so we had to go to the library. I started to read when I was five, I didn’t had an opportunity before that.”
No se mucho sobre Kim. La conocí en el trabajo, yo era su guía de turistas. Fue un día particularmente mágico porque nos topamos con un grupo de aproximadamente veinte delfines que rodearon nuestro barco y se pusieron a dar vueltas a nuestro alrededor. Los únicos en saltar al agua fuimos yo, ella y un amigo suyo llamado JJ que la acompañaba en el tour. En el momento en que los vi me olvide todo lo demás en el mundo y nade hacia ellos tan frenético como un niño lleno de azúcar. Giraron a mi alrededor un par de veces, haciendo ese sonido suyo que es entre un silbido y un chasquido, y después desaparecieron en el azul eterno del mar. Kim, en la emoción, olvido ponerse las aletas y no pudo nadir suficientemente rápido por lo que solo los vio de lejos, pero los dos salimos del agua con los ojos desorbitados y una sonrisa que nos duro todo el resto del día. Así que nos hicimos amigos.
Escuchándola me doy cuenta que, si bien somos personas con puntos de vista muy diferentes, si tenemos muchas cosas en común, empezando por el nombre, la situación geográfica y el carácter cerrado de las ciudades en las que crecimos.
“I am from Saint Louis, in the state of Missouri, a city in the middle of the country. My parents are both dead, and I have a soon who is goanna turn 21. I am divorced, so my family is my son… and my friends, I have some very long time friends because I was raised in an all girls’ school, from kindergarten to 12th grade, so we’ve all been friends for 40 years.
“I grew up in the old society of St Louis: very conservative old families with lots of money, lots of education and lost of traveling. I don’t think that makes them more open, but for me it did. I have very few friends who are democrats because there is a tradition of republicanism within these families. I was republican my whole life until the Obama election. You just follow what your family did instead of making up you own mind, that’s kind of what people do in St Louis.
“The reason for voting republican, the one good reason, is money. This people have a lot of money, and the taxations that democrats put on its wrong. It’s wrong to make the rich pay more than everybody else. My dad made his own money, why half of it should been taken away from him? I mean, yes, he should pay taxes, but everybody should pay the same percentage. I think that’s fair, but its not what its happening, the rich’s pay 60 to 70 percent more, that’s not an incentive to make more money. You have more money but you also spend it in education, and you have to pay back your loans.
“I have worked, I have volunteered in many places of the social services, and this people are not poor, they have IPhones. They are not even trying to get jobs, and it’s the true, I have seen it first hand, they are living of how many children’s they have. They get paid for each child, so they don’t have to get a job, and that’s where my tax money is going. Those are people who could work, and I think that’s wrong. I don’t mind taking care of people who need it, but the government needs to spend the money on monitoring who needs it and who doesn’t. I think that the government in America cares more about their people than the government of Mexico cares about their own, but I think in America they care too much. The government needs to leave the people alone. It’s become a very selfish society, everybody it’s pretty much for himself or herself.
“It’s exploiting, it needs to change or America is not America any more, we are loosing the power and our reputation over the world. Money is so much more important in America than it is in Mexico. I mean, taxation is huge. There are a lot of problems in Mexico with the infrastructure because they don’t have the money from the taxes, but, at the same time, Mexicans are tougher, they just tough it out. In America everything has to be sissify, it’s become so pamper, so… spoil. Everybody is spoil in America. Here I learned how spoil I am, and how Americans have no idea how much they have. Even the poorest person! The poverty is so much different, but if I was goanna be poor I’ll rather be it Playa, because its very family oriented here, and I love that. You see the poor families at the beach, together, and everybody is eating, everybody is happy.
“America is very independent now, families aren’t spending time together like they use to. When I grew up I had every meal with my family, and I see that a lot more here, they are much closer. Young people are so independent in America, they are supposed to, it’s expected. You do see a lot of Mexican families separated, Mexicans move around, young Mexicans leave their families, and you have a lot of couples that live separately because one is in America, sending money back home. We actually have some Mexicans in St Louis, but not a lot because it’s a very black town, with a lot of Italian and Slavic people.
“I had no Mexican friends before coming here but now my friends are all Mexicans and Dutch. I haven’t met a lot of my kind of Americans here, more educated. I have only found the tacky ones who buy shirts that’s say “I am shy but I have a big dick”. There are also some retirees, but I haven’t make friends with any. So it’s fascinating to learn this new culture; it’s so different from what I imagined, it’s exiting. I’ve never live somewhere else other than home this long, so I am really getting different perspectives. I don’t know what I expected; Mexicans -I already knew- are really warm people, but I’ve learn more about the culture. There is almost like a gypsy spirit here… they take advantage of you! I feel Mexicans are an anomaly: on one hand they are worm and have this machismo thing, and then, in the other hand, they are really sensitive underneath. I did not expect that.
“I am from a very sturdy environment; my friends are from all time, and we just stay friends forever. I had a couple of little boyfriends here, but Mexicans disappear. No goodbye, they just say “see you tomorrow”, and then never talk to you again. The jobs are not so secure here, and some of them they just don’t like to work, they change works because they get fired, and then they disappear, because they will move to Cancun or somewhere else to get another job. There are a lot of people like that here, maybe its not necessary Mexican. I have meet a lot of transients that kind of come in to my life and then just go away, like in Los Angeles. Actually Playa del Carmen is like a Los Angeles in some ways: people that are lost, trying to find themselves in one area… and then they disappear.”
De hecho, Los Angeles y el Caribe Mexicano tienen mucho en común, no solo por su población flotante si no también por su personalidad superficial, dedicada a la seducción, por su tiempo acomodado en base a temporadas, por su culto a la individualidad y por su glamour descarado que confronta e ilusiona a las olas de oportunistas que no dejan de llegar en búsqueda de que alguien reconozca lo especial que son, en esas sociedades compuestas otras personas especiales, donde todos, a fuerza de tanto brillar, terminamos por opacarnos mutuamente.
“I didn’t know anybody here before coming and since I arrived I have not been back to the States. It was quite an adventure, and I do want to see my friends there, but now is starting to get cold there so everybody is coming to visit me. My son loves the fact I came here, he just wants me to be happy, and he also loves to visit here. He is so Playa, a free spirit that is definitely not goanna fit in to a conventional world. He and his girlfriend are considering moving to Portland, Oregon. Eventually he will get marry and have babies, and I want to be a grandmother, so I will fallow to wherever he goes. I left America and I am enjoying it but I am American and I am proud of a lot of American things: the freedom, the mixture of people… It’s still an amazing country. However, I don’t know if I will be back in America, I don’t know if I will actually live there again, there are a lot of places I want to see. I will probably have a home there and somewhere else.
“I don’t know how long I am goanna be here. I said one year and I think its goanna be longer than that, because my life here is good and things are moving. I am writing a book, I’ve been writing it since I arrived here. It’s about been kidnaped in Mexico, but it’s a humorous book, a funny book. There is this woman who is kind of a socialite and kind of crazy, and her cab driver kidnaps her from the airport, in to the jungle. Then she escapes and ends up in the run, and she develops this mental relation with one of the cartel guys, so they can tell where each other are and they kind of fall in love. Then she kidnaps his soon… and that’s where I am.
“I have always been a writer. I wrote my first book when I was seven, a little mystery tale, but I haven’t published because I haven’t tried. My mind is chaos, it just goes without me, and writing gives me a structure. So this is my year, this is when I am really goanna get out there. Coming on this adventure is part of it, because there are less distractions, I spend much more time alone. At home in St Louis I have a whole social life, I have lots of friends, and here I have… time. And the beach gives me a feeling of quietness; I could never find that in the city.
“There is a certain peaceful feeling in Playa that drives some people here. There all kind, but particularly spiritual people and people who don’t like the conventional. It’s not a typical city; people that I’ve met here are very considered. At home, where I am from, people don’t like to discuss faults, everyone likes to present themselves better than they are. There is a lot more judgment in America and I don’t find that here, that’s why I fit in. I have always been sensitive and strait forward; I don’t need to hide things that might have been horrible to me. So this is an occasion to allow myself to feel some pain that I hadn’t allowed myself to feel before. Too feel it and also to realize it, to let go. So I am having all this good memories now, instead of bad ones.
“I feel like am making more peace with myself here than what I would have done if I had stay home. There is a self-evaluation therapy; a sort of formal soul searching that is happening to me that I did not know it would happen. I am finding more peace than in many years. I have always known I have no peace; I have always strive very hard to find it. I have a very tumultuous past; witch is stirred up a lot. But I am finding more confidence here, and that’s maybe because at home you are in such a label of who you are, and now I am remembering that I am smart and interesting. Because I am meeting new people and not just the people that I’ve known forever, I can see genuine reactions in them. It’s bringing up things.
“When you are in therapy you have to drag all this past pain, witch is good, because you have to accept it to release it. I am now dealing with conflicts I had with my mother in the past, and I am starting to remember good things about her. I am also starting to understand how much my friendship saved my life back home. I would not be the person I am today; I would have not survived without those people. It’s also something that comes with the age. When you are younger you just kind of live; you’re kind of evaluating yourself but not really. And now you have lived long enough –I turned 50 this year- so you kind of go trough your life and say: Wow! How did I get here? Because I still feel like I am 25.
“I think there is also a transition of acceptance when you have a soon. There is a relief when your soon has made it to 20 years old. That’s the most important part of me; I have been maternal before I had babies. The most important part is that he is safe; it’s a relief to know that job is over. It’s never really over, but he is independent now, he can take care of himself. I would have never left him otherwise, and sometimes I have a big regret that I am not there, but he is in college, and all my other friends who’s kids are in college never see them.
“I have a sense of longing for family that I doo miss. Five years ago I would not have been able to do this, I have become more independent now. I’ve been single for 10 years and I don’t think I want to get married ever again, but of course I want to find a man, a partner. Getting married is for children, to give them a family. I don’t know if I can find somebody in Playa, because of my age, I am old here, but I have always get along with people of all ages. I am friends with 20 years olds, and when I was 20 I always got along with people older than me, because my parents where much more older when they adopted me -they where grand parents age- so I was around all this wise older people all the time. People always talk to me and tell me everything because they know I don’t judge, and I have a lot of energy.
“I have not been the same person my whole life, we all change, but I’ve always had an inner straight, an inter happiness that eludes some people. That’s in my nature, even before I was adopted, even when we lived in bad surroundings, I was always the mischievous, the one laughing, kind of a troublemaker. I was always happy, I could always get away from everything and not take myself too serious. That’s always been there, that’s my secret for happiness: I am serious, but I don’t take myself serious.”
Atlas
Italy
Germany
California, USA
France
United States
Switzerland
England
Texas, USA
Yugoslavia
New Mexico, USA
Catalunya, Spain
Beaujolais, France
Punjab, India
Riviera Maya, Mexico
La Huasteca, Mexico
El Paso and Juarez
Amritsar, India
Geneva, Switzeland
Austin, USA
Cuernavaca, Mexico
Lyon, France
Belgrade, Serbia
Los Angeles, USA
Madrid, Spain
Mexico and United States
London, England
Monterrey, Mexico
Guadalajara, Mexico
Hamburg, Germany
Mexico City, Mexico
Monserrat, Spain
Puerto Morelos, Mexico
Zagreb, Croatia
Paris, France
Española, USA
Tijuana, Mexico
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Merida, Mexico
Milano, Italy
Delhi, India
Munich, Germany
Playa del Carmen, Mexico
San Francisco, USA
Amsterdam, Netherlands
San Luis Potosi, Mexico
Venice, Italy
Anandpur, India
Igor Nieto Joly - Looking for the light 
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