NEW DAWN NEW DAY NEW WORLD

4.30am. I love that song by Nina Simone. Really captures the hopeful feeling of the candy-rock sky behind my screen and the baby black bird hopping after its parents across the patio. Joanna Macy's book, 'World as Lover, World as Self' didn't make me nod off, so after laying in bed for a couple of hours in the dark thinking about my future I got bored, and thought I'd bring you up to date with  what's been happening.  
We got back from Pembrokeshire last night. The hedgerows are teeming with white and pink hawthorn trees, sunny gorse, red campions, bluebells, garlic and those tall white umbellifers, that could be wild parsley or carrot. I'm not sure.
 On Monday we went to Broadhaven South Beach. Together with Barafundle Bay, a little way further along the coast, these have to be the best beaches in the world. Horseshoe bays backed by dunes, clean sand and turquoise water.  Despite the water being too cold for me even wearing a wet suit, brave souls were swimming in bikinis-not for very long mind you- the average time running into the water, thrashing around in a small circle and skipping out, was around 20 seconds.
I finally managed to complete my fifth full moon poem for April based on the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan outside Mexico City. Just in time as it's May full moon today. This is a project I have for 2010-to write a poem at each full moon. It's hard not to repeat oneself!  I thought that May's poem would be under the cut of the surgeon's moon-shaped light.  No such luck. Instead, I've written him a poem.

HIP OP

Please Mr Jones

Operate my hip

cos my hip aint hopping.

Like Chester after the Sherriff

I'm a limping and a-lopping.

I can stomp like Ian Dury

but aint got no rhythm stick

I aint got no rhythm.

Mr Jones

September is far too long to wait

It's a bore

Operate my hip

Make me tall and straight

Not crook'd no more.

Replace the chewed up bone

with your new ball and socket

Lock it Mr Jones

so I can jump, skip and run

walk miles, have fun.

Be Cool Mr Jones

Operate my hip!

Have a great bank holiday weekend.

HIP OP CANCELLED

It's May 18, the day I was supposed to go into hospital to have my left hip replaced, the day this year has been planned all around.  In the letter postponing the op until September there was mention of bed shortages, bed blocking and emergencies. However, the cynical side of me and a view confirmed by some NHS workers, is that this is where the cuts begin. One nurse friend even said,
'Don't believe otherwise.'
The Occupational Therapist came yesterday with her measuring tape and plastic elephant feet to do a rece of our home and furniture and to sus out if Rhys is up to what it takes to look after me post-op.
'He's been doing it all our married life', I said.
He said, 'I've had the op myself.'
They compared notes on equipment. Three years ago it was cheaper to give you all the equipment you needed new:-commode, extra-long shoe horn, grabber, sock-thingy that looks like a cotton bike saddle with long tapes, high chair, elephant feet etc, rather than loan them, collect after use and recycle.
The OT noticed the extra-long shoe horn with Rhys' name on hanging in our porch. Very useful for scratching your private parts and getting your boots on and off without bending down. Problem is you still have to bend down to do up your laces. It's where your walking partner's mobility and willingness to stoop that low is tested. If you are walking alone and can't face asking a random passerby then you may trip over your laces and you're back to square one. Waiting for another hip replacement operation.
'We did try to give the stuff back, honest!', we said in collective guilt, 'but nobody wanted them.'
'It's all different now,' she said.
She apologised that I was to have an inferior grabber to the one Rhys had-one without a magnate on the end. Cuts again. Not that I can think of a good reason why I would want to use my grabber as a metal detector, but Rhys assures me not having one is a distinct disadvantage.
Now I'm all measured up and perfectly fitted out with no party to go to. Today, I read an article by Barbara Ehrenreich in Therapy Today (May 2010), She says that positive thinking won't help me in my situation if it ignores the reality of my circumstances and inhibits action. Given I might reach September having not worked all summer (positive) and then be postponed again(realistic?)- potentially putting me out of business for even longer, I've put myself on the 'ready to go at a moment's notice' list just in case some other poor person is cancelled and I move up the queue.
So I've bought a new hoodie dressing gown. Steffan says my wearing it reminds him of the 'grim sleeper'. I couldn't find a cotton nightdress, so bought a dress that could double up. Oh, and some pink slippers with rubber soles-for grip. Very out of character. Now, all I need to do is pack my hospital bag. Bit like preparing to have a baby.
That house-sit in the jungle of Panama. . . How long would it take me to get home if I get that call and there's been a cancellation ?

'VIVA LA VIDA!' VIVA MEXICO!

'Viva la Vida' are Frida Kahlo's words. I think it means something like, 'Celebrate Life!'  'Long Live Life!' It's salutary that despite all her pain and suffering she was still able to say this at the end of her short life.
Tomorrow is our last day and given the problems I've had with the lap top I've decided to do a brief summing up of our Mexican experience tonight instead of waiting til after our visit to Teotihuacan tomorrow and the possibility that Dell boy may not want to cooperate.
Mexico is a fascinating country of contrasts; huge, diverse, complex, rich in history, custom, tradition, with many of the contemporary problems facing the rest of the world: rising unemployment and cost of living, climate change, diminishing resources etc. This year 2010 celebrates two hundred years of independence. At the demo supporting the strike by the Mexican Electricians' Union, we saw a poster which we think said something like,

Celebrate Mexico? What's there to celebrate?
Narcotic trafficking, Lack of Security, High Crime, Corrupt Politicians, Unemployment, Injustice...

Clearly, if workers are prepared to go on hunger strike then the situation for some must be desperate.
We have only been here for five weeks and our contact with Mexican people has been quite small. However, what's impressed us most is that despite the possible personal consequences there are those individuals and groups, like staff and volunteers at Natate, the Zapatistas and the Electricians, who are standing up for what they believe in.  One of our guides talking about environmental issues told us, 'In Mexico it's dangerous to be an activist. People who protest loudly can disappear. Get killed.'
In a video of Rufino Tamayo's work, a Mexican muralist of Rivera's generation, he says that in his view it's a myth to believe that Mexicans are all about fiestas and celebrations. He believes that the national Mexican personality is quite a tragic one. I guess if you consider the oppression that the people have been subjected to from the very earliest times this view is understandable. The Mexican, 'Day of the Dead' is a celebration of the lives of ancestors and sees death as part of the process of living.
We have felt safe here, even in Mexico City, where we've riden the metro, the train and the bus and where we've stood out as the only gringos seemingly taking public transport. There are obviously dangers, like in any big city, and maybe we've been lucky, but there is also a large police presence. Maybe that helps us feel safe too.
We find the people very helpful and friendly. To our surprise most Mexicans don't speak English and our appalling Spanish has caused some grins. We wish we'd come better prepared language-wise. 
We've learnt alot during this holiday. House-sitting for Larry was a great experience. He taught us to re-examine the place of trust in our lives.  He's truly an exceptional person. We look forward to getting to know him better when he comes over to Europe next year.
We'd love to get to know this interesting, colourful and vibrant country better. Hopefully we'll come back one day. In the meantime, VIVA MEXICO!


  

FRIDA, TROTSKY & MEXICAN ELECTRICIANS ON HUNGER STRIKE

It' s May 1st and it would seem that the whole of Mexico City is out on the streets enjoying La Vida. The streets are teeming with people, mostly young, arms and lips entwined. It's very very hot. In the 90s at least, maybe even the 100s. The streets are full of little stalls with tin baths of iced drinks, others selling mangos on sticks like lollies, cups of sliced tropical fruits, ice creams, hot and cold food wrapped in banana or corn leaves, that you can eat on the go. Or, you can sit by the stall, eat, chat and watch the world go by. We haven't done much of any of this as we've been cowardy custards fearing that some germ would get into our system and spoil our last few days in Mexico.
Today, we took the metro to Chapultepec to visit the park and the National Anthropological Museum. It's an impressive building, very spacious and airy and is said to be one of the best of its kind in the world. It tells the story of the indigenous people, their beliefs, myths and rituals and has rooms dedicated to different groups such as those who built the pyramids, like Teotihuacan, a massive site north of Mexico City and a contemporary with Imperial Rome. We're hoping to visit it tomorrow, our last day.
Yesterday, we visited the home of the great Mexican artist and communist, Frida Kahlo. Her home,where she was born and lived all her life including during her marriage to Rivera is in Coyoacan, a posh residential area of the city There's a small collection of her paintings: self portraits and narratives of key points of love and pain in her life. Some are a mixture of the literal and surreal. She uses the iconography of Mexican folk art. Rivero gets in on her act again, with a room displaying his paintings, portraits and landscapes. However, we get to see the bed ,where she spent so much of her time after the traffic accident that left her in so much pain. There's a canopy over it and on the underside is a huge mirror. She used it for her many self portraits. On the wall at the end of her bed there are pictures of Lenin, Trotsky, Marx and Stalin.  We also saw her studio with the wheelchair she used towards the end of her life after her leg was amputated. It sits against an empty easel and her paints, pastels and coloured inks are arranged on a table nearby. The room is also full of books in English and Spanish, including the history of art. I spied a book of Augustus John. There are also many books about communism.
It was very strange and probably totally psychological but when in her bedroom, I felt intense hot pain in my hip, dry bones rubbing against each other. I've been in pain with my hip over the holiday but this was different. 
I desperately wanted to see the larger collection of her work at the Museo Dolores Olmedo Patino, but before setting off for it, Rhys persuaded me that we might regret it if we didn't visit the nearby Trotsky Museum, the house where there were two attempts on his life and where he was assassinated by a Stalinist sympathiser. We did the tour led by a Mexican woman who'd done her masters at Sussex and spoke a Brighton English. She was clearly somewhat infatuated by Trotsky. On the tour was a Russian couple, who were n't able to throw much light on how Trotsky's role in the Russian Revolution is now taught in Russian schools. Given Trotsky's influence in revolutionary socialism in the UK, it is rather sad to see how politically sidelined he became with Stalin's rising popularity and influence. The Russian guy tried to tell the guide that when Trotsky was head of the Red Army, there were things he did and ordered that were n't good. But the guide didn't want to listen.
So, off to the Museo Dolores in a very hot taxi in a very crowded rush hour (Or is it rush hour all the time in Mexico City?)  only to find that the whole collection of Frida's work is in Europe (Where?) until December 2010. Grrr!
We took the overland train and metro (3pesos a single trip cf 70 pesos by taxi) back to the centre, the Zocalo, Constitution Square,supposedly the largest public square in the world after Tienamen Square. There we found a demonstration, speakers, banners, men in earnest conversation. We stopped several people to ask what was going on but could find no-one who spoke English. Eventually, someone we asked  found a school girl, who told us that some Mexican Electricians sitting under a canopy nearby were on hunger strike. The Union, SME are protesting about their rights and work opportunities. Her mother worked for the Union. Today, when we visited for the May Day celebrations, there was a large banner in English saying 'Famine Strike'. Everywhere, there were people in red shirts rattling tins to support the protest.
Trotsky would have been well pleased.