A sense of place (despite lingering fear of tropical spiders)

On January 29th, 2013 I moved from Mexico City, one of the most populous cities in the world, to an empty beach about an hour outside of Puerto Escondido in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. My city friends called it the "super-soft-fade-out," like those from the end of 80's movies. The protagonist raises his arms in the air after overcoming the numerous, unlikely trials of the last 93 minutes and 27 seconds. The camera freezes on the fist and slowly fades out to credits...

In my case, the trial timeframe was more like 5 years and there was no super-soft-fade-out-ending. The idea of moving back to the United States crossed my mind, but starting another 9-5 after working one straight out of college for half a decade? I became dizzy. On top of that, I wanted to clear somethings up with Mexico, a country now so woven into my fabric I can hardly tell where the southern quilt begins and the fringed serape ends.

So I came to Oaxaca to document my friend's progress to build a personal utopia. He had just signed on some land in the small pueblo of "El Venado" or in English "The Deer." This name was a sign to him as he had grown up on a back-to-the earth-project in Arkansas named "Deer," which was (possibly) ((one of)) the inspiration(s). Buying the land had taken two years, but he had managed. And while the ink was drying on those papers, I was planning my own escape, just minus the personal utopia. He read discontent in my internet trails and wrote to say it was time to make the documentary we always joked about me making.

Okay.

I came with few expectations, and for the best. The city slicker in me scoffed at the land: no structures, no water, no electricity, no internet. What had I done? What am I going to do next? Is that a spider in your tent? I mean, have you seen the movie, "Arachnophobia"? How fast can I get to concrete shelter, preferably with a fan and cupboard containing, at minimum, one chocolate croissant? I stayed the night in a hammock figuring it would be the best bet against spiders but failed to realize I was opening up an all-you-can-eat mosquito buffet. I left the next morning, not staying even 24 hours and not to return for a week.

When I did return, volunteers from the helpX, a website that connect people willing to work for food and shelter, had started to trickle in. I could not understand them. Not because of language or anything. I mean to say I could not understand their motivations. They were willing to break their backs for tortas and a place to pitch a tent? I knew there must be more but was not sure what it could be. So I prepared my gear and started filming. First little things like clearing paths with machetes or painting the bottom of fruit trees with white lime and then building earthbag structures, a design popularized by Iranian architect Nader Khalili, which involves lots of heave-hoing of dirt-like substances into polyethylene bags originally intended for seed/food.

And at some point, that I myself cannot point out, I stopped watching them and started rooting for them. I stopped seeing them with the pre-constructed labels I applied because of dreadlocks or vocabulary choices. I stopped being afraid to leave my camera gear laying around because they were strangers. And I missed them when I went back to civilization to charge up my batteries and ingest footage. I will never forget the first time I came back and was greeted with "welcome home."

I realize that to be part of this I have to put aside what I learned in the chaos and traffic of Mexico City. And the first step is already underway: just seeing people as people and valuing connections that instinctively exist if you let them surface.

Machetes

Yesterday morning I took a break from all things video to sling a machete to (re)understand the principles of manual labor while listening to "Hootenanny," from start to finish. I forgot (never knew) to wear gloves, so by the time I got to "Take Me Down to the Hospital" certain parts of my hands looked up, begging me to heed Paul Westerberg's words. I showed them who was boss by covering them up with a bandana until I had poorly finished the job and the album.

   

Somewhere else

When life is predictable the smallest aberration can fuel a brilliant story. A new trick for peddling made-in-china-flashlights on the metro from a man missing at least one limb or the guy selling you cigarettes insinuating that you are a hooker (working early today, aren't we?). You know, for example. But things are now so shaken up and I cannot see the start. 

I guess it was Berlin. Within a week of looking, I had a bite for an interview. I had never focused on a city so intensely and it paid. I did not go to Berlin, no, but Berlin taught me that one can push one's agenda easier than I, for one, realized. Though loath to leave D.F. and harboring the fear I would sink, I knew sooner rather than later change would come or else I would drown in a stagnate puddle.

So I left, stored my record collection with a friend, gave away decorative skulls and clothes with horses stitched on the front and packed almost 5 years into 2 suitcases destined for the coast.

I arrived less than a week ago. The taxi brought me to a stripped down, large house with heart-shaped-bars on the windows and a tetras-shaped swimming pool in the front yard. A friend and an unidentified Mexican guy sat with their feet in the semi-chlorinated water, which they tracked on the concrete in human paw shaped prints but that evaporated before we got my bags out of the airport cab. When I told the cabbie in D.F. I had lived in Texcoco and Mexico City, he asked if I had put chunks of the two in my luggage. 

Upon entering, I found a mostly white, mostly empty, mostly tiled narco-style-mini-mansion. Nic came down the staircase and the first thing out of his mouth was about how he had been sick and shitting everywhere. Mexican food. I found the information somewhat secondary. We went for a walk to pick up his giant puppy Machete, an Irish Wolfhound with a mow-hawk and a penchant it turns out for tackling nude females along the coast line. The walk gave us a chance to talk about the project and expectations. Everything had happened so quickly that, well, we only touched on the latter tangentially  The main focus was getting down there. Now I was Oaxaca, Nic on one side, the Pacific ocean on the other. So I dove right in. What was his timeline? Goals? Budget?

It was 5 p.m. and I had scrambled some eggs around 8 a.m., so we stopped for some food. Nic knew the guy. (Of course). I ate a quesodilla as he explain how the progress was going to build his dream. I wanted to jot down quotes and ideas but was without paper and had slept very little in the week leading up to that moment due to a post-wisdom-teeth-extraction-infection.*

I was pounding some agua del dia hard when he told me his main goal is to create and host Burning Man Mexico from December 27th 2013 to January 4th 2014. I chuckled inside. I should have guessed. This coming from the guy who explained buying an $800 fur coat for his (first) despedida by rationalizing that, "it will be great for Burning Man." †

Nic was quitting his job for the month of February so that he could oversee and participate in a "work party" on the land. About an hour outside of Puerto, he now owned the site for his utopia after two years of searching and fighting with the Mexican bureaucratic system.‡ 

We drove out Friday night to greet the first volunteers from the website HelpX, which connects people willing to work for accommodation and food. And that is fascinating. These people will break their backs for a few tortas. But I think/know there is more to it than that. I tried to lead one of the girls, a Canadian, down the road of (my) enlightenment as to why she chose this project. Did she grow up on a farm? Did she remember when she first realized she wanted an alternative lifestyle? Had she seen an example of this type of community when she was younger? § I gave up as she her answer to 87.33333% of my questions was, "to live off the grid" (even though when pressed she could not explain what that meant or why she wanted it). I decided to put interviews on hold until we had more volunteers.

I took some good test footage, in both the day and night, as it was my camera's maiden voyage and I wanted to see how she handled different lighting. I also tested out my new audio system, composed of an h4n and Rode Mic with Plural Eyes in post. Needless to say I was super eager to check out the results, to learn my new workflow and to do this with coffee and a chocolate croissant on the porch of Cafecito.

I put on the old rucksack, grabbed my gear and hitched a ride with Nic and his cousin Dagen to the main road. From there, I started walking towards Puerto until I could catch a passing convi. I want to get this system down before official filming begins later this month. 

/////f o o t n o t e s//////

* Firmly excruciating pain that leads to eating sub-recreational painkillers like Tic Tacs ®
† Throughout the time I knew Nic in Mexico City Burning Man was a recurring theme in conversations  He once bought a dark purple leather vest with 4 huge pockets on the front from the used clothing market in Pino Suarez for the sole purpose of wearing it at Burning Man, which at the time was approximately 8 months down the road. Affectionally known as "Burners," people like Nic see the world tinted by their memories of the art festival deep in the Nevada desert. While the roots are unequivocally non-commercial, some feel that the festival has grown too much and is becoming too corporate. That is why across the States, many have already started mini-Burning Man events. Read more here.
‡ I always says the wheels of Mexican bureaucracy move slowly. Nic says they move backwards.
§ Nic himself grew up on in the backwoods of Arkansas in a back-to-the-earth-type-project.