Al Campo or Bust

This week both the Migration and Globalization students and the Social Work students had the opportunity to experience life in rural Mexico. This particular town is located approximately an hour away from Cuernavaca. There were two main reasons the program decided to have us stay here with host families for three nights and four days. The first is that it was a good practice for our rapidly approaching longer term (6-week) urban home stay in Cuernavaca. The other is that many of the inhabitants of the community are still connected to their indigenous roots in some way.
 

The street outside where I lived




 However, just because we were there, that did not mean that we were on vacation! Granted, we did not have to sit in class and read books, but still, we participated in the Center for Global Education’s favorite teaching method—experiential learning… aka learning by experiencing. We went to a panel on immigration where we heard the very impressive but sad stories of two local men’s experiences in traveling to and working in the United States and returning home again.

The next day, my birthday (March 1st), we got to experience something completely new and exciting. We all received a Temazcal and a Limpia. These are two traditions that have been passed down from the original indigenous people who lived in the area. A Temazcal is essentially a sweat. You have to crawl into this oven-like cavern where you will sit in complete darkness with about eight other people. Once inside, we were instructed to remain silent while asking the Gods for clarity on something in our lives, or that they help resolve a problem of ours. While we are doing this, a person (who is familiar with the tradition) is waving palm leaves around in order to continually increase the temperature. Finally, after a half hour, we exited the cavern and were asked to wrap ourselves in sheets that they gave to us and lay on the ground to let our body temperatures readjust.


A statue of of the god Quetzalcoatl in the town square

After receiving our Temazcal, we went to go see community leaders for our Limpias. A Limpia is another type of cleansing tradition. In this case, the community leader took leaves from a particular type of plant that grows in the area and an egg into one of his hands and ran them together all over our bodies. The point of this is to extract the negative energies from our bodies with the egg and plant. After this process, he cracked the egg into a glass of water and was able to read the contents. He told us things about our lives and how we are as people in general. He also told us about some life struggles we may have had in our lives thus far. I know it sounds a little out there, but he was completely accurate with my reading. I could not believe it!

Well, after an interesting and busy four days in the campo (country) getting to know a different piece of Mexico, a little about some indigenous traditions and perspectives on life, and living with a family, we returned back to Cuernavaca, where, for better or for worse, we felt more comfortable. We missed not only our houses, but being home. Before going out to the community, I know that I had some preconceived ideas about what I was going to see. What do you think those things were? What do you think the reality was? Would you be willing to put yourself in a similar situation? Well, if you ever have the opportunity to do so, I would strongly suggest it.

Jordan Freking (Williams College ’12)