You don’t know Mexico.
I’m starting to think life is a series of realizations that the clichés you hear as a kid are true and unknowable until you see their truth in your own life. The one that has been the theme of my trip so far is that you ‘can’t trust the media.’
The average movie scene and news report on Mexico leaves you believing it is a dangerous, poor, sad, dry, rugged place full of citizens who wish they lived in the United States and really love it when American tourists drink their beer with lime. But the Mexico I have discovered is so much more than that. I’ve never been so surprised by misconceptions.
Even as I write this from Oaxaca, Mexico, I feel like I’m being cliché. Every travel blog or book you read is about how wrong our expectations are. But all I can do is add my voice to the chorus of every other person of experience. They are totally right.
Let me tell you what I have found in Mexico: Colonial towns with architecture more stunning, complex, and picturesque than I’ve seen almost anywhere in the world. Mountains covered in cold pine trees and Oregon-like fog that makes me want spiced coffee and a wool sweater. Cafés and craft coffee and community that makes me want to live and be in perpetual early morning reading time. The best museum I have ever been to (Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City). Lakes surrounded by villages surrounded by mountains. Kind people quick to laugh with you when you cannot speak their language and wave their hands in an attempt to find the words.
Now, I have to say: Mexico is also the other thing. It is also dangerous and troubled by drug violence and poverty and corruption. Those things are true. But those same problems can be found in the United States, and those of us who live there know that they are not the only things that characterize our nation. Mexico is so much more.
But if we can think Mexico is one thing and find out it is so much more, what else don’t we know? What do we have wrong about other cultures, other beliefs, other races, other life styles?
Invisible Children has taught me so much about seeing life from another side, and realizing how similar it is to mine. They have taught me that life in a mud hut in northern Uganda is not poverty, it is culture, and it is beautiful. We all have so much more in common with each other than we could ever believe by watching the news or staying safe in our cul-de-sac. That is why I love travel. You can’t hide from the truth very easily when you travel. Especially if you don’t have a lot of money to insulate your experience. You’re in the streets, with the people, learning about them. It is one of the most beautiful things in life, to learn this way. I hope you’ll do it someday, or that if you have, you’ll tell people about it.
Think people should hear about this?