GDL homecoming

About three weeks ago I finally arrived at Guadalajara, my second hometown. From the very beginning of this trip various cousins have been asking me when I would come since they had all heard the Belgian cousin was coming back after four years. Four years. Even for me that's too long. As a kid my parents and I used to come over more frequently, sometimes leaving a year or two in between. Honestly, partly because of rebellion, partly because I was fed up doing the same thing each year, I stopped going. But about two years ago I started feeling that urge to look up the other part of my identity again, which I had been neglecting during the years in Belgium. My adultery-commiting uncle Nacho in Monterrey pointed it out to me perfectly: "La sangre llama" (Blood calls). And he's right. After staying for a long while at the other side of the Atlantic I couldn't stop thinking of Mexico. Its food, its music, its people and of course the family. Not that I get along well with all of them, because there are really way too much of them, but there are some family members who I hold close to my heart. So as you could imagine, the reunion with my closest cousins at the bus station was very gladdening. And even though it had been four years since I last stepped foot on Mexico, it didn't seem like that long when I saw their faces. It's interesting how long time lapses can be absolutely meaningless, sometimes. Sometimes, because in the course of the following weeks I would notice how different people we've all become, or at least me. Sometimes I have the impression that I'm the only one who's changed in comparison with the rest. For instance, they seem to take pleasure in denominating me a 'rebellious, tree-hugging hippy' for my ripped clothes, ideologies and inability to make plans. Most of all my clothing habits have become a target for mockery. My aunt Rosana offered me to buy a new pair pants, while aunt Elia - feeling so sorry for my paint-covered seven euro shoes - bought me a new pair for Christmas which I in the meantime have exchanged for a pretty cool sailor-like army bag. They weren't really my style, honestly. I haven't told her, though. She'll probably resent it, but, fuck it. I explicitly asked her not to buy me any clothes. Furthermore she doesn't understand I can't carry too much weight anymore. But anyway, it was nice to see them again.

After the hugging part of the reunion my cousins immediately started asking me after my plans, a word I haven't used a lot on this trip. Since I don't really have any, Elia's children decided I should stay at their house for the first couple of days. Oh wait, before I continue, let me outline my family tree briefly. Or else the story will get pretty confusing, even for me.

Okay, so as far as I'm informed the tree dates back to a mixed marriage of a pale-skinned man and an indigenous woman from the Purepecha tribe. I don't recall their names, nor how many children they had, but I know that one of them bore three sisters: Maria Teresa, Lurdes and Lupe. I'll take that as a starting point.

• My great-grandmother - who's name I don't remember - had three children, those who I mentioned above.

• Maria Teresa, better known as 'Tita', is my late grandmother. She and my also late grandfather had three daughters: Rosana, Elia and my mother Maria Teresa

• Rosana has three children: Mariana, Ignacio and Angel - referred to as the Diaz family. Elia likewise: Andrea, Sergio and Carolina - the Gonzalez family. My mother: me.

• But then my grandmother's sisters also procreated. Lupe only bore one daughter: Cecilia. She has been married for five years but no children have emerged from that marriage. Unlike Lurdes, who gave birth to no less than 12 children. About 15 years ago one of them died in a car accident. The remaining 11 bred like rabbits. I estimate a total of around 33 cousins from that family branch. Only four of them I know by name. The rest I hardly ever meet. They're referred to as the Villa family.

• Then there is my grandfather's family, who I barely know or see. And the prodigy of my grandmothers' cousins, the family-in-law of my aunts' husbands,...

• As you can see, my family tree gets pretty complicated after a while. So I'll leave it here for now. I hope you got a better understanding, because I don't, really.

So first I stayed at the house of the Gonzalez for a week, afterwards at the Diaz'. I spent the days visiting relatives, talking and eating with them. All good. On the first Tuesday my cousin Magu took me to a lucha libre competition, the Mexican equivalent of U.S.'s professional wrestling, but much more fun. Honestly, I don't really enjoy sports wherein two guys are beating the shit out of eachother, especially when they adopt sexually tinted combat moves that make it look like hardcore gay porn. But in lucha libre the whole folklore around the ring is more interesting than the fight itself. For instance, Magu and I had balcony tickets, there where supposedly the 'poor' are seated, whereas below near the ring the 'rich' people are. Between those two levels there is a constant verbal war wherein both parties insult eachother. This happens during the fights, which consequently makes it difficult to pay attention to the show. On the balcony, there's a group of people - mainly men - that dispose of a wide range of fixed shouts. For example, if close to the ring an attractive woman walks by the group will shout 'vuelta!', 'vuelta!' (turn!, turn!), which indicates that the woman has to make a little pirouette to show what she's got. Or if during a short break the showgirls appear from behing the scenes they are requested to jump to, you know, let it bounce. If she does so, she is rewarded with the unflattering comment: 'Esa sí es puta!', meaning 'That's a slut, alright!'. Also fellow spectators can be target of these mockings. If you by any chance look like a celebrity such as Justin Bieber or Austin Powers, you'll sure be the victim of the group's ridiculing. Unsurprisingly, so was I. My Tarahumara sandals, fuzzy hair and shorts gave them enough reason to call me Judas Thaddaeus and Barabas. That happened when we were leaving the coliseum. Just when I thought I was safeguarded from them, 20 men in line shouted 'Judas Tadeo, chinga a tu madre!' (J.T., fuck your mother). Oh well, I didn't mind. It was all part of the show.

The same week my cousin Andrea gave me my first paid job as a carrier and sticking adhesive labels on enveloppes. Nothing extroadinary, luckily I had enjoyable female company who alleviated the boring burden of our repetitive task. I had quite a time chatting with them, especially when they discovered my origin, and even more when I told I spoke a little bit of French. That really knocked them out. It wasn't the first time I noticed that speaking French here is considered extremely romanticm, mostly by women. An interesting contrast with Belgium, where in the north the language is looked at with digust. After the second workday the Gonzalez family organized a pre-Christmas dinner/posada for the direct family. Unfortunately, I had fallen ill badly that day which left me in no mood for a family get-together. A number of things made me feel annoyed about the whole thing, such as my uncle Jesus (Aunt Elia's husband) who over the years has grown very grumpy, grouchy. Well, I can't comment too much because of the public character of this journal. But in general I felt pretty bored at the dinner because I didn't stop comparing it with last year's Christmas weekend with friends in a mountain cot loaded with food and a shitload of alcohol, free from irritating jolly Christmas songs and traditional ornaments. That was the best profane Christmas ever. The whole religious aspect of the dinner at the Gonzalez made my eyes roll till they almost popped out. At one moment, Jesus was reading from the bible after which we all had to say thanks to niñito Dios (baby Jesus) for something we were grateful for. By the way, in the state of Jalisco the coming of Santa is remplaced by the birth of Jesus who for reasons unknown hands out gifts to the faithful. I didn't have anything specific to thank our friend Jebus for, but to avoid any desillusion amongst my family members I quickly invented something about being happy of being reunited after four years of absence. It actually hurt telling a lie of such proportion, as if my agnostic persona was trying to refrain me of saying bullshit. Don't get me wrong, I'm highly pleased to meet my beloved cousins, uncles and aunts again after so long. On of my objectives of this trip was to reunite for the urge to return was bigger than ever. But it wasn't Mini Jebus who paid my plane ticket to cross the Atlantic, it was my boss back in Belgium who sought after it. And my own self, my concious who said: "Fuck it, it's time leave this place." Not God, not his son, nor a flying spaghetti monster, me. Anyway, I tried to made to make the best out of it. Tolerance is a difficult but valuable virtue. Embarrassment kicked in however, when it was time to hand out the gifts. Taken as en easy but valid excuse, due to my limited travel budget I didn't have anything to give (not that I'm a splendid gift person...). To my surprise I received a number of gifts such as chocolates, cookies and even money. I could have crawled in my hole. They didn't mind I had nothing to exchange. With only your presence it's more than satisfactory, they told me. It's hard to believe, but they didn't make a deal out of it so neither did I.

Later that week I had to endure a second Christmas dinner, this time only with the Gonzalez family. It was alright: we had pizza, there were gifts, nice chattings. It didn't stop there, though. The next day I was invited to yet another Christmas meal at great-aunt Lupe's house. It wasn't dinner, but rather lunch, in Mexico called el recalentado (the warmin-up) referring to heating up the same dinner of the day before. That was about enough Christmas celebrations for me in a while. Hmm, I guess I'm turning slowly into a grynch after all. Not like in the movie, though. The best part of the whole celebration is getting together, eating multiple indigestions and drinking in the name of Our Lord Jebus, savior of this damned world. Well, there wasn't much drinking involved, but I ate like a horse.

Several days passed with interesting and less interesting facts worth mentioning until suddenly we hit the last day of the year again. Aah, New Year, my favourite celebration of the year. Much is discussed about this day, both negatively and positively. In its essence it's also no more than an excellent excuse to get together and feast. Although New Year is just another day in life - merely an exaggeration of a Friday night - it is the last day of yet another year which has to be said goodbye to with a bang. Particularly its naive positive message attracts me: try to do and/or be better with this change of year. It's a moment where everyone's rejoicing and confirming the presence of their loved ones. Obviously, all this has become much too forced, exaggerated, just like Christmas. And I believe few people actually try to make a difference with each new beginning of year. But that's not important. The part of getting together not only with friends and family, but with everyone in your neighbourhood is the most interesting, I believe. As I like it, massing up in a big city with loads of alcohol to watch the fireworks and afterwards party till sunrise. Of course, if you're not into big crowds and all that overdone shit, there's plenty of other possibilities. Anyway, none of what I just mentioned was to be found in the center of Guadalajara. The second biggest city of Mexico, ten in the evening and no life whatsoever. No kids playing with fireworks, no youngsters boozing up for midnight, no massive movements of people, no music, nothing. Absolutely nothing. The scene was sad. Because of a lack of money and disorganization my cousin Mariana, Alex a friend and I ended up roaming the the city for action. Being kind of our last resort, I didn't think it was such a bad idea until I witnessed the solitude on that last day of the year. Apparently, everyone ships of to the coast like Puerto Vallarta where all the buzz is. And also, according to Alex, seen that New Year has no religious background whatsoever there's no reason to celebrate it in Mexico, especially in conservative Guadalajara. The scene was rapidly turning less comforting. As the three of us were walking to a bar Mariana suggested, and eventually turned out to be closed, we witnessed how poorly crowded bars were closing its doors as midnight neared. Our situation was slowly moving from sad to pathetic. The only person who could have saved us was my cousin Magu, who called us to tell us that he was going to pick us up in an hour. Unfortunately, the man drank himself shitfaced on whiskey consequently slipping away on his own vomit in his room, so we were told the next day. And so, still in the believe Magu was coming to pick us up, we decided to walk in the first bar that comes up to have a beer until his arrival. While we were walking through a park I suddenly heard live music from a distance. As we were approaching the place turned out to be a rock bar barely filled till half and a band playing famous rock and metal songs on request. "Not bad", we thought. Mariana, Alex and I sat down, ordered a cubeta - litteraly a bucket of beer on ice - and didn't leave the place until the joint closed its doors. The new year was heralded with the band's rendition of Steppenwolf's 'Born To Be Wild', an excellent tune to start 2011. Great music, good beer, pleasant vibe, enjoyable company,... that's all it takes to make a succesful evening/night. We had forgotten about Magu, eventually.

Well, there's still more to be told but I'll leave it here for a moment. Although New Year was 10 days ago, I still wish you all a pleasant new beginning of 2011. Enjoy it, because the year's already almost over.