Hot Yoga Challenge: Dedicate One Week and Turn on Your Life

Or at least that's what the promotion says. I've never been a true yoga devotee, but I like a class here and there, and I've always wondered about "hot yoga," so when I realized that there was a Bikram Yoga studio open near me offering a week's worth of classes for 220 pesos, I decided to check it out. Megan and her friend Carolina agreed to join me, so Monday night we showed up fifteen minutes early for the 6.30pm class to register ourselves.

Trying to find yoga in Mexico has been a bit of a challenge for me. Megan has a studio she loves, but to join it would be too much on top on my gym membership. The gym offers a couple weekly classes, but my one experience with the teacher grabbing my shoulders and cranking me into a twist, telling me in response to my "ow!" that "pain is a necessary part of yoga; to grow, to stretch, to change, is painful," scared me off. (I was also offended by the mantra at the end: "A flexible mind means you have a flexible body; an inflexible body means you have a closed mind.") I'm certainly not going to join the hot yoga studio (I think twice-weekly classes would be more expensive than my gym membership! plus I have to drive to get there) but why not try it for a week?

My impressions from day one: The room is hot. Really hot, and humid. Like stepping into a sauna. The floor has two rows for yoga mats marked with masking tape, which seems quite orderly, really, and there are boxes of kleenex scattered around the room (for your sweat). The instructor, who stood on a little podium in the center of the room and had a headset on, wore a kind of euro version of a speedo and nothing else. A couple of the women in the front next to the instructor had obviously been going for a while and seemed to put themselves into contortionist postures with little effort. The instructor spoke rapidly and constantly, describing the positions and shouting at us to push ourselves much further, much further (he also mentioned positions that were compressing our waist to burn fat and compressing our thighs to treat celulitis--I don't think I buy any of that). At several points in the class I felt kind of dizzy, and towards the end I found myself so lightheaded that I needed to sit down and rest. Also, the class was not the 60 minutes I expected, but rather an hour and a half, which actually became an hour and forty minutes. My clothes were sopping wet an hour into it. It was extremely difficult, and I wouldn't say that I enjoyed it.

But afterwards, once I had drunk enough water, I must say that I felt good. I don't think I would ever become a true devotee, going on a daily basis for a month at a time, but why not try it for a week (and get my money's worth!)? I did sleep very hard and I did have a hard time getting out of bed this morning--my whole body feels stiff and heavy. Megan has already decided that it is not for her, and I'm not sure what Carolina wants to do, but I'm going to try to keep at it for the week. Or at least go twice.

El Grito

We celebrated Mexican Independence Day last night by wandering around the center of Coyoacan, eating our month's quota of grease (pozole, flautas, churros), sipping tequila, and buying nationalistic souvenirs. We didn't stay for the grito in the plaza, though, but decided to watch the national ceremony live on tv instead. Viva Mexico!!!

Pescado Zarandeado

In los tianguis de los martes there's a fishmonger Antonio and I love. It's un mercado sobre ruedas, an informal "market on wheels" where vendors drive into certain streets on designated days and set up stands--kind of like a farmer's market except that the stands are not necessarily organic and it's the most economic place to shop. These little markets are all over Mexico City, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood depending on the day of the week. On Tuesdays, there's a market in Barrio de San Lucas, about five or six blocks from our house (this one is Lucy's favorite and she says has the best prices because the people who shop there tend to be domestic employees, as opposed to the markets on Saturday and Sunday when the senoras shop). There's a different collection of vendors at a larger market on Sunday across Miguel Angel de Quevedo, about five blocks in another direction from our house, and the largest market of all is on Saturdays on the street America. Every market has stands of household items (pots, pans, sponges, things to scrub with), accessories for hair, clothes, maybe some pirated cds, and then stands of fruits, vegetables, chicken, beef, pork, cheese, breads...

On Tuesdays, there are two fish stands. At one, I've never seen anyone buy fish. The other is always so croweded that there is usually a long wait to be helped. It's a mother-son couple, and they sell salmon, red snapper (huachinango), filets, whole fish, whole octupus, shrimp... What they don't have you can order and ask them to bring with them to their market on Saturday. Until this weekend, Antonio and I had only bought fish from them on Tuesdays--filets of salmon or tuna, something easy to prepare on a weeknight. But this Saturday we ended up at the market and decided to be more adventurous. We bought whole filets of huachinango, which looked just like this:

The fishmonger cleaned them, took off the scales (they went flying and a couple ended up on Lola's ears like little sequins), cut off the fins, took out the entrails... The mother gave us several recipes to try, all of which begin by marinating the fish in garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil.


Antonio wanted to try to recreate a dish we had loved in Puerto Vallarta: huachinango zarandero. He used pibil, chile, oranges, and tomatoes to make a salsa, wrapped the fish in tinfoil packets, and baked them. Fittingly (Tuesday is the national Independence Day), we served green rice and cauliflower, so our plates featured all the colors of the Mexican flag. The fish was amazing; I'm prejudiced, but I think it was restaurant quality. The only problem was that the little bones made eating it a little awkward, but I think that this is just a problem of eating whole fish.

Cultural Differences; or, Having a Pet

One is prepared for cultural differences in the expected categories: religion, social greetings, eating habits, child rearing, parties, holidays. But I suppose a true cultural difference is one that you don't even consider as something cultural until you are confronted with it. As I sit here waiting for our dog trainer to arrive to take Lola for her first lesson, I've been thinking about how surprisingly different it is having a pet in Mexico as compared to the U.S.

1. Many people think we are cruel to use a kennel. (But Lola loves it and likes to hang out in it on her own--see photo.)



2. When we tell people that we just had Lola spayed, many--even the dog trainer!--give us looks of horror mixed with distaste. Most people don't spay their animals here.

3. Yesterday while walking Lola, a driver pulls over her BMW, rolls down the window, and asks if we want to breed our dog with hers. And this is a common request. At least four times in the last two weeks we have been asked by passing drivers, pedestrians, and shop owners if we want to mate our dog with theirs.

4. That we wanted to give our dog some type of obedience training surprised most people. (This, however, should not have surprised me had I thought about the majority of dogs I encounter in the street or in parks.)

5. The kind of dog training I am used to--where you take your dog to a weekly class under guidance of a trainer--is very difficult to find in Mexico. More common is a boarding school-type training, where you send your dog off with his food for two or three weeks and then pick him up at the end of it. Another option was to drop Lola off from 8am -3pm every day for school-type instruction. We went with what seemed to us to be the best option--our dog trainer will come to our house every day for two to three weeks, or until Lola has mastered the basics of basic obedience--and take her out for a half an hour lesson. We can watch the lesson if we like, but the trainer does most of the work, at least at the beginning. It's a little strange to me, but we'll see what happens...

Update on Ritualistic Animal Slaughter

The mystery of the beheaded animal continues.

Lucy and Filiberto saw the dead animal from the window of their taxi--they had gone to school with their oldest daughter to watch her present at a school assembly, and she fainted at the end of the program, so they rushed home in a taxi to take her to the doctor (she's fine, and the doctor said it was just hormonal fluctations normal in adolescents). The taxi stopped right in front of the body and the driver announced that the cuts were perfect so there must be a shaman in the neighborhood. Filiberto thinks it could have been a cat, but Lucy and I are sure that its body was too big and its coat was too thick to be a cat.

Today Filiberto told Antonio that he thinks maybe the spirit escaped from the beheaded lamb/cat and entered his daughter, causing her to faint. Antonio disagrees. I think maybe this is connected to the mystery of why we cannot keep a plant alive in this apartment.

Ritualistic Animal Slaughter?

This morning coming home from the gym, turning onto my little street across from the Frida Kahlo park I saw what appeared to be a stuffed animal lying in the street. I slowed down to get a better look and realized it looked like a stuffed lamb--its body was much rounder than a dog, and it had this strange woolly coat. I thought that lamb roadkill was a strange thing to find here in the middle of Mexico City. Later Lucy told me that she had walked by it this morning, and the animal looked like a lamb except that it had a long tail. Apparently its head and feet had been cut off and then the animal had been dumped in the street. Very creepy. As Lucy said, "Nothing like this has ever happened around here before."

Another landmark moment in Mexico City

Today I had three Mexico City experiences all at once: making an illegal U-turn (so common you stop noticing); getting stopped by the police for the illegal turn (uncommon); and being asked for a bribe (apparently fairly common).

I was driving Antonio from the dentist to ITAM as part of our plan for me to adapt to driving myself around Mexico City. He told me to do a U-turn on Division del Norte, a major artery of the city, to which I replied, "But it says no left turn." Antonio assured me that a left turn was prohibited, but just doing a U-turn would be just fine. I said, "Well remember that this is illegal in the United States." Apparently it is in Mexico as well, because we were instantly flagged down by the police. I explained that I was American and just learning how to drive in Mexico, and I thought it was illegal but my husband told me it would be fine. Antonio said it was all his fault and explained what happened. The officer took my license and looked at it and gave it back, and then took Antonio's driver's license and registration and asked him to get out of the car "y luego le explico." The explanation was yes, it was illegal, but he was tired of writing tickets so instead Antonio could just give him whatever money he thought was appropriate and they could solve the whole problem now. Antonio told him that he had never given a bribe in his life and was not going to start now, so just to write up the ticket. Then the officer said that he could not write me a ticket because I had a California license, so he would have to confiscate my license (which apparently is not true) unless Antonio gave him money. Antonio then suggested that the officer just write Antonio the ticket, since it was his fault, to which the officer replied in shock, "but you were not driving, so you are asking me to do something corrupt?" Antonio said this country is never going to change if it works like this, and the officer replied we can't change this country. They continued arguing for about ten minutes, and then the officer announced that they were never going to come to an agreement and we should just go.

The moral of the story is:
1. Honesty is the best policy.
2. Trust your instincts when your husband encourages you to break the law.