Been there done that: Mexico City

I have just arrived back in Oaxaca after spending a week in the world’s second largest city of somewhere around 25 million people! Amazingly enoughhowever, Mexico City, or the D.F. (Distrito Federal) as they say around here, can kind of shrink on you. (Sorry, I know that was really cheesy). It felt like each part that we visited was a different little city and that all these cities just happened to be right next to each other. I remember from living in Sao Paulo how even a massive city can begin to feel familiar and as if there is a place in it for you after some time.
For the first 4 days of our trip we stayed in a fairly poor neighborhood called Santo Domingo that has undergone incredible transformations since it’s beginnings almost 40 years ago. Within 24 hours in September of 1971 four to five thousand families “parachuted” into what was a huge expanse of volcanic rock near the edge of the city. Apparently this stands as the single largest land invasion in the history of Latin America! And Latin America is no stranger to land invasions (basically when people illegally set up makeshift homes on land that does not belong to them, usually large areas on the outskirts of cities). For years the community had no water, roads, or electricity. They used pick axes to hack away at the rock to construct roads and flat spots for their houses which they made out of whatever materials they could get their hands on. Eventually they were able to get the government to provide them with water, electricity and several schools. Today, houses that used to be made of sheet metal and cardboard have become brightly colored brick ones decorated with overflowing flowerpots. Most are two or three stories high to accommodate multiple generations. There are stores, markets, schools, dentists and doctors’ offices. For me it was incredible to see the amazing creativity with which the community was constructed and the magnitude of what a group of people can accomplish. On several different occasions residents attributed their success to necessity. It seems so often we as humans make the greatest achievements when we are forced to.
After four days in Santo Domingo we piled into taxis and were transported to another of the D.F.’s “cities”, this time the downtown where we stayed for four more nights. And realistically for what it’s worth it practically is a different city; I wonder how often people from Santo Domingo go to the center Mexico City? And how often people from the center go to Santo Domingo?…probably never. Our trip was packed with so many sights so I will just tell you about a few of the highlights.
We saw Diego Rivera’s incredible murals portraying Mexican History; we climbed up and down huge ancient pyramids (3rd largest in the world); walked in many sinking cathedrals (The city was basically built on a huge swamp and so all the heavy old buildings are sinking! They are pretty funny looking!). We went to see the three churches to the Virgin of Guadeloupe…they are also sinking; apparently the Virgin has no control over this or she enjoys having huge sums of money spent to reconstruct churches and build new ones on her behalf. There were tons of pilgrims and families with young children there hoping to receive blessings.
Perhaps the most memorable, and grim, place we visited was the site of the 1968 massacre of students in Tlatelolco. Put really simply in the 60’s tensions were brewing between students and the government over issues of unnecessarily harsh military and police treatment of protesting students and, more broadly, freedom of expression, human rights, and authority in general. With the 1968 Olympics to be held in Mexico looming on the horizon the government was anxious to stop all uprisings before the world’s eye was turned on Mexico, which they hoped to present as the new ‘miracle of development” and as a strongly functioning democracy. On October 2nd the military surrounded a peaceful student protest and opened fire, killing around 1,000 people. The media reported the event as a necessary police intervention in a rowdy uprising and claimed that only 20 people had died. The Olympics came to Mexico just ten days later and the world saw a progressive democracy, not a government that only days before had ordered the massacre of peacefully protesting students and then covered up the event as if it had never happened. What has become very obvious since I’ve been in Mexico is that very few people have any faith in the government and that to most it is a joke (although with serious consequences for the country). It is widely accepted that many of the recent presidential elections were frauds and one NGO we visited described the government as being their worst enemy and their largest challenge in running their organization.
Well, on that cheery note I will end this post. I am happily back in Oaxaca, so calm after the chaos of the city and the whirlwind of sightseeing!