Care for a Lemon Sorbet?

...Then look out for this woman in Puebla.

...And here is the male version:


When people ask me what it is like to live in Puebla I never know what to say, but I think this gives a bit of an idea of what a day in the city can be like.
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Santo Angel Custodio

Yesterday I woke up at 5 am by the sound of fireworks. For a moment I was confused; It was not New Years Eve, nor did it seem like any of our neighbours were having a party...

Then I realized: The fireworks did come from one of our neighbours across the street; the Church of Analco, who was beginning a 24 hour celebration of the patron saint of the Barrio de Analco; Santo Angel Custodio.

The fireworks continued all day until it was time for the religious procession dedicated to the saint. When they passed by our front door I had to go out and join them. Whatever religion you are, it is hard not to feel touched by the magic created in these processions.

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Roggilandet

-Passport please!



This is the border to Roggilandet. In Spanish you say "mi país" when you speak about the country where you are from. When you translate it literarily into English it becomes: "my country", which sounds like you are referring to your own country which only belongs to you.

When my colleagues in Puebla asked me when I was going back to "my country" I didn´t realize how suitable that phrase actually was. As a matter of fact, I do have my own country and it is called the Roggiland.

The Roggiland is located in the South West of Sweden just a few minutes walk from where I grew up. I don´t remember from where I got the name; Roggilandet, but my friends and family still use the name when they talk about this place, close to the lake.



Only very special friends were invited to come in and play with me in Roggilandet. There we would pretend that we were archeologist, and every trace that we found was a sign that this had been an ancient kingdom where kings and queens had lived and fought many years ago.

We were convinced that the piles of stones located around the fields, were graves were soldiers had been buried and inside two of the larger hills, the Swedish and the Danish king were resting. I never became an archeologist. I guess I was more interested in the stories that I created, together with my friends, rather than trying to find out if they were true or not. And to be honest, when I walk by those hills today, I still somehow believe that the Swedish and Danish kings were buried there and that one day some archeologist will discover the big treasure.

Some years ago, long after I had stopped playing with my friends in Roggilandet, one of my friends told me that she had brought a guy she was dating to Roggilandet. I remember how upset that made me. How could she let a a person that I hardly knew inside my country? I was around 25 that time.

I guess we are all protective when it comes to the things that we consider ours and this must be the root to all the border conflicts around the world.

Here comes the first part of four of the documentary with Marco Antonio Flores Martínez, where he is speaking about how he left Mexico to go to the USA.



(I am so proud I finally managed to add subtitles)
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Sounds from Puebla

This is a beautiful song which I heard in Puebla some time before I went back to Sweden. They say that a picture says more than a hundred words, but doesn´t a sound say more than a hundred pictures?


(click here to watch more videos on Youtube>>)

This is what I sometimes hear when I open my front-door and what you should listen for in Puebla if you are hungry and want to have some empanadas:



And if you have a crave for ice-cream? Try to locate this man shouting "Heladoooo!":



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El Proyecto Amor Ya Empezó

The Love Project (El Proyecto Amor) has officially started!

Day 1
Location: Parque de Analco, Puebla, Mexico
Date: June 26, 2009
Time: Noon


Couple 1: Fernando and Claudia
Have been a couple for 8 months

(Continue reading to meet the other first couples in Proyecto amor)


Couple 2: Raul and Laura
7 years



Couple 3: Gabriela and Alan
11 months
"Trust is the most important thing to make a relationship work"



Couple 4: Valeria and Paco
3 years
"The key to a good relationship is to be yourself and not pretend to be somebody else..."



Couple 5: Nelly and Jafet
1 month
"Trust is the most important thing"



Couple 6: Catherine and Raul
4 months
"Trust"



Couple 7: Gustavo and Ana
Have been friends for many years and recently started dating
"El amor es el motor de cada día"-Love is the engine of every day

..Y que bueno es perder
lo que amamos

porque lamentablemente
solo así se descubre
lo que amabamos..."


...and how good to lose the one you love

because sadly
only like that, we are able to discover
what we once used to love...

After telling Ana and Gustavo a little bit about my project, Gustavo took up his cellphone and read out loud some of the love poems that he had written. It was a very touching moment to sit there on a bench with two strangers listening to a love poem in the middle of the day.

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Dreamdayproject Taking a Break

Maybe it was while trying to translate that Dreamday poem from Spanish to English, that I realized I needed to learn more Spanish to be able to develop my projects here in Mexico.

After some searching on the Internet the other day, I came a cross an intensive course at the Spanish Institute of Puebla and today was my first day back as a student again. Our kitchen table is now filled with grammar books rather than Dreamday notes and it was with both excitement and sadness that I put aside my Dreamday work for a while.

During the following four weeks I will be both a student and a teacher, making me become something like a 1 % Dreamday worker rather than the 100% one that I used to be. It is short break, but a necessary one I think.

I hope to be back soon with many new stories and experiences to write about, and until then,

Hasta Luego!

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Kicked Out From "The American Dream" (Part 1)

I never thought that my job as an English teacher would actually help me develop the Dreamdayproject in any way, but last night, just before falling asleep, I remembered something that had happened previously at school that same day and suddenly a new idea for the Dreamdayproject came to me.

The students in the school where I work all come from very different backgrounds. Last week for example I met a man who was working at the prison in Puebla. Ever since I saw the movie Escape from Alcatraz (1979 with Clint Eastwood) as a young girl, I have been fascinated with prisons. (I wonder how that is connected to my claustrophobia but never mind) Anyway, since the chapter we were supposed to discuss that day was about jobs and job interviews, I took the chance to ask this man everything I could think of regarding his job. He got to practice his English and we both left class happy and content I think...

Yesterday I was teaching a class with six students, which is usually the maximum number of students in a class at Ingles Individual. There was a new student sitting next to me and he kept talking to me while I tried to focus on another student doing a pronunciation exercise as well as correcting papers from the other students. At first I was not paying much attention to what he was saying, but as he started telling me how he had just come back to Puebla after living as an illegal immigrant in the US for over 10 years, I started to forget those papers that I was supposed to correct.

He told me that he had been caught by the police three times and that the third time he was kicked out of the country. Now he is not allowed to return to the US for atleast four years he told me.

"I was living the American dream" he said.

"I had everything, and I was even about to get married to a white girl, but then I got caught..."

The class was over far too soon and when walking out of the classroom I just knew I had to talk to this man again. I wanted to interview him, talk to him about what it was like to be an illegal immigrant in the US, how it felt to be back in Mexico after 10 years. And a thousand other questions.

I was thinking about him just before I was falling asleep last night. I was imagining what it was like living with constant fear of being caught by the police. What it was like to live a life which could be taken away from you in a second. And I kept hearing his voice over and over;

"- I was living the American dream."

I thought about the phrase and about the way he said it and suddenly I realized what I had to do next.

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Grammar Lesson

My endless days as a Dreamday worker are long gone. However, topics like dreams or shoes still seem to appear even in my new life as an English teacher.

I was having an oral exam yesterday with a boy, about 10 years old. I was asking him to make up sentences using difficult words that he had been studying during the last lessons. After a bit of reading and pronounciation exercises, I asked him to make up a sentence using the words "Fewer than". The boy was quick and said:

"I have fewer toys than my brother."

The sentence was correct of course and so we moved on to the next words; "Less than", which is supposed to be used for uncountables, such as sugar, coffee etc.

I asked him if he could make up another sentence using "Less than". The boy thought for a few seconds and then said:

"My dad has less shoes than my mum."

Hm, I said, are you sure? Isn´t it possible to count shoes?

No, he said, my mum has so many shoes it is impossible to count them...

I guess you just have to give him right for that, don´t you?

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A Dream (Thurs-)Day Outfit

New habits were quickly formed as the swine flu hit Mexico a couple of weeks ago. In the school where I work, we all had to wear those mouth covers in class. That was before the school closed for a week. (It is impossible to have a normal conversation wearing one by the way!)

Those mouth covers have been funny to follow; At first they were just blue and plain. Everybody seemed to be wearing the same ones, and it was nothing more than a simple mouth cover. However, pretty soon people didn´t seem to like the fact that they all looked the same; I guess they wanted to express their personalities somehow. And so they did through their mouth covers.

Some people wore home made versions (made out of a dish cloth for example). Others went for more stylish ones in elegant white, made out of exclusive fabric. I even spotted a few ones that looked like gas masks with a small ventilation in the front. I think those were worn by very serious people, probably with good market connections. And then there were of course the individualists; the ones who started to make drawings on their masks, for example a moustache or a big smile.

This week all the classes have been running as normal again and the mouth covers have disappeared (I almost miss them!) and instead the "gel" era has begun. You can now find an antibacterial gel in every reception or at the counter in various cafes. At my school the students must stay in line to have their hands cleaned with this gel before entering the classroom. Who knows if all this really works, but I guess we all need to have something to believe in.

Tomorrow it is Thursday again by the way; that is pink t-shirt day as you might already know. I forgot to tell you last time that the five day uniform that all the teachers must wear, also includes pants and shoes in different colours; Pink t-shirt is supposedly best combined with grey pants and black shoes. It is my boss´s favorite combination he told me, so I assume Thursdays have become somewhat of a dreamday to him...

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Proyecto Zapato-The Shoeproject in Spanish

The day after my presentation in Oaxaca I felt that it was time to focus on something else rather than dreams. However my desire to interview strangers was only growing stronger, so the very same day I decided to make my first interviews for Proyecto Zapato, a documentary project with shoe polishers in Mexico.

This is how I made these interviews:

1. I walk up to one of the many shoe polisher that you can see around the main square in almost every Mexican city.

2. I ask how much it costs to have my shoes polished.

3. They usually tell me it is about 10 pesos.

4. I say: Fine, the price sounds reasonable.

5. But since I always wear sandals I point at my sandals saying that I don´t really need to have them polished but that I will give him 10 pesos anyway if he could help me with something...

6. The man asks what.

7. I tell him that I am collecting stories about shoes and I ask him if he would like to participate with a story. He wouldn´t have to polish my shoes and he would get 10 pesos in return.

8. If he says yes I ask him if I can record him.

9. I turn on my camera and start filming:



This man is one of the first shoe polishers that I interviewed. He has worked for 14 years as a shoe polisher in Oaxaca, Mexico.

During these years he has seen all kinds of shoes he told me. I asked him if he had noticed anything in particular regarding shoes and he told me that these days many people wear shoes that are a little bit pointy and that they often are pointing upwards, a little bit like an Arab shoe. I asked if it was just certain people wearing them but he said that almost everybody wears these now and that it is a part of the fashion these days.

Since an Arab shoe is pointing slightly upwards (like he tries to illustrate to me with his hands) I asked him what a typical Mexican shoe would look like. He said they are just normal shoes, like the ones he is wearing himself, or sandals.

He also told me that his last customer was wearing a pair that were in very bad shape so he had to work very hard with them. But that is quite rare he said, a lot of people wear tennis shoes these days and they never come to polish them. I guess I never saw tennis shoes as a threat to an occupation before.

Click here to watch more videos by Proyecto Zapato


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Don´t Worry my Plants are Doing Fine!

This morning I went to one of my regular cafes to write about my trip to Oaxaca and the Dreamdayproject presentation on Thursday night. I had brought my computer and I drank my cup of coffee as usual, but as the number of blue masks increased around me, the Dreamdayproject seemed less important.

So far there has been no reported cases of the swine flu in Puebla, but nevertheless, none of the waiters hurried to my table to pick up the change this time. After packing my things, I took up my camera and went for a short walk around the square before heading home to my plants again.






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A Dreamday Memory From Iturbide, Mexico

Somewhere in the Southern part of the state Nuevo León, Mexico, there is a small town called Iturbide. I ended up there by chance one time a few years ago. Being back in Mexico I recalled this little town and the day I spent there. I would not know how to find my way there again, and if I could, I probably would not go anyway.


It was during the time that I was doing my internship at MARCO in Monterrey that I got in touch with a woman from Argentina called Laura. She knew a colleague of mine who had told me I should get in touch with her since she was a part of a group narrators who were touring the state performing old folk stories. She thought it might be of interest to me for my thesis that I was about to write about art and public programs. I gave Laura a call and she invited me to come along on a trip they were doing the following weekend.

When the Saturday came and my alarm went off I was wishing I hadn´t made that phone call. But now there was no turning back. I took the metro to the place where we had arranged to meet. And there they were, my new gang that I would spend the next 12 hours with.


I squeezed myself into the backseat and wondered what this day would be like. I was sitting in the middle, with Laura on one side, and a woman called Consuelo (=comfort) on the other and during the trip we started to talk about all kinds of things while listening to El Gran Silencio on "pirata" CD.


Outside the landscape changed and the nature became wilder. There was not a single village for hours and I was starting to wonder if there would really be a town called Iturbide by the end of the road. It became colder and it started to look a little bit like Scandinavia. It is strange that sometimes it seems as the further you go, the closer you get home.


Just before noon we arrived to the little town called Iturbide. We parked our car next to the Zocalo, the main square, where the town hall was situated and where they were going to perform later in the afternoon. We had some elote (corn) to eat and then we took a walk around the centre. The town was so quiet and beautiful and it felt as if we had just landed in another word.




On the square we ran into a couple of teenagers and we started to talk to them, or they to us, I can´t remember which. Since I had said in the car that I had just started to like cumbia music we got an idea to ask them about places where we could maybe listen to some cumbia later at night. We had obviously run into the right people cause they just happened to have a band playing cumbia music themselves.


Within half another they gathered the rest of the band and then they set up their instruments on the square and started to play. It was all very sponatenous and friendly. Consuelo started to dance and the rest of us followed. I had no idea how to dance to cumbia music, but to stand still while they were playing just felt wrong. So there we were on the main square in Iturbide so far from our homes, dancing to cumbia music, during the middle of the day.







Later in the afternoon Laura, Consuelo and the other two guys performed their stories in the town hall as planned. Then we had dinner with some of the people from the town. I think they were some important people working with art and culture. But I hardly spoke to them and nor do I remember anyone of them now. My memory from Iturbide consists of these young kids that welcomed us with their music and played for us just because they wanted to. It was spontaneous and from the heart. At first they were shy, and so were we taking our first dance steps on the otherwise empty square. But then we did not think anymore of how it all came out to the people around us. We just enjoyed the moment and the atmosphere together, just like it was, spontaneous and improvised and with no expectations. To me that was a Dreamday.

It was dark when we left Iturbide. We drove back on the same winding roads that we had come from in the morning. We looked at the lighs of the town and we saw them getting smaller and smaller until they finally disappeared somewhere behind the mountains. I knew I would never see these people again, nor would I ever come back to Iturbide. For a moment it made me a little bit sad, but then I thought, isn´t this what life is all about? Finding a place that you like, meeting people you never met before and enjoying a moment together. Then leaving it all as the evening comes. When you think about it, it is not sad at all.

Written to you from The Italian Coffee Company, Calle 2 Sur, Puebla.
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El Dreamdayproject En Mexico!

My new Dreamday office is called La Profética and lies in the heart of Puebla. They have good coffee, wireless internet and a fountain in the court yard. I might have travelled to the other side of the world, but this feels just like home. Time has come for a new Dreamday era. Live to you from Puebla, Mexico.


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Dreamdayproject Sneaks Backstage to Meet Celso Piña

Every dreamday has a different story. Sometimes I have been very humble in my approach when trying to capture another dreamday to my collection. Other times I have decided to withdraw my question to avoid an uncomfortable situation. But there has also been times when I have done the opposite and when I have played my dreamday cards with unforeseen skills and strategy. When nothing could stop me from reaching my goal; To conquer yet another dreamday.


My last story about Leif Elggren made me remember this day in Monterrey, Mexico, almost exactly three years ago. But the story behind it began a few months earlier, on the night of El Grito, the 16th of September 2005. I was sitting in the backseat of a car going to a birthday party with my new found friend and colleague Katy, and her boyfriend Carlos. This was almost a year after I had bought my accordion in Warszaw and I was very excited by any accordion music. I had just arrived to Monterrey about a week earlier and this was my first visit in a long row to the country.

While cruising down the streets of Monterrey this night, looking at all the people that were out celebrating Mexico´s independency, I suddenly heard a song on the radio. And I was immediately thrown into a music video, where the people and the buildings that we passed, were like scenes from this song. Or maybe it was the other way around. But there I was, right in the middle of it all. I was very far away from home, but still everything I saw just made perfect sense in that moment. It almost felt familar. I leant over to the front seat and asked who was singing. He is called Celso Piña and he is from Monterrey, Katy says. "Piña" as in Pineapple, she adds. "Celso Pineapple" I thought, it sounded nice...

And in that moment I knew that Monterrey was filled with many surprises waiting to be discovered.

After that night, Celso Piña´s music was the soundrack to many of my experiences in Monterrey. I listened to him on the subway to work in the mornings and in Katy´s car whenever I could. And through the music and the lyrics I felt I got closer to a culture very different from mine.



I ended up staying in Monterrey for almost five months. And by the time I was about to leave I was happy with everything except for the fact that I neither got to meet, nor see Celso Piña playing. I had to meet him before leaving! But how?



I spent my spare time visiting places like Café Nuevo Brazil, reading short-stories and thinking of a plan. I had almost given up when one day something unbelievable happened. I heard a rumour that Celso Piña was to perform on the main square in Monterrey; the Macro Plaza, just a few days before my departure. Could the timing be better? The circle was to be completed...



I asked my friend Roberto to come with me on the big day. We met up early and spent the day visiting markets and eating tacos, preparing ourselves for the big night. I had my video camera squeezed into my litte bag, just in case a dreamday question would pop up at some point.



In the late afternoon we headed for Macro Plaza. The concert was outdoors with some other bands playing as well, but of course we were mostly interested in Celso Piña. The concert was good, except for a big cowboy hat (of course) that was in my way most of the time. (you can see it in the picture below). But I must also say, without putting any blame on the hat, that the concert was not exceptional in any sense. Celso Piña had filled a much more important purpose in my life through my headphones on my way to work, than he did at Macro Plaza. But I guess I needed to see it myself to discover that.



When the concert was over, or so we thought anyway, we took a short walk around the square. We passed the stage and the tents and were just about to leave. But then an idea came up, as they always do, when you least expect it. Roberto, my dreamday camera man of Monterrey, was there. And so was the film camera, along with my dreamday question and most importantly; Celso Piña, somewhere on the Macro Plaza.

It was obvious what had to be done.

I walked up to one of the guards by the fence to the stage. I did not know exactly what to say but I started asking something about Celso Piña and where he was and if the concert was over yet. I chatted with him for a little bit and then I finally said: Well, you see, I have come all the way from Sweden to interview Celso Piña. I work for a magazine. You have to let me in! The guard shook his head.

But I wasn´t giving up that easily. We continued walking down along the fence and just a few meters later we walked into another guard. I told him the same story, maybe with even a little bit more empathy than the first time. He looked nice and smiled to me. I did not need to persuade him any further.

And a few seconds later he opened the gate to me. But only you, he said, your friend has to stay outside. Roberto told me to go anyway and I ran over to one of the small tents. I walked into a man from Piedras Negras and told him I was going to interview Celso Piña but that my camera man was stuck outside. He went with me to the fence and shortly after Roberto was in there as well.

We looked around for Celso Piña and there he was, just infront of us, coming down from the stage! I went up to him and in my broken Spanish I tell him I came from Sweden to interview him. I have to perform another song,he said, but you just wait here, and I will be with you in a second.

He went up on stage and there we were, me and Roberto, backstage! We looked around and noticed a couple of camera men and journalists looking at us. We waited a bit and then when Celso got off stage for the second time, Dreamdayproject could finally get down to business...



Celso Piña treated us as nicely as any of the other professional journalists. I asked him about the music he listens to and where he gets inspiration to his songs. And after some small talk I could finally ask what I really wanted to know:

-Como seria un dia de un ensueño, un dia perfecto, para usted?

He took the dreamday question as seriously as any other question and replies:

-Un dia perfecto es un dia normal!

After all the hassle, crossing fences and getting past security guards to reach Celso Piña, it was a relief to find out that even for him, a perfect day was just a normal day... Continue Reading

Estar en la Casa Todo el Día

This Dreamday video was filmed in December 2005 in Monterrey, Mexico. My two friends Luis and Roberto helped me out and this was during the second day of Dreamday filming ever. We had taken a taxi on our lunch-break to one of the big fruit and vegetable markets in the city. This girl that I am interviewing is working in one of the stands there.

When I approached her and when she noticed the video camera, she looked really bothered as you can see. (And I don´t blame her...) I remember thinking in that same moment that the whole thing was a bad idea and that maybe I should just leave her alone. But the camera was running and I could not find a way to end the conversation...

So I finally get to ask my question in broken Spanish and I am wondering if she is going to ignore it or not.

But in that same moment something magical happens. And it is exactly those moments that keep me inspired to continue this project.

For a few seconds the expression in her face changes. You can hardly notice but a smile breaks through her face and then she reponds:

-To stay at home one whole day!

My dreamdayproject is not so much about the replies that I get, but more about what happens when you hear the question. When you are forced to remind yourself about your dreams and wishes...

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