Palm Trees and Acrobats

Day 1 of life in Playa del Carmen:

7am. I woke up to the sound of banging. Not just average ordinary knocks and noise of the apartment life.  No, this was the BANG BANG BANG BANG of the cops or an angry ex beating your door with all their might to let you know that you're in deep shit. The BAM! BAM! BAM! that makes you sit upright and go into a state of panic and confusion. What is HAPPENING?
I got up quickly and clumsily and headed toward my front door. But when I stumbled (oh yes stumbled. Part of that chronic disease thing I mentioned in an earlier post is that my body, especially my feet and hands, don't really work for a while in the morning. It's awesome! So, when I STUMBLED) toward the door, I heard all sorts of other noises. Men speaking spanish; a woosha woosha woosha of metal scraping on adobe; a weeeeeen weeeen of a drill; Bang Bang and that BAM BAM BAM that woke me up. Oh, yeah, there's that condo high rise going up next door. Normally, I'm certain I'd have been annoyed. There was no chance I'd be sleeping any more. Between the SWAT-team-esque banging, the plethora of Spanish voices, and the pounding of my still confused/panicked heartbeat, it was hopeless. So, I went for the coffee pot. I'd packed a coffee maker first thing. I know my priorities. Toilet paper, swim suit, coffee maker.

I rounded the corner to the kitchen and there it was. My palm tree. Good morning palm tree that fills my kitchen window. Good morning. I smiled. I'm pretty sure I've dreamed of waking up in my house to the sight of a palm tree since the first time I saw a palm tree. It's a symbol of everything I love; tropical, sunshiny, sand-in-your-everything, green-as-green-can-be, noisily swaying in the salty wind, coconuts and thatch roof providing palm trees. And that's all I could see. Oh, dear heaven, I'm in you. I smiled goofily at it while I waited for my hands to work enough to open my Mexican coffee (a fail, by the way. My son had to open it for me. The boys are used to that.)
He and I went onto the balcony because, well, outside is the only real place to be in this new fantasy world I'm living in. I suppose in my dream there aren't men climbing on scaffolding with ropes and harnesses, belting out fast words I can't understand or singing loud ballads of melodic nonsense while they bang and weeen and scrape scrape, but I suppose you can't have it all. In my dream, I watch my Palm tree sway in the breeze and take in the smell of screensavers. In my reality, I watched small, skinny men in hard hats seem to defy gravity and create an Adobe wall with an increasing tightening in my chest every time they moved.

Construction has got to be terrifying. How do u get used to being up in the air supported only by a 1 1/2 inch pipe or a 2×8 board laying careless over scaffolding. "Your ropes aren't even attached to anything. Why are you even wearing that harness? Please don't die tiny Mexican stranger man. Oooh, that's how adobe is made! That's kind of fascinating. You guys are sort of magic. This is a little like watching acrobats. I wish you had a net. I hope your wives make you great tamales when you get home. I bet they have no idea what you do all day. Oh damn, are yall installing a light THERE? That's gonna shine right in my window."
So, two cups of coffee and an acrobat show later, I knew how adobe was made and didn't care about the bang bam ween scrape alarm clock anymore. Time to start on that to do list.

10am Priority 1: Plastic to Pesos. I walked to the bank around rhe corner. (Everything here is down the street or around the corner). I cautiously look around, this IS Mexico, after all. The real estate guy told us to remember those words. He said them a lot. "This town is safe, but this IS Mexico" It's all in perspective. Insert card.  Ok, Checking your account balance in pesos is WAY cooler than dollars! That extra 0 on the end just makes mundane banking more fun. Current exchange rate: 13.25 pesos per 1 penny. I punch in a number and more zeros than most American ATMs allow and took my $500 bills out. Yeah, 500, Balling hard.

The couple at the next ATM were speaking french, the couple on the other side Spanish. Smile.

Time to head to the familiar. Walmart. It happens to be down the street AND around the corner. And so began my very long, hot day of regretting not paying more attention in my college spanish classes and simultaneously being grateful and dreadful that I'm living in a place with no car. My experiences in Walmart and the Mega grocery store deserve  their own post. I'll get to that. For now, I leave you with an adios!