1) We protect what we fall in love with

This summer I was vagabonding in Manhattan. After a dance class I went to buy a sweet pastry.

As usual the store was being attended by Mexicans (three).

They spoke me in English 
 -"wat duya wantt miss"

I answered (in Spanish)  
- "err, hola!" (I ALWAYS do this)

they grinned: 
 -"hola!, de donde eres?! / hi! where do you come from?"

I grinned back: 
 - "de Mexico!, de donde mas? / from Mexico, where else?!"

One of them looked at me carefully, not that smiley:

- "ah si? / really?, you don't look Mexican"

I was about to pay, and this same guy, the not so smiley one said to me with serious eyes:

"Well, you are in vacations isn't?, hmmm... is weird to see a Mexican in New York in vacations, isn't?"

His friends started to get nervous

- "I wonder when I am going to have a vacation like you?"

He was staring at me coldly, and we all got tense, but I knew what he was doing.  I try to talk back and try to defend myself, to let him know that I wasn't rich, that I work hard, that I got a cheap airplane ticket, that I had friends over here and...but... what could I say?, I am lucky no matter what, instead I duck my head and thought:

-c'mon let it out, I know you need to do this... I won't go away, I will stay and listen to you-

"I should charge you more" he said acidly. His friends' faces were incredulous of what he was saying. I knew what he felt: resintimiento. I could see him leaving his little town in Mexico, leaving his family, working all day long for years, non stop, rain or shine, and sending money and missing Mexico bad, and I really REALLY understand him.

- "you are one of those Mexicans that can have a vacation" he gave me my change

(he didn't charge me more)

- "because I will never have a vacation like you" he stared at me in silence, maybe waiting for me to insult him.

I didn't know what to do without offending him. I really wanted to let him know I was sorry without triggering more resentment. I really didn't know what to do.  I was just standing there like a stupid... tourist.

One of his friends, trying to soften things, asked me what was my profession. With a week voice, I told him that I was a dancer. I try to smile gently, and timidly I left the store feeling strangely ashamed.

Already in the subway, I thought that of all the Mexicans that he could say this to, he found (maybe not the only one) but the one who is aware of the tough life he is having; he found the one Mexican that has a project to dance for EVERYBODY, and the one mexicana who will understand things better than himself (maybe).

I thought: Maybe THIS is a SIGN!

I felt more happy in the subway, I kept mind-toying with plans of how to expand our project in New York. I felt so much better that I decided to return back the next day and tell him about the project I was working on and that I would love to dance for him and his friends and that I really understand him from de bottom of my heart!.

* you won't believe this, but the problem of vagabonding is that you really don't pay attention to the street numbers (I want to think this) because I couldn't find that store ever again. (weird)*

That night and the next and the next night I pray (I beseech) that every human in this world can have a vacation.

But especially this man.

I wonder, how is it that Mexico has so much "poverty" when we have the richest man in the world?

We protect what we fall in love with.

How do we fall in love with the unfair, the not so lucky, the resented one?

This video is our first performance at the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco, at the peak hours of emigration paper work.  This past October 2011.

We are dancing a piece called "Piruli" which means: candy.

(we just show up, we opened a space to dance and people were like... huuum...QUE PASA?)

Thank you so much to our friends at the San Francisco Mexican Consulate, you are doing such a good a work! You are something different and you know that.  Gracias Marimar.