Today in Mexico City: A Portrait, One Man's Perspective on AIDS in Mexico

After spending the morning trying to navigate the Merced, the city’s enormous market crowded with venders selling just about everything (as well as a few dogs tearing into large scraps from the butchers and a kitten curled up in a pile of mangos), I walked along a street named Emiliano Zapata, eating watermelon doused in lime juice, salt and chili powder. I was headed for the Zocalo, wondering what my first blog before the conference might be about. I could go into how looking through the conference programme and the schedule I’ve sketched out, often dictating I attend five events at once, is overwhelmingly exciting but, at the same time, also occasionally prompts me to say, “That’s it?!”

Anxious about my first contribution, I approached the Palacio Nacional, and thought, Well, I just hope the blog doesn’t sound too much like travel writing. (It already does.)

Back on the street after marveling at the Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio, a man tapped me on the shoulder. He had helped me on the security line inside. He told me he is a painter and Rivera is his idol. For purposes of this blog, I will call him Miguel.

Miguel grew up in Mexico City andCancun and now lives in a major Canadian metropolis with his wife. He is 26 years old. We sat down at a nearby café. He asked, What is the purpose of the AIDS Conference? As he speaks little English and I speak even less Spanish, our conversation was limited and I responded that the purpose is to strategize about how to end AIDS. Ahh, he said, smiled widely, pulled a condom out of his pocket and waved it in the air.

Miguel, a bit of a card, was very warm, generous, and exceedingly open. His personal experience of Mexico is that there is not enough talk about sex, about AIDS. He blames this in part on the Church. He held the large menu up over our table and said, This is the Church. He picked up the saltshaker and shook some out on the table. And this is Mexico. Then he dropped the menu on the salt crystals.

He spoke of machismo and felt this is another reason there is not enough communication.

I asked him, What about drugs? He shook his head, no talk… In Canada, he added, they just give out syringes to anyone. It’s amazing. They even gave me one. I use it for my paintings.

And what about in the schools, I asked. He said there is some education on AIDS, but not enough, and he explained, Nobody says, Hey you, listen. Hey you, listen to me.

Miguel and I parted ways and a stroll down the Paseo de la Reforma took me to Avenida Insurgentes Sur and a large rally of the Movimiento de los 400 Pueblos. Hundreds of campesinos were gathered on the square, chanting, with several women dancing on raised platforms, all of them in the nude and demanding “no represión.”

Just across a doublewide intersection, a young woman approached me with a smile and a condom. Contra el SIDA, she said. I looked around to see that she was with a larger group, Poder Joven, some of whom wereacross the street holding banners that denounced discrimination and violence. I grinned back at her, Muchos gracias.