Daniel Pecot
English 1301
Professor Lunday
February 20, 2011
Finally, the year I had been dreaming of was here. My senior year in high school was about to kick off, and the hot Houston summer was slowly coming to an end. As I sat in school, waiting in line to take a new I.D. picture for our senior I.D. cards, I constantly day dreamed of the wonderful vacation to South Padre Island that I would be leaving for later that day. We usually take this trip every summer, and often felt needed to escape life’s constant everyday battles. The beautiful weather, beaches, and activities to do there, one couldn’t help but to find themselves lost in its beauty. I pictured myself late at night looking amongst the stars while relaxing on the sands of the shore, and the oceans winds cooling the air I breathe while listening to the ocean play its usual song for me. But just as quickly as I envision this, I hear my name called (Daniel Pecot). I step in front of the white back drop and told to smile, only to soon be blinded by the flash of the camera. Two minutes later I am handed my new I.D. card and sent off to fetch my class schedule for the semester.
Now in the car on the way back, I discuss with one of my closest friends how I dread the fact that I’ll be taking Algebra 2 as my first morning class being that I hate math in every form at this point in my life. Math and I had become nemesis, like Batman and Joker. As I rant about the thought of having to muster together brain cells every morning to solve life’s equation, my mother calls and informs me that she will be adding a little surprise to our typical summer vacation. Now looking over to the passenger side of my vehicle at my friend somewhat bothered, I can only imagine that whatever my mom has in store for me will come as a learning point on my part. After speculating with Gavin, I dropped my friend off, and headed home quickly hoping to get some answers to the questions I now had rambling around in my head.
As I pull into the driveway to my surprise, I see everyone was all ready packed and loaded into the expedition. Mom greets me at the door, “son, go and grab your bags so we can go. We have a six hour drive, and you’re helping”, which she has been saying ever since I got my license, but rarely makes me do. As I grab my bags and do a little last minute packing, I head down the stairs were I find my mom getting ready to set the alarm for the house. I try to slide in a question as I’m walking out the door, “mom, what’s this surprise you’re talking about?” She smiles and says, “See you in the car” which I know by now is code for, “not telling you, you’ll just have to find out”. Now in the car and beginning our trip to South Padre, I continuously guess as to what this surprise had in store for me. Could it be some kind of event going on down there that she knows I would die for? Or maybe we would be going to a family reunion? Listening to some music on my iPod, I continue to guess, as the feeder rode pavement and trees along side of it, slowly fade into black.
“Wake up guys, we’re here!” I hear my mother yell as she pulls into the La Quinta Inn that we usually stay at on our South Padre vacations. Now night fall, we struggle with our luggage to the checkout desk and then to the third floor were we go our separate ways across the hallway. Sharing a room with my younger cousin, I begin to ask if he knows anything of this “surprise” my mom spoke of, to which he also had been told he would have to wait and find out. Now teamed with my cousin, we both sit pondering in our room, but eventually give up. “I bet it’s something the adults will love but the kids won’t” I hear him say, I simply answered “probably.”
Morning comes and we are greeted by a knock at the door telling us to get up and head down for breakfast. Dragging ourselves to the main dining area, we meet up with the rest of the family to discuss the day’s planed events over waffles, eggs, and orange juice. As my mother father and aunt lay out the foundation of our day, I check off in my mind everything she goes over, looking for that surprise to arise. “Beach”, check, “shopping”, check, “going out for dinner”, check, etc. Noticing she’s just about done eating and naming things we plan to do today, she then gets up and starts heading to the elevator. Quickly I jump up and ask her, “but what about the surprise?” to which she turns around and smiles as she says, “we’re going to Mexico in the morning”. As I stand there watching her get on the elevator, I hear my cousin, little brother and sister all start cheering the fact that we are all going to Mexico. I start to smile as well, asking them “what part do they think we’re going to?” Cancun? Cobo? My guesses multiplied rapidly, but just as I was overwhelming myself with guesses, I hear my father say “Progreso”.
The first day in South Padre seem almost like a blur as I quickly hoped the day would pass. I had never heard of Progreso, so going there seemed great. I had no personal experience of what Mexico, other than what I had been taught in schools, and told in conversations with those I knew who’ve been to parts of that country. Now sitting in bed the night before the big trip, I wondered what it would be like. How would it feel to go to another country? And what all could I experience there? Tired from the day’s tag-along shopping sprees with my mom and aunt, it wasn’t too much longer before my thoughts faded, and dreams seemed to dominate.
“Wake up” I hear my cousin yell to me across our hotel room, glancing over at him on the phone with who I assumed was my mother telling us to get up, wash up and meet them down for breakfast. Shortly after washing up, my cousin and I head down to the breakfast area to meet up once again with the family before embarking on our trip to Mexico. Like most kids when trying to speed up the process of waiting to get, or go where they want, my cousin, sister, little brother and I all eat quickly, finishing breakfast in mere minutes. After waiting for the adults to finish their breakfast, we then proceeded to the family car, thus beginning our trip.
The ride there didn’t seem too bad. Lots of country side, sky, clouds, and cattle seemed to be in abundance. One thing that’s certainly noticeable is the decline in the structure of the buildings as we got closer to the boarder. Within an hour or so of driving, we pulled into a small parking lot to which my mother rolled down the window asking a small Hispanic man “how much was parking here?” He slowly replied “$10 dollars for the day, up until 5pm” with a very strong Spanish accent that made it hard to understand his words, as they did not come out smoothly. I soon found out that asking anything else of the small man would be pointless, he seemed to only know how much to tell me about parking. So now wondering off in search of a bathroom, I take notice of the area. Everything seemed, well, different. The buildings were aged pretty well, and the cars were too. I also notice that the diversity in the culture seemed to fade from America, to Americana. English was not the usual here, and those that spoke it, did so while speaking Spanish, as though switching back and forth, saying many words in Spanish, and a few here and there in English. Fast food places seemed to not sell the usual Texas burger and fries, but instead, taco’s, fried corn, and tequila. I stumbled into a small corner shop, where I found to women looking at me over the counter. I asked them if they had a bathroom I could use, to which one of them replied “yes” and pointed in the direction.
Now making my way back to the group, we soon head for the border. My dad jokes around, asking me if I would ever drink the tequila with the worm in it, and if so, what would I do with the worm. Of course I joke back saying “I’d do it, and I’d take the worm, put it between two pieces of bread, and have at it.” It wasn’t too long after joking that we reached the check point at the border. We stood in line, and approached this three probed counter, the kinds you would see at a theme park right before stepping pass the gate to get on a ride. My mother hands me a quarter and says put it in and stop through, to which I look around in amazement thinking “this is all it takes to get into Mexico?” We move along shortly to the bridge that crosses the Rio Grande. While walking across the bridge, it literally feels like with every step, the temperature when up 2 degrees. I quickly saw the need to put on my glasses. Halfway across this bridge, it was so hot, that everything appeared to have a glow to it. While adjusting my glasses, I just happened to look down at the “famous” Rio Grande to which I was surprised that I saw people actually swimming in it. They were looking up at us speaking something in Spanish, but being a student who had twice failed that subject in school, they might as well had been speaking a dead language. I looked in front of us to see people throwing coins down to them. I thought “ahh, that’s it, they are asking for some spare change". I managed to throw one quarter before hearing my mother tell me, “If you plan on getting back across the border, that’ll be the last one you throw!” I quickly put the hand full of quarters back in my pocket and continued on towards the second check out.
After walking through a few metal detectors, we start our walk into town. As we start to head out of the general area, my dad stops us and asks me and my little brother to stop and take a picture with him in front of this Mexican statue. Agreeing to do so, we go over and take our positions sitting down in front of the statue. At this point, the heat is beyond “hot”. I felt like I had tanned enough for a whole summer in the short amount of time we had taken that little walk from the car, to the statue.Continuing our walk further into the small town of Pregreso, my mother kindly asks a man how to get to the market. He replies in what I now know is “spanglish” the directions of how to get there. We figure out through some old fashion context clues, and mediocre high school Spanish knowledge that we should take the bus. Now heading in the direction that the man pointed us in, we saw the bus quickly approaching and quickly wasn’t even the word. It was like NASCAR, but with buses! He pulled up, and asked for payment, which to my surprise was only a quarter. Also to my surprise, the public buses in Pregreso seemed a lot different than those back in Houston. They were school buses, and the seats had been aligned against the wall, so we all sat facing each other across the bus. They also had random polls that were stationed throughout the bus, like subway cars do for those that have no place to sit, or would rather stand. Before I was even seated on the bus, the bus takes off! Falling into my seat I grab the poll in front of my seat as if I was holding for dear life! He turned the corner and accelerated. We all sat looking at each other. The locals laughing as my family and I (tourists) sat in horror for the rest of the ride. Passing other buses by mere inches, I can say that was one of only a hand full of moments that truly had me scared in my life! One thing you realize while in Pregreso Mexico is that there are no speed limits, or stop signs, which in my opinion make the experience a bit more horrific, however, I can say without a doubt, those drivers are some of the best I’ve ever seen in my life! And I come from a family of racer’s.
We pull up and abruptly stop near an ally way. We hear the driver shouts out “market”. We slowly get up, shocked as if we had been riding a missile that made its way to its desired target and somehow landed without exploding on impact. As we got off of the buss, we looked around, puzzled. “Had we just been left in the middle of Pregreso?” I thought for a second that maybe he misunderstood were we wanted to go and maybe took us to some small grocery store he knew of. Another tourist who must of saw the looks on me and my families face, walked over to us and said “if you’re looking for the market, it’s just through there. I know how you feel, our first time here we stood here wondering the same thing.” Relieved, we thanked her and parted ways as we ventured through the narrow ally towards the market.
Coming out of the other side of the ally, little kids ran up to us yelling, “Chicle, chicle!” I quickly felt like Justin Bieber around a group of 13 year old girls. Overwhelmed by my sudden fame, I hear my mom say “buy a pack, its only ten cents for a four pack bundle, and twenty five cents for the whole pack.” I was starting to think everything in Mexico was only twenty five cents. Needless to say, my family and I ended up walking through the market with a pocket full of “chicle de globo” (bubble gum).
The market was very interesting. The streets and shops nearby were filled with colors and the appearance of what I learned in my Spanish class back in the states was “traditional Mexican décor”. Now feeling what I suppose could only be described as culture shock as we walked around the shops and stores, everything was in Spanish. English was the odd language here, and was only spoken by tourists and the locals trying to piece English words together in order to catch customers walking by in hopes of getting them to purchase some of their merchandise. There didn’t seem to be much name brand stores. No Guess or Armani. No Mark Ecko or Ralph Lauren. And the same went for shoes, food, and just about everything else. I thought up until this point that things that one could easily find in America could be found everywhere. I slowly started to realize how half the stuff you see on TV, isn’t what you should expect about places you’ve never been. I thought Mexico was like Cancun and Cobo all over. But it seemed like the place I recently found myself in was far from tropical. The “culture shock” was definitely starting to get to me as I looked around for something to eat and noticed that the little stands where many of the locals seemed to be stopping for a bite to eat, had very little health regulations as I watched the flies fly around and land on the nacho mixes and taco stands around the area as if even they were dancing in the country’s traditional art of Salsa. Hungry and dazed from the heat, I could only hope for better things to come. I later found out, that was only wishful thinking.
As we walked around for hours, from one shop to the next, the kids and I were trying to figure out how this could possibly be part of a vacation. It was fun and all, but it felt more like a mandatory field trip than a vacation. Noticing the looks on our faces, my mom stops and asks us “what’s wrong?” My little brother then asks her, “Why did you take us here mom? I just wanted to go to the beach” She looks at him and smiles as she then reply’s, “We live in Texas right? And we call ourselves Texans right? Well I just want you to see what it could have been like if Texas had remained a part of Mexico.” She then added, “I want you to appreciate the life you have, and the things you have. Look around, these people are some of the nicest people you’ll find, but many of them struggle to have a fraction of what we have.” I looked around and realized that sense I had been in Pregreso, I really did miss and love the things I had back at home. I missed my life style, my car, my house, fresh cold uncontaminated water, and food that wouldn’t make me sick. I missed being able to understand what people were saying, and culture I came from. I for the first time in my life felt completely grateful for everything that I had in life. I looked up as my thoughts came to an end, and almost as if she knew what I was thinking, she looked at me with a smile and said, “I know, I know. And yes, we can go back to South Padre now.”
