During our last day in Nigeria, we sat under the shade of an old tree to wait for our flight to depart from Calabar to Lagos. Our flight has been cancelled or postponed for the last three days as a result of the elections; which ironically have been cancelled and postponed as well. Feeling stranded in a foreign country is not pretty; luckily Gills, our friend and colleague from Yankari, is still with us and really knows how to smoothly navigate the Nigerian system. Translation is not about understanding the language, but about understanding the context. By now, we have already befriended Eddie, the airline clerk who has been trying to help us get into a flight. He has joined us for a beer as we wait under the tree by the airport. “When we see a plane landing, then you can go to board,” he responded to our concern about the boarding time while pouring into his glass the last bit of Heineken. “I love Pancho Villa, he was selfless and cared for the good of his people,” he exclaimed to our surprise after a moment of silence, “that is what we are missing in Nigeria, a real leader.” The flight got delayed a couple of hours, so we kept the rounds of beer running until nightfall when Moki, our Cameroonian driver, decided we should just get into the gate to wait for our plane to arrive. I have mixed feelings. I’m not sure if I could cope with the lack of reliability in a system, but at the same time, the lack of control allows great moments like this to happen; this feeling is not at all foreign as a Mexican. “The history of Latin America and Africa have much in common in terms of colonialism, but with the great difference that Europeans came to Latin America to live, but they came to Africa to extract natural and human resources. They never got established here,” Eddie remarked before saying goodbye.

"What is the name of the movie you are producing?" the immigration officer asked me as he pulled me aside into the small interrogation room. I'm not quite sure if answering that we are producing a soap opera to promote Cross River gorilla conservation will do any better, so I remain quiet. I was once deported from Peru as a result of an overnight change to an immigration law, leaving me stranded one full night at Lima's airport eating causa peruana with the guards. I'm not sure spending a night at the Abuja airport would be as pleasant. "We are not producing any movie," I finally answered. A cool thing about my job is that I get to learn from a wide variety of people and themes. Last week I was in Mexico working with the State government on Chiapas in the planning of a telenovela that will promote women and indigenous people's rights along with sustainable development; this week I'm working with a group of Nigerian and Cameroonian experts on a radio drama that aims to inspire the pride and preservation of the remaining 250 Cross River gorillas. I read somewhere that the former president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, is a great pretender. He is able to appear an expert on any topic after five minutes of debriefing. I'm not claiming to seem as an expert of any kind, but I can certainly tell by now a few stories about gorillas, Ghanian fish mongers, Bolivian youth and Chamula communities. "It is not about the story, but about how you tell the story," Meesha will say quoting her mother.

We are listening to Kraftwerk as Sol stops to take a picture of me writing and drinking wine to then go back to her LP collection and select the next album to play. It's been a while since the last time we met. She selects Do you really want to hurt me? from Culture Club; we already listened to Daniel Magal and other Argentinian jewels from the 1970's. Her studio is located at the now vacant Crane Studios Building, the "graffiti building" in Queens, decorated with old collectible objects and an electric pot to prepare her usual mate. "Sol, may I use your computer to write in my blog? I want to write about this." She agreed without hesitation. "Che, Brenda, I read in your blog that Pico died in November," she said to me earlier, before plugging in her headphones and playing DJ. I have always felt some sort of admiration and creative connection with Sol. Her latest body of work titled Please Don't Leave Me explores the concept of absence and reminds me of an old project I worked on right after Javier left titled After You Left. She now plays Talking Heads. "Do you know that this album cover was designed by Chuck Close?" she asks; "the first I came to New York I went to CBGB to track their origins. I was a fan." I ask if she ever watched them play live, but by now she is dancing by the turntables and barely listens to me. Breakfast in America is now playing out loud. We might be the only ones having a blast in this now deserted and forgotten building.

Mi Abuela (My Grandmother)

Mi Abuela died today although in a way she had departed years ago. Her longtime disease not only affected her memory, but her ability to talk, walk or lead any sort of human existence. I saw her for the last time during the summer of 2010. I sat by her and caressed her head while telling her stories from her youth; she glanced at me for an instant before getting back into her permanent state of oblivion. As I was growing up, Mi Abuela represented many things to me, she was the closest connection I had to my father, an example of generosity, femininity and elegance, a strong advocate for my education and the reason I was so spoiled. She was the only person I know to wear red lipstick and spray Chanel #5 before going to bed; she was beautiful. She also was the only person I know to get so much pleasure from giving herself and anything she had for the well-being of others. "You should get rid of the old if you want new and better things to come", she used to tell me as she de-cluttered the house. She was obsessed with cleanliness. My fondest memories from childhood are those times at her house; large family gatherings, debate conversations at the kitchen, exploring her closet, playing with my cousins and staying over to have the opportunity to sleep hugging her (and her Doberman). "Promise me two things, that you won't marry young; you need to study and enjoy your life before committing to a man," she asked me repeatedly. "The second thing is that you should never pluck your eyebrows; they are beautiful just the way they are." I have kept my word for the first one, but have diligently dismissed her second request. I have to confess that I feel some kind of guilt every time I visit the Indian beauty parlor by my house.

It was a sunny day in New York and even when the wind reminded me the winter is not over yet, walking around the Farmer's Market at Union Square made me feel nostalgic for all the days I've been out traveling. Capuchi and I sat at a bench in Washington Square Park while a man played Black. "I've never heard a street musician playing Pearl Jam before" I told Capuchi, "they mostly play music form the 1970's. Do you think this is because we are getting older?" We might. Living in New York is deceiving about age; you will always find someone younger that has settled and seems more mature than yourself, and someone older that hasn't assimilated adulthood. Some of my girl friends are considering motherhood and Georgina has suggested that I freeze my eggs just in case. "I still struggle to feel as a director at my job, I feel too young" I mentioned to Josefa over brunch today. "Brenda, we need to stop underestimating our experience. Men dream high and women try to stick closer to the ground. We should dream too." I guess we can dream and keep the quality to become unassuming leaders.

We arrived in Ghana during the last days of the Hamatan season when winds blow from the Sahara carrying sand and tainting the atmosphere with a translucent veil of fine dust. “It looks as if we were in another planet”, Shoshana expressed as we were standing by the ocean staring directly at a white moon-like sun. It is hard to summarize one’s experience in a new place as it involves so many layers of emotions and thoughts. It is also hard as we bring a preconception of the place or we naturally try to compare it to what we know, to the place we come from. “The most surprising thing,” Sean pointed out, “is that at the end of the day you find out that we are basically the same.” And so it is. In Ghana family and community ties are important, young girls fall in love and are afraid of getting pregnant, children love to have their pictures taken and there is a football field every two kilometers. In Tekradi people gather at the local market to sell their products, women carry buckets and trays over their heads with smoked fish, fufu, tomatoes, plantain, shampoo, shoes and fresh vegetables to sell. In Ghana, as everywhere else, people enjoy laying under the shade of a big tree on a warm and humid day, women make a special effort to look attractive, people like sharing stories and a week of intensive work is rewarded with a cold beer and dancing Nigerian hip-hop. “Guinness is much better in Ghana than in the UK,” Kwesi mentioned while driving us around Accra, “when I lived there, we use to look for Ghanaian or Nigerian imported Guinness even when it was very hard to find.” Sometimes is in the small things that you find the greatest differences.

"Somewhere around here is where Antoine de Saint-Exupéry must have crashed his plane," I told Shoshana as we were flying between the Algerian and Mali border. I almost cried when I saw the Saharan dunes from the plane, and landing in Africa for the first time gave me emotional chills. I'm now laying in bed at the hotel in Accra watching CNN and jet-lagged as hell, wondering what new experiences tomorrow will bring. I never imagined myself traveling this far, but I always pictured myself collecting stories; life stories. "Aren't you acting a little bit paranoid?" Victor suggested after I asked if I could wash my teeth with the water from the sink. "Probably it's because of the malaria pills," I suggested as I scanned the room for mosquitos.

My eyes are closing.

The second day of the year Victor and I sat in silence at the porch overlooking the lake. We listened to French folk songs, ate carne asada with frijoles rancheros, and drank a bottle of champagne while observing cranes bath by the lake shore with our binoculars.

A comforting way to start a new year, before the craziness of deadlines and daily life takes over.

The last day of 2010 started as a cold morning. My Mother watered her plants and listened to the radio out loud while I tried to write a few meaningful lines. “How do you imagine yourself in ten years from now?” she asked me but I couldn’t answer. Ten years ago I was in San Francisco with Pico. We bought red wigs and painted our nails silver to receive the New Year in style; I remember he was wearing a shirt with cow prints. After more then a year of leaving art and creativity behind, 2001 was a meaningful year of creative and self-rebirth, and Pico was a catalyst. That was the year I decided to move to New York, my last full year in Guadalajara. Today it’s been two weeks since I arrived home and I already feel a little nostalgic about leaving to New York on Monday. For some of us who live between two places, saying goodbye is the unforgiving routine that makes us question why we left, knowing that our innate need to satisfy the curiosity to explore a greater world and life, wouldn't have allowed us to stay. "You should consider getting married before your time is gone," an uncle said to me during Christmas, "you can't keep traveling for ever." What if I want to have both; is it possible? Life is too short, regardless if you decide to settle or not; regardless on how you spend it. Now, as 2011 starts, I try to guess where we’ll be in ten years, wondering if ten years ago we pictured ourselves as we are now.

Everything will be fine. I have a strong faith for even numbers.

In Loving Memory


"The day I met Brenda I was wearing my white boots and my hair was dyed; that is why she wanted to be my friend," Pico would say proudly to others. I choose him as a life mentor, and we were very close friends for over ten years. To him I was Princess Brenda, for me he was Pico Cometa. His studio in Alabama Street, at the Mission District of San Francisco, became one of my favorite places on earth; a place I always go back in my dreams. "He painted a blue shape on the courtyard's floor to resemble a swimming pool", I told my mother today. He will play his LP collection in the evenings and leave his door open for everyone to come along. I use to sit at his studio while he cooked pork-chile tacos and shared all his stories as an art student in Mexico City, his years in Wisconsin, his yearly travels to Quintana Roo and how he decided to become an artist. From him I understood the importance of being authentic and coherent. "Pico, whenever I have children, I want them to spend their summer vacations with you, I want them to learn from you there is another way of framing life, of living." The last time I saw him, me, my friend Helena and my colleague Javier went to his studio during a work trip to San Francisco and he played his collection of french and salsa records for us. The last time I talked to him was in May, he called one evening. "I found your phone number while cleaning my drawers and decided to call you Princess," he said, "you should come to San Francisco soon; there are many new stories I want to share with you." Pico knew how much I loved him and how important it was for me to have him as a friend. He showed me to see life in multiple colors, and for that I'll be forever grateful.

The big-city girl is dreaming about suburban life with chirping birds and fresh cut grass. Do you feel like pecan pie? A ride in the woods? The asphalt never touching your shoes? Wooden houses, autumn leaves, college football, shopping strips, silent nights and unlocked doors. Can we live our lives sitting in the porch?

Betsy, Pamela, Michelle, Connie and Marcela have asked me how I've managed to balance my life with so much travel. Colombia, Japan, Alabama, Washington DC in one month, with new possibilities for travel emerging each time I open my inbox . "You need to be somehow flexible to adapt to all these different contexts in such a short period of time". I do. A week ago I was flying back from an incredible and intense trip to Japan and now I'm in Alabama working and sharing life experiences with women from very different backgrounds than mine. As a "collector" of stories, I seldom get bored. Visiting a mall with Connie, drinking ginger tea in the porch with Pamela, or going to a spinning class with Betsy bring on their own, new perspectives to my life. "Didn't you get bored at the mall with Connie?" her husband, John, asked me over dinner. "I actually enjoyed it", I replied to his surprise. The only thing I didn't mention is that I felt homesick as I walked past the kitchenware section. Neither I mention that I had to call my mom to ask her if she thinks I will ever have a real home, a family, and a kitchen to buy dinnerware for.


"Look! That is the most beautiful color of tiles I've seen!" I exclaimed to Capuchi as we were exiting a subway station in Kyoto. "Why can't we have this color in the New York Subway?" Our guess was that in New York functionality rules over aesthetics, or even beauty. After spending some days visiting Japanese Buddhist temples I reaffirmed the idea that beauty and good design is not, neither has to be, superficial. Form is meaning coming to surface and the environment shapes your state of mind and being. "For a strange reason, we usually don't have good design in America", Capuchi concluded after taking my picture by the lilac-tile wall.

"Did you ever imagine we were going to be drinking a beer in Japan?" Capuchi asked me as we had dinner in Nagoya with partners from the Pacific Island States.

I didn't. Not even in my wildest dreams.

There is a giant water-bug in my bedroom but I'm too tired to even try to kill it. I started packing for Japan and still need to read a few scripts before going to bed and certainly before a meeting with the Alabama team tomorrow morning. I told my psychologist that life sometimes feels like a roller-coaster where new events keep happening one after the other without time to digest, reflect and fully absorb them. Victor came to visit last week; we went to a Roger Waters' concert, a half-marathon in Staten Island, a few dinners, brunch and spend some time staring to the ceiling in silence. Quality time. I also got promoted last week, opening the opportunity for growth and brining new challenges at the professional level. Doin' Time from Sublime is playing on Pandora, and as the with experience of watching Pink Floyd's The Wall live last week, it reminds me of where I came from, why I took certain life decisions, and how much I have grown in the past 10 years. Things, and we, do change.

I'm laying on bed recalling the ad-hoc party we organized at the grocery store in Anolaima, Colombia last week. We were back from an activity where the production team and actors of the radio drama collaborated with local authorities to clean a nearby community. The production team is very diverse, farmers, youth, local politicians, community leaders and children. We were all tired but nevertheless found a pretext to have a beer, dance to salsa and vallenato, celebrate the success of our cleaning efforts and the progress of the radio drama production. I had the chance to dance with Felipe, an eleven-year old boy from a nearby community who is by far my favorite child in the whole world. He is astonishingly smart, positive, and has the common sense of an octogenarian that has gone through it all. If I could make a bet on someone, he will be the one.

I'm now back in New York after working ten days in Colombia and spending the last few days with Santiago in Bogota. It is awesome to know that some friendships keep growing ad evolving even with time and distance. I'm also back in my house and bed after more than two weeks of couch surfing. There is still lots of fine dust all over and it will take a while for my room and house to look homey again.

Daniel and I are watching the US Open men's final match between Nadal and Djokovic as we wait for Belen to arrive; her flight should be landing around 10:30 pm. I've been couch surfing for the past four days, and will continue to do so until I leave to Colombia on Friday. I feel bad for Belen as she'll be forced to couch surf with me even when she'll be getting the true New York-chaotic experience. "There is an age when couch surfing is no longer fun," Jorge told me during our production meeting today. My house is a mess, so I rather swallow the shame to ask my friends to host me for a few days. Holes in the walls and ceilings, and fine dust covers every surface. Last night as I was riding the subway to Capuchi's house carrying my bags wet from the rain and covered in white dust, I smiled to a man carrying a fishing pole and a bucket full with fresh fish he had just caught in Long Island City. New York is the kind of place where you can never go wrong; there will always be someone odder than you getting all the attention.

A box of matches

For 56 years Fidela has cooked for the family at my grandmother's house in Mexico City.

She has lived by the stove as we have all grown older and some of us have travelled far.
But the sound of a shaking box of matches always brings me back to her, getting ready to cook.

We are so many things, we are so many people. I once heard that there was no such thing as an original idea, and I think what we call original ideas are the abstractions to the accumulation of collective knowledge. So again, we are the accumulation of our experiences, of the people with whom we shared. We all shape one another. Arvind always says that relationships have longevity, and they do, not only we keep growing with the people around us, but we carry the knowledge and teachings of others within ourselves. Someone left a comment to my previous post with a mention to the concept of chocomilkconhuevo (which literally – and oddly - translates to milk chocolate with an egg). Chocomilkconhuevo was a good-humored code my friends and I used to refer to our way of thinking, which was considered strange for the conservative standards of Guadalajara. I’m not sure who left the comment, but it reminded me of some of the stories that lead me to where I am now. A few months ago Agatha, who lives in Cyprus after being my roommate for 3 years, sent me an article on friendship published by the New York Times. The author stated the importance of relationships where the question of worth does not even arise. The willingness to be there, without any expectation of an exchange for pleasure; true friendships are not investments; they don’t exist for what they will bring in the future. To be a friend is to step into the stream of another’s life.