Why did it feel like coming home when I finally arrived in Guatemala and now Mexico? I don't know. I do know for sure, that Mexico and Guatemala (and probably most other central American countries that I do not know yet) are different in many ways from every other country I have been to. I also know that I had expected Jamaica to be more like Mexico than like the US, which meant that I was rather disappointed when I found it was not. Maybe this was one reason, why I was so relieved when I finally arrived on the mainland. I also know two things for sure: I have spent a lot more time outside Mexico then inside it, so there is no reason why Mexico should feel like home to me, more than Europe or other places; and while I do love Mexico in many ways, I also know that there are many things about it, that I could not accept, were I to live and work in this country. Still, as soon as I had Latin Americans around me, I felt like I finally was where I belonged, which is very nice.

There is no way I could say, what makes Mexico the place it is. Is it the fact that people just talk to each other, not caring about other's backgrounds (economic, cultural or other)? Is it the way things just always work out one way or another without much planning and often in a way very different from the on initially intended? Is it the fact that, because of this, it is rather useless in Mexico to make plans at all, and you are just forced to go with the flow, which automatically means that you don't worry about the future half as much as people do in richer countries? Or is it just the fact that people in Mexico are on average happier because they have on average less money? I am not saying that poor people are generally happier than rich people - although I am also not saying that this is not true. But I am very sure that poor people are generally happier when surrounded by other poor people rather than when living in a place that is really made for rich people. Which is not so surprising after all. One thing is true for sure: poverty or richness is a relative measure. In one country you are rich when you have a mobile phone that works and a TV set and a little apartment for yourself and money to buy food every day. In another country having only these things means you are not only poor but also excluded from large parts of the society. I know, I have written about this issue before, but it just keeps coming back to me: surviving with little money and being accepted in society is so easy here in Mexico compared to any other place I have been (apart from South Africa - although there the problem was the skin colour). Probably it is really this fact which helps me so much feeling home here.

You may live in Europe and feel that you do nothing to discriminate against poor people. I will give you some examples of the things that make my life so much easier in Mexico that I wish would (still) exist in Europe: There are public phones literally everywhere - having a mobile phone is maybe handy but absolutely not necessary in Mexico (especially if the person you are trying to reach has one). There are internet cafés at every street corner, and internet access there is very cheap. Having your own computer and internet is therefore not necessary. You can buy soap to wash clothes by hand almost everywhere - which means you do not need a washing machine. Public transport gets you just about everywhere because most people do not have cars, so public transport is quite simply necessary even to remote places, and it is cheap. When you can't or don't want to cook, instead of going to an expensive restaurant or buying fast food, you can just buy food on the street, which is also very cheap and literally home cooked. Even if you eat only the cheapest food you can still get a quite good selection of nutritious foods. People are very much used to sharing - everything from food and clothes to tools and cars. There are certainly more examples like these, but just consider these to see how difficult Europe can be to those who don't want to or can't take part in the capitalist world. So if it is this or something else, I don't know but I arrived here in Mexico and now I don't want to leave - although, while I was in Jamaica, I couldn't wait to go back to Europe.

The truth is, I do not believe in a Christian god and never felt like I should. But being here in Mexico every day I feel like thanking some god for my existence and the existence of all the beauty and life around me. Luckily there are enough gods here that are very different from the Christian god, that I can thank. Being here I understand much better how people are so religious. In Europe I have trouble understanding the need of any religion really and I feel like it is mainly used to discriminate against other people or feel like something better than others. But here I understand that you are actually thankful for everything that mother nature gives you, because it is just so amazing.

Surprise, surprise, I changed my plans again, since I arrived here in Chiapas. The good news is: I will (or plan to anyways) travel through a big part of Mexico and since Mexico is huge and every state has its own culture and peculiarities I will use this journey to write about the differences once I leave here. Currently however, I am in a coffee finca in Chiapas, in a place only few kilometers from the border to Guatemala. The finca was originally established to grow coffee (on the part of the German family that bought it). On the part of the United States of Mexico (I am not quite sure if the country was called that then), the ground was sold for virtually no money to foreigners (mainly Germans) for a very different reason: since we are deep in the jungle and it is mountainous, the area was not developed at all and inhabited only by indigenous people who did not care at all which country they officially belonged to (we are talking about 150 years ago, so not very long really). In this era Guatemala and Mexico both wanted to have the region now called Chiapas. What Mexico did was smart, easy and quite destructive to nature and indigenous people: they just sold ground that wasn't theirs. The ground did not belong to anybody as indigenous peoples here do not know the concept of owning ground - as ground is nature and it really only belongs to one of their gods. But since Mexico sold it, it was then part of Mexico. And since Germans bought it, they were bound to fight for it, should Guatemala decide that it was really theirs. This is basically how Chiapas is now part of Mexico (although based on culture and nature it should really be a part of Guatemala) and how so much of the state is foreign owned.

So this is the bad news. The good news is: the particular finca I stay at (Argovia, named after Argau, there are also a finca called Hamburgo, another called Irlandia) is organic and actually treats the employees and workers pretty well (for Mexican standards). They grow shaded organic coffee which means that there is not really a coffee plantation but rather coffee plants are spread out in the rainforest that we live in. Birds are everywhere and I see new species literally every day. They are mainly bright coloured and amazing. One of the reasons I wanted to stay here longer. My main job here now is giving tours of coffee and a tour of flowers and a birding tour. This is rather interesting, seeing that I had about two days to learn the tours before I started giving them myself and my Spanish is still far from perfect which doesn't necessarily help much. But this is also what Mexico has become to me: a place where you can be whatever you want to be, without studying for years. You just do it and you learn while you do it. So suddenly you are a tour guide. Earlier I have already been a primary school teacher and a librarian. I can't say if this is good or bad for the country but it is certainly an interesting experience for me.

In the evenings I give German and English classes to my colleagues. I am very happy that I get on really well with all of my colleagues and we are having a lot of fun. In the morning after waking up, I go swimming in a natural pool formed by the river and then bird watching. It is amazing how simple and yet so fulfilling life can be in a place like this. Well, I know if I were to stay here for a year I would get bored but since I am to stay only six weeks I know I can enjoy every single day of it. Also around Christmas and New Year's we will be very busy with guests, so I will not have time to get bored for now.

Ok, I will leave you with this for now and I will try to write more about Chiapas and the finca before I leave in mid January but as I said the holidays will be busy so will have to see. Happy holidays everyone meanwhile!