Bienvenidos a México
My flight to Mexico City left at 6:00 am out of my tiny local airport. I was so nervous that at first I didn’t go up when my boarding group was called. I looked back at my mom who was on the other side of the glass and she waved me towards the gate. Within a few seconds my ticket was scanned and now all I had to do was walk through the door. I looked back at my mom one more time and I felt like it was finally time to let go. My next few steps onto the plane were probably the most significant steps I’ve ever taken in my life, and yes, I realize how dramatic that sounds. Nearly six months after applying, I was officially a Borlaug-Ruan Intern leaving for El Batán, Mexico.
I was joined by my fellow BR intern Halee in Detroit and we arrived to the Mexico City airport together, where we were picked up and shortly driven to CIMMYT, the research center we would be spending the next seven weeks at. CIMMYT stands for Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in English).
Shortly after our arrival to CIMMYT, we were offered a tour around the neighboring town Texcoco by our friend, Liliana. That was our first introduction to authentic Mexican food, as well as Texcoco’s chaotic traffic system.
The very next day I started working in the maize quality lab, directed by Natalia Palacios, my advisor for the summer. My first day in the lab I was paired up with another intern who’s been working on a project for her masters, Choi, although everyone calls her Joy (it’s not hard to tell why). Joy graciously let me observe as she milled corn and practiced baking Chapati, a traditional Indian bread. The next two days I spent my work days reading over the protocolo (protocol) in order to familiarize myself with some of the equipment and procedures used in the lab, although I mostly used it as an opportunity to learn Spanish vocabulary I thought might be useful around the lab. So far it has been most useful in making microwaveable macaroni, believe it or not.
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Starting Thursday and Friday I was able to actually able to take part in one of the protocols I had read about, albeit incredibly basic. My job from 9–5 was dissecting corn kernels in order to determine the hardness of the samples. Using tweezers I first removed the tip cap and then the pericarp, the thin skin-like layer around the entire kernel. This part is very satisfying. Next, using a small blade I cut out the germ muy despacio, as instructed by my very concerned coworker. The hardest and most time consuming portion included cutting away the endospermo harinoso (floury endosperm) from the endospermo vitro (hard endosperm). My first day I only managed to dissect 40 kernels, however the second day brought slight improvement as I dissected 60.
Although dissection seemed endless at times, lunch breaks always helped to break up the monotony. Some days I went to the comedor and ate with a large group of international students, and other days I took my lunch back to the lab to eat with my coworkers. My favorite part of lunch is not the food, but afterwards when a group of people from the lab go and play ping-pong. As one of the most uncordinated people, I never stood a chance against some of my more skilled coworkers and lost a match of five points in less than a minute. However, much like my dissection skills, my ping-pong game is slowly improving to the point where I actually won my first game. If only my old P.E. teacher could see me now.
For spending only a week in Mexico, I have already learned so many things. I’ve learned (yet again) that my Spanish is not as good as I had thought it was. Classroom Spanish does NOT transfer very easily to the real world. I now know where to find the good Spanish soap operas on the tv and unlimited soccer games. Week one has taught me that it’s okay to accept help, even when you want to do everything on your own.
Goals for the coming week:
- start my project for the summer
- attend more Zumba classes in Texcoco, and investigate salsa classes!
- open up more to my coworkers
- plan a trip for next weekend
