Yet Another Long Overdue Update

I just tried fleeing the country and seeking political asylum. This is what you do, I had assumed, when your own government refuses to protect you from being physically harmed and violated, mentally tormented, and emotionally abused. I was sent back to the States by the US Embassy in Mexico City at my father's expense because, although I felt safer in Mexico, they insisted I be here instead. Here is how this all happened...

Wednesday the 14th of October after being here in San Francisco again for 1.5 days, I found an amazing fare online for a Mexicana Airlines flight straight from SFO to MEX. I asked my exboyfriend to switch his birthday gift to me from a delicious dinner at Gary Danko's to a roundtrip ticket to Mexico City instead. He kindly complied after a bit of convincing.

At some point that afternoon after procuring bibimbop that made me physically ill at a place called Golden Gate Perk and before dropping off my room and mailbox keys for a friend to be able to check on my things, I happened to download and install some Windows XP updates that incapacitated my tablet. I am trying to update my blog from a library computer, so we will see how many tries it takes for me to finish it. The computer now does not allow me to login nor does it allow me to access the BIOS during startup. Curious, isn't it?

Well, I took the flight from 10:40PM on the 14th to 5:00AM on the 15th from San Francisco to Mexico City. The voices in my head were screaming and screaming all day and night until the plane reached a certain altitude. After that and until I returned here in the States, there were only two intermitent, normally-volumed voices in my head that could comment on everything around me my eyes could see.

Anyway, I arrived at 5AM and immediately tried using my debit card at the ATM in order to obtain local currency. It did not work. Huh. I had money in that account when I boarded the plane. When I checked my account's AVAILABLE balance (note, not ACCOUNT balance) at an actual Wells Fargo ATM the previous afternoon, it indicated that I had enough money to carry me through living in Mexico City until my next direct deposit would come through from my insurance company. So, I exchanged what cash I had on me and took a taxi straight to the embassy of an EU country that I was sure the US would not pick a fight with should that I seek asylum there.

I arrived too early for them to be open, but following the advice of two local men, I stayed in a well-lit, public place until the time that their doors would allow visitors. I bought some coffee and water, and I waited. Once the sun had brightened the sky, I walked back to the embassy where I was greeted outside the doors by a representative who asked me for anything he could bring inside to present my case. I gave him what I had, and I waited. Eventually, a gentleman from the embassy came to me, told me I did not present enough grounds for gaining political asylum, and sent me to my own embassy.

So, I walked through the neighborhood crying until I could find the US Embassy. Trusting that my own government would do anything at all ever helpful for me was my first mistake on that trip. The US Embassy told me that they only deal with visas, notaries, blah blah blah... (The implication being that they could not help me convince my home country to ensure my physical, mental, or emotional safety.) In fact, help with visas, notaries, blah blah blah was all they offered me. They refused me any real help.

So, I left and called a newspaper in Mexico City called El Universal and asked for a reporter. We agreed to meet at 1PM right there at a coffeeshop next door to the US Embassy. That just meant I had to keep myself awake until our meeting. I sat on a couch in a neighboring hotel lobby, scratched out some notes of what I wanted to say, and waited for our 1PM meeting. The reporter's name was Doris, and she was thorough, professional, and respectful.

After my meeting with the reporter from El Universal, she pointed out that people were amassing nearby along the major boulevard near the angel monument for what she called a “rally.” The U.S. Embassy later called the same thing a “demonstration.” All I know for sure is that if there were no injuries, which I am told is true, it was peaceful and therefore NOT a “riot.” Because the rally was about to bring hundreds of thousands of people to the angel monument and move to fill the Zocalo, the reporter suggested that I take refuge in the U.S. Embassy. We parted ways beside a group of police officers in riot gear lining up along the street, and I proceeded to the front gate of my own embassy. They turned me away at the door. In recap, the first time I approached the U.S. Embassy they refused to help me, and the second time I was turned away at the door.

I walked down the main boulevard past many various groups of police officers who were out and about, it seemed, because of the large amount of people that were about to march by. I took a right, as the directions the lady reporter had given me required, on Juarez and soon found the Mexican Office of Foreign Relations. At the main desk there, a lovely lady tried to help me sort out my bank and ATM mess. I ventured forth to speak with representatives at a bank who could not help me but did help me exercise some Spanish vocabulary that I had not used in over a decade. After returning to the giant building marked Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores and after a great deal of trying to figure out what to do, I was allowed upstairs in the building to use a phone authorized to call the United States in a final effort to reach my bank. My bank, of course, refused to help me.

The next thing I knew, the entire office was looking after me. They called the U.S. Embassy on my behalf, and after much passionate dialogue, they convinced my own embassy that they needed to actually help me on some level. They fed me my first and only meal of the day and found me a place where I could spend the night. They called my family. They even tried calling my doctor here in San Francisco. They took care of me in every way possible, and for their kindness I will always be grateful. I should do more for them than merely mail thank you cards. This I know. However, I have nothing else I can offer them as thanks, yet.

The place that took me in for the night was a shelter for victims of domestic violence, I think. If I translated the postings on the walls of the office properly, that was the main intention of the facility. There were two sets of police guards that one would have to pass to get in and a 24-hour medical staff. I slept for over 10 hours waking only once in the night.

Oddly, when I awoke, the once clean table had a mostly drunk plastic water cup on it with cigarette ash inside. I pointed it out to the lady who came to retrieve me from my room once the representative from the U.S. Embassy arrived over two hours late to pick me up. I was groggy all morning despite all of that sleep. The representative from the U.S. Embassy told me that it was due to the altitude. Funny, I didn’t feel that sleepy at Yosemite even while or after driving over the 9500 feet high Tioga Pass.

The U.S. Embassy told me both that the hundreds of thousands of people in the peaceful “demonstration” had no injuries and that Mexico City was and unsafe place for travelers from the States. It made no sense, but what could I do in my groggy state? I was in their hands from the time they picked me to the time they escorted me to the security screening area of the International terminal of the airport that afternoon. They had managed to convince my father to buy me a one way ticket back to San Francisco.

I had an uneventful flight to Houston, an uneventful layover, an uneventful flight to San Francisco, an uneventful taxi ride into the city, and rather unceremonious (thankfully) arrival in North Beach. The neighborhood was in full swing when I got here. It was as though the entire city were in the middle of one giant party.

Saturday morning I reached a few conclusions about why I should never have allowed the U.S. Embassy to convince me to return to the States.
--My first cup of coffee of the day already had a sleeping agent in it. As did the glass of water served to me by hand at my local coffee shop. I had expected so much more from Sally.
--I am no safer here than I am in La Ciudad de Mexico. I did try to flee this country for a reason. Those problems had clearly not resolved themselves during my short absence.
--People actually openly and honestly tried to help me there. I know most of the neighborhood I live in, and I know people all over San Francisco; however, with the exceptions of Gaynor, a collection of bartenders, and some old friends, very few people here are outwardly and genuinely friendly towards me. If I am singled out specifically here, it is for irrational maliciousness against me. People go out of their way, as if those strangers could recognize me, in order to specifically be cruel to me.
--By Saturday afternoon, my skin was already crawling with the antagonism I could feel in this city directed towards me. I was free of that while in Mexico City.
--The money my father was forced to spend to bring me back to the States could have easily supported me in Mexico until my next direct deposit from my insurance company. I know I have to pay back my disability insurance once I am finally able to, and I know that it is even not enough to support myself on here in San Francisco. However, money goes so much further in Mexico City. It is some place both where I can afford to live and where people treat me well.

Right now, it is Sunday night. My mom is expected to arrive, oh, about right now at the Oakland airport. She will go straight to her sister’s place in the East Bay, and I will probably see her in the morning.

My efforts to seek political asylum from the United States did not work, but I am staying in contact with the friends I made while in La Ciudad de Mexico. Maybe I could find my self a job in a foreign country. Finding a job (and therefore a way to support myself), finding a real home, finding a non-assholic significant other, finding physical safety, and even finding a sense of usefulness in the world is not happening here. I am ready to turn away from the San Francisco I have done nothing but care for and support for years and find a place to live that has the ability and moral convictions to actually care about its own people.  Don't get me wrong.  I know that not all people have an irrational need to persecute me on a personal level, and I know that there are also a great many people here who are already fighting the good fight through whatever means they are expert.  I have just fought too long and hard for the health of my mind to let it slip away in a body that has neither privacy nor physical safety. 

I am going to post this now without double-checking it for typos.