Gabacho Enjoys Long Walks, Time Alone, and Not Being Able to Communicate, Does not Necessarily Seek Same

I feel slightly less inspired to write today. I think perhaps I'm weighed down by obligations stateside. Loved ones close to me are struggling in the states and I'm unable to help. I must return soon and work towards finishing my album and figuring out how the devil I'm going to have health insurance if I resign from my job at Seneca. I don't want to leave so soon and fantasize about coming back soon, but it is so expensive to get here and I have already sold a saxophone to get here this once. Once I'm here I can hack it but getting here... I wonder if I will really be able to disentangle myself enough from whatever life is awaiting me to return for as long as I hope.
My experience here is exactly what I want from my life right now. Cancer or no cancer, I have put off experiences like this, experiences that I realize are essential to becoming the man I want to become, for far too long and for spiritless reasons.
I want to bring all my loved ones with me here, although having this experience alone has shown me how much I've changed in the last few years. I enjoy this trip solo immensely.
Five or six years ago, I took a trip throughout the Western U.S. I called it my Wingnut Tour of the West and aspired to visit all my crazy friends who had inspired me greatly in the past. I also hoped to visit as many very small towns as possible.
I did what I set out to do and definitely had some noteworthy adventures (I may post them at some point in the future), but halfway through my planned trip, I became lonely and truly did not enjoy the trip being alone. I called my girlfriend at the time to come and join me and bail me out of my loneliness. She did and we definitely had a fun trip but I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed in myself for not being able to hack it alone.
This trip is very different. I'm really enjoying my own company and the freedom to do whatever I want. I feel strong and independent and confident even though I am unable to communicate well. Some of the difference is undoubtedly due to the contrasts between traveling in Mexico and Traveling in the U.S., but I attribute a majority to internal shifts of my spirit.

Uruapan, Politics, and American Hospitality

Meeting Walter at the Fabrica was a very memorable thing. He is a man of advanced years and vast experience. He lived in China for twenty years and was there during the Communist revolution. He was part of it all and was/is close friends with many who would later become major leaders.
He also lived in Berlin as the Nazis came into power, working for the American Embassy. He witnessed the victory march of the Nazis as they marched the "poor bastards" they had defeated in France through the streets of Berlin.
Walter and his wife Bundy moved to Mexico fifty years ago and helped bring water to a remote mountain village. Seven Kilometers of pipe was laid without machines to dig the trench or tote the pipes. The project utilized only unpaid volunteers from the small village and was still completed successfully in less than five months.
Walter and Bundy began a textile business shortly after arriving and purchased the Fabriqa San Pedro 21 years ago. The building is a little over a hundred years old and enormous. Several barns and football fields could fit inside it. In the lower level are acres and acres of looms, yarn spinners and many other machines I know nothing about.
Walter and Bundy took me home with them and gave me a key. I am grateful for a place to stay but I feel that they are not happy about my presence. They are very serious and discuss politics endlessly. I'm thankful for the opportunity to learn from two people who are so obviously brilliant and well informed. They talk with each other in the manner of professors on their lunch break and their interactions seem a little tense.
In the morning I found Walter at the table making notes on the morning paper and referencing THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH citing countless parallels between the Nazis rise to power and current situations in the U.S., Mexico, and elsewhere.
Today I will go to the Fabriqa and take some photos and try to learn as much about the process as possible. I visited the Casa De La Cultura and talked with them about performing sometime when I return to Michoacan. I will either leave Uruapan, which is a little too mad, tomorrow morning or this evening. I hope to go to Santa Clara or Patzcura for a night and then back to Copandero. I don't really want to stay another night with Walter and Bundy, but don't know a good alternative in this moment.