Oil and the schmear....

I think about the uses of my time and energy, what I am spending my valuable time and energy on doing, here on my Joiyssey and today, here in Acapulco.

I realize I have to make a paradigm shift in what I am able to spend my time doing.

And I realize once again one of my many privileges has been not having to put much energy into obtaining fuel for my mobility. Here in México, I have to dedicate a LOT of energy into the getting of fuel.

At home, I just have to make sure I have the money to buy fuel, and that I am at the biodiesel station when they are open. Traveling in the u.s. it is more difficult to find biodiesel but I can always fall back on buying diesel.

Or since I now run straight veggie oil, I would have more difficulty getting fuel, collecting it from restaurants, but I can also buy it already purified if I get tired of doing it myself.

But of course, the biggest advantage in the u.s. is that I do not have a dependency on fuel for my mobility, as I do here to a huge extent. I have taken out my bike to ride here once and I am able to use public transportation - if i dare risk putting my life in the hands of the crazy bus driver.

Here, if I want to go any distance, I have go through the entire process necessary to run straight veggie oil.

I have to spend time finding the right restaurants, to make myself understood, sometimes convince people to part with their basura, or compete with the farmers who are feeding this gross oil to their animals.

Even when I secure what I think is an agreement to pick up their oil, I never know for sure if I really will pick it up, until it is in my hands and on my truck. Even then, I could be mistaken!

I also need separate clothes for this venture. Oil penetrates everything and gets all over everything – especially when I was not as experienced as I am now, as several pairs of my shorts and shirts will testify!

Not to mention sneakers and socks. Ideally, I can filter barefoot. But then there is the issue of limited water and oil-streaked hands, legs, feet. Baking soda rescues my skin often!

And the equipment for filtering – even though I THOUGHT I brought enough filters, I didn’t. Fortunately I have been able to sporadically find the right filter but unfortunately I end up paying twice the amount which I did in the u.s. – which I did NOT provide for in my daily budget.

So I have to make room in my psyche – and my time and energy – for the entire process of obtaining oil.

Not just the getting of fuel, finding and securing it, making sure it ends up in my little hands, but then also the filtering of it, making sure it ends up purified in my veggie tank.

And the other condition I have to adjust to is the necessity to frequent large cities, or at least places with a large tourist trade, in order to find a supply of veggie oil used.

Even though I feel very comfortable, even drawn sometimes, to large cities, I prefer spending time in the small country pueblos where I find much more tranquil and beautiful places to park.

I remind myself that this is a condition of being able to travel both according to my values – especially not wanting to support war by consuming petroleum products – and on the money that I have accessible to me.

This overriding joy of course, liberating myself from at least some of the benefits of these wars the u.s. is involved in, schmears my being much more entirely then spilt veggie oil usado.