My name is Marissa, and I’m a Latin America travel-holic.

There’s no immunization and no cure for this ailment, so find a country on your dusty globe, book your flight with the Student Travel Agency, board a plane and send pretty postcards back to your friends and family. Your parents may wonder if you’ll ever celebrate your next birthday or Christmas at home again, so make that Skype call when you have the chance.

I first contracted the travel bug in 2002 when I lived with a “Tica” (Costa Rican) family for a two-week Spanish language exchange. Since then, I’ve climbed Machu Picchu, sandboarded the Chilean Atacama desert, dove into hot baths near the Bolivian salt flats, ate juicy steaks and gulped fine wine in Argentina and most recently, this summer, snapped pictures of military officials as a human rights observer, paraglided and couch-surfed throughout Mexico.

In Mexico, somehow the swine flu, corrupt officials and drug lords left me alone. Rather, I found myself immersed in the culture’s patience, humility, generosity and infectious sense of humor.

“We’re a culture looking for yin and yang,” said Efrain Gutierrez, a Master of Public Administration (MPA) student and Mexican native, who worked at the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara for several years, teaching Mexican culture to American officials. “[We] Mexicans will laugh off our problems.”

Even when Mexicans have little, they’ll offer everything with generosity and open arms. This happened when I lived with an autonomous indigenous community in Michoacan, learned local slang in Taxco, crashed at a musician’s home in Mexico City and studied and paraglided in Valle de Bravo.

But that doesn’t mean I was always safe, either. In Guadalajara, a visit to the U.S. Consulate to replace my stolen passport turned into a two-hour affair and interrogation.

“Your signature looks quite different now than before, so I’m going to ask you some questions,” the console said. “Where did you travel in 2002?”

“Um … Chile? No … Mexico?” I asked.

She looked at me suspiciously and responded, “No, actually it was Costa Rica.” I swallowed the lump in my throat as the interrogation continued.

“Who was your emergency contact in 2002?” she asked.

“Well, if it wasn’t my mother, it was my grandmother,” I said.

“No, actually, it was a man,” she said.

Eureka — “The ex,” I said, chuckling nervously and fidgeting after the two-hour errand.

A half-hour errand in the United States is a two-hour adventure in Mexico, said one local amigo. Mexicans live in the present, Gutierrez explained. It’s carpe diem, live for today, which is why people understand when you’re late.

In Mexico, you also learn how to say no without saying no, and that yes really means maybe, and that maybe can mean yes or no. You learn the nuances of dark and sexual humor, ironies, intricacies and flexible deadlines.

“We can say one thing but mean another. That drives Americans nuts,” Gutierrez said. “The language for Mexicans is neutral territory. The word ‘no’ doesn’t exist.”

In addition, the gap between the rich and poor — the difference between living with MTV, iPods and Hondas versus the 40 million Mexicans who live off of $2-a-day, starving wages without access to education and running water — drives Gutierrez nuts, he said.

“When I think about Mexican culture, I think of lots of colors: the market, the foods, the intensity,” Gutierrez said. “We find comfort in small things.”

I also found such comfort upon visiting a local farmer’s market in Mexico City with Hector, a street kid I met selling goods on a corner blanket. I thought about the intricacies of the commodities; it was like taking a trip to a swap meet, dollar store and butcher shop all in one. Piñatas, tennis shoes, seafood, papayas, bell peppers, cabbage, toilet paper — you name it, it’s there.

Hector was my tour guide for the day as he sported a Stuart Little shirt and munched on elote (corn) with cream smothered around his chubby cheeks. He frequently busted a move to mariachi and duranguense music around the block as he greeted his friends.

Even as I interacted with this 10-year-old who adopted parts of our own U.S. culture, I realized that my MPA quantitative toolbox could hardly quantify the benefits or the outcomes of such relationships, and that living abroad was worth the risk.

So if the swine flu doesn’t bite you and the drug lords leave you in peace, raise your mugs, say salud to your Mexican cuates (pals), blog about your unforgettable experience and buy your next ticket bound beyond the border.

Reach reporter Marissa Beach at lifestyles@dailyuw.com.