Mexicowoods—An Expatriate Life

Viernes de Delores

Viernes de Delores

03/31/07 04:08 PM Filed in: Mexico

On my walk yesterday morning, I ran across people selling purple and white decorations for an upcoming holiday.



Others were selling wheat sprouts.



(Note that some of the plants are growing in cut off soft drink bottles, the default container in these parts. If you've got nothing else, use a plastic coke bottle.)

This woman is selling bitter oranges and herbs. All of this stuff: purple and white paper and ribbon, oranges, herbs, and wheat sprouts, has symbolic meanings.



These materials are being used to build altars for Viernes de Delores (the Friday of Our Lady of Sorrows); altars like this decorated fountain.



The holiday commemorates the Virgin Mary's sorrow at the torture and killing of Jesus—a difficult notion for me to comprehend. In San Miguel, a sculpture known as El Señor de la Columna is central to the Samana Santa events. It is one of the most horrifying images imaginable.



Altars constructed for this day often include agonized figures like this one, and grieving images of Mary.



Some memorials are very elaborate. This one, built against the wall of the Biblioteca Pública, includes a brass band playing dirges.



Families build beautiful displays and offer refreshments to those who come to view their work. This one includes a figure of Christ, jailed and guarded by two centurions.



Some altars are simply exquisite. This is a famous one, built by the family of Rubén Pérez. It is located just a few houses away from mine on Aldama. It includes precious antique figurines.



Visitors stand in front of each altar for many minutes, perhaps in prayer, perhaps meditating, or maybe just drinking in all the beauty. This one is built on the Aldama fountain, one of San Miguel's landmarks.



In general, the mood of visitors was incongruously festive. Except for a few moments in reflection followed by crossing themselves, people spent most of the time chatting with neighbors, eating paletas (popsicles) offered by their hosts while their kids ran around shouting and squealing, like kids will do on major holidays when school's out.

The altars I've shown so far are all located in wealthy neighborhoods. I felt more at home in working-class areas, where displays were more modest and welcomes were warmer.

A party rental business seems a good a place as any for an altar.



Viewings and visits went on until early the next morning.



By the end of it all, this family was dead on its feet. But they offered me a glass of orange juice with a smile.

Viernes de Delores is not really about mourning. It's a demonstration of perfect democracy, when wealthy and poor alike host one another and participate in common religious acts. It is a night when people greet one another, renew old friendships, make new ones, and revel in a powerful sense of community.

More About Handicapped Parking

More About Handicapped Parking

03/30/07 07:29 AM Filed in: Mexico

In Mexico, we have reserved parking spaces for the handicapped. We're not some uncivilized third-world country like some of y'all think. In fact, we have an easier, friendlier approach. Consider these spaces in front of the new Mega supermarket:



One of the signs looks a little different, doesn't it? Let's read the lettering.



Yes, in Mexico we respect our expecting mothers. For many people, Mexico is about having children, raising families. The Catholic Church, huge here, encourages procreation. The government is ambivalent. Families are good for the country. Children are good. Just not too many, please. But there's one absolute in this patriarchal society: a pregnant woman is a good woman, and should be given every consideration. Like her own parking spot.

In addition to disabled and pregnant people, you're allowed to use these spaces if you are a "person of the third age"; that is to say, old. I wonder, do I qualify? I get discount fares on the San Francisco Muni and reduced-price tickets at the movies. I belong to the AARP. But I don't feel old. For now, it's not an issue. I saw these reserved spaces after walking to Mega from my home—more than a mile. It's easier than driving in our horrible congestion and it's good for me, so I won't be parking there anytime soon.

This photo shows a couple of handicapped spots in an underground lot in Querétaro.



Look pretty much like those in the States, with the universal blue-and-white symbols and all. The yellow roll-away barriers are unfamiliar, though. They're there because parking enforcement is more difficult here than up north. Without computer tracking, Mexican police have to remove license plates to get violators to pay their fines.

The barriers discourage illegal parking, making the number of violations more manageable. Fewer plates to unscrew.

But, you ask, how does it help the handicapped if they have to struggle out of their cars and move a heavy steel barrier? Well, all Mexican parking lots have one or more attendants who collect fees, guide you in and out of parking spaces, sometimes even wash your car. When someone pulls up to a handicapped parking place, an attendant comes over and moves the barrier.

Back in San Francisco, I noticed signs encouraging drivers to obey the law. Signs like:

Encouragement by threatening, that's one way.

Here's another—the Mexican way:

"We respect these spaces;
Today for those guys,
Tomorrow for ourselves."

Sweet. Friendly. Fatalistic. Quintessentially Mexican.

Waterbags

Waterbags

03/29/07 08:43 AM Filed in: Mexico

My friend Paul Gross and I had just finished a couple of plates of Korean barbecued ribs at the new Asian restaurant in San Miguel. We were walking out when Paul said, "I always know when fly season starts because the water bags come out."

I said, "What?" (I'm well-known for my witty ripostes.)

Paul said, "Water bags. See? They're to keep the flies away."

Paul, stylish in sandals with socks, points out water bags.

I said, "Yeah. Right."

"No. Really. You fill plastic bags with water and hang them around the house. Then you don't get flies."

I looked more closely.

Insect repellant?

Yep. Looked like ordinary plastic bags filled with water. Not believing Paul, I asked the restaurant owner: "Are you using water bags to keep flies away?"

He said, "Yeah. See? No fly."

Hmm.

Now, what bothered me about all this is not that people believe that hanging bags full of water repels flies. We are, after all, living in San Miguel de Allende, haven of the science-impaired. No. My issue is that here we apparently have a widespread, highly visible practice of which I am totally unaware. In nearly five years, I've never noticed water bags hanging around.

I'm still not sure I believe it. Maybe Paul cooked up something with the restaurant owner. I wouldn't put it past him.

So help me out. Have any of you heard of this practice? Do people up north do it or is it just a Mexican thing? And most important, does it work?

Life in Tambaque

Life in Tambaque

03/26/07 07:59 AM Filed in: Mexico

I guess that around half of all Mexicans still live in pueblos—small villages. Undeniably, migration to the great cities—Mexico, Monterrey, Guadalajara—is taking place. And millions have emigrated to the United States. But the heart of Mexico is still rural. I'm drawn to the tiny settlements, more than the great cultural centers.

Tambaque is one such place. This is its main square.



Tough to find Tambaque on a map; it's northeast of Xilitla, if that helps.

Even a place this small has enough civic pride to erect the de rigueur monument in the square.



When you have money enough for only one monument, your choice of historical figures is limited to two. Just as you'd probably go with a statue of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln in the U. S., in Mexico it's Miguel Hidalgo or Benito Juaréz. This battered bust is of the former.

Most houses are modest. In a barter economy, there's not a lot of hard cash for manufactured building supplies.



This home doesn't have electricity, but you can see a pipe that supplies running water, a step up from the places farther from the road.

A nearby restaurant has a similar look.



The proprietor didn't fritter money away on extras like signs. It's the only restaurant for miles, so what do you need a sign for? Cooking gas is supplied from the gray bottle on the right. The place seems to have electricity, but it isn't wasted on lights. That's a galvanized washtub on the roof, keeping out the rain in the one spot that's difficult to seal with thatch.

No matter how poor a place is, children go to school. They may not be very good schools, but every child gets a more or less free education through fifth or sixth grade.



It's a little startling, amidst all that poverty, to see schoolchildren in clean, neatly pressed uniforms. Probably some of these girls' parents are illiterate. But in the new generation, literacy is essentially 100%. That bodes well for a lower birth rate, economic growth and the advance of a free, equitable society.

As in the United States sixty years ago, Mexico is becoming more urban. The pueblos are dying out.



"Welcome to San Pedro" the sign says. San Pedro is the next town down the road from Tambaque. The sign gives the population as 1500 in 1996. Someone lettered over it in 1998: 700 inhabitants. I doubt there's that many today. I wonder, do Mexicans get nostalgic for small town living?

Making a Living in Xilitla

Making a Living in Xilitla

03/25/07 07:57 AM Filed in: Mexico

Xilitla is economically undeveloped, to put it mildly. There's no industry here because transportation links are poor, there's no real skilled labor base and there's no capital. Income derives primarily from agriculture (coffee, oranges), and trade in goods and services to support farmers. There's a trickle of tourist dollars, but not enough to register on the econ-o-meter.

There's some investment in real estate.



Here's a nice little rental that brings in maybe fifty pesos per week. Plus a chicken. Small, but what a view!

Someone else is thinking a little bigger. This place is going to be a hotel.



I dunno. The best hotel in town, the eight-bedroom Posada El Castillo, looks like it gets maybe 60% occupancy, if that. And this place probably is going to have to live off the overflow from the Posada, unless they're going to try to compete on price. It's probably being financed with out-of-town money. It's hard to imagine that anyone who really knows Xilitla would attempt it.

The region does boast an extraction industry: shale quarrying.



That man in the yellow shirt is quarrying blocks of shale with a chisel and hammer. He's doing it the old-fashioned way: one rock at a time. He's one of about a dozen independent operators in or near town. He doesn't own his quarry; it's on the highway right-of-way. Property of the State. But the government likes to have him there because he's removing rock that might otherwise slide down onto the road. I'm sure he makes substantially less than $5 per day.

If you want to make the big bucks, you have to go into retail. A produce market is a good entry-level business.



This one is housed under a black plastic tarp in a space that would ordinarily be used for parking along the street. Minimal start-up costs. I'm guessing that one of the proprietor's indirect expenses involves paying "fees" to someone in city government. Every night, the owner takes down his tarp and rolls a length of chain-link fence over his vegetables. By the way, when was the last time you saw wooden vegetable crates?

Those are unusual mangos behind and just to the left of the pineapples. They are small, yellow-orange with a rose blush. You can't buy them except in eastern tropical Mexico: too delicate to ship long distances. Too sweet to miss, too, so you should come here just for a taste. This guy is selling his for about 40¢ US a pound. How you eat them is you squoosh and squoosh one with your hands until the flesh liquifies. Then you bite off the end and suck out the insides.

There may be better margins in meat. This outdoor carnicería looks like a low-investment business. Apparently Mexican meat doesn't need refrigeration.



The guy behind the table is chilling out with his newspaper. The whole operation is laid back and surprisingly wholesome-looking.

As a contrast, carnicería shown below is indoors. The owner is paying rent and you'd expect a higher class store than one located out on the street.



But you would be wrong. I wouldn't knowingly eat anything that came from this place. The tub in front of the butcher is for cooking carnitas: pig boiled in lard. I love carnitas. And since the meat is boiled for a long time at very high temperatures, it's got to be safe, right? At least I keep telling myself that. Of course, it's not safe for the arteries. My coronary arteries are cringing just looking at the tub. The butcher, you'll note, is engaged in that activity common to all of Xilitla's butchers—reading the newspaper.

Selling shoes is good. Mexicans love shoes. Every small town has several shoe stores. In cities, shoe stores are often located in the high-rent district—jammed right up against the main plaza.



You can see what the big sellers are in Xilitla: huaraches. These are less than $5 US per pair. Real leather, too! I think.

The pinnacle of retail, though, is a hardware store. Mexico is a country where people make stuff, fix stuff. They buy hardware like crazy. Hardware stores are always mobbed. Although self-serve places like Home Depot are coming into the cities, their quality and service is just as bad as in the States: cheap plated screws in bubble packs, moronic clerks that didn't make the cut at McDonalds. But in small Mexican hardware stores, the proprietor assists you, and he knows his clavos.



This hardware store offers something you won't find just anywhere: a small, industrial-grade coffee mill. We're in coffee-growing country, and small operators grow, harvest, roast and grind their own. It's really good coffee, too, judging by what I was served at Posada El Castillo.

But not everybody comes into this place to buy a coffee mill or a heavy-duty flash water heater or asphalt floor tile. So the owner of this store is hedging his bet. Those shelves in the back hold a complete selection of liquor. You can always get sales with liquor.

Hardware stores are capital-intensive businesses. You have to lock up so darn much money in inventory. For those with essentially no working capital, service businesses are the answer.



Find a wide spot on a street, make yourself a tall chair and table, sling a tarp, and you have a barber shop. This is one in a row of three barber shops. A hand painted sign on the wall says the space is reserved for the barbers: no parking, cabron. More "fees" I bet.

If all else fails, you can always be a milkman.



It's probably the only job that pays worse than quarrying shale. But hey. It's a living.

Phoning Home

Phoning Home

03/23/07 08:15 AM Filed in: Mexico

Telephoning has recently become easy in Mexico, but it wasn't always so. A shortage of lines and switch gear meant long waits to get a phone installed in your new home. Entrepreneurs made deals with Telmex officials to "buy" blocks of lines on the rare occasions that they became available, which they then sold to homeowners and businesses at a substantial markup. This of course only made the problem worse.

If you didn't have a phone or couldn't afford one, you borrowed a neighbor's phone, or you went downtown to use the Caseta Telefónica—the phone booth.

A caseta telefónica in Tancanhuitz de Santos.

Casetas provide phones for making local, long distance and international calls. "International" means "USA." It's not like campesinos have a lot of correspondents in Tokyo.

More importantly, casetas are a place where you can receive calls. Telmex, a monopoly, charges exorbitant rates, so campesinos rely on their stateside relatives to originate calls. That way, they only have to pay for booth time.

An explosion of land lines and cellular networks is reducing the need for Casetas Telefónicas. But you still see them in remote areas. For some reason, they're usually painted blue and yellow (when they're painted at all) just as tortillarías are traditionally painted green and yellow.

A typical caseta contains a row of private booths, in each of which is located what Lily Tomlin called, an instrument. You sit in a row of chairs waiting for your call. When it comes in, the attendant routes it to an instrument in a booth.

Note that in the picture above, the lady in the chair is not waiting for a call. She is selling used clothing. (After you've lived here for awhile, it all kind of makes sense.)

A caseta telefónica in Xilitla.

It all seems so inconvenient. But Mexican people tolerate inconvenience like Norteamericanos wouldn't. I saw a sign by the highway that said "Teléfono 300 Mts." It pointed to a narrow dirt path leading straight up a steep mountainside. No way to drive there; you had to walk. I don't know about you, but I'd have to be pretty desperate to walk uphill the length of three football fields, even to phone home.

Back to Nature

Back to Nature

03/22/07 07:17 AM Filed in: Mexico

I think of inland Mexico as being desert, and I think of its waterways as polluted, its highways as littered. Visiting the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve is a wonderful antidote for that kind of thinking.



This region is full of rugged mountains, tropical rainforest, rivers, lakes, caves and wildlife.

Above is a view of the peña called El Cerro de la Silleta, shot from the lookout tower in the Posada el Castillo, my hotel in Xilitla.

Jungle-clad mountains loom over settlements and roads. You can tell you're not in Indiana anymore. Sure beats looking at milo stubble poking through the snow. (A credit to Doonesbury for that one.)



The Sierra Gorda is much greener than the State of Guanajuato where I live, only a six hour drive away. Frequent mists and low clouds keep everything green and lush.



Small farmers grow bananas and coffee beneath mountain peaks. (Those are coffee trees in bloom, visible beneath the lower banana leaf.)



There's exploring to be done in these mountains, enough to keep any Sierra Club backpacker happy. When I planned this trip I had no idea. There are actual campgrounds here, and wilderness trails. Next time I'll bring hiking and camping gear.



Spelunkers travel to Mexico for caving in unexplored grottos.



On my list for a future visit are caves that are home to hundreds of green parrots, and another to hundreds of thousands of swallows.

Beautiful rivers run everywhere...



... their sources sometimes are large springs at the bases of mountains.



Above, a large volume of water flows from a hole in the rocks—an underground river rising to the surface.

These waters are clean and clear, unpolluted. Tens of thousands of people drink them every day, without the ill effects so many suffer from municipal water supplies. Fish abound. I saw a teenager with a homemade bow and arrow catch his lunch. He looked like he was fresh out of Amazonia.



Along the roads, many signs point the way to waterfalls. Others are accessible only by boat or hiking trail.

Residants of the Huasteca live in a gorgeous, unspoiled part of the world. I'd recommend to anyone that they put on their hiking boots, grab their fly rods and come enjoy the wilderness. But then, if this place were discovered, would it remain the same? Nothing this beautiful will remain secret for very long, so see it while you can.

Las Flores Silvestres

Las Flores Silvestres

03/21/07 08:22 AM Filed in: Mexico

Spring is definitely in the air, with many plants in bloom already. It's one of the benefits of living below the Tropic of Cancer. I see Billie has written a post about blooming jacarandas and more.

Along the roadsides on Mex 120 and 85, in the Sierra Gorda, wildflowers are blooming, too.





In San Miguel, wildflowers come in the rainy season, peaking in September. We don't get enough rain in the State of Guanajuato for seeds to germinate and grow in spring. We live in the rain shadow of the Sierra Gorda. Storms roll in off the Gulf of Mexico and dump their moisture on the Huasteca Potosina instead of on us.

Cultivated trees are blooming in profusion, especially coffee and orange trees. Their scent is everywhere and it is powerful. Other trees are in bloom as well.





I don't know if the pictured trees are cultivars or natives. I don't know the names of any of the wildflowers. Pathetic.

The red blossoms in the lower right photo are particularly interesting. Indigenous people harvest them to sell in the towns. Why? Are they a seasonal comestible? Brewed into some kind of tea? Or are they used in folk medicine?

One of the tree species used as living fenceposts is blooming as well.



Hanging on these plants alongside the pink blossoms are green seed pods about three inches long. This plant finds many uses in this region, so knowing its name is important. Perhaps one of you botanists know what it's called...

Visiting Huehuetlán

Visiting Huehuetlán

03/20/07 07:10 AM Filed in: Mexico

The countryside in the Huastecan Potosí is incredibly beautiful: green meadows, tropical jungle, spectacular mountains.



Nothing at all like the sere Bahío where I live.

Here in the Sierra Gorda, you occasionally see a traditionally dressed Tenek woman walking by, adding color to the scene.



This one is correctly dressed head to toe: petop, colorful caped blouse, dark, mid-calf-length skirt, huaraches and the de rigeur shoulder bag cross-stitched in authentic patterns. She is headed for the pretty little town of Huehuetlán, on foot; as was I, by car.

(I love going to places you can't google for squat. Try it. Huehuetlán. You'll get nothing useful in English, and very little in Spanish.)

—§—

Small towns don't have large budgets for monuments. But no respectable Mexican town can hold up its civic head without at least one. Huehuetlán's is a bust of Benito Juaréz.



Well, I've seen worse. The monument utterly fails to convey any sense whatever of dignity or honor, what with the cartoon-like features, the peeling paint and the outsized pedestal diminishing the bust itself. The Bela Lugosi expression doesn't help, either.

On a more positive note, Huehuetlán has a pretty central plaza and church.



When I arrived, I heard loud popular music. Something was going on. A band was playing, or so I thought.

A button box player was singing his heart out.



His suit would not have been my first choice, but his pale turquoise ostrich boots—My, my!

Several expensive video cameras were recording the performance.



I had come to Huehuetlán to explore an typical Huastecan puebla. What I found was a high-tech music video production from Mexico City.

The band was lip syncing to one of their recordings. I could hear a bass drum, but the drummer had only one trap and a cymbal. No cables connected the keyboard to an amplifier.



Only the guitar player gave any impression that he was actually grooving with the music.

The track played over and over again. Boring. Camera angles changed. When the group shots were completed, the crew moved in for closeups.



Everybody stood around a lot. I would have lost all patience before the first hour was up. These people were going to spend the entire day producing a single three-minute video.

—§—

Wandering around the plaza, I met the Morales family. When they saw my camera, they posed rather stiffly, and nothing I could say would get them to relax for a candid shot.



All three were born and raised in Huehuetlán. Artenio is mestizo; his wife, Liset, is Tenek; and the baby, Jimena, is Japanese.

That was a joke. Jimena is mestiza too, which means she will have more social acceptance and a more prosperous future than her mother. It's sad, but there it is.

Artenio works eight months a year in Nashville. He says he can earn the price of a television for a week's work there: the same TV would require three months' work in Huehuetlán. They love their home town and wish that Artenio could always be home with the family. They have no wish to emigrate to the States. Life in Huehuetlán is too good for that.

A guest worker program with a path to citizenship holds no value for Artenio. He doesn't like how Americans live. Too hurried, too stressy, too much of a rat race. What he wants is better economic opportunity in Huehuetlán. He told me if he could earn just half of what he makes in Nashville, he'd stay home.



Huehuetlán is a sweet, peaceful town. On hot days you can sit in the shade of 100-year-old laurels and look out at the spectacular Sierra Gorda. Artenio is on to something. I find myself dreaming about living here.

Coppicing in Mexico

Coppicing in Mexico

03/19/07 07:30 AM Filed in: Mexico

When I think about the Mexican countryside, environmental preservation isn't the first thing to cross my mind. In this country, you see once-pristine cenotes ringed with snack shacks and souvenir stands. This is a land where villagers take bribes to look the other way as illegal loggers cut old-growth timber in the Monarch Butterfly Preserve of Michoacan. An obscenity called Xel-Ha promotes itself as an ecological attraction, where visitors pay exorbitant fees to stomp around on coral heads and let their kids swim with captive dolphins.



And yet, serious conservation efforts are going on here. Mexico has set aside large amounts of land as Biosphere Reserves. There are reforestation projects and efforts to save wildlife such as sea turtles.

Farmers in the eastern Sierra Gorda are using a method of fencing their fields that is cheap, effective, and environmentally friendly.



They make fenceposts out of living trees. They are planted by jamming green branches into the ground in a row along the desired fence line. Farmers use species that readily sprout roots from fresh prunings. After a year in the ground, the branches develop strong enough roots that they become firmly anchored and can be used to support barbed wire.

Eventually, the fence posts sprout new branches that grow large enough to be usable as poles themselves, so the farmers harvest them, a process that can be repeated indefinitely. The technique of repeatedly cutting trees is called coppicing.



Coppicing is practiced all over the world. Talking about coppicing seems seems to be a peculiarly British activity. Google coppice and you get a whole bunch of pages from the UK offering nuanced commentary on methodology.

Rural British homeowners cultivate coppiced woodlots: ten acres provides a family with all the firewood it needs. It's the perfect pensioner's solution. He tells his wife, "Bridget, I'm going out to check on the coppice," before nipping down to the public house for a pint or two.

In the Sierra Gorda, farmers coppice fences instead of woodlots. Harvested branches are carefully stacked, ready for replanting or use in house-building.



Some cuttings are used for firewood.



Since so many households use firewood for cooking, a renewable fuel source is essential for conserving the jungle.

Some farmers, having coppiced their fences for years, have stopped pruning them and allowed them to develop into mature trees, giving roads in these parts a unique look.



Progress in caring for the environment is not as advanced in Mexico as in the United States; nor is economic progress for that matter, an impediment to conservation. Environmentalism seems to be the province of rich countries: when the basic needs of the people are met, then it becomes possible to divert funds to conservation.

I have to curb my Norteamericano judgmentalism when it comes to the condition of the Mexican countryside. After all, not so many years ago the Detroit River caught fire and large numbers of dead fish washed up on the shores of Lake Michigan. Even today, Southern California beaches are routinely closed because of pollution from sewage.

So I'm impressed when I see Mexicans, lacking wealth, using ingenuity to keep their world green.