Mexico City

Oaxacan countryside

Just got back from bumping around the dirt roads of Oaxaca's Valle Central. The Civic performed admirably in the mud and potholes, although the beautiful wash-and-wax job I got in Guadalajara has faded into memory. Oh, and not to mention the "sellado" stickers and spray-on windshield numbers that my car attracted during its brief stay in the towing yard ... but we won't dwell on that.

The drive was flat-out amazing. Guys were using everything from hoes to oxen to tractors to get the crops planted out here in the Oaxacan breadbasket (tortilla-basket?). Everyone was very friendly, except for the one store owner who thought I was crazy to suggest that she could do a lot more business if she dealt in money transfers. "Demasiado complicado," she kept saying. I'm sure she's right, but it's a bit disheartening since that's what our project is focused on at the moment.

The highlight of the trip definitely had to be La Trinidad de Zaachila, a town so small I almost passed it up completely (it looked out-of-business). But once I got inside to the main plaza and started chatting up the locals in front of the municipal offices, the mayor came out to answer my questions about banking and telecommunications. Turns out they've got an Internet center, and it just happened to be an unsecured wireless network so I could discreetely check my e-mail from my car, parked next to the chickens.

Arrival in Oaxaca

Oaxaca was the place I stayed when I first came to Mexico six years ago. After six years of experience living in and studying Mexico, I can appreciate this town far better than I could before. The high density of gringos still irks me, and I can tell it bothers some other gringos, too. Americans come here for the "authentic" Mexican experience, and we're annoyed at each other for ruining the illusion that Oaxaca is somehow set apart from the 21st century.

Things have changed, but mostly they've stayed the same. Apparently the town has become even more of a cultural magnet than it was before. I'm writing this in a wireless Internet cafe which is part of a complex of art and artesania galleries surrounding a courtyard alta cocina Mexicana restaurant. I just had the best salad I've ever eaten in Mexico.

Sunday and today have been spent looking for apartments. We're hoping to find a place with a good shared space for the four of us to work on the project between expeditions. Tomorrow we take our first mapping trip to the southern valley towns of Ocotlan and Zimatlan, both of which send hundreds of migrants to San Diego.

 

A year later

I'm back in Mexico City after a year's absence and somehow, incredibly, I find myself at the Hotel Nikko. You could fit the place I stayed in last year into the bathroom of the room I'm in now.

In brief, this summer in Mexico is part of a research project surveying rural folk about their use of telecommunications and financial services, which we're assuming basically involves calling family in the States and receiving money from them. Qualcomm's providing some of the funding, which means we're looking for ways to improve rural services using wireless technology, and also explains why I'm writing this blog entry from a top-notch business hotel. The irony of discussing poverty alleviation with guys in expensive suits in a place like this does not escape me.

It was decided that our research would be greatly aided by having a car, and since renting is ridiculously expensive in Mexico,  I've set off on a 5,000-mile road trip in my Civic. Contrary to popular belief that you can't survive Mexican roads in anything but a beat-up pickup truck, I've had no problems at all. One brief encounter with the police involved them pulling me over for going the wrong way down a small one-way street. They let me off with a warning to be more careful. Duly noted.

Yelapa

My old buddy Shawn and I went to Puerto Vallarta for my weeklong birthday party. Vallarta was fun, but Yelapa was enchanting. It's a small village on the mainland 40 minutes by boat from PV but near-impassable mountains mean that there is no road access ... thus no cars. If you've never been to a town without cars, I highly recommend it. There's hardly any noise, toddlers wander around safely in the streets ... and so do the tourists. Todo tranquilo. You eat passion fruit from the tree next to your grass shack. If lying on the beach sipping Pacificos gets boring, you can jump on a horse and head out into the mountains to swim in the waterfalls.

Just two days there made me realize that deep down I'm still a country boy from my days growing up in rural Sonoma County. I made several friends while I was in Yelapa, and promised them I'd be back after I finish my degree and spend the holidays with the family. Not only would some time there be great for my mental and physical health, but the town is a fascinating model for economic development. Yelapa has a very attractive and sustainable rural economy, but with the addition of tourist dollars, electricity and the Internet that give the place much of the comforts of modern life. It's like the 18th century meeting the 21st, skipping all the nasty factories and internal combustion engines that make places like LA and Mexico City so unpleasant to live in.

More on all this later, now I've got to get to work on finishing that degree. But I've got the equivalent of 8,000 more words (1 picture=1,000 words) in the photo album over there on the left-hand column.

Curbside History Lesson

A great 24 hours. Yesterday I had a very successful interview over lunch, then went to an early-evening party where, again, foreigners and Mexicans mixed seamlessly. I saw Pedro, who used to work at the News with me, and we rapped about NAFTA for a good long time.
Then today I was walking down Reforma to the Internet café when I saw a guy on the sidewalk selling a bunch of old photos, mostly of the Mexican Revolution. All the classics were there, like Zapata posing in what was later to become the standard mariachi suit, Pancho Villa in the presidential chair, etc. So Don Ricardo, the 70-year-old photo vendor, and I started talking Mexican history, each trying to outdo each other. I started mentioning all the Revolutionary presidents, and then he outbid me by naming every president from Benito Juarez (1860s) to the present. Soon we were surrounded by a bunch of guys in cowboy hats who were following along as we jumped from photo to photo, with Don Ricardo showing us shots of generals and ministers whom I'd never heard of before. I then looked down the street, which was filled with farmers who had arrived in the capital for a protest. They were just sitting around waiting for their buses, so watching an old dude and a gringo zip along through a discussion of Mexican history was highly entertaining for them. I talked with Enrique, one of their leaders, for a while about the need for an increase in rural credit so that farmers could buy the machines necessary to compete with American agriculture.
Then I picked up a few photos, some classics and one I'd never seen before, a closeup of Zapata's dead body, held by his compadres, who are wide-eyed with sorrow. If you didn't know, Emiliano Zapata led a peasant army in the Mexican Revolution but didn't join the victorious Revolutionary leaders in forming a government. The new government arranged for talks with Zapata about a truce, which was merely a pretext to assassinate him.

Lo Bueno, Lo Malo, y Lo Feo

Just a few observations from around town. One part good, one part bad, and one part ugly: mix 'em up to make the Mexico City cocktail.

Fresh sliced mango with chile and lime, purchased from a street vendor on Insurgentes.  A great breakfast when on the run, the kind of thing that makes everything seem cheery and bright in Mexico City, until I see the pickup truck full of cops with M-16 assault rifles pass by.

The hermeroteca at the National Autonomous University has a fantastic collection of newspapers going back a century, but it closed without warning on Monday for summer vacation. It's a huge setback for my research plans.

The metro is inexplicably clean, cheap, and efficient. It makes you wonder why everything else in Mexico isn't the same.

Excellent chorizo and potato tacos for under 4 pesos. No complaints there. (11 pesos to the dollar, and rising)

Internet cafes with new machines and fast connections for 15 pesos an hour, plus calls to the States for 2 pesos/minute. Three years ago the prices were double that. The best deal is the one in the Zona Rosa where the table dancers come to call home to Slovakia.

The "gringo prices." Gringos do get ripped off sometimes, so even when you negotiate the price of something in decent Spanish, you've still got the sneaking suspicion that you've been had. But hey, Mexicans get a raw deal in the States, so I guess it's only fair.

Feel like playing a mix of Los Tigres del Norte, Nirvana, Vicente Fernandez and the Beatles while you shoot pool? Just about any jukebox in central D.F. carries all of those bands. Gotta love globalization, folks, or else you'll be pissed off all the time down here.

Coyoacan, the West Coast of Mexico City. Cuban fresh ground coffee, the Ghandi bookstore, playhouses, and almost as many Frida Kahlo posters as you'll find in San Francisco.

I'm always stunned by the occasional horse-drawn cart you'll see passing a steel-and-glass skyscraper.

You can have a truly excellent meal for under US$20, but you might lose your appetite when you realize that money could keep a poor Mexican family fed for a week.

 

Photos June 28-July 11

Photos of my neighborhood:
http://docedemayo.typepad.com/photos/strolling_in_the_df/

Photos of the megamarch:
http://docedemayo.typepad.com/photos/zocalo_culture/

Barrio pix, Frida, Coyacan

July 11 2004
The weather was perfect yesterday. Most days here during the rainy season are fairly overcast, but Saturday was clear and blue; I could see the green mountains circling the city from the roof of my hostel. So it was a photo day, check these out:

http://docedemayo.typepad.com/photos/strolling_in_the_df/

My neighborhood is close to the Centro Historico, so there are plenty of tree-lined streets, Euro-style parks and 19th century houses mixed in among the typical DF concrete crap. It’s got everything one could ask for within a few blocks: good cheap restaurants, taquerías, tarot reading, pirated movies, Internet cafes, etc. It’s right by the Monumento de la Revolución and the Revolución metro stop, so the old revolutionary PRI institutions like the Worker´s Bank and the Mexican Workers’ Confederation are headquartered here.

After the photos it was off to Coyoacan with Jackie, who is staying at the hostel while she researches the history of indigenous migration from Veracruz to Chicago. We shopped for a bit at the hippie market and passed up most of the wares, which were mostly incense and Bob Marley T-shirts. I did, however, pick up a Cruz Azul soccer team button, two wrestling masks and a couple of Dia de los Muertos skeletons Don’t know what I’ll do with them but they do add character to my monkish room at the hostel.

Jackie wanted to see Frida Kahlo’s place, of course. It was my second time there. I had forgotten that Frida's ashes are just sitting there in her old bedroom (in an urn), so that she can gaze up at the mirror on her canopied bed for eternity. She’s such an icon, and she became one by being completely obsessed with her own reflection.

Then Los Danzantes for dinner. Nouveau Mexican cuisine. Absolutely delicious huitlacoche fondue followed by seared tuna wrapped in a leaf of hoja santa with red mole.

Una fiesta, and a party, too

July 10 2004
Party last night at Emily’s. She’s got a cool Texan housemate and a good collection of Mexican friends. I was reminded of the best aspect of my old DF parties, where Mexicans and foreigners all hang out together, switching easily between cultures and languages. Had two great conversations, one about the peculiarities of running a small business in the DF, and another about balancing Mexico’s contradictory needs for economic growth, environmental protection, and poverty alleviation.

Hora Latina

July 3 2004
I’m getting used to the hora Latina again. Mexicans are always late to social engagements, which is something I can deal with. I show up late, too, but it's almost always well before my friends arrive. As I get to know them better, I can better gauge what time to show up. For instance, I've got one friends who always at least 35 minutes late but rarely more than 45. You can almost set your watch by his tardiness. But generally I just bring the paper or my notebook to pass the time waiting.