End Of The PRI in Oaxaca

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Upside Down World has an article by a local writer summarizing the end of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico for 70 years) in Oaxaca and the inauguration of the new governor.

The writer describes the ceremony on December 1…the beginning of the new administration:

In the afternoon ceremony in the former government palace, Cue introduced his cabinet; indigenous groups offered a symbolic cleansing (which might apply to the building as well, since Cue has declared he will re-open it for Executive business); conch shells called fifteen ethnic groups of Oaxaca to give and receive symbolic batons of office; marches and street parties enlivened Oaxaca City. Rigoberto Menchú attended the event to sign an agreement between Oaxaca and Menchú’s environmental foundation. The Teachers Social Movement and the APPO (Asamblea Popular Pueblo de Oaxaca) mobilized 60,000 teachers who jammed the zócalo. Azael Santiago Chepi, Secretary General of the Education Workers union Section 22 stated: “Ruiz practiced the politics of terror and persecution and will go down in history as an incompetent who refused to hear the people…the teachers union is prepared to work with the new administration on all issues….” Punishment of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO) was demanded, again.

A friend who watched the march arrive in the Zocalo described a crowd that was impossible to walk through. Then by the middle of the afternoon the crowd emptied leaving the Zocalo nearly empty.

However by 5pm, when I arrived, a humongous stage had been erected in front of the cathedral and another different crowd was entertained by a famous Mexican singer and a Columbian (??) band. The Zocalo had been cordoned off on the north side in front of the stage so access was limited to the south end…unless you wanted to maneuver through thousands of people in front of the stage. I sat at one of the few remaining restaurant tables at the end nearest the rear of the stage. I was the only gringo in the zocalo that I could see.

The new Governor spoke about an hour…of course I couldn’t understand much of it. I hope there weren’t too many promises. The fireworks were good. I left about 11pm for the walk back to my apartment…with the music still playing.

This time it was the middle middle class. Not the fancy dressed upper-middle and upper classes…who I assume would have probably been aligned with the PRI. The people have cautious hope in a governor reputed to be honest and with the best intentions. I felt cautious too. We in the north were once excited about a new president too.

To Oaxaca! Whew! Done!

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I waited until the day we left for Queretaro to call and tell my friend Patsy (we go waaayyy back) that we had changed our itinerary and would be seeing her that evening. What fun! It had been three years since I had seen her and Jose…in fact since June 13, 2006 when they drove into Oaxaca the night the municipal police tried to tear gas the striking teachers out of the zocalo. Haven’t seen her in Oaxaca since!

After she and Jose married in Oregon five years ago, they moved to Mexico so they could be near Jose’s aging mother after so many years working up north. A trained ESL teacher, they survive on what she makes teaching English in her home (cracker boxes are thanks to low-income housing by ex President Vicente Fox) and Jose’s meager computerized and complex mechanic work. Even though born of Mexican parents in San Francisco CA, Patsy feels isolated and lonely in this new country, she says. Interesting…

Parked the car in her fenced yard…in the care of her dog…and got a nice hotel in downtown San Juan del Rio. Drinks and dinner on me. My great pleasure. And I unloaded a few treasured magazines and books for Patsy.

The next morning after breakfast and coffee, Patty and Jose led us out to the toll road toward Mexico City so we wouldn’t have to use my GPS like we did during a Saturday fiesta day on the way in. Grrrrr. A brand new toll road cuts off after a few miles, however, toward Pueblo where we could then go on to Oaxaca. Open about a year. So we didn’t have to traverse Mexico City which can be crazy even on a Sunday. Cars are only allowed in the city on alternate days with licenses that end with even/odd numbers and we didn’t know which day was which…so the new Puebla toll road…as expensive as it was…about $30…was worth every penny.

Incidently, drivers are completely covered by Mexican insurance on the divided toll roads. Just keep your pay stub. Some are federally owned and some are owned by private corporations which are fenced to keep the animals out. A solar powered phone can be accessed every few meters from which a call to the Green Angels will bring out an ambulance and trained medical personnel. Or a mechanic. Repairs and replacement parts are free. A totaled car is replaced. A medical facility at the end of the toll will provide intermediate emergency care until transport to a nearby hospital. Now, why can’t the U.S. do this if Mexico can!?

A Damn Long Drive

Posted on by Laughingnomad

From Oregon to Oaxaca Mexico! And all that worry for nothing! We’ve been reading too many newspaper articles up north. Flew through the Nogales border and down highway 15…no stops…no searches…no dogs…no federales to bribe…or narcos dressed like federales…no banditos!

No cars pulled off the toll road and set afire by narcos trying to block the police like happened at Loredo a few months ago. 18 of them! I made the mistake of telling my son about it…which disappointingly resulted in his reneging on a promise to give me his VW Taureg!

At the 22km mark got my $36 car permit good for the duration of my FM3 visa (one year) with no trouble. It renews automatically when I renew my visa. Good thing for plastic. Cash would have required a $400 deposit for a new Nissan Xterra to ensure no resale in Mexico and it’s return back across the border. (Some day) Sure wouldn’t want to take a sale from a Mexican auto dealer.

Nearly three weeks in Las Vegas with my oldest son Greg and his sweet Yellow Lab was a joy. He has to be kissing you and in your lap constantly…the Lab…not Greg! My early rising habit came in handy…I made coffee every morning for Greg before he joined another doctor and some others for a 7am workout with an ex Navy Seal. Then it was my job to rub on the Icy Hot and Peppermint Oil. I made Pork with Green Salsa and lasagna for his freezer. Maybe he’ll let me come back some time! Weather was great! Sat out by the pool with my computer every day. “You’re darker,” my friends here are saying. Good. Need that vitamin D!

I had picked up a friend near Palm Springs to ride down with me and as we approached Mazatlan we made a last minute decision to drive over to Lake Chapala. Expat City. Don’t even have to meet any Mexicans…

Spent the night in a very clean luxurious “love motel” in Guadalajara for $20…a “hot pillow” motel my friend called it. We confused the heck out of the maids when we asked for two rooms! Pulled the car through a narrow curving driveway and maneuvered under the room behind a metal door. Then up the stairs…never to be seen by anyone who might tell…

One wall full of mirrors. Vibrating king-sized bed. Porn on the TV. Bathroom two steps up…condoms and lubricants at the ready. Glass-walled shower allowed a view from the room below. You could order all sorts of toys, more condoms?? and viagra…that would be whirled around through the wall in a metal contraption that kept the maid from seeing anything. What a waste on me, I thought!

The next day we managed to make our way into the old silver mining town of Guanajuato without getting lost among all the canyon tunnels. Here is a video of one such tunnel.

The city is much bigger than I remembered from a visit many years ago. There are several colleges here and on a week day the streets were crammed with “kids.” Our beautiful old colonial hotel was also crammed with kids who kept us awake all night. Arghhh.

There are tunnel “raves” with electronic music held every year here. Incidentally, these are common in New York City and all over Europe. One of my couchsurfers from Berlin recently told me about A Love Parade rave in a tunnel in Duisberg Germany in July 2010 that ended in tragedy when the crowd stampeded and 21 were left dead and hundreds injured. That annual Love Parade, which started in Berlin, was permanently canceled. Below is a video of one in Guanajuato.

Visited Diego Rivera’s home which is now a museum…and of course the Mummies of Guanajuato. About a hundred naturally mummified bodies were found interred during a cholera outbreak in 1833. Horribly, you can tell some of them were accidentally buried alive. They were disinterred between 1865 and 1958, when few relatives could pay a tax in order to keep the bodies in the cemetery. They are so popular with tourists that the city has built a beautiful new museum to hold them…open about a year.

Well, that’s Guanajuato. It was my second city of choice when I moved to Mexico in 2006. Next stop, San Juan del Rio…just south of Queretaro.

Self Censuring

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I moved to Oaxaca City in 2006 to find 70,000 of the state’s teachers striking in the Centro. They had been striking every year for more than 20 years to gain a minimum of educational standards for a state with 16 indigenous groups living in the mountains…all with their own languages.

The strike gained scores of supporters, including human rights activists and civil organizations and this time it lasted 7 months before it was put down by thousands of federal riot control troops. It left more than 20 dead, including an American independent journalist and hundreds more beaten and/or incarcerated or disappeared. No one has been convicted of any of it.

I reported on much of this in this blog, thinking, like many other expats living there, that helping shine the light internationally on unlawful acts by the authorities, would help protect the innocent. I am not so sure any more because the impunity of the authorities has been escalating. The most recent incident is the killing of a Finnish human rights worker along with two Trique leaders as he accompanied a caravan bringing food and water from Mexico City to a barricaded Trique community. Repeated inquiries by the Finnish parents, the European Union and even the UN has not resulted in justice.

However, it is also unlawful in Mexico for foreigners to “interfere” in Mexican national politics and the authorities are free at any time to define what constitutes “interference.” The authorities can arrest or deport (or more) any foreigner on the spot and it has been done.

So when I return to Oaxaca, I will not be reporting on my blog on activities that I feel could be interpreted as “interference.”

However there are reputable blogs reporting breaking events in Latin America, including Oaxaca. Two of these are Upside Down World and Narco News.com with 450 co-publishers reporting.

Bunkered In Las Vegas

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Looks like another week holed up with my son, Greg, and my favorite sweet golden laborador, in Las Vegas. If Las Vegas is invaded I am quite certain I will survive. 🙂

I am cooking for the freezer as is usual when I visit him. Split pea soup with ham hocks, lasagna, Oaxacan pork ribs in salsa verde.

Greg has offered to take me to the Cirque du Soleil “Elvis” but just can’t bring myself to watch this dog and pony show of my old raunchy 7th grade love.

I am missing the Day Of The Dead in Oaxaca. I would definitely prefer to celebrate the dead there than to watch the dying off political process in the U.S. of A.

Sigh…

Freedom Country

Posted on by Laughingnomad

From Klamath Falls I cross the California border…past the WWII Japanese Internment camp at Newell near Tule Lake…euphemistically called the Tule Lake War Relocation Center…and head south toward Reno Nevada.

I have a blown-up photo of my father herding sheep on the Liskey Ranch on the drained tule lake beds. (tules are plants that grow in water.) In fact, when my father died, it was the lead article on the front page of the Tule Lake newspaper, which at the time was surprising to me. I hadn’t realized what he stood for in Freedom Country.

North and south of this border is the ORCAL (Oregon/California) freedom country where, as a little girl…my father’s shadow…I grew up listening to my father rant on his rounds of visits with his farmer friends about the government, the trilateral commission and the Federal Reserve and all other forms of perceived intrusion of the government in their lives. My father would get far-right mailings from far-right organizations that my mother wouldn’t let in her house…making him read them outside on the porch. He used to declare that if the govmt ever showed up at his house he would blow them away with his hunting rifle. Such was and is the mentality of these 19th Century land settlers and their descendants.

Fast forward to the near-end of the Bush-Cheney presidency. Thousands of farmers in the Klamath Basin Irrigation District (of which my father once was president at a time when they were letting excess water flow into the sea rather than let California have any of it) were struggling to keep their crops from turning to dust in a recent drought.

As growers were counting on a century-old complex of dams and canals to irrigate 400,000 square miles of potato and alfalfa and grazing range from water in the nearby Lower Klamath Lake, the Bureau of Reclamation was getting ready to shut down the water gates. Federal biologists announced that the Endangered Species Act had determined that diverting the water from Lower Klamath Lake to the Tule Lake farmland was necessary to save the lives of 3 endangered species of fish…the Shortnose Suckers, Lost River Suckers and the Coho Salmon….at least one of which was the fish that the Klamath Indians had fished for centuries. This was just the kind of thing that drove so many western farmers around the bend.

But I wonder now what my father would think about water being diverted from Klamath County Oregon to Tule Lake California.

My own opinion, at the time, was that, in the first place, all this was the result of draining Tule Lake to create more farm land with no assurance of an adequate future source of water. Mess with mother nature and this what you get.

In the meantime, I was not surprised to learn that protests against the federal water cut-off were edging toward violence. Farmers and their families organized a symbolic bucket brigade of 18,000 men and women on May 7, 2001, then staged raids in June and July, using blow torches and chain saw to open irrigation gate that the Bureau of Reclamation had welded shut. Some of them clashed with U.S. marshals who were called out when local law enforcement officers refused to intervene. One group of protesters formed a mounted cavalry, organizing a Klamath T Party of civil disobedience.

Anti-government activists from out of state, including militia activists from Montana, Michigan, Idaho and Nevada, gathered in August for a Freedom Day demonstration at Klamath Falls. You had farmers sitting in front of the locks. It was an emotionally charged and potentially explosive situation.

Vice President Dick Cheney asked the interior department to convene a God Squad. The Republicans had lost Oregon by only one half of one percent in the prior election in 2000 and all they needed for a Republican win in 2008 was a draw that pitted one group of scientists against another. Cheney’s shadow government was not looking for answers as to how the fish could be saved and the farmers still get water. This was not about fish. It was about politics.

So with plenty of television coverage the headgate was opened as farmers chanted, Let the water flow!

In late September 2002, the first of an estimated 77 thousand dead salmon began washing up on the banks of the Klamath River where it passed through Yurok tribal lands. The threatened Cohos were dying but in even larger numbers were Chinook salmon which was the staple of commercial fishing in northern California.

So, on my way to Vegas, I wasn’t surprised to see this archway with the word Freedom at the head of a dirt road leading into one of the ranches.

My iPhone google maps gets me around Reno to highway 95 to Las Vegas. Then no service appears on my phone as I drive through the seemingly unending Nevada desert. At dark, I stop in Tonapah to spend the night in a $38 with senior discount trucker motel with free WiFi where I let my son in Las Vegas know where I am via email.

The next morning I drive up to a Mexican dive for breakfast. An old guy was sitting on the sidewalk in front of the car. As I walked past him, he says I am from a good state.

McDonald’s Waitress Makes My Day

Posted on by Laughingnomad

No wonder there are so many “old people” at McDonalds! A $1.00 coffee is only 69 cents for seniors! The waitress looks up and says, you aren’t a senior are you? I say yes, 66. She says, really! Maybe just my granma looks old!

A guy next to me starts bantering with her. We went to circus school in Italy together, he says. Cirque du Soleil! So much for Klamath Falls being Red Neck! 🙂 My son, Greg, is taking me to see the Elvis Cirque when I get to Las Vegas. The Beatles Cirque last year was outstanding! Almost unbelievable!

George and Jan took off this morning for Eugene…just to see a football game! Back at McDonalds…WiFi and listening to NPR…discouraging news but the station redeems itself with enlivening world music.

Now killing time waiting for an old high school classmate to get into town tonight. What to do? My choices seem to be a walk along the river, the county museum or the Indian Museum.

A few years ago at the County Museum, I found an article in an old newspaper with a picture of the Winema Riverboat that carried my paternal grandparents across Klamath River into Klamath Falls in 1906….that is after coming out west from Kansas on a “citizen train” to Dunsmuir CA (the end of the railroad at that time) where they climbed aboard a stagecoach to meet the Riverboat.

My aunt Mary was a little girl at the time…my father still in utero…has always talked about the ferry turning over on the way. I’ll be darned if I didn’t find a news article about that accident too!

But that wasn’t the end of the trip. A horse and buggy carried them another 40 miles to Malin…a whole Czech settlement that moved out together from the midwest because of the promise of plentiful irrigation water and where my father (Cecil) grew up being called “cecelic,” or some such spelling for some kind of little animal because my father was small. As a small girl I loved those Czech people who delighted in children and always made me feel liked and cared for. Well, the Irish sheepherder friends of my father did too…entertaining me no end with leprechuan stories.

Sometime before I kick the bucket I am going to have to lug all the Indian artifacts to the Indian Museum and give them back to the Klamath Indian tribe. Hundreds of pounds of pestles and bowls were plowed up over the years by my father on the property…Big Springs Ranch… which was years before a Klamath Indian encampment. Huge beautiful springs ran through it feeding the nearby Lost River…my childhood playground where I pretended I was an Indian Maiden like the ones I saw in John Wayne movies. Sometimes I would be a stealthy Indian tracker. Heck with the cowboys!

Oh dear, look what happens when I have time on my hands…

So I begin skype-chatting with a Thai friend in Bangkok.

A Conversation While Using McDonald’s WiFi In Klamath Falls

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I’m back at McDonalds…pretty good latte here…cheaper than Starbucks. I’m sitting in my car using their free WiFi when a bent-over older (old sounds unkind) fellow appears at my open car window which is apparently an invitation for conversation.

Watcha doin’? Studyin’?

You like this car? Big tires. You get better gas mileage with bigger tires. I say gas is expensive here…$2.99 to 3.07. Yeah, he says, they’re all crooks. Doesn’t cost that much to get gas in here. They’re all crooks.

You know what the fellow up there says? There are no pockets up there. No money. He (I assume he means God) doesn’t like his name on money. No pockets up there. His name on money comes from some European country. No pockets up there and we will find that out. Yep.

I don’t know what else to say. Ok, he says, pointing to the birds all over the parking lot, I gotta go feed the pigeons.

Bet McDonalds loves that.

Klamath Falls is turning out to be just as, if not more, interesting than many other places in the world I have been.

Gone Huntin’ In Klamath Falls

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After 7 weeks in Salem Oregon taking care of a lot of unfinished business and spending time with my son Doug, who will be returning soon to Thailand to join his Thai wife, I am finally on my way back to Oaxaca in my new car loaded with stuff.

First stop. Klamath Falls in rural SE Oregon. I grew up 50 miles from here on a sheep ranch just outside of Bonanza (little more than 300 people) and attended junior high and high school in Klamath. Bea and Sal are gone now, but I am visiting with what’s left of my second family that I lived with during high school.

Red Neck country for sure. Of course I didn’t think that when I lived here. Hunting with my dad in the fall was something to look forward to after a summer of haying and irrigating 10 hours a day. He used me to flush the brush in the draw while he stood watch on the ridge. Sleeping out under the stars at night under only a blanket. We’d laugh at the city folk all dressed up in fancy orange gear lugging their sleeping bags, lanterns, cook stoves and such. Lambing time wouldn’t come until February. It is fall now and many businesses are closed with Gone Huntin’ signs on the doors.

I also didn’t notice the neighborly generosity when I lived here. I guess because I was used to it. My mom would trade eggs for ice-cream from the milk man. She was always taking cuttings of her plants and giving them away to anyone who visited.

George makes chorizo and salsa and gives it out to his appreciative co-workers at the lumber company where he works nights maintaining the machinery. His next door neighbor brought over fresh home-grown peppers and tomatoes yesterday. At Christmas, George grinds and cooks his own corn for masa for tamales like his Mexican dad always did…continuing a generational ritual. He will give away most of those too.
George gives me a bag of beef jerky for my trip south. George would give you the shirt off his back.

Last night, after a high school football game (football is endemic here), and while George was at work, his wife Jan, his daughter Melina and her husband and his parents and their twin 17 year old boys and their 20 year old daughter (my god where has the time gone… Melina is the same age as my oldest son…43!) and I gathered at Wubba’s BBQ rustic rib joint for dinner to celebrate Melina’s husband’s birthday.

I was the first one to arrive at the restaurant, so I had waited on a bench by the door…perusing my iPhone for emails. When Melina entered I jumped up to hug her leaving my iPhone on the bench. I was already seated when this young guy comes over to my table. Do I know you, I thought. Then I saw he was holding out the iPhone.

It has been a few years since I have seen Melina’s kids so she re-introduces me to them. Remember Eunice? Then she says I used to live with her dad! Everyone’s mouth drops open. She clears it up. “When Eunice was living with dad and his family when they were in high school,” she says laughing.

The 20 year old daughter squeals with excitement about moving into her own apartment with a friend. Almost everything they need has been given to them but they still need a few things, one of which was a microwave. People are often loud here and the daughter is so loud she could be overheard by those at nearby tables. I had been noticing a big guy with a face so work-dirty it was nearly black in a nearby booth. Suddenly the daughter and Melina’s husband disappear…coming back to announce that the guy with a dirty face had given her a small microwave that wouldn’t fit into the space for it in his work truck. He GAVE it to her. He didn’t ask to sell it to her. It was nearly new.

This morning I am sitting in my car at McDonalds using the only free WiFi I can find in Klamath…of course after having coffee (coffee is surprisingly good at McDonalds) and a Egg McMuffin. An older guy walks by my open window and notices my computer propped up against the steering wheel. He looks at the computer screen showing Amazon.com. He asks who I’m chatting with. Then he announces that he caught his wife talking to these guys on internet chat in kind of a “personal” way. Then he tells me that sometimes he sees naked girls whirling around on his screen. But his wife, he says, tore up his Playboy. I laugh…and he laughs and he moves on into McDonalds.

I’m here several hours (Jan is at work and George is sleeping) when I realize I am hungry again. A young kid with tattoos and a baseball cap comes out of McDonalds and holds up a bag with two chicken sandwiches. For you, he says. I am speechless as I gratefully take them with a big smile. I have no idea why he gave them to me.

What is this? Off the beaten track, Klamath County is one of the most economically depressed counties in Oregon. Gas is 2.99 a gallon here. Jobless numbers exceed national and state figures. Maybe they realize they are all in this together and they have to help each other out. Or maybe they were just always this way…

I Hope I Never Have To Buy A Car Again

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Colorful indigenous mountain villages are wonderful to visit in Oaxaca. Having had an older SUV there for a year in 2007, I drove it back to the states where my son killed it…an oil leak in the motor.

But, missing Oaxaca, I moved back down again. Then the options were frightening chicken buses that often go over the brink…the gory details in the back of every newspaper. Or colectivos…shared taxis piled with as many bodies as would fit…often with a small child who would upchuck around the curves. No potty stops…no photo stops. I would often wish I could explain to the drivers how to take a corner…slow down… and then about 2/3 of the way into it step on the accelerator which picks up the car and helps keep nine bodies from ending up in what’s left of each others’ laps….back and forth…constant low-level nausea. It offers up a story or two for your friends but it gets old fast.

So. I flew back to Oregon to buy a mountain car and bring back some more of my stuff. My 23 inch computer monitor for watching movies (I don’t have a TV), hand mixer, food mill, a small microwave with English language controls, real maple syrup, pourable salt, Krusteaz mix, corn meal, (can you believe that with all the corn in Oaxaca you can’t get the kind of corn meal to make corn bread), spices and some favorite kitchen ware. You know the stuff.

I decided on the Nissan Xterra. I requested estimates on the internet and then followed up in person. I had a limit and let them know, but they will tell you anything just to get you on the lot.

First lot…Gladstone in Portland Oregon…called the internet contact and asked for an appointment. Oh, yes, I’ll be here she says. NOT!!! Got there and she hid in her office…sending out another salesman to deal with me. I showed him the email with her offer. Conference ensued between manager and 4 other people. Oh, that was a typo in the email they said. Riiight!

Walked out and called Wilsonville. Told them my limit. Salesman confers with his manager. Comes back to the phone and tells me they have a demonstrator with low mileage for well below my limit. Go to the Wilsonville lot. Oh, we can’t possibly sell it for that! The salesman was new and didn’t know what he was doing! Riiiight!

I call Hillsboro who had a basic model for well below my limit. I call McMinnville who had one Xterra S with big tires. Ohhh, damn. Should have gone to Hillsboro first. I wanted the S. Told the salesman what the other two lots did to me. He said, oh, are they still doing that? That’s what they used to do in the 60’s! Sold it to me for my limit. But no car manual in the car and had to go back to McMinnville a week later to pick up a copy they ordered specially. They promised an extradited car title. It’s been over a month and I have yet to get it. Oh, well.

My first and last auto purchase…I hope!