Queretaro

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!?

Letter From An Expat With Another View of Mexico

Posted on by Laughingnomad

My Mexican-American friend moved to Mexico a few years ago while working on her husband’s papers to legalize him to work in the States…which is taking a lot of time.  This was her recent email:

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL, Vol. VII

Now, I know Why They Jump The Wall…I Wanna Jump The Wall
And  –  Yes  –  We  –  Are  –  Still  –  Here

I was just telling a friend, back in the States, how waking up here I will sometimes think to myself, as I take in my surroundings, “shit, I’m still here.”  You know those mornings, where as soon as you open your eyes, you say to yourself, “man, it sucks to be me.”  Well, yesterday was definitely one of those days.  And, unfortunately not just for myself, but also for quite a number of people in my husband’s family, namely my mom-in-law.

My husband’s brother called us about 10 a.m.  He was frantic.  Evidently, Josefina had just gotten a phone call stating that my husband had been kidnapped and they were demanding a ransom of $50,000 Pesos, or they were going to kill him!  They put some guy on the phone who told my mother-in-law he was her son.  She asked him, “son, where are you?”  This same fucking bastard responded, SOBBING, “Mother, I can’t tell you because I’m bound and they have my eyes covered.”  The so-called kidnapper got back on the phone, and she informed him that she didn’t have $50,000 Pesos.  The caller told her that if she didn’t pay the money they would murder her son.  She simply stated that would be on his conscience, and that she didn’t have that kind of money and there was nothing she could do.  He asked her again if she were going to pay the ransom.  She repeated her response to his demand.  He finally yelled at her that she was a fucking bitch and hung up!

In her hysteria she couldn’t recall our phone numbers.  She ended up calling her eldest son.  He spoke with his mother and calmed her down as best he could.

My husband is the youngest of three sons.  He has been back home here in Mexico for almost three years after an absence of almost 11.  When we first got here, in February 2006, the first thing his mother said was that she couldn’t believe her eyes that her baby was home.  She said that she never expected to see him again.  They speak or see one another on a daily basis.

My mother-in-law is 75-years-old, in failing health, and lives alone.  We live minutes from her house, but she had no idea that this was not true at that moment in time.  Put yourself in her place.  Can you even imagine getting such a phone call about a loved one, and all that you would feel, think, experience?  I can’t imagine.  I don’t even want to.

My husband spoke with the police and they say that it is a local and national epidemic: Secuestros Telefonicos.  Translation:  Telephone Kidnappings.  They usually originate in prisons in the neighboring state of Mexico, in and around Mexico City.  Our very own landlord’s mother just two weeks ago received a phone call from someone stating that they had kidnapped one of her sons.  All of her children are adults living on their own.  She deposited $15,000 Pesos in ransom money into a bank account that she was directed to, which of course was under a phony name.  Thankfully all of her children were eventually accounted for and found to be safe, and the kidnapping to be bogus.  We’re told that she and one of her daughters are showing signs of extreme mental trauma. Read More

Return To Oregon

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After a year in Oaxaca Mexico I drove through Mexico City (without getting killed) to Queretaro where my old Mexican-American friend, Patsy and her husband Jose, were waiting for me. Patsy and Jose are in Mexico trying to get legal papers for him. Jose helped me get the car repaired and repainted and then Patsy and I took off for the Texas border. We crossed at the Columbia Friendship Bridge about 30 miles west of Loredo..a great option to the Loredo crossing. New, park-like, very few cars; bright friendly border guards. Think it was built as part of the NAFTA trade agreement…

Let me tell you, Texas is a BIG state with not much to see in it! Twelve hours later we hit Las Cruces, New Mexico. Then the next day we drove another twelve hours to Las Vegas where my oldest son, Greg, was awaiting our arrival and where we lounged in comfort and convenience. When Patsy and I went to Vons, a nearby clean orderly grocery store we flew in all directions…excitedly choosing yogurt WITH NO SUGAR, blueberries, raspberries, bagels, familiar cheese! Do you feel like you just crawled out of a hole, I asked Patsy. Yes, she agreed! No in-your-face corruption (just hidden), no late-night apprehensions, arrests and killings! No bullshit bureaucracies..at least not yet.

The next day Patsy flew to Portland Oregon and I stayed behind a couple days to enjoy Greg and a casual catered buffet dinner at his home with his friends…Andy, a Mexican ex-marine from LA and his fiance…two apparently very successful female real estate developers…Las Vegas being the real estate capital of the country at the moment…and the witty gay black caterer and his partner. And Greg’s very best friend…an Iranian anesthesiologist…and his sister. Around the pool that night, after a few lemon-drop martinis, we had a very spirited conversation about immigration…the black guys providing an added dimension to the debate. And best of all, a nice long telephone call from son Josh who was traveling through western China for a few weeks to sample the Sichuan cuisine before returning to Beijing where he is the chef de cuisine at one of the restaurants in the Hilton Hotel. Meanwhile, his wife Amy visited her family in the States during a month-long break from her job as a teacher of history in the International School. The next day Greg treated me to sushi…a belated birthday and mother’s day gift. That night we enjoyed a wonderful Lebanese dinner with Greg’s Iranian friend, Bob for short, who, Greg said, had to court his wife, who he met in London, for three years…he being Iranian and she being Lebanese…before the families would agree to let them marry. Their two small lively squealing children crawled all over Uncle Greg from the moment we arrived. A truly lovely family and I feel very privileged to have met them. And told Greg he should date Bob’s beautiful sister…

The night before I left Las Vegas Greg and I were invited to the home of the sister of his latest girlfriend, Vanessa. Vanessa’s mother, a lovely woman who joined us, is Costa Rican and her father Cuban. Needless to say, Las Vegas rivals New York City in it’s diversity. The next day I drove non-stop from Vegas to Salem…from 9am to 2:30am…never again.

I enjoyed a week with my son Doug who was waiting for me at the house in Salem…before his return thursday to his wife, Luk, in Thailand. Luk and Doug’s father, who lives south of Pattaya, were to join Doug in Bangkok today. In a couple days Doug and Luk will fly down to their home overlooking the Gulf of Thailand on Ko Samui.

Now, for me, it’s back to the reality of Oregon…few people on the streets, no Zocalo to meet friends over coffee to watch the latest march or music concert or candela…visual and auditory feasts. No pesky colorful vendors many of whom ended up my friends. I can even laugh now about the really old and ugly woman beggar who owns two apartment houses. And the guy who, after a drinking binge, makes everyone groan when he “sings” “Oaxaca, Oaxaca!” with his battered guitar. And the wandering trombone player, with his plump wife sitting faithfully on a stool next to him, who makes you plug your ears. Apparently no one has told him trombones aren’t supposed to be solo instruments. The two saxaphone players weren’t so bad…one better than the other who was always asking me “vamos a mi casa!” Right! And Jorge, the raboso vendor who knew everything about everyone. And the two retired one-eyed Viet Nam vets, the retired right-winger with a big heart who used to be the police chief in a small Colorado town and who has adopted a poor Oaxaca family to support. An eccentric police chief, he once did a traffic stop, he told me, with a big red clown’s nose attached to his face! The guy, with a Ph.D in French literature who lives on $70 a month and plays chess every day at five o’clock in front of the Cathedral after sitting all afternoon with one coffee in a sidewalk cafe. The Mexican kids, many of whom are excellent players, pay him 10 cents to use his chess board and clock…and many of whom just hang around to practice English with us. And they admire the tall, unusual gringo who voluntarily lives on so little. He would often walk me back to my apartment late at night after the Marimba Band had finished up in front of the Del Jardin Restaurant. Good times with my retired friend from San Francisco who arrived in Oaxaca on the same plane as me and helped me fill out my visa application. Bilingual, she had previously lived three years in Veracruz. She is helping facilitate the erection of FM community radio transmitters around the state. Community radios, although legal, are essentially enemies of the hated state governor. I worry for her. And Elvira, the soft-spoken Zapotec woman who organized a woman’s coffee bean collective. She travels five hours down from the mountains by bus to sell her coffee at the organic Pochote Market and stays thursdays and fridays overnight with this same friend before she goes back to her home at 5am Sunday morning. Lester, who was worried about his young son who was volunteering at the CIPO house…an indigenous volunteer organization, stayed with me two pleasurable weeks. And my gentle Swiss friend, Willy, an industrial engineer by training who is trying to make a living on the local economy by making incredible lamps out of debris from his backyard and as an eco-landscaper. I told him he could sell his lamps for hundreds in NYC. He wasn’t interested. Many good times with Charly from Canada who introduced me to Mica and Bardo…all coffee roasters…and in whose adobe home in Huayapam we enjoyed many delicious Sunday afternoon cenas. And the several visitors Charly met on Sweet Maria’s coffee home-roasting web site and sent down to visit Oaxaca. One of them, Jennifer, when I picked her and her husband up at the airport, said that I looked familiar and asked if I ever went to the Beanery in Salem where she used to work. Of course, I said! And Hector and Lulu, my landlords with a new baby, and eternally cheerful Adelina, the apartment maid, and her lively bright daughter Fernanda, who watched out for me and would never let anyone inside the courtyard gates that she didn’t know. Adelina makes $200 a month…so I am putting Fernanda through school…no big feat…only $30 a year for registration and another $20 for shoes. I will miss Adelina the most. And the friends who came and went in the other two apartments that were configured such that we could all talk to each other without leaving our apartments. Joe, a retired CPA from Chicago, who helped us organize the badly sung Norteno Christmas Party for the landlords and their families, twenty-something Canadians Ana and Steve, Roy and Eileen from San Francisco. Peter, a funny Australian guitarist and his wife Mirella who have come to live in Oaxaca. The two absolutely delightful woman interns I met at the Casa de los Amigos Guesthouse run by the Quakers in Mexico City who came to stay with me a few days. When I was in Chiang Mai Thailand, I used to go to a nearby guesthouse for a $2 buffet breakfast where I met “Sharkey”, a twenty-something firefighter from Eugene Oregon. He told me he used to live with a paraplegic Viet Nam vet in the mountains above Miahuatlan near Oaxaca City Mexico. So one night in the zocalo, when I met Judy, a friend of a paraplegic Viet Nam vet who lives in the mountains above Miahuatlan, I told her I had met Sharkey in Chiang Mai. “You know Sharkey?” she exclaimed. Small world indeed. And then there were the many wonderful long conversations with my anarchist friend, Max, also a classicist who enjoys high mass in the cathedral. Now, I’ll have time to read Mikhail Bakunin, Max. Sigh. Re-entry always the most difficult part.

Eleven Hour Drive To Queretaro

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Well, I left Sunday morning at 2:30am and made it across Mexico City without getting killed! Made it to Queretaro about 1pm in the afternoon. We’re planning on leaving for the border on the 5th…then to Las Vegas to see my son Greg…and then to Oregon.

An expat said by email on Monday that “the radio reports that the Popular Movement in Oaxaca will meet at the market (I didn’t hear which, but out near Branamiel) very early this morning. They will go to the foot of the hill. Others are supposed to go singly (hormigas) like ants…A different report says they will avoid Crespo, and circle around by Porfirio Diaz, to the zocalo.

I would imagine that it will be very difficult to attack people, wherever they go. Tourists are witnesses. I also hear that no public transportation is coming into the city.”

This Side Of The Border Problem

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Oaxaca is Mexico’s second poorest state with many mountain villages nearly empty of working age men. But over half of the poco English speaking men I have talked to have said they learned the language by working on the East Coast…sweeping a parking lot, waiting tables, dish washing, working on dairy farms in NY state. Many others refer to back-breaking work picking strawberries in California and Oregon….or better…construction in Las Vegas. A woman working as a janitor at the Toyota outlet here said her husband has been in the states for four years. “Oh, where,” I asked. She didn’t know.

My friend Mica had an aunt in Huayapam, Juvita, who sold her successful Tejate business in the market here and unbenownst to her husband, Pedro, paid huge money to an inept “coyote” to take her and two daughters across the border illegally. She died in the Arizona desert. Her daughters survived and are still in the US, leaving her husband here alone. Pedro’s sister, Carmen, is married to a man who hasn’t been back from the US for several years, leaving her here with her 4 year old daughter, Paula.

For 8 years, I mentored a teenage girl from a family of 10 from the Mixtec, in the northwestern Oaxaca mountains that have been playing both sides of the border for years…some of the children legal and some not. The parents have to return every year to work the communal land.

Many are trying to get legal status for work in the US. One young waiter in the Zocalo left his wife and two children in Los Angeles to come home to a small village in Oaxaca to file immigration papers. He is living with his parents and travels by bus one hour twice a day from Tlacalula to Oaxaca City to wait tables at a restaurant in the Zocalo…sending his wages home to his non-working wife. He has been told by immigration all he can do is wait. He has been waiting for one year.

A long-time American born friend from Oregon came to Queretaro with her new Mexican-National husband who is an auto mechanic to file papers for him. They tried once unsuccessfully. Now, in order to be with him, she is stuck in Mexico…trying again. He had been in the US for ten years, living frugally, sending every extra penny home (with Mexico ripping off up to 20% money sent home charges) to support an ill mother with the extra ($40,000) going into “savings” here. Big mistake. As often happens the two brothers entrusted with the money now say there “is no money.”

An AP article of April 27, 2007 illustrates part of the problem that leaves Mexican migrants in a catch-22:

Farm labor shortage may leave crops to rot in field
Tighter border, better paying jobs keep workers away

Driving From Oregon To Oaxaca

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After finally getting the title and registration to the Toyota, I drove down to Klamath Falls Oregon from Salem to see my second family Bea and Sal Florez who are being well-taken care of by a couple in their home. Then took a long boring drive to Las Vegas to see my son Greg. Didn’t wait in Salem for the title to arrive in the mail so my friend Lyn said she would fedex it to Las Vegas while I was there.

When I informed him that the woman who was going to drive down to Oaxaca with me had reneged and that I was driving down alone he had a fit and called his best friend Mike in LA and asked him to please accompany me. We drove to the border at the new shiny Columbia Friendship Crossing 30 minutes north of Loredo Texas. At the crossing I discovered I had a copy of my title and registration but after all the wrangling in Salem I had left the original on the copier glass in the back of the pharmacy in Las Vegas. The friendly border guards mercifully let me through with just the copy! I immediately called Greg and had him go to the pharmacy to see if he could collect my title and registration…maybe somebody had turned them in. Lo and behold, there was the original…after 3 days…still on the glass! So with the help of my iPod and new car speakers we continued down on wide empty expensive toll roads only getting good and lost once after taking a detour through the city of Monterey.

We spent three nice days visiting my friend Patty Gutierrez and her husband Jose in their little casita in San Juan del Rio south of Queretaro…a nice break. We were all invited to dinner in the home of a broiled chicken vendor…their first real contact with American tourists and after being given two clay jars as a gift I was horrified when I dropped one which exploded on the tile floor of the courtyard.

We visited the sacred Rock of Bernal…a UNESCO World Heritage site…the largest North American monolith and the second largest in the world……soaking up the quiet soft vibes. This enormous rock is considered the encounter point between the indigenous communities of the region and the mestizo society that erected the village of Bernal below. Well-known as ‘tonalita’ the volcanic rock, at a height of 288 meters from the base to the peak, became exposed by erosion.
DSC00719.JPG
After ending up on a toll road going the wrong way and finding our way back in Mexico City and driving through beautiful rolling mountains back to Oaxaca I was finally “home.”