Paradise

In Mexico, Monday the 19th was a national holiday to celebrate the Revolution. So I got it off. Thursday is Thanksgiving, so I got that off too… When 3 days of vacation buys 9 days in a row off, you need to find something to do. We headed to the beach. I was able to find a perfect house on a beach near Ixtapa for $200 a night.

We pulled into a lovely, almost Japanese, garden area complete with a tropical twist. The house is surrounded by a garden with hammocks hanging on palm trees. About 10 steps from the back porch is a little wooden gate leading to the beach. To the right are rocks with tide pools waiting to be explored. To the left a great sandy beach with slow breaking waves. The whole family loves to Boogie Board and this is a beach perfect for it. Paradise. We meet our host and learn the rules, ins and outs, and other trivia. I thought to myself what a perfect life. Live and work where you hear the sound of the surf, always. The salty breeze and the warm inviting waters your constant companions. That would be paradise.

Later, we are playing in that surf having the time of our lives. I tow the kids out to catch another wave, a nice service if you can get it. The kids have all the fun of surfing with none of the work. Then we play in the sand, check the tide pools, and have a quick lunch at the house. I have been working a lot lately so it is so nice to spend so much time with the kids.

After a little while, I strike up a conversation with our host. She has lived here for 15 years but never goes in the water. She spends most of her time working, managing properties, and taking care of the guests. She is single, has a boyfriend and no kids.

Even for a block like me it didn't take long to understand. This isn't paradise, it is a place. Even more it is a place that money can rent time in. If you can buy it, it won't satisfy for long. Paradise isn't a place. I have my kids, my wife, my life. We can come visit the surf and be happy. At the end of the week, we all want to go home. I already live in paradise, we are just visiting the beach.

Death Has a Holiday

As I have written before, the Mexican people have an interesting take on death. In keeping with that, we recently celebrated the Dia de los Muertos, literally the Day of the Dead. While that may sound somber to us it is really a festive occasion. They have skulls made from sugar to give to family and friends. As a joke, you have someone’s name put on a skull and then give it to them to eat. Or the skulls are placed at the grave of a dearly departed so they can enjoy it.

Another part of this is a party at the cemetery. To this there are two different lines of thinking.

Most of the people we talk to about this, view the time a time to remember their departed friends and relatives. They go to the gravesite, clean up the area, spread some flowers, maybe bring some of their favorite food or beverage and talk about them. They then have a party in their honor. I think of it as a kind of yearly wake, New Orleans style. Now remember all of this is happening at the gravesite and can last until 3 or 4 in the morning. The grave decorations can be quite elaborate.
In this case all of the color you see are fresh flowers or flower petalsThe more simple folk do the same activities but believe their dearly departed leave the grave at the sound of the first church bell after dark and party with them. So they bring food and drink, clean the grave and party, thinking the relative is there to enjoy it. It is hard to overestimate how much mysticism is a part of the rural poor’s belief systems.

We went to Puebla for the festivities, great town, very pretty. After we returned to Mexico City, I took a ride to the graveyard for some pictures.

Now I have to admit that I like going to graveyards on occasion. For me it is a good way to be reminded of our temporal nature. Graves can tell stories. They can also tell a lot about the person or family buried there. There can be some real ego here... This poor woman is forever morning someone who won't even look at her. He is peering off into what future, one cannot be sure.

This guy also obviously thought he would make some kind of statement with the award for most interesting tombstone. Looks like some kind of superhero

The retro modern award goes to this one with an honorary mention to the next...

But what was most striking to me in this trip is how treatment in life so closely models life. In the area for the rich, powerful and famous; there is great landscaping, meticulous care, and great monuments to vanity and ego. For some of the rest, the family carries on and remembers. But for the vast majority, no one came to remember. It is easy to see trends, the longer you are dead and the older you were when you dies, the more likely you are to be forgotten. This is the grave of a recently departed young child... Obviously the pain is still fresh. No money for a tombstone but someone still cared to plant flowers and smooth the site.

This one is just one of many forgotten... next to one that has been cared for. If there is one word to describe Mexico it is contrast, rich and poor, loved and forgotten, pampered and ignored.My favorite is this one. Old Dad is gone. The kids didn't bring bread or flowers, just a shot of tequila. Probably what Dad would have wanted... is this how you would want to be remembered?

For me the Day of the Dead was a good reminder of where we all end up. At the end of the day, most of us will not be rich or famous or even remembered here on earth past a generation or two. All our work and labors will be forgotten a month or two after we leave the job. Our house will be sold or demolished. Our cars will rust. Our precious toys will break and be disgarded and so will we. We will be forgotten and even the markers of our graves will not live on forever. We are here but for a moment.

Only one record will remain and only one will remember us for all time. And it is only the things we do to honor Him that will remain after this life is over. This is a good reminder not to be ruled by the tyranny of the urgent and to invest in the things that last.

An Interesting Twist

In most of my experiences down here I have tried to take a positive tone. There is a lot that I just shake my head at or moan in frustration. However, when I share my thoughts or talk with others I try to stay on the positive side and see things from the other perspective. Sorry but this time the gloves come off.

As some of you know, I am married to a Mexican. Stacey was born in Mexico and by Mexican law she is a Mexican. As an additional bonus, in 1999, Mexico passed a law allowing dual citizenship, so my children are, by Mexican Law, also Mexicans. Now we have really grown to enjoy and even love Mexico. The beauty, the people, and the culture are all quite endearing. With that in mind we thought it would be a good idea to get our children Mexican passports to give them flexibility later in life to start a business, get an education, or even live in Mexico.

After 3 months of questions, paperwork, and run around we were finally ready to get the passports. We went to the office, were sent to another office, and then told we needed to go to a consulate office in the US to become Mexican citizens…

So let me get this strait… My children need to go to Mexican soil in the US to become Mexicans… when they have the legal right under MEXICAN LAW…

All of this has caused me to view/vent about the current immigration debate in the US under a new light.

In Mexico, I cannot get a driver’s license unless I have a visa and am here legally.
In Mexico, I cannot work without a valid visa.
IN MEXICO, I cannot get medical services at the state’s expense, even WITH a work visa.
IN MEXICO, I cannot go to the University and without paying an extra extranero (foreigner) fee.
AND IN MEXICO, I cannot apply for legal status as a Mexican, even if legal, without going back to the US!!!

Does any of this sound familiar… Please don’t misunderstand, I have a great deal of sympathy for Mexican workers trying to feed their families and do work in the US that many in the US don’t want to do. But would it be wrong to suggest that the US apply the same standard to illegal workers in the US that Mexicans apply to all workers in Mexico… Just a thought.

Please add any comments below.

Life with NO Warning Labels

Have you ever wondered what life would be like without the warning labels?

DANGER!! The coffee is hot, don’t jump, don’t look, and whatever you do don’t touch. Have you ever wondered what life would be like without all the rules? This weekend we played Mexico style and our family had one of the most amazingly fun weekends I can remember.

Day 1- Let’s go play in the volcano, kids.
About 90 minutes from our home we have 3 volcanoes. We went to visit one of them this weekend. Now before you start calling child protective services I have two defenses. One, it is an extinct volcano. Two, I am in Mexico and they don’t have CPS down here. So, we get up Saturday and start off. After getting lost two or three times we found the dirt road leading to the volcano. After about 20 miles across and 8000 ft up, we drove into the crater and parked next to the lava dome. Yes, you read that correctly we took a road into the very center of the volcano at 14,000 ft or so above sea level. We then climbed to about 15000 ft to the ridge of the volcano. I am so proud of our little troopers. All three made the climb (with an occasional piggy back ride). The view was fabulous… simply unbelievable. It was so quiet and peaceful, watching the clouds moving over the ridge line as a brisk chilly wind swept them ever upwards, two emerald lakes in the crater below contrasting with the steep red cliffs of red and gray and a dark blue sky you only get at elevation. The vegetation was mostly tundra grass and moss. It was an otherworldly beauty. The colors… the stillness… stunning.

Just for reference our car is one of the tiny dots near the left lake.

Then out of the clear magnificent scene of natural beauty rose a sound. Clearly ringing across the entire crater rose…Thriller. Can’t make this up… some local thought he would complete this scene by turning up his stereo so we could all enjoy Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The ALBUM, not the song… Surreal.

To get down from our lofty perch we had a choice, we could hike down the long gentle sloping path we used to get up or we could scree down. For those of you unfamiliar with scree, it is a lot like snow skiing, except there are no skis and no snow. All you need is a large slope with a very steep grade and small rocks…Basically you slide down the hill on a wave of falling pebbles. As you may have guessed, we took our children by the hand and screed down the crater wall. It was so much fun. We all laughed the whole way down and Stacey laughed so hard she was brought to tears.

Day 2 – They don’t wear helmets in Mexico
For day two, we drove outside of the city to the little town of La Marquesa. La Marquesa is an adventure park of sorts. There are vendors everywhere with quad racers, horse rides, zip lines, some kind of bungee trampoline, paintball, you name it and you can find it here. Oh did we have fun!! All of us took the zip line. We took the kids on the quads. Gwen and Nate got to ride a children’s quad. The kids did the bungee trampoline. Stacey and the kids took the horse ride. What was so much fun to see as their father is them learning to overcome fear. Nate got to the top of the zip line and did not want to do it, did it anyway and LOVED it. Gwen didn’t want to drive the quad and it was her favorite attraction of the day. Abby, well our little Abby has no fear.

An interesting aspect to all of this is the conspicuous absence of rules. No waivers to sign. No helmets to wear except on the zip lines. A 10 year old is running the bungee trampoline. If you want to ride with three people on a quad and have a sleeping baby on the front, then you make the decision and deal with the consequences. If you want to let your 5 year old ride the quad, it is called parental responsibility. As a libertarian leaning conservative, I couldn’t help but notice that it all worked. It would neatly fit my worldview to believe all of this is true because they are “working without a net” so to speak. If you can’t count on regulation or trial lawyers to protect you, you regulate yourselves. On the customer side, people were orderly and self-controlled. Parents looked after their kids because no one else would. On the providers side, the quads all had governors to limit the speeds. The equipment was all in good working shape. No one took shortcuts when opening or closing a carabiner, even the 10 year old (a carabiner is the clip loop you use when working with ropes). Each time the carabiner was opened, it was screwed down to lock it. All of this is not because of some safety inspection but probably because deaths are bad for business and no one wants to kill a kid.

At the end of the day, this wild crazy park that would not last 10 minutes in the US before being sued out of existence. However in Mexico it was filled with people having a great time. All of it makes me wonder what we in the US lose when we don’t let our kids play on monkey bars or carousels. We don’t let them play in the street. They need leagues, coaches and referees, so they will be “safe”. Do we run the risk of protecting our kids and ourselves so much that we stop learning how to think for ourselves. Do we trade "safety" for Life teaching us all a little common sense and responsibility for the decisions we make?

Monopoly Money

Picture this. You are in your office and have written a check to cash. You need to have cash because everything is done with cash. You pay the electric bill with cash. You pay the water bill with cash. You buy a ticket on the train in cash. What you get back are bills denominated in 500, 200, 100, 50 and 20. The bills are colored yellow, green, blue, and red. Drive in certain parts of town and you can see entire blocks uniformly painted in different bright colors. Add two dice and a silver colored dog and one could be forgiven for thinking this is all a life size version of Monopoly.

Such is life in Mexico.

A small tub of ice cream is 80 pesos. Two pounds of tortillas are 5 pesos. A 2 liter of Coke is 40 pesos. Minimum wage is 50 pesos a day. A normal lunch out is 200 pesos. A live in maid is 150 pesos a day. The current exchange rate is 11 to 1, so to get dollars divide all those numbers by 11.

So is living in Mexico cheap, expensive, or just confusing.

For me, it has been confusing. It is hard to say what things are “worth”. As an amateur economist, I am used to cost and price being rough approximations of value and worth. My first reaction to this shock has been to devalue money as a signal of value. The seemingly conflicting signals are just too much at odds with my values. As I begin to learn about Mexico, in particular its culture, history of socialism, and focus on pride, I find that they do still act as signals of value and worth. They make sense in their own way. It is just a way that is still difficult for me to understand. This is just another piece of the culture puzzle.

On Death in Mexico

What is culture exactly? Is it language, tradition, the holidays we celebrate or the God we worship? We talk about cultural differences but I tended to minimize them or at least I did before coming to Mexico. I am finding that culture is more than practice or habit. It is deeper. I recently got a good look at how we are different when I was invited to a funeral. There is a saying that you can learn a lot about a people by the way they deal with death.

One of my coworkers lost his father a few weeks ago. The funeral was the next day. I am still not exactly sure why I was invited but I joined my coworkers in leaving the office for the cemetery. The first observation was how this overruled everything else. There were no discussions, no plans. A coworker lost his father, all meetings were off and we were going. We are doing the most important project in the company but no one needed to ask. Family obviously comes before work. A member of the team lost a member of his family and that was obviously more important to all of us.

When we arrived at the viewing, we all stood around the room forming a kind of circle looking at the family. There we stood offering silent support while the family grieved. They sang religious songs, prayed, comforted his widow, cried and started again. For two hours, we stood silently while family and friends assuaged the most raw and painful emotions imaginable. No one spoke about him. This wasn’t about him; this was about comforting his wife and children. After a while a priest came offering a mass and communion. After his words of comfort about the coming kingdom, the coffin was carried out and we silently departed this mourning chamber for the burial.

After a somber procession, we all stood around the grave. No words were spoken. The coffin was carried over and lowered into the ground. Again there were no platitudes, no words on his life or his meaning. I expected this to be the end, with us filing away but no one moved. Then came a line of workers. With the family watching, they sealed him in the ground with concrete slabs. Before the last slab was placed, his daughters threw a little dirt or a rose in the cavity with sobs of “adios papa.” Then the buckets of mortar were brought to seal the slabs. Then another layer of slabs, more mortar. Lastly the gravediggers shoveled the dirt on the grave and huge piles and arrangements of flowers were placed. Telmex, his employer for many years, sent the two largest arrangements each was over 6 ft in diameter. A few led what can only be described as cheers for the deceased. Everyone then filed quietly away. Somber. So very final… He is gone. You saw the body, you felt the grief, you saw the coffin sealed in the ground. It is over.

I can’t help but thinking they have it closer to right.

Tipping, Begging, and Child Labor

There you are minding your own business. After wandering aimlessly for longer than you should, you have success. You have found the grocery store!! Suppressing your surpassing pride in this feat you begin to look for a parking place. A 5 to 7 year old boy whistles at you and waving a red cloth directs you to your spot... Whew, nice spot. Do I tip him? Dumb question you tip everyone in Mexico, how much? Wait a minute, why isn't this kid in school, where are his parents? Is this really his job? How can that be legal? Is this how he survives? What kind of future can he have...

Driving home, as you stop at the red light (see prior post) you are met with a little girl, perhaps 3 or 4 being hoisted up on to her father's shoulders. The first and most striking thing is the little girl has two balloons stuffed into her sweatpants. This gives her grossly distorted "hips" about 3 times bigger than she is. The father then shakes back and forth. The balloons amplify the motion so the hips oscillate left and right like a Jello cube on a wooden roller coaster. Her little hands move up and down drawing your attention to her clown painted face. You emotions are bounced like the balloons, funny, creepy... sad. Should you laugh, cry... For me it was just deeply disturbing. After a 10 second gyration fest, they pop down and walk past the cars, hand out, looking for tips. Then you notice the rest of the "family". An older sister has another younger sibling doing the same act for the cars going in the opposite direction. Mom is selling roses. Another older sister is selling candy, no longer cute enough to pull off the balloon act.

The next intersection has a juggler, the next a man breathing fire. Nearly every intersection has someone selling flowers, candy, or mercy. Elderly women, a man with no legs, a skinny child with no act... It is sometimes nearly overpowering.

Yet I already find myself growing used to it. Callous to so much so often, just another feature set against beautiful parks, expensive restaurants, and fancy cars.

When you give are you encouraging the parents to keep them out of school? Are they really the parents or the handlers? And what of the ones with no one looking out for them at all.

But here is a big difference from the US. I have never been approached by an able bodied person for a handout, without some "service" being performed. It could be direction to an empty parking space, a concert from an obnoxious grind organ, or a circus act. But the only ones who truly beg are the very young, the very old, or the amputee. Who can tell if it is Latin pride or if in the face of so many truly needy, only those with the strongest first impression can scratch together enough of a handout to make the time pay. What I can see is the terrible cycle in place. Children are kept out of school to provide for themselves or their family. They cannot acquire the knowledge or skills to make them anything other than dependant. Leading them to a life of what exactly...

By giving, are you aiding or enabling. Difficult questions in a difficult land.

Traffic Laws

As you may know traffic laws are more loosely interpreted down here in ole Ciudad... My guidelines for traffic have been the following...
1) A stop sign means be careful.
2) A red light means slow down.
3) A green light means slow way down and be careful (see rule 2)
4) Momentum = Mass x velocity. Right of way is granted to who ever has the most momentum entering the intersection.
5) If you make eye contact with the other driver, you have yielded the right of way.
6) The majority of streets are one way, but most signs are seldomly found and randomly placed. To determine the direction take note of the way the cars are parked. But one way is just a suggestion, if you REALLY need to go down that street, simply put on your hazard lights and proceed carefully down the street.
7) The police are ineffective, so to control speeding they use speed bumps (topes) and the road painted to look like speed bumps (fauxpes). If you assume fauxpes and get topes, say bye bye suspension. Sometimes, they put an unmarked tope 30 ft in front of a marked fauxpe... so you start to slow down and hear BANG BANG as you leave the air in your tires and a significant portion of your undercarriage behind. There are sometimes locals sitting at these, drinking cerveza and laughing their heads off.

All of that changed this week.


http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=d5a33875-0540-42b8-8e68-148ac77fa647&k=73725


Ciudad is going to start expecting people to obey the law and encourage police officers not to take bribes.

I know this may come as a shock to many of you that this is news down here. It is on all the radios, people talk about in normal conversation.... What would it be like here if people obeyed the law and police didn't take bribes...?

Well on the first day, everyone was still doing 80 kph on Reforma, in the bus lane... it was a beautiful dream.

My favorite part was driving on the first day the laws were supposed to take effect. Everyday, I turn left at the Angel of Independence. Everyday, the police hold a clinic on why laws don't really matter by waving drivers through the red light to clear Reforma. For some reason it is too hard to change the timing on the lights and easier to pay 6 people to wave traffic through the red... Like every other day, there they stood waving people through. This, to me, typifies the traffic picture in Ciudad. A systematic shared agreement to do the expedient in place of the lawful.

For those who know me, you know I am prone to bending the traffic rules. But traffic here has shown me what can happen if the law isn't enforced. The good and the bad. It is chaos but it develops its own order. People will cooperate at times to enforce their interests, but other times the two year old narcissist comes out and blocks 6 lanes of traffic to be 6 ft closer to the destination. It works 95% of the time and 5% of the time it is an unmitigated disaster.

It may just be what I am used to... but thank a cop the next time you earn a ticket. Sure you hate the ticket but you made the choice to break the law and you know it. Take it from me, you are glad, even if you don't know it, that officer is there to enforce those rules and you are glad he is giving you a ticket instead of asking for a $50 bribe.

Introduction - The story of a Texas family spending a few years in Mexico

The Blog will be a record for family and friends of the Ingram family's adventures in Mexico.