Felize Navidad an all that

Happy Holidays and greetings from the Sonora desert here in Mexico!

Right now Ethel and I are enjoying the nice warm days and cool nights here in Hermosillo. Over the last year I have had the opportunity to think quite a bit about the people in my life, both friends and family as living in Mexico makes you all less accessible.

It has been a very full year for me and Ethel. 2010 started out for me with deteriorating mobility and numerous medical exams with the conclusion that both my hips needed to be replaced. Yikes!! As walking became more painful, and walks got shorter and shorter, I did everything to try to put off the inevitable, perfecting the art of procrastination as a tool to avoid the fear of having these major operations. But there is one thing constant pain provides without exception and that is a reminder, albeit excruciating, that in order for life to find normalcy, the risk of having the operation is small compared to the alternative of living a life in pain.

In April 2010 I had my left hip replaced, by a wonderful surgeon and person here in Mexico, Dr Baidon. While there was resulting pain from the operation, it did not compare to the pain I was experiencing before the operation. From the first day after the operation, I was feeling better! My activities over the summer were fairly limited and once I was declared free to return to normal activities (excluding things like running, baseball, cage fighting, combate), I had several months of pretty normal routine. I even played a bit of golf!

Ethel played such a major role in my rehabilitation. She was there 24/7 during and after the operation, feeding, washing, cleaning wounds and ferrying me to physical therapy sessions 6 days a week. The first few weeks included helping me get dressed, take showers and keeping our vegetable garden alive. During all this time Ethel managed to keep her art profession bouncing along as well. Quite an extraordinary woman!
Here she is with her daughter Kati

By September I knew it was time to start thinking about the other hip and on November 15th I had the right hip replaced. I am just now a little over a month into the recovery, having just finished physical therapy. While this recovery seems to be going faster, there is still probably at least 6 weeks until something like normal seems possible. Again, Ethel has really stepped up to the plate and has been invaluable to my healing. This time around she maintained her art class as well as preparing for an exhibition of her work in the new art Museum here in Hermosillo in 2011.

So that’s the short version of 2010. In between operations, I managed to set up several LLC’s and partnerships to purchase condo’s in the Phoenix area. I am hoping to close on the 3rd unit by the end of 2010!

Here’s hoping your 2010 was fruitful and abundant with creative projects, relationships and activities with 2011 providing more of the same opportunities.

Love and blessing to you and I hope I will be able to see you soon!

Feliz Navidad!

Love Don / Ethel

Mexico: The Switzerland of the American Hemisphere?

I was recently told that Mexico has never declared war on anybody and that its foreign policy is basically neutral. After giving this some thought for awhile, I decided to investigate. The first thing I realized was that I had not lived in a country that had never declared war on anybody. While I am sure Mexico has its problems on the international scene, it has never found a good enough reason to want to attack someone on account of a disagreement or even suspected weapons of mass destruction.

In fact the history of this region, long before there was a Mexico as such, indicates there were invasions of all kinds. The Spaniards brought the art form of invasion and pillage from Europe after many centuries of refinement there. Landing in the “New World” and finding out the natives were missing one giant piece of technological advancement that they had (gunpowder), the Spaniards had a field day on a scale never before seen. Wholesale slaughter of kingdoms, and tribes over a whole continent! Score that as one huge victory for really bad karma.

The United States attacked Mexico in 1846 to secure some real estate ranging from Texas, through New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and right on through to California. After having taken all this land via an unprovoked invasion, the U.S government, possibly out of guilt, wrote a check to Mexico for $15 million which were the closing costs on the real estate deal. By reason of provocations like these, the Mexicans have never really trusted the gringos to the north. Judging by the state of things in those states now, Mexico looks to be on the better side of that deal.

The French and the English also had their day in the “invasion sun” attacking Mexico, and even the Russians gave it some thought at the very same time as the French. In the end both parties decided to call it off to avoid fighting the bigger war between each other.

For Mexico, all these invasions are seen as victories revealing the fact that while Mexico has been beaten around the head and shoulders quite a bit, they have not capitulated to anyone since becoming a nation all their own and declaring independence from Spain in 1810. Their independence war lasted many years until the general of the Spanish army formed an alliance with the “rebel” army and together they fought against Spain. There you have it, Spanish expatriates, siding with the Spanish army to fight Spain. Could it get any better than that? Karma came fast and furious to the Spaniards.

Of course in 1910 yet another revolution took place to overthrow the “monarchy” government that had been in charge since the first revolution. But what does this all mean? What it means is that while Mexico has been neutral in the sphere of international politics, it is no stranger to fighting wars, albeit wars against fellow Mexicans. To be fair, the revolutions were mostly wars between groups of expatriated Spaniards (much like the gringos to the north), but to Mexico’s credit a 20th century that can be characterized on the world’s stage as a century of wars, finds Mexico sitting for the most part as an observer.

Eventually though the infection of war on a global scale caught hold and Mexico in a fit of hysteria felt that it just had to declare war on something, after all everyone seems to be doing it so it must be right. With that in mind Mexico searched for who or what it could dazzle with its army. Based on historical research the leaders decided to do what had been done so well in years past and so they declared war on themselves yet again. You know I am referring to the War on Drugs. You have seen the figures, over 20,000 casualties in the last few years.

The idea of declaring war on “things” may not have been invented in Mexico or even in the U.S. (I really do not want to research this), but the U.S. has certainly had its share of declared wars against poverty, drugs, crime and civil rights to name a few. It is of note, that while the United States has had some modicum of success (define success) declaring wars on other countries, it has had a dismal record in the four “wars” I just mentioned. Mexico seems to be following a similar path with its war on drugs.

The most glaring reason to me why these wars on “things” do not work out so well is that there is no signal for victory. How would Mexico know the war on drugs is over, if in fact it ever was over? Would the cartels voluntarily lay down their arms (and drugs), giving up multibillion dollar businesses, then kiss and make up? Someone please explain to me who would not be tempted to pick up the vacuum created by such an act? Even the initiatives in the U.S. to eradicate, drugs, crime, civil rights and poverty if they did have goals to indicate when the wars were over, they did a poor public relations job letting the U.S population in the loop.

I do not want to be the pessimist here. I would be thrilled to see the Mexican government have a ceremony with the beaten drug lords on an aircraft carrier in the Sea of Japan signing a peace treaty, or how about the last person to emerge from poverty being invited to officially declare the war over as they ring the bell on the N.Y stock exchange? I cannot help but visualize the end of the war on crime from a prison cell where we all now reside. Or would that victory be signified by everyone being let out of prison?

The one gleaming beacon we can say we won is the war on civil rights. Isn’t that right? It must have been won, after all there is a black man living in the White House. Racism is now a thing of the past. Hmmmmm, maybe the jury is still out on that victory. What do you think?

Bit and Pieces from Mexico Part III

Yaqui Dancers and Las Vegas
In the midst of their “training” to be men, Yaqui Indian boys go on a 40 day ordeal where some portion of that training involves dancing. If you ever pull up to a signal light or a toll booth and there is a masked youth with feathers, shakers and clearly dressed in Indian garb, then you have come across something special. They dance for you. It is not just any dance and I will not try to describe it as I can serve it no justice with words. But the experience moves you. I always breakout the pesos for these men in training! They live in the desert and must come to the city as part of their experience.

You will also find other performers hawking for your money in various locations and these are clearly NOT Yaqui Indians. There is the fire breather who does an act with a flaming baton, twirling and tossing it high into the air and of course the coup de gra, blowing the flame from his mouth, all during the course of one red light cycle. Nothing like a mouthful of kerosene for that gingivitis. How they do this in the middle of the summer in the intense heat is a testament to the human will to earn money or is it simply a death wish?

My favorite street performers are a family of 3. The husband (on trumpet), the wife (manager with baby in sling) to collect money, and the son age 3 or 4 and no taller than a garbage can, on drums. The songs I have heard them play (and there is not much you can catch during the length of a stop light) is what the Aussies would call “a ripper” The little boy rails with a driving rhythm and dad lays down the "color" on the trumpet. While this is no Louie Armstrong and Buddy Rich, it is a family that clearly has its eye on Vegas.


Cleaning Happens
My perception of reality was again turned upside down as I pondered the day by day activities in the neighborhood here in the city. You would think by hearing how many friends and family in the U.S. have employed Mexican help in their households as cleaning people that there must be millions of Mexicans working in the U.S. to cover this task and that is probably right.. Upon thinking a little deeper on the topic you might assume that like rocket scientists, there is a finite amount of cleaning people from Mexico to go around and by now there must be none left in Mexico. After all, many of our friends here in Mexico also have cleaning people working at their homes as well. In fact if you drive around the city you will notice that the place is teeming with people cleaning various things. If you venture down to the zocala you will find scores of people waving towels as you drive around the square, urging you to park your car in their area so you can have your car cleaned. There are always people sweeping and mopping all over the city. I am really beginning to think they are all sweeping the same pile of trash. They just keep passing it around the city tag team style.

When the grass pops up between the cracks in our sidewalk in front of our house, we don’t bother to pick up the phone and call someone to clean it up. We don’t even bother to think about cleaning it up ourselves. Why you might ask? We know that it is only a matter of days until our doorbell will ring with someone eager to take that grass out. We had someone come by just a few days ago for that very reason. We agreed on a price $50.00 pesos ($4.21). This particular worker put in a good 2 hours work and when he was finished he rang the bell for his payment. We noted that the walkway was not swept and queried the man who replied, “I don’t sweep walkways, get your housekeeper to sweep it.” Were we witnessing an evolution in the field of sanitation or possibly the emergence of a new division of labor in the Mexican economy? Time will tell. What did happen was that the man left the walk un-swept (he will not be hired in the future), but within hours our doorbell rang again with a women who noted our unkept walkway and offered to sweep it so she could afford to buy much needed medicine for her child.

What has upended my reality in this case is that the Mexicans cleaning houses in the U.S. are simply the overflow of cleaning people in Mexico that have spilled over the border. Mexico is so overstocked with cleaning people that the pressure of all those people (simple physics here) has pushed them northward into Arizona, California, Texas and beyond (some have been found as far away as Canada) Imagine that! 2 illegal border crossings.

I’m thinking all the good cleaning people have stayed in Mexico to be close to family and friends, but if that is true then why does it seem that the whole country is strewn with garbage? Everywhere you go; garbage. It came to my attention when we recently spent a weekend at a beautiful beach near-by. I noticed all the groups of Mexicans with family and friends that had come to be at the beach that day and when they had left, they had also left all their garbage right on the beautiful beach. I mentioned this to our host who surprisingly commented that every morning the Americans who own houses on the beach clean up all the garbage left by the Mexicans! As our host was saying these words I could feel the neurological pathways in my brain twitching and clicking as the sound of new neural pathways like floodgates poured open. The irony and symmetry of it all was too perfect. Americans hiring Mexicans to clean their houses in the U.S. and Mexicans selling beach front property to Americans to clean up their beaches. There is a deeper intelligence at work here. Let’s pay attention!

The Bicycle
In our town you will not find anything resembling a bicycle path. No special lanes with silhouettes of people biking painted on the street, no signage telling you where the path meanders through town. In fact you would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to take the risk of riding a bike. Just recently I noticed the first intersections painted with yellow lines to indicate pedestrian cross walks. Drivers here in Hermosillo are still trying to come to grips with what these painted lines actually mean. You see, under normal circumstances, pedestrians are fair game. I have noticed while crossing busy streets that cars actually speed up as they approach pedestrians. It is my assertion that these new clearly marked crosswalks could well be interpreted by the average driver as an area you would be more likely to find pedestrians for sport.

Once you are out of the city and traveling on the intercity 4 lane high speed divided highway, you are more likely to find bicycle riders. As a rule, the roads on these highways do not have shoulders. What you get are 2 lanes in your direction. If you need to stop for any reason there is no place to put your car. Bicycle riders have overcome this problem in their own unique way. They simply ride their bike into oncoming traffic, usually in the left lane. Many of these people on bikes have them all stacked up with firewood making the experience for someone driving a car that much more profound. I see this often as I drive the 3 hours between Hermosillo and Nogales almost once a month (and never again at night). I think this practice is a form of population control, or a proving out of Darwin’s theory relative to survival of the fittest.

Putting out the “Garbage”
When I arrived in Hermosillo I had 2 garbage pails with wheels and covers. They were nice. Our garbage gets picked up on Tuesdays and Fridays in the early morning. As an average American, I was used to putting out the garbage in the evening so I did not have to crawl out of bed at 6 am to beat the truck the next morning. After being here several months, one evening around 5 pm I put out a garbage pail and at 5:30 pm I noticed the pail was missing, garbage and all. Also of note here in town, if you want to get rid of anything (and I mean anything) all one need do is put it out on the sidewalk overnight. Just about anything and everything will disappear (including garbage and the pail). Who needs special pickup!

The Volkswagen Beetle
No one living in the United States would give this thought a moment of consideration, but after spending any length of time in Mexico you will notice the Volkswagen, the Peoples Car. There are many of them and they are everywhere. I have even seen them used as taxi cabs …… imagine that! God forbid you have luggage. The thought I am referring to is the thought of where do discontinued early model cars go when they die? If you live in North America I can assure you that one place they go is Mexico. Maybe they come here for the weather, or possibly the amazing highway system (I kid, I kid), but whatever the reason, the fact is that if you happen to be looking for parts for a 1932 Volkswagen, I know where you can find gobs of them. The Volkswagen thrives in Mexico, and they are kept alive in many ingenious ways (duct tape was invented here).

Their usefulness is expanded to move beyond mere passenger vehicles; in fact down here they also can be outfitted to function as a pickup truck. I kid you not. I was passed one day on the highway by a “Volkswagen” with the following “upgrades”. At each bumper of the car was an iron pole soaring vertically to the height of the roof of the car. On the top of the car, attached to the vertical poles was a very tall iron roof rack, the sides of which extended another 4-5 feet above the height of the car. Close your eyes and picture this. There was more volume of space in the roof rack than in the entire car. I do not know what the owner of this “stock” car might have used the rack for, but what I do know is the engine in a Volkswagen is a 2 cylinder, air cooled, rear engine, manual transmission. With a full tank of gas and 3 people in the car you would be hard pressed to attain 40 mph downhill. In any case, the Peoples Car thrives here, all model years are available going back to inception.

As an aside, a little know fact is that during Apollo moon missions, it slipped out that the space capsule was no larger than a Volkswagen and to give you a feel for what the astronauts had to endure, image spending 3 days in a Volkswagen with 3 people in it where you ate, slept, pooped etc, which after arriving at the moon, you had 3 more days on the return journey to look forward to. Once news of this got back to Mexico, sales of Volkswagens soared. It was in fact the reason why Volkswagens became so popular here. Mexicans began sleeping and eating and even living in their Volkswagens with families of 8 or more once it was obvious you could go to the moon in one. A small slice of Mexican pride also had it in for those gabachos, wanting to one up them by showing NASA that Mexicans were training for the Mars mission years in advance!