Dinner in Prison
We arrived at the prison with hundreds of bolillos, two huge cans of sliced jalapeños, gallons of Sprite, cookies, cups, paper plates, napkins and maybe a thousand cigarettes. Oh, and two five-gallon plastic buckets containing twenty kilos of carnitas. (The carnitas guy was so pleased with our large order that he threw in a kilo of liver for free. Where else would you ever get that?)
At the second of many checkpoints, we were told that someone had forgotten to put the names of us Norteamericanos on the list of approved visitors. The Mexican visitors would be allowed in. The Americans, no.
While I hadn't anticipated this snag, I wasn't surprised by it. Mexico has been teaching me to take delays and obstacles in stride with patience and good humor. Of course we wouldn't be allowed in with our cooling buckets of carnitas. Never mind that this event had been planned for months. No matter that we had obtained approvals from every third government official in the state. Not to worry that hundreds of inmates and scores of guards were standing around waiting for the party to begin.
No, someone somewhere had forgotten to enter our names on a list. Being New Year's weekend, no one with authority to approve our visit was at the prison. There was nothing that could be done. Lo siento. We would have to go home. Perhaps another time...
My friend Sergio, who had set our visit in motion, began negotiations with Luz, the gatekeeper who was not allowed to admit us to the prison on her own authority. Señora, these gringos spent $5,500 pesos for this food. It is not reasonable that they be prevented from bringing it to the inmates. Surely there is a way to get them inside.
Luz, a good-hearted woman, went off to seek someone's approval. We were to wait. We found seats on a retaining wall and stared into the entryway where guards in black fatigues stood behind a counter.
Soon, a couple hundred women and children emerged from the prison. Visiting hours were over. The families carried paintings and wooden models and a variety of hand crafts. Some appeared to be presents made in the prison shops by their husbands. Others—stacks of identical paintings—obviously were merchandise for the wives to sell. The posture and demeanor of the families created a sense of normalcy, as if everyone were getting off work from a shift at the light bulb factory.
At last, a Social Services coordinator approached and informed us our appeal had been denied. We would not be allowed to enter. My two buddies and I were walking out the front gate when someone ran after us and announced the good news that just one of us would be admitted after all. Apparently the gatekeepers had talked the situation over and had decided to break a rule. A little bit. One person's worth.
Great. I was going to be an unauthorized visitor at a Mexican jail. I was going to be smuggled into the place. And smuggled out—hopefully.
At the counter inside, I was asked to show identification and to hand over my watch, wallet, coins and belt. (Anticipating I would be relieved of my belt, I had worn pants that would stay up without one.) Luz, peering at my Mexico driver's license, carefully transcribed my name onto the bottom of the official visitors' list, which she kept on a piece of lined paper that she had roughly torn from a spiral bound notebook: Hubb Ard Wood John. Then she asked me, "Señor Hoob, ¿que significa 'Hoob' en español?"
Now there was much cross-checking of identifications and lists. I passed the time contemplating a display of the various types of high heels that would not permitted inside the prison. Finally we passed through the first of many airlock-type gates and checkpoints where we were frisked and our IDs were repeatedly taken away and given back. Negotiating dark, gray corridors of metal mesh walls, we ascended a narrow circular iron stairway—an easily defended choke point—and found ourselves in a chaotic crowd of maybe 150 khaki-clad inmates.
This was one of those moments where one realizes that life is more fragile than tissue. I later discovered that these men all were doing sentences of 20-30 years for crimes of aggravated assault, rape and murder. If they had been men of evil intent, if they had been resentful or angry, if maybe they had just not liked us, our safety might have been at risk. The room we were in contained a couple of unarmed guards. They didn't even carry nightsticks (a sensible precaution when you think about it, given that if there were any trouble, their weapons would instantly be in the hands of the inmates). In no way could the guards have provided us any protection. We found ourselves completely dependent on the goodwill of these violent criminals and other (no doubt resentful) people who had been railroaded through the Mexican court system without benefit of counsel.
My apprehension was immediately dispelled by smiling faces, proffered handshakes, a boisterous welcome. Whatever their motivation, these men were glad to see us. Maybe it was the carnitas or the cigarettes. Maybe they were looking for contacts on the outside. Maybe they were hoping for someone with influence to lighten their sentences. But I got the impression that these men were simply greeting welcome guests.
The agenda was: Speeches first, food second. I had been invited to speak, and knowing I would have difficulty keeping my wits about me at a podium while trying to think in my third language, I wrote out what I was going to say ahead of time. I deliberately did not vet my speech with Erika, my Spanish teacher, because I wanted these men to see me exactly as I was—execrable Spanish and all. I spoke for ten minutes. I finished to cheers of appreciation, a truly heartwarming moment.
I spent an hour working the room, handing out cigarettes (which are used as currency). Many of the prisoners had lived in the USA and wanted to show off their English. Others I spoke with in my crummy Spanish. They told me how long they were in for, and for what crimes. They described their work in the prison shops and how they were studying law (naturally) at the university extension. They told me how prisons were better in Mexico than in the US because they could see their families a lot of the time and they got weekly conjugal visits. Many ten-year veterans had two-year-old kids.
Later, their band played favorite songs. Four guitars, a bass and two accordions sounded better than most of the professionals I hear in town, and everyone sang enthusiastically. Finally a guard came over and told me it was time to leave. Then the most amazing thing happened. The inmates all crowded around me, touching me, shaking my hand, hugging me. Their need for contact was extraordinary.
What was that all about? All I can think of is that they are mostly forgotten people. Most are in their twenties and will be middle-aged when they get out of prison. Maybe touching me brought them a taste of the outside. Maybe they didn't want to be forgotten again; maybe they didn't want me to forget them.
I won't.
The Mexicans are Coming.
The other day I ran across an image of a KRCA billboard in Gustavo Arellano's excellent column, ¡Ask a Mexican! That's KRCA TV, Channel 62, Los Angeles. Note that it is not in English. No need for it to be. Think about that, Minutemen.
Gustavo points out that this image will tell you more about Mexican culture than his column ever could. Here we have jolly Don Cheto, along with an idiot in a Pancho Villa getup, another idiot in ridiculous plaid pants and a midget. Boy, this is gonna be good, ¿No? These men are the show's stars, and they engage in an hour or so of incredibly lame comedy of a type loved by Mexicans. Their shtick makes Caddy Shack look sophisticated.
I love the complete absence of political correctness in this billboard.
Along with the fat guy and the midget, there's five women sporting impressive gazongas and showing a lot of skin. Red bras as outerwear! That'll stop you from clicking the remote.
Note that the outer four women each have an arm raised, framing the other actors. Ta-Daa! How about all that cleavage and tummy on the dolly in black? Probably an anthropology postdoc supplementing her income.
A Mexican entertainment show without a sprinkling of bimbos is no show at all. Hell, even the cooking shows have a covey of undulating, hyper-enthusiastic chicas, squealing and laughing and shaking their tushes.
Women on Mexican TV are nobodies. They serve only to enhance the presence of men, exactly as God intended them to. The show's producers no doubt would approve of Borat's remark when introducing his 12-year-old daughter-in-law: "She no have name. She girl."
You may not like this stuff. Tough. Mexicans are coming and bringing their culture with them. They're coming to do the jobs our children are too rich or too proud or too lazy to do. They're got more energy and initiative than most of us. And they're leaving their mark on good old American values. So we'd better get used to it. And understand it. And get to like it.
For my money, it's the best thing to happen to the USA since the Irish flooded into Ellis Island.
Life and Death in the Jardín
Some people refer to these benches as "God's waiting room." Some call it "death row."
When they look up from their seats, the quiescent retirees see that a funeral is in progress. (That is a Jimmy hearse conversion parked in front of the Parroquoia. I'm particularly impressed by the vinyl camper top with fake landau irons, paired incongruously with mag wheels.)
The fresh flowers and the flags on the fenders tell you the hearse is actively working. It's backed up to the front steps of the church, tailgate open, so pallbearers can slide the casket inside with minimal effort. (Mexicans are nothing if not experts on loading heavy stuff in pickup trucks.)
Pull back, though, and the somber mood evaporates. No longer is our view confined to the near-dead contemplating the actually dead.
The municipal Christmas tree—a cone of brilliant poinsettias—sparkles cheerfully in the sun. An old vendor carrying a huge cloud of balloons pulls a whirligig across the pavement. A small girl runs across the plaza, attracted by the spinning toy.
The death row inmates fade into irrelavancy. The hearse becomes just another pickup truck parked in the warm sun. The little girl and the old man, actively living their lives, that's what matters.
Pimp my Bike
Way back when, someone could tell me about their chopped and channeled '49 Merc' with frenched taillights and a roll-and-tuck job and I knew exactly what they were talking about. Today, I'm not sure what bling is.
When Jean and I were in Santa Barbara last September, sitting in a cafe on State Street, I watched a line of lowriders go by. Like this:
Photo courtesy of Lowrider Magazine.
As I watched them bouncing along, I thought "How retro. Only in Santa Barbara." I figured lowriders were a fad that had dried up in the '80s. The War song was off the top 40. The dotcom boom was starting. Auto mods were passé.
So when two guys whizzed past me on Avenida Vallarta in Guadalajara on these...
... I was blown away. I thought, "These bikes look just like lowriders!" Welded chain steering wheels, hyper-spoked wheels—I used to see this stuff on cars. Subsequent investigation has confirmed: They are lowriders. They're a big deal. There's magazines devoted to lowrider bikes. Specialized shops sell parts for them. Where was I when all this happened?
I'm probably wrong, but this looks like a quintessentially Mexican idea. Up north, pochos (wiki) can afford to pour thousands of dollars into pimping cars: lowering them, adding powerful hydraulics so they'll jump. In Guadalajara, most people can't even afford to own a '72 Toyota. But they maybe can put a couple thousand pesos into a bicicleta.
These machines are wonderful: bizarre front suspensions, four rearview mirrors, dual exhausts, spare tire, bulb-operated dual-tone horns, whitewall tires, a raccoon and a Chivas flag. All they lack is hydraulics.
Why the hell anybody would want to do this is beyond me. But then again, I did apply several pounds of Bondo and gray primer to my '41 Plymouth when I was 17. Frenching its headlights and taillights. At the time it seemed like the thing to do.
A final note: These bikes are sitting right out on a busy thoroughfare with their owners nowhere in sight. They are not locked. In Sunnyvale, they would have been gone two minutes after they were parked.
A One-Armed Leaf Blower
When I was a kid, I learned to split a leaf and blow into it, producing a tone. That's what this man is doing. Except he's the Yehudi Menuhin of leaf-blowers. The ingenuity of these people is bottomless.
Cosas Asiáticas
Bok choy is unknown here. The new Comerciál Méxicana Mega supermarket offers mung bean sprouts: shriveled, brown, slimy. Forget fresh water chestnuts. Forget canned ones.
Japanese food is even worse. A Mexican-owned and -operated chain offers sushi in its Querétaro restaurant. At least they serve actual sushi fish imported from Japan. But as I reported earlier, offerings like tekka maki with chipotle sauce nuke any nuances the raw tuna may have once offered. For that matter, the Mexican affinity for lots of vinegar ensures diners' mouths will pucker as they chew their hamachi nigiri.
I was only mildly surprised to see sushi offered in the restaurant section of the Guadalajara Mercado Libre. There must be a hundred restaurants there, and with half of them offering carnitas, product differentiation is a competitive must for the rest.
This place is called Mariscos Fujiyama. I seriously doubt that a Japanese person has ever been within a mile of the place. I doubt that the proprietor has ever tasted real sushi prepared by a trained sushi chef. I doubt he even knows what Fujiyama is.
OK. That last was unfair. But I bet he's never been to Mt. Fuji. Given how sushi is interpreted in Mexico, I think he'd have done well to name the place Mariscos Popocatepetl. If he wanted to stick with the volcano theme, that is.
His sign illustrates three varieties of maki: green, red and gold; colors that evoke the Mexican flag. Also depicted are a pair of chopsticks, an egregious example of false advertising since there are no chopsticks in the place.
Not for a moment was I tempted to eat there. But out of curiosity, I approached the cold case to check out their fish.
Yep. That it. There ain't no more. There's cucumber (for teppa maki), Mexican octopus (tako), Mexican shrimp (ebi), avocado, surimi artificial crab and some unidentified substance wrapped in aluminum foil. I like the plastic bowl thrown on top of everything. Probably has chipotle salsa in it.
Sushi just isn't treated with the reverence it gets in the USA, much less in Japan. For a Mexican, what's the big deal? It's just fish and rice. Here, throw a little more vinegar on that rice—I can still taste the fish.
In San Miguel we have a touristy restaurant that sells tacos, paella, pizza and sushi. Do you think they do any one of them well? Another entrepreneur invested a couple of weeks trying to sell prepared sushi from a card table next to the street taco stand beside Espino's Market. No takers. Even the people who line up next door for lengua tacos have their limits.
We have a new Korean restaurant in town. It's OK: The noodle salad and the Korean barbecued ribs are great, but the kimchee lacks fire and garlic. For some reason, given that they are a Korean restaurant, they offer Japanese sushi. Basically California rolls with cream cheese added. The taste of the cheese and the vinegared rice swamps any other flavors, and the texture is like spackle.
—§—
I found a street vendor offering sushi near our Guadalajara hotel, Villa Ganz. 
I include this photo to illustrate another aspect of Mexican culture: They don't avoid racial stereotypes. Here we have Sushi, Inc.'s mascot, a squinting, buck-toothed, round-eyglass-wearing, pajama-clad figure. Try to get away with that in Sausalito.
Among Mexicans, the word chino has many different connotations. Besides referring to Chinese persons, it's often used to denote anyone from Asia. I'm sure Japanese people would find the term as offensive as Mexicans find the word chicano, but hey, that's there, this is here.
Mexican culture allows for terms that would not be acceptable elsewhere. They'll call perfect strangers nicknames like calvo (baldy) or gordo (fatty).
The adjective chino is used to refer to curly hair (pelo chino) and to chaotic situations (cuento chino)—what today's politically incorrect American would call, "a Chinese fire drill." Somehow, Mexico's relaxed attitude toward stereotyping and nicknames seems kinder, gentler than our harsh condemnation of those who fail to avoid any whiff of possibly insulting one group or another.
Meat
WARNING!
This post contains images captured in carnicerias (butchers' stalls) in Guadalajara's Mercado Libre. They illustrate how meat looks as purchased by a majority of Mexican families. But to Norteamericano eyes, some of these pictures may be disturbing. I myself find them to be fascinating illustrations of cultural differences between rich people who buy beautifully marbled steaks wrapped in transparent plastic and poor people for whom tripe is a Sunday-only treat.
If you become queasy when viewing internal organs or detached animal heads, you may want to skip this post. On the other hand, you could suck it up and broaden your horizons.
—§—
Who does not like prime rib?
Does that look good or what? Makes my mouth water. Viewing well-cooked meat whets most appetites. When they can afford it, most people would pick prime rib over pasta primivera any day.
It's the preparation that makes this roast so appetizing. The meat is ready-to-eat. When we see it, we quickly become ready-to-eat-it.
Our appetites can be stimulated by unprepared food as well. Check out this display from Bailey's General Store on Sanibel Island.
Sirloin, New York, rib-eye, t-bone steaks, a rolled rib roast. I'm getting hungry just writing about it.
[I have to make an aside here. Looking for this photo, I searched Google Images for "meat case." Among the returns, I got a picture of O. J. Simpson. Really.]
Pictured here is raw meat: inedible now, but we're not put off by it. In fact, we're attracted to it. We know what to expect when it's been grilled or roasted.
This meat has been artfully trimmed. You'll need either a good imagination or a journeyman's understanding of steer anatomy to visualize the animal it came from. We're a long way from our roots here. These abstract shapes have nothing to do with actual animals.
I'm quite sure Mexican people would be attracted to this meat as well. But I'm guessing that more than half of all Mexicans have raised, slaughtered and trimmed their own meat at least once in their lives. Some of these people begin salivating when they see a feathered chicken run across the yard. They see meat differently than Norteamericanos.
Here's a display that just wouldn't work in the Twin Cities. But my Mexicana friend Patty told me, "When we see that, our mouths start to water."
So, what's for dinner tonight? Well, I didn't ask what species that hanging carcass was, but the long, limp things are intestines. Braided intestines.
Let's pause here and imagine a conversation. Anilu says to her butcher husband Lupe, "You know, our stall looks a little drab."
Lupe asks, "Well, what do you think I should do?"
Anilu answers, "Well, we need a little sizzle, a little cachet. It wants to look fancier, I think. I know! Why don't you braid the guts? They'll look real nice that way."
Now, I know you're all disgusted at this point. How could those Mexicans be such savages? I mean, are those things clean? I bet they taste just awful! God! Eating pig guts!
Well, what the hell do you think chitterlings are? Yep. Good old American southern cooking. Personally, I like my chitterlings and hog maws fried. But they are fattening. Easy to eat too many...
—§—
What a wonderful place the Mercado Libre is. A few minutes of wandering the aisles, and I became so aware of how limited our U. S. diets are: McDonalds and Arby's and T. G. I. Fridays. On the weekends, throw a steak or some burgers on the grill. On a health kick? Then make it salmon steaks. Farmed salmon. The line-caught stuff is too expensive, and besides, it's going extinct.
I recall being served kidneys and beef tongue as a child. Didn't like 'em, but hey, I was a kid: I didn't like most foods. But as a young adult, I grew to like calves' liver—with lots of bacon and fried onions, of course. My Swiss friend Sylvia Reusser served me sweetbreads, once. They were very good and at the same time, revolting. Thymus gland? I don't think so.
But Mexicans eat the whole animal, and I truly mean the whole animal. Nothing goes to waste. Muscle meat is expensive. Tripe is cheap. And menudo is delicious. Hence: there's a market for stomach lining.
Manteca is the name of a town in California's San Joaquin Valley. It's a bustling, growing community. Housing developments are springing up on the outskirts, and young engineers and programmers, priced out of Silicon Valley's overheated housing market, are van pooling for two hours each way every day.
Manteca is a nice place to live. Its name means "lard."
On the lower left of the photo above, priced to sell at only $14 pesos per kilo, is a bucket of 100% pork lard. Not like that stuff in the stall down the way, where they cut it with goat lard.
On the right we have calves tongues. Tongue is big in Mexico. Even in Santa Rosa, CA, taco stands offer tacos de lengua. As my son John says, "Mmmm. Tacos de lengua. The taco that tastes back."
And in the middle, we have... we have... unh... steer penises. I think you make a sort of ox tail soup with them, except you substitute... you know... for the tail.
Well, people do eat penises, you know. There's a restaurant in Seoul, Korea that specializes in them.
People eat feet, too. Especially pigs' feet. You can get pickled pigs' feet in your local supermarket. Probably. Especially if Germans live nearby.
I once ate in a restaurant in Paris called Le Pied de Cochon. It wasn't until I was seated that I realized the the name translated to "The Pig's Foot." Not relishing a bony foot for dinner, I searched through the menu looking for an alternative. An expensive dinner caught my eye: "The Feast of Saint Sebastian."
That was the ticket. No pigs' feet for me. I was hungry. A feast sounded about right. I called the waiter over and ordered it. He gave me a concerned look and talked to me for several minutes in rapid-fire French, none of which I understood. I said something like, "Yes, yes my good man. Now run along and bring me my dinner."
Some time later, a plate arrived with a variety of meats on it. A nice slice of ham. A fried pig's ear. A breaded and roasted pig's foot (damn). A piece of cheek. And something else in the middle of the plate... what was it?
I cut a bite and put it in my mouth. Bony. Chewy. Gristly. I looked closer. Hmmm... a pig's penis.
For the rest of the meal, I couldn't get over how good the pig's foot tasted.
—§—
Ever eat head cheese? C'mon, it's just lunch meat. Nowadays, we buy it at the deli counter, but it's possible that your grandmother actually made it. There's a great recipe in the old edition of Becker and Rombauer's The Joy of Cooking. Unfortunately, the recipe has been dropped from the modern version. The old one had some unforgettable lines about, for example, scrubbing the teeth well with a stiff brush. Cooks.com has a whole bunch of recipes with instructions like "Cook ears until well done." You just won't find sentences like that in Gourmet Magazine.
They don't make head cheese in Mexico as far as I can tell, but they do use cabezas in tacos and other treats. First you go to your local carniceria and select a nice head.
This one looks pretty good. She has a sweet, gentle expression combined with a hint of mystery—kind of like Veronica Lake.
So you buy it and bring it home. Now what? You could do worse than to follow the advice at Cooks.com:
"Clean hog head by removing eyes, ears and brains. Saw into 4 pieces. Put in large pot and boil until tender. Remove meat from broth. Pick out bones..."
If you are of the Moslem or Jewish faiths, you'll of course want to avoid the pigs' heads. Not to worry. The Mercado Libre offers goat, sheep and cow heads as well.
Take your pick.
—§—
Now we're gonna get kind of gross. Check out this sign:
Those of you with classical educations, having studied Latin, and those of you in the healing arts, have a pretty good idea of what's on offer here.
When I lived in California, I was always tempted when I saw Mexican chorizo in the market. But this raw sausage always seemed to have an unwholesome liquid-y texture when I palpitated it, and one look at the ingredient list was enough to cross chorizo off my list: "Beef lips, beef salivary glands..."
But labios (lips) are a treat here. Just look at the price. $34.99 pesos per kilo. Almost double the price of the calves' tongues mentioned previously.
But Oh!, do these look disgusting. They may make Patty's mouth water, but never mine. Sort of look like sea anemones, don't they?
Let's get through a few more quickly. Here we have steer trachea, a most unlikely category. "Mom! We're out of steer trachea!"
Then, there's bofe de res—steer lungs. At $2 pesos per kilo (eight cents a pound), lungs are not highly valued. Mostly used as pet food, I think. When I looked up bofe in my Spanish dictionary, I saw a sample usage: "Al perro le dan de comer bofe con arroz." (They fed the dog lungs with rice.)
Let's move on now to prepared meats. Just as the photo of rib roast slices was more appealing than the picture of uncooked beef, I find myself more apt to consume foods that are already prepared, where I don't have to consider the "before" picture.
How about some roast goat? Or is it sheep? Something with horns.
Or maybe some ready-to-eat locally made cesina.
$120 pesos per kilo. Beef jerky is expensive wherever you go.
Now, what's this? Looks like scallop ceviche. Seafood in the meat department?
They look a little too long to be scallops. The sign says botana viril. A first pass at translation might be "virile snack." Sorry. That's not enough information to get me to try it.
Viril has other translations. It can mean "back" or "tail" or it can refer to the tip of the penis. I asked Patty what they were. She said "nerves." Spinal column nerves. "Chewy. Like pulpo." (Octopus.) "You eat them for the texture."
—§—
One time Jean and I were driving through a tiny village in Yucatan; a place where most of the houses were lozenges of poles supporting a palm thatch roof, with dirt floors and three rocks in the center of the single room for a stove. There, we passed by a carniceria whose entire stock of meat was displayed on a wooden table out in front—a heap of ropy beef baking in the tropical sun. It looked as if the steer had been butchered with a grenade. The guy in this stall appears to subscribe to the same meat-cutting methods.
For me, the Mercado Libre is the real Mexico. I won't be posting many pictures of cathedrals because 1) it's been done to death, and 2) like Ronald Reagan said about Redwood trees, "You seen one [cathedral], you seen 'em all."
I'm far more interested in how people live—especially the common people. Knowing what their houses are like, how they dress, how they play and what they eat provides real cultural insights that you'll never get on the tourist routes.
The way of life depicted in these posts is fast disappearing, and thank God. Everyone deserves a chance at the good life. But the good life isn't here yet, and the way Mexican people live today will shape how they think and how they relate to Norteamericanos for generations to come.
Chivas
The Guadalajara team is nicknamed Chivas. Yep. The mighty goats. A modern franchise might pick a more punchy name, but the team was founded 100 years ago, and goats must have had a stronger image in those simpler times.
When the game started, everything in the city ground to a halt. People clustered in front of stores and bars to watch TV.
Walking down the great pedestrian mall in the city center, I suddenly heard an enormous cry: "AAYYY." It was as if all of Guadalajara had spoken in one great, swelling tide. The Toluca Diablos Rojos (Red Devils) had scored.
The Chivas had not won a national championship in 19 years. Tapatios (Guadalajara residents) were hungry for an overdue championship. In fact, all of Mexico was rooting for the Chivas, Mexico's favorite team, which boasts 80 million fans. And now at last, Guadalajara was in the finals, one game away from capturing the title.
The Diablos Rojos were not going to be pushovers, though. They were the defending champions and had been the top team in five out of the last ten years. The tension in the city was palpable.
When in Rome...
I joined a group of tough-looking juvenile delinquents who were peering past the Barbies at a television that had been set up in a toy stall. Suddenly a gigantic shout blew my heart out through my mouth. The Chivas scored! Immediately I found myself being hugged and patted on the back by guys I would have called the cops on if I'd ever seen them hanging out near my house. They grinned and laughed with joy, which I found irresistably contagious.
Instantly I became a sworn Chivas fan. Trading shoulder punches and those curious Mexican handshakes with my new-found brothers, I settled in to watch the rest of the game.
A few minutes later, Guadalajara scored again. Four million people shouted:
¡GOL!
The city-wide roar shook the buildings. In an area of a hundred square miles, only one sound was heard: ¡GOOOOOOOOOOOAL! I've never heard anything like it in my life. Not even when we lived two miles from Stanford Stadium, listening to the roar of the crowd as the San Francisco 49ers won the Super Bowl there.
The game ended, the Chivas won their eleventh national championship, and in the city of Guadalajara all hell broke loose.
Traffic around the zocalo (the main square) ground to a halt as people filled the streets. Cars and trucks sped up and down the main east-west arteries, people leaning out of windows waving huge flags, clinging to bumpers, lying on the hoods of cars oblivious to their fates should the driver apply the brakes.
Every time I pointed my camera at passing fans, they turned to face me and cheered and waved. By photographing their moment of victory, I was doing incalculable improvement to Mexican-American relations.
As I walked away from the center, I got high-fives from passing fans.
And everywhere I went, I heard horns honking in an odd, syncopated rhythm.
The honking literally went on all night long:
Beep—Beep
BeepBeepBeep
Beep—Beep
BeepBeepBeep
Fortunately, as an old Mexico hand (well, as an old Mexico hand wannabe, anyway), I was able to sleep through the noisy night. In my dreams, my mind chewed on the possible meaning of this rhythm, which by now was etched into my brain:
Beep—Beep
BeepBeepBeep
Beep—Beep
BeepBeepBeep
The honking was still reverberating in my ears at breakfast when the answer finally came:
Gua—Da
LaHaRa
Gua—Da
LaHaRa
Of course! How obvious! Fans were tapping out the syllables of the name of their city. Gua—da—lahara! Guadalajara!
How sweet. How playful. How innocent, these high-spirited Mexicans.
Gua—Da
LaHaRa
Gua—Da
LaHaRa
Inordinately proud of myself for having deduced all this, I told the story to my Mexicana friend Patty. She gave me a look like I was some kind of idiot, grinned and shook her head.
"That's not what they're saying."
"No?"
"No they're not, John"
"Well, then what are they saying?"
"They're saying:
Chin—Ga
TuMadre
Chin—Ga
TuMadre"
"Oh."
Lunch at the Mercado
OK. That's a cheap shot.
But hey. What's going on up north? We got bad green onions at Taco Bell. We got bad spinach in California. I checked the FDA web site: I counted 29 food recalls in the last 60 days!
There's a clear lesson to be learned from this: When traveling in the U. S., Don't Eat the Food! I fully expect to see a Mexican government official travel advisory anytime now.
Thank God we residents of Mexico don't have to worry about any of that stuff. The other day, in the Mercado Libertad of Guadalajara, I sat down at a lunch counter and ordered a huarache al pastor.
There's always a problem translating food names. I mean, a hot dog has nothing to do with puppies and spotted dick isn't a disease. Huarache al pastor translates as "shepherd's sandal." Of course, it's not. Wouldn't sell if it was.
Culinarily speaking, a huarache is a variant of a tostada or a taco, but thicker like a gordo, and oval shaped, vaguely like a sandal. Flattened cornmeal dough is cooked on a griddle and when done, topped with meat and vegetables.
Huarache al Pastor
Looks kind of like a tostada, doesn't it?
Meat, usually cerdo (pork), is called al pastor when slices are marinated in spices and piled onto a vertical spit for cooking. As the meat cooks, the outer layers of the pile are sliced off. Maybe two ounces of this was sprinkled onto my huarache and topped with lettuce, onions and cilantro. I squeezed on a little lime juice and added some nopales (prickly pear cactus leaves) as garnish. It was delicious.
Cerdo al Pastor
Eating in the Mercado is violating every rule given to tourists: street food, raw, unpeeled vegetables, you name it. But I doubt that it's any riskier eating in Mexico than up north. Just read the papers.
Here at least, the food is fresher, healthier and tastier than, say, the dull corporate excretions of the Olive Garden or Taco Bell. 250 people sick! Gimme a break. That's what factory farming and institutional cooking does to you.
Mercado Libertad
It is a breathtakingly ugly building erected in 1958. The second-largest covered (albeit leaky) market in Mexico, it houses hundreds of vendors of every imaginable commodity.
Many people have set up shop just outside, making it difficult to determine exactly when you have entered the official market itself. Here, squatting sidewalk shopkeepers sell kitchen utensils, cheesy toy guitars and equipale chairs, the latter a regional specialty.
This man is selling huge copper cooking pots, good for cooking carnitas, and cast aluminum orange juicers—essential in the kitchen because everybody in Mexico drinks fresh-squeezed orange juice all the time. His juicers cost $180 pesos—about $17 U. S. Y'all up north can buy a somewhat sexier one online for $129.99 plus tax, shipping and handling. Pricey, but hey, so are U. S. oranges.
The Mercado Libertad is vast inside. Not too slick-looking, not too well-lit, not too clean; but it's big—225,000 square feet—as big as a hundred typical American suburban houses. It's three stories house maybe a thousand tiny stalls.
Narrow aisles teem with shoppers. Mind-numbing displays disorient visitors. Vendors hawk their wares. Still photos don't even begin to convey the chaos. Check out this video clip.
In the mercados, I'm always drawn to food sellers' stalls. The variety of edible stuff in Mexico is vast compared with U. S. or European supermarkets. Here's a sampling of the non-meat vendors.
[The butchers deserve their own post. But their story is so gross I'm gonna have to precede it with a warning for the squeamish.]
Here we have an herb seller. Natural remedies are far more widely used than over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. I know woefully little about medical herbs, although Rosario routinely uses them. Next time I get la gripe (the flu), I''ll ask her to treat me instead of calling Dr. Gorgeous.
I normally think of dried skate as an Asian delicacy, but here it's known as raya, and this sample is hanging in a stall selling folk medicines, so maybe it has some kind of curative or restorative powers.
Buckets and bins of dried legumes and chiles, most of which are unfamiliar to me, line the aisles. The brown, cone-shaped objects in the left image are piloncillos—Mexico's flavorful raw sugar. Unrefined, it's full of micro-nutrients and subtle flavors, and has not been treated with any chemicals. If you're gonna eat sugar, this is the sugar to eat.
While we're on the subject, got a sweet tooth? C'mon, I know you all secretly nosh KitKats and Gummy Bears. Why not try a sweet that might actually be good for you?
The pink and white bars are alfajor de coco, a confection of coconut boiled in sweetened milk. The two types of brownish sweets are calabeza en tacha (candied pumpkin) and camote en tacha (candied sweet potatoes), made with raw sugar grated from piloncillos.
In the image below, the white balls are greñudas de coco—grated coconut balls. The burned-looking yellow cylinders are also greñudas de coco. Pretty special at three pesos apiece.
Note the yellow jackets crawling on the greñudas. Mexican people don't make a big fuss about insects in or near their food. In fact, they even eat insects, but that's a subject for another time.
Pelliscos means "pinches." The little brown tamarind balls will pinch you for sure; they're spiced with chiles.
Now we're gonna get into some truly unusual foods. Coyol is the name of both a kind of palm tree and its nuts. I didn't ask the vendor what they were used for, figuring that someone in San Miguel would know. Bad guess. A Wikipedia entry leads me to believe I'm not missing anything.
Cocuixtle, also known as piñuela, is the fruit of a bromiliad. I had no idea that any part of a bromiliad was edible. Cocuixtle is used to make a sugared drink with medicinal properties.
I've just got to try some of these things. But I must say the appearance of this vendor's stall was not confidence-inspiring.
People in Mexico make delicious drinks out of almost anything. These big jars contain aguas frescas: water and sugar flavored with fruits or grains or God knows what. The vendor is serving me a styrofoam cup of tamarindo—sweetened water flavored with pulp scraped from the insides of tamarind pods.
Sugarcane is a favorite. You can buy little disks of peeled cane, or a container of fresh juice, which this man is extracting with this non-OSHA-approved machine.
Cups with sliced pepino (cucumber), jicama, sandia (watermelon), papaya—whatever, are universally available snacks. They're served with lime juice, salt and chile, which tastes way better than it sounds.
The white roots in the foreground, some of which have been cut up and placed in styrofoam dishes with hot sauce drizzled on top, are called camotes de la tierra. The name translates to something like "earth yams," but they're not related to sweet potatoes. My friend Patty says they grow everywhere, like chayote. I guess you just go out in the jungle, dig some up, and bring them to market.
(One of the little adventures of living in Mexico is sampling foods gathered in the wild.)
Camotes de la tierra are mealy and kind of tasteless. They appear to be good primarily as a medium for transporting salt, lime and capsaicinoids to your mouth. If you've eaten them once, you've eaten them enough.
Along the top row, we have clear plastic cups of pomegranate seeds (yummy) and a green berry-like fruit called (I think) arrañes verdes. (I'm not entirely clear here, because the young lady who told me what they were may not have spelled the name correctly, and I'm unable to find any references to them.)
A few years ago, I may have eaten a fruit like this that might have been called something like arrañes rojos. Same berry-like fruit, but ripe and extremely sweet with a most exotic flavor. Arrañes verdes on the other hand were sour and nasty, and adding salt, lime and chiles only made things worse. Here Jean, wearing green nail polish just for the occasion, is holding a serving of arrañes verdes. I threw it away after a taste.
To end on a positive note, here's one of my favorite treats: mango-on-a-stick. Way better than candied apples.
Vegetables occupy only a tiny corner of the Mercado Libertad. Even if I make ten posts (which I won't) I couldn't cover the whole place. But there's a few subjects I can't resist writing about, so stay tuned for more.
A Hardware Store Window
This was brought home to me as I looked into the window of a hardware store in Guadalajara.
Most prominent are the hunting rifles. Mexico's countryside is relatively untamed. Much land is still unfenced. Within a half-hour drive of the center of Guadalajara, you can be in a near-wilderness. People live closer to the land. Their rifles are not for sport; they are for providing food.
Displayed in the upper right corner are three sickles. Weed Whackers and lawn mowers are too expensive for most people. I see crews along the verges of highways cutting weeds with hand tools. The economic principle in Mexico is that machines are expensive; people are cheap.
On the lower right, we have the single most important plant-taming tools in Mexico: machetes. They're used for clearing brush and for cutting small firewood for cooking. They're also used for pruning and shaping plants, which gives Mexican gardens a somewhat rough-hewn look. Only the hedgerows of the English countryside, trimmed as they are with whirling chain flails, are more brutally kept in check.
Finally, the black shears at the lower left are for shearing sheep. There's no electricity out in the campo, you see.
While you probably can find all this stuff in an American Tru-Value Hardware Store, you won't find it featured in any displays. You'll likely have to ask where the machetes are, and your selection will be limited to a single model kept in the back somewhere.
The Guadalajara Subway
It has nice, modern stations, complete with the prerequisite graffiti.
Much of Guadalajara lies inside the Anillo Periférico—the peripheral ring highway. The subway consists of two lines. Line One runs through the center of the city, connecting to the periférico in the north and the south. Line Two begins at Line One in the center and runs east almost all of the way to the periférico. So the whole system looks like a "T" laid on its side.
It really doesn't go anyplace gringo tourists would like to go: neither Zapopan nor Tonolá nor Tlaquepaque. But it gets heavy use, so it must go where lots of tapatios (Guadalajara residents) want to go.
System access is by tokens.
About the size of a nickel, they have three deep grooves stamped into each side. The token slot on the turnstiles have teeth that match the grooves, making use of slugs virtually impossible.
It's a typically inventive Mexican solution for dealing with typically inventive Mexicans who circumvent regulations. They know their own.
The subway was always crowded when I used it.
Although trains ran frequently, crowds quickly formed along the platforms. The crush getting off and on would be familiar to any New Yorker or Tokyo-ite.
Tokens, not magnetic stripe tickets. Old-fashioned trains. Bolted rails, not welded. So it's not up there with BART or the Paris Metro.
But a token costs four pesos—36 cents. I'll take the Guadalajara deal anytime, thanks.
Villa Ganz
It's pricey, but our money buys us respite from the tumult of the semi-riot that is Mexico's second-largest city. Villa Ganz belongs to an association of small hotels: Hoteles Botique de México. The group has 45 hotels throughout Mexico, and includes La Puertecita, where Jean and I first stayed in San Miguel, taking Spanish lessons (four hours per day!) from the gracious Adela Sanchez.
Mornings are especially pleasant. We're early risers in a country where people go to bed at two and get up around ten. So we have the place to ourselves for breakfast.
There's something terribly elegant about a carpet on a lawn, if you ask me.
(That's a poinsettia behind the table.)
Yesterday, Jean and I went our separate ways; she to Tlaquepaque for some serious shopping, and I to the city center to try to capture some Mexican flavor with my camera. We arrived back at Villa Ganz with sore feet and backs, and sat in the lounge drinking agua de jamaica (iced tea made from hibiscus blossoms), listening to Guadalajara's excellent classical music FM station.
This morning, the sky is a startling blue. It'll get up to 80°.
I wonder what it's like in Madison, WI?
Guarding Public Buildings
In San Miguel, policemen in quasi-military dress and body armor guard the old presidencia, even though the county government has moved to a new building on the eastern edge of town. I don't know why they're still guarding it. Probably a couple of secretaries still in their offices.
Their battle-ready appearance weighs heavily on the fiesta atmosphere of the Jardín. Well, it would until you look at the expressions on their faces. See? They're just a couple of guys.
Here in Guadalajara, the Jalisco state office building is similarly guarded, except that there's more policemen standing in the doorway.
But they're still sharing a joke. Happy cops. They aren't wearing body armor either, so they make a kinder, gentler presence.
While wandering around Guadalajara this morning, I took this image of soldiers in front of another building.
You may have noticed that four of the five soldiers are staring in my direction. One is gesturing. Another is beginning to raise his hand.
They're telling me I shouldn't be photographing them. I went up to the soldier on the right and asked him if in fact I was not to take pictures. He assured me that I shouldn't. Well, OK.
Then I asked him what building they were guarding.
He said in all seriousness: "I can't tell you. It's a secret."
Garbanzos
Making three-bean salad.
Here, a denizen of a non-coastal state demonstrates how to create a "salad" entirely out of canned goods.
In the psychedelic 70s I came to terms with garbanzos in the form of hummus...
Hummus with pita.
... the dip made of mashed garbanzos, pine nuts, olive oil, garlic, lemon, tahini (ground sesame seeds), and a little cayenne. Yummy.
I was introduced to hummus in an Armenian restaurant in Alviso; one that employed an aggressive, overweight belly dancer. We liked to bring asian visitors there to embarrass them. "No, Mr. Kim. You put the dollar bill in her girdle."
These days a few thousand cigars and countless cigarettes have permanently stunted my taste buds. I find almost any food palatable. I've even come to like a few garbanzos sprinkled on my green salad.
The garbanzos we eat in El Norte are reconstituted dried beans.
Dried garbanzos.
They require soaking and long cooking to become edible.
In Mexico, we do it other.
In Mexico, we eat garbanzos verdes—green garbanzos. The difference between these and their dried cousins is exactly the same as between green and dried peas. The difference in taste and texture is very similar.
Garbanzo verde vendor.
They're eaten mostly as a walk-around snack. For a a buck (10 pesos) you get a plastic sack with steamed green garbanzos. They're served in their pods.
You can think of them as a kind of Mexican edamame.
A serving of garbanzos verdes.
Usually, you get them salted and doused with lime juice and chili powder. You eat them out of hand, spitting the empty pods out onto the street. Hey, we're still a third-world country.
Low calorie, full of vitamins, and quite tasty. Look for 'em in your local barrio.
Welcome to Our Quiet Hotel
But west of the Centro Historico, upscale shops and university buildings front the tree-lined expressway, calling passers-through to stop and rest awhile. Every time we've driven through, I've promised myself that one day, I'd visit Guadalajara. Now we're doing it for the first time.
Villa Ganz is an elegant ten-room hotel in the heart of Colonia Lafayette, that inviting tree-lined district, a couple of miles from the touristy madness of the Centro Historico and the tacky high-rise "five-star" hotels down by the airport.
On entering our room, we found a lovely hospitality tray.
Aah. This is the way life should be. Yes, the wine is a screw-top, and it's from a winery in Baja California, but it is a Cab. Jean says it's delicious, and she should know.
And what's that on the plate? A little cheese treat? A couple of mints?
No, it's a pair of earplugs.
How thoughtful. After all, we are in Mexico. And Mexico is always noisy.
Last night the Guadalajara futbol team was playing Toluca in the semifinals for the first time ever. We could hear cheering from the stadium. Two big yells: when Guadalajara scored its early goal, and when Toluca scored its last-minute equalizer.
After several years of living in San Miguel, we're no longer bothered by noise. I just tune it out. Last night I went to bed around ten, the sound of exploding rockets lulling me to sleep.
Roach Coach
They're complete restaurants on wheels. You want pancakes? Eggs over easy? A BLT? A chocolate shake? You got it.
They're efficient and effecive. Quilted stainless steel surfaces are easy to keep clean. Packaged foods are displayed on shelves positioned for self-service. Prices are low. What's not to like?
Somewhere along the line, lunch trucks acquired the sobriquet "Roach Coach." Food vendors went along with the joke; hence, the song played by their horns. Much of their business is in servicing construction sites and industrial parks, where restaurants are scarce.
A similar market demand exists in San Miguel; one which is satisfied in the same way—with food served from motor vehicles. Somewhat more modest motor vehicles.
In their most common form, San Miguel's roach coaches are '70s-vintage beater automobiles carrying a trunk full of various hot and cold foods. So your capital investment is more like $700, not $70,000. Good thing too, considering the kind of sales volume a Mexican food vendor can expect.
The basic offering is some kind of meat mixed with vegetables in a spicy sauce, rice and beans. Maybe some nopalitos (cactus leaves). Chopped onions and cilantro for garnish. You get lots of corn tortillas in the bargain. And jalapeños and salsa. A plastic cooler contains refrescos—soft drinks.
My friend Bob once referred to the food served to his construction workers as "chicken neck tacos." A shameful thing to say. They eat better than that. It was chicken wing tacos.
The roach coach pictured is a cut above the usual rust-eaten heap. Well-preserved, I'd say. Even though the front and rear sections appear to be of two different vintages.
But—what's that cone-shaped thing on the roof?
Ah. A public address speaker. You might think it is used to announce the arrival of the roach coach in your neighborhood. Probably not.
Actually, this vehicle supports not one, but two businesses: it's a rolling restaurant and a mobile advertising service.
I remember as a child watching black and white movies set in Latin America where a '49 Chevy with public address horns on top rolls slowly through the pueblo, haranguing the voters. Well, we still got 'em.
Circus in town? Some guy with a four-testicle voice booms out of an over-amped mobile PA system. Election time? The town is full of blaring trucks. Dueling speakers.
It's intrusive and annoying. It's part of life in Mexico. I love it.
Gas Pump
The gas pump remains today.
No longer functional, it is preserved as a reminder of slower, more comfortable times, when oil companies weren't owned by the state and nobody minded waiting once or twice a day when someone blocked traffic on the narrow street while refueling.
Like many of us, San Miguel artist Mary Breneman loves this old pump, in her case so much so that she painted it.
The minute I saw the painting, I bought it. Others may have paintings of pudgy bullfighters or elongated cats or views of the Parroquoia hanging on their walls. But none of them have a gas pump.
Their loss.
A Fantasy House
The pueblo itself consists of a line of poor houses strung along an old road, and a humble, decaying church that appears to be abandoned. The inhabitants have no apparent means of livelihood.
On a recent Sunday drive, Jean and I encountered an interesting gate along the road to La Cieneguita.
The left door bears a toothy face and the right depicts the Virgin of Guadalupe. An arch over the gate contains an image resembling a foreshortened Jabba the Hut. A steer skull tops each gatepost.
Someone interesting lives here.
Peering through the gates, a pleasant garden of mesquites and native plants frames a view of distant farmland.
This is a peaceful, quiet place. Until you see the house.
A free spirit built this place. Rampant creativity. Style run amok. Unconstrained by convention, this is a home built solely to satisfy the whims and urges of one person. Nobody was considering "resale value" when designing it.
And a good thing, too. It's more art than house, and we spent a pleasant hour inspecting it from the outside. (No one was home, and I'm not sure we would have overcome our reluctance to disturb the occupants if they had been.)
The place is jammed with wonderful details. A wall with faces...
... a colorful fountain...
... an arabesque tower...
... and a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe adorned with wine bottles.
I admire the person who made this. He built a little spot that hums with good vibrations. As an old, linear-thinking engineer, standing there looking, I was oddly comforted by all that creativity.
Go figure.
The Milkman Cometh
I know y'all get yours in cardboard cartons from the supermarket. Some of you avoid consuming hormone- and pesticide-laden factory-farmed milk by buying organic factory-farmed milk at $2.99 a half gallon. Younger, hipper Mexicans buy their milk in cartons, too, but so far they can't get organic milk that way.
For organic milk, they need to see this man:
Eugenio here is walking down the street, none too swiftly, with his unrefrigerated milk can slung on his back, his government-approved half-liter measure in his right hand, ready to sell you some fresh-off-the-farm milk.
Bring your own container.
A fair amount of the milk consumed in San Miguel is sold this way, but milk sellers on foot are the exception. Usually, cooks listen for the sound of a unique-sounding horn, signaling them to go outside with their pots and buckets to meet the man in the pickup truck.
The milk they buy is unhomogenized and probably (I'm guessing) unpasteurized. Raw milk. Members of the '70s Back-to-the-Land Movement would approve.
Juanita, the cook at the Umaran house we rented, bought a pot of milk every few days. Sometimes she'd let it sit on the counter with a towel over it, to let the cream rise. Other times, she'd boil it to concentrate it for soups or flan. I would get a little nervous when I saw milk sitting out, but everybody in the house looked healthy, so I just shut up and ate what was put in front of me.
Mostly it's the older folks that buy milk from the itinerant milk sellers. When they were girls, that was the only way milk came, and what was good enough then is good enough now.
Plus, they don't have to carry it home from the grocery store—a real issue as most of them don't own cars.
But times are changing. The new Comerciál Méxicana Mega Store out at the Pílipa glorieta (traffic circle) opened last weekend. It makes Wal-Mart look like the old Boonton A&P grocery store. There must be a hundred linear feet of cold cases full of milk in cartons, not to mention pallets of unrefrigerated ultrapasteurized milk in the middle of the aisle.
Mexican yuppies aren't home when the milkmen come. Anyway, they're too busy managing banks or designing houses to buy food from more than one source. Just one stop at the supermarket—that's all they have time for. Load up the cart with, among other things, milk cartons, and get home in time to watch the Mexican equivalent of Wheel of Fortune.
Idyll
Many of the streets are as yet unpaved, but Olimpo definitely is urban. Lots of raw brick exteriors, but a few nice buildings: a church, a couple of remodels. The dome belongs to CASA, an NGO working to reduce domestic violence.
The photo above was taken from the Fraccionmiento Los Mezquites. Turn around and walk a few steps, and this is what you see:
Farms in Berkeley? We got 'em right here in San Miguel. This one is surrounded by housing tracts.
It's a bucolic scene: a watermelon hanging from a vine, a dog lying by a dirt road, a cow chewing its cud. You won't see anything like this in Sunnyvale.
See how the low morning light shines through the cow's translucent ears. Let's see if we can get a close-up of that...
HOLY SHIT!
THAT's not a cow. LOOK at those HORNS!
It stands right up, alarmed, when I approach. On guard. Watching me suspiciously. Ready, if need be, for action.
I don't know how long or strong that rope is, and I'm not about to find out. I'm outta here RIGHT NOW!
[Got a nice shot of his ears, though.]
Cuddly Venomous Creatures
Poinsettias
Over the years, I've bought countless numbers of these living Christmas decorations. They add spectacular color and a festive air wherever you see them.
Sometimes after New Year's Eve, I've tried to keep one or two alive for the next holiday season, but they always died. Maybe I gave them too much water. Or kept them too warm. Or too cold. Maybe they're just florists' plants propagated for brief display, unable to sustain longer lives.
Maybe they don't like living in gringo-land.
Poinsettias originated in Mexico, where they are called Flor de Nochebuena—the Christmas Eve flower. This time of year, you see them all over, wearing their winter colors.
No tender hothouse plants, these: they grow in the toughest of conditions, becoming as much as ten feet tall.
Finding the beauty of Mexico requires seeing past decay and litter. As I look toward this trashy yard, what catches my eye is not heaps of junk or carcasses of old cars, but brilliant layers of red, elegantly shimmering, somehow enhanced by the drab surroundings.
The San Miguel Tecos
Our town has maybe a dozen soccer fields. None of them have any grass, but that doesn't discourage anyone. We have many youth teams, but unlike in the U. S., high school and college teams thrive here as well.
I saw this team forming up in Juarez Park the other day.
They are the Tecos, short for tecolotes which means "owls." Their name has been lifted directly from the professional soccer team associated with the Universidad Autónomo de Guadalajara, That's why it says "UAG" on the owl logos on their jerseys.
(Copyrights? We don' need no steenking copyrights.)
The professional team seems to be undistinguished. The UAG fight song suggests unrealized ambitions. Sounds funny to me. You can listen to it here.
The UAG team also has a website, but anyone who visits there is denied access. As Borat says, "Niiice.
But the kids don't care about any of that. They're at that wonderful, innocent age when all they want to do is play ball.
I think they're cute.
Housing Projects
Large developments have sprung up at the periphery of the city; smaller ones are being built in more central areas where enough land can be found. The houses pictured above probably are priced in the neighborhood of $100,000 U. S.—ideal for an expatriate with modest resources or a Mexican middle manager.
But for the vast majority of Mexicans, these houses might as well be on the Moon. Never, in their lifetimes nor in their children's, will they accumulate enough to buy one.
Competition from the well-heeled makes things worse. My friend, Guadalupe Cano, built his four-bedroom house in the little pueblo of Capilla de Milpillas, near Guadalajara, for $25,000. He'd have to spend ten times that much to build it here. What Bill Clinton called "ordinary people" have been frozen out of the market.
What to do?
The government has thrown itself into the breach.
The Fondo Nacional de Apoyo Económico a la Vivenda (the Mexican penchant for unpronounceable acronyms renders this FONAEVI) provides a much-needed path to home ownership for the poor.
The name means something like the National Fund for Economic Support of Housing. The medallion reeks of typical governmental paternalism: tu casa, not the respectful su casa. And the inclusion of every Mexican politician's smarmy catchphrase: Contigo es posible—With you, it's possible.
Barf.
But the program is a good one. How it works is, you begin by depositing at least $50 pesos in a bank account. When interest and contributions amount to $12,000 pesos, you can purchase a government-built house for $120,000 with your savings, taking back a $108,000 low-cost mortgage.
That's an entire house for $11,000, in real money. Only $1,100 down. About the price of a beater car.
Here's what you get for your money:
OK. These are never gonna make the cover of Architectural Digest. But while they might not appeal to you and me, for many Mexican families, they are the impossible dream.
Look. They have water and electricity and sewers and four walls and a roof and a front door that can be locked. No phone or gas, but you add those later, when you can afford them.
Rosario, our cook, lives in a similarly subsidized house. Illiterate, a mother at 13 years old, employed as a maid all her life, she and her cab driver husbad could never have owned their home without help.
There's a long waiting list for these houses. Plus, I think there's a lottery involved. Until your turn comes up, you just have to do the best you can. Often, that's not very well.
"Pablito! You're driving me crazy. Go outside and watch TV!"
Public Telephone
Flat Tire
Well, one option would be to stop right in the middle of the narrow cobblestone street, turn on the emergency flashers, and take the tire for repair. No need to worry about blocking traffic. Everyone expects traffic jams and delays. It's a natural part of life in Mexico, land of mañana.
So, block the rear tire with the "parking brake" carried in the truck bed (on account of the factory-installed one hasn't worked in years). Remove the right front wheel. And just leave the whole thing sitting there while finding a place that patches tires.
What we're looking for is a sign like the one pictured below; one that says vulcanizadora. Means "guy that fixes flats."
These signs are commonly written on old tires, to make their meaning clear to the illiterate and the Spanish-impaired. You see them everywhere. Good thing, too, because Mexican roads are tough on tires. Cobblestones, potholes, rocks left on the pavement, pointy junk falling off trucks and thin tires; people are always getting flats.
This sign tells us to look across the street.
Oooh-Kay. Vulcanizadora "Casaneda." This time vulcanizadora is spelled right. Things are looking up.
We Norteamericanos are accustomed to businesses that look a little more... well... businesslike. But in my experience, this place looks typical for a vulcanizadora. Not to worry. Go knock on the door.
Nobody home. What's that sign say?
Ah. "We are now changed to our new address..." It's about a mile away. Keep rolling that tire, Juanito.
Meanwhile traffic piles up behind the blinking truck. Horns honk. Maybe the traficantes will tow it away. ¿Quién sabe?
Drives us gringos nuts.
Cephalopods for Lunch
On a frosty morning walk I noticed this sign.
It's the No Name Fish and Shellfish Restaurant.
The sign caught my attention because the lettering was neat and colorful, although I think it could lose the droopy serifs on the P and the M. What particularly intrigued me, though, was yet another example of using a living creature's happy image to whet appetites.
Here we have a jowly octopus (or strictly speaking, a pentapus) representing a meal. Actually, octopus, called pulpo in Spanish, is widely consumed here, and is, en mí opinión, delicious. But then, I eat tako sushi.
Mmmm-mmmm.
But I digress.
The sailor hat is a nice touch. The octopus's expression could use a little punching up; I can't decide if he's smiling or gritting his teeth. Good orthodontia, though.
Bottle of beer? Must be party time.
A truly individualistic icon. Disney never reached this level of hominess.
Ciruelas Amarillas
Ciruela amarilla (Spondias mombin L.)
The name translates as "yellow plum," but this one's neither yellow nor a plum.
I think they may be gathered in the wild rather than cultivated, because they tend to come with blemishes, galls and scaly spots. They have a thick, waxy skin that tastes a little bitter, and a huge, woody pit. The flesh is only an eighth of an inch thick, so there's no point in peeling it, 'cause there'll be nothing left to eat if you do.
How you eat one is, you throw the whole thing in your mouth, grind off the tough skin with your teeth (which you chew up and swallow) and gnaw the pit awhile to get the flesh. One fruit produces maybe a teaspoon of nutrition.
They don't keep well, either.
Three ciruelas amarillas and one pit.
So why bother? Clearly ciruelas amarillas are never gonna compete with, say, a juicy, ripe peach.
Well, the reason you bother is because the flesh is intensely aromatic, exotically flavored and is the sweetest fruit you've ever tasted.
One of the benefits of living in Mexico is access to foods you've never eaten before. For every fruit available in the U. S., there are two or more here. I've not even begun to work my way through them all.
One other note of warning with this fruit is in order: Don't put the pits into the garbage disposal. I did. I had to replace it. The pits are incredibly hard. Tore the guts right out of the machine. Throwing in a handful of ¼—20 steel nuts would not have been harder on it.
The K of C
...except here, they are called the Caballeros de Colón.
God, what a great name—redolent of mustachioed men in capes and flat hats, galloping through fields of cacti.
But whenever I see this sign, the romantic image quickly dissipates as I recall the old song I learned in college:
I am a gay caballero,
Traveling to Rio de Janeiro.
And I carry with me,
My bom-bom-badee,
And both of my bom-bom-baderos...
Sad, isn't it, that some people never grow up.
A Tale from the Plaza Civil
—§—
Boy it's a bitch getting old.
I guess I'll just rest my bony ass here. Jeez, do my feet ever hurt.
So what the hell is the problem here? I knew I should have worn socks.
Maybe there's something in my shoe.
Well Hellooo little schoolgirls. You want a Walnetto?
Hmmm. No takers. I guess they're wise to me.
Well, no point in hanging around here. This wall is hard. Now it's my butt that hurts.
Boy it's a bitch getting old.
Occult Knowledge
Not so in Mexico. Mexicans are hard-working, practical folks. They don't have time for this stuff. Oh sure, there's a little Catholic mysticism; a dabbling in Mayan ritual. But no Mexican really takes any of this stuff seriously. There seems to be an absence of the truly weird.
Or is there?
I came upon the Instituto Gnostica de Antropologica on my daily walk. I tried to decipher the sign. No luck. Too many words not in my vocabulary. So I snapped this photo and took it home to evaluate at my desk.
What we have here is the Occult Institute of Anthropology. The name, of course, doesn't make sense. Maybe they meant to say, "The Institute of Occult Anthropology." No, that doesn't work either.
No matter. Neither translation tells us anything. Checking the rest of the sign, we are able to discern without referring to a dictionary that the Institute offers lectures (conferencias) on philosophy, art, science and mysticism. Well, that pretty much covers the University of California curriculum and then some.
Specific subjects include meditation, archeology, and "dream yoga", whatever the hell that is.
For the rest of it, I had to hit the books.
Fenomeno OVNI is an acronym for objeto volador no indentificado. It means UFO—unidentified flying object. "UFO phenomina." Already I can hear Theremin music starting to play.
For Culturas Serpentinas (snake cultures?) I found a reference on a web site that calls itself Metareligion.
A page on the web site states, "The authentic Aztec and Mayan cultures, the Egyptian and Chaldean, etc. are Serpentine Cultures that cannot be understood without Sexual Magic and the Kundalini." Huh?
(For a sojourn in the weird, check out Metareligion. Kinky sex here.)
The most obscure topic, La Masería, appears to have something to do with calendar medallions from Pompeii. That figures.
From all this, I conclude that Mexicans can be just as fruity as Norteamericanos. Paul Latour, who has lived in Mexico forever isn't so sure. He thinks the Instituto Gnostica probably is something created by expatriates. From Marin.
Maybe one of you knows something about this stuff. Until I hear from you, I'll remain a-gnostic.
Waiting In Line
No, they are not.
They are waiting to pay their electric bills.
Hard to imagine, isn't it? Up north, the first time something like this ever happened, there'd be outraged editorials, lawsuits, and recall elections.
In the U. S., electric companies may be monopolies, but it's commonly understood that they exist to serve people. Utilities are expected to cater to their customers. When consumers are inconvenienced by monopolies, hordes of bureaucrats descend on them, and the situation usually gets corrected fast.
So what's going on, here?
First of all, many years ago, the electric companies were nationalized. So, power is supplied by a government monopoly: La Comisión Federal de Electricidad, or CFE.
Think of it as getting your power from the US Postal Service.
Next, Mexico's economy operates on a cash basis, by which I mean, most people don't have bank accounts. So they pay CFE in person—with cash.
It may not even be possible to pay by mailing a check drawn on a Mexican bank. I don't know anybody who has even bothered to try. Nobody in their right mind mails anything important because Sepomex, the Mexican postal service, is broken.
All electric bills fall due on a single day every two months. Mexicans are frugal electric power users; even so, they struggle to come up with the cash for that bimonthly bill.
So they pay it on the last day. They wait in line for hours while CFE's disinterested clerks process the incredible amount of paperwork associated with any government-related transaction.
They wait patiently, because they have always been made to wait, and they don't realize that in many parts of the world, citizens would find waiting intolerable.
Real power continues to elude ordinary Mexicans. Of the many reasons why this is so, one is that a national attitude of passively accepting bureaucratic abuse dissipates pressure for change.
Would you wait in line to pay your bills?
I have to pay an electric bill. But I don't wait in line. I send the bill via our cook, Rosario, to Lloyds (think Schwab) with the bill and they transfer money out of my account to CFE's. I have to pay my bill a week early, and Lloyds charges me 65 cent