Four Postcards from Mexico - Postal Cuarto

The following afternoon, Saturday, we were scheduled to travel up the foothills of Ixtlazihuatl, for dinner with the Hinojosas, friends of Lara’s at San Isidro Labrador. “They’re very amable,” she said, “buena gente, but... conservative.” “Ya me imaginaba” I said. I had met one of their sons, Eduardo, several years back and we formed an instant liking for one another based on our shared feeling for Benito Juarez, Mexico’s great Liberal Liberator whom Eduardo called a paricidio, corrupto, ingrato, apóstata y traidor. Needless to say, Juarez is something of a fault-line in Mexican political history.

“And don’t go talking about ‘indians’,” Lara mock-admonished me. Juarez was a full blooded Zapotec Indian, so that playing from a politically correct deck of cards, a person who despised him is supposedly a white racist who deprecates “los indios” -- the currently correct term for which is “indigenas” But, life is never that simple. When, during that lunch several years back, I made reference to “the Indians,” Eduardo had another outburst. “Se les llama indígenas!” “Ya, ya.” I replied, “but “Indians” is a perfectly fine word...even Las Casas (their great protector) referred to the natives as ‘indians’.” As far as I was concerned it all depended on how the word was used. Eduardo would not be convinced and after a cascade of contrary explanations concluded with “my skin may be white, but my heart is brown!” Now, five years later, Lara and I looked at one another, put hand to heart, finger to air and simultaneously broke out laughing... “pero my corazón es moreno” Nevertheless, I promised to speak only of ‘los indigenas’. ”

Everything about San Isidro bespoke privilege; not luxury, but the well-being one enjoys when fate has been kind. Impeccably maintained, the house rests on rolling green slopes overlooking the entire valley. Mt. Ixtlazihuatl forms an impressive backdrop, the visual equivalent on this grey-sky day of a Bach fugue.

We arrived late, because another fire had broken out and Lara had to do her round ups. Don Hector Hinojosa a tall, portly man, in open shirt and suspenders, had waited the time with a copa or two and greeted us amiably at the gate.

Lara was nervous, still worrying about the fire. “Mira mi querida,” Don Hector said at once authoritative and gentle, “come inside, ya, and relax. You’ve done what you can do, so now let it take care of itself.” “Bienvenido a su casa,” he said to me, as he draped his arm over my shoulder and led me inside.

Clean and comfortable, the hacienda was far from grand. By size and privacy of style it was more of a rancho, not that anyone in their right mind would turn their nose up at it on that account. Don Hector’s wife, Eugenia, came out from the kitchen and after introductions and greetings we stood around chatting while a delayed dinner was got together.

Standing there in the living room, I noticed a large polished wood and glass display case which contained an exquisite meter long model of a turn of the century steamer. Don Hector saw my interest and walked me over to it.

“This was sent to Don Porfirio, in the days before the internet.” I looked at him quizzically. “Well today,” he explained, “they would simply send some imagenes en PDF, but in those days.....” “

Ah, yes, I see your point... Well it’s quite beautiful.”

"Yes, the shipbuilders in Bremerhaven were hoping to sell it to the Mexican Government. Desgraciadamente, the model never made it to Mexico (City) and Don Porfirio never saw it.”

"The Revolution?"

"Yes."

"Ah."

It didn’t take a shipbuilder to figure out my next question, and so Don Hector went on to explain, how for near 50 years, the model languished in a crate at the warehouse in Veracruz. When as an young engineer he went to work for the port city, his boss was clearing out the warehouse and gave it to him as a wedding present.

“Very nice gift,” I said. Don Hector thought so too.

La comida was ready and we made our way into the comedor. Don Hector sat at the head of the table with his wife at his left. He pulled out a lacquered placard of sorts and read from one of several printed prayers on the board. “... make us mindful to seek sustenance for our souls as we gratefully receive this sustenance for our bodies....” We all crossed ourselves, before passing around the serving dishes of a very comida familiar of white bread, salad, rolled tacos, beans and several varieties of soft drinks.

Our table talk was inconsequential except for a brief political interlude in which the topic of NAFTA came up when I remarked that the tortillas appeared to made of white corn. Most NorteAmericanos, were taught to think of NAFTA as friendly neighbors trading sugar for flour over the fence. To the extent that they think otherwise now, it is in terms of “jobs lost overseas.” What they do not realize, even now, is that NAFTA was simply a protocol for economic conquest, connived at with Quislings in the Mexican Government.

Under its terms, Mexico was prohibited from providing agricultural price supports to its own farmers, whereas no such prohibition applied to the United States. As a result, large corporate agribusiness, simply flooded the Mexican market with cheap industrial yellow corn, underselling Mexican growers who traditionally had grown a high percentage of white corn, which is now virtually non-existent. Also virtually non-existent are thousands of small and medium Mexican farms, whose campesinos, fled economically devastated villages and illegally migrated up north “seeking to take advantage of our way of life.” As the New York Times put it sanctimoniously, NAFTA has “ shaken up Mexican farming — mostly for the better” The Times went on to instruct that “ Mexico needs investment to increase yields and move out of corn and into more lucrative crops” while and the Mexican Government “ will also need to help more rural Mexicans find jobs outside agriculture.”

It was hardly surprising that once the Mexican peasantry was destroyed, large U.S. Agric-Corps would buy up huge tracts of land, and convert them into food factories, worked by Mexican campesinos, at last freed from their feudal bondage. The only difference between these holdings and the villainous pre-revolutionary corporate haciendas is that Cargill, Arthur Daniel Midland and Tyson dispense with manorial facades.

“No,” came the reply, “this corn is grown locally.” “That’s nice to know,” I said before going on to say in a classic Freudian slip, “it’s terrible what el Tratado, has done to los indios”. Eduardo choked and Lara kicked me under the table.

“You oppose the present government?” one of Eduardo’s younger brothers asked, as he fed some pablum into his infant’s mouth. “Of course he does,” Eduardo said emphatically, “if people do not like the present regime es porque aman a la patria.”

Don Hector smiled and made an irrelevant comment, the effect of which was to put the table talk back on track of the ordinary and happy. Two of Don Hector’s other sons popped in with their wives, children and infants, and after everyone standing up and getting introduced and making some smaller talk, popped out again.

As we sat around the table drinking coffee, Don Hector told his wife to bring out the foto albums of their honeymoon. Soon we were looking at browning colour pictures from the early sixties that showed newly weds and friends at some country grove pic nic and then the couple alone, standing next to a wrought iron park bench on the flagstone pathway in front of the cathedral at Aguascalientes, a slim young man in sweater-vest and slacks with his young wife, in a plain cotton dress with a sweater draped over her shoulders and looking new to the role of señora.

I was taken back and taken aback. I recognized the scene as I had been through Aguascalientes in those very years when returning home by bus or train during school vacations.. But I had forgotten how relatively deserted Mexico was in those days. The whole country had only 60 millions, up 20 million from a decade before. Still, the country was a ways from being awash with people and at el tiempo de la comida, and at other times, the streets of provincial cities would be well nigh deserted.

The only other person in the photo was an Indian woman in the near background, making her way up to the cathedral on her knees, as Sr. and Sra. Hinojosa stood smiling and facing away toward the camera. They were not ignoring the woman in any despective way. No doubt they had seen her, the way one sees people praying in church, the way one sees balloon vendors, or couples on a park bench. The woman on her knees was simply going about her prayer-business, and it was no one else’s business to gawk or fuss. I held the photo as long as I politely could. One doesn’t see much of that either... in the new Mexico.

“...we had a wonderful spiritual advisor up there, right my darling?”

“yes,” Doña Eugenia nodded, “he was a wonderful being...”

“... but they wouldn’t let him leave his diocese, even though we begged the bishop...”

“Spiritual advisor...” it was said in the way one would speak about the gardener, or cook. People walked on their knees, people had spiritual guides, while others, apostates and parricides, made revolution; it was all quite usual.

Don Hector led me over to a mueble on which stood a thicket of photos. One by one he showed me pictures of his sons, who stood with their arms around their wives or holding an infant; all except for one young who stood alone by some flowers in a garden dressed in a brown Franciscan habit... "Does he continue in his vocation?" I asked. “No, he left. He wanted to get married.” Then Don Hector added, “I don’t ask about my sons’ lives. Solo quiero que sean felices and that they know that whenever they want, for whatever reason, they can come to me.”

At that point, Eduardo came over, and said, “Let me show your around.” We walked outside and he started showing me the grounds, his stables, his collections of bridles, the orchards, and a big dry pond. “It was wonderful, when it was filled with water,” he said, “we used to eat Sunday lunch out here, and we kids swung from a rope from that tree over there..”

“What happened?” I asked “Los campesinos needed the mountain run off for their fields.” he said this with resignation but without bitterness. It was inconceivable to deprive people of water they needed to survive. So that was that; everything passes.

With or with-out a pond, it was a very beautiful spot, and I told Eduardo that he was lucky. He knew it. Still, I asked, had he ever travelled abroad? He replied, somewhat off-handedly, that perhaps someday he would go to Europe. He would like to visit the Louvre and the Prado. Had he ever thought of going to the United States, I asked. “Para que?” Came the terse reply, “For what?” My mind ran through a quick stack of postcards: the Empire State, Maine fishing village, Grand Tetons, Golden Gate. He waited until he could see by my look that I had answered the question for him, whereupon he tacked on the inevitable conclusion: "No me tiene ningun interés."

Nor apparently for anyone else I was meeting. It’s not that they are unawares of the United States... the din from north of the border is inescapable. It’s rather that, at best, they think the U.S. is tiresome.

A part of me wanted, to say that the United States is not all Hollywood trash, bad manners, rapacious exploitation, and neocon monsters; that interesting things are being done and there are good people here too. But the look in their eyes answers, “So what?” And yes, “So what?” -- It’s not as if there aren’t good and interesting people elsewhere. In fact, at all times, under all regimes, there have been good people doing interesting things. Why should the U.S. think that its “good and interesting people” make it exceptional or provide a saving exception? The fact is that for the past 50 years the U.S. has brought depredation and destruction the world over. People in the U.S. are oblivious to this precisely because we have benefitted from this program of plunder. Not elsewhere. So, there are good people in the U.S. too. So what? People shrug and go about their business.

Of course not all Mexicans feel this way. Especially among the middle and upper middle classes in Mexico City there are large segments of people whose habits and expectations in life are entirely americanized. And of course, there are millions who have been sucked up into le standard by those disgorging cloacas of globalized consumer culture. All this is as true in Mexico as it is in China, France or Argentina. But in the provinces and even more in the pueblos ... it is otherwise. They are not anti-American... it is more lethally indifferent than that.

Many of these campesinos are the same people I meet in the United States. “So, how do you like it here,” I ask. “Pues ya sabe...no?” Comes the defeasing reply. They don’t have to explain. They don’t like the “here” en el norte They think it’s cold, unfeeling, uptight, ungracious, un-everything. So why are they here? “Pues, ya sabe ...no?” They don’t have to explain that either. Life in Mexico, loved as it is, is “muy dificil” if not outright impossible and downright pinche

But not for the Hinojosas. “Yes,” I replied to Eduardo. “why leave at all?” Just then a herd of sheep came barrelling down upon us.

It finally came time for us to take our leave. Back at the doorway, Don Hector put his arm around my shoulder and shook my hand. It had been, a pleasure; aqui tiene su casa; come back whenever you wish. I told him he had a lovely house, that I would make it a point to come back soon. “Not too soon,” he laughed

After hugging Lara, and making arrangements to “conectar” again in the coming week. Eduardo walked us to the truck for the bump back down to San Pablo. As we made our way through the darkened car-paths and alleys, I thought of Don Hector’s amiable greeting, his boat, his honeymoon pictures, his children, his placard with table prayers and his “... spiritual advisor...” “What are they, I wondered... Opus? Legionarios de Cristo? “ It didn’t matter. Don Hector had welcomed me to his ranch, let me know what he believed, showed me the fruits of his life and told me he was happy.

Next morning, I was up at the crack of dawn. Lara drove me to the bus station at San Martín for the trip back over the mountain passes into the Valley of Mexico. The sun was bright and the sky was clear. There were as yet no cars on the road and the countryside was bathed in Sunday morning tranquility as we sped past chocolate coloured fields, small villages, church spires with fading paper pennants hanging from the bell-tower, mounds of village garbage being scavenged by dogs and, then, deep phalanxes of pine trees pointing upward at 9000 feet.

How many times I have travelled this mountain road between the two great valleys of the Mexican altiplano, joining the short span of my life to a train voyagers through centuries past. They used to call it El Paso de Cortez. but even before him it was journeyed by Aztec warriors and, before them by, merchant traders from Teotihuacan heading south with obsidian for jade. As we sped down the maguey covered slopes into Mexico City, in the emollient morning sun, I was filled with a rooted and abiding sense of familiarity

It being Sunday, the air in Mexico City was breathable. Being early, there was little traffic, and from the window of the bus, I could see that the el gobierno had planted playgrounds, trees and parks along either side of the road. Early morning joggers and exercisers were out doing their motions. I was glad at least that through the interminable stretches of barrio on either side, there was at least this scrubby green belt people could use, early enough, to get out in the still fresh air.

Back at TAPO, I dragged my rolling duffel over to the dispatch cab booth. Sitio cabs are supposed to be safer than free roaming street cabs, although a modicum of sense would alert one to the dubiousness of this proposition in a country where the police themselves have been caught in theft, drug and, now, kidnap rings. Still, a hope and prayer seemed better than a prayer alone.

The access to the airport is always under construction and, as the cab wound its way through unfamiliar streets, I wondered if there was anything I could say that would not disclose that I was completely lost and totally at his mercy. “Very sunny, morning, eh?” “Si señor, hace mucho sol” he replied non-commitally. At last, some hangars appeared in view and I relaxed, tipping him handsomely as he unloaded my bags.

Mexico was never this way. This fear hangs over the city like a moral smog far worse than the 75 tons of dessicated feces that supposedly float about in the air. No one cared all that much when it was only the filthy rich and the filthy politicians who had to run about with guarda-espaladas, but as society becomes more and more economically polarized anyone above zero can be considered “filthy rich” by those who have nothing. With typical ingenuity some bands engage in “virtual kidnapping” -- a kind of blackmail based on a telephone call which pretends to have kidnapped a loved one whose personal data have been stolen and whose habits were previously observed. I doubt people will be able to put up with it much longer.

I had worried that, getting struck in some horrible traffic or highway snafu, I would miss my plane; but, as things turned out, I had arrived four hours early and thus had plenty of time to sit around and contemplate the brutal surroundings of the newly remodelled airport.

Thinking to have a good breakfast before a long day, I got a table at a chain restaurant called FLAPS, and ordered the “specialty of the day” -- a ranch style steak breakfast. What was special about it was that the steak was quite rotten. Equally special was the manager’s refusal to admit it. I was annoyed and disgusted but not surprised. It has always been the case -- notwithstanding the Department of Public Health -- that the worst places to eat at in Mexico are not the “dirty” open air street stands but the “tourist safe” eateries like Sanborns, Dennys, and now Flaps.

Leaving the steak and no tip on the table, I decided to get security over with once and for all, and went to lie back in one of the waiting rooms where I closed my eyes and let my mind drift back to the plains and slopes of Puebla and to how far Lara had come, in the six years, since she first inherited the property. I was glad she had opted not to turn San Pablo into a spa for the pampered.

“They are always, reminding me of my mother,” she had said, “tu mamá fue tan buenísma persona...” I could hear it in my mind. “Ah, la señora Irma, was such a fine person. When she found out that the children in the school had no books, she took it upon herself to speak to the Governor himself...” The obvious and necessary response to such “recollections” would be to ask if the books were still in use. “Ayyy, señora, pues fijase que.....” So perhaps it was the villagers’ memory of my cousin’s mother that had pushed her along. In all events and alongside the ongoing struggle to rehabilitate San Pablo Lara had become, as she said, “del pueblo”.

The call for my flight sounded over the loudspeaker and I was soon enough being propelled antiseptically through the skies back to the United States.Upon landing we lost ourselves in the jumble of baggage carousels and immigration lines, snaking through the maze of ropes. As I stood in line inching along, I noticed the brushed steel logo of Homeland Security lit tastefully and sharply by recessed lighting. Empires are all equally ostentatious. I also noticed small black spheres discretely dispersed along the moldings. Thinking of Winston, I blanded my mind of any grousing thoughts.

At last my turn came. I stepped up from the yellow line to the immigration counter and handed the ICE officer my passport.

“Looks like you’ve had a long day,” he said. as he pecked the keyboard
“Actually longer, I started at six by bus.”
“Are you bringing anything back? he asked as he looked at the screen
“Nah, just a couple of nic nacs”

He handed me back my passport

“Well...welcome home.”
“Thanks; it’s good to be back.”


©WCG, 2008

Four Postcards from Mexico - Postal Tercero

On the way back from Los Vientos, we got lost and we ended up driving into the neighboring state of Tlaxacala before doubling back, the very long way, to Puebla and San Martin, arriving home late at night. The following day we slept in late and did not do much of anything.

As Lara, Stefo and I sat in the kitchen having a late morning coffee, Lara asked me what I thought of the association proposal. Upon retiring from politics, Gustavo had purchased an hacienda which he wanted to convert into a hotel histórico. The genre started to popularize itself in the Sixties, about the same time that French chateaux were being converted to exclusive retreats. The hacienda hotels aimed at a somewhat broader base of lodger but the appeal was essentially the same: a taste of luxury with a hint of forbidden elitism. From his presentation, I gathered that Gustavo wanted to popularize the genre even further. Phrases like “historical tours” and “railway connections” cropped up during his presentation.

Stefo said that it seemed to him Gustavo couldn’t get any financing from the government going hat in hand himself, so he wanted to put together an “association.” I asked Lara if she wanted to convert San Pablo into a spa or if she thought the association goals could be expanded to cover agricultural needs like irrigation and seed money.

Lara wasn’t sure but did not like the idea of turning San Pablo into a resort. “Don Hector, with whom we are going to have dinner on Saturday, refuses to have anything to do with it,” she said.” I asked her why. Because, she replied, once an hacienda is declared a patrimonio cultural, one can’t do anything without bureaucrat approval. Two of the hacendados had been in favor of the idea, and two others were skeptical.

The day was slipping by quickly and so I asked Lara to give me a ride back down to San Martín where I could take the bus to Puebla to buy some souvenir talavera for some friends back home. From the Puebla “TAPO” I took a cab to the center of town and arranged with driver to pick me up in two hours. As it turned out, I got my shopping done in 15 minutes and had time to kill; so I walked around the city centre.

About 15 or so years ago, everyone made off for the new malls being built on the outskirts of the city, and the zocalo was left desolate and decaying, What had once been a place of congregated liveliness had become sullen and seedy. I was delighted to see that things had reversed course, that the zocalo and in fact the whole city center had recovered and even surpassed its former vibrancy, as buildings were repaired, renovated and given new uses

I walked around the town taking random videos and pictures. As I stood in front of the cathedral I noticed a bright coloured patch of stone at the crest of the facade. I zoomed in and to my astonishment the coat of arms of the Spanish Crown filled my sights. During the terrible war of Independence, the people had chiselled and smashed virtually every royal and aristocratic coat of arms, so that none are to be seen on any of the country’s ancient buildings. Evidently, someone in Puebla had decided to rectify matters as part of the city’s renovation and as I walked about I detected a number of additional replaced coats of arms.

The taxi driver never reappeared as arranged, and as it was getting dark, I hailed another cab and returned to the bus station and back to San Pablo

When I got back, Lara was in a state because a fire had broken out further up the mountain. It had been a dry season, and she was concerned since the government does virtually nothing to fight the fires. We got into Lara’s truck and drove around the paved and unpaved roads through the maze of hills and pueblos trying to find one of her crew-leaders while at the same time trying to get in touch with her foreman, Juanito, on the celular.

We had planned a leisurely supper and the day before, Epimenio, her “estate carpenter” -- it seems far too fancy a title -- had promised that his wife would prepare us a real -- not canned -- mole and, at my request, fried plantains with rice. As we pulled up to his adobe house, with its rough hewn wood slat fence and ambling chickens, Epimenio and one of his little boys or girls came out and after seeing it was us, went back inside and emerged with an assortment of differently colored plastic bowls and containers which I put between my feet and held on my lap.

Oiga, Epimenio, Lara asked, no has visto a Juanito por ahí...? No... he hadn’t seen him recently.... the last he saw... Lara explained the urgency and told him to tell Juanito to get in touch with her as soon as possible

At this altitude on the skirts of Ixtlazihuatl there is no need for topes, although occasionally for a few meters, one hits a smooth spot. As we bumped around this warren of pathways, ambling dogs, small plots, and half finished and half decayed huts and houses, I knew that to the inhabitants of this patch of Puebla, it all had a structure and logic unknown to outsiders and not visible on any Google Earth. Somehow that made me happy.

Lara pulled up to Pablito’s house, just as Juanito came on the line. Espera un segundo, she said putting the celular in her lap and leaning over me as Pablo came running up to my side of the truck and as I balanced supper. Mira, Pablito.... Pablo looked up toward the white smoke on the mountain. He knew what was coming. With a pained look on his face he hunched his shoulders and held up his hands,

“Ayyyy señora, fíjase.... “ he had just this very moment, killed his pig and he simply had to dress it... Si no fuera por eso.... but his hands were, if not tied, covered with pig fat.

Of course Lara understood perfectly, leaving the matter with a request that he at least see if he could send two of the local muchachos up the hill. “Si, si...” He would do his best.

Oiga Juanito... estas ahi?

Juanito is a young good humored man going on 30 who has worked with Lara for the past six or so years. He has his own ranchito where his family lives and where he keeps several milking cows. Although Lara pays him for his work, the relationship goes beyond “working for”. When Lara first arrived at San Pedro, she knew virtually nothing of country life -- at least nothing over and beyond the coddled, vacations of childhood. “I couldn’t have done it with out him,” she said. “He’s completely trustworthy and indispensable.”

Mexico -- at least old Mexico -- is full of these relationships borne of mutual respect within positions of inequality. To be sure, the relationship has a material basis; Juanito would not work for someone who couldn’t pay him just as my cousin is not throwing money at vagabonds. But that does not mean they are connected simply by exchange values. The material is the working context for something more personal and, in this case work had made them friends.

The semblance of a working party was at last put together, and Juanito and Stefo led a crew up the mountain side to beat out the fire while Lara and I (still not acclimatized to the altitude) sat in the kitchen, drank some wine and watched the supper get cold.

At length, about 9.30 when supper was quite cold, Lara and I decided we might as well eat although by then the chicken itself might just as well have come out of a can.

Finally, about an hour later, Stefo and Juanito came tramping into the kitchen covered with sweat and dust. A frightened zorillo had taken a bite into Juanito’s thumb, which he had wrapped up in some dirty strip of cloth. Lara insisted he clean and bandage it, and as they went off, I poured Esteban some wine and started re-reheating supper. When Juanito and Lara came back, we all sat down to the second half of dinner and talked into the night. The fire had been contained.

Next morning, Juanito arrived with a thumb that was quite swollen. No se preocupe... no es nada he said with an así es smile. Como que 'no' ? Lara wouldn't hear of it and took him to the doctor.

©WCG, 2008

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Four Postcards from Mexico - Postal Segundo

The comida was to be held at hacienda Los Vientos at the other end of the state, and so the following day, at mid morning we set off to cross the expansive, soil rich, plains of Puebla, lush and green under the clear skies and bright blue celestial dome of the alti-plano.

It was almost a three hour drive through a vast expanse of tree-dotted plains ringed by mountains in the distance and yielding their crops under a bright clear sky. As warm air blew through the pik op we chatted idly about this and that over noise of the engine and the buffeting wind. Driving through a small town, we passed a roadside display of colorfully painted clay pigs. Somewhat beyond that we passed a small rocky hill-mound on top of which stood a white-washed votive niche and a cross. "Have you read Diarios de Motocicleta?," I asked Lara. No, she hadn't. I went on to tell her of a story related by el Ché

"....so he and Alberto were riding the bus through the high mountain villages of Bolivia, when they came to the crest of the mountain at the top of which stood a big pile of rocks and a white-washed cross. Half the Indians in the bus cross themselves, the other half spit. ..."

Lara gave me a look.

"...pues sí, eso también se preguntaba Che-- what gives? Well, as it turns out, before the Spanish came, the Indians had this custom of taking a stone with them whenever they climbed or crossed a mountain. When they got to the top, they'd cast down their stone and their cares and leave them behind. The friars forbade the practice and erected crosses over the piles of stones. So now, some Indians cross themselves while others, for want of a stone, spit."

Stefo and Lara let out gleeful, laughs. Lara loved the idea and said she was going to put up a pile of stones on the ridge above San Pablo.

Arriving at last, we turned into the confines of Los Vientos one could immediately see that the hacienda had seen better days. The huge safe, accountant’s desks and barred cashier’s window in the hacienda office, now preserved as a museum display, indisputably pointed to a villainous pre-revolutionary past. Thanks to the propaganda of a faction and the visual rhetoric of Mexican muralists haciendas have been tagged with images of haughty Spaniards in the saddle sneering at despairing Indians hunched over under their masters’ spurs. Such propaganda was false because it blamed the facade not the realities.

During the 19th century some of the great industrial haciendas were simply corporate enterprises dressed up as grand manors. They were oppressive and destructive of community life not because they were “haciendas” but because they were corporations. They did not draw from and sustain but simply leeched and suppressed...and often on a gigantic scale.

By the looks of it, Los Vientos had not been one of these 300,000 acre mega haciendas; but it had been large. Now, a little short of 100 years later, Los Vientos is a profitable but much smaller broccoli farm hiring a fraction of the workers it used to have on the payroll.

Still, remnants of a greater past glory remained, among them, a handsome chapel all but conjoined to century tall tree that shaded the resting places of gentry past.

Miguel, the haciendas' tall, slim, middle-aged scion greeted us at the door with an air of fatigued remove. He led us up to the first floor balcony where the other hacendados were already seated around a table drinking “escoch,” rum, beer, or sherry and enjoying hors d’oeuvres of chips, cheese cubes, and olives. They were dressed in waist jackets, open collar shirts, slacks or jeans and dusty boots. Despite the grandness of the structure, the tenor of the affair was much more in the manner of la pequeña burguesía than the aristocratic pretensions of the Limantours, Escandons and Creels and other great names of the pre-revolutionary Porfirian oligarchy.

As I sipped my jerez, Miguel’s mother, a neatly dressed, somewhat bony woman in her 6o’s sat down next to me. Some moments later, she lifted up the hors d’oeuvre platter. Se le ofrece un queso? she asked as she held the cheese in front of me. “Oh, no, no thank you very much.” I replied. “Ah,” she said, looking suddenly chagrined. Several minutes passed, and she again lifted the platter and held it before me. “Por favor, no se le ofrece un antojito?” I chuckled politely, “You’re very kind, but no, thank you very much.” “Ah,” she said, looking even more chagrined than before, as she put the platter down in what was almost a gesture of despair.

I figuratively slapped my forehead and berated my stupidity. Too damn long in Gringolandia. In Mexico, in just the reverse of the United States, it is an insult to refuse any offer of hospitality. I might as well have told the poor woman that her cheese wasn’t good enough for me. I back-pedalled as best I could. Mumbling something about “en dieta...” I reached for a slice of jicama and thanked her for her offer. She eyed me suspiciously.

As we mingled around before dinner, my cousin remarked that Doña Rosaura, had asked her why I spoke so “strangely”... “What does she mean strange.? ... Never mind; did you explain? ” “Yes.” “What did she say?” “Pues , ‘Ah’.” Yes, I had been living among the savages up north. That explained everything.

When just about everyone had arrived, we proceeded to the dining room - a small rectangular room adjoining the kitchen, furnished with an assortment of chairs, stained-wood sideboards from the turn of the 19th century with collected bright ceramics and plastic nic-nacs from the 20th (including a Donald Duck), miscellaneous prints of imaginary squires hunting equally imaginary fawns and the obligatory Last Supper by Da Vinci hanging directly under a strip of flourescent lighting.

As Miguel and one of the mozos brought us our courses, the other hacendados talked about drainage ditches and milking cows, the rain this year and similar matters of concern and interest to the agricultural set. Doña Rosaura discretely eyed me from her end of the table. As it turns out, I was hungry and the food was nothing I didn’t like anyways even if, as my cousin later said, she must have gotten the mole sauce out of a can.

En familia Mexicans will eat mole or beans by tearing off a piece of tortilla, and rolling it into a scooping spoon. It is not considered gauche but rather a sign that you've enjoyed your food. As I scooped Doña Rosaura palpably relaxed.

When they brought the coffee and desert, the talk turned from drainage ditches and cows to the proposed association, the advantages of which were explained by Gustavo Ovando, the proponent of the idea; but not before first intoning obligatory and florid encomiums of gratitude to our hosts for the magnificent “reception,” and “delectable” food, after which Gustavo went on to note and commend everyone for anything he could think of -- all not without light jokes, judiciously interspersed amidst the laudations.

Such after-dinner effusions are universal. But in Mexico, they retain an antique flavor that could come straight out of the Iliad or a scene from Henry V, where gentle provenance and valiant deeds are duly remembered and praised in turn. Some of my Spanish acquaintances tell me that they get a kick out of Latin American archaicisms and regret the clipped, functionality of modern Iberian Spanish. In this respect Mexico is still in its own time warp. As I sat there enjoying the roll of rococco flattery that spilled from our speaker’s lips, my cousin leaned over and whispered, “He was in la politica.” “Se nota” I said


After the meeting broke up, we all milled about chatting and wandering through the restored rooms which did recapture the ambience of the waning days of the Porfirian epoch.

At length some of us wandered over the dusty expanse that had, in those bygone days been a vast pond, toward the chapel. The streamers hanging on the outside, and some flowers on the altar inside, indicated that it was still in at least occasional use.

There was a large, statute stood in the central niche behind the altar. Someone remarked that Doña Rosaura had said it was Michael the Archangel. “No, I don’t think so,” I said, “look at the dragon at his feet. It’s obviously St. George.” The person I was speaking to, ran over to Doña Rosaura and said, “Dice él que es San Jorge.” “Eh?” She came over. “You say it’s St. George?” “Yes, look at the dragon.” A moment of doubt flickered in her eyes, before she rejoined emphatically. “Pero como? Look at the wings...” Q.E.D. “But what about the dragon?” I said feebly. Another archangel blew his trumpet. “That’s not a dragon! It’s the devil.” The matter settled, she gave me a broad smile and walked away.

Eventually, before taking our departures, we all drove over to a hillock to get a commanding view of the valley. A large rustic wooden cross hung with paper streamers stood almost hidden amidst the grey pines. As I wondered if I should spit, Gustavo came over, lead me to the edge of the hill and explained that by those mountains at the far end of the valley, they had recently uncovered the remains of an Olmec metropolis of an estimated 100,000 souls. 500 BC “The Olmecs, this far west?" I asked.” “Yes, imaginese...” Mexico hoards it secrets and there is so much we still don’t know about the time-aliens that once lived here.

As we milled about, one Luis B, who had arrived late, took me aside and asked if Lara was of the same Manrique-Villas as were connected to the Villa-Carrascos. “Yes, yes...” His eyes brightened up and he ran over to Lara to announce that his "grandfather era pistolero for Don Maximiliano!"

©WCG, 2008

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Four Postcards from Mexico - Postal Primero

Over the years, the descent into Mexico City has gotten progressively more appalling as the sky has gone from “hazy” to light grey to tan to, now, dark brown. The question passes from, “How do people live in that?” to “How am I going to survive in that?” It is hard to believe that this great mountain-ringed valley once had the most crystalline skies in the hemisphere. So hard in fact, that the extermination of beauty leaves one numb.

Numb, because the problem is intractable. To wish for clean air is to wish for the whole megalopolis of 25 million to be wiped off the surface of the Earth and the valley returned to ocelotl and coyotl.

Although it was indifferent to the burgeoning problem for many years, the Government has undertaken fairly aggressive steps to clean up the air. Five years ago, Mexican traffic presented the típico spectacle of sleek limousines sharing the jam with vintage trucks, banged up buses and junkyards on wheels spewing either black diesel fumes or burning oil or both. No more. Almost all vehicles were new, green and smogged. And yet the air was worse.

The problem is that there are too many people and hence too many cars. There comes a threshold where no measures will affect the absolute amount of pollutants spewed into the air. The Government instituted an alternate driving day program; but, predictably enough, this backfired People simply got two cars with alternate plates. Not just the limousine set, but anyone who could.

Why do I hear that tart yankee voice? “Well...if people (i.e. those people) are going to.....” blah blah blah.

But have they taken public transportation in el de efe ? (as the federal district is called). It’s not just that the swarms of micro-buses clogging traffic are jammed to overflow, so too the sleek, clean modern metro cars. There are just too many people trying to get to too many places at once ...and doing the things that all people do.

Several years back Univision reported that the D.F. Department of Public Health was proposing to outlaw that most Mexican of enterprises, the open air sale of food. It turns out that 75 tons of “desiccated feces” falls on the city every day, and the Department determined that these micro-pollutants contaminated the open air carnitas, jicama slices, chicharron and tamales. The vendors are still there, so the Department must have figured out that if shit was falling on the food it was also penetrating lungs.

The problem is not just exhaust, but deforestation due to the metastasizing slums, and dust due to the drying up of the pathetic remains of lake Texcoco. The D.F. government has one of the most aggressive tree planting programs in the world, but the poor trees can’t keep up.

As the plane touched down, I took one last gulp of clean refrigerated air before venturing into the soup.

Valle de México (1845) when ocelotl ruled

Mexican bureaucrats have a long tradition of being slow, sullen and biting. This is part of a larger tradition of pinchismo which could perhaps be described as the art of using incredibly small things to screw you over in a major way. And so just as I sucked air before disembarking, I took a deep breath before stepping up to the immigration desk. “They’ll figure out something,” I pre-groused to myself.

The line monitor pointed to booth number five for Mexican Nationals. He didn’t look too bad.

“Buenas tardes,” he said.
“Buenas tardes.”
“Su pasaporte por favor”
“Si,como no.”

Flip Flip Flip Stamp Stamp Staple

“Bienvenido” He told me to be sure to return the insert on my leaving the country

“Gracias”

Well I’ll be damned......

From that point on, it was easy sailing; and it is always surprising, in a pleasant way, how easy urban sailing can be in a place that is, or at least can be, a total disaster. Everything in the city is stressed to the limits -- air, water, sewage, space, deliveries, utilities, services -- and yet sometimes one cuts through it all like a knife through butter. I am sure it is this way in order to increase the Mexican conviction that life is utterly arbitrary and that only the Blessed Virgin is reliable.

In short order, over the new “second deck” of the cross-town freeway, I was hurtled from air port to the upscale residential section of El Pedregal. Except in the older parts of town where there used to be a townhouse tradition, almost everyone in Mexico from middle class on up lives behind some sort of fence. In the Pedregal, they live behind stone walls. The reason for this was that -- as the name might give way -- the development was built in an area that abounded in rock. In all events the result is a cold and foreboding maze of streets curving around between facing phalanxes of stone walls and solid wooden or metal gates.

I was deposited in front of one such wooden gate and rang the bell, as the cab driver waited. I rang again, as he waited some more “Look,” I said, “I’m sure they’re just slow, you can go.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, yes, of course.” “Seguro?” “Sí Sí, hombre, vayase ya, no se preocupe.”

I rang again, but there was still no answer. It was the maid’s day off and my hosts had said they would be at home all day. Still, I was an hour or so early from my estimated time of arrival, and they may have stepped out briefly. So I sat down, on my two-tone pastel-coloured rolling duffel and waited,. the very picture of a mature gringo preppy in loafers, slacks, pink shirt and (loosened) school tie.

After a while I began to worry, as clouds (darker shades of brown) were forming. I should probably call R. to see what’s up, I thought. But I had no phone and, as might be imagined, the Pedregal is not the kind of place to have public phones. The expected protocol in the Pedregal is that just as you drive up, the wooden or metal gate is silently opened by an attendant and swiftly closes again, as your car disappears into the walled interior with a faint swoosh of the tires, like water closing over the fins of a shark.

Just then, just that happened several doors down; but unlike most of the residences that house also had a guard booth. Aha! I walked over and asked the guard, who no doubt had noticed me sitting on my duffel, if I could borrow his phone. Ah... he was very sorry, señor, but he didn’t have a phone. Really? Yes, really, imagine that. He had a closed circuit tv, a radio, a funky radio, but no phone. Such is life. I went back to sitting on my duffle.

The idea of lugging my duffel and shoulder pack a mile down hill to the busy streets outside the development was not anything I was looking forward to. Just then, a young man, of about 30, in jeans and sneakers came around the corner walking a happy sniffing lab. Ah! The Blackberry Generation. He’ll have a phone for sure. I got up, and walked in his direction “Oiga, perdón.... but you wouldn’t happen to have a phone I could use for a moment, I’m waiting...”

I didn’t get any further. The man froze with a look of sheer terror in his eyes. He shook his head violently, sharply called his dog and turned back in the direction from which he had come. As he sped-walked away I saw the phone on his belt.

Sitting behind his plate glass, the guard in the booth had seen it all, even if he had that studied Mexican look of not having noticed a thing. I walked over, and said, “You saw that, right?” “.. uhseh. .” he replied. “Tienen miedo” he added in a voice which spoke the disdain of those who have been “despected” all their lives. “They’re afraid.” “De que?” “Pues de los secuestros,” he said surprised to have to repeat the obvious. “Kidnappings? Here? in the Pedregal?” “Por todas partes.” he said dragging out the “todas”. If a 30 year old male... If in the Pedregal...

I was instantly infected with fear.

I went back to the gate and repeatedly bellowed out the name of my host -- Annnnah!!! -- who shortly afterwards came down and opened the gate. “I don’t think the bell works....” she said.

I did not stay any longer than necessary in Mexico City, and two days later was on the bus over the mountains to Puebla, to visit my cousin, Lara, at her hacienda in the foothills beneath mount Ixtlazihuátl.

TAPO -- that’s what they call the new centralized bus station for autobuses heading to the south and eastern part of the country. It used to be that each bus company had its own terminal, and most of these were squalid affairs, even if the buses -- at least los de primera -- weren’t so bad. The terminals were jammed with people trying to get into and out of buses at the same time; and the streets around the terminal were a congestion of newsstands, macaroon vendors, fruit vendors, lottery ticket vendors and children or old people sitting on twine wrapped bultos as flies swarmed over the juices and droppings that littered the sidewalks.

No more. TAPO is the true Pantheon of Buses, its immense dome covering a reflective marble floor on the circumference of which were arrayed the various bus companies’ brightly logo’d ticket niches. Marcus Agrippa would have been proud.

There were plenty of guards.

The mens’ room, however, was inconveniently located on a mezzanine portion of the circumference, which meant that one had to lug whatever he was lugging up a flight of stairs. To keep the bathroom “safe” they had installed a coin operated turnstiles made of rotating inter-spaced metal bars which would slice you into 20 pieces if they were sharp. Whoever designed this marvel intended you to leave your bags outside the bathroom where they could be stolen, or to trap and your luggage like a pig in a poke between the bars in the quarter turn allowed. Squeezing, grunting and grimacing, I got into and out of the bathroom vowing to feed the clown who designed this safety feature into a true human gin if I ever got my hands on him. Back on the shiny main floor marble disc, I headed over to the departure gate where, after being “wanded” by more security personnel, I boarded the bus.

A result of the old anti-system was that the first half hour of the trip anywhere was spent hissing and grinding through city streets. The result of the new integrated TAPO system is that the first half hour of the trip out of the city is spent hissing and grinding along the congested southern exit-way. But just when one is about to give up hope of ever getting past the interminable urban detritus, the city stops and the bus is speeding up swooping curves into the pristine, pine covered mountains that separate el Valle de Mexico from the Plains of Puebla.

Puebla de los Angeles was the third city the Spanish founded after landing ashore at Veracruz in 1519. Not only was it a necessary stop between Mexico City and Veracruz, more importantly it was a key juncture in Spain’s trade route that ran from the Philippines to Acapulco through Puebla to Veracruz and over the Main to Seville. Testimony to Puebla’s privileged position in this global trade is reflected in its towering cathedral, one of the most stunning examples of Ibero American baroque.

The abundance of red-clay in the region gave rise to brick making. Since, at the time Puebla was founded, Spain still controlled Holland, Delft dies and techniques were imported and gave birth to Puebla’s talavera industry.

I did not go all the way to Puebla, but got off the bus 20 minutes sooner at San Martín Texmelucan, a scruffy, rural town that looks like a collection of old style bus stations. Twenty minutes later, my cousin and her husband, Stefo, arrived in their rattling Ford pik op. Holaaaaaaaaa!! Hugs and protestations.

Bienvenido a Topelandia. she said, I laughed. Topes are Mexican speed bumps -- originally made out of grapefruit sized metal spheres, now usually just corrugated concrete. Topes are ubiquitous and last visit, during a spine crunching moment of exasperation, I renamed the country. Actually, if I recall, I renamed it Pinche Topelandia

San Felipe

After stopping off at the butcher’s to buy some pork chops, and at the tortilleria for fresh tortillas we bumped our way upland, back in the direction of Ixtlazihuatlpast San Felipe and San Pablo del Rio to the hacienda.

As haciendas go, the buildings at San Pablo are on the small side, and might almost be classed as a rancho were it not for the 400 hectares surrounding it. There are books on the matter, with titles like La Morfología de la Hacienda en México, and needless to say the question is not left to a simple answer. The long and short of it, in my opinion, is that an hacienda is a socio-economic organism that both draws from and sustains the community around it. A ranch on the other hand is a strictly private enterprise

Whatever its classification, during a long period of absence and illness, San Pablo fell into disrepair and was sharecropped out. Upon inheriting the property, my cousin set about to restore it, physically and as an economic organism. It is slow going and has taken an immense amount of work, “pero ya soy pueblerina” she said, meaning she had left the city and city life and city-being behind.

After showing me the parts that had been remodelled, including of course, the chapel, we sat down to a late dinner.

“Tomorrow we have to go to a working comida of hacendados over at hacienda Los Vientos.” she said with a glint in her eye.
“A what?”
She teased me some more, “They want to discuss forming an association...”

I gave her a you-must-be-kidding look. Warranted or not, centuries of conflict have left their mark and the thought of hacendados meeting to form an “association” inevitably conjured up images of counter-revolution,

“N’ombre,” she said ‘fessing up, no lo creas, it’s just a meeting to see how best to deal with government bureaucracies.

“That’s what they always say...”
“Besides, they say they’ve fixed it up and its very pretty. Will you come?”
“Claro ...”

Sitting around after dinner, Lara brought up a mutual cousin with whom, “frankly,” she was quite annoyed. Apparently, cousin had favorably reviewed a book in which it was said (in so many words) that her grandfather Maximiliano had been something of a caudillo/gangster type. “Ah, yes...” I said, “I think I saw that.” “Pero como?” She had talked to aunt so-and-so over in Tlaxcala who had assured her it was all calumny, puras calumnias... How could he write such a thing?” “But he didn’t; it was the book he was reviewing that did.” “But he should have disputed (desmentido) the allegations!”

I thought of the genre oil painting of Maximiliano as a young army officer, in formal blue tunic with burgundy piping, standing slim and straight with his hand on the library table. And then of the table photograph of Don Maximiliano, in his 40’s, face at once smooth and chiseled, a little broader, but still erect in a tight fitting charro jacket with its silver buckles and striped silk cravat, holding the flat rimmed, cloth hat of a jinete, what the Spanish call a sombrero cordobés . I wondered if I would have enjoyed meeting him.

I tried to mollify Lara. “Well... those rumours have been around for some time. Besides it was after the Revolution, and things were still unsettled.” I thought it best not to mention that at least half of Puebla took rumour for fact, and not to put too fine a point on “after.” “Well cousin could go to the devil, as far as she was concerned.

©WCG, 2008