Charlie's Letter from Mexico

Neatest Way to help the Poor; Mexican Medicine; Used Cars

2006-12-27T17:08:00.000-08:00

Kiva, Neatest Way to Help the Poor.

I was surfing the WEB one day and came across an extraordinary site that contains what strikes me as the neatest way of helping poor people in underdeveloped countries. I was so taken with it that I immediately made three small loans using Kiva, which is a word in Swahili that means “agreement” or “unity.” Kiva is a program that lets you lend a sum of money to specific budding entrepreneurs in the developing world, empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty. An interesting aspect of the program is that it is set up so that you can get the money that you loaned returned to your account. You can cash out or re-loan the money, whatever you desire. While the rate of repayment for loans has been 97% for micro finance programs of this type, so far, Kiva loans have been returned 100% of the time. Kiva suggests that you diversify your advance by making smaller loans to several entrepreneurs. So instead of lending $100 to a single third-world entrepreneur, you might lend $25 to four. To see an excellent video of the Kiva process produced by PBS Frontline, log on to: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/uganda601/uganda-601.html?&c=3wm You really have to see this.

The Kiva site : http://www.kiva.org/ provides a photo of the entrepeneur, a paragraph or two of information on each entrepreneur and their proposal, the amount of loan needed, the repayment term, and the percent of the loan already subscribed, if any. In each geographic area where there are entrepreneurs receiving these loans, there is a local partner and a partner organization that actually handles the loan and the return of funds. Here are some of the people to whom I have made loans:

Maria Cecilia Ramírez González is the mother of two daughters, both in school. She is married and lives in the city of Santa Catarina, Nueve Leon, Mexico. It has been 5 years since she started her own business renting gowns for school events. Maria Cecilia has always been interested in business. Her little store generates extra income for herself and covers the household expenses that her husband's paycheck cannot cover. For this reason she struggles to keep and expand her business.

The love of her family and the support she gets from them has permitted Maria Cecilia to keep going with her project. She now needs a loan of $925 to increase her stock that she will repay in a term of 8-16 months. You can help her grow her business and contribute towards a better quality of life for her daughters and permit the completion of their education.

Elizabeth Njeri Mungai is a 35 year old entrepreneur in Nakuru, Kenya who is married with two kids.
Both of her children are in school; the first born is in the 6th grade while the youngest is in 2nd grade . Her husband works as a bus driver in Nakuru City. Because her husband works long hours and makes a small income, Elizabeth decided to start her own business of slaughtering and selling meat to the local butcher and supermarkets. This has helped meet her family’s basic needs and pay the pending school fees and arrears. Elizabeth wants to expand her business and is requesting a loan of US $1,000.

Her budget is US $900 to purchase more livestock for slaughter and US $100 to meet veterinary costs. She is a focused woman and expects to repay the loan in 16 to 18 months.

Cynthia Gutiérrez Torres also lives in the city of Santa Catarina in Mexico. She sells shoes by catalogue, a business she has had for 6 years now. She is married, her husband is employed, and they have two daughters that are currently completing their studies. Cynthia started her business because she likes sales needed to augment the familiy's income. Through her business, she has been able to actively support her family. She requires a loan of $925 to purchase merchandise stock and thereby increase her sales. Responsibility and hard work are the characteristics that have made it possible for Cynthia to keep up her business for six years. It has not been easy but she has succeeded. Her loan is to be repaid in 8 to 16 months.

Well, these are three persons that I have loaned small amounts of money to. It was fun to pick out these entrepeneurs out of a group of many. If my money is returned, which I expect, I want to re-invest the amount in other micro-businesses. Later, when I see the results, I will report in the comments section at the end of this Blog how these enterpeneurs performed.

Of the three people I have made micro-loans to, I have selected two persons from Mexico, because that is where I live and I very much want to help, at least in a small way, the people in this country. For the third person, I selected Elizabeth Njeri Mungai from Kenya because I am intrigued with her business plan of slaughtering cattle and selling it wholesale. This must be some woman!

Mexican Medicine-
One of the first questions Americans visiting here ask us is: “What do you do about medical care in Mexico?” There is a concern that one might be in trouble without American medical care, and besides, does your American health insurance and your Medicare Plan apply here? I am not an expert on health or health insurance coverage in Mexico, but I can relate a few observations and our own experience. I invite others to add their experience and knowledge, which may be posted at the end of this blog as a comment.

In our case, we kept both our Medicare and our Medicare supplemental insurance policy, although as of now, they can only be used in the U.S. We reckon, for something grand in the way of ailments, we will travel back to the U.S. where our health coverage applies.

In the city of Leon, which is less than an hour’s drive from here, there is an excellent new facility, Hospital Angeles. Web site: http://www.hospitalangelesleon.com/new/
Angeles is a beautiful and very modern hospital. Many of the doctors there speak some English so that you can generally be understood. We are told that the hospital is working on being certified for U.S. Medicare. This hasn’t happened yet but we are hopeful. We have found the doctors and surgeons at this hospital to be excellent. My first contact with Hospital Angeles was when I had an ingrown toenail. I was unable to find a Podiatrist in Guanajuato so I thought I would enquire at the Angeles Hospital in Leon. I wanted to see how they could handle a case like my onychocryptosis, which is what this condition is called and sounds much more serious than an ingrown toenail. A visit there would give me a chance to test this new medical facility that I had been hearing so much about. The receptionist at the front desk said that they didn’t have a Podiatrist on staff, but, “Please follow me.” A nurse led me into a small operating room with a medical couch and after a short wait, a doctor arrived and I was introduced to Dr. Felipe Gonzales Parada, a Plastic Surgeon. “Wow,” I thought, “this is the kind of medical attention I could get used to.” Dr. Gonzales Parada and the nurse numbed my toe with an ice pack, so that I wouldn’t feel the injection of a pain killer, and after the injection the surgeon carefully cut away the nail and some flesh. I never felt any discomfort. The bill for the hospital facility, including the nurse, was 400 pesos or about U.S. $36. Of course there was a fee for the surgeon to cover his operation and for his post surgery checkups. This part of the service totaled U.S. $91. This included five post operative office visits to check up on the progress of my big toe, all for $91.

In one of my visits to the Plastic Surgeon’s office I happened to mention that I had just heard about a woman in France whose face was horribly torn off by her large dog. The French Plastic Surgeons were reported to have performed the first facial transplant in the world. As one can see from this “after” picture the operation was quite a success. I asked Dr. Gonzales Parada what he thought of this operation by the French doctors. He said that this type of operation was not meant for people who just wanted to improve their looks by getting a new face, but rather for cases like the woman in France who had a terribly deformed face. He said, “Come into my office, I want to show you something.” He turned on his laptop computer and proceeded to display pictures of young children who had hideously mangled faces. More than anything, this convinced me that there is a great need for this type of reconstructive facial surgery for humans. Then he displayed a video of two dogs, both of similar size and breed, except one was white and the other was black. The video showed an operation where Doctor Gonzales Parada and his partner, with the help of several staff people, proceeded to remove the face of the white dog and transplant it on to the black dog, and the face of the black dog on to the white one. Almost as amazing, was a video he showed of the two dogs the next day after the operation. The dogs were running around the facility's parking lot, sniffing tires on the cars and having a great time.

The doctors were learning how to do facial transplants right here in Leon, Mexico. Now I am not recommending that you fly down here for something more than a nose job but it is interesting that there is some highly developed medical research and experimentation going on here.

For ordinary ailments, we go to Dr. Barba Crosby, who is a general practitioner in Guanajuato, and whom we like a lot. He has a computer and keeps a record of the data from the physical exams he gives us and of any medicines he has prescribed or ones that other doctors have prescribed that we have reported to him. It’s reassuring to see various American medical journals and books on his shelves of this warm and carrying medic. I’m sure that the doctors in Mexico could teach a few things about gastrointestinal ailments (las touristas) to doctors in our country. Whenever we visit Dr. Barba Crosby, he keeps good tabs on our medical history. When we first came to Guanajuato an office visit with him was about $6, now it is $18. No appointment is required and usually only a short wait is necessary, which seems rather amazing because he is exceedingly patient in his consultations and takes all the time you need and does not rush the visit. After he has dealt with your problem, Dr. Barba Crosby asks you if there is anything else you would like him to discuss with you. We are very pleased to have medical attention like this.

When we first came to Mexico, we thought we should sign up for Mexico’s social security medical care program. It costs about U.S. $220 a year and can include both husband and wife. Surely at that price, it must be subsidized by the Mexican government. Some years ago, when I was visiting the lake shore community of Ajijic, near Guadalajara, I ran into an American living there who by all appearances was fairly well off. I am sorry to say that while most ex-pats we have met in Mexico are very nice people, one would have to classify this gringo as an example of an “ugly American.” For example, he related that he hit and killed a cow on the highway while driving one night. He explained how he cut the brand off the cow with a knife to avoid having to compensate some poor campesino for the animal as required by Mexican law. He laughed when he said that his Mexican insurance company gave him credit for a “totaled” car, but that he sent a worker to the States to get parts and he rebuilt it, thus keeping his car while collecting its full value.

Back to Mexican medicine: Our ugly American related that while he and his wife participated in the Mexican health insurance program and that it was O.K, he didn’t really think much of it because one had to wait in line with the Mexicans. Golly! I suppose they should have a separate line for Americans!

We see programs on our American satellite television, such as Lou Dobbs, complaining of the burden caused by Mexican undocumented workers and their families on the health care system in the U.S. Nobody has figured out the cost to Mexico for the Americans who are utilizing the service here, and I haven’t heard of any uproar or complaints about this.

I have noticed that there are many, many choices for medical care in Mexico. One of these is the curandero. This is a Spanish word that means healer, and these curanderos, who have been around for a long time, are still around. As I understand it, they are often respected members of the community, being highly religious and spiritual. Curanderos often use herbs and other natural remedies to cure illnesses, but their primary method of healing is the supernatural. This is because they believe that the cause of many illnesses is evil spirits, the punishment of God, or a curse. Although I have never sought the services of a curandero, I know some Americans who swear by them. I suppose one disadvantage of using a curandero, is that you have to wait in line with the Mexicans.

Just last week I was in the nearby town of Silao and noticed a bakery store with a sign pointing to a stairway and containing a notice that there was a “consulta medico- 15 pesos por visita.” Now that’s about $1.40 for a medical consultation. I decided not to stop and check out my arthritis that’s been bothering me in the knees, but dang, you can’t beat the price!

Used Cars-

Aside from a couple of very small ones, one thing you hardly ever see here are used car lots. I have heard that financing of cars is now possible and popular, albeit at high rates, and this may account for the increase in automobiles. The Ford dealership here, has a car finance agency that has the unfortunate name of “Conauto.” We see an ever growing number of cars on the streets here in Guanajuato, but not a lot of used car lots although I have seen a couple with a big sign saying their cars were “semi nuevo.” When one wants to buy a new car the buyer doesn’t usually trade his old car in at the dealer, but rather sells his car directly to someone looking for a used car. You see cars on the street with white painted letters in the back window, for example $732-4656. That’s short hand in Spanish for “Car for sale, call 732-4656.” I presume that one can get a better deal by selling one’s old car directly to a buyer rather than through a dealer. The car dealers don’t seem to have much of a used car business.

The other day I went to the Pemex gas station to fill my tank. Adjoining the station, I saw two old cars that had signs painted in the windows: $1 por kilo. I asked the station attendant if that meant you could buy that semi nuevo wrecko for 1 peso per kilogram. That’s about ten cents for 2.2 pounds of car, or less than a nickel per pound. I don’t remember what kind of cars these two specimens were but if they were Ford Escorts, which weigh in at 1,070 kilos, this would translate to U.S. $98, probably less, because one of the cars lacked tires.

The Little Things in Life -

2006-10-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

A daily or almost daily chore that I go through is shaving my face in the morning. I learned that only 6% of all men in America are fully bearded, and I happen to be one of them. In Mexico, where many of the early leaders of the Mexican republic wore beards, today one hardly sees anyone with a full beard save for an occasional foreigner. One does see a lot of mustaches on the Mexican men. I don't know if it is true or not but I heard that Mexican males, perhaps subconsciously, wear a mustache to show that they are not a Mexican Indian, Indians generally lacking facial hair. Beard or no, I still need to shave my cheeks and my neck lest I look like the Wild man from Borneo. If you are not familiar with the Wild man of Borneo, check out this interesting site: http://www.irememberhamlet.com/borneo.html. Some years ago I read an article; I think it was in Esquire Magazine, that described in detail how to shave. The article mentioned that a survey had been conducted in which men were asked if they would use a cream that would permanently remove their facial hair so they would never have to shave again. Over half of the respondents said no, that they would prefer to shave. If they had asked women, maybe the answer would have been different. I have to regard shaving as definitely a chore and yet, I have come to enjoy in a small way this morning ritual.

I have looked up the history of shaving. According to Wikopedia, before the advent of razors, some humans removed hair using two sea shells to pull the hair out. (“Ouch", I say, "and how would they know that!”) Later, around 3,000 BC, when copper tools were developed, humans developed copper razors. Another factoid on this subject: A man’s whisker is as strong as a copper wire of the same gauge. A man's beard grows half a milimeter each day. According to my calculation, a male from let's say 15 to the age of 75 would grow a beard 35.92 feet long if he never shaved. I personally have a Gillette three blade razor that has a micro motor and AAA battery in the handle: the Gillette Company calls it a Mach 3 Turbo Power razor. That’s not the latest of their models but it's pretty high tech at that. The Gillette company was founded by a man named King Camp Gillette who was born in 1855 in the small town of Fond du Lac in central Wisconsin. His parents were innovators, who were always seeking to do things better.

I know I shouldn’t digress so much but I have a personal tale to tell you about Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Founded by early French explorers and given its name because it is at the foot of Lake Winnebago, which happens to be the second largest fresh water inland lake in America, Fond du Lac served as a stopping off place for stage coaches that traveled from Milwakee to Green Bay in yesteryear, as they used to say on The Lone Ranger. A post house which still exists today was a favorite place for travelers to eat and spend the night. Today it is the home of the Postilion Restaurant and Madame Kuony’s School of Culinary arts. Born in Belgium and trained in Switzerland, her Postilion Restaurant was written up in the The New Yorker Magazine for its outstanding food. My friend, Harlan Schwartz and I, were both bachelors in those days in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Harlan, who was an antique sports car buff, was killed two years ago in a racing car accident in Italy where he was racing his antique Alfa Romeo in the Mila Miglia. I have a feeling that if Harlan had to go at that time, that this was probably the way that he would have preferred, behind the wheel of his Alfa.

Returning to my story, I came across the article in The New Yorker that extolled the Postilion and I mentioned it to Harlan. We had to try it out, so Harlan made reservations. The people at the restaurant mentioned that they did not have a liquor license so we would be free to bring our own wine. Harlan had a well stocked wine seller and proceeded to select some wine for our meal. Not knowing what we would be ordering to eat, Harlan brought two bottles of fine French red wine and two bottles of a great white wine. When we arrived at the restaurant the two of us were seated and we hauled out the four bottles of wine. Madame Kuony and the waiters, with raised eyebrows, looked at us like: “what do you two gentlemen happen to have in mind?” The restaurant was very staid and elegant in an antique sort of way.

This was a time when Russia had launched one of their early Sputniks and there was a rumor that they had put a man in their space craft. The Russians denied this and said that they had put a duumy in the space ship and it was not intended that it return to Russia. Time Magazine had a cartoon that showed a Sputnik with little antennas sprouting out and radio waves eminating from the space ship. The tag line, which I mentioned to Harlan, was: "Dummy to base, dummy to base, what’s this I hear about my not returning?” We both thought this was pretty hilarious and started to laugh, but the restaurant was so elegant that we both tried to suppress our laughter which was impossible. All through our meal we kept bursting out in laughter all the while trying to suppress it. Needless to say, we never returned to this restaurant out of concern that they would remember the two goofballs from Manitowoc who ate at Le Postilion.

Back to the inventor of the saftey razor blade, King Camp Gillette. (Not too many people to my knowledge are so fortunate as to have the name King. When I was a small boy I complained to my parents that unlike my siblings, they had not given me a middle name. My mother said if I would like a middle name pick one out. That took me by surprise but after some thought I told them I would like to have the name, King. For some reason Charles King Montemayor never cought on.) One of King's early jobs was as a traveling saleman for The Crown Bottle Top Company of Fond du Lac that made bottle caps with a cork pad. The owner of that company advised King that if you want to have a successful invention, think of something that people will use and then throw away like a bottle cap. After a lot of work and partnering with a fellow named Nickerson, they developed the disposable razor blade. They decided that Nick Nickerson’s name should not appear on the razor blade so they named their product Gillette. Both of them became millionaires. But it was King Camp Gillette who innovated the idea of giving away razors that could only be used with his product. The makers of color printers for the computer, such as Hewlett Packard, with their almost giveaway printers and their $40 ink cartridges apparently have adopted this business model.

One interesting thing about Gillette is that he wrote an anti-capitalist book called "The Human Drift" in which he criticized business practices and the rich. In the book, he stated that competition was the root of all evil and proposed a form of utopian, socialistic society that was pollution free. He hoped to replace the sprawling cities that the industrial revolution had created with beehive type communities. He sought support from Henry Ford and Teddy Roosevelt but they wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Not too sharp an idea, eh!

In stead of using soap from an aerosol can, a gel, or a cream, I prefer shaving soap from a shaving mug also called a jug. A couple of years ago, Gus Garcia from Austin, Texas, newly retired as mayor of his city, brought me two cakes of glycerin type shaving soap made in Texas. With my badger hair shaving brush I have found this soap to be an excellent product. To me the most important ingredient for a wonderful shave is the brush. It should be made with pure badger bristles, not boar’s bristles. The badger bristle is soft and absorbs more water. A good one costs $50 or more for a fine English or Italian model. After washing my face and neck with warm water I soak the brush in hot water from the tap and swirl the brush in the mug so that I get a rich lather and then brush it on to my cheeks and neck. The lather feels so good on my neck that I apply it over and over. My Mach 3 Turbo Power razor with its three highly honed blades whisks first in the direction of the hair nap and then after a second application of soap, against the nap. I rinse with cold water and dry.

I have a few years on me and so over time I have tried a variety of shaving devices: electric razors and even a straight razor that I bought at a garage sale. It was a beautiful thing with a real ivory handle and trimmed with sterling silver. I even bought a strop to keep it honed properly but gave up on the straight razor, also called a throat cutter, because I was always short of time getting ready for work and the use of a straight razor is something that should not be rushed. Rod Dittmer of Paducah, Kentucky, gave me a French aviator's hand powered razor. It's a GYR 100 SUFAM, Fabrique en France. I have no idea where he got it, but this works like an electric razor except that one pulls a chord that sets in motion a fly wheel that powers the razor. Although I have only tried using it once I consider this as something very special and I am keeping it just in case the triple "A" battery in my Mach 3 dies out.

A few months ago I wa diagnosed with prostate cancer and one of the big joys in my life is that the good health professionals at University of Wisconsin Hospitals provided a treatment that is so good that Dr. Bruskewitz said, you will probably live a long time and die of something else. Hmmm! That's kind of good news, bad news, isn't it? At any rate the doctor said I will be able to eat what I want, drink what I want, and do what I want. But I would probably experience hot flashes; we call these mini vacations in the tropics. He also said that I probably wouldn’t lose any body hair, a common side effect of chemo-terapy or radiation treatment, but i am not getting those. This brings us back to the shaving subject. My beard is just as full as it has ever been but I have noticed that I don’t seem to have as much hair on my arms, my legs, my back, and my chest as I used to have. I don’t mind this at all, but it makes me wonder. What is happening to all the hair I seem to be losing? It is not in my bed, not in the shower drain. I finally figured it out. The hairs must be slowly receding back to the little black roots from whence they came.

Zacatecas, Mexican Morning, Chinese Restaurant, Letter from Amy

2006-06-26T12:42:00.000-07:00

A Trip to Zacatecas
We had been to Zacatecas before for short trips but never had the feeling that we really got to know the place. It’s often said that the next time you come to visit Zacatecas you should stay longer. It was a first time visit for Phil and Jan Contreras, but for Carole and me, we decided to return to see more of this fabled town. Zacatecas, which is the capital of the state by the same name, is 195 miles north of Guanajuato. Like Guanajuato the discovery of silver and gold was her beginning. We drove north through the City of Aguascalientes, which looked sparkling clean and had a number of modern industrial plants including a Nissan auto assembly plant that appeared larger than the General Motors plant near Guanajuato. On entering Zacatecas we passed a plant that we mistook for the Kahlua factory, which produces the famous coffee flavored liqueur. The Kahlua factory is somewhere in Zacatecas, and although we had planned on visiting it on our return trip we never found it.

I have since done some research on Kahlua and found a list of recipes you can make from this liquor. One site on the internet offered 737 recipes for this sweet coffee flavored drink. Some of the names of these concoctions are wildly colorful but cannot be printed in a family blog. One that can is a drink called “After Eighteen” and consists of:

2 ounces of Kahlua
2 ounces of White Crème de Menthe
Fill glass with chocolate milk
(This drink sounds like it should be named “Under eighteen,” or maybe, “Five to Nine Crowd.”)

“Baby Eskimo”
2 ounces Kahlua
8 Ounces Milk
2 scoops of Ice-cream
Leave ice-cream out for about 10 minutes. Add ingredients in order, stir with a chopstick Consume immediately and often. Nice and light, great for following a heavy meal. (If you are going to make this using a chopstick, I think they should rename it “Japanese Baby Eskimo.”)

Zacatecas, like Aquascalientes is spick and span clean, free of trash and litter. The city has a large crew of women dressed in orange tunics who hand sweep the streets. The cleaners are called hormigas, which in Spanish means ants. They are all over the place, like, well, ants.

Zacatecas has some first class museums. The Coronel Art Museum and the Coronel Mask Museum are two of these. Extensive museum collections were given to the city by the two Coronel brothers and are described in a previous newsletter. On this trip we went to the Museo del Pueblo, the City Museum, which emphasizes the history of the local indigenous people. The Indians who lived in the area and extending all the way to the Pacific coast, where the Huichol Indians still live, practice their shamanic rituals using peyote, a hallucinogenic cactus. The shamans are the ones who conduct the peyote sessions, and it is said that one fourth of the adult males in the Huichol tribe are shamans. That’s quite an endorsement for peyote, don’t you think? The museum displayed all sorts of masks, bowls, and other items covered with tiny colored beads showing peyote buds and other magical objects. We’ve been told that the masks and other brightly decorated items are made while the maker is using the peyote so you can imagine the fantastic designs resulting.

One of the icons displayed in tourist brochures featuring Zacatecas, is a cable car that spans the center of town and traverses Zacatecas from one high hill to another. We didn’t use this example of modern Swiss technology on this trip even though it is probably quite safe except for the tendency of the operators to overload the cab. I suppose you can’t have everything.

We did go to one of these hills, called La Buffa, that is the site of a former monastery part of which has been made into a museum dedicated to the great battle of Zacatecas where Pancho Villa defeated the government forces. I had recently completed reading a biography on Pancho Villa that was just short of one thousand pages long. In as much as I had read the book, Carole or Jan asked if I would mind explaining Pancho Villa. Needless to say, Francisco Villa was a complex and interesting man. As a small boy, I remembered a movie about him starring Wallace Beery, where I recall Villa depicted as a fat, slovenly and sometimes cruel but at times a beguiling leader. Wallace Beery was fat and slovenly looking in the movie but from pictures in the book I read Villa was a fairly trim and neat looking general. One thing that caught my attention from the biography was that Villa, whose army made great use of trains, included hospital cars to take care of his wounded soldiers, something that even the government forces didn’t provide. In the book, it mentioned when the Wallace Beery movie was shown in Austria at a time when that country was under some type of suppressive rule that at the end of the movie the audience stood up and cheered for Villa. The fact that he was able to elude U.S. General Black Jack Pershing in an American incursion into Mexico to capture the “bandit,” made him a hero to many Mexicans, probably like Osama Ben Laden is regarded by many from the middle east.

The museum located in what was the most strategic point of the battle is interesting and includes dioramas showing the disbursement of army troops from both sides. Next to three large equestrian statues showing Villa and his two top generals we encountered an enterprising Mexican who provided “props” so that you can have your picture taken as revolutionaries.

General Felipe Contreras on Right, Capítan Carlos Montemayor on Left, and Two Soldadas from the Taliban in Center

Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

There is something glorious about the Mexican morning here in the highlands of central Mexico. As many years as we have lived here, I continue to enjoy these special minutes of awakening and thinking, “Ah, another perfect day.” My side of the bed faces a set of sliding glass doors that open on to a small balcony overlooking a small patio. The patio is enclosed on three sides by the walls of our house and contains potted flowers and plants. On awakening, my first view is our patio backdropped by the early morning blue sky, that distinctive blue of a desert climate. The air is cool and crisp and even in the warm season, April and May, we sleep under a light down comforter. Carole generally gets up before I do, and even if I am awake, I like to luxuriate under the com-forter. We live a pretty simple life here, and one of our little pleasures is to make freshly ground coffee, blended coffee beans from Chiapas or Veracruz with some decaffeinated beans from America, and just a touch of hazelnut. The rich aroma of this fresh coffee wafting through our house first thing in the morning is something not to die for, but to live for. The Mexicans have a wonderful song, Las Mañanitas, always sung at birthday parties. It’s a prettier song than our “Happy Birthday.” The opening line of this song is: Estas son las Mañanitas que cantaban el Rey David…which, I think, translates as, “These are the mornings which King David sang about…” Next time you wake up to a perfectly gorgeous morning, try singing that phrase. If it is good enough for King David, it’s probably good enough for you and me.

Chinese Restaurant Arrives in Guanajuato
Somewhere I once read that in the world of gastronomy there are considered to be three great and distinctive cuisines in the world: French, Chinese and Mexican. I think it was Julia Childs who said that in Vietnam the great cuisine of France joined the foods of China to produce a new, distinctive, epicurean delight: Vietnamese cooking. Sort of along these lines, it was my hope that when the great cuisines of China were joined with the best of Mexican cooking that something truly distinctive, original, and never-seen-before would stem forth.
So, anxiously, I invited our friend Jan Contreras to join Carole and me to the first real Chinese restaurant in Guanajuato so that we could witness this blending of Chinese cooking with the cuisine of Meso-America. Let me tell you folks, it didn’t quite make it.

El Dragon, which sounds better when it is said in Spanish, El Drahgon, is a little hole in the wall across from the plaza that contains the bronze statues of Don Quixote and his sidekick, Sancho Panza. The restaurant unfortunately is housed in a building that lacks any windows whatsoever. To compensate for this omission, the front door to this dark little establishment is left wide open. With two large fans, one pointing into the restaurant and the other out of the restaurant like two ships passing at night, the place was ventilated. By entering the restaurant sideways one can avoid being caught in the blades of the two opposing fans. Should this have given us a clue as to what we were in for?

Carole and I ordered the special meal for two, at $150 pesos that had everything, basically: shrimp, chicken, beef, and pork. I would tell you what the actual dishes were except it was a Spanish rendering of various Chinese entries. Jan had Mandarin Chicken, a battered deep fried chicken. All the batter-fried dishes were soggy, but the fried rice that included little morsels of shrimp, beef, chicken, and pork, was excellent.

Back in Madison our friends Jenny Lin and John Pie who co-own and run the Yen Ching Restaurant would be dismayed at what we encountered. Somehow the blending of Chinese and Mexican cuisines as produced by El Dragon have not emerged into the Chin-Mex comida we were hoping for.

Letter from Amy
Received this letter from Amy the daughter of old family friends Jim and Betty Peacock, of Reston, Virginia. Now if you are not a Montemayor family member or an old family friend that knew my brother George, you may not want to read this next part because it has nothing to do with living in Mexico.

Dear Charlie,

Enclosed you will find a photo that was a collaboration between my Dad, Chris and myself. Dad found the picture and came up with the idea, Chris did the PhotoShop work and I got it framed.

We hope that you like it. It is a bit of a larger picture taken when you guys were all in a chorus together (Dad is a couple of rows behind you). How handsome you both were! I am sending it along with a request. I was hoping that you could tell me a bit about George. I have memories of a very sweet man who was always sweet to me, and who I didn’t know well enough before he died. My Dad has such happy memories of you guys growing up and the love and respect he has for both of you is evident every time he talks about you.

If you are inclined, and have the time, I’d love to know more about George. I hope this isn’t a difficult or inappropriate request. I guess hitting my 40’s has me wondering about the past a bit. We have a picture of George on the mantle and Henry asked me the other day who he was. I just wanted to give him a better answer.

I hope that this finds you all happy and healthy. I get to read your newsletters every once in a while…it sounds like you’re having lots of fun.

Take care and best wishes for the New Year.

Amy

Dear Amy,
I am really sorry I have not responded sooner to your interesting gift. The picture of George and me that is now hanging in my estudio brings a smile whenever I look at it.

Growing up in Janesville, Wisconsin was good. We all had a happy childhood. George was next older to me by two years and I looked up to him as my big brother. He and I would go downtown and he would place his thumb and big finger around the back of my neck and would steer me. If we came to a corner he would apply pressure to the left or the right so that I would make the correct turn. People would think, isn’t that nice, George and his little pal brother going into town. Of course I resented the close direction but I knew that he was right in his pointing me as to which way to go.

I have told my wife, Carole, that as kids we never fought in our family. Years ago, while my Mother was still living Carole checked this out by asking her if this were true. My Mother responded that this was not true, that we had our quarrels. The interesting thing is that even though I remember a lot about my childhood I don’t recall any of these incidences. We were six kids in our family and the older children took care of the younger ones.

George excelled in whatever he tried. He would make beautiful model airplanes. These are not the plastic models that snap together with a little glue these days. The planes he made were of balsa wood with ailerons and struts you cut out of balsa wood with a razor blade and with tissue paper that you carefully covered the fuselage and wings with and then sprayed with a fine mist of water from an atomizer that would cause the paper to tighten up and make a smooth skin. I tried making planes like his but I can remember the wings warping up when I sprayed the water.

George was a close friend of your Dad. He and some other guys his age did things that didn’t include me. They called George, “Dagger”. Why Dagger? Well, they said it was because he was so sharp. I remember one day, your Dad and some other friends were at our house and they were teasing me, “Come on Charlie, tell us your brother’s middle name.” Apparently, George would never reveal to anyone his middle name. What a chance this was for me to get back at my brother. I said his middle name was Humbert, and I guess I was lucky to remain alive.

George played the trumpet and with some high school friends formed a Dixieland band. I can remember him practicing “The Jazz Me Blues” over and over again for his band. I don’t know if he was good or if it was simply my awe at anything that George did but I thought he was terrific. George excelled in school and actually graduated first in his class. But it seems to me that this is when he started to become the recipient of some degrees of bad luck. This was 1944 and because he was expected to enter military service and the scholarship to the University would go unused if it went to him, they declared a girl who was actually second in scholastic ranking to be the valedictorian, an early example of reverse gender discrimination. He never said anything about it but I learned of it later from my sister.

Before graduating from high school George was accepted in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Program. There were two hitches however in his getting in. Although five of the six children in our family were born in the United States, my brother George was born in Mexico while my parents were visiting in that country. I suspect they were trying to see about property they owned or may have lost in the revolution. The other hitch is that he had not been circumcised. My father enlisted the help of the most important people in town to gain his citizenship in a hurry and support his entry into Naval ROTC. With appeals to our US Senator, the matter was taken care of. As for the other matter, George had to take care of this himself and he ended up taking a lot of schoolboy kidding. When the war ended the navy decided it didn’t need more naval officers and so it closed down the program and sent the naval cadets to sea duty with the regular navy. So that was a piece of bad luck but it was followed by his being discharged from the navy only a few weeks before completing a full year which later turned out to be a bit of more bad luck. Some think that he may have been one of those hapless sailors who were made to witness the hydrogen bomb explosions in the Pacific. I know he never talked about it but his later leukemia causes one to wonder. George entered the University of Wisconsin and completed a degree in mechanical engineering with top grades.

He then went on to law school and became editor of the Law Review and was made a member of Coif that is the honorary law society. About the time of his graduation George was approached by a Vice President of the University who was as I understand it, an employee or consultant to the CIA. He asked George to go to work for the Central Intelligence Agency. I believe this was a time when it was said the CIA recruited the best and the brightest. A while after he became employed in the CIA I received a stern letter from my brother for an indiscretion on my part. I had mentioned to a dorm mate at the University that my brother was in the CIA. My friend who dearly wanted to enter the CIA drove to Washington and looked up my brother to seek information on how he could get hired. The letter from George said that I had no business telling anybody about his employment, that I shouldn’t even know about it, and that there was no need to respond or offer any explanations, just don’t let it happen again. I could feel the fingers on my neck again. I don’t know what he did for the CIA but keeping secrets would have been down his alley.

I may have the chronology a little bit mixed up but I think this was the time in his career when the Korean war broke out and Uncle Sam said, too bad George, but you are lacking a few weeks of a year’s military duty so back into the service you go. George was commissioned an officer in the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Office and sent to Korea. He defended military criminals some of them pretty despicable persons but I don’t think his heart was in it. When he returned he jokingly showed me his certification to practice before the Korean Supreme Court.

When he got out of the service he went to work for the Parker Pen Company as a patent attorney. He once laughingly told me that he probably was the world’s greatest authority on patent law regarding writing instruments.

You asked me to tell you a bit about George and I have gone on at some length and haven’t even covered his marriage to Libby and the birth of his three daughters, Jane, Muffy, and Sara Sue. There were some good years there, but this later part is a bit difficult for me even now. In September 1968 I received a call from his wife Libby to come to the University Hospital in Madison, that George was in the hospital. I left work and wanted to know what’s up? George told me he had leukemia and that there was some hope that he could go into remission with the treatment they were giving him. I have never cared for the world of hospitals, illness, disease, and treatments, and all that goes with that milieu, finding them morbid. I didn’t even know what the word remission meant. George said, look I’m OK, but the one thing I can’t stand is sympathy. It is all quite foggy to me but I remember he visited our house and played with our Jennifer who was a baby. Illness was not mentioned and our visit was quite pleasant. He lived for a few weeks longer and died October 9, 1968.
I believe my brother had a happy life. He was one of the most intelligent persons I have known and was re-garded by both men and women as a real gentleman.

Thanks to you Chris, and your Dad for the picture, copying it from the original and taking the time to frame it.

Did you say you were forty? I remember you as a little girl.

Charlie

Dinosaurs, "It's The Culture", Poverty

2006-06-09T06:51:00.000-07:00

The Dinosaurs of Acambaro
In the last issue of Letter from Mexico I told a tall tail about discovering a group of monks typing stories of pathos and great feeling on their computers in a remote area not far from Guanajuato. This story was meant to be a joke and I didn’t expect that anyone would actually believe it but apparently some people were taken in by this tall story and believed it was true. I mention this now because the article you are about to read is even more incredible, but unlike the story of the monks, is really true.

In the southeast corner of the state, about 95 miles from Guanajuato, is the city of Acambaro. I would guess it has a population of perhaps 30,000 inhabitants. It’s a neat town on a flat site with not a lot to distinguish it except for something that is almost too incredible to publish in a reliable journal such as Letter from Mexico. In 1945 a German man living in Acambaro, who had an interest in archeology, found an Indian who brought him some clay figurines. The figurines were of various animals and people but among them were a number of clay representations that looked like dinosaurs. The Indian had dug these out of the ground.

I learned of this on the web and I pass on the name of the site so you can see for yourself: it’s worth looking at.
http://www.bible.ca/tracks/tracks-acambaro.htm

Here is an excerpt from this site:
In 1945, Waldemar Julsrud, a German immigrant and knowledgeable archeologist, discovered clay figurines buried at the foot of El Toro Mountain on the outskirts of Acambaro, Guanajuato, Mexico. Eventually over 33,000 ceramic figurines were found near El Toro as well as Chivo Mountain on the other side of town. Similar artifacts found in the area are identified with the Preclassical Chupicuaro Culture (800 BC to 200 AD).

The authenticity of Julsrud’s find was challenged because the huge collection included dinosaurs. Many archeologists believe dinosaurs have been extinct for the past 65 million years and man’s knowledge of them has been limited to the past 200 years. If this is true, man could not possibly have seen and modeled them 2,500 years ago.

During the years 1945 to 1946,Carlos Perea was Director of Archeology, Acambaro zone, for the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. In a recorded interview he described Julsrud’s excavations as unauthorized, as were many similar discoveries made by local farmers, but he had no doubt that the finds were authentic. He acknowledged that he examined the figurines, including dinosaurs, from many different sites. He was present when official excavations were conducted by the National Museum and the American Museum of Natural History. They found many figurines, including dinosaurs, which he described in detail.

In 1954 the Mexican government sent four wellknown archeologists to investigate. A different but nearby site was selected and a meticulous excavation was begun. Six feet down they found numerous examples of similar figurines and concluded that the Julsrud find was authentic. However, three weeks later their report declared the collection to be a fraud because of the fantastic representation of man and dinosaur together.

In 1955 Charles Hapgood, respected Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Hampshire, conducted an elaborate investigation including extensive radiometric dating. Erle Stanley Gardner, former District Attorney of the city of Los Angeles, California and the creator of Perry Mason accompanied him. They falsified the claim that Julsrud manufactured the figurines, by excavating under the house of the Chief of Police, which was built 25 years before Julsrud arrived in Mexico. Fortythree more examples of the same type were found. Isotopes Incorporated of New Jersey performed three radio-carbon tests resulting in dates of 1640 BC, 4530 BC and 1110 BC. Eighteen samples were subjected to thermo luminescent testing by the University of Pennsylvania, all of which gave dates of approximately 2500 BC. These results were subse-quently withdrawn when it was learned that some of the samples were from dinosaurs.

Obviously, this find was great news for creationists. All of the pictures of the figurines have “bible” included and the site was published by what I believe is a creationist group. The idea that dinosaurs and humans coexisted offers “proof,” they believe, that all were created at the same time. Of course, that leaves the question of how fossil records could show that the dinosaurs existed 65 million years ago and that humans existed only thousands of years ago?

I couldn’t get these dinosaur figures out of my mind. With the town of Acambaro less than 100 miles away, we could go and see for ourselves if this was some kind of hoax. I spoke with some friends of ours and everyone said let’s go. Jim and June Jackson, and Phil Contreras, plus Carole and I loaded into Jim’s car and off we went. I had also found on the Internet that the City of Acambaro hosted an anthropology museum, although they didn’t mention anything about dinosaurs.

Acambaro is famous for the special bread they bake there, and all up and down the main street of the town, we saw bakeries. We later bought some of these round loaves of this bread that was almost cake-like in texture and I think is especially delicious when eaten with a hot cup of Mexican chocolate that is a favorite of mine. We located the museum, which turned out to be in a handsome old colonial building, with very well executed exhibits, but no sign of dinosaur figurines. We asked the curator, “Say, what about those dinosaurs?” or words to that effect. She answered that these were very controversial and that yes, the Acambaro area was the site of the finding of these figurines but that the museum didn’t recognize them. She added that a local professor was putting together a separate museum to display these figures. We were disappointed that we could not see the dinosaurs but at least we received confirmation that the figurines existed.

We then found a very large and nice restaurant on the edge of town and had a fine meal. The manager came over to chat with us and I asked, “Say, what about those dinosaurs?” or words to that effect. He said yes, there was going to be a separate museum to display the dinosaur figurines of Acambaro. He gave us the name and telephone number of the director, who was not in when we called. It was explained that the figurines were on tour in Europe.

We all agreed that we want to return to see these incredible figurines. Stay tuned for more on this.

It’s the Culture
Back in the days when I was City Planner in Green Bay, Wisconsin they used to jibe us with, “What’s the difference between Green Bay and yogurt?” Answer: “Yogurt has culture.” Well, according to anthropologists, everyone and every place has some kind of culture. I don’t have a quarrel with this but I don’t think that tagging every behavior as being, “It’s because of the culture,” is right. All too often, when someone uses the expression, “It’s the culture,” it is a put-down made by a person who just knows that his or her culture is superior and that the people being described have an inferior culture.

My point is that ascribing certain behavior as being a cultural trait and the implied criticism, is far too easy. To me, using that term is useless and is like saying, “That’s the way it is.” If you are going to tag some behavior to culture, I want to see what evidence there is that establishes this as a fact. After all, if you are going to accuse a city, a region, a whole country, or the whole Third World of some cultural defect, you ought to offer some proof that is a little more than an anecdote.

Here in Mexico, among those that come to this country, much is made of cultural differences, and of course it is a different culture from what we have in America. That’s part of what makes living here interesting. But let’s leave it at that. It’s just different and probably not all that fixed, or why would Dominoes Pizza, rock and roll, boys wearing their hats backward, so quickly and easily become popular here?

A few months ago I finally got fed up with the conditions of the bathrooms in the Comercíal Méxicana, Guanajuato’s only supermarket. Comercíal Méxicana is part of a large corporation that owns 160 stores and forty restaurants throughout Mexico and does close to US $1 billion in sales each year. They have the latest technology with fiber optic links that connect each cash register/computer in each store with the home office in Mexico City. I have visited their store in nearby Irapuato and the restrooms are modern, the urinals flush in response to a photoelectric cell, and the place is immaculate. There is a chart on the wall that the cleaning people must sign each hour indicating that they cleaned all aspects of these facilities. The johns in the Guanajuato store, on the other hand, are dreadful. Some of them were without toilet seats, often no paper, and not all of the urinals flushed, so you can imagine what it was like. By my reckoning, the Guanajuato store has to be a very profitable operation inasmuch as there is no competing supermarket in town. The store is always crowded.

Being disgusted with the condition of the toilets, one day I spoke with one of the assistant managers about this problem with their bathrooms. He assured me that they had a program and that they would soon be remodeling the bathrooms. Months went by and nothing happened. At the store checkouts, the clerks always politely ask you if you found everything you were looking for and if you can’t find something they give you a form to fill out so that you can note any item you didn’t find. For several weeks I would write in that I hadn’t found any clean bathrooms. Weeks went by and nothing happened. I was so disgusted that getting the Comercíal to fix up its bathrooms became my cause. One day I asked to see the manager, the number one guy. He was a neat looking, well dressed man, wearing those fashionable little wire rim glasses you see these days. I told him in the best Spanish that I could muster that the bathrooms in his store were very dirty, really a disgrace, and that the fixtures didn’t work and there was no paper. I went on to tell him that the newly elected mayor of Guanajuato had initiated an intensive program to keep the streets of Guanajuato free of litter and dirt, and that the mayor had personally started the campaign by manning a broom and a shovel with his top municipal staff joining him. Additional street sweepers were hired; hundreds of new trash containers were deployed. They even included in the cleanup some of the streets outside the central historic zone. I urged the manager to do something like that in his store. I was amazed that the manager said he really couldn’t do anything, that people came in off the street, used the toilets, and stole the paper. I was dumbfounded when he said it’s part of the culture of Guanajuato. I said that the facilities in the Comercíal Méxicana in Irapuato, just forty miles away, were in perfect condition and spotless. He said, “Well, they have a different culture there. Here, we have a lot of University students and street people who come in to use the facilities, but don’t buy anything.” This attitude has convinced me that blaming it on the culture just doesn’t wash. This is an excuse and if there is any cultural reason for these dirty bathrooms, it is a culture of management that is to blame.

In writing this little piece I decided to look up Comercíal Méxicana on the Internet. That’s where I got the figures on their sales volume. One of the sites I found provided a form for filing suggestions and complaints to headquarters. Here is a translation of what I sent:

Sr. Presidente,
I am an American living in Guanajuato. I shop a lot in your store. The bathrooms in your store in Guanajuato are filthy-dirty. It is a disgrace that there is a store like this in lovely Guanajuato. There is no toilet paper, the fixtures are broken and don’t work. I spoke with your store manager and he said that it was the culture of Guanajuato. I spoke later to some officials from your headquarters that were visiting and inspecting the store and they assured me that they were going to have the situation corrected but nothing has happened. Por favor, attende a este problema pronto.

Then I sent the message to the home office in Mexico City. Thirty minutes later, and still on the Internet, my telephone rang and a man speaking very, very polite Spanish started to talk to me, a little fast, so I found it difficult to understand him. He gave me his name and phone number; it was the local store manager. I think what he was telling me is that they were going to fix the toilets pronto.

Somewhat surprising to me, and to my dismay, an article appeared in the local newspaper a week later. The article said that there had been a complaint about the toilets in the Commercial Mexicana. An agent from the health department and a photographer from the newspaper went to inspect the bathrooms. The photograph showed four closed stalls with four pairs of feet and dropped trousers, visible. It went on to say that the bathroom was not in a dirty condition but they couldn’t actually check the toilet stalls because they were all occupied. As you can see we get our laughs in ways you can’t imagine.

I have waited some months for the toilets to get refurbished and one day I saw that they had closed the bathrooms for repairs. Later I saw that they had installed shiny new floors. No progress on the fixtures yet, but I’ll wait to see if we changed some culture around here.

A Possible Solution to Poverty in Mexico and the Third World

In previous articles I have mentioned the work that Phil and Jan Contreras are doing to help the people of Nueve Valle de Moreno. See my web site: http://www.geocities.com/chasm1928/moreno1/morenohomepage.html
The town is only 16 miles away as the crow flies from where we live, but takes two hours to reach by car. While accompanying him on these visits to the village, Phil loads me up with data about poverty in Mexico. Sixty percent of the people in the country live in poverty, Phil tells me. Perhaps because I live in the City of Guanajuato, I see poverty but I don’t see anything that looks like 60 %. I got curious about this figure and looked up the data in a United Nations Report on Human Devel-opment. Mexico shows 14.9% of the population with an income of $1 per day and that 34% of the population is below the national poverty line. This might not be 60% but is still pitifully high. Phil says that Nueve Valle de Moreno, which is an isolated town whose young men have all left, mostly to work in the United States, and is typical of many such places, is a dying town and that in twenty years it will be a ghost town. If this is true, it strikes me that this is a double tragedy, first because of the human dimensions, but in addition, because the town possesses a considerable stock of housing, paved streets. cobblestone, but paved nevertheless, a public water supply, a sewer collection system, and three public schools, as well as a fine church. With housing so short in a developing country such as Mexico, it seems a terrible waste that these assets should be abandoned if that is their fate.

To me, the greatest problem facing the world is the disparity of incomes, not just in Mexico, but everywhere. Figures from the UN report I mentioned show a striking disparity. The real GDP per capita of the poorest 20% of the people in Mexico is $1,437 per year and of the richest 20%, is $19,383. The rich seem to get richer and the poor get poorer. I have often wondered why capitalism, which is so effective as an economic system in the US, doesn’t seem to be able to do very much good for the poor in other countries. I wondered about this until I came across a book, which is one of the best things I have ever read. The book is The Mystery of Capitalism, subtitled, Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West, and Fails Eve-rywhere Else. Written by Hernando de Soto, a Peruvian economist, the book has been proclaimed a gem by many economic writers throughout the world. The Economist magazine says that de Soto’s think tank in Peru is the second most important think tank in the world. Everyone from Margaret Thatcher to Bill Bradley has raved about this little volume. De Soto has consulted with Vicente Fox, Vladimir Putin, and national leaders in many countries.

De Soto started out by calculating the value of the real estate holdings of the poor in the countries of the Third World. The little houses and tiny stores owned by the poor may each have a small worth, but taken all together represent an enormous value. De Soto estimates that throughout the Third World, there is a total of 9.3 trillion dollars in these assets held by the poor, but not legally owned. This is nearly as much as the total value of all the companies listed on the main stock exchanges of the world’s twenty most developed countries. De Soto’s research team went neighborhood-to-neighborhood, and door-to-door, in cities throughout the world to gather “missing information.” Some of the data is astounding. In Peru, 53 percent of the city dwellers and 81 percent of the people living in the country, live in extralegal dwellings. But these people living “outside of the law” are not just doing nothing. They are scrambling with entrepreneurial creativity to put together shantytowns and their own extralegal market exchanges. In fact, the poor have created wealth on a vast scale, assets that far exceed the holdings of government, the local stock exchanges, and foreign direct investment; they are many times greater than all the aid from advanced nations and all the loans extended by the World Bank. The trouble is that all this value is “dead capital”; it cannot be put to work. The reason it is “dead capital” is that the proof of ownership is not properly documented. No bank will lend money on equity with such a hazy ownership. In the First World, countries like the US, Canada, western Europe, and Japan, ownership in property is generally certain. De Soto points out that this was not always the case. Every developed nation in the world at one time or other went through the transformation from informal, extralegal ownership to a formal, unified legal property system, but in the West we’ve forgotten that creating that system is what allowed people to leverage property into wealth. At one time the United States was like a Third World country with a chaotic property ownership system. Legalizing billions in property in the developing world is a daunting task. The biggest precedent for this is the US of a century ago, where homesteading pioneers moved so fast that Congress was reduced to ratifying claims. In 1946, the Japanese in 10,100 different hamlets organized legalized ownership of the land, and reported this information to the next level up, which recorded it and reported it to the next level, and so forth. De Soto points up the institutional changes that need to be made in the Third World and former communist countries, to unleash this capital and let poor people partake in capi-talism.

Of course, that old question of culture crops up. We in the First World start talking about the Protestant work ethic, blah, blah, blah. My own observation is that people here in Mexico are at least as hard working as Americans, or even more so, oftentimes holding down several jobs, and working for low wages. De Soto shows how cultural reasons cited why the Third World can’t hack it are generally anecdotal and offers evidence that culture is not a problem.

In order to effect the kind of changes to include the poor into this capitalistic system, the government is going to have to change laws and recognize the informal ownerships that have developed here. I recall when I was county planner in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, that within the county was a village called St. Nazianz. It was unusual because it had started out as a religious colony. I don’t remember the name of the Brothers who still had a monastery there but I do recall that within the village, property was held in common and while there were fences that demarked and separated the individual houses and their lots, the individual properties were not recorded. The opportunity came up to get a Federal grant to help pay for a sewer and water system, with the property owners paying for the balance based on their front footage. Under Wisconsin law, and I suppose other states have similar arrangements, there is a provision for what is called a surveyors plat. It has occurred to me that Mexico needs something like this. In the case of St. Nazianz, the surveyor did his best to determine who occupied which land, he then staked the parcels and recorded the ownership. I’m sure there were arguments, but the occupants ended up with something legal, recognized by the State. That made possible sewer and water service and the ability to sell the property because the buyer could obtain a mortgage. I’m not sure, but I believe that the surveyor had the authority to prepare the plat as he saw fit, with the condition that a majority of the new owners approved his work.

The work that Phil and Jan are doing keeps hope up and makes life a little better for places like Valle de Moreno. But it is going to take a concerted effort of government at all levels to foster making all these little properties of the poor people fungible. Fungible. I love that word.

The Story Factory, Visit to Barra de Navidad, Silao, Culture

2005-08-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

The Story Factory

The road from Guanajuato to Leon is a four-lane divided highway, most of it without access control. Cars whiz by at 90 miles per hour while some slow-moving trucks struggle to go forty. It’s best not to gawk at the scenery while doing this stretch, but having made this trip numerous times I have noticed a few things of interest. About two-thirds of the way to Leon there is a road on the north side of the high-way leading to a place called Comanjilla. Comanjilla is a very posh thermal spa that has everything from mud baths to hot water pools. We have been there to have a drink and a sandwich but what catches my eye is the number of Mercedes Benz’s, BMW’s, and Lexus’s one sees in their parking lot. My little made-in-Mexico Nissan Tsuru would probably not feel comfortable parked with these high-powered, high-priced vehicles so Carole and I will have to wait for some very special occasion before we get wet or muddy there.

On the other side of the highway there is a dirt road leading south, marked by a sign that says in faded letters, aguas termal. One day, having noticed the sign and being by myself, I thought I would take that road and see if there might be a less fancy and less expensive hot water spa. The waters should be the same as Comanjilla, but a visit there would probably be less expensive. I could hardly wait to announce my discovery to our Gringo friends.

The dusty road went further into the countryside than I expected, with several forks and very little indication that I was headed for a spa. Just over a slight rise I came upon an old but quite beautiful hacienda with no signs of human activity. Some of the walls were crumbling but I could see that a number of modern aluminum framed windows had been installed. Something unusual must be going on in this old hacienda, I thought. I stuck my head into a deep window well and with the brightness of the sunlight outside and the darkness inside I had trouble making it out but what I saw astonished me. Here was a very large room with rows and rows of people dressed like monks sitting at desks with computers. They were all typing away. As I watched I heard a loud bell ring and the monks, if that is what they were, all filed out through a double door to a courtyard. The courtyard was set up with tables and the monks seemed to be settling in for the mid-day meal. I knew I had to find out more of what was going on in this most unusual and intriguing place. Here in the middle of Mexico, in the middle of nowhere, were perhaps 40 monks all typing away at their computers. Just what was this strange enterprise I had stumbled upon? When I tried the heavy doors leading to this room, I was surprised to find them unlocked, so I slipped in.

What I saw on the computer screens, when I pressed the monitor buttons to turn them on, was surprising. Each computer had a story written on it of such incredible beauty and pathos that I could not stop moving from one computer to the next to read these stories. Most of them were a couple of pages in length. They were wonderful stories, some of human selfishness but more often of human kindness. Stories of children dying of leukemia, with appeals for prayer or for sending the child a cheery card. It is hard to describe how touching these evocative little essays were. I managed to scribble down a passage from one of them. Listen to this from a dying girl: “I stood by the window this morning, just a sliver of promise touching my cheek. I stood there but didn’t feel alone. It was like a million smiles were shining on me, and I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t ever alone…”

As my eyes welled up, I felt a lump in my throat; I wondered, “God, what is this place I have stumbled onto!” As I read story after story I began to feel a presence behind me. There, approaching me was an old man with kindly eyes. He spoke first. “Are you looking for the abbot?” I don’t know why I responded in such a crude way, but what I said was, “I was hoping to find Costello.” As the words came out of my mouth I thought that it was hilariously funny but almost immediately realized that what I said was more than just impolite. I am almost too embarrassed to write of this even now. I started to blabber an apology but the old man smiled and said that I should not feel bad. “I know that sometimes we say things we don’t mean and that it is easy to offend, but that in my many years of living I have learned that it is best to not respond in kind, even to thoughtless words.”

I never found out what the explanation for this story factory was and why there were scores of monks typing out these incredible tales. While each of the stories was quite different, they all had a similar concluding paragraph. My experience here was profound and one I know I will never forget.

Please send this message to seven friends to share with them what you have just read. This will bring joy to their hearts. If you do not send this message to seven people you will suffer seven years of bad luck and will receive 700 e-mails with stories very similar to this one.

Nathan and Tara Arrive for Visit

It finally happened: Our son Nate and his girlfriend, Tara De Prima came to Guanajuato. It was a first visit for both of them to Mexico. Tara had mentioned that she was anxious to see the ocean. Guanajuato, of course, is in the center of Mexico and just about as far as you can be from any ocean, but even at that, it is only 380 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and 360 miles from the Pacific. So off we went to one of our favorite playas, the beaches of Barra de Navidad on the Pacific. Inasmuch as I recently wrote about our visit to this laid-back village in my last Letter from Mexico, I will try not to repeat myself.

Barra doesn’t have a bank or any ATM machines, but Malaque, a town about five miles north, does. Some of our friends prefer to stay at Malaque. Apparently there are some beautiful villas in this town and our friends like to kid us as to how sorry the hotel we were staying at was in comparison to their lodgings. But, as my friend, Phil Contreras said, when he had to go to visit the ATM machine there, “Malaque makes Silao look like Paris.” I have always considered Silao, which is ten miles southwest of Guanajuato, a gritty little town, but you will hear more about Silao later in this issue. I also had to tap the ATM machine, so I took a jaunt over to Malaque. This town has that special look that only a recent earthquake and tidal wave can give a place; rows of apartments and hotels were devastated.

During our visit to Barra de Navidad we did pretty much the same things Carole, I, and our friends did on our earlier visit including an evening meal at the beautiful cliffside restaurant, El Recife. One difference though, was that Nathan and Tara were here and Nathan proposed to Tara, giving her a beautiful ring, one of those sparkly kinds. It all was very romantic.

We use our 1996 Ford Windstar van for longer trips such as this one to the coast. It’s much more comfortable with its greater room, plush seats, a lot of bells and whistles, and two air conditioners, one for the front and the other for the back. But a few things have started to go wrong with our van. For one thing, the dome light plus several courtesy lights stay on while you are driving. It’s very annoying having these lights on while driving, especially at night. In addition, a little icon image of the car lights up when you open the doors to warn you that the doors are open but it stays on for half an hour or so after the doors are closed. It’s not a big thing but it is annoying to think the doors may not be fully shut. A further problem is that the automatic window on the driver’s side does not open or close. The local Ford garage doesn’t seem to understand what to do about these problems so I took it to a Mexican auto-electric place that had the intriguing name of El Cachoro, which means “The Puppy.” Three grease monkeys came out to work on my car. Well, they weren’t really monkeys, but their clothes were amply covered with grease. The head mechanic, el maestro, brought out his two wires connected to a twelve volt light bulb, a diagnostic instrument that they used on my car. El maestro probed around with his diagnostic instrument, the second mechanic shouted out whether the lights were on or off, and the third watched the operation. I was worried about the bill I would receive, what with the amount of time the three mechanics were taking just to fix the lights. When they were finished fixing the lights I asked them how much I owed them and they informed me that until they fixed the window, I owed them nothing. They were able to get the lights to turn off, at least temporarily, but said they would need a relay for the window and would order this from Ford. I was encouraged that they actually thought they could fix the car, particularly the window. When you pull up to a tollbooth you have to drive a car-door’s length beyond the toll-taker so you can open the door without hitting the attendant with the door, but still pay the fee. Then, when you need to stop to ask directions you have to shout and wave your fingers at the closed window in hope that someone can hear you or read your lips, as well as understand you. Instead of giving me the directions, I think what they are saying is Why don’t you roll down your window? It’s definitely a problem, and it’s one that we have lived with for over three years.

When Nathan and my daughter, Jenny, were growing up I did not put a lock on my large basement workshop, which was loaded with tools. They could use them and Jenny, more toward what can be done artistically, and Nathanthey did more toward making and fixing things. This is kind of a long way around, but while Nate was visiting here he spotted a dimmer switch on the van and turned it down from full intensity. The dome lights and the courtesy lights, which had all remained on while the car was moving, now went out. He then tore into the van, first checking the myriad of they were all O.K. Then he checked the relays and they were allfuses O.K. Then he removed the inside panel of the door and checked the various switches which opened and closed the window and finally he got to the window motor and found that it was dead. He removed the motor, cleaned and oiled it, and somehow got it to work. He re-placed the door panel and our car is now back in order. It would be nice if Nathan would visit more often.

Silao

“Why would anyone want to visit Silao?” is what we asked ourselves when we learned that the Friends of The Alhondiga Museum were planning a tour to this town only 10 miles away. The Friends arrange marvelous trips to various parts of Mexico and so when they announced this excursion to Silao, Carole and I decided to go to find out if there was something about Silao that we ought to know about. For those of you from Wisconsin, going to Silao is a little bit like going from Janesville, where I grew up, to Beloit, which was our hometown rival. Beloit of course is the home of lovely Beloit College, but there is not much else noteworthy there except that Beloit has the distinction of being the only town in America whose name sounds like dropping a quarter in a toilet bowl. Beloit!

Silao, unlike Guanajuato, is flat and is about one thousand feet lower in altitude and is thus warmer. I go to Silao occasionally because I found a wonderful barber who is able to give me a haircut without buzz-cutting the remaining hairs on my head or trimming my beard so short that it looks like I forgot to shave. As far as I can see, Silao has a nice mercado and a lot of good hardware stores, but not much to make it a tourist destination. While Guanajuato has so many historic plaques on the side of buildings, one has the feeling that if they ever removed the plaques from the walls, all the buildings would collapse. Silao, on the other hand, has only one plaque, at least only one that I ever saw. Sadly, this tells about an Italian racecar driver, Felice Bonetti, who lost his life, March 21st, 1953 while running the IV Carrera Panamericano, a famous Mexican automobile race. I have been told that Bonetti and his piloti, I Giovani, hit a bump in the road and that Bonetti flew out of the car, hitting an overhanging balcony. The street he crashed on is the main drag in the center of town and is straight as an arrow. There are still bumps in the road, however.

The tour to Silao took us to a cluster of rug-weaving shops. The looms were hand crafted and located in a shelter open on three sides. Alas, the weaving was with acrylic yarns, not like the tightly woven wool yarns of Oaxaca that are so beautiful. The interesting thing to me is that the weaver said he could weave any design we wanted, just bring him a picture of it. He was working on a rug that had a fancy crest for a fire company in Leon. The cost of rugs this size, about 30 by 40 inches, was $35. I wondered if he could do the Montemayor crest we saw in Spain? The trouble with that idea is that the only picture I have of the crest is about a half-inch square. I spoke to him about limitations like this and he pulled out of his pocket a design he said he would do next, which was about the size of a postage stamp.

We had a fine meal in a large restaurant, El Portrero, followed by a speech given by the official chronologist of the State of Guanajuato, who gave us some of the history of Silao. I couldn’t understand much of the speech but I did catch a few bits and pieces of his address. Pancho Villa’s army passed through Silao on its way to Celaya, 45 miles east, where he attempted thirty cavalry charges to break through the lines of General Obregon, but without success. He suffered an enormous defeat. Another bit that I caught was that Silao has long been a place where traditional Mexican toys were made. Today, along the high-way, stretching out toward Leon, one can see about a mile of venders selling furniture for small tots: small chairs, highchairs, rocking horses, and that kind of thing. But our chronologist went on to say that years ago the locals harvested a very fine white wood from trees that grew on the surrounding hills and mountains. The local artisans cut the trees and made wonderful toys. A few years ago, I read in the New York Times an article that said the antique toys of Mexico had become collector’s items and museum pieces, and were quite valuable. Our chronologist said that Silao produced a charming toy with a monkey head on it that was very popular. He said some Germans moved into the area and copied the toy in ceramic, and that it proved to be more popular than the hand carved one. Over time, with the loss of the special trees that grew in the area and the diminished market for the handmade item, the local artisans completely for-got how to make those toys. There is however, he said, a monkey toy that is still made in one shop in Silao. We visited that shop and saw them making the toy that they sold for forty cents. You have probably seen it, two parallel bars that you squeeze to make the monkey, dangling from his arms, flip over and over.

We then visited the new museum of Chaves and Tomas Morado, two brothers, one a painter, and the other a sculptor. They were born in Silao and are nationally known and revered in Mexico. The museum devoted to the work of the two brothers is very well done and I recommend it the next time you are in Silao.

We visited the main church in town, Santiago de Apostal, which is cathedral-sized, and quite beautiful. The spires are exceptionally tall, and being made of cut stone piled on cut stone, offered testimony that this part of Mexico is not earthquake prone. (Everybody cross you.) Not included on the tour was a visit to a small church I find charming, the steeple of which is rounded and in the shape of a beer bottle.
One can only imagine what some native artisan mason had in mind when he built this church or to what God he prayed.

We’ve Got Culture

One of the nice things about living in Guanajuato is the continuing array of cultural events sponsored by the city. Sometime ago I wrote about the annual event, The Day of the Flowers. Mexican folks make a floral altar in their homes and shops and people converge on the center of town to buy flowers for their sweethearts. Kids bop each other over the head with eggshells that look like ice cream cones, and that are filled with confetti. It’s all great fun. Thanks to our neighbor, Irene Buchanan, who is the new head of the City Office of Tourism and Public Relations, we received a special invitation to a breakfast for about two hundred dignitaries. The invitation was delivered to our door by a smartly uniformed, motorcycle-policeman. Ah, to think that after all those years of living in Wisconsin, we finally made the “A” list in Mexico.

On previous Dias de las Flores we had noticed that the four outdoor cafes located in the Jardin de la Union, that very special plaza in the center of town, had been cleared out and one big outdoor dining area had been set up. All the chairs had white covers and big blue ribbons attached to the back. There were no speeches, only a fine breakfast of fruit, crepes, a lovely sauce, and other morsels. We watched the young couples promenading the Jardin hand in hand, with the girls carrying bouquets of flowers and the kid’s bopping each other over the head with those confetti filled cones. After the breakfast we went to a second invitation held in the ornate meeting and reception room of City Hall. The purpose of the get-together was the formal presentation ceremony of Guanajuato’s Man of the Year award. This year the award went to the famous Mexican ceramicist, Capelo, whose name is actually Rodriguez. We heard speeches and re-marks from the Mayor of the City, and the Governor of Guanajuato. La Reina de Guanajuato, the City Queen, was also on hand to lend her beauty to the occasion.

Mercedes Lichtwardt later told me that Capelo, dressed in complete charro outfit with a big Mexican sombrero, occasionally rides into town from Valenciana on his horse. Now I know who it is I’ve seen that looked like a Mexican movie star trotting on his horse through downtown Guanajuato. After the presentation, we stepped out on an ornate balcony and looked down and waved at the huge festival crowd made up of, you know, your regular type people.

Almost every Friday there is a concert of the Guanajuato symphony orchestra. I cannot imagine what we could have been thinking when we complained to our friends about the increase in ticket prices from $2 to $5 that took place shortly after we moved here. The orchestra plays superbly and, subsidized by the government, the tickets are quite a bargain. The orchestra retains a lot of autonomy and is able to offer modern selections beyond the more familiar Mozart, Brahms, and Beethoven. Unfortunately for me, that’s the kind of music I like.

In addition, the city sponsors a continuing series of special events. One of the invitations we received from Irene Buchanan was to the Fourth Annual International Organ Festival sponsored by the city. A few years ago the city brought over from Germany a master organ restorer to work on three antique Guanajuato church organs. The concert we chose to attend was at El Templo de Mellado, a church overlooking the city and built to serve the Mellado miners and their families. It was very nice, especially if you are like me and enjoy the big sound of a venerable pipe organ.

Even though our municipality provides a rather full plate of musical events, some of the folks in town hungered for chamber music. A small group of musicians from our symphony orchestra organized a mini-concert series. The concerts are being held in the home of Rocendo Gutierrez, an American architect practicing his profession and living here with his wife and two children. Their home is a large portion of the Ex hacienda de la Trinidad, a very fine example architecture from the Spanish colonial period. The living room is large enough to accommodate the quartet, including a grand piano plus forty concert attendees. The large patio, almost totally illuminated with candles, served as a grand place for intermission, where hors d'oeuvres, champagne, wine and, of course, a fine tequila were served.

Our friends and neighbors, Bob and Judith Patout, who live two doors down from us in a large beautiful home, recently sponsored a concert fundraiser for the orphanage in Salamanca. They invited three special friends of theirs, two doctors and an anthropologist who live in Cuernavaca, and who happen to be excellent musicians, to perform for friends and neighbors. We were entertained by two recorders and a keyboard. I found this music particularly delightful because of my own mastery of the recorder when I learned to play “The Irish Washerwoman” on this instrument some years ago. Their living room holds an audience of ninety persons and is a great place for concerts of this kind. A large table held an assortment of delicious nibbles, wine, and Bob’s own sangria potion.

Another formal invitation was hand delivered to our door recently, The Coronation Ceremony for the Queen of Guanajuato, held in the Teatro Juarez. We thought this would be fun to see and so Carole and I went. We arrived on time and although many events held in Mexico tend to start late, with people arriving late, we found ourselves relegated to the fifth balcony of the five balconies of this ornate old theater. Aside from the lack of oxygen and the heat we endured, we had a marvelous view of the ceremony.

On one side of the theater there was an honor guard made up of sixteen local silver miners wearing red safety helmets with their little lights turned on. The reigning reina, wearing a long satin dress with full skirt, sash, coronet, and scepter, walked in majestically to the booming accompaniment of royal coronation music. Do you remember the introductory music from Masterpiece Theater? Well, that’s one of the pieces they played along with the Te Deum, and music by Handel. She walked down the aisle, circling it, so that all could see her, then climbed the steps to the stage and took her place at an elaborate throne. Following her were about twelve more queens who entered the same way and stood on both sides of her. One of the queens was probably seventy or eighty years old and received thunderous applause as she slowly made her way to the stage. We later learned that this court was made up of queens from various organizations in the city including the old folks home.

The finale came when the queen-apparent entered the theater to even more thunderous applause. The flashes from a half dozen photographers and the bright lights from several TV cameras illuminated the new Reina de Guanajuato. She was more petite than the current Queen but strikingly beautiful. After cir-cling the aisle she climbed the steps and was crowned and presented with the scepter.

Nuevo Valle de Moreno

There are 5,000 comunidaes in the State of Guanajuato. These are hamlets, villages, or just little clusters of houses. Many of them are isolated and difficult to reach. One of these is Nuevo Valle de Moreno, about 15 miles as the crow flies but almost two hours by car from Guanajuato. I went with Phil Contreras to visit several of these places, including Valle de Moreno. The village, with about 360 families, is composed almost entirely of women, children, and a few old men.

Phil is an interesting fellow expat who has taken on a special mission of helping these villages, one village at a time, and starting with Nuevo Valle de Moreno. At one time he was a corporate lawyer for a large multi-national firm in Cleveland. For various reasons, too involved to explain, Phil left the corporate world and opened a legal office in San Marcos, Texas, practicing poverty law. Of course, some of us think defending the poor, making wills for $35, and counseling battered women was a step up in his career. After doing that for several years, he and his wife, Jan, were visiting Mexico, and fell in love with Guanajuato where they decided to retire. During his years in Texas, Phil had plenty of experience with helping migrants from Mexico with legal problems. He would advise them not to be out after 12 at night, avoid the booze, and on how to stay out of trouble with the law.

When Phil came to Mexico he volunteered his services to help the State agency that assists Mexican migrants and their families. I joined him and Carlos, a state field worker, on visits to some of these remote villages. Carlos and Phil spoke to the villagers, mostly women, who listened intently. The agency also sponsors Casas Guanajuato, in various American cities where migrants from this state can meet and receive help, meager as it may be. I inquired as to what kind of help this could be and was told, for example, if a migrant died, someone at the Casa would let the family back in Mexico know what happened and try to make arrangements for the return of the body. With limited phone service to the village and no funds to cover the expense of transportation, the death of a loved one in a foreign country becomes catastrophic. The agency has no grants to give the villagers for catastrophes or basic improvements. But over the years they noticed that some of the migrants pooled their funds earned in America and paid for improvements to their respective villages. In the State of Guanajuato, the government, rather cleverly, in my opinion, came up with a program that matched two pesos for every one that the migrants sent home for projects or for starting a maqiladora factory. These are factories more often found along the U.S. border that permit components or raw materials to be brought in from the U.S. without paying duty. The products made and exported back to the U.S. are duty free except for the value of the labor added to the product. These migrant worker funded maqiladora factories in Guanajuato are Mexican-owned and initiated, unlike the American and Japanese factories on the border. I don’t know how successful this homegrown opperation has been, but it is a marvelous idea that I hope can be further developed.

Studies have been undertaken as to why so many Mexicans migrate to the U.S. The simple, but only partial answer is, that there is greater economic opportunity in America; in other words, the U.S. is a powerful economic magnet. What the studies revealed, however, is that the depletion of Mexico’s soils, desertification, and the lower cost of subsidizes corn from the United States have made it impossible for many rural Mexican workers to continue to raise crops and live. These folks are being driven from the land. These forces are so powerful that, at least, until the law of supply and demand is repealed, migration to the United States is inevitable.

Phil and Jan Contreras recognized that they couldn’t tackle the problems of all 5,000 comunidades. But they might be able, in some way, to assist at least one village. They chose Nuevo Valle de Moreno, high up in the Sierra Guanajuato Mountains.

Using their own funds and soliciting funds from friends back in the U.S., and raising money from fundraiser breakfasts, they went to work rebuilding the toilets and resealing the roof of the grade school. Learning that the state government provided the school buildings, but no maintenance, provided teachers, but no supplies, and even provided computers, but practically no software, provided a satellite dish to receive educational programs from the Mexico City, but no T.V. set, Phil and Jan set out to fill some of the gaps. They bought books, computer programs such as a CD Rom disk on the history of Mexico, they bought a T.V. set, a printer and supplies so that the teachers and children had something to work with. I met one of the teachers on a visit there and was impressed with his dedication and enthusiasm. The young male teacher, who came from the distant southern state of Oaxaca, lived in a dingy room attached to the school. It was impossible for him to go home for visits and not much for a young man to do in this tiny village. There must be thousands of young teachers, male and female, in the state of Guanajuato alone, people we don’t even know exist, toiling these dry education vineyards.

The fundraisers that Phil and Jan organized, were held in the large patio garden of Ruth Burchard. Ruth is 91 years old, sprightly, and a remarkable Guanajuato expat. She decided to move here from Florida because there were just too many old people living there, she said. When she came to this city she found a house that had been part of a fine old hacienda, but was in need of repairs and refurbishing. The owner was not interested in selling it, so Ruth struck a deal to rent it and fix it up at her own expense. The place she ended up with is the envy of all of us. In addition to a very large bedroom and living room, one steps down into a large garden patio with a long roofed open gallery and a separate visitor’s house in the back, all of this built of stone and very old.

The Contreras’s brought the main ingredients for the breakfast and many of us brought something to add. Raymond Lévesque, from Quebec, one of the newer experts, brought a huge platter of crepe suzettes. The men did the cooking, but before eating, Phil and Jan explained the village project. I wanted to include a picture of Jan and Phil talking to the villagers but could not find one, so I used a picture of Raymond and me at the breakfast instead.

Luau Party

“I don’t dance, and I certainly don’t know how to do a Hawaiian hula.” That’s what I told Sandra Ward and Ron Mann when they asked me if I would do the hula at a Hawaiian luau that they were putting on to raise funds for a program dear to Sandra’s heart, the sterilization of dogs in Guanajuato. “There is really nothing to it,” they explained. “All you have to do is be willing to make a fool of yourself,” Sandra added. “Oh, in that case, I’m your man,” I responded. A few days before the event, I received my first les-son in the art of Hawaiian dancing.

Ron prepared a great variety of authentic Hawaiian dishes learned while in Hawaii. People were asked to wear Hawaiian garb, long colorful dresses for women and Hawaiian shirts for men. Sandra and Chili Hernandez did the Hawaiian hula and I did my own carefully learned dance routine. The ninety-four attendees who came enjoyed the party and the fund-raiser was a huge success.

Movie- Once Upon a Time in Mexico

We read in the paper that a motion picture was going to be made with locations in San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato. It was going to be an action picture starring Antonio Banderas and Salma Hyack and apparently a sequel to some other action picture. We saw some articles in the paper about the filming, but my first contact with tinsel town came when I received a telephone call from the City Office of Tour-ism and Public Relations. I was told that the film company needed some up-scale houses for their stars and did I know of any. I thought I should consult my Rolodex but the truth was I couldn’t give them any help. The person I spoke with sighed and said finding accommodations for the film company was not their only problem. The action was going to be filmed at the Plaza de la Paz, the main plaza in town, and there would be many unhappy merchants who's restaurants and stores faced the plaza.

My next contact with the movie was a call I received from a woman named Gabriella, who was the head costume designer. She had been billeted in a small hotel she did not like and had heard that we owned a condo apartment. She was looking for a place to stay while they were shooting the movie. Gabriella turned out to be a charming woman of Mexican descent who had lived in Mexico, France, Italy, and now Los Angeles. She asked me if I liked movies and when I answered yes, she asked me if I had seen Zorro with Antonio Bandera’s. I answered that I hadn’t, although I had seen an earlier version of Zorro. She had done the costumes for the more recent movie. I don’t know how high up head costume designers are in the world of movies, but she had her own driver with a large Chevrolet Suburban. We drove out and looked at our little apartment and with the nicest diplomacy she turned it down. I think she wanted some-thing a little bit grander. I ran into Gabriella the next day at the Plaza de la Paz where the moviemakers were set up for filming. She spotted me and came over to explain some of the process. The plaza was filled with huge movie company trucks and vans labeled “Star Wagons,” but I didn’t see any stars. The newspaper reported that helping make the movie was a firm named “Balls Out Production Co.” Somehow I don’t think they will get listed in the film credits. There was a trailer loaded with Honda all-terrain vehicles, which several of us had speculated were going to be used for a wild chase scene up and down the callejones. As it turned out, the ATV’s were used to run film crews from one end of the set to the other. A full company of young Mexican soldiers was on hand for the coup d'etat that was scheduled. I can’t wait to see the picture.
posted by Charlie's Letter from Mexico @ 7:28 AM 5 comments

Bush Visit to Guanajuato, Mexico- Barra de Navidad- Tortilla Soup Recipe

2005-07-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

Bush Visit to Guanajuato- Immediate Progress Seen*
George W. Bush, forty-third president of the United States of America, is, as this is being written, in the final phases of preparation for his visit to Mexico. The site of the visit is el rancho San Christóbal, home of President Vicente Fox Quesada. The Fox ranch is in San Christóbal, a village that is a part of the municipality of San Francisco del Rincon located about ten miles south of Leon, Guanajuato. According to news reports here, San Christobal has become the lucky recipient of substantial improvements to the tiny village’s infrastructure.
The American advance party arrived in a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster and unloaded 70 tons of equipment, supplies, and, hopefully, enough purified drinking water for the President and his party. The plane was the largest to ever have landed at the Leon/Guanajuato airport, arriving here on the 6th of February. The American Embassy has secured reservations for 100 rooms at the Hotel Fiesta Americana in Leon for, as the Mexican newspaper, AM, put it, the premier group of collaborators. Neither members of the U.S. Supreme Court, nor the group from Florida, is expected, however.
The Mexican government is spending 7,000,000 pesos, about $750,000 to fix up the facades of 150 houses in the village. Two hundred new utility poles are being installed and strung to augment the one electric line to the village. Fifty-six new telephones are being added to supplement the one telephone that has served the village for the last ten years. One hundred gallons of paint have been purchased to paint all the buildings in the village. Trees are being planted, and little parks are being spruced up. An area has been cleared off to provide a heliport, and the town of San Francisco del Rincon has added a second police patrol to help in the security of the two presidents. While 7,000,000 pesos is not a great sum for Mexico to spend on a few hour visit, it is surprising to some observers that even this much money is being spent for such a brief occasion, especially in light of President Fox’s recent announcement that he was going to cut government expenditures 30% and return the money to the people.

Although I did not support Bush in the election, I thought that I could show belated support for him by offering to draft a speech for his arrival. After all, I am an American who has lived here for almost six years and have a special appreciation of the two cultures. Also, I followed the U.S. elections quite closely on TV and I believe I have grasped the special nuances of the Bush speaking style. I do not expect any remuneration, emoluments, or benefits of any kind except the good will of our new president and the un-spoken thanks of a grateful nation.

Text of State Address to People of Mexico:
Bweanos deeas amigos and amigas. (Wait for applause and cheers from audience. You can expect the crowd to enthusiastically cry out the endearing term, Pendejo! Pendejo! Now smile.) With your permiso I will now revert to my native lingua, or is it lingo? (Smile. Wait for laughter.)
I am a leader (Pause) and your great Presidente Vincenty Fox is a leader. (Pause and wait for applause.) Yes, as leaders we know that with leadership-yes, with real leadership, my amigos, that we can lead these two great nations of ours into a leading role in leadership. (Wait for thunderous applause and the crowd to enthusiastically cry out, Pendejo! Pendejo! Smile.) Yes, I say unto thee, what we have here are the leaders and the led. (Point first to yourself, then Fox, and finally to the audience. Smile. This could be a defining sound bite covered by the world press so deliver it slowly and distinctly. It should appeal to your religious right core because of the Biblical phrasing and to all Americans tired of the failed Clinton presidency who are looking for leadership.)
I love the Mexicans. I love their sense of family values. My brother Jeb married a Mexican. She’s legal, you know. And jest because we are here in the same state, the great state of Gwaniwhato, (Wait for applause) that her family lives in, and jest because we are not going to visit them on this trip, doesn’t mean we don’t love ‘em. No, not at all. Why, I ask, should Laura and I have to be the first Bushs to visit them when my brother Jeb has never come here? It’s O.K.; it’s O.K., though. I’ll send Dick Cheney down here to see them. That’ll really warm ’em up. (Wait for laughter.) That Cheney. What a guy! He’s not here but isn’t he sumthin? Let’s give a big hand for Dick Cheney. (Wait for thunderous applause and the crowd to enthusiastically cry out, Pendejo! Pendejo! Smile.) You know, Dick is back at the White House, that’s Casa Blanca in Mexican. He wanted to come to keep an eye on Colin. Hey, that Colin, isn’t he something?I want to thank Vincenty. What a guy! Isn’t he sumthin? (Point finger at Fox.) Let’s give a big hand for Vincenty! (Wait for applause and cheers from audience. Smile.) I know I am going to enjoy visiting his ranch. I’ve got me a little ranch in Texas, too. You can bet that George W. knows not to step in any caca de toro. I know words like that because Mexican is my second language. Yes, we got some of that stuff on my ranch and Colin Powel; well, he almost stepped in some caca de toro. That’s why he said, “I don’t do ranches.” (Wait for laugh. Smile.) Say, that Colin Powell, isn’t he sumthin? (Point finger at Powell.) Let’s give a big hand for Colin! (Wait for applause and cheers from audience. You can expect the crowd to enthusiastically cry out, Pendejo! Pendejo! Smile.)That cabinet of mine is a real crackerjack, don’t you agree? And my Attorney General, he’s the prize. (Wait for applause and cheers from audience. You can expect the crowd to enthusiastically cry out, Pendejo! Pendejo! Smile.)

Say, isn’t that reporter over there, the one from the Washington Post, isn’t that the one I called an ass-hole? Hey, Senor Translator, what do you call somebody like that in Mexican? Translator: Señor Presidente, you mean, pendejo?

Statement from Carole
Dear Friends,
Some of you have raised questions about my absence from The Newsletter. A few of you have even questioned if I may have “passed to the other side,” which in Mexico means to have crossed the border to the U.S. of A. Let me assure you I am sti ll here to keep Charlie in relatively good humor.
While “he who must be obeyed” takes much joy in putting out The Newsletter, I take “joy” in stapling and labeling. You’d be amazed what a postgraduate degree can do for you.
At any rate, I am alive and well in Mexico enjoying the hard labors of telling Chepa what to prepare for la comida, watching her clean, do dishes, iron, etc. When I am not too busy I feed our cats, dog, and see that the humming birds are adequately supplied with their comida of sugar water. So you will know that my life is not complete decadence, I do go to Spanish classes twice a week, spend a small amount of time cataloging books in the gringo library, reading whatever and whenever I care to when the selection of a U.S. president is not going on, but mostly I enjoy spending time with the friends I have been fortunate enough to make here. The hardest part of this retirement life is how busy it becomes and deciding where you want to vacation to rest up from the heavy schedule.
I do miss having you near but I do not miss the slipping and sliding that Wisconsin winters have to of-fer. So, dear friends, when you wish to escape the snowing and blowing remember you have a friend in Mexico. And now back to my Spanish homework- or may be a little siesta first.
As ever, Carole.

Guanajuato Friends Visits Barra de Navidad
On the Pacific coast of Mexico, south of Puerto Vallarta and north of Manzanillo, lies the sleepy fishing village of Barra de Navidad. (Named Christmas Bar in Spanish because the first Spaniards to arrive by boat landed at this inlet on Christmas day and presumably stopped at the local bar to slake their thirst.) Today, the not-so-sleepy villagers of Barra de Navidad fish mainly for tourists. For several years now, I have been saying that I don’t really care that much for beach resorts with their con ticky-con tacky atmosphere. Why is it that Americans and Canadians flock to the Mexican seashore each winter? Why did we choose to go there for the third winter in a row? When daytime highs in Guanajuato drop down to the low sixties and high 50's one starts to think of balmy beaches, surf and sand, so that may explain it. But it does seem that the natives are able to meet the American visitor’s desire for cheap junky knickknacks no matter how garish the taste. The main street of Barra is lined with trinket shops. We later learned that not all on the Mexican Riviera, as the Mexican tourist industry tags it, is cheap and garish.
This year, our traveling group consisted of Dr. Ward Mould and his wife Pat; Jim and June Jackson; Phil and Jan Contreras; Ron Mann, who kindly edits this newsletter, and his wife Sandra Ward; and Carole and me. All in our group are year-round residents of Guanajuato. With our van and the Mould’s car we caravanned to Guadalajara and then on to Barra de Navidad, about seven hours by way of the winding scenic route. Our return, by way of the toll road passing the Colima Volcano, was only six hours. I had volunteered to arrange for our hotel reservations for this trip. I picked out the Hotel Delfin on the Internet because I thought it was the same place that Mike and Maurene Torphy, of Madison, had picked out about five years ago when they came to visit Mexico and we joined them at the beach. This was a swell place on the ocean with a gorgeous pool and a nice beach. In the various calls I made to secure reservations for the Delfin, I talked to the owners of the hotel, a man and his wife with distinct German accents. I could only presume that they came to this remote Mexican village after World War II, probably war criminals that made it out just in time. I couldn’t understand how if they were war criminals they could be about twenty years younger than I am, but maybe they started young.

It turned out that the hotel I meant to book us in was the Hotel Barra de Navidad, not the Delfin. Phil Contreras is an ex-U.S. army artillery captain who commanded a battery in Germany armed with nuclear artillery shells. I thought it was a good idea that he volunteered and not I to talk with the German owners about the ten of us moving out of their hotel to the Hotel Barra de Navidad. As it turned out, the owners were very nice about it. If you should ever decide to stay at the Barra de Navidad Hotel make sure to ask for an ocean-side room with a balcony. The view, the balmy breezes, and especially the sunsets, are magnificent.

There is not a lot to do in these beach towns besides play in the water, sit beside the pool, play cards and read, but we managed to include a few gastronomic excursions. Walking a couple of blocks down the main street to the docks on the lagoon we all boarded a seagoing fishing boat instead of one of the small launches called pangas that are usually used to cross the lagoon to a peninsula named Isla Colimilla. There were several charming open air palapa restaurants. These structures consist of some vertical poles supporting what looks like a straw roof but is probably reeds or stalks of some kind. Of course the menu was virtually all seafood: shrimp, fish, squid, octopus, fresh and delicious. We were serenaded by some musicians that were not very good but I suppose that is the results having no competition on the Isla.

Dr. Mould, who has a few years on the rest of us, returned to the Village by means of a taxi, which took him past the beautiful 36-hole golf course of the Gran Bay Resort. The resort is on the same penin-sula as the restaurants but carries the name Isla Navidad, or Christmas Island. I think this is such a pretty name, although the place is a peninsula, not an island, and its real name is Colimilla and not Christmas, which in Spanish is part of the name of the nearby village, Barra de Navidad. Developers have always been good at enhancing swamps by calling them glens, and, calling flat areas, prairies, so I guess it’s O.K. that this place is Isla Navidad, Christmas Island.
On the return trip crossing the lagoon, Enrique, our boat operator, cruised into the sizable yacht harbor, which is a part of The Gran Bay Resort. We saw dozens of beautiful ocean going vessels from various ports of call along the Pacific seaboard. One rather large boat hailed from Sedona, Arizona, which made me wonder if our U.S. Corps of Engineers has been up to one of its little dredging tricks again. From the yacht basin we were able get a better view of the hotel, which seemed to consist of two large buildings or complexes. We later learned that the smaller of the two was the residence of the owner of the hotel. It all looked so beauti-ful that we decided that we would have breakfast at the very posh Gran Bay Hotel and Resort next morn-ing.

There is something soporific about warm salt air and our group turned in early, that is, all but Phil and I who decided to explore Barra de Navidad at night. We heard live music wafting down the street. Down one street, turn, walk some more, and turn again until we discovered the source of the music. The place was upstairs and we found ourselves in a large room with a long bar and some guy, well oiled, singing at a karaoke bar, reading the words off a TV screen. The singer was not very good, and probably was related to the musicians we encountered on the Isla. Phil and I had a deep discussion on the meaning of life after a couple of drinks. The drinks were generously poured and we decided to call it a night.

Breakfast at the Gran Bay was grand indeed. Everything was exquisite and we partook of a buffet served out of doors with a lovely view. The meal went on without end. Some of us realized that we were going to get nicked pretty good so we returned over and over again. When we received the bill for $16 per person and with our tummies full, we could smile with a degree of satisfaction that the Gran Bay Hotel and Resort had met its match.

Sitting around the beautiful pool of the Hotel Barra de Navidad we met a woman from Vancouver, B.C. who had been deep-sea fishing the day before and said she had done very well. “Was that your six-foot long swordfish we saw hanging up at the dock yesterday?” I asked. “Yes it was,” she answered proudly. We had been considering doing some fishing but this clinched it. We arranged with our boat captain, Enrique, to take Ron, Phil and me, out on his boat the next day.
This was my first experience at deep-sea fishing. Enrique was in radio communication with fifteen other sports fishing boats on the bay. No one, except parties in two larger boats that were out fifteen miles, had caught anything that day and the fish they caught were small. In an effort to help us catch something, Enrique took us within twenty feet of the beautiful jagged rocks forming the Barra coastline but our fishing poles saw no action.

Ron, who is an old trimaran sailor from his days in Hawaii, seemed to take to the up and down of the boat like a fish takes to water, so to speak, and Phil seemed all right, but I felt queasy all the time. Iron men and wooden boats, I believe is the expression. But this boat was plastic and my stomach was squish. On landing, our wives were there to great us. Carole had managed to buy the three smallest fish that she could find at the fish market, thus enabling our photo op on landing.

South of Barra and closer to Manzanillo is a beautiful restaurant called Le Recif, which is French for reef. This place is built on a promontory jutting out into the Pacific. Some of us had eaten there before on a previous trip to the coast and we were anxious to try it again. We arrived early but the guard at the gate said, it being Valentine’s day, the place was fully booked. After telling him that it was Dr. Mould’s 90th birthday, which was not exactly true, and that we had come all the way from Guanajuato to dine at this place, he let us in. Thanks to Ward’s willingness to add another year to his age they agreed to serve us. The waiters said that we were early enough and that they would serve our party of ten. The tables, next to the rail that prevented diners from falling into the abyss of crashing surf below, were all taken, so we sat near the center of the room and enjoyed our fine meal, beautifully served in this exquisite corner of the world. Ron remarked that it was the finest restaurant meal he had eaten in Mexico. Of course I agreed with this especially if you don’t count the meals concocted by Carole and Chepa served right in our own home back in Guanajuato. Unlike the Gran Bay, this restaurant was filled mainly with Mexicans enjoying a romantic meal on dia de San Valentino with their honeys.

The Train is coming!
A recent front-page article in the local paper described a project to bring passenger rail service to Gua-najuato. It’s been ten years since the city had regular train service. Today, regular passenger rail service has disappeared from Mexico save for a six hour run to a tiny town, Opal, Zacatecas, which is stranded and lacks any road connection. In 1970, Mexico’s peak year for train travel, there were 37.4 million pas-sengers. Today, there are hardly any. Under the proposal for our area, trains would serve Guanajuato, San Miguel, Queretero, San Luis de Potosi, and Zacatecas. All of these are beautiful Spanish colonial towns and, like the train that traverses Mexico’s famous Copper Canyon, these trains are meant for tourists. Unless the newspaper got the schedule wrong, one would get on the train in Guanajuato at an astonishing 3 am on Sunday morning, arrive at San Miguel fifty miles away at 6am. You can then leave at 5pm and arrive in Queretero at 6pm. You can return from Queretero, five days later on Friday at 7am, and arrive in Guanajuato at 8pm. The trip from Queretero to Guanajuato by car is about two and a half hours, so it would appear the train promoters have some kinks to work out of their schedules and perhaps they should speed the train up a little bit. A total of five days on the train takes you from Guanajuato to Zacatecas, via San Miguel, Queretero, and San Luis de Potosi, but the return direct to Guanajuato is only one day. You figure!

Sopa de Tortilla, A meal Fit for a President
As news came out about President Bush’s visit to meet President Fox in the state of Guanajuato, it was reported that the American president was going to be served sopa de tortilla, tortilla soup. Chepa, our maid, laughed at this and thought it was all pretty funny. But if one soup could be labeled the classic Mexican soup it would be this one. While I have never found anyone who did not like this dish, it seems to me that it is a little bit like offering a visiting dignitary a bowl of chile*. This soup is quite common and no two recipes of the soup are alike. It is easy on the tummy and quite delicious.
In the interest of bringing our two nations closer together I offer a recipe for sopa de tortilla. It is based on recipes from three different cookbooks and what I could learn from Chepa. Try it. I’m sure you will like it.

Sopa de Tortilla a la Casa Colobris (Tortilla Soup in the Style Served at Charlie and Carole’s House.)

6 or8 day-old corn tortillas
1 tablespoon salad oil plus oil for frying
6 cups chicken stock or canned broth
½ onion, cut in chunks
3 cloves garlic
3 ripe tomatoes
2 or 3 chiles pasillas (optional)
salt and fresh ground pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 avocados
Cut the tortillas into strips about ¼ inch wide, and fry in hot oil turning them over until they are golden brown. Drain on paper towels, salt, and keep them warm. Try not to eat too many of them so that there will be some left for the soup.
Grill the tomatoes, garlic, and onions on a griddle until the skin is charred, turning as needed, and pourée in blender. Add 2 ounces of chicken stock if necessary.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan over high heat and sauté the purée. Boil for two minutes, lower the heat, and cook for 5 minutes or until the purée thickens and changes color.
Add the remaining chicken stock and cilantro. Return to a boil, add salt and pepper to taste, and cook, covered, over medium heat for 15 minutes.
Cut the chiles into ½ inch rings and remove their seeds. Fry in the hot oil for 1 minute or until crisp. Drain and set aside. (The chiles are optional but really good.)
Five minutes before serving, reheat the soup, pour into soup bowls, and add the fried tortilla strips. We prefer to sprinkle the fried tortilla chips on top of the soup so they stay crisp. Garnish each bowl with a few chile rings and the avocado.
Serve and enjoy.

Giggle of Girls, Funicular, Animals, Something Extroadinary, Queen of England Visits

2005-07-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

Giggle of Girls Sighted Entering Tunnel

I was on my way from Silao to Guanajuato about to enter the new tunnel entrance to the city when I found myself following a truck, the back of which was loaded with girls. They appeared to be about seventeen or so years old. Ah, I thought, I would once again be able to write about the girls of Guanajuato and use my own collective noun invention, “A giggle of girls,” to describe a truck-load of girls. Just before entering the tunnel on this bright sunny day, I saw the girls smiling and laughing. At the entrance there is a small hump in the road and as the truck entered the darkness of the tunnel there came a loud squeal from the girls, caused I suppose, from a combination of the surprise of unexpected blackness and from young bladders lifted in the air and let down suddenly, or whatever it is that makes young people go “Whee!” at carnival rides or when cresting a hill.

I smiled at hearing the familiar squeal. It was similar to the girlish and joyous screams we heard at the showing of the movie “Titanic,” a couple of years ago. Do you remember that scene where Leonardo DeCaprio, looking mighty fine in his tuxedo, stands at the top of the grand staircase of this ill-fated ship? All the girls in the theater at this showing in Guanajuato let out a spontaneous squeal of delight.

There is something about the girls of Guanajuato. They always seem to be smiling and laughing. Do they know something we don’t know? I wish they would let us in on it because they seem to be having a wonderful time. They hold hands a lot as they walk together down the street. You also see them holding the hands of their mothers, grandmothers, and smaller children. And when you see them walking with their boyfriend, they smile and look up adoringly at the guy. Yes, with adulation. Now this is where I have a little trouble with this behavior. The young fellows they are walking with have the bills of their baseball type caps turned to the rear. I have trouble understanding why boys wear their caps this way and I will never understand why girls would give these jerks the time of day. Of course, there is a little age difference between them and me, and I just can’t wear my hat that way.

Funicular Construction Halted

I thought by now I would be riding the new funicular, that cable driven car that is being constructed from el Plazuela de la Constancia to el Pipila monument. Now the word constancia in Spanish means certainty but the cable car project came to a sudden halt a few months ago. I read in the paper that the ecology department here had put a stop to it because the developers had cut down some trees. Usually these things get resolved by making the developers plant ten trees for every one cut down. I later learned that the developers faced a bigger problem. It seems that they were building the funicular on land that someone else owned. So the project remains on hold.

I have been told that property ownership records in Guanajuato are considered private and that the city cadastral office, the agency that keeps these records, will not release them to a non-owner. The consequence of protecting one’s privacy in this way is that arguments over who owns a particular piece of land are frequent. This is all the more the case because people can claim land by possession, or squatting on it for a certain amount of time. If you buy land here the safest thing to do is to build a wall or fence around your property, wait a year, and see if anyone shows up to claim your land. I am told that this is not the case in all parts of Mexico, although there is a term that one hears coming out of Mexico City-paracaidistas, which means parachutists. These are people that seem to come from nowhere, who somehow land on your property, build a little house, and then it’s “say hello to the new neighbors” time.

In my previous profession, regional planning, I sat in on a number of meetings discussing the problems of the cadastre, the official record of ownership of real estate. One meeting in Washington with the U.S. Geological Survey·, our nation’s premier mapping agency, officials there said yes, they knew the cadastre is of vital importance, but they didn’t want to get involved in any way with property ownership questions. I learned just how screwed up our land ownership records can be in the U.S., where at least the records are public and open. I wonder how they will ever straighten them out in a place like Guanajuato.

Animals

There are many pressing needs in Mexico and it is hard to know where one ought to lend a hand. I continue my interest in the Society for the Protection of Animals not because I think that what they are trying to do is the most pressing need but because it is so difficult to find people and resources to help in this area. In other words, animals are far down the line of priorities, as people perceive them. I think it is an area of activity that especially needs some help. The prevalent feeling here is that we ought to help people before we help animals, which misses the point that we can help people by helping animals. This is going to be a long struggle.

Bruce Feldman, a veterinarian from Berkeley, who is restoring a house in Guanajuato and occasionally visits here, recently sent me an article from a publication, Animal People-News for People Who Care About Animals. The article contained statements applicable to third world countries that illustrate just how difficult our task is.

Stabilizing numbers of street dogs or cats and beginning to achieve a reduction typically requires sterilizing approximately 70%. …until the rescuers reach 70%, sterilizing part of the population can actually increase the number of dogs and cats because there is less competition for food among pregnant females, who then bear more live young, and nurse longer, and because more puppies or kittens from each litter survive.

The article went on to explain that in parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America, millions of animals are being poisoned, shot, drowned, electrocuted, or gassed with car fumes, which are the typical fates of street dogs and sometimes feral cats. In those places rabies continues to kill thousands of humans each year, the majority of them children who play with street dogs. Conditions are not quite that bad in Guanajuato but the situation is not good.

We recently visited the city of Queretero. This is such an elegant city it is always a pleasure to visit there. The city supports an opera company, symphony orchestra, ballet company, several posh country clubs including a polo club, and it has a beautiful colonial historic district. We have not visited the posh country clubs, nor entered any polo matches but we do enjoy the colonial center of Queretero. Remember the song, Everything is Fine in Kansas City from the musical, Oklahoma? Well, that’s how I think of Queretero. Everything seems to be fine there. For one thing, they don’t have dogs running loose. The central historic district is as neat and as beautiful as can be. We asked at a shop where we were making some purchases how it was that there were no dogs on the street. La Señora, the shopkeeper, said that the city picked them up immediately and that if the dog had an owner, the owner had a few days to reclaim the animal.

The City of Guanajuato operates a perrera, a truck with a large cage in its bed that is used to round up stray animals. The animals are taken to the city of Leon and destroyed. Judging by the fact that one sees a fair number of dogs running loose I don’t think it is in constant use. I suppose when things get bad, the perrera is hauled out for a run to pick up animals.

I was told this story by a veterinarian in Guanajuto that I believe illustrates the problem. A few years ago in the nearby City of Dolores Hidalgo, which does not have a perrera, they asked the authorities in Guanajuato if they could borrow the vehicle to round up stray dogs. When the dogcatchers tried to capture the animals, people came out of the colonias with clubs and chased the animal control people away. No one was going to take there animal! I can’t be sure of this, but it is my belief that the success of an animal control program may be dependent on providing an opportunity for pet owners to rescue their animals if they should be on the loose and are caught. I know that putting down one’s pet, even when it is necessary, is an extremely painful event. I can only imagine the horror and rage that must come to a person whose dog or cat is picked up and destroyed before there is any chance to rescue it. Although it might take years, I continue to hope that we can build an animal shelter here in Guanjuato that will provide that second chance for animals. The need is great and resources are few. If you are interested in helping, send me a check in care of my son, Nathan, and I will see that it is converted to pesos and given to the S.P.A.

Our friend, Sandra Ward, is operating an interesting program that is dealing with the problem in a very direct way. With funds she has collected, she is able to subsidize the sterilization of dogs by cooperating veterinarians. This program is meant for people who cannot afford the cost of this operation and are committed to caring for their animal and keeping it off the street. A lot needs to be done. If you would like to help with this program you can send a check to: Sandra Ward

A.P. 3-7

36082 Guanajuato, GTO

Mexico

Something Extraordinary

A few weeks ago, Carole and I had the opportunity to meet Jan Copeland, a young American who is the pianist for the symphony orchestra here. During the conversation she mentioned that she had visited Salamanca, which is a town about fifty miles from Guanajuato. At one time Salamanca was probably very pretty but today it is blighted by fumes from the huge Pemex refinery located there. I asked why she had visited Salamanca, and she told us the story of the orphanage, which is called Ciudad de los Niños, of a concert she had heard performed by the children of the orphanage, of an idea and a dream she had that was quite inspiring. She told us that she had sent out sixty letters to music organizations in the United States telling them of her idea. I think her letter says it all quite well and I want to share it with you.

Dear Colleague:

I am the orchestral pianist for the Orquesta Sinfónica de Guanajuato, a full-time professional orchestra under the patronage of the University of Guanajuato, located in the capitol of the State of Guanajuato, México. In addition to Mexican musicians, our orchestra includes many European string players and U.S. wind and brass players.

Two weeks ago, while preparing the Mozart Coronation Mass for the inauguration of the new governor, we encountered something extraordinary, a children's chorus, 40 of more than 300 children from a nearby orphanage. Nothing extraordinary in that, right? But, we discovered that they had prepared this difficult music with almost nothing¾just a little old padre who knows a little about music and who had a couple of recordings of the mass. We were amazed that they had accomplished so much with so little!

You probably receive dozens of letters each year asking for a donation of money for a charitable organization. I am not asking for money and I am not an organization; I'm just one musician with a dream that I hope will become a reality.

Several members of our symphony orchestra have pledged to give music classes to the children of the Ciudad de Los Niños (Children's Town - like the U.S. Boys' Town, only with girls too) and we are seeking a real chorusmaster for them. To begin a serious music education program, they will need chorus music, mostly ecclesiastical Latin, Italian or Spanish texts at first, basic elementary music methods, possibly with recorders for early training, and mostly¾instruments, including wind, brass and stringed instruments (full and reduced sizes).

I foresee the day when these children will not only sing the Mozart Coronation Mass, their own orchestra will accompany them! Yes, I know it's a big project, but not an impossible one. You can support this effort by spreading the word throughout your membership to help the dream grow beyond that of a sole musician into an organized, functioning body of fellow musicians who will know that they have helped create and nourish a community of young musicians where, before, there was nothing:

Yours truly,

Jan Copeland

P.S. Perhaps your local schools or churches could spare the parts to just one choral work, or you or your neighbors have an instrument gathering dust in the attic? I will be personally indebted to you, as well, for advice and logistical assistance.

PLEASE CONTACT ME:

Mtra. Jan Stella Copeland

Apartado Postal 561

Guanajuato, Gto. C.P. 36000 México

E-mail: Sisteregg@Yahoo.com

The initial response to Jan’s letter has been splendid. I have seen some of the e-mail messages coming in and this seems like the sort of project that people are interested in helping. A temporary collection point has been established with the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) in Virginia. Sue Rarus, MENC's Director of Publicity has been of tremendous help. If you can contribute instruments or scores please contact her.

It is hoped that we can obtain a collection site for the instruments on the U.S. side of the Mexican border, such as Laredo, Texas. One of the problems is to get these instruments across the border without paying duty. I know this sounds rather strange to Americans as to why there should be any problem with our sending orchestra instruments to an orphanage in Mexico, but the instruments are subject to duty. Jan Copeland and others involved in this project believe that we can enlist the help of the new governor and, if necessary, the new president, Vincente Fox, to get an exception. But chances are, we can only count on one, possibly two shipments. In other words, we can’t keep getting permission to transfer the instruments to Mexico.

Although Jan did not ask for money, some money will be needed. There is a need for such things as instrument reeds and repair materials. There is the cost of shipping and other expenses. The group doesn’t have an official name yet but it does have a treasurer, our friend, Bob Hawkins. I call the group, “Amigos de los Niños.” If you would like to make a contribution from Guanajuato, give the money to Bob:

Bob Hawkins

12 Plazuela Mexiamora

Telephone: 732-4704

(Special note: After a great start the project fell through because of problems on both sides of the border. The choir at the City of Chidren Orphanage is still going but without the improvements invisioned.)

Queen of England Visited Guanajuato in 1976. Is Bush Next?

Yes, it is true. Queen Elizabeth II visited Guanajuato twenty-five years ago. The city had just paved the Panoramica Highway that rims this beautiful city and the Queen was offered the opportunity of viewing Guanajuato from vantage points along this road. When Her Majesty stepped out of her vehicle her heals slowly sank into the fresh blacktop, making her, at least for a few moments, just another selected short subject. No one talks about this incident in Guanajuato, but the Queen, who was crowned in 1953 and became the legitimate monarch of Great Britain at that time, has not made a return visit.

Reports have been going around that Vincente Fox, who legitimately was elected President of Mexico last July may have a meeting with George W. Bush, who was, oh well… The meeting is scheduled for February in Guanajuato. Of course the Mexicans are very proud of Fox and the honesty of the election that brought him into office. Regarding Bush’s becoming president of the United States, the Mexicans, who have experienced decades of fraudulent elections, are very understanding and I don’t think they will hold it against him regardless of how he came into office. Choosing Mexico as the first foreign nation to visit was a very astute decision. Carole and I will probably miss this visit of presidents. With three other couples from Guanajuato, we will be visiting Barra de Navidad, a former Mexican fishing village on the Pacific coast, but which is now a favorite wintering place for Americans and Canadians. Guanajuato is expected to have a large turnout to see President Fox, who is from this state and is the former governor.

By the way, did you notice that after Chief Justice Rehnquist administered the oath of office, that Bush leaned over and quietly said to Rehnquist, “Thanks, thanks a lot, goodbudy.” I couldn’t see it but I think he also winked. Also, it is not true that Katherine Harris has been appointed ambassador to the Court of St. James. Some of Bush’s advisors thought that would be a little bit cheeky, so, they are proposing that she be appointed ambassador to the Republic of Mongolia where she is expected to be less visible.

O.K., I know this all sounds a little bitter. We supported Al Gore and were disappointed in his loss. It seems to me that inasmuch as we can’t do anything about it we might as well enjoy the humor that comes with George W. Republican supporters of George Bush should at least not begrudge us the only pleasurable thing coming from the conclusion of this election.

Our education president wants to know, “Is our children learning? (Grand Rapids, 1/11/00.)

He says, “My education message will resignate amongst all parents.”(New York Post, 1/19/00)

To the Boston Globe, he said, “A key to foreign policy is to rely on reliance,” (1/23/00)

The Associated Press quoted him, “There is madmen in the world, and there are terror.”

Oh, there is so much more. Let’s hope that they don’t script Bush too tightly so that we can get the real George W. and not some phony baloney puppet, and then, and then, we can enjoy the next four years. Another good one is, “Ha, ha, Ralph Nader, the joke’s on you! Now we know that it does make a difference who gets elected”

Comments on Visit to Spain Issue

Several of you wrote or e-mailed me to say how much you enjoyed the Trip to Spain Issue of Letter from Mexico. Thank you, thank you! It’s nice to know that someone is reading these things. Many of you commented on your own visit to Spain and compared your impressions with mine. I enjoyed receiving these remarks.

Ken Clark, of Madison, Wisconsin, said regarding the suit of armor with the peculiar extrusion that I encountered in the royal palace in Madrid, that this armor wouldn’t fit men from Wisconsin. To that, all I have to say is, that if they wore this armor in Wisconsin in the winter, it would fit just fine, with room to spare.

Peter Olmsted from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who frequently visits Guanajuato with his wife Ginny, wrote:

“Charlie, I remember seeing a suit of armor at the tower of London which had a protrusion similar to the one you describe in the palace of King Juan Carlos. The one I saw was said to belong to King Henry VIII. I know there was always competition going on between Spain and England. Could it be that one of these kings had heard of the other’s manly enclosure, and tried to outdo the other in splendor? I’m sure you will know the answer. Peter”

Yes Peter, I do believe I know the answer. The protrusion on the armor of Henry VIII was longer and thicker than on the armor I saw in Spain. That’s where the expression, “There will always be an England,” came from.

There was one little incident that occurred in Spain that I forgot to mention that may be of interest. Throughout the cities of Spain I never saw a monument of Francisco Franco, who was the Fascist dictator of Spain from 1936 until his death in 1975. He came into power by leading the rebel Nationalist Army to victory over the Loyalist Republican forces. Given my political orientation, I was pleased that there weren’t a lot of Franco statues around but I asked our English-speaking tour guide if I could ask her a political question. Our guide was a PhD major in linguistics and to me was expertly knowledgeable about everything in Spain. She sighed a bit and said, “Go ahead.” I asked her, what do the people in present day Spain think of Franco? How is he regarded? The answer was interesting. She said that the Civil War was terrible, just horrible. The killing, rape, atrocities, and torture among former friends were something awful. The old people, who experienced this, don’t want to talk about it. The young people, who did not live through any of this, don’t know what happened and so they don’t talk about it either.

Later, actually the last day of our trip, I came across a little kiosk that sold posters, pins, and souvenirs. I bought a poster with a picture of a Spanish lady dancer. Underneath it said, “Gran Festival de Baile, con la sensacional actuación de,” and under that the shop keeper printed, with stamped letters, “CAROLE MONTEMAYOR.” She was dancing¾Fandangos, Sevillanas, Rumbas, Seguidillas, and Tarantas.”

I also noticed a huge array of pins representing Spanish flags, sports clubs, and the like. I found a pin that I thought was quite handsome and would look good next to the pin given to me by the officials at the Village of Montemayor. I asked the shopkeeper what the pin was and he said it was some kind of club? The pin consisted of a cluster of arrows aligned vertically. “What kind of a club,” I asked. He mumbled something and finally said it was the Falange Española, the only legal party in Spain under Dictator Francisco Franco. I decided not to buy it.

· The U.S. Geological Survey is a marvelous federal agency that keeps track of our mineral and water resources in addition to producing maps. Someone has figured out a way to cash in on the work of this agency by selling topographic maps of locations where aliens have “landed” on earth. Now why didn’t I think of that? Check it out on the internet:

http://www.aliensonearth.com/catalog/pub/usgs/ufo

What We Do Here-- Living in Guanajuato,Mexico

2005-05-03T15:15:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked by Armando Cypress, the manager of our local Internet service provider, if I would be willing to prepare some website pages that described some of the things Americans were doing in Guanajuato. Armando wants to prepare a new website about Guanajuato, one that revealed the beauty and charm of this place, and he wants to include the contribution from the expatriate community.

There are times when I worry that time is slipping by and those of us who are retired here are really not doing much beyond enjoying life in Mexico. For Armando’s website, I didn’t think chronicling the very nice social life of parties organized at the drop of a sombrero; get-togethers for concerts, and meals out with friends; and the little trips to interesting spots we frequently take would be appropriate. Armando’s request prompted me to reflect a bit on some of the things we are doing with Mexicans that may have some redeeming qualities. I suppose one might call it “Beneficial Interactions of Americans and Mexicans in Guanajuato,” but that sounds too much like a sociology term paper. I’ll opt for “What We Do Here.” I think the best way of describing this is to introduce you to some of the folks who live here and describe what they are doing.

Jack Moore, Dolores Rylee, and the Orphanage at Salamanca

This couple has lived in Guanajuato for over ten years. Originally from Oakland, California, they are intrepid world travelers who call Guanajuato their home. On their several trips to California each year they always manage to bring back a van full of items for the orphanage, La Ciudad de los Niños, and its 245 children in nearby Salamanca. Jack and Dolores bring back bedding, sheets, pillows, typewriters, toilet articles, kitchenware, school supplies, toys, and one time they even brought an organ. Even with a letter from Padre Pedro, the founder and head of the orphanage, Jack and Dolores sometimes encounter problems at the border in bringing items into Mexico. The importation of used clothing, for example, is prohibited I believe, as a measure for protecting the Mexican clothing industry. On one occasion, Jack had to drive to several different entry points before he found an agreeable customs agent who would permit them to bring in their cargo.

Phil Contreras and Immigration Briefings

At one time in his career Phil Contreras was a high-powered legal counsel for a large multinational firm based in Cleveland. He later gave it all up to practice poverty law in Texas. His practice in San Marcos, just outside of Austin, was largely devoted to helping poor people, most often Mexican immigrants who got in trouble with the law. The stories about some of the people Phil defended and the injustices they endured sound like they should have been scripted for a movie. (I would cast it with Sal Mineo as the persecuted defendant, Rosie Perez as the outraged wife, Cher as his mom, and Sean Connery playing the part of Phil Contreras.)

Phil and his wife Jan moved to Guanajuato less than a year ago. They rented a shell of a house in the area of the ex-Hacienda Duran and worked out an arrangement with the owner that the Contreras would redo the interior, the work to be paid out of future rents. Jan ribs Phil that he, the ex-big-time corporate lawyer, made the agreement with the owner on a handshake. Phil is the type of person who is genuinely interested in people and is an excellent observer and listener. If you speak a little Spanish, there is no better place to do that than in the Jardin de la Union, that very amiable place in the heart of town. There are a number of shoeshine men who work in the Jardin, and over time Phil came to know an old shoeshine fellow named Chon who has been shining shoes for fifty-seven years in the same place. Chon is a warehouse of information about Guanajuato and Mexico. When Francisco Labastida, the ruling party’s candidate for President of Mexico, came on a campaign visit, Chon remembered him from when he was a student at the Juarez prep school here. On that visit, Chon and Labastida had their picture taken together. People probably wondered who’s that guy next to Chon. Chon knows the lawyers, judges, politicos, and just about everybody in town. Phil got interested in Chon’s story and is writing a book about this old man and his recollections.

The State of Guanajuato, while not first, is about third among Mexican states in the percentage of population that has immigrated to the U.S. both legally and illegally. The source of this exodus is not so much from cities such as Guanajuato and Leon, but more often from poor rural outlying villages. These are the kind of people Phil defended back in San Marcos. One day Phil got an idea that if he could talk to the young folk who were planning to go north, he could help them stay out of trouble. Not just advise about the law, but some practical advice could be useful. “Don’t stay out after midnight,” was one admonition “It is too easy to get picked up by an overzealous policeman.”

Phil has been on local television. He has also made visits arranged by a state agency that assists migrants, out to villages to talk to groups. The information he has to offer is something that virtually no one else here could provide.

Phil and Jan have been helping the Village of Nueve Valle de Moreno, a rural and very poor village in the mountains not far from Guanajuato. To learn more and see pictures that explain the Nuevo Valle de Moreno Project: http://www.geocities.com/chasm1928/moreno1/morenohomepage.html

Marvin and Cynthia Bates Helping University Students Learn English

Marv and Cynthia hail from Ventura, California, where they have a beautiful home right on the ocean, as well as their beautiful home here in Guanajuato. For a number of years they have been leading a group of Americans who come to Mexico to meet university students and practice conversational English with them. In addition, the Bates themselves also meet on a regular basis with a group of university students. This is something that Carole and I did for a trimester and loved it, except for climbing the 204 steps up to the language center. You would think the University would reserve this top floor for the athletic, dance, or aeronautical engineering, department.

Bob and Connie Hawkin’s English Language Classroom for Kids

Bob and Connie are from Charleston, S.C., where Bob served as editor of the local newspaper and Connie was the food editor. The Hawkins were able to find and buy a historic and very interesting house facing a plaza in the center of town. Built by a Spaniard, the house has a unique fireplace with a circular staircase to the second floor that winds around and rims the large chimney. Chances are, you’ve never seen anything like it before, nor have I. The Hawkins have taken a great interest in neighboring children who come to their door to see if their Scottie dog, Carmen, can come out and play. The Hawkins conduct a little school in their home to teach the children English. On a return to the United States, Connie took one of the kids back with her for a visit. One day, we met one of Connie’s little friends, Corrine, who is about eight years old and is learning English at the Hawkins. She speaks English with a southern accent, and when you ask her, “How is Corrine?” she is apt to reply, “Ah’m Fhi’an.”

The SPA, La Sociedad Protectora de Animales

Carol and Joan Summers, California artists, came to Mexico about twenty years ago looking for Mexican art objects to furnish a home they were building in California. While in Guanajuato, they heard about a 400-year-old house, part of the Ex-Hacienda la Trinidad, that was for sale. The house was something of a ruin but had great possibilities. They fell in love with the place and bought it on impulse. Before I ever came to Mexico, I saw pictures of the ex-hacienda in books on traditional Mexican houses. The Carol and Joan renovated the house and eventually turned it into a bed and breakfast of unique charm: La Casa de Espíritus Alegres, House of Happy Spirits, regarded as one of the best B&Bs in Mexico. While developing and running the inn, Joan was instrumental in the formation of an animal protection organization for the city. She organized art auctions to raise money for the Sociedad Protectora de Animales (SPA).

Joan died two years ago, and a memorial fund was established in her name to help the animals of Guanajuato. So much needs to be done that it is difficult to know where to begin. Sandra Ward, Joan’s sister, who now lives in Guanajuato and administers the fund, asked me to serve with her as a trustee of the fund. It is through Sandra that I got involved in the SPA. The third trustee is another local resident, Joan Romero. Joan is a remarkable woman. An American who came to Guanajuato as a college student more than 40 years ago and married a Mexican; she was widowed at a young age. Nevertheless, she raised a family of high achievers, including the recent rector of the University of Guanajuato, who is the current governor of the State.

I think the biggest problem we face with respect to animals here is one of attitude. There are Mexicans who love their dogs. You see them with their pets, invariably purebred, groomed to the teeth. out for a stroll. But for a large number of owners the dog is valued only for its ability to guard the owners’ property. If the owners grow tired of the dog, they may turn it out onto the street and let it forage for itself. This results in one of the saddest and sorriest sights to be seen on the streets of this otherwise attractive town: homeless, starving, diseased dogs that nevertheless reproduce at an alarming rate.

The city government operates a perrera, a truck for picking up the strays, which are then taken to the nearby city of León for euthanizing. When Guanajuato city officials are asked if they would help support the SPA, the response invariably is that they need to spend their limited resources on people, especially children, rather than on animals. Now there is a certain logic in that, at least on the surface, for the human needs are great. But helping animals, through immunizations, sterilization, and increasing awareness of the importance of taking responsibility for domestic animals, would benefit everyone. In some colonias vicious dogs have attacked children. Rabies and other communicable diseases that can infect humans continue to be a problem in Mexico. I have seen some of the figures on the amount of fecal matter that an uncontrolled dog population leaves on the streets, and it’s a, well, you could say it’s a real pile. Homeless dogs forage in garbage bags that are put out for collection, strewing the garbage about the streets. Although the city’s trash-collection crews do an excellent job of keeping the streets of El Centro clean, outlying areas don't receive the same kind of care. The city also supports its art museums and provides a rich offering of music and dance festivals throughout the year. Its current slogan is the “The Magic of Guanajuato.” City officials don’t withhold support from these programs “because they have to support programs for children.” My point is that a small amount of money for animal protection would add to the livability of the city, a cause that should be possible without sacrificing the kids.

Sandra’s interest in this area focuses on action programs for the animals. She has personally rescued a number of dogs and cats and placed them with families. (Our dog Samantha is one of those dogs. She is still high-spirited but is settling down and has turned out to be a fine dog.) Sandra has also developed a program in which money from the Joan Summers Memorial fund and money that she has raised goes for deep subsidies for the sterilization of dogs and cats of owners who can’t afford these operations. Local veterinarians involved in the sterilization program volunteer their services for such cases. From this start she organized with the help of both Mexicans and Americans, Los Amigos de Animales.

The American artists here have contributed their work for art auctions, and others have donated items for a recent rummage sale. Ward Mould, a retired ophthalmologist who for years worked with a government service agency to provide free eye examinations to Mexicans, has been a solid contributor of funds for the SPA, as have others.

San Miguel, another colonial city nearby with an expatriate population much larger than Guanajuato, has a fine SPA with good facilities and an active program, but that program is largely American-run and American-financed..

Susan Coffer Jones and Free Therapeutic Massages for Mexicans

The first time I met Susan, who is not one of the retirees here but is still working, I asked her how she happened to end up in Mexico. She said that when she was a little girl, her parents came to Mexico every year and she knew as a youngster that some day she would live here. Susan is knowledgeable in alternative medicine and gives therapeutic massages. I only heard about this quite by accident, but she provides free massages to the people who attend the church near where she lives.

Dolores Rylee and the American Library

Now housed in Guanajuato’s La Casa de Cultura, the English-language library organized by Dolores Rylee and operated on a self-serve, honor-system basis, serves the American, Canadian, and English residents but is open to Mexicans interested in English-language reading materials. Dolores and her husband, Jack and Gary Henderson and his wife, Laleen, sort the books, catalog, and shelve them. I built a few book shelves for the library.

The Rainbow Connection: Helping Women and Children

The Rainbow Connection or La Coneccion Arcoiris is an organization composed of both American and Mexican women. The group raises money to help women by supporting a women’s shelter and children by helping the orphanage and rural schools. They also support a juvenile offenders program. Arcoiris raises funds by such things as holding bake sales and children’s musical programs.

These are probably not all the things going on here, just some things I am aware of. Most of the folks mentioned here are doing these projects quietly and without any fanfare. I suspect they would be embarrassed by much mention of their work. I believe what they do largely comes from a desire to be of some help.

Ouch!

In the previous article, I mentioned that Marv and Cynthia Bates have been meeting with a group of University students so that they can practice English with native English speakers. One of the things you have to do for these classes is to come up with some topic suitable for the students to discuss. One time when Carole and I had the class we said we wanted the students to debate which University was better, the University of Guanajuato or the University of Queretero. We divided up the class. A lively and spirited debate ensued, but one girl who had been put in the Queretero group could not bring herself to speak in favor of this school being better than Guanajuato.

Recently, I was talking with the Bates about their last class before returning to California and they mentioned that they asked the class to tell them their impressions of Americans. The students quickly agreed that the Americans were very friendly and generous, although they thought that their friendliness didn’t always last very long. The Mexican students, who generally wear blue jeans, spotlessly clean, went on to say that the Americans weren’t very clean; they wore the same shirt and pants for several days in a row. Well, come on; many of us are traveling tourists that don't know where to find a laundry.

Charlie's Letter from Mexico: Trip to Spain

2004-09-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of Letter from Mexico newsletter. After a couple of years of not issuing these newsletters I am back to writing, only instead of Xeroxing and mailing I am going to be sending these reports via a blog. The nice thing about a blog is that the reader can write comments and thus straighten out things I got wrong or that one disagrees with.

To start out I am including some articles I wrote that were not included in my book: Retirement Tales: Two Gringos Living in Mexico.

Spain 2000—

Readers of Letter from Mexico may recall that Carole and I attended a reunion in 1996 of Montemayors at the 400^th anniversary of the founding of the City of Monterrey by our ancestor, Don Diego de Montemayor. Some two hundred folks attended that very successful event organized by Col. Ernesto Montemayor, U.S.A.F. Ret. Near the end of our visit, Ernesto suggested we go to Spain in 2000 and that we could visit Malaga. That’s where Don Diego departed from to the New World in the year 1540. Perhaps we could also visit the place of his birth, as well as the historic cities of Spain. With a lot of work on the part of Ernesto and his nephew, Michael Montemayor, the new excursion was organized and I found myself on a plane leaving Chicago’s O’Hare Airport along with a contingent of Montemayors headed for Madrid.

At the Iberia Airlines check-in desk, where I had arrived early, the clerk asked my name and when she typed it in she called over to her fellow clerk, “Hey, take a look at this!” The screen was already filled with twenty-nine Montemayors who had registered before me and more were to come. Many came from Texas but they also came from Maine, Washington State, Georgia, Pennsylvania, California, from other parts of the U.S., and also four of us from Mexico. All in all, there were eighty-seven Montemayors, relatives, and friends who were part of this group.

The seven and one half hour flight was uneventful. I read the Iberia flight magazine and learned that you can now learn bullfighting through computer simulation. I suppose it’s called virtual bull. I think a CD ROM disk with this program would make an ideal gift for the man who has everything.

I didn’t expect that I would care much for Madrid. I imagined it as too big, too hot, and too dirty. Like all the cities in Spain that we visited, the place was spotless. Being October, the weather was pleasant, and although the metro area of Madrid is big (population 5,000,000 people), streets were wide, accommodating traffic nicely. The transit system, which included busses that run on natural gas, and a fine subway system, serve the area well. In many parts of the city there were uniform cornice lines (the top course that crowns the top of a building wall). I was much taken with this planning measure. Some sections of the city had ten-story buildings, others eight or six, and with a uniform cornice line the city had a well-organized appearance. There were no hanging signs on buildings to compete with each other or with the handsome statuary and fountains of the city.

Our guide explained that Madrid is not an old city. Well. I suppose it depends on what the meaning of what old is. King Phillip moved the capital from Toledo to Madrid in 1561 so it’s not exactly a new town. It became the home of the bourbon kings (not to be confused with the scotch kings).

Our first guided tour was to the Royal Palace of the Spanish Kings where we saw one room after another, each more splendidly decorated than the previous. Because these parlors are still used by the current monarch, King Juan Carlos, the rugs were (unkindly) rolled back and we walked on miles of very hard in-laid marble floors. One large room in the palace was set up as a museum of armor, much of it medieval. There were suits of armor that looked like what knights wore and others like what later day conquistadors used. One set of complete body armor in the museum was striking beyond belief. While many of the suits of armor had codpieces to offer vital protection, one suit that caught my eye was notable because in the lower portions it conformed to a man in a state of arousal:a tubular protrusion of about seven inches of iron with almost two inches of girth. Whether this was meant to frighten one’s foe I can’t say. But I can imagine a combatant on seeing this knight might be thinking, “Hey, I’m not going to fight this guy! What happens to me if I lose?” Or possibly the suit was constructed this way to accommodate someone who really enjoys these battles. Does this explain how they got the term knight-errant?

This reminded me of the story about the Spanish knight, Don Julio, who decided to leave his feudal castle to join in the crusades to the holy land. Before he left he put his beautiful wife in a chastity belt. He gave the key to his trusted friend Pedro and said that if he should not return from the crusades that he could release his wife from her bondage. Thus, Don Julio departed for the Holy Land but before he had gone very far Pedro came galloping up to the knight yelling, “Don Julio, Don Julio, wait! Wait! The key doesn’t fit!”

The Prado museum is certainly one of the great art museums of the world. It never fails to amaze me when I see original paintings of old masters that were heretofore familiar to me only from books. There they were, side-by-side, “The Clothed” and “The Naked Maja.” I have a little trick I learned when I was taking a course in aerial photo interpretation. If you look at two nearly identical pictures side by side and train your eyes to focus with one eye on one picture and the other eye on the other, (you are actually focused on infinity or looking a bit wall-eyed), the two images fuse together giving it a 3-D appearance. I tried to do this with “The Majas” but there were too many people milling around to actually pull this off and I was unable to merge the pictures. I suppose I looked pretty strange transfixed staring out into space among the dozens of people viewing the paintings.

Mike Montemayor, son of Michael, one of the organizers, is a handsome young man tall with a long narrow face and dark beard. I did a double take when I saw him walk by El Greco’s “Adoration of the Shepherds” painting, distinctive because of its elongated figures. Mike looked like he had just stepped out of the painting. Goya used friends and neighbors for his models. Could he possibly have used a Montemayor ancestor for one of his models with one set of genes marching four centuries to the present in the form of Mike Montemayor? Nah, probably not!

It’s difficult to describe paintings but I can say that the full figure paintings of Rubens were not just Rubenesque but cellulitesque. The painting of “The Three Graces”¾three women traipsing in a circlewas certainly beautiful but if I met this trio of beauties on one of those small elevators that is tagged, “Maximum Load: Half Ton,” I’d take a pass and wait for the next elevator. I’m sorry, but while it is often cited that the ideal image in Ruben’s day was one of well-rounded females, has any one considered that Ruben may have been pulling our leg?

There were a lot of Goya’s paintings, including various paintings of King Carlos III. Our guide was quite emphatic in stating that these paintings were not of George Washington, although there was a notable resemblance.

We followed the museum visit with one of the best meals I have ever had. It was at a restaurant called La Rioja. With four glasses at each place setting I knew this had the makings of a great meal. They started with the best olives in the world, then Spanish sausage, white asparagus, and smoked salmon. The main course was lamb, served with both red and white wines. Because the group was large it took a while for the waiters to serve everyone, but the slow service was compensated for by the number of bottles of excellent wine they kept bringing us. The meal ended with a cream puff desert and a fine liqueur.

Toledo

Just a few miles from Madrid is the historic city of Toledo which in several ways resembles Guanajuato. Narrow streets better suited for pedestrians than cars, a population of 100,000, many old stone buildings, and a town site with an especially steep topography, are some of the similarities. Of course, there are differences. Toledo once contained a Roman fortress; later in the 6^th century the Visigoths made this their capital. By the way, what ever happened to the Visigoths? In the Middle Ages Toledo was a melting pot of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures. There we saw the Synagoga de Santa Maria, which we visited. Obviously, with a name like this, the synagogue had been converted a bit although the beautiful Mudéjar arches have been restored. Toledo is famed for its swords and ironwork. (I couldn’t help but wonder if the knight who was fitted out in that armor which I described previously might not have been the original Toledo Blade.) We visited a sword factory and saw an amazing array of swords produced there, including military sabers and even one that I could barely lift that looked like something King Arthur might have sported.

The bus ride to Seville took us through the beautiful Spanish countryside where we occasionally saw old castles with crenellated walls. The landscape was unspoiled with billboards or by inappropriate development. This was true of all parts of Spain and what a difference it makes in the visual appearance of the country. Our bus stopped at Puerto Lapice, a charming village that had a country restaurant called La Venta. I thought the large interior courtyard was so intriguing that I spent the small amount of time that we had there exploring this inn. Apparently, I missed the story about La Venta but later I learned from a traveling companion that this village and inn were mentioned in the book Don Quijote de la Mancha as a place where the famous knight and his sidekick, Sancho Panza, stopped for the night. I was told that if you looked behind the inn you could see the windmills described in this classic story. I noticed above some of the houses there were straw covered platforms supported by polesstork nests. In my opinion that is about as quaint and picturesque as you can get.

Seville

We were warned to look out for the motos, (motor scooters) driven by young men and pretty girls that were all over the place, scooting and swarming with the traffic and that sometimes a driver on a moto would whiz by and snatch a hanging bag from a tourist. I didn’t see any of this behavior but then I had everything well strapped to my belt. We visited the Royal Alkazares built in the 14^th century as the home of Spanish kings. The present king retains a royal apartment in this jewel box of Mudéjar patios and halls. Mudéjars were Muslims permitted to live in a Christian society, and Mudéjar style, as I understand it, is a Christian adaptation of Muslim style in architecture and ornamentation.

In Search of José Greco

When I was a boy of about thirteen I remember that the José Greco Troupe of dancers came to my hometown, Janesville, Wisconsin. It was the first and for a long time the only group of flamenco dancers that I had ever seen. They made quite an impression on me what with their rapid heal stomping and syncopated hand clapping. Also, they were all so very tall and thin and their faces bore a pained expression. To me, that was what flamenco dancers were supposed to look like. Oh yes, I have since seen some people that did flamenco dancing, but never like José Greco and his troupe.

Now that I was in Seville I was anxious to see some real flamenco dancing once again. Perhaps there was a new José Greco, perhaps a grandson that was carrying on the tradition. A number of us went to see the dancers in a small theater. Several of the female dancers were beauties. Two of the male dancers were short and looked like they hadn’t held back on eating Spanish chorizo sausage for the sake of their artwell, let’s say they didn’t look like José Greco although they did have that severe pained look on their faces. With all that rapid dancing, finger snapping, hand clapping, and foot stomping, I enjoyed the show. I usually enjoy live entertainment when people knock themselves out, but I didn’t have the feeling that I was witnessing the real thing. Later, when we visited Granada, we had a second chance to see a flamenco dance performed in una cueva, a cave. We were told that President Bill Clinton had seen a flamenco performance as a guest of King Juan Carlos when he visited Granada. That was for me. I seemed to recall an old movie with, was it Rita Heyworth or was it Ava Gardner, where they went to a cave and these terrific gypsy dancers danced on their table?

The dance we attended was held in a small theater, the ceiling of which was roughly arched, suggesting a cave. Not only was there no one who looked like Rita or Ava, there was no one who danced like José Greco. The female dancers, however, were pretty and to paraphrase my old friend Bud Tabaka back in Madison, “There are only two kinds of women who wear red shoes and fortunately all the girls in this dance troupe were Spanish dancers.” There was one especially pretty dancer who I had occasion to chat with just outside the hall cooling off during the intermission. It seemed to me that the continuous loud and rapid clapping must be hard on the dancers’ hands so I asked her how she could take it. She immediately offered me her palm and when I touched it, it felt as tough as shoe leather. She explained that unless they put a lot of cream on their hands they would blister painfully. I thought these dancers in Granada were better than the ones in Seville but no match for the José Greco Troupe. Among other things, one of the girls was secretly chewing gum and I understand that that is something a flamenco dancer is never, never supposed to do.

Córdoba

We were in the old Jewish quarter of the city and as I came around a corner I was confronted by an old gypsy woman. She held out a twig of an aromatic type, thrusting it in to one hand of mine and proceeded to tell my fortune in Spanish, all the while holding the other. Of course I remembered where the word gyp came from so I was a bit apprehensive. The old woman who had an impressive face said that I came from a good family. She then said I was very generous. She nodded her head and said that’s true, isn’t it. “Well, yes,” I thought. This fortuneteller was batting a 1000, and she added, “But you are a little bit nervous, aren’t you?” “Right on!” I thought. She told me a lot more in Spanish but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I was feeling generous so I reached into my pocket and pulled out a 100-peseta coin, worth about fifty-four cents. She immediately said, “Coins are bad luck, put it away.” The smallest bill I had in my pocket was a 1000 peseta note worth about five dollars and forty cents and she refused that, saying she wanted 10,000 pesetas. I didn’t know how to get out of this situation. There were many people in the street, and for all I knew, I was surrounded by Gypsies. So in desperation, I asked her, “How old am I?” She looked straight into my eyes for some time with a piercing gaze and finally said, “You’re sixty two.” “Incorrecto. Incorrecto,” I yelled out. I gave her the 1000 peseta note and walked off. After all, she was mostly right.

In the mosque-cathedral of Córdoba, an enormous edifice that looks like a huge Muslim mosque with a huge Catholic cathedral built within, we saw a large stone sarcophagus with a name tag: Don Alfonso de Montemayor, circa 1390. I have since checked the book given us on the history of Montemayor, a village we were soon to visit, and the book said that Alfonso I Fernandez de Montemayor died in 1390. He was the second Montemayor immediately following Martín I de Montemayor, who started the line. So here we stood looking at the coffin of a presumptive early ancestor of ours. The sarcophagus was in a sturdy glass case so that any later day malcontents bearing a long time family grudge with this feudal lord would have trouble getting at him.

Montemayor

Probably the highlight of a totally wonderful trip to Spain was the visit to the village of Montemayor. This town of four thousand inhabitants is a few miles outside of Córdoba on the way to Granada. We got out of our comfortable busses and climbed a hill past the Montemayor Castle to an attractive plaza. Now regarding this castle, I had long thought that with a trip to Spain I might be able to reclaim the old family homestead. Starting with Martín I Alfonso de Códoba, who was the first Lord Montemayor (1327 to 1349), to the more recent José Fernandez de Velasco, who held the titles of the XXIII Lord Montemayor, all the way to XVII Count of Alcuadete and XVII Duke of Frías, I just might be the XXIV Lord Montemayor, so I was ready to advance my claim. One of the genealogists on this trip told me something that was even more interesting. When Don Diego and his partners left for New Spain, the King of Spain gave them a land grant that extended from central Mexico all the way to the Colorado River in what is now the United States. With this information in hand I now am willing to renounce my claim on the Lordship and the castle in favor of downtown Dallas.

We were ushered in to the village hall that was in a very old building that had been beautifully renovated. The woodwork was of fine craftsmanship, lots of polished brass and floors of marble. I think back to Green Bay when I was city planner there and I can hear the voice of the building committee chairman for the new city hall. “We want a functional building,nothing really fancy,” he harangued. What they got was a really ugly building. There were speeches by Colonel Montemayor presenting a plaque to the town and a beautifully bound book on Governor Galvez that Ernesto had researched and written. Galvez was the Spanish governor of Louisiana who fought the British during the American Revolution. With 4000 troops from Spanish America he tied up substantial British forces. Some historians believe that Galvez enabled Washington to prevail in the east.

The mayor responded that America is a country of great power. “It is a beautiful garden,” he said, and that he was proud that the first discoverers of America were Spanish. My notes show that one of the speakers said that it was believed, although not proved, that Don Diego was born in Montemayor although no Montemayors live here today. The mayor said that Montemayor was a simple village whose economy was based on raising wheat, olives, and grapesthat the village would like the visitors to join in eating the bread they baked here, dressed with olive oil produced here, and that later we could enjoy the wine made in Montemayor. The village has a small museum that we visited, loaded with artifacts from the time that this place was a Roman fortress named Ulía and dating back to 45 B.C. We then proceeded to the main church, San Acacia, and heard a mass said by Father Garcia, from San Antonio, and another priest that also came with us from the U.S., as well as the local priest Padre Don Pablo. Don Pablo was getting on in years but seemed to be a kind and considerate leader of his flock. Monsignieur Garcia said to the villagers of Montemayor that they could be proud of their Spanish language, their culture, their families, and their faith. He said that Don Pablo was the kind of priest they didn’t make anymore. Later, from the back of this sizable church, came the voices of a choir of perhaps fifty people, including mandolins, guitars, and violins. The music was of such beauty that it is difficult to imagine how this village of only 4,000 people could turn out such a fine choral group.

After the mass, a group of performers came to the front. The women were dressed in long ruffled Spanish dresses not unlike those worn by the flamenco dancersyou know, the kind with big polka-dots. The men were dressed in pants with the cuffs turned up to reveal their work type boots, white shirts, and embossed leather suspenders. The group sang, accompanied by various instruments, including guitars, mandolins, a military drum, and one very strange instrument that I had never seen before. This was a well-made wooden box that the player sat on, tilting the open bottom towards the audience. By beating different parts of the box with his hands he could play various notes. The singing was Spanish but the music sounded to me Moroccan. It was loud and exuberant, almost shouting. I asked two local women standing next to me what type of music this was? One of them said Córdoban and the other one said, Corinthianno, that’s not really true. That’s what Ricardo Mantalban would have called it. She said it was Andalusian.

Following this folkloric group was a concert by the choir and instrumentalists that had now come from the back of the church to the front. The music was quite beautiful and near the end of one piece one could hear the quiet trill of a set of castanetsvery moving and a bit eerie.

Our group was transported to the Montemayor winery where we sampled, heh, heh, the wines produced there. I asked one of the workmen how the economy was in Montemayor. He said it was good. “Very good, indeed!” he added. He then told me that the village industriesthe olive oil plant, the winery, and others¾were all co-operatives, and that everyone shared in the profits of the businesses in Montemayor. The village looked quite prosperous, and the people who lived there, happy.

The Montemayor castle sits on a hill with the rest of the village adjacent, perched along the gentle slopes. When we walked along a principal street in the village one lady opened up her house for us to visit. The house was ample but no mansion. It had an attractive central patio and when you walked to the back of the residence there was a balcony that looked down and across a most attractive landscape of olive trees and vineyards. No ugly urban fringe development. It went from heart of the village directly to countryside. And to think of all the hundreds of years they had to screw it up but didn’t.

From the winery we went to The Hotel Castillo de Montemayor, where we had a fabulous multi-course dinner with four entrées. I was seated next to a very trim and handsome eighty-four year-old Spaniard, El Comandante he was called, who had fought in the Spanish Civil War. I thought it best to not ask him which side he was on so instead I asked him what rank comandante was is it higher than a major for example I couldn’t understand his answer. (I have since learned that comandante means commander and thus could be any of various ranks.) The Spanish speak Spanish differently than in Mexico. To me the cadence makes it sound like they are speaking Italian. Because I don’t speak very much Spanish it was difficult for me to know if I didn’t understand what people were saying in Spain because it was Spanish Spanish or just because it was Spanish.

After the meal there was more entertainment and they gave us a very well made video of Montemayor that we could add to the handsome lapel pin and the book on the history of Montemayor that had been presented to us. I think we were all proud of this beautiful village that bore our family name, and delighted with the wonderful hospitality.

Granada

Continuing our trip through southern Spain we arrived at Granada, which is close enough to mountains that it supports a number of ski shops. Among its many splendors is the Alhambra a palace of such elaborate decoration that one has the feeling of enough, enough. We were told that unlike the Royal Palace in Madrid that had four hundred rooms but not a single bathroom, the Alhambra, much of it built in the 1300’s, had bathrooms built by those clever Moors. The Alhambra, has four hundred visitors every half hour so I suppose if they let the public use any of those bathrooms you had better be quick about it.

Costa del Sol

We stopped briefly at Mijas, a small town on a bluff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. A few years ago this was an obscure place where a few people in the know built their vacation homes to take advantage of the spectacular view of the sea it afforded. Today, Mijas is a classy little resort that has a special parking lot that accommodates about fourteen tour busses, so it is touristy yes, but still classy. From the town you can see the beautiful coastline all the way to Marbella, which we also visited along with Malaga. I had been told that these were all places overrun by rich European tourists and I thought I would be turned off by the tackiness that goes with touristy areas. I was wrong. All these places were beautiful and I only wish that I had enough pesetas and time to have stayed longer. To think Don Diego departed from Malaga when perhaps he could have stayed in this beautiful place. One must assume that in his day the sidewalks in the central area were probably not paved in marble as they are today and there were no lovely sidewalk cafes nor a fleet of gorgeous yachts from all over Europe along the malecon.

The Basque Country

From Malaga we returned to Madrid by plane where more than half of our group returned to the U.S. and the rest of us proceeded to Bilbao, the largest city in the Basque Country. I didn’t know much about the Basques except that they say they are wonderful sheepherders in Idaho, and that the Basque language is a complete mystery to linguists who are unable to determine where the language came from. Several of the genealogists that came on this trip were particularly interested in the Basque region because Basques intermarried with Montemayors back in New Spain. It certainly appeared from our visit that the Basque people are very talented and sophisticated.

Bilbao has been one of Spain’s leading industrial cities based on iron and coal in the region. In the modern era, Bilbao was turning into a rustbelt town. The leaders of the city decided they didn’t want to see the decline of their city and worked hard and smart to turn it around. Today, Biboa has become a center for international banking and a corporate office center. Another effort was to bring tourism to the city by building the Gehry-designed Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. We toured this spectacular museum, which I believe they said cost over $100,000,000 dollars. At the time we visited they had exhibits on minimalist, post minimalist, and environmental art. Most of us were much taken with one particular environmental exhibit that consisted of a large room, the floors, walls, and ceiling of which were all a dull white. You removed your shoes to enter. Where the floors joined the walls and the walls joined each other and the ceiling they were rounded so that you could not see any joint lines. One had the sensation of being in a cloud or in a fog bank. We learned that this is referred to as the Ganzfield Effect. The ganzfield effect is a sort of mini-isolation chamber. It turns out that the mind reacts better to a blank but steadily-lit field for sensory deprivation than it does to darkness. I can’t find the word, Ganzfield, in my dictionary so we must have witnessed something on the cutting edge of the art world. There was a great deal more to amaze us as well as a lot to under-whelm us, as you might expect, in the minimalist exhibits.

In my view, Bilbao could not begin to compare with two other cities we visited in the Basque country, San Sebastian and Vitoria, the latter being the capital of the Basque country. My guide book says that San Sebastian, “gloriously situated on a neat shell-shaped bay is the most fashionable and elegant Spanish seaside resort. It has long been popular with the Spanish aristocracy.” Our guide said that gastronomically, these two cities were the best in Spain. These cities were of such singular beauty and exquisite town design that I became convinced that students of city planning should be required to visit San Sebastian and Vitoria. I wondered why American cities couldn’t have more style like I had witnessed throughout Spain, but especially in these two Basque cities.

At one of our excellent dinners I was moved to give a toast in Spanish. “Viva España!” I said, and the group responded, “Viva!” and then, “Viva Mexico!” and the group responded “Viva!” “Viva America!” and the group responded “Viva!” “Viva los Montemayors!” and the group again responded, “Viva!” Colonel Montemayor noticed that the Basque waiters were watching this with some disgust, so he piped in with, “Y viva el Pais Basco!” “VIVA!” everyone shouted and the waiters were smiling again.

One thing that surprised me about the trip to Spain, was what appeared to me a rather nice standard of living apparent among the people we saw in that country. I asked our guide why with a much higher average GDP per person in the U.S. did it appear that Spain had such a high standard of living. She said that for one thing there is not such a disparity of incomes in Spain. I have thought a lot about this and have concluded that along with that, our high average GDP includes what our country spends on the military and what we all spend on automobile transportation, much more than in Spain or other European countries. What would life in America be like if we could have less disparity of incomes and without those heavy expenditures?

For me, the trip to Spain was marvelous; I really loved it. I would return any day and next time I would take in Barcelona and Portugal.

Viva l’amor!