Two weeks ago the BIG white truck that has been getting us back and forth to Mexico just stopped. I went to move it up in the drive and it simple would not start. There was no indication of a potential problem. It worked one day and not the next.

We have a favorite mechanic. He and a friend came a day or two later. They spent some time under the hood. To avoid getting too technical here – the problem appears to be electronic. Electrical issues are not this hombre’s forte. He said he would be back with a scanner to get some codes from the computer systems.

He never returned.

We found a diesel mechanic, a brother of a close friend. A week ago yesterday he and three other hombres throughout the day were under the hood of that truck. They brought in an electrical expert who oddly enough was the most grease covered of the lot. I mean you don’t think major grease in the electronics of a vehicle – but then it is all encased within fuel driven motors.

Working rather late into the day; couple that with the annual blessings at the capillia above our driveway was drawing a crowd of 100 or more people singing and chanting just feet from the scene of the repair, they eventually reported they would be back Sunday last.

They never returned.

Yesterday I decided to take matters into my own hands rather than having the truck towed to a Ford Dealer in Xalapa where at minimum I was looking at spending $1000.00 US. The shop rates are nearly as high as in the U.S. at the dealerships (a universal plague). I tend to hate to pay anyone $100.00 US an hour. So yes much of this problem has been exasperated by my cheap nature.

I just simply am not one to have the problem towed away and then days later handed a bill for as much as a couple thousand dollars – just not my style. I said it. I am cheap in that regard.

I resorted to my computer where I often find solace. There is a forum just for owners of my same truck or nearly the same. I reviewed many discussions of people that had these trucks and that simply would not start suddenly.

I checked, I prodded, I tested with meters and gauges. I have tools. With the help of some Internet mechanics I have determined I need a new very expensive computer module. After not having a running 4 wheeled vehicle for nearly a month now the $500.00 US or so cost to get that module seems a small price.

Our friends Amanda and Mike will be returning from Texas in a few days. I can get the unit on Ebay. Have it sent to their house. Soon it will be here. If I am wrong – well sometimes trying to save money costs you more in the long run – but that fact simply will not change my stripes.

Hard Headed? – Perhaps!

There are some terrific mechanics in Mexico. They are often inventive and their fees are embarrassingly cheap. When you can get them on the job they are cheerfully helpful. But if you encounter new age electronic problems, especially if your vehicle is a diesel, be prepared to go it alone or to have to visit one of those dreaded dealerships where nothing happens for less than hundreds and often thousands of U.S. dollars or their sum equivalent in thousands and tens of thousands of pesos.

Of course it would be safer to write this after the repair is complete. But I think there are others amongst us who operate like me. I am exposing myself here. If I am wrong about this expensive part that will be hauled from the U.S. and sent back to the drawing boards it may be embarrassing. But, after all, this is a Blog about our Mexican experiences. Chalk this up as one of them.

In the mean time we have two well running scooters to satisfy our wanderlust. Stay Tuned for the results in two week or so.

Back in the 60’s this writer was pretty hip – no really! I hung out with Jim Morrison, Arthur Lee, Eric Burdon and I even knew some other Animals including some Byrds, a couple Monkees and four Beatles. I worked at the Hollywood landmark round building at 1750 N. Vine, The one that looks like a stack of records. I still remember the address having spent ten years in that building.

Now if you are asking, “What is a record? or “Who is Jim Morrison?” – come back tomorrow; I’m just showing my age here. Back then I was 19 and then 20 and so on.

My apartment building was a classic old French Chateau. It was lovely, airy and dare I say avante-guarde. I could walk to work, and often did. Those were exciting times as memory serves; it has been said that if you can remember the 60’s you probably weren’t there. Well I do and I was.

Flashing forward to today: My soon to be 19 year old son is a computer prodigy. He left home before he was 16 to study with better minds in his field. Better minds than his mother and father who had home schooled him his entire life up to then.

We were a tight knit family living in the Rocky Mountains in an earthship – pretty much to ourselves. Although the boy left early, we considered ourselves lucky to have spent 15 years 24/7 with our son; but then in a flash the flash programmer was gone.

The last four years have been quite an adventure for young Master Calypso. He has already worked for three media companies and now is a freelance programmer in Hollywood.

Yikes without any prodding from me, in fact quite the contrary, he lives in my old stomping grounds. As a family we had lived in Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Mexico – but NEVER California. His mother and I were both born in California. I never looked back on California after my escape in 1977. But there he is.

If you haven’t ever visited the Los Angeles area realize it is a huge sprawling megatropolis.  In conversations with my son we talked about places and streets that I remembered oh so well 40 plus years ago. He visited Barney’s Beanery on Santa Monica Boulevard recalling my story of being at the bar with Janis Joplin the night (or following day) she died. It was fun reminiscing with my son.

Like many young adults he has moved around a lot – I did. One year I recall having actually moved in and out of 13 apartments, more than one a month on average. Being in the music business and living in an apartment was an odd mix. I got more eviction notices than birthday cards that year – but I digress.

The other day the boy tells us he has moved to yet another apartment (not even close to my record, thank goodness). Imagine how many apartment buildings there are in Southern California.

“Dad I am in this old classic apartment building – a French Chateau.” I remarked that when I was his age I had lived in such a building. We nailed the street down. He is now in residence in the same building I had lived in Hollywood 44 years prior.

And we think in the same rooms (I am a bit hazy on that – but it makes the story all that much better). We had never discussed that building even though I have related many stories from those glory days of mine – now they are my sons.

Regardless of the fact or not about the actual room, what an amazing coincidence that our son should land in the same apartment building, at the same age as I was 44 years before.

It was a classic building then and is 44 years more classic now. He sent by SKYPE the photo below yesterday. He wanted to show his mom that he had installed curtains. He and I talked about the tools he was acquiring to mount brackets in cement walls’

Déjà View of the Living Room of our ‘Shared’ Apartment (ENLARGE HERE)

Living in Mexico – just 650 miles from the United States – but still seeming so far away from our son. We just got a little closer together now that we both have lived in that old classic French Chateau. I know where my child is at night – intimately. Stay Tuned!

If you have been in Mexico for a while you may find yourself counting burros instead of sheep to get to sleep. Regardless of what you are counting it always starts one-two-three; but wait does it?

Truth be known while I spiel many a yarn about “living in Mexico from a gringo’s point of view” I don’t speak good Spanish.

Early on I gave into lacking Spanish speaking proficiency with the excuse ‘it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks’. ‘Lazy? ‘Maybe.

Then there is the fact La Señora Vivaz, my Spanish speaking Latino wife, is my crutch in all this. We are together most of the time. She fills in the language gaps for me.

In my defense, I can read Spanish well enough to comprehend and I can even understand a good amount of spoken Spanish. I do have difficulty understanding children as they talk muy rápido. But then I have that problem with English speaking kids.

For going on 5 years now I have managed pretty well for a guy living in an area where virtually no one speaks English. Few here seem to have any interest in learning English. I am pretty sure English is far more difficult to master as a second language.

I get frustrated when I am sure that I said something in understandable Spanish when it isn’t understood. We can be talking with someone. I chime in with something with confidence thinking I know how to express this – only to get a blank stare. Invariably the listener looks over to Anita to translate.

She knows this frustrates me. In my defense often she suggests the person listen carefully, prodding me to repeat.

We have this theory that some people are convinced I can’t speak Spanish before I utter a syllable (and there are so many in Spanish!). Thus they take the easy way out and look to her – after all she is prettier to look at in any case.

Before bed I often load up a Pimsleur lesson or two into my iPod and go to sleep with it playing in my head. But, I usually fall asleep fast and can only hope this is working subliminally (NOT).

In my defense I have known a number of people in my situation that know less Spanish than me. The fellow that introduced me to the area, we’ll call him Pete, who was a wonderful guide to the city and surrounding area, could speak virtually no Spanish. At that time Pete had been here for about as long as I have now.

Pete and I were at a restaurant. We wanted enchiladas. I let Pete order for us being that I was totally green to all this. To our surprise we were served salads. Ensalada, or salad, and enchilada are closely related – in name only. Pete’s wife was also Latino by the way and was his mouth piece.

There are other examples for comparison that put me to shame, gringos that just seem to have a knack for languages or something. Our friends Charles and his wife Bonnie for example – they speak passable Spanish. My neighbor Esther does as well – it is said women have a better capacity for foreign languages – I ‘ll use any excuse!

But then the other day this – I was in my yard needing to count the number of block in a pile. I needed 14 to complete a project. I started counting, “Uno, dos, tres, cuatro…” – huh?

I found myself counting in Spanish. Now this may not seem remarkable to you, but I was caught off guard. I was actually thinking in my head in Spanish! A question that often comes up – do people that speak a second language ever think in that foreign language? The answer is a resounding yes. I am convinced I am really getting acclimated here in Veracruz, Mexico. ¡Manténgase Sintonizado!

Is it possible that after making the move to Mexico, establishing roots in this foreign country, that one day you will wake up to being persona non grata?

The dictionary defines persona non grata as, “Fully unacceptable or unwelcome, especially to a foreign government.” I have had a couple of loosely substantiated reports of exactly that.

Two older couples in one State of Mexico have been denied the right to continue their embedded lives in Mexico.

A tearful Mexican National woman reports that her foreign born husband has been denied the renewal of his FM3 after having lived in Mexico for 20 years; denied because his retirement income no longer meets the minimal required $1400.00 a month. Further that he has been declared persona non grata and was given 90 days to remove himself from Mexico. He has since left this country.

The woman is currently working on selling their home in Mexico so she can be with her exiled husband in the United States. She reports that her husband now has developed cancer. She suggests that his deteriorated health is connected to his being thrown out of his home and country. A very sad story indeed.

A friend who has been living in Mexico for 11 years retired on social security. At that time the required income to get an FM3 was $750.00. The required income is now nearly double that. Of course the cost of living raises to his social security haven’t kept up with the nearly 100% increase over that same time period.

My understanding of the rules when we first came here to Mexico to live was that the financial requirement (at that time about $1000. U.S.) would be 50% for an additional person within a legally married couple. Further that if you owned a house the requirement was cut in half.

At today’s required $1400.00 that would be $2100.00 per couple; and $1050.00 if they owned a house here in Mexico. That is starting to be a lot of money for retired people who surely can live in Mexico on far less. More importantly it is said these figures and the cost of visas is soon going to go up substantially (a rumor at this point). I have also been told that the 50% less required for those owning property may or may not be considered when applying for an FM3.

This is an issue that many of us may face in the future. If one establishes roots in Mexico early in their retirement years only to find 10 or 20 or more years down the road that he is no longer welcome in his adopted country, imagine how this might turn one’s life upside down.

I beat the drum a lot against borders and rail against being called a guest in the country that I have chosen to live, the country where I spend my money on food, housing and all the other trappings of day to day living. Should I be living in fear that I will one day be persona non grata?

The person that has had to leave his wife and home because of this financial technicality has filed suit in International Court. I am trying to follow where this ends. Stay Tuned!

Back in the 50’s (that’s the 1950’s) kids needed to be inventive to entertain themselves. There were no electronic game machines, no home computers. Aside from the Mickey Mouse Club and The Howdy Doody Show television was a vast wasteland and never turned on before afternoon. Life was simpler and less threatening.

Howdy Doody & Buffalo Bob

Summertime launched us out of the house at sunrise and didn’t escort us home until it faded (around 9 PM at the local latitude). We could spend hours playing baseball or cowboys and Indians. We had lead toy soldiers to move around in grand dirt piles or sand.

That was before I learned what a raw deal the Indians got – I would have played my game differently had I known then. And those dreadfully dangerous lead toys that we stored in cigar boxes were a hidden danger – will I die before my time from having owned them – time will tell.

The ninos here in our part of Mexico live lives similar to those days – certainly not the children of 21st Century United States. We don’t see kids gone missing on milk cartons here. That distressing notification style just had its 30th birthday I read recently. Life is simpler here.

This brings me to a remarkable incident that occurred on a local bus here in Xico. La Señora Vivaz and her running around pal Lidia were returning from Xico to our Colonia four miles east. La Senora occasioned to be sitting next to a little hombre described as looking like Pugsley from the Addam’s family (originally Pubert but changed at the request of ABC).

The Pugsley like little fellow was jammed in to their shared seat (Mexican bus seats accommodate Mexican stature by the way). La Senora was being nudged by the little fellow to move away; she noticed a large leggy, antenna adorned bug on the seat between.

She screeched to throw the bug out the window – “Ooh! Please get rid of it!”
The Pugsley boy said, “Oh no Senora it won’t sting you.” He garnered the creature setting it on his arm. Apparently this particular insect, one of which there are no shortage of around here, was the boy’s pet.

La Señora Vivaz was convinced the boy had applied some feeding material to his forearm as the bug rested there quite content, looking to be consuming some sticky viscosious liquid.

La Señora Vivaz not being well versed in entomology could not identify the insect nor was she particularly interested in that. At the first chance of a nearby seat vacancy she moved. The boy and his bug sat solo enjoying the rest of the ride without further incident. The boy and his bug, existed the bus together.

You probably have heard the story about a recently paroled convict who had spent 24 years incarcerated. It seems that during his prison tenure he had befriended a flea. He worked endless hours to train the flea to do tricks. It could rollover and hop at command.

The released convict stopped at the first watering hole he came upon figuring he might be able to garner a few free drinks showing off his pet’s tricks.

The fellow takes a seat at the bar next to a likely drink buyer. He places his trick flea and friend on the bar top and nudges his stool mate. “You see that flea there?” he blithely says.

The observer quickly smashes his hand down against the bar top replying, “Yea, pesky things aren’t they?”

An old joke. But it is no joke that kids here have bugs as pets and entertain themselves in simpler and more creative fashion than their north of the border counterparts.

Editors Note: We have acquiesced to fellow Blogger Felipe Zapata’s request of a name change for my lovely esposa (wife in Spanish). It seems Felipe felt there was copyright infringement on the description he uses of his fair wife, La Guapa  Señora. He threatened both legal action and bodily harm (well hair harm – he was going to have my ponytail yanked). I had innocently started using the name some time ago for my own lovely wife noting that we both had lovely Latino Señoras of a similar age disparity to our own ages. It was indeed an innocent albeit minor bit of plagiarism that raised the hackles of my otherwise good Internet friend. He threatened by way of the comments and then beseeched me via private email to change this – and I have. La Señora Vivaz (vivacious in English) of Viva Veracruz is certainly befitting of my wife and thus shall be my own label. I should add that if any of you hombres out there wish to use it as a description of your own lovely, vivacious wife – I have no problem with that

Stay Tuned!

As one gets older there are some adjustments that must be made or you will die not trying. Take this morning for instance:

I noticed my Guapa Senora in a struggle to discern whether the coin she had was a 2 peso or 5 peso denomination. Mind you the numbers are pretty significant within the layout of most of the 1-2-5 peso coins. (The latest minting has reduced the number size.)

COINS of the REALM (ACTUAL SIZE CLICK HERE)

But it was early. She reminds me that her eyes don’t focus well early. I am the opposite. At the end of the day when I assume the muscles of my eyes have tired I find focusing more difficult.

I quickly defined the coin in her hand as 5 pesos – wanting to help.

I suggested that as we age, and I know more about this by nearly fourteen years more than her, we have to rely on other senses like size and feel rather than the written words or numbers.

It is more possible to confuse the 2 peso coin with the 5 than the 1 peso with the 2. The still lesser denominations are defined by different colors and easily distinguishable. The 10 peso coin is larger and different in design – but those three pesky 1-2-5 coins can confuse the farsighted, even with fairly large numbers showing.

Guapa Senora keeps a magnifying glass handy and is more farsighted than me. I get the blue ribbon for being far more nearsighted. I couldn’t identify a blue ribbon or any other color ribbon from 20 feet away – she can.

If you are coming south realize the penny, dime, nickel and quarter are easier to identify than their Mexican counter parts. I wonder how many 5 pesos coins I have given up thinking they were  2 peso coins.

This morning’s coin is now defined and ready for one of the mobile tortilla hombres that scoot around the Hood on motor scooters or smallish motorcycles. Tortillas delivered to your door (or nearly). 1.1 pounds for the equivalent of 30 cents U.S. About 22 round corn Mexican standards. Quite the bargain really.

These days we pay 8 pesos for a kilo of tortillas and we can get half that for half that, while marketing policies in the U.S. would probably price the lesser quantity at a premium – perhaps 5 pesos for a half kilo. Oddly Mexican marketing usually charges more for more. I assume this is mostly due to the fact most families are larger in number (or were) when they devised the pricing.

At Chedraui, our local supermarket, you will often spend less buying two small sizes rather than one large. Not the norm in supermarkets NOB. Another tip for adapting to Mexico, there are more so Stay Tuned!

Roxana Saberi, the former beauty queen turned journalist, has been released by Iranian authorities.  In April I commented about her arrest and sentence to 8 years in Tehran’s Evin prison.

At that time it was widely reported that Saberi was initially arrested for having bought a bottle of wine on the black market. Saberi’s attorney dismissed that report calling it an explanation she had given her father during a hurried prison phone call.

I reported, “The details are sketchy.”  The most accurate statement of the unfolding story as it turns out.

Authorities arrived at her house with a warrant on Jan. 30 and took her away. Now her lawyer says she was arrested for possessing a classified document about U.S. involvement in Iraq she had copied while working as a translator for Iran’s Expediency Council, a powerful board which mediates disputes between government bodies.

Copying a “classified document” could get you in trouble in a lot of countries – including the United States and Mexico. In the same piece I wrote, “Her plight reminded me of the delicate nature of publically stating an opinion here in Mexico. We love this country accepting the bad with the good. At this time in our lives we avoid participating in demonstrations.” We also avoid copying classified documents – seems sensible to us.

There are a lot of news sources these days. So many it seems that getting the straight story is hard to do. Could Blogs be a safe haven from all the confusion? Probably not. You have but to read my next door neighbor’s Blog and mine to realize how different people’s perspectives can be on things.

The slogan, “What if they had a war and nobody came?” that has been attributed to Carl Sandberg’s line “Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.” use to intrigue me. Until I realized on almost every issue the differences of opinion are nearly 50-50. Presidents get nominated and elected by slim margins. “Obama Wins by Wide Margin in South Carolina… Barack Obama won South Carolina’s Democratic primary with 55 percent of the vote….” That means 45 percent of the people voted for someone else – doesn’t seem like a “wide margin” to me. Winning by seven percent seems to call for a “Landslide” label.

This leads me to believe someone is always going to show up for a war. It isn’t likely I can talk you all into stop warring or to use compost toilets to save water or to even use compact florescent lighting.

We had a wonderful full on tropical storm late yesterday afternoon. It was spectacular! A gentle breeze and light rain turned into a monster shower with torrential buckets of water, lightning, thunder and even some hail. It was gone as fast as it had arrived. The waterfall raged and our river spewed odors of human waste moving rapidly downstream – ugh!

At the top of my amigo Felipe Zapata’s Blog is a quote by Emily Dickinson, “If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.” His Blog is a must read by the way.

I am thinking if I can talk one household into not polluting our river with their raw sewage I shall not have lived in vain. In that case the heart not breaking will be my own. Stay Tuned!

Before seven, just after daylight, it started. My daybreak concert performed by a myriad of birds was interrupted by the edgy tones of steel bashing rock – not music to my ears.

Directly across the street are two joined casas that have been under construction for the entire time we have lived here. A mass of rock and dirt raise the casas 20 feet or so above street level. They lord over us on the other side of the road.

Up to now there have been some crude rock stairways to get up there. Now with finer houses in the making, fancier cement walkups are wanted – Some HUGE boulders needed to go.

A number of years ago our next-door neighbor at the time had a boulder problem. They were in their way.  The neighbors drilled holes in the boulders; they placed dynamite in the holes and proceeded to ignite the tube encased powder.

The rock split into many. Some landing a crushing blow to the roof top of their mobile home.  Obviously a miscalculation had occurred. The mobile home was essentially destroyed – a lesson had been learned the hard rock way.

Thankfully no dynamite here – what they do is call in an expert; a man that knows his rocks and how to get them off. I didn’t even know such persons existed.

We recently had some large boulders to deal with ourselves. We pounded and pounded on those big rocks. We pushed and pulled them both with manpower and truck and chain power. They finally ended up in the ditch dug for our new front wall.

The two or three mammoth boulders needing to be removed across the street dwarfed our problem stones. A couple mornings ago the rock man showed up with a bag of tools and a lot of determination. It was obvious he had done this before.

His expertise was not wasted on me – I was duly impressed with his methodical process. He would vigorously pound the giant stone. Dust fumed out from the pressure applied to the surface.  The huge head of the sledge bounced back at the hombre. He continued to bang away using the kind of force one might imagine required to get water from stone.

After some brutal pounding he gently brushed away the dust with the intensity of an archeologist dusting for ancient pottery remnants or bones. If he spied a possible weakness he would wash a line along the prospective weakness with a bottle of water.

With a chisel that is probably as big as they come, he pounded the head of that chisel with great vigor. If an opening developed he would jam chisels as spacers or even rock chards between the widening crack. Working with a large pry bar and chisels as spacers until finally a chunk of the azul rock separated.

In two days of intense work the boulders were reduced to manageable sized stones. A wall will be constructed from the pieces – it should be a lovely one.

Yesterday we completed the footing for the wall on the other side of the driveway upon which we will mount a gate. The job got complicated because the Colonia’s main water line ran right where the wall is to be. We had to do some metal fabricating and adjust the footing height to accommodate the pipe.

Just a couple days ago we spied a group surveying for new water lines. We checked with an engineer about how we should deal with the pipe. The water hombre (the one who Anita has been getting into it with) advised that the pipe was on our property rather than in the street because of the capilla (small religious shrine). He thought the new pipe that would go around the capilla in the street would be installed in about a month. We opted not to wait and made a cage around the pipe.

Monday and Tuesday we will work on the short wall – I will have photos and the rest of that story.

And the beating and banging  go on – literally.

Happy Mother’s Day

Stay Tuned!

There is no Clean Water Act here in Veracruz, but the lead story in our local newspaper “Diario de Xalapa” draws attention to water issues. The article states the river Consolapa that runs through Coatepec is lower by an estimated 40% in the last ten years.

Seven years ago we developed a prioritized list of qualities we thought important for a place to live. We were looking. Five years ago we bought property here in Xico. It met or exceeded most of our criteria.

High on the list was water. We surmised the new century would present greater challenges for obtaining potable water. The Xalapa area received high marks due to the average rainfall being between 50-60 inches a year.

A small river ran by the south border of our new property. The negative to all that positive was the entire community dumped their raw sewage into the river. We were assured by our then neighbor that a sewer system was a mere six months away from being installed.

Because he lived right next door and gave no indications that anything he said might be a blatant lie we trusted this without further checking. My Spanish was virtually non-existent at that time. Every week or so a small committee of hombres with clip boards and official looking faces appeared at the neighbors door collecting money, ostensibly for the sewer system.

Later we found out this was for an improved quality community water system; which did eventually happen some four years later. We have improved cleanliness, less water pressure and intermittent service. But the promise of a sewer system went away as did the neighbor that promised it.

As we began living here we were appalled at the pollution and waste of the bountiful supply of water available to the area. It was as if because there was so much available that it could be used without regard for supply or the need to keep it clean. This was mostly an issue of naïveté. We lived amongst the children, grand children and great grand children of Ejido, native Americas Indians.

A few scant years before we arrived the people of our community used out houses and cesspools. They had only recently developed a sewer pipe system that fed raw waste into the river. The houses along the river, like ours, simply ran a 10 cm plastic pipe out to the river to dump the gray and black water, untreated in to the river. We were appalled to find out this wasn’t going to change as had been stated by our neighbor.

Getting to know people as time went by we noticed many left their sinks running water all the time – never turning off the water; simply letting it fill the sink to overflowing and then draining out to the river.

We would explain that we thought eventually there would be water problems with this blatant waste. We further suggested that one day the municipal (city) would bring in water meters and start charging for the precious liquid by the volume used.

The cost at that time to be connected to the community water system with non-metered, unlimited water use was the equivalent of $7.00 U.S. per year! Back in New Mexico people were paying $70.00 a month (now $90 U.S.) just to be connected and for a small volume of water – What a deal we thought! This year it is about $18.00 U.S. and still non-metered. And the residents of our community still run their sewage directly into the river, even the gringo neighbors that replaced the one that had told us of the impending sewer system spew their raw waste via a white plastic pipe into the rio.

To date we are the only people in the entire Colonia that do not pollute the river with our waste. Five years of campaigning and not a single convert – yet we never miss an opportunity to explain our composting system and to issue warning about the impending water problems.

The Mayor of Coatepec recently was quoted as saying, “…Caring for the environment is a commitment of my administration, which has launched programs like ” Frente Limpio” (“Clean Front”) that seek to promote the care of the ecological environment from childhood.”

When we get a glimpse of the waterfall across the river at the south end of our property the view often includes foamy suds from women washing clothes upstream. In today’s newspaper article it says, “The river Consolapa does not look dirty as it passes through La Pitaya and Mariano Escobedo, but the neighbors do not rule out that soon the vital fluid will be contaminated due to women continually washing their clothes and dispensing the soap and detergent into water way tributaries.”

There is a small flicker of light in the tunnel right now. At least at the administration level there seems to be some new awareness for clean and ample water issues.

Two weeks ago during a walk in the countryside north of our Colonia we saw one of our neighbors’ washing their dog in the river. The dog was well soaped up. We explained to them later how bad this was for the river. On the same walk we saw a woman standing in the river washing her clothes. A hard habit to break after generations of river washed clothing.

We hope our area will get its act together before it is too late. We still receive a great deal of rain in these parts. Stay Tuned!

In the news: Baggage handlers refuse to unload Mexican planes.

Baggage handlers at an airport in Paris have refused to unload planes arriving from Mexico or Spain. Staff fearing the spread of swine flu demonstrated at Orly airport last night. Face masks have now been supplied to deal with flights in and out of Central America.

If any one wonders how they could gather up the temerity to burn young women at the stake, you have but to look at this example of ludicrous conduct to understand.

Whether it makes sense or not, you have but to be in Mexico right now to realize the response here has been an over whelming degree of cooperation and support in an effort to minimize the spread of this supposed killer flu.

It is safe to say unless there were thousands dead the United States and Canada would not shut their schools, churches, businesses, theaters, athletic events and banks down for six days. Even then I wonder.

People in other parts of the world beware there are dangers lurking about in Mexico. Don’t come here. It won’t hurt my feelings if we have Mexico to ourselves. Stay Tuned – if you dare!