It is graduation season here in our Colonia. An education at Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie school would be a Harvard education compared to the schooling here in the Hood. It matters not that the education system here is poor; it is a time for celebration.
Two families close to us each had a child graduating from kinder (jardín kinder). The niños pequeños will matriculate into first grade in the fall.
The father’s took off from work. The mother’s began preparing for the day many days’ prior: saving pesos, developing guest lists, making dresses, buying shoes, getting teacher’s gift and buying decorations and food.
Dads were up before daylight inflating globos (balloons), setting up rented tables and chairs, and hauling huge pots of pozole that had been cooking over wood fires in the yards throughout the night. Preparations for traditions that go back hundreds of years.
By ten they all were cleaned up, in their finest dress and off to attend the graduation ceremony at the colorful little school a few blocks up the way. Several hundred proud parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends watched 50 or so tiny tots march up to get their diplomas after a great deal of pomp and circumstance. A lot of the parents were holding flowers and gifts for the teachers. You had to have arrived early to get a seat.
The sound system was poor, not like the ‘clear as a bell’ political announcing mobiles – the politicians obviously have more dough to blare their message soliciting votes. But, about half way through the commencement ceremonies a couple hombres showed up with bigger speakers to try and improve the crackling and mostly indistinguishable audio.
Each salon (class) performed; dancing and singing in colorful costumes. Little girls in tutus danced on their toes while little hombres with painted paper fishes on their heads swirled amongst the ballerinas. There were marching, flags and anthems sung. The schooling includes a lot of marching drill training readying the ninos for the many Mexican celebrations – the children are well prepared for that.
Two hours of celebration, speeches and diplomas ends around noon and then the parties begin. After five years I am still amazed at the choreography of the Mexican party. They are disciplined affairs that run as if the guests had appointments for their time at the feeding tables. The shifts are orderly and mostly quiet. Mexicans don’t gab when they are sitting down to the serious business of eating.
Here in the Hood it is too expensive to provide beer, wine or tequila for all that attends. Now and then a few hombres gather in a corner to share from a liter bottle of beer or a gallon container of mora or spent 32 ounce Coke bottles of água dente (fire water), and the occasional bottle of tequila.
We saw one fellow pushing a dolly with three large square cartons. Hombres came out to the street with their empty plastic soda bottles to buy a fill-up of fire water. Not something you see in the States.
An hour or so after the graduation, play has already taken a toll on the young graduate’s new party dresses and white shirts and slacks. By 2 PM the children are out of their fine clothes. Throughout the day and into the night people come and go. The children are all but forgotten until some of the mothers gather them up to flail at colorful candy filled piñatas. Professor Owl and Spiderman are beaten silly with wooden sticks until they cough up the candy where upon kids and a few hombres from out of the corners scramble for candy.
In the mean time people are still arriving to be fed. The parties at our neighbors went on past midnight. This morning family members have gathered again in kitchens to eat left over pozole and talk about yesterday’s events. Friday the rest of the children in the Hood get out of school. There will be more graduations and more parties. And the beat goes on. Stay Tuned!
It is likely that one of these days there will be massive warring over water. On a small scale fighting over water rights has been going on since the beginning of recorded time. Our area of Mexico gets more than 55 inches of rain per year – a lot of rain, a lot of water.
We catch rain water as our sole water supply up at Rancho del Cielo. We hope to install a catch water system at our Casita property here in the Hood. While there is an abundance of rainfall most of our waterways are heavily polluted. If you have been around my Blog for very long you certainly remember my rankling about the beautiful streams and rivers being reservoirs for human and industrial waste.
We buy our drinking water. This has had ongoing aspects of irritation much of which I won’t bore you with here. We still know people that drink tap water even here in our part of Mexico. For the last couple of years we have been buying our water at Chedraui the local super market(s).
A couple years ago we conducted taste tests to find the best available drinking water. One of the two or three Chedraui offerings won out. So a couple times a month I would haul four or five 19 liter garaphons back to Chedraui in Coatepec to exchange for full ones. Sounds simple enough.
But wait – often the simplest of tasks develop into a project right before your eyes here in Mexico. Chedraui wasn’t used to people buying and returning four or five containers. Different staff had different understandings as to how the exchange process worked. For several months we endured long waits while confused employees tried to get a grasp of the exchange and sale process. Overtime we developed an eye roll that came on nearly automatically each time we enter the weird water world purchasing process at the Chedraui. But because this particular water which seemed to ONLY be available there was the hands down taste test winner we persevered.
Then our truck broke the day there were five empties heading to Coatepec. We had to resort to water sold in the Hood. There are a few outfits that actually deliver within the Hood. Also there are a number of tiendas stocking the 19 liter water bottles. Variations in prices, return policies and deposits, and availability as well as taste really muddies the waters.
But alas there was new water in the Hood. Some beautiful blue bottles appeared with colorful labels and with what appeared to be good attention to the details of ended up with clean water. To add still more joy the water was only a few pesos more than our Chedraui favorite. And the deposit on the beautiful new shiny bottles was a mere 6 pesos as opposed to Chedraui’s 42 peso deposit requirement. We bought a bottle to test.
The water came through as a clear winner in the taste tests – oh joy – the end of the era of hauling bottles back and forth from Chedraui. I’m not getting any younger and hauling 5 five gallon bottles of water from the store to our driveway and down the hill was starting to get old and over time I started swearing that water was getting heavier.
My amigo Tony over in Xico who is 20 years my senior has a block and tackle mounted from the ceiling in his kitchen to deal with these 40 plus pound water bottles – a process wherein science helps one adapt to old age. I could see the future was not looking good for me to have to haul water.
There is a fresh water spring that conveniently dumps out on the side of the road about 2 kilometers outside of the town of Teocelo. I see young hombres with refrigerator dollies carting bottles of water to and from the spring where if you lean back too far while filling bottles you might just get hit by traffic. The entire thing causes one to consider health issues as the water gathering isn’t always hygienic there. And that is even a farther trip than the one to Chedraui.
You can imagine the pure joy of discovering good, clean refreshing water locally.
Then as quick as it came it was gone. The tienda management decided not to stock two water types. They must have made more profit on more expensive and less good tasting water. I was sad.
Yesterday I spotted a little truck whose back was filled with the disappearing water. I approached the driver asking if he would sell to me – of course – oh happy day! And it was three pesos less than from the tienda. So we are once again back in business with the best water around. I have the fellow’s card and I am to call whenever I am ready for four or five more bottles.
There are water wars here – there is no telling how long these people will survive selling against big companies like Coke and Bonafont.
If you are in the area or are coming to visit now you know where to get excellent water. If you can’t find them come and visit us – we will sell you a bottle – but you will have to haul it from our Casita to your car. I don’t deliver. Stay Tuned!
We just returned from three days at Rancho del Cielo where we had no computer connection and a lot of yard work to do. Here in Ursulo Galvan we had some amazing lightning and thunder last night. The drama of it all got me to wondering if it is safe in the tin can we sleep in.
We still sleep in our Lance camper which is planted firmly to ground via metal posts and cement blocks.
A few years ago we had a direct hit of lightning in Colorado. The blinding flash and ear shattering boom happened simultaneously. After the eardrums having shutdown are slow to recover as are the eyes having been blinded by the flash – it is really something I don’t wish on anyone.
That time our satellite modem was fried even though it was disconnected from the electrical outlet – the wires leading to the dish transferred the pain from the scorched earth.
When you feel safe the lightning and thunder can be thrilling – but at some point the thrill can turn to fright. We were close to that last night. But, alas all is well this morning.
These days I unplug everything including the wires leading to and from the satellite dish in the yard. Our moving about is weather dependent as our main means of transportation is our scooter; our truck remains broken – ugh!
An interesting aside about our trip to our little Rancho – Without the Internet connection or even a computer is always different. Living there in the mountain is not like being anywhere but there – what I mean is the country one is in is of little consequence. We could just as easily have been in the mountains of Southern Oregon or the Mountains of Colorado or perched just about anywhere there is the beauty of nature surrounding in every direction. Only Mount Orizaba looming large in our windows returned my mind to the fact we were in Mexico. It was peaceful.
It is nearly July and we are a month over due to returning to the States for tax reporting and paperwork. Some days I think we will forgo returning to the States this year – but our life has been designed around that return – too much so I think.
June has been a nice month to be here. We have only been here in the month of June once before in the last five years. Perhaps we will revamp future plans to be here. Then long term plans were that we would minimize or eliminate returning to the States every year – perhaps this helpless feeling of not being able to get back to the U.S. is a good thing?
Enjoy the moment. This is working for the time being – the heck with responsible behavior.
Uncle Sam and several U.S. banks will have to live without the company of the Calypsos for a while longer. Stay Tuned!
They want your vote. We can’t vote or get involved in politics in any way here in Mexico. So we just watch and listen – not because we want to but because signs and sounds of the impending July 5th election are everywhere.
Even though Obama has surpassed the 100 day mark in his new presidency NOB I am sure most are still reeling from the barrage of campaign ads that seem to run about 2 years of every 4 year presidential cycle in the United States. Billions of dollars spent trying to convince people to vote for him or her or this or that.
Small displacement motorcycles with plastic coolers have been cruising the Hood selling tortillas every since we have been here– a nice convenience. The Tortillerias wrap stacks of warm tortillas in white paper – half or whole kilos of corn discs – Mexico’s gold standard. Tortillas have increased in price over the time we have been here by 60%; they are a leading economic indicator.
But, a new twist arrived at our door the other day. The plain white paper wrapped staple has been altered for a season – election time. There are faces on our tortillas this morning. José Yunes colorful campaign sign encloses our tortillas and probably will until the day after the election or until the printed papers run out – whichever comes first.
High quality sound systems installed in cars cruise through the Hood with air brushed color photos strategically adorning the car tops and doors promoting candidates. Often these blaring mobile noise makers promoting this or that are indistinguishable, but these politician-mobiles are clear and nearly as loud as the sound system at Dodger Stadium.
The blaring promotions are offering gifts for fathers today and me without an election card or right to vote. Some ladies in the Hood received 4500 pesos from a candidate. The money is to pay for bus transportation for a school vacation trip and their vote. Buying votes here is illegal but the norm.
There are no permits required to have a candidates sign in your yard and no noise ordinances restricting the hour or the volume of these mobile sound invaders. The tortillas wrapped in electable faces are uniquely Mexican. But the campaigning ad nauseam is not. 14 Day 3 hours 21 Minutes to Election Day – July 5th – not soon enough for me. Stay Tuned!
You may think heat (credited to the compound capsaicin) is the only thing that sets these fiery little fruits apart from other foods, think again. The concentration of flavor within chile seco is remarkable and they are good for you. The chile seco peppers are rich in vitamins A and C. The chilies also contain ample potassium, folic acid, and vitamin E. Research suggests that they may help prevent heart disease and could aid in burning calories by speeding up your metabolism.
A Fine Looking Chile Seco Pepper
Perhaps the best part is chilies are a natural aphrodisiac. One of my favorite cookbooks, “Fork Me, Spoon Me: the sensual cookbook” by chef Amy Reiley declares, “eating chilies raises body temperature, makes your lips swell, and gives you a rush of endorphins similar to orgasm.” If that doesn’t make you want to run out and get some dried chilies and follow the recipe – I don’t know what will.
We enlisted the help of one of the best chili seco chefs in the Hood. Doña Alma is the Matriarch of a large family here in Ursulo Galvan. She has a wealth of information about campesino living and traditions. Her four daughters, all good chili seco makers themselves, say, “Mom makes it best”.
I should preface the step by step process with the fact that like a good jazz musician’s musicality Doña Alma never seems to prepare food the exact same way twice. This story has developed from observing her and the daughters preparing chili seco several times.
Returning from the Coatepec Mercado with our two higher end chile seco samples I took the bag of the finest chilies over to see if I could enlist Doña Alma’s help; before she left for our patio kitchen she had already twisted the stems from the peppers having agreed to help. Step 1: Twist and remove stems from peppers.
Arriving at our casa Doña Alma first washed the chilies – being that they are sold from an open faced burlap bag in the dusty Mercado this is a good idea – it is generally a good idea – Step 2: Wash the chilies.
She poured the equivalent of a couple table spoons of canola oil into a clay cazuela she brought along. The cazuela is a pottery cooking vessel. It is preferred as it doesn’t get as hot and cooks more evenly than a conventional frying pan – especially the inexpensive Mexican frying pans that are thin and heat up rapidly.
Step 3: While the oil heated up, she towel dried the washed chili seco peppers. Before placing the chilies in the cazuela Doña Alma dropped a couple garlic buds into the hot oil. After 30 seconds or so she removed the garlic and set it aside. A few times I have seen them also cook about a quarter of a medium sized onion with the garlic. The amount of garlic is a matter of taste. I am not a big garlic fan so we used a couple of garlic cloves. The Mexicans call a clove of garlic a diente (a tooth).
Step 4: Doña Alma then carefully placed the chilies into the hot oil for about ten minutes turning them over a few times. The chilies will be supple and will have swelled some at this point.
Step 5: She then removed them from the pan placing them into a liquidora (blender) adding the garlic (optional onion) and about a cup of water (we insisted on bottled water – they use tap water). Blend on a medium high speed for a couple minutes or until thoroughly blended. There is a good possibility that your blender will never be the same. The color emitting from this process is like dye. We have a blender dedicated specifically to making chile sauces. This an uncommon luxury here in the Hood – but we simply are not willing to sacrifice our $500.00 Vita Mix blender like Rick Bayless does.
Step 6: Pour the blended peppers back into the frying pan with a little added hot oil. This is cooked down for about 20 minutes. The sauce should gently bubble. Add sea salt to taste (we added about a teaspoon for the half batch). It will reduce to a thick dark brown to black sauce. Let it cool in the pan for a half hour. Store in the refrigerator; it will last for about fifteen days, but it is usually gone well before any expiration considerations.
Doña Alma made both test batches with us. The combined total was that of a normal batch where you would start off with 200 to 250 grams (or a half pound) of dried chilies.
The taste test: My favorite part proved interesting. The more expensive chilies were definitely better tasting. I transcended from a pedestrian chile seco eater to a gourmet. I simply love the stuff. Easy to prepare as long as you keep in mind the toxic smoke – worth the preparation – you bet! Yesterday we bought some dried chile ancho peppers. We are going to cook up a batch (less toxic smoke and a milder pepper). We plan to try some combination mixtures with chile seco. Stay Tuned!
Chili Seco is a confusing name as it is both specific and generic. Being a Jalapian puts us smack dab in the center of a number of like controversies; spelling and designation opinions abound. Is it Chili, Chilli, or Chile – What kind of chili is a chili seco chile? – Is the chilli a fruit or vegetable? – Is it Xalapa or Jalapa? I am going to try and sort out some of this.
How do you spell this all important pepper? The three primary spellings are chili, chile and chilli, all of which are recognized by dictionaries. Spelled as “Chile” got the most Google hits, but then that included the country. Around here it is most often spelled chili, but Anita thinks it is most often chile. Already confused? Read on.
Then there is the oft asked question, “What kind of chilies are chili seco peppers?” This is at least as confusing as the spellings. Many assume it is a chipotle pepper. The closest I can come to an authoritative answer is the chili seco peppers we buy here are a varietal of Veracruzan jalapeño chiles; thus falling under one of the confusing roster of names. It is not a chipotle pepper. The dried and smoked chipotle chilies appear smaller and drier. Chipotle chilies are available for sale at the same stores and mercados as the chili seco peppers, distinctly different. However, I have it on good authority both varietals origin is the jalapeño pepper.
Author, restaurateur and star chef Patricia Qunitana was quoted in an interview saying after being asked, “What defines the cooking of Veracruz?” She answers in part, “Veracruz is a very, very important region for our culture…dishes of the north are based on chiles: chile ancho, chile seco, chipotle meco, which are smoked like chipotles, but larger. Traditionally they’re dried on top of the stove, but now they have smokers…” Now we have it on good authority “chili seco” is not synonymous with chipotle chilies, but again they both do start off as jalapeño peppers.
Fruit or Vegetable?
Chili seco is a type of pepper which is considered a Capsicum.
Capsicum is a genus of plants from the nightshade family (Solanaceae).
The scientific definition of a fruit is any structure that develops from a fertilized ovary and contains seeds of the plant.
A vegetable is defined as “a plant cultivated for an edible part, such as the root of the beet, the leaf of spinach, or the flower buds of broccoli or cauliflower”
So, the answer is jalapeño is a fruit scientifically and a vegetable to the rest of the world. Like the tomato this issue remains on the table.
We’ll settle the Xalapa – Jalapa spelling controversy another time – oh sure.
So the chili seco pepper we will use in our sauce or salsa is a dried jalapeño pepper. That chili seco pepper is a fruit and we live in the Xalapa area (my spelling and I am sticking to it).
Before we start cooking lets clear the air on the dangers of preparing chili seco. If you have a mask left over from the recent swine flu outbreak get it. The acrid smoke from preparing chili seco sauce can be likened to being assaulted with pepper spray. I mean this smoke is tear jerking, air grasping overall gaspingly wicked stuff!
Don’t Let This Smoke Get in your Eyes.
We prepare our chili seco out of doors. Many here in the Hood make it in the cocina (kitchen) – this is essentially a death wish. Even out of doors the fumes can be over powering. I mentioned last time that in Merida it is illegal to prepare chili seco. I am going to assume here this is in a commercial sense.
I have a series of DVD’s from the PBS Rick Bayless cooking show “One Plate at a Time.” In the accompanying literature one review includes, “Burning of chiles for recado negro produces a smoke so acrid that nowadays the process is banned within Mérida city limits. In fact, for a full week after initial preparations for the Bayless visit, Chef David suffered from a persistent and nagging cough. The worst smoke comes from the small chile seco yucateco, which resembles the chile de arbol. The problem can be avoided almost completely by using chile ancho, which produces much less of the toxic smoke and also contributes a sweeter taste to the finished recado.”
I am here to attest to the toxicity of the activity of preparing chili seco even on a small scale. Burning eyes and gasping for breath will be part of the activity unless one is very, very cautious. Is it worth risking life and lungs to make this dark rich sauce? We will find out more about this and continue to the cooking lesson next. Stay Tuned!
A lot of what makes Mexico special, and different from the United States is the food. One of my favorite Mexican condiments is chili seco. This is a dark brown to almost black sauce made from a chili of the same name. It has a rich strong smoked flavor with a real hot biting taste. It is not for the faint of heart – it packs a palate punch – a holistic experience.
Most of the restaurants in the Xalapa area offer it along with a few other sauces. If it doesn’t come automatically, requesting it will almost always get it to the table. Here in our part of Mexico it is as common as ketchup is in the U.S. but an oh so much more elegant accessory to a myriad of foods.
I especially like it with eggs, cheese, avocadoes, beans, potatoes, peanut butter – well the truth is I like it with just about anything that isn’t sweet (although it is terrific on sweet potatoes).
In five years of living in Mexico I have learned a thing or two about chili seco. I am going to share some of my learned taste information.
Most food is better home cooked, chili seco is no exception. Let’s start with buying the dried chilis – there was a learning curve to buying the proper peppers. We have found a kilo of chili seco costs between 70 pesos ($5.30 US) a kilo all the way to 200 pesos ($15.15 US) a kilo. You can see this is quite a spread and are probably asking what makes the prices different?
To start out when buying chili seco you want each dried pepper to be dark and rich in color nearly black with a hint of dark red. It should contain some moisture when you pinch the pods; in other words you don’t want the brittle, brown extremely dry peppers.
In our part of Mexico various dried peppers are found in open barrels or vats. You will buy the peppers by weight in grams or parts of a kilo; a quarter kilos worth is a good amount for preparing a batch. Here typical prices run 70 or 80 peso per kilo. The vendor will scoop out the appropriate amount on to a scale. You may be admonished or even run off if you start to select chilies. There seems to be some allowance for gringos in this regard, but not necessarily everywhere or always.
Friday last while walking through the Mercado in Coatepec we shopped for chili seco. One salesperson amongst perhaps 20 or more chili seco sellers had some particularly large and rich looking peppers. His prices matched his fine looking product. The first chair chilies were 200 pesos a kilo – yikes!
He had another barrel of nice looking chilies only slightly smaller costing 120 pesos a kilo; and still another barrel of the more typical mix of good chilies and dried out bad ones mixed together – that going for 80 pesos a kilo. We moved on, but as I wandered through the Mercado I became more and more aware that those indeed were the finest chilies I had seen.
Later we scooted over to Chedraui, our local supermarket, to buy some tequila and checkout their chili seco – it was dry and unappealing looking at a cost of 84 pesos a kilo.
Saturday we returned to the Mercado to buy samples of the two more expensive chili seco peppers to see if there were any real advantages to buying the more expensive peppers – as much as two and a half times more than the average price.
A matter-of-fact, curt lady had a barrel of chilies selling for 70 pesos a kilo. We thought we would buy some to sample the low end. As Anita and I started going through the barrel the woman said no that price did not included selecting the chilies. We have had that experience with other produce, avocados and oranges. Whenever the price is low – it is likely you will not be able to select product. Some sellers have been downright rude about this. We moved on.
Our experience with the sales method of not allowing a buyer to pick has taught us after doing the math to pay more for the privilege of being able to select.
We bought about 100 grams of each of the 200 and 120 peso chili seco dried chilies. We wanted to see if we could taste and appreciate the cost difference. The total for the two packages combined was 32 pesos ($2.45 U.S.) for about 200 grams of chili seco peppers – selected.
So home we went to prepare our expensive chili samples.
Next you will learn about preparing chili seco – no small task. Would you believe it is illegal to cook up some chili seco in the city limits of Merida? Learn about this and more next time. Stay Tuned!
Back in the 1950’s mom and all her friends used to get dressed up to go shopping. Now days from the strip mall in Poughkeepsie to posh shops on Rodeo Drive in Beverley Hills the ladies are often seen shopping in sweat shirts, sweat pants and other casual attire. The times have changed, but not so here in Mexico.
The ladies of the Hood, Colonia Ursulo Galvan, dress up to go to town – for any reason. They do not leave home in casual attire. This includes getting the maquillaje (makeup) applied.
They also ‘police’ one another to be sure the appropriate dress is in place. A group of four sisters that I know pay close attention to one another in this regard.
My floricita Senora Vivaz pays little attention to shopping attire relating more to the Rodeo Drive shopping dress code (or lack thereof). Well actually we shop mostly thrift stores when in the United States, but if she were to shop on Rodeo Drive her available funds would be far more of a concern than her attire.
Back in the Hood one of the four sisters, a very good friend of mi esposa, has been receiving some flak from her siblings for going to town with a rather tattered plastic bag.
These bags advertise a tienda (store) or a ferretería (hardware store) and are often given out in appreciation of patronage, usually at the New Year. They are unisex. I have been known to utilize one of our freebies to mask shot glasses and tequila bottle being transported to the neighbor’s for the futbol game.
Apparently Anita’s gal pal’s tattered tote was an embarrassment to her three sisters.
A couple of years ago La Senora purchased a rather fine black Nine West purse to attend a funeral, surely the finest bag offered at a Las Vegas thrift store. In as much as she only used the elegant purse for the one event, she made a gift of it to her friend; the sister with the tattered bag.
In the past I have written about the Oportunidad Program. This is essentially a family aid program designed primarily for the poorer woman to teach them health and family issues as well as supply them with a little pocket money for participating. On a given day every couple of months the ladies of the Hood take a bus to Xico where they receive the Oportunidad stipend.
Seen at the bus stop the other day the four sisters waiting to go to Xico for their Oportunidad money: The conversation heard was about how wonderful that the sister now had a lovely purse rather than the ratty looking tienda advertising tote bag to collect her money.
Somewhere in Las Vegas there is a showgirl or pit bosses wife who had spent a lot of money on that Nine West purse only to soon tire of it and subsequently donate it, not realizing that one day that purse would be an important fashion accessory to a nice young lady in Xico, Mexico. Stay Tuned!
I don’t borrow things, I buy them. When I was a boy I loved to fiddle with cars. After one particularly rewarding adventure into rebuilding a carburetor or some such thing I remarked to my father that one day I will be smart enough about cars to fix them entirely myself.
My father quickly replied, “I hope one day you will be smart enough to earn enough money to have someone else fix your cars.” I have always remembered that. And for a time I managed to make that happen.
Even when for a time I could afford to have someone fix my things I saw logic in buying the tools and doing it myself; the money saved on labor would pay for the tools to do it myself. That thinking got me a lot of tools traveling along life’s highway. But, now many things have gotten way too complicated for me to fix, yet the tools remain.
John the tool man, your host here, has offered up many a tool to friends and neighbors. The results have not always been pretty. I mean this always starts out with the good feelings of helping another. Then there is the recognition of being the guy with the tool. In the United States there were other neighbors and friends that had tools too, but not here in Mexico. I am nearly unique in that regard.
It can be said honestly that loaning stuff out usually does not pay. I didn’t have to move to Mexico with truck loads of tools to learn that getting stuff back in good condition or at all is dicey at best. Before I had the language and cultural barriers I spent time hunting down a tool or complaining about the returned condition or lack thereof. On occasion I had to borrow my tool back, promising to return it when I was through. As ludicrous as that sounds, it is true.
The hombres you pay 200 pesos (about $15 U.S.) a day seldom come with tools, nor do their 125 peso a day helpers. Often those hombres become amigos or were to begin with, so when they need a tool to do a job other than mine they know where to find them. I am sponsoring a couple guys careers here as they now can offer services they can do with my tools.
Many times I have thought about a community tool shed. All my neighbors didn’t need to own the same tools, rather we could amass a good collection of collective tools. Now there is a Utopian idea if I ever had one. Having bounced that lofty concept off the lovely Senora Vivaz more than a few times, she always pulls my feet back down to earth saying, “Do you remember how many tools you have loaned out that come back beaten and broken or not at all?” Yup – forget that communal concept.
OK so my compromise has been to keep loaning out my many tools. We had a long and heated discussion on the Forum back in 2007 about a battery charger I loaned to a couple homeboys up the street here in the Hood. The charger came back with a broken case and marginal functionality being as it obviously met the pavement in a brutal way.
In that discussion there was a lot of talk about cultural differences. I took the position that common courtesy is a universal quality. I took a lot of flak for that, and now having a couple more years of living here under my belt, I have weakened on that former stand.
Through time I have come to realize that here they abuse their own kind just as much as they do me, although with less frequency because I have more stuff to loan out. Even La Senora experiences the no return policy as she scours the Hood looking for containers, pans and other assorted kitchen tools (of which she has or had a lot).
Comparatively the Calypso family has been greatly spoiled in life. The Bible reminds us “to whom much is given, much is expected“. The main idea here is that we are accountable for the knowledge, abilities and resources that we have been blessed with, even earned by opportunity and effort.
None of this rambling is going to change my habit of loaning out tools in any cultural circumstance. I gotta go. I need to hunt down my contractors shovel and level. Stay Tuned!
We live on the east side of the volcanic peaks of the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range. From our house it is all downhill to the ocean some 40 plus miles away. The climate in the Xalapa area is semi-humid, but it is relatively cool being located in the mountains 1100 to 1400 meters above sea level.
Like Humidity rainfall is relative. The chart below indicates 60 inches of rain annually. June supplies more moisture than Hollywood, California gets in a year.
The other day we were restless from not having the truck operating. So we jumped on our scooter for an extended cruise. Most of our scooting is confined to 10 or 12 miles. But that day we almost reached 100 miles or 160 kilometers.
The satellite image, enhanced with our trail, shows we left the Hood, Ursulo Galvan, and rode to Jalcomulco. Actually we went beyond there a bit and up through small pueblos like El Chico and El Grande. They actually seemed about the same size.
Jalcomulco is a picturesque town situated in the middle of a verdant mountainous region. A river runs through it; the River “Pescados” (fish). It is 3000 feet lower in altitude, warmer and more humid. People go there for the rivers including white water rafting, rock climbing and hiking. It looks to be mostly supported by tourism that isn’t happening right now.
There are touristy shops selling baskets, pottery and the like. The kayaking rental shops were closed. I imagine this being the beginning of the rainy season equates to the end of the dry season – the river was very low. It didn’t look passable by any water craft – a walk across would work; this at least from the view at the bridge.
When I mentioned to my friend Jim that the river was really low he wrote back, “Not much water? Which river were you looking at? Jalco has two which join. Where we swim down river from jalco the rio was up and quite deep…”
I was looking at the river that flows through town and it was very low.
We weren’t there to raft, just to ride and enjoy the scenery – that mission was accomplished. The scooter did well as did my passenger La Senora Vivaz. We returned beating the afternoon rain by mere seconds – well almost beating it. I stabled the little blue scooter soaking wet.
If you are scooting around our area this time of year it is a good idea to be at your destination by 3 PM – all bets are off for a dry ride after that.
The rain cools off the day, usually only happening for an hour or less. It is a lovely time of year in the tropics. We usually are back in the U.S. by now – but the truck saga continues. Hopefully we will head back before hurricane season is upon us. Stay Tuned!
