All posts by WilliamLawson

About WilliamLawson

Canadian Ex-Pat who has lived in the Yucatan for 20-plus years now. Occasionally neurotic, observant and trying to document everything I see.

Halloween in Merida aka Hanal Pixan

Inspired, Life in the Yucatan

The neurotic foreigner writing this always delights in the confusion surrounding what, in fact, Yucatecans are ‘supposed’ to celebrate at the end of the month of October. The great majority of gringos and slightly misplaced Canadians continue to have some sort of instinctive Pavlovian reaction to the idea of what to do on October 31st, while at the same time being appreciative and respectful of local traditions, which in the case of Mexico and Yucatan in particular, means the Day of the Dead.

Locally, it is called Hanal Pix’an, or Feast of the Souls and the celebration consists of making special foods, mainly the xec, a mixed salad of chopped jicama, citrus fruit, cilantro and chile and the wonderful mucbipollo aka pib, a large tamal preferably baked under ground, where the smoky heat imbues this classic fall dish with a distinctive flavor.

But you could learn more about these traditions from all kinds of websites and pages out here in internet-land. Do a search on Hanal Pixan and you are there. It is not the intention of the neurotic foreigner to pretend to give readers a class on local customs.

One web page you will not learn anything from is: http://thematrix.sureste.com/cityview/merida2/articulos/hanal.htm where the translation has been done so literally and stiltingly as to make it completely and utterly incomprehensible. Done up by some extremely low-payed employee of the local Enlaces y Comunicaciones (or just typed into some online translation web page), it is really quite hilariously embarassing. Some personal highlights, lifted directly from the page above, include:
  • The “Hanal pixán “, or eaten of the bores, is a tradition of the Mayan town that takes to the end to remember of a special way the friends and relatives who went ahead in the eternal trip.

Now the dearly departed may be dead, but surely not all of them were bores so as to warrant calling the whole event Eaten of the Bores! In fact, it sounds more like a horror flick by Wes Craven, where poor folks in small villages were consumed and digested by out of work movie critics whose critiques were so boring they were relegated to eating villagers…

  • salt but: tortilla to which meat is put to him underneath ollejo and soon is fried to eat. The name is formed by Salt: light, and But: to insert, that is to say, slightly inserted.

I have lived in Merida for close to 20 years, and have never seen this local dish called by this name. I thought it was a salbut. Maybe there is new saltier version out there. And to have meat put underneath your ollejo sounds positively pornographic, even without that last phrase ‘slightly inserted’. In fact the definition doesn’t make any sense: If Salt in Mayan means Light and But to Insert Slightly what you have is a flashlight up your butt. Really, now.

Definitely have a look at the page! It’s a riot.

Oh, and before you get your knickers in a twist and start composing your email to me saying that I am such a culturally insensitive boor and how dare I criticize this poor third world attempt at explaining what is obviously a charming pagan ceremony, let me clarify three things: a) I LOVE the Hanal Pixan and have made altars myself and am an avid consumer of copious quantities of mucbipollos (with or without espelon, limpios or with bones) thereby stimulating the local underground economy; b) the page is maintained by probably the largest and most important media company in the Yucatan with newspapers and more and enough of a budget to warrant a proper translation and c) I have personally offered at one point to translate for these folks, especially in the embarassing tourism translations department, and had no takers.

From White City to Red City – More Lawlessness: Juvenile Murder OK

Life in the Yucatan

This would be hilarious if it wasn’t quite so frightening. A teenager was killed – stabbed to death – in the last few days by another teenager. The police apprehended the killer who turned out to be a juvenile (under 18 here) and when the individual appeared before the judge, the case was thrown out because

THERE IS NO PROSECUTION FOR CRIMINAL CASES INVOLVING JUVENILES IN THE STATE OF YUCATAN

Apparently there is some sort of loophole at the local level that doesn’t quite jibe with the rest of the country’s criminal laws. So, the same old tired PRI, PRD and PAN politicians discuss and argue about the trivialities and stupidities they argue about, usually involving funding of something or other, while this charming and little known (until this latest case brought it up) problem lies waiting for another life to be lost without consequence.

Imagine the impact on a previously unknown segment of the tourism industry! Their slogan could be: If you are 17 and want to kill someone, no problem! You don’t have to enlist in the Marines and go through all that training to go to Iraq, just come to Merida and fulfill your fantasy without fear of consequence! Stab ’em, rob ’em, kill ’em. No problem. Merida – the Red City!

Of course this could wreak havoc with other tourism industry market segments, like all those gringos who have come down to buy old houses and inflate real estate prices, retiring and all that.

I am hoping that enough gringos read this before coming to Merida and that they will think twice about it; hopefully the tourism sector will protest with the potential in lost revenue and something will be done. In the past, my little website has been criticized by a few ignorant locals who think that it causes economic harm to the Yucatan. Well I hope this particular news item DOES cause economic harm and makes all the idiot politicians get their priorities straight.

Only in Merida can you Flip off a Cop and Get Away with it!

Life in the Yucatan

This just in. This week, a little note appeared in the local Diario de Yucatan newspaper, that bible of all things Yucatan, in the Policia section, one of my favorites.

Turns out that a lady told off a Puma which, in the Yucatan, is not a large cat but a division of the local state police. If you live here you’ve seen ’em; they’re the ones that ride around on motorcycles in dark blue uniforms with a machine gun strapped to their backs, wearing extra-dark sunglasses. The Puma in question didn’t like the lady’s tone and asked her to pull over; she ignored him, closed her car window and sped off. The cop gave chase and again asked her to pull over. She again gave him a piece of her mind and sped off yet again. The frustrated policeman called for backup and with the help of another two motorcycle policemen tried to get her out of her car, but she refused.

When they were about to proceed to the next level, which in this case was getting the car onto a tow truck with the driver inside (this is done here, not to worry) another fine, upstanding lady appeared to appeal on the first woman’s behalf. She apologized and said the lady was a little nuts (duh) and that she (the second lady) was a friend of the Chief of Police, Don Javier Medina and that she was a member of the PAN party (the party in power in the city and state government at the moment) and that she would take the lady home.

Amazingly (can you see this happening in Philadelphia or Innsbruck?) the police backed off and let the two go!

This is really a great country! Not only can someone who is obviously out of their mind drive a car, they can also mouth off to a policeman and then have some influential friend get them off. The people from the PAN complained ad nauseum when this happened in Mexico’s PRI (the former ruling party) years; now they are doing the same thing!

So those of you thinking about retiring in Merida, come on down! It’s a wonderfully lawless land where anything goes! In fact it’s amazing that anything gets accomplished at all!

Gumby aka Gambi in Merida!

Life in the Yucatan

On a recent drive through the area, I found this sign for a torta place in the Plaza Fiesta neighborhood. The name looked and kind of sounded familiar… and lo and behold, it is our elastic green childhood friend Gumby!

The sign says Gambi but the misspelled name didn’t deter me from stopping and finding out what Gumby’s name and likeness is doing on a sign for tortas calientes in Merida.

Well much to my surprise who should open the door of the sandwich place but Gumby himself! Leaning on a yellow rubber cane, but in otherwise apparent great health, he asked me in and prepared a torta cubana for me as he told me of his latest adventures.

It turns our that our Gumby aka Gambi is getting on in years and is retired permanently from television. “It was Scooby Doo that started it” Gumby says, slicing a red onion. “the animation just kind of went downhill after that.” Green tears begin leaking down his green cheeks. “Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad I got out when I did” he says and then adds “it’s the onions”.

After seeing his program decline in the ratings department and having it reduced to occasional showings on retro channels like Nickelodeon, Gumby took a long hard look at his career and decided that he had had enough. He asked his friend what he tought of the idea of retirement. Pokey was being auditioning for a small, but pivotal part in a new Nick Park flick and so was not as pessimistic and tired as Gumby, and told him as much. It was then that Gumby came to a decision. He would take his earnings from years of being stretched thin on U.S. television and move to someplace relatively close but still far away enough to feel like he was in a different world altogether.

Gumby finishes piling pierna, ham and cheese on the open faced baguette and drops the other half of the bread on top. His one giant green finger group is slick with grease from the pierna. He smiles, that Gumby smile we all know and love. “The secret to a good torta, you see, is to heat it like this” he says as he crushes the torta under a heavy smoking hot metal sandwichera.

“So yeah, I came to the Yucatan and found it was a perfectly relaxed place, no politics, no worries. And I opened this torta restaurant.” He adds: “Business has grown to the point where I don’t even have to touch my royalty payments from Hollywood, although it isn’t all that much.”

However, At first, Gumby found the hot Yucatecan climate disagreed with his body and found it hard to adapt. “It was so hot when I first came here that I would find myself bent out of shape many times” he exclaims, rolling his eyes as he recalls those early days. But then, air conditioning became more and more common and soon Gumby was completely acclimatized.

I ask Gumby what he misses the most about the U.S., about television, about his years as a star. his eyes tear up again. This time I suspect it’s not the onions. “What I miss most is the camaderie Pokey and I had while filming all those programs. He never got that part with that English guy – they gave it to a dog instead and Pokey was heartbroken. I called him up and said, ‘come down here and get away from it all’ told him he could stay as long as he wanted. But he never did.”

Taking out my wallet to pay for the torta. Gumby waves it away. “Don’t worry about it”. I thank him and shake that funny hand of his.

Who would have dreamed that Gumby would end up in Merida? Amazing little town, this.

Merida is ‘da bomb’!

Life in the Yucatan

Looking throughout the internet for some mention of the events a day ago, I typed Merida, Yucatan and bomb. Nothing appeared except some real estate sites declaring in that fake enthusiastic way that real estate ads do, that Merida was “da bomb”.

In fact, there was a real bomb in Merida yesterday – or was it the day before? – two grenades were tossed into the local office of the Por Esto! newspaper here in Merida. Yes, Merida. Grenades. Sounds incredible, but it happened.

The narco violence that has been creeping steadily south for the last couple of years has reached Cancun; there have been at least 5 narco-related assasinations in the last few weeks. The governor of the state of Quintana Roo assures everyone that this is only narco-on-narco violence and that the general populace should not be alarmed. Yeah right. Unless you happen to be in the path of a stray bullet at the disco or in some supermarket or a hotel lobby.

Now that violence has finally reached Merida. The Por Esto! paper is a bold-headline newspaper that uses every opportunity to publish shocking and provoking reports that no other newspaper down here would touch. I have no idea if what they write is true or false; apparently they have pissed off someone with a violent streak and after a similar explosive incident at the Por Esto! offices in Cancun, it is Merida’s turn.

Used to be you would read about all the violence up north and be thankful that you were in the Yucatan, donde no pasa nada. Well, it’s time to reassess the situation.

The Presidential Informe

Life in the Yucatan, Politics

Yesterday, September 1st, the continuing saga of the Mexican presidency vs the irrational, irrascible and incorrigible PRD AMLO, well… continued. The president arrived at the legislative chamber known as San Lazaro to present his report to the nation (informe) but found it impossible to even get to where the microphones were, since the whole presidium or whatever you call the tribuna in English was blocked by PRD legislators. While the politicians on the floor sang the national anthem, the PRD guys just stood up there with their arms in the air like the simians they are, making V for Victory signs with their fingers. So Mr. Fox just handed in the report to the legislators and left.

The trampled and violated Mexican constitution states that the president has no obligation to actually read it; just hand it in. So that’s what was done.

It is a boring tradition anyway, where all the wonderful things that have happened in the last six years, the one-term mandate, are read by the president until his audience becomes glassy-eyed in boredom. The televised informes have been getting progressively louder and out of control, as legislators from the opposition parties have become increasingly vocal and irate. Especially the PRD. This time, they went so far as to not let the president speak at all.

Mr. Fox then went on national radio with a previously recorded speech, indicating that he knew that this was going to happen.

It was a non-event after all that speculation.

The country awaits, with baited breath, the grito, which should definitely be more interesting.

Days Before ‘El Grito’

Politics,

If you have lived in this country long enough, you will know that each September, the president stands on the balcony of the presidential palace and does the ‘el grito‘ ceremony, which is a solemn yet joyous act whereby the Mexican populace is reminded of their revolutionary roots by the President who shouts (thereby comes the term ‘el grito‘) things in a revolutionary manner from the aforementioned balcony.

I don’t want to get into whether I think this is a good idea or not, or even the actual text of what the President is supposed to gritar – it’s not my place to criticize the customs of a country still caught up in the revolution, complete with images and songs about cannons, horses and the like – in this particular diatribe.

No, here I am wondering how this time the event will prove to be most interesting since we will have two presidents! The deluded Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – most likely to lose the past presidential election – has declared that on the night in question he will have a huge meeting in the zócalo in Mexico City where he will singlehandedly, unilaterally (and, I would suggest, unanimously) declare himself President of Mexico. This is exciting because Mexico already has a president and his name is Fox. So there will be a face-off of sorts in the plaza that night; Lopez Obrador shouting to the country that he is the president and that the elections were a fraud, and Fox Quesada shouting “Viva Morelos, Viva Mexico” at the top of his lungs from the balcony.

Who will win the shouting match? It promises to be an interesting night.

These are interesting times we live in… keep your eyes and ears open.

Oaxaca and Mexico City / Mob Rule in Mexico

Politics, ,

I have lived in Mexico for some time now, and it is amazing to me how this country cannot move forward. Or maybe it is and I haven’t noticed; the times we are living in, are the baby steps (complete with leaky, shit-filled diapers) the country is taking in the direction of a true democracy.

Excuse me – I had to laugh while I wrote that last line.

The situation in Oaxaca, where a screaming militant mob disguised as a teachers union has taken over the city center until their demands to negotiate with the federal government are met, is completely over the top. They will not negotiate at the state level and would like the governor removed, thank you very much. Maybe they would enjoy a non-fat latté with that order? Anyone living in Oaxaca or wanting to visit the city are prevented from visiting the city center thanks to these hooligans who may or may not be justified in their demands. The fact is, they are affecting the interests of many many other people who have nothing to do with their protest. The owners of businesses in downtown Oaxaca are unable to open, since there is no one to open for, besides the protesters. This has been going on for over 80 days now. No one has done anything. The governor is either incompetent, impotent or an idiot. I suspect maybe all three.

Not to be outdone, in Mexico City, the thugs, goons and all those lazy shits who prefer protesting to actually getting a job have been hired by the second place presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lope Obrador (PRD) to blocking entire avenues in the nation’s capital. Hotels, restaurants and other businesses are suffering, as are all the people who have jobs in the area. No pedestrians or cars can enter the Reforma zone and the protest has spread to other areas as well, including banks and toll road booths leading in and out of the city. One of the largest cities in the world is becoming a parking lot, thanks to a few misguided militant mudslingers holding it’s 24 million inhabitants ransom.

My question is this: where in the hell are the laws in this country? Is there no law that says that blocking streets to effect a protest is illegal? In Mexico City there is one, put into place by a former mayor of Mexico City by the name of… get this: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. This guy, AMLO, is the Master of Cynicism. The current ‘elected’ mayor of the city is a Lopez Obrador crony (also PRD) who has refused to move the protesters since this would be considered ‘repression’. So much for the rule of law. It’s mob rule.

And the federal government has not intervened – not in Mexico City, not in Oaxaca – since that would make them seem ‘repressive’ and that the situations in both cases are state issues that have nothing to do with the federal government. I wonder if anyone in the federal government has any balls whatsoever or were they all castrated before moving into Los Pinos?

What a crock of shit. If a state governor cannot (or will not) act in favor of ALL the citizens of his or her jurisdiction, then there must be a mechanism by which a higher authority – in this case the federal government – steps in to restore order.

President Fox has tried to limit his interference in state and local issues, preferring to let the system deal with these as they arise. This is probably good in a democracy. But a democracy must have that mechanism mentioned in the previous paragraph. Can he just sit idly by as millions of dollars are lost each day and thousand remain unable to work or freely move about their cities? So he hides behind his position of ‘I don’t want to go down as a repressive Presidente‘. Well gues what Vicente? You are going down in history as the most useless, ineffectual and ‘most given to making idiotic declarations’ of all Presidentes. I mean, Zedillo was pretty lame. But your presidency takes the cake.

As you can tell by this rant, it pisses me off to no end that the Mexican politicians in power right now are so chicken-shit and unable to restore the rule of law. There is no law in Mexico right now. If you get enough people together, you can do whatever the hell you want. No one will interfere since they don’t want to appear ‘repressive’ and use that excuse to hide behind their cowardice.

Viva Mexico!

Presidential Candidate Proposals – More of the Wish List

Inspired, Life in the Yucatan, Politics

Madrazo – oh I’m sorry, it’s just ‘Roberto’ now – has one billboard that states “Fair Pensions: Madrazo Can Do It”.

How: there is no indication of how, nor where the money for those fair pensions will come from which could be a problem because ‘Roberto’ aka David Copperfield is also going to lower the price of gas, gasoline and electricity. Battered women and domestic violence? Violence and crime in general? Roberto ‘El Mago Korbel’ has this all under control. Don’t you worry about a thing.

All these vacuous proposals say so little and leave one wondering how in the world these catchy slogans are going to translate into actual actions.

I have a few more proposals I would like to see a presidential candidate make.

Unions

The bloated, corrupt and self serving labor unions have served their purpose, since the days of the slave-like haciendas are over and the world is growing smaller and becoming one homogenous mass of humanity. I would like to see a candidate challenge the notion that some of these union benefits are still viable in 2006 and beyond.

For example, take the union that ‘represents’ the workers of the Comision Federal de Electricidad. Their one outstanding benefit that is a slap in the face to all the other folks who work to pay their bills, is the one that states that all CFE employees get free electricity. Free electricity! The one biggest bill that a homeowner can have is the electricity bill. But all the CFE employees do not have to contend with this one! Cool huh? Cool is right, because all the CFE employee houses have multiple air conditioners on, 24/7. This is so ridiculous that if it wasn’t true it would be laughable. How can a company be profitable and efficient with this kind of overhead. Sorry, but this benefit must go.

Goodbye aguinaldo

Another fine example is the aguinaldo. I have written on these subjects before, but hey, maybe someone with a whole lot of ‘huevos’ will take the initiative. At the end of each year, Mexico’s ancient 15th century labor laws state that employees must receive an additional 15-day paycheck called an aguinaldo. Some companies, and governments in particular, have extended this questionable ‘benefit’ to 1 month or more. How in the world can wages ever be increased if at the end of the year, the employer – the evil ‘patron’ – must shell out additional paychecks. Would it not be more beneficial to increase wages year-round and have people live better year-round?

Hourly Wages

And while I am on the subject of wages, why do employers have to pay a 48 hour work week and the 7th day (of no work) as well? In other words, a 56 hour work week? Another reflection on the ridiculously ancient labor laws in effect in this crazy country.

It is time to get those wage laws into the 21st century and I would love to hear some presidential candidate say that his proposal was to move to an hourly salary for employees. An hourly salary based on productivity and flexible enough to accomodate students, part-timers, working Moms and the employers themselves.

Hopefully a presidential candidate, if not for this election, a future one, is reading this…

Presidential Candidate Proposals – A Wish List

Inspired, Life in the Yucatan, Politics

Tired of all the same bullshit lines from all the tired old faces in Mexican politics? I sure know I am. “Passion for Mexico” says Calderon. “Roberto Si Puede” says Madrazo. “I am not debating” says López Obrador. It’s all the same tired BOshit (Chris Rock pronunciation) as always.

Here are some original ideas that would sway my vote (if I could vote, which I can’t ‘cuz I am a foreigner). These are concrete ideas that would make a difference to many people and help Mexico out of it’s paternalistic 15th century mindset, and not be so much more BOshit.

1. Do away with some taxes. Any tax. Here’s one idea – I humbly suggest eliminating the onerous tenencia tax. Tax for having a car. Would that the money be used for a purpose even remotely green in nature. I don’t see it. This dumb-ass tax is like the income tax up north in that it started as a one-time thing. A ‘temporary measure’ to raise money for some Olympics. Well the ‘temporary’ has become permanent and the politicians must be licking their chops every year when the stupid populace says ‘ni modo‘ and pays up.

2. This one is even better. The ’employment tax’. Here is the Mexican government – at all levels – bitching and moaning about employment, we need more employment, we need jobs, job creation, the private sector has a responsability to provide jobs etc. etc. We need foreign investors to come here and open factories and sweat shops and and and. Bla bla bla.

Then, when the jobs are created, the factories opened, the investor naively believing the fairy tales coming from the mouths of Mexican politicians, you get slapped with an employment tax.

Forgive my ignorance, but I don’t know what the rate is in other states of the Mexican Republic, but in the Yucatan it is 2% of your payroll. In short, you the employer, are being punished for creating more jobs. Thank you for investing here and providing those jobs…. now pay me. Like the ‘tenencia’ tax, if this employment tax was put to provably good use, well great. But I don’t see it. I don’t think anyone else does either.

3. The last proposal for the presidential candidates for this particular emission also regards vehicles. The North American Free Trade Agreement opened the border up to imports of personal vehicles. For the first few years of this agreement, the vehicles had to be pickup trucks and OVER 10 YEARS OLD! To help the poor farmers you see. I still don’t see any campesinos driving pickup trucks but there sure are a lot of them. So we now have all the old vehicles that in the US are no longer of any use. This policy, a true third world idea, promotes the use of inefficient vehicles and technology which help to destroy the Mexican environment. the message to the world is ‘Poor us, we can only afford your first world shitty cast-offs.’ Why don’t they do this with clothing too? We could all dress in hand me down clothing from the richer nations!

The proposal is this: eliminate the vehicle tenencia tax on any new car featuring non-fossil fuel technology. That is, promote the import and purchase of vehicles that are environment-friendly thereby placing Mexico in the forefront of environmental conservation technology.

I have a few more proposals that I will throw out there in upcoming writings. Perhaps they will make sense to one or more candidates.