An innocuous Sunday outing for breakfast and an encounter with the chica in the red Mini Cooper had my neurotically creative juices flowing. And while my dear wife laughed at my snarky commentary, I reminded her that this is what I do; observe the human condition.

We pull into the Tulum/Holbox-inspired breakfast restaurant in Temozon Norte named “freedom” in Spanish and are impressed and supremely surprised that there are no bleary-eyed people sitting in the little plastic detention-style chairs by the road, waiting to be summoned inside for their huevos and waffles. Usually, there is a wait of at least 30 minutes. Our progress through the parking lot is halted by a young whitexican (thanks Alex) of the female sort maneuvering a shiny red Mini Cooper, with not much success, into the space right by the front door, because evidently walking will require far too much effort. There are plenty of spaces under the trees a scant 25 meters away, but no, she has to put on a demonstration of her driving skills in front of us and the entire restaurant. After several attempts including the tires jumping over a raised sidewalk, she manages to back the shiny thing into where she wants it to minimize those exhausting steps from car to restaurant front door.

This becomes even more ironic when she steps out and we can appreciate her purple spandex gym outfit painted over her lithe form. Obviously she has just come from a gym or some sort of exercise event and is so drained that now she just does not have the energy to negotiate those extra steps to breakfast.

Once we are seated and enjoying a great cup of strong coffee I observe at the next table a young couple with a small child in a high chair. The child is glued to a cartoon on the iPad while the parents enjoy their breakfast. Every once in a while, the child’s eyes never leaving the screen, it opens its mouth – robot-like – and mom shovels something into it. I begin to wonder, like the old person I am, what the hell is wrong with people today that they are raising little video-addicted automatons who will have no clue about how to behave in a restaurant when they grow older.

After watching the couple that arrived after us get their breakfast, my food finally arrives but my dear wife’s doesn’t. I stare at my “chilaquiles gourmet”, thinking about the totopos getting soggy for a while, then get up to ask the guy who appears to be the manager about the other breakfast as I, well, don’t want to eat alone. He apologizes and indicates that it is coming, and soon enough my dear wife has her huevos benedictinos and we happily eat. The food is very good and the portions are huge.

The young couple at the next table finishes and gets up, wishing us “buen provecho” and their act of civil courtesy makes me regret having judged their parenting skills and also realize that I have officially become the grumpy old man. Oh well.

Onwards and upwards.

I’m in line at my local Scotiabank, waiting and watching. At the cashier, a gringo is telling the cashier – in English – that there had been a mistake when he paid his fees for his wife’s residency permit (immigration) and that he needed to correct the name on the receipt as it didn’t match the name on the passport and therefore, the folks at immigration did not allow it .

The cashier listens patiently and informs the gringo in broken English that she would call a manager. The manager comes and explains – in English – that they are unable to change the receipt information,

The gringo nods.

“No es problema” he manages to say, and with a garbled “solo es dinero” and “es my fault, mi problema, ok ok ” reaches into his pocket to fork over another wad of bills to pay the immigration fee a second time, in order to get the receipt with his wife’s name spelled correctly and complete.

This exchange got me thinking about how a Mexican who shows up at a bank in the US or Canada would be received under similar circumstances, speaking no English, only Spanish.

I’m not talking about dealing with a latino bank employee – of which there are many in Texas and Florida – although those can often be the biggest assholes. No, I have in mind the sense of entitlement that enables one to walk into a bank in a foreign country and without speaking the language, simply expect people to help you or speak in your language to help you. Would a Mexican even attempt this? I doubt it. Never in a thousand years would the executive from Las Lomas de Chapultepec or the bracero from Oxcutzcab even consider just throwing out the Spanish and expect to be understood, let alone be served. Even the most entitled, rich and aloof white Mexican would speak English.

Español? The cashiers would just stare at him like he is completamente loco.

“I’m sorry sir we don’t speak Spanish” they would say to the Mexican, the ones with Ramirez or Rodriguez on their name tag adding a barely perceptible smirk to the statement.

Why doesn’t the cashier here say “Perdón señor, no hablamos inglés” to the gringo?

Is it the desire to serve? Are Mexicans so much more service-oriented than gringos? Is it an inherent (and erroneous) understanding of the gringos assumed superior social position?

Whatever the reason; if this intrigues you like it did me today and you’re a gringo or gringa, take a moment to observe your privilege and fully appreciate the friendly reception Mexicans provide for recently arrived norteamericanos as compared to the reception the mexicanos get up north.

“Sleeping is hard”
the old gringo suggested
at a meeting of townsfolk
the salón quite congested

Many residents turned out
to see what could be done
for the noise levels of late
too high had become

Others nodded that they,
too, had difficulties sleeping
for the bars down the street
towards them now were creeping

Merida’s yuppies, you see
from their north city perch
were “discovering” centro;
and drunkenly they’d lurch

from cantinas to bars
and from bars to cantinas
they puked on front doors,
cackling, like in-heat hyenas

They peed on parked cars,
and on trees newly planted,
in flower pots, on gates;
they sang and they chanted

The gringos of course,
with restored antique homes,
were sick of the partying,
the watts, volts and ohms

The loud music you see,
was the worst part of all,
booming into the night,
it would shake every wall

“El derecho ajeno…”
tired expats would quote
Benito Juarez’s speech
they all knew now by rote

A conflict was brewing
with resentment in the air
both sides were quite angry
and tempers would flare

The partyers were offended
and angrily cried
“We’re reviving our customs;
our city hasn’t died!”

They continued like this
the spoiled yuppies would foam
“If the gringos don’t like it,
they should pack up and go home!”

Some went a bit further,
xenophobic and furious
“stupid gringos should have known,
and bought land in some curious

hacienda or village
far away from the city
no bars or cantinas, and
an existence less gritty.

What they didn’t realize
kids privileged and bored
was that the gringos had come
and their downtown restored

It was they with their love,
with their patience; their money
who fixed up El Centro
and wasn’t it funny

that now Merida’s centro
had recovered its charm,
new restaurants and bars
all started to swarm

and what once were just houses
on quiet residential streets
became targets for investors
to increase their receipts

So now here we stand
at an impasse, it seems
while the conflict continues,
El Diario prints reams

about musicians and artists;
this regulation, that norm;
about sleep-deprived gringos;
and an imminent storm.

Tales from the World of Tourism

We are returning from a very early morning visit to Celestun and are taking the back road to Merida, via the haciendas and Maxcanú. One of our stops is at the village of Kochol where the ruins of a once majestic sisal plantation slowly disintegrate.

My travel companions/guests wander over to the ruined hacienda building for a photo or two. Looking around, I see someone in a red baseball cap on the ground nearby.

“¿Que está haciendo?” I ask what turns out to be an ancient campesino sitting on the ground, determinedly scraping the dirt.

“Estoy sembrando, mira.” He waves his arm out around him, looking up, squinting, at me. “Ahi tengo mais, frijol, calabaza.”

His ‘milpa‘ is a patch of dirt behind the village public school and on the grounds of the crumbling former sisal hacienda, a short distance away. I don’t see corn, beans, or squash, but I realize that in his mind he is back in his fields, doing what he and the Mayans have done for hundreds of years.

I look over to see that the village drunk has stumbled over to socialize with the selfie-taking pair by the broken steps of what used to be the hacienda’s ‘casa principal‘. Another individual on a motorcycle shows up as well. My travel companions/guests are two women, Americans. Always a target for would-be Lotharios.

Time to get back to work.

Hacienda Kochol – February 2020

We’re in the middle of our hurricane season and so far we’ve seen Cristobal, Gamma and Delta work their way across or along the coasts of the peninsula leaving behind not so much damage in the way of wind, but plenty of concerns over an excess of water.

What Happened

The water table in the city of Merida sits at about 8 meters below ground level. After the heavy rains dumped on the peninsula by tropical storm Cristobal in June, not a historically rainy month, the ground became saturated and the water table began to rise as underground currents pushed the water towards the coastlines (Progreso, Campeche, Cancun) and there, the unusually large volume of water, finding normal resistance from the sea, was pushed back. However, there was nowhere to go but up. And so the water table continued to rise.

Tropical storm Gamma, that moved across the peninsula, dropping massive amounts of water as it went, hit the coast near Progreso and then turned back, dropping down onto land again and making its way slowly towards the city of Campeche.

Finally, hurricane Delta hit the coast of Quintana Roo and moved across the peninsula in a northwesterly direction. It did not directly impact the city of Merida but the rains accompanying the storm impacted further the already waterlogged state.

The water had nowhere to go and so, it broke the surface.

The Results

Flooding has been rampant. The newer neighborhoods of Las Americas and Caucel seemed especially hard hit. Entire streets were converted into lakes and rivers. Homeowners, desperate to see the water disappear, took the unfortunate and ill-advised step of removing the grates from the drains, thereby exposing the wells to garbage, leaves and more. The wells were, in fact, not absorbing water; rather, they were acting as springs, spewing up groundwater into the streets around them.

The city’s only underpass, a constant source of amusement for citizens who love to criticize and often the victim of the Yucatecans acerbic wit, was flooded once again. Below-ground parking lots at the La Isla and Harbour shopping malls, as well as Chedraui, were flooded to the roof. There are spooky videos online of divers in the underground/water parking lot of Harbour.

The only Costco in the world with a cenote, now had a cenote with water you could almost reach out and touch.

In our neighborhood in the northern part of Merida, we have seen severe flooding that hasn’t – as of this writing, 3 days after Delta’s tail passed through – yet receded. Many people all over the city are up in arms, complaining on social media about poor planning, the lack of drainage wells, the criminally negligent architects and engineers, and of course, the incompetence and useless efforts of the hated politicians, both city and state.

Pumping – A Possible Solution?

Calls for more pipas (tanker trucks with pumps that will remove water) are a popular theme. City and state officials are happy to comply although they probably are aware that this is a short-term, mostly cosmetic solution. These are not puddles or pools of water that can simply be emptied. This water is the water table for the entire peninsula that has risen to historic levels, breaking the surface in many areas that are low enough to be impacted. Any attempts to suck it up and take it somewhere else (where, exactly, is a mystery) are doomed to failure as it will simply seep up again.

The only real solution is to wait. This is less than comforting if your living room has a couple of inches or more of water or you have lost your furniture due to flooding, but there really is nothing that can be done. The water under our feet must move to the ocean and the water table must drop, in order for the surface water to disappear. It behooves us all to pray/wish/manifest that there be no more rain as that would prolong this slow process.

The Mexican Solution is Humor

The best part of any tragedy or ostensibly negative situation is the Mexican acute sense of fatalistic humor. It never ceases to amaze me the creativity of people coming up with these ideas and how quickly they make their way into everyone’s Facebook, Instagram and other social media accounts.