| | |  Editorials | Opinions | December 2008 
A Short Visit to Mexico
 Forrest Johnson Lake - County News Chronicle
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 |  | Most of the world practices one form or another of la mordida. The Scandinavian countries are not very good at it, the United States is best at hiding it, the Middle East has made an art of it, and Mexico is famous for it. |  | | |
A short visit to Mexico, a short reprieve from snow and below zero weather.
A short visit with another culture that is striving in its own way to live the way we Americans do. As I've said before, I'm not so sure that's the best thing for the Mexicans, just as it might not be the best thing for us.
I have written before of the wonderful nature of the Mexican people, a people so tolerant of the gringo invasion on their lands. I can only imagine what we might think if another people arrived with their money to demand services far beyond what our own people might request. Or be able to afford.
A quick walk through the bustling waterfront and neighborhoods is a kaleidoscope of movement. Street vendors push their way along cobbled streets. Beggar women and small children sit along the sidewalks. Condo salesmen bark at likely tourists. Laborers dig channels by hand for underground electric lines. A mariachi band heads toward a nearby restaurant to play for pesos offered by diners. Street dogs wander by. Men who roll cigars for a living sit in the window of a tobacco shop. A shoemaker measures the foot of a vaquero, a cowboy, intending to make a pair of sandals. There are fewer horses and burros in the city than just a few years before, but they are still a part of the landscape and are allowed parking spots like any other vehicle.
There is a vibrant nature to the city, the honking cars, the whistles and shouts of vendors, the fruit and vegetable stands.
But with that carefree nature comes another side. While shopkeepers and city workers sweep dust from the storefronts and streets, while smartly dressed residents hustle about, there is ample evidence that most folks just don't pay much attention to the trash and garbage that is present nearly everywhere. It appears most folks are just as apt to drop their beverage container on the sidewalk as they are to deposit it in a rare trash can.
That lack of concern is also evident in the way new buildings emerge from hillsides, perched nearly anywhere a concrete piling can be poured, any tree can be cleared. Ravines are filled with tires and broken adobe. Trees are dropped to clear lots. Small shacks emerge to house the workers who fill the day with their labor, the sifting of sand, the pounding of concrete and the cutting of brick, the laying of roof tiles.
Building permits are a rarity, and buildings arise to block the view of an existing neighborhood and no one seems to care.
In many ways, an emerging neighborhood seems a disaster waiting to happen as they crowd in on each other in a land that sees earthquakes and hurricanes and financial scams that leave developments half-built for what seem to be decades.
"More done than last year" is a term I've used in the past when I return to see the neighborhood streets still torn up and trees removed and empty lots filled with tin shacks of squatters that at one time drew pay from the people who had the big dreams and the temporary money.
There are a few advocates of fair labor and environmental stewardship but they seem a century apart from what is still happening to the landscape as people work to survive and keep their families fed. Education seems a privilege few can afford.
On the news, another drug cartel killing has removed another police chief.
News of an allegedly corrupt governor in Illinois draws no interest.
My dad reads a book about the Mexican and its long, often troubled history. In The Life and Times of Mexico, written by Earl Shorris, he says corruption on the day to day level is known as la mordida - the bite.
"Mexico is not alone in this: most of the world practices one form or another of la mordida. The Scandinavian countries are not very good at it, the United States is best at hiding it, the Middle East has made an art of it, and Mexico is famous for it." |
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