More rambling about Mexican Immigration

Pictured above, our xmas nativity.

I made it through Veracruz, passed a few pleasant days in Oaxaca, and headed back to Guadalajara.

Sadly, going back to Guadalajara meant going back to the immigration office. Of course my paperwork had been rejected once again (for mysterious reasons), and now I would have to pay a huge fee for a special letter allowing me to leave the country for Christmas. This time I got an "audience" with some big boss to protest the situation. Typical of Mexico, behind the supposed web of intricate bureaucracy and complex rules there is a swaggering patrón who decides everything according to his capricious moods. The "audencia" happens right in the packed waiting room of the lobby. El Patrón calls out names one by one, and you have to push forward and make your case before he loses interest or someone else grabs his attention. Unfortunately, I hesitated a bit after he barked out "¡Dígame!" (tell me!). That, combined with my accent, was too much. He cut me off before I got a whole sentence out and told me to write my NUT number on a scrap of paper so he could research my case file. Then I had to wait another two hours before talking to him again. There are worse fates though. Another guy (who was a native Spanish speaker) failed to respond after his name was called 3 times. When he finally did answer, El Patrón contemptuously crumpled up his slip of paper in front of him and skipped to the next person.

This was the last day before the offices closed for Christmas. If my papers weren't in order, I wouldn't be able to get back into the country. In the end, Jenny who works at the American School, had to talk to someone to talk to someone so that an expert with inside connections could come to my rescue. Having spent from 8:30 am to 4:30 PM, I was the very last person there, but I finally got my damn work visa extended for another year. Since I'm not staying that long, this means I should never, never have to go back there again...(knock on wood).

Now I am back in the land of War on Christmas for a few weeks to relax, drink non-poisonous water straight out of the tap, be cold, and other such yuletide traditions.

Helicopter blades correctly installed and vehicle is ready for takeoff.

I love museums in general, but they can´t all be winners. When I was a kid I was very attached to a "Pirates & Buccaneers" coloring book, which I think is what led me to think going to the Veracruz Naval Museum would be a good idea. After all, a venerable museum in this historic port should be filled with Spanish cannons, old maps, cutlasses, blunderbusses, pirate flags, and so on. Unfortunately, this tourist attraction would be more aptly named "The Veracruz Museum of Falling Apart Dioramas and Blurry Photocopies."

The building is a former naval academy and it is staffed by uniformed women of the Mexican Navy. They operate it as they would any other military bureaucracy, with a curious attention to the minutia of regulations. The attendant watched like a hawk as I filled in each blank of the guest registry, and shook her head "no" when I left one space empty. I didn't understand what the question was asking, so I just wrote my name again. Next, she marched me to the big board to explain the layout of the museum, which rooms I was to visit in what order, and a brief recap of their contents. In some Mexican museums the guards get freaked out if you don´t go through the exhibition halls in the prescribed order. This was definately one of those museums. Naval officers patrolled the halls to shepherd visitors to the rooms they were supposed to go to next. Often they would make curious announcements such as "When this building was a naval academy, the chemistry classroom was here."

The actual contents of the museum were quite dismal. Probably 1 in 30 displays contained an original artifact. Many of them didn't actually say "reproduction", but they clearly were. For example the statue of the Aztec flower god that A) Is actually in The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City B) HAS NOTHING TO DO WHATSOEVER WITH NAVAL HISTORY. Other highlights included photocopies of portraits of Cortes, photocopies of letters to and from the King of Spain, and photocopies of maps. There were, humorously, pirated pirate flags though--the museum staff had clearly made them with black cloth and house paint.

The oddest gallery in the museum may have been the "modern navy" section. The hall used photographs of training exercises and dioramas to try to construct a kind of GI Joe fantasy world where the Mexican Navy was storming beachheads, launching succesful amphibious assaults, and exploring underwater sea caves with spear guns.

The single most interesting thing in the museum was a stained glass window on the staircase that some cadets were covering over with plywood. Probably they wanted to put a giant color photocopy on top of it.

As dull and miserable as the museum was, I felt some anxiety about leaving because I knew that the attendant would force me to write a comment in the guestbook. Sure enough, when I tried to walk past and ask for my bag back, she looked down at the registry, back up at me, and issued a crisp "Sus comentarios, POR FAVOR." I considered "bien lleno de fotocopias" or "este no es un museo," but I couldn´t with her eyes bearing down on me. I knew I had to write something postive and my contempt would have to lie hidden in the brevity of my praise, so I settled on "bueno." It was a little pathetic, this is what Mexicans say when they answer the phone. She was not satisfied; previous guests had composed whole paragraphs of praiseful commentary. Finally I added "gracias," which was enough to coax her into handing my bag back, if grudgingly.

Yet more things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology continued part 2: toys

Strangely enough, in ancient Mexico they had invented the wheel, but they only used it for making toys.

Yet more things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology continued: Cosmetic dentistry

Yet more things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology--decapitated ball player

Instead of blood, 7 serpents sprout from where his head was removed. Seven serpent was also the name of the god of ripe corn. The harvest of corn was symbollicaly like beheading; the former to feed humans, the latter to feed the gods.

Zempoala

Continuing my wander through Veracruz, I stopped at these Totonaco ruins. They´re especially notable for being the first city the Spanish encountered in the Americas and a stepping stone in the conquest of Mexico. When Spanish scouts reported a city built of pure silver in the distance, Cortes and his men set out immediately, but it turned out only to be the polished white stucco gleaming in the sun. Still, Zempoala was a pretty advanced city with temples, defensive walls, systems of drainage and irrigation. King Chicomacotl (who was not exactly chico, he was too heavy to walk) recieved Cortes with lavish gifts, and the two formed an alliance against the Aztecs. One informational plaque noted that Chicomacotl personally offered Cortes 7 ladies, including his own neice. But I´m sure that being such a devout Christian gentleman, Cortes must have responded by lecturing him about sex outside of marriage, ha ha.

In the photo above, I was standing in the middle of a ceremonial gladiator ring. The crenallations atop the low stone wall would have been hidden under elaborate leaf-shaped stucco ornamentation. Warriors captured in the flower wars were brought here to fight to the death. The "home team" so to speak, got to use macuahuitles (wooden swords mounted with razor sharp obsidian blades). The captured warrior weilded a similar instrument, only instead of razor sharp blades, his weopan was studded with feathers. If he somehow managed to defeat his enemy anyway, he had to immediately fight a second warrior. If he won again, he was set free and given all kinds of gifts. This almost never happened though.

In the background is the most important building of the city, the Templo Mayor. It was the site of various shennanigans by Cortes. Here he ordered the idols smashed and a Christian mass to be given to the puzzled Totonacos. Later it was the location of a battle between Cortes and Panfilo de Narvaez, who the governor of Cuba had sent to stop him pillaging and raping strange lands against orders. When Panfilo´s eye was put out, he was obliged to surrender, and suddenly Cortes had even more men under his control.

Despite its historical importance, this was a very laid back place to visit, practically deserted. There were only four other visitors, two of which were teenagers from the town making out behind the temple of the wind god. Only a chain link fence divides the most important buildings from the town. There is another pyramid in a vacant lot beside some store, and even more out in the sugar cane fields. I asked one of the guards about them, and he said that if you give them notice they will take you on a tour, but going alone "no es recomendable." Apparantely the farmers get freaked out by unaccompanied tourists, and its best not to upset a man with a machete in hand.

Mexico's saddest Olmec head

O how the mighty have fallen! Once commoners were forbidden to meet his eyes. Once his name was whispered with awe. How many comely wives kept his mug filled with pulque? How many slaves attended him?

Was he a mighty prince? A high priestof the jaguar cult? The greatest athlete of his generation, who triumphed in the ballcourt to the adulation of thousands?

Now he holds court in the Xalapa bus station, wedged between lost luggage and a kiosk selling useless knick knaks. Continually tormented by the odor of the pay toilets on the 2nd floor, he bides his time eternally gazing out at the taxis whizzing past outside.

Wonderful things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology part 4: Yay, you're dead!

These inanely smiling ceramic heads are thought to somehow be associated with death, as they're frequently found in graves.

Wonderful things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology part 3: a reconstructed pyramid

They dug up a pyramid "Las Higueras" with original frescoes depicting mythological scenes, ceremonies and ball games. In ancient Mesoamerica it was thought that there was a chance the world might end once every 52 years. So whenever it did not, they would add a new level onto their pyramids to make them more grandiose. The result is that the layers of murals show 3 centuries of changing beliefs and artistic styles.

Wonderful things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology part 2: were jaguars

Wonderful things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology part 1: Colossal Olmec Heads

Note that it is likely not that distorted, they were really into head shaping.

On the road

I´ve left Guadalajara and I´m travelling a bit with my extra time. Yesterday I took a bus to Mexico City, and then made a random decision to go to Papantla, Veracruz (being the next bus leaving that looked interesting). The big thing to see there are the ruins of El Tajin. I hadn´t yet visited any ruins of the Gulf Coast cultures. On a whim I hired a guide, which I almost never do. You always have to take what they say with a bit of salt, but he was pretty good. He was a Totonaco, a civilization native to Veracruz that way back in the day was suffering under Aztec opression when Cortez came along with a deal to make everything better...He grew up sort of around the ruins, only when he was a kid it was just hilly farmland--the pyramids were still buried underneath.

Because El Tajin had been abandoned so long, they escaped both the Spanish military/religious zeal, as well as the clumsiness of early archeaologists who have tended to reconstruct Mexico´s ancient cities haphazardly. There are some pretty well preserved reliefs along the ballcourts and even sections of original paint on some pyramids. The one pictured was bright red and blue at one time. A lot of the pyramids have shallow niches built into them, which is apparantely unique to this site, and no one is 100% sure what they were for. This Pyramid has (well, had) 365 niches, giving it some kind of calendar function. Also, a lot of the buildings also have ¨greco¨ zig zag patterns that are typical of the Zapotecs, showing an interchange of ideas with Oaxaca. You can see them in this picture on either side of the central staircase.

It´s interesting--for a national INAH site--that Totonacos live kind of in and around unexcavated sections of the ruins. I could see people´s plots of corn in the surrounding hills (well, probably pyramids underneath). Also a short commute if your job is selling knick knacks to tourists. There is a statue of Tajin (aka the rain god Tlaloc) on one of the pyramids, which according to the guide is still focal point of ritual activity. I realize that this completely sounds like the kind of thing that is made up for gullible tourists, but from the strange offhand way he was talking about it I actually think it might be true.

All of this has been, by the way, just to register that there is no change whatsoever in my employment status.

Another day, another damnable trip to the immigration office. Yesterday I arrived 40 minutes before the office opened, and there were 27 people ahead of me. (Luckily only about half of them were there to go to the pick up documents window though). So I only had to wait about an hour and a half before getting the bad news: I'd put an extra "2" in my passport number on ONE of the official documents, meaning the whole application had been rejected and I would have to start over from scratch. (Actually I hadn't done this. The woman I paid to do it correctly for me had).

My classes are finished, so luckily (?) I had the whole day to re-gather, re-fill out, re-photocopy, and re-submit everything. Oddly enough, the woman once again typed up my letter with the exact same mistake, but this time I caught it. Perhaps I'm back so frequently that she just has the thing on file, who knows. I had some more lovely photos taken. This one is extra because the immigration office demands six, while the photographer across the street has a special camera that only takes groups of four pictures. I always wonder whether things like this are just part of the day-to-day randomness of Mexicoor intricate plots to squeeze a few more pesos out of gringos. Then it was back to the immigration office to wait in the line to drop off documents, which I was miraculously able to do in the same day. Everything appeared to go fine except for a brief episode where I had to convince the lady at the window that I was not in fact "Eva Evalin" from the Russian Federation, despite having grown up in Moscow, Idaho.

Return to the Dark Tower

Yesterday I arrived at the immigration office early before it opened and got a relatively good spot in line-#30. I also bit my tongue and let the Lake Chapala Society members stand in the wrong queue (see my earlier post on the immigration offices for why I would stoop to such knavery). I have actually been back to INM a number of times since that visit. Each wretched occasion has involved a long boring conversation with the retired followed by a personal meltdown. I now know each INM official on either side of the hall as well as the security guards, and I hold a personal grudge against each of them.

My goal for yesterday was not to lose my shit. It was going pretty well: I had a book to read and some Louis Armstrong cued on my MP3 player. It's a little harder to be angry at the world when listening to Louis Armstrong. But then, as the time dragged on, I became nervous about making it to my 1 pm class (factoring in the commute). It was the day of the final exam, so it would be a pretty big deal to show up late or miss it. Finally, the number on the counter changed to 28. Clutching my ficha #30, I went to hover by the windows lest they skip past me. Then, I waited and waited. And waited. At a certain point I realized that no one was being helped at any of the windows. It was about that time that a terrible rumor began to circulate throughout the waiting area: "se cae el sistema." Indeed, about 10 minutes later a smiling man came out to tell everyone in the front row where I was seated that the system had crashed. We were welcome to wait as long as we liked, but there was no telling when Mexico City would resolve the problem. I calmly got up and left without doing a Basil Fawlty impression. Mission accomplished.

Camino Guanajuato Part 2: They've got the guns, but we've got the numbers

So in the last post I mentioned that the city of Guanajuato is a cool place, even if the expo was eye-gouge-outingly dumb. Guanajuato itself is one of my favorite Mexican cities though, and has some really interesting history. Of course, interesting history is the kind you wouldn't want to live through personally...

This picture is of the Alhóndiga de Granitas (public granary), site of a bloody siege where Mexican soldiers first turned against the Spanish Crown. The richest families of Guanajuato had barricaded themselves inside with all their extravagant loot, servants, and slaves, protected by several hundred Spanish soldiers. Outside, tens of thousands of indigenous slaves had broken out of the mines. (These workers were typically kept underground for the entirety of their short lives, naked and packed as tightly as cattle). They threw themselves at the bulwarks armed with little more than sticks and stones, dying by the hundreds every time the Spanish riflemen fired or poured mercury over the sides of the building. When actual soldiers came to the aid of the mob, they organized themselves a little better, and the tide of the battle began to turn--whenever the Spanish ducked out a window to fire they would be greeted by a hail of bullets and stones. You can still see the pockmarks all over the wall.

The Spanish launched a desperate calvary charge, and killed several hundred more before being drug off their horses and beaten to death. Then the Mexicans sent a miner nicknamed El Pípila to set fire to the heavy wooden doors, protected by a stone slab that he carried on his back. When the angry slaves finally broke in, they slaughtered every man, woman, and child inside. (Including, sadly, the helpless slaves of the Spanish nobility).

The Spanish, never to be outdone in the arts of cruelty, came up with an equally bloodthirsty scheme once they retook the city. Obviously some of the townspeople were complicit in the rebellion, but which ones? Since there was no real way to tell, they revived the ancient Roman punishment of decimation. (They held a lottery where the winners were rewarded with a trip to heaven).

Father Hidalgo, the leader of the movement, was eventually betrayed and captured--sadly a common theme among Mexico's national heroes. He was shot in a firing squad. According to one legend, no one could be found to decapitate his corpse, so they found some really drunk guy to chop off the head, who then committed suicide the next morning when he realized what he'd done. Father Hidalgo's head was then hung in an iron cage from the corner of the granary in the photo. It stayed there for the last decade of Spanish rule to teach the Mexicans a lesson about not yearning for freedom. Luckily, it didn't work.

Camino Guanajuato

We went to Guanajuato over the long weekend, which is a pretty cool city. And then for some reason we went to the "Guanajuato Expo" a few miles outside of town. Man, was it dull. The highlight was this bizarre electric scooter course, where Mexicans were lining up to wind their way around this loop at a painfully slow pace. I have no idea what the point was, but I can only imagine that since Mexico has surpassed the US as the most obese country in the world, they are trying to prepare their youth for a time when they will be too heavy to walk.

Movie review: Los herederos

The Museo de Arte de Zapopan has a weekly series of free movies, so Jenny and I have been going to practice our Spanish and take in a bit of high culture (not easy to do since Guadalajara is basically an overgrown village with some factories and urban sprawl tossed in). Last night we saw Los herederos (The Heirs), a film about child laborers in Mexico. It's a Frederick Wiseman-like documentary, with no narration at all. For the most part the camera just follows children as they make bricks, carry water, pick green beans, weave, make tortillas, and so on.

As the title ironically implies, they are the victims of generational poverty. The children depicted were all working in the countryside, but in different situations and areas of Mexico. On one hand, it was engrossing to watch kids who could do pretty intense work at an early age. How many 7 years olds do you know that can hitch up a mule? Or use jungle vines to tie fast a heavy bundle of firewood? Or use a machete? Many of the rich 18-20 year olds I teach probably couldn't even make a cup of coffee. In this sense there is something admirable about everyone from the 4 year old son to the 90 year old grandmother working together without complaint. Watching them follow a path through a cornfield to fetch water and plant seeds and feed the turkeys (a bird first domesticated by the ancient mesoamericans), you realize all of their ancestors did the same thing stretching back literally thousands of years.

The thing I enjoy about this style of documentary with no narration is that it invites you to daydream as you watch. I started to wonder if in all societies it has been normal for children to work just like everyone else at some point in history, and to imagine myself in the same situation.

Well, there is child labor and there is child labor. Other children in the film worked with their families picking produce on giant industrial farms. Both Jenny and I came to the same conclusion, that it seemed little better than slavery. The families were herded in and out of semi-trailers to do the same repetitive thing all day in the hot sun. It's outside, but its basically a factory from the 1800's. The thing that seems so horrible about children doing this kind of work is that they're not learning anything. They're being used as farm animals at a time when they should be playing, learning, growing, etc. Maybe the little girl helping her mother weave should be in school instead, but at least she's like an apprentice. Picking cucumbers all day on someone else's land there is nothing to learn, not much to be proud of, no way of improving yourself. And I'm sure they're paid so little that even with the whole family working they can't save a penny. Who owns this farm? How did they acquire it? The film doesn't tell us, but the history of Mexico is filled with examples of people forced to work for next to nothing on land they used to own before some culero took it away from them. I think if folks really wanted to stop illegal immigration, they would have to stop paying attention to America's toughest sheriff and start looking for solutions on this farm.

Here is a link to the trailer. There isn't much dialogue, so the language isn't important.

language struggles

Well, my Spanish may not be improving that much right now, but my English is certainly getting worse. I hear some incorrectly used words repeated so often by language students that they are beginning to sound normal to me. Consider:

"I'm going to put you a quiz on Friday."

"You have a lot of absences, so you'd better start working on your assistance for this class."

"I arrived to Guadalajara 3 years ago."

Santisima Muerte

Last Sunday I picked up these two framed Santa Muerte (Saint Death) posters at a flea market. Oddly enough, these are religious images, created by people who would consider themselves Christian. Here is my rough translation of the text on the right hand (battle axe wielding) one:

Prayer to Saint Death

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, immaculate being of light, I implore that you grant me the favors which I ask of you, until the last day, hour and moment that your divine majesty orders that I be brought before your presence. Beloved Death of my heart, do not remove me from your protection.

The cult of Santa Muerte is pretty fascinating, and I wish I knew more about it. It is definitely a lower class thing though, while most of the Mexicans I know are university educated professionals. I have read a few US based media reports linking the cult to drug traffickers, but I wonder if that isn't inflated to give an easy explanation for something that appears "evil" to outsiders (including the official Mexican Catholic Church). According to Devoción a la Santa Muerte Magazine, issue #6 (probably the best thing I've ever bought for under $1), "La Santisima Muerte NO castiga, ni se lleva a uno de nuestros queridos, sólo viene a ayudarle y guiarle espiritualmente." (Most Holy Death does not punish, nor does she carry away our loved ones, she only comes to help them and to guide them spiritually). The same magazine features testimony from a variety of people who are clearly not devil worshippers or narcos. A hospital worker sees visions of Santa Muerte at her work place, and patients are miraculously cured. A family writes to the magazine to thank her for saving them from death in a car crash. A housewife reports that after praying to Santa Muerte, her teenage son no longer hangs around with juvenile delinquents.

The magazine also provides some helpful tips on how to thank Santa Muerte with offerings for the miracles she bestows. Wine should be left at the altar in a glass goblet, and the bottle should be left uncorked so she can enjoy the aroma. Chocolates should be unwrapped, and can placed in any kind of dish. Cigars and cigarettes must always be offered lit. Flowers should be as beautiful and fresh as possible. Finally, do not make false promises to Santa Muerte or it is unlikely that she will help you again in the future.

Santa Muerte is often linked to the goddess Mictlancíhuatl, queen of one of four Aztec hereafters. She was not the only female Aztec deity to be depicted with a skull face though. The earth goddesses Coatlicue and Cihuacóatl both had a nurturing protective/ raging bitch duality, and could take terrifying skeletal forms. Women who died in childbirth also became goddess like skeletal beings. As childbirth was considered a form of combat, they were accorded the highest status, to accompany the sun in his daily battle to cross the sky. Who knows what elements of European folklore contribute to Santa Muerte. While odd Mexican customs are often attributed to its pre-hispanic past, the medieval outlook of the colonizers is certainly a factor too. Antiquated Spanish notions have sometimes lingered in Mexico long after having disappeared from their country of origin. The appearance of Santa Muerte has more Western iconography than Mesoamerican (scales, globes, scythes and so on).

Here is how the magazine's editor responds to those who say the cult of Santa Muerte is devil worship. "Now I do not know why they fear her and flee from her, if late or early we all will pass through that final material stage and begin the spiritual one..."

Absentee voting

I voted an absentee ballot last week, though I'm not sure it will ever arrive in the USA. I did take it to the consulate so it would get there on time. I've always heard consulates and embassies are like foreign soil, a little outpost where the other country exists in miniature. I was kind of imagining that I would step inside and there would be a guy in a Hawaiian shirt barbecuing steaks. Or at least a seasoned bureaucrat with a firm handshake and a no nonsense attitude who always displays a framed photograph of the current president next to the miniature flag on his desk.

Instead, I found myself waiting in line on the sidewalk to talk to some low level Mexican security guard through a staticky microphone on the other side of a window. No old glory rippling proudly in the breeze, no English spoken, no one with any particular knowledge of absentee voting procedures. I knew I was in trouble when the Mexican lady in front of me started griping (in Spanish of course) that she couldn't understand the guy behind the window because of all the static.

I had left the envelope unsealed because I figured if I had done something wrong, an embassy official could help me. Realizing that there would be no such help, I went to seal the envelope only to realize that there was no glue on the flap. It makes sense, really. In a country without a functioning mail system, why would you need to seal an envelope? The guy behind the window had nothing to seal the envelope with. He suggested that if I came back next week there would be an election official who could help me. Instead of taking his recommendation to try voting after election day, I went running all over the block looking for glue, or envelopes, or something. I ended up taping it together with dollar-storesque clear tape. Then I wasn't sure if it needed postage or not. Does the embassy deliver it directly to election officials or just to the Post Office or something? The security guard assured me that no postage was necessary. I'd brought a bunch of stamps anyway. When I tried to explain that I would put stamps on it just in case, he became upset. Hadn't he just told me that it didn't need stamps? Was I doubting his integrity?

So if it's really close in Illinois, and my one lone vote does matter, the election could well turn on the quality of Mexican scotch tape or the wounded pride of some random security guard.

Elección de los Muertos

Tuesday is both Día de Los Muertos and Election Day...not looking good. I may have to set up a shrine for Russ Feingold.

With the bumper crop of wacko right-wing candidates poised to win big, the outlook is gloomy. Here in Mexico though, I think Nov 2nd will be a happier day. Shelves are lined with statuettes of Michael Jackson as a skeleton, florists are hawking bouquets of cempasúchil, and bakeries are selling rich buttery loaves of pan de muerto.

What Mexican astronauts drink

Movie review: El Infierno

Yesterday I watched a short BBC news clip about narcocine, which are generally straight to DVD flicks financed by drug lords to celebrate their exploits. Also mentioned was this controversial film El Infierno, (hell) currently playing in Mexican theaters. Jenny and I went out to see it last night.

If anything El Infierno mocks the lifestyle of the narcos, but that doesn't mean the government likes it. Mexican officials, including the president, have lined up to criticize this film, which is I think the best press coverage a movie like this could hope for. Like the U.S., Mexico is a country that engages in a fair amount of flag-draped patriotic gobbledygook. Those bicentennial México 2010 signs (see image) have become more conspicuous than taco stands. The graffiti scrawled under this one reads: nada que celebrar (nothing to celebrate). In a feat of admirable chutzpah, the director managed to get a fair amount of money out of the Mexican government to make this film, then released it right at the bicentennial. The film is over the top, violent, foul-mouthed, and really funny.

It follows the story of an espanglish speaking immigrant who is deported back to Mexico after 20 years to find that his brother became a chingón in the local mafia before being gunned down. Wanting to find out what happened to his brother and with few employment options, the humble pinche pocho slowly gets entangled in the world of narcotraficantes.

Exaggerated, casual, and even humorous violence has become fairly common in movies, but it was far stranger to see it in this one. In the U.S. we may indulge in such fantasies, but when was the last time you saw an actual news story (domestic) about someone beheaded with a chainsaw or dissolved in a barrel of acid? In Mexico this stuff really happens, which made this kind of scene very disturbing (especially with the whole audience, including myself, rolling with laughter).

We only got about half as many jokes as the rest of the audience, but it was still hilarious. It takes the piss out of every authority figure in Mexico, from politicians groveling at the feet of drug lords, to clergy sprinkling holy water on handguns for US $100 bills, to policemen who can be bribed with a handful of drugs, to federales who hand their informants back over to the mafia. One of the things I found funniest was all of the gaudy, tacky, chafa shit they spend their money on. The narcos strut around like peacocks with stuffed tigers and gold-tipped cowboy boots, while everything in the background is dust, concrete, and broken down cars. In one scene the main character, now a successful narco, decides to help out his godfather who runs a failing tire shop. A new, brightly painted store with flashing lights is shown where the ramshackle building once stood.

"Thanks," his dazed godfather replies with a straight face, "now all I need are customers."

More about Zacatecas part III: Chalchihuites

Pressing further into the middle of nowhere, we went looking for some of the northernmost ruins of ancient Mesoamerica. This took a lot longer than we thought driving on a windy, heavily potholed rural highway. Eventually, we came to the town for which the ruins are named, Chalchihuites (Chall-chee-weet-ayes). A plaque in the town square says that the settlement was founded by conquistadors and their Tlaxcalan allies in the 16th century. (I'm guessing the Tlaxcalans got naming rights on this one).

The town Chalchihuites had the laid back atmosphere we had hoped to find in Sombrerete. It was actually a very friendly and relaxing place to eat gorditas and stroll around, but at this point most of the day was already behind us and so we couldn't spend long.

So finally we made it to the ruins. They're not as visually striking as the famous sites, as this was the outer edge of civilization. They are mysterious and interesting in their own right, though. The city is thought to have been a satellite of Teotihuacan, the dominant power of the time. All ancient Mesoamericans were sky-mad, and the location of the Chalchihuites ruins is all about the positions of the sun. First, it is located along the tropic of cancer. Second, from this exact spot, on both solstices and equinoxes, the sun rises directly out of a sharp mountain peak in the distance. There are a number of walls constructed at strange angles (not photographed) to create shadows along exact angles upon these days.

I like imagining the high priests of the sun cult at the top of their pyramid in central Mexico consulting arcane codexes to determine the precise location of this new colony at the very edge of the known world. Today, not too many political decisions are based on solar astronomy, but in ancient Mesoamerica it was no joke. Those privy to the carefully guarded secret of writing recorded cycles of natural phenomena over centuries, and their claim to connection with divinity was based on their ability to predict rainfall, eclipses, when to plant, and when to harvest. Their understanding of natural events had far more basis in fact than the ideas of some of our current religious leaders.

The settlement would also have been a frontier outpost, perhaps to check the barbarous nomadic chichimecas and to exchange goods such as obsidian and exotic bird feathers from the south with turquoise from the north.

A kindly old caretaker showed us around the ruins. He wore a cowboy hat and spoke in a sad, soft voice reminiscent of Juan Rulfo. He probably didn't have much formal education, but he was very knowledgeable about the site and took obvious pride in his work.

The first photo shows a group of columns, which I think the caretaker said also had some kind of calendar function. I'm not certain though, as I didn't always understand him 100%. In the next photo, showing the ruined walls of a small room, there is a stone square set on the floor. This was an oven for burning human hearts (!) On the right is a line of seat-shaped blocks, which are a representation of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god. The third photo shows the pointed peak in the distance, from which the sun still rises on solstices and equinoxes.

More about Zacatecas part II: Sierra de los órganos

After all the patriotic hoo-hah, Jenny and I (with two other friends) made a foray into northern Zacatecas state to see the spaghetti western/desert part of Mexico. There is a cool national park there called sierra de los órganos, which is littered with rock formations. I took all of the above photos, except for the one with the dinosaur, which is from "Caveman" with Ringo Starr. They've filmed a number of movies here, but this is the only one of them that I've seen. (I watched it as a kid on a double bill with "Quest for Fire" and thought it was hilarious, which I now blame on our not having a TV when I was a kid. Television and movies almost always seemed really, really good).

The park is outside the large town/small city of Sombrerete, which makes a rather half-assed attempt to bill itself as a tourist destination. It has very nice architecture for a dusty redneck town, but it didn't feel terribly friendly and there wasn't much to do. The main thing I remember is sitting in a cavernous restaurant trying to pick all of the gross processed ham out of our quesadillas when the waiters weren't looking. Oh, and that one of the restaurant's bathrooms featured two side by side toilets. This is so typical of Mexico--your toilet doesn't have a seat (needless extravagance; a waste of money!), but no expense is spared in installing a second toilet inches away from the first one in case you should want to hold hands with the person you're taking a crap next to.

The national park was really awesome though. It is a peaceful, isolated, and beautiful place. Despite it being a holiday weekend, we were the only ones staying in the tattoine-like cabins. We hiked a couple short trails (under an hour) that were about right for the time we were staying there. For more ambitious treks, you would want to hire a guide.

And finally, in case someone has stumbled upon this while trying to plan an excursion to Sierra de los órganos, here are a few things we found out by virtue of having done it: 1) It would be hard to do this trip without a car. 2) The cabins have gas stoves and refrigerators, but no utensils, dishes, etc., although we talked the ranger out of one small cooking pot. 3) You can buy firewood from the ranger and have a campfire. 4) Driving from Sombrerete, there is a little town whose name I can't remember, but you have to go through it. This pueblito has at least one grocery store by the side of the road which seemed to have as much variety as anything we found while driving around in circles through Sombrerete.

More about Zacatecas part I: Temporada de tunas

In Mexico tunas are prickly pear fruit (the fish is atún). A lot of norteamericanos find them too seedy, but for whatever reason this doesn't bother me. On our drive through rural Zacatecas, we saw zillions of them.

¡Viva México! ¡Vivan bigotes!

Unlike in the USA, in Mexico wearing a fake moustache can be considered a patriotic act. It's doubly nationalistic (or would be if I were Mexican) because I donned a Pancho Villa 'stash in Zacatecas, which he sacked (against orders) in 1914. We were here to witness the bicentennial grito on September 16th. Given the Mexican propensity for long rambling speeches, we were pleasantly surprised to hear just 5 or 6 vivas before the fireworks started. More to follow about Zacatecas when I have time to write about it. The black and white photo shows Villa (left) and Zapata (right) discussing their large, full bigotes.

Journey to the dark tower

Well, I am back in Mexico after a spell in the USA. I've started a new job which unfortunately means registering a change in immigration status with the Mexican government. This is not a simple process. So far I have been to the Palacio Federal five times (traveling an hour and back each time to get there). This palacio is more of an unadorned concrete rectangle than say the Taj Mahal or Versailles, but that's how Guadalajara rolls. My trips there have resulted in two scenarios: waiting in line so long I just have to leave or else being given false information that will be used against me the next time I go back.

So yesterday, amid a number of other early morning emergencies, I rushed to get there before 9:00 am. (If you get there after they open, even by 5 or 10 minutes you are absolutely screwed--you probably won't talk to anyone before they close again at noon). But luckily I managed to get into the queue outside the locked doors at 8:45. There were some lost American senior citizens who had found their way from the retiree paradise of Lake Chapala to the big, bad city. Having experienced their confusion on similar visits, I told them what line to stand in, what floor the bathrooms were on, and so on. Boy was that a mistake. Unfortunately the line they needed to stand in was also mine, so I was now subject to their annoying banter for as long as it took to wait there.

"English teacher, huh? You teach Ebonics? You don't teach them to talk like blacks do you?"

"Umm, no."

"Well, good. They think they can talk that way and then they complain they can't get a job! Because they'd rather just chill in their crib. And another thing..."

It was a two hour wait. So I've pretty much sworn off the bond of common fellowship with my countrymen who come to Mexico to live out their golden years. If they come down here to die, from now on I say, let 'em die. Darwin and all that.

Finally my number was called, and I expected to at last pick up my new work visa. The guy looked over my papers, had me sign some other papers, and went into the back office. However, instead of a work visa, he returned with an official letter demanding that I pay $2,400 (pesos) within 10 days or else be deported! This is an unwelcome sum to pay on a Mexican salary. But the agonizing part is that it means going back across the hall to wait in line to get a payment form, leaving to pay at a bank, then bringing the bank receipt back to the Palacio Federal to wait in line to prove I've paid it, then waiting at his window with the notification that proof of payment was accepted.

I tried to argue with him that two separate immigration officials had independently assured me that this fee was no longer being charged. (Both the lady that had given me the wrong forms to fill out and the lady who refused to admit that she lost my passport told me of this). He shrugged, took a bite of his candy bar, and gave a bored explanation of how, due to 'mala suerte' I had come in after the new law was passed, but before it actually took effect, causing them to re-evaluate my application.

A new coworker of mine mentioned getting through immigration by pulling the ugly American--demanding to talk to a supervisor, yelling, etc. after which the problem was cleared up within a matter of minutes. But the thing is, I'm pretty sure he's also a native Spanish speaker. For me as second language learner, high-stress situations are very hard to communicate in. I could maybe achieve a primal scream as I gouged the bureaucrat's eye out with a pen, but that would be about it. I can barely express myself in English when I'm this angry. After I left I was able to compose a quite flowery and savage denunciation of the INM in Spanish as I walked down the street, and I'm sure this greatly impressed other pedestrians.

my random day

Today I've been rushing around trying to get things done before heading back to the U.S. for a month or so. This is almost never productive in Mexico. It certainly wasn't today. At the end of it all I found myself on a packed 633 bus during the hottest part of the day, cursing under my breath at all things Mexican. (In my mind the incompetent secretaries at the University of Guadalajara, the guy who was supposed to show up at 9:30 to connect our washing machine, the people I was packed up against, and the bank were somehow all working in concert against me). As is normal, the driver accelerated madly forward at every green light, never anticipating having to stop again. Each red light caught him totally off guard, and he would suddenly slam on the brakes each time. This lurching is pretty standard fare on city buses. Sometimes I close my eyes and picture myself on the bridge of the Enterprise when they get hit by photon torpedos, but today I was far too pissed off. The bus was so miserable that I decided to get off a stop early and walk. But the driver, who seemed to be in some kind of race with the the other buses, only saw fit to let off one passenger before slamming on the gas pedal again. I was still holding a metal bar but I hadn't really steadied myself, so my arm was almost jerked out of its socket when he accelerated. Ignoring the steady ringing of the buzzer and people shouting "¡Baja, baja!" the driver proceeded to speed past bus stop after bus stop. He seemed intent on getting to the front of a convoy of other buses, but they kept outmaneuvering him, so he was stuck in the outside lane. When he finally relented and pulled in behind the others at a bus stop, I had the option of backtracking a long ways or getting lost by trying to find a shortcut through a windy residential area. I chose the getting lost while trying to find a shortcut option.

Eventually I ended up somewhere I knew, a bus stop on the edge of a vacant lot overlooking some dumpsters at the mall. I waited there for a long, long time with a tattooed guy wearing a wife beater and a homemade sling for his broken arm. He was something of an expert on bus routes and would give advice to other would-be bus riders who wandered past. (Even Mexicans are fairly baffled by the bus system. Though perhaps system isn't the right word). After a really long time of standing silently next to each other we got on the same bus. Instead of paying, he whispered a word to the driver, positioned himself at the front, and began to deliver a long monologue. Despite the bus being nearly empty, he spoke with great self-importance, although very rapidly--I didn't understand a word. I assumed he was asking for money because of his broken arm. I fished around in my bag for a few pesos since I felt some camaraderie from our having waited so long together. But then, when I looked up again, he was driving a long metal nail up his left nostril. On a moving bus mind you. Then another nail up the right nostril, concluding his presentation. I felt bad that I only had 3 pesos left on me to give him.