Ruminations of an Expatriate

One of the many things I like about living in Mexico is the presence of bodega de semillas (literally warehouse of seeds). Being an old hippie, before I moved to a rural area thirty some years ago I shopped at food co-ops where I could buy grains, flours, oil, dried fruits and other food stuffs in bulk.

I shop at this bodega de semillas which sells all sorts of products in bulk and has a troop of young folks in aprons loading products into plastic bags for the customers. The shop sells all sorts of flours, grains, pulses, herbs and spices, candies, nuts, pastas, TVP, dried fish and shrimp, packing, rolls of plastic and foil wrap, paper and plastic bags, a wide variety of dried chiles in the bags you may see in the photo, and all sorts of other stuff. It’s a riot.

I bake my own bread and eat rolled oats each morning, so when I need to resupply I head on over to the Bodega de Semillas at Sayago and Revolucion. I usually wait by the large plastic garbage can full of flour until one of the attendants takes notice and asks what I need. The attendant rips a couple of plastic bags off one of the rolls hanging at various locations around the store and begins loading the doubled bag with a scoop. Once the attendant believes she has loaded the bag with about the amount I ordered she heads for one of the many scales with a scoop full of product in case she must adjust the amount in the bag, tops off or subtracts from the product in the bag, ties the top of the bag, marks the price on the bag, and asks “algo mas”.

Here’s a photo of Pico de Orizaba taken through the window of the airplane on the trip to Cabo San Lucas.

Below is a steaming volcano also taken from the airplane window.

I had mentioned in my Another Visit to Migración post that, after completing my errands and feeling quite satisfied, I decided to stop at the La Capella restaurant and treat myself to lunch. I had often passed the place but never stopped to try it.

As I put it in the post:

The food was great, the service excellent, the decor beautiful, and the folks there very friendly. The walls of the restaurant are adorned with paintings of exaggeratedly fat, cartoonish subjects. I asked if I might take photos and was told of course. I also asked about the pantings and was informed that they are by a Columbian artist named Botero.

La Capella is located at 103 Avenida Xalapeños Ilustres, across the street from the cathedral in San Jose. The tables are outfitted with crisp white tablecloths and the dining room floor is of rich, dark wood.

I had a 10″ Pizza Capella which included vegetables, sausage, and mushrooms served on a round wooden platter for $84 pesos. The restaurant also offers a variety of pasta dishes from $50 to $100 pesos, fish, chicken dishes, and beef steaks, including gringo cuts. There is also a bar upstairs, which I did not visit, as it opens at 8:00 PM, but was told by the staff is quite nice.

It really is a very nice place with a warm and friendly staff. If you’re in town, check it out.

This morning at about 6:45 I noticed the door to my apartment rattling and felt the building shaking. I went out into the building passageway and asked a neighbor I encountered there if she had noticed the building shaking and she responded that she had not.

I have just read and AFP news service report that “A strong earthquake measuring 6.4 magnitude struck the Oaxaca region of Mexico early Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said.”

The USGS reports the epicenter as 23 NW of Arriaga, Chiapas at 6:50 AM local time.

This site displays a map and provides a means to report if you felt the temblor.

Speaking of earthquakes, I lived for most of my life near coastal Washington State. Just off shore is a subduction zone where the San Juan tectonic plate is forced beneath the North American plate. The friction generated by the grinding of the plates builds great force which is occasionally relieved through greater than normal movement of the San Juan plate, and, thus, begetting an earthquake.

Here are my observations of three earthquakes within a three year period.

At 6:19 the morning of June 10, 2001, while reading the morning news at my PC, I heard a slight explosive sound and felt mild shaking, followed by a lull, followed by a louder explosive sound and brief hard shaking. For the third time in slightly less than 2 years, I have experienced an earthquake.

The USGS reports the quake at a 5 magnitude and centered 24 miles below the surface, just a couple miles North of my home. So that’s two of these three recent earthquakes centered within 5 miles of my home.

This time the whole thing latest just a few seconds but the shaking seemed more intense than the shaking of the two other recent earthquakes. Shaking during the July, 1999 quake lasted for perhaps 20 seconds but was not as intense as it was this morning. While the main effect of the February, 2001 quake, centered 30 miles from here, was rolling of the earth for perhaps 10 seconds. It was quite a sensation, while standing on the earth, to feel as though I were on the rolling sea. I do not recall hearing creaking from the house framing during the other quakes, just rattling of glass in the cupboards and such; but this time the roof framing was creaking to the point that I headed for the door.

I remember that in the wake of the quake of July, 1999 I wrote:

It has been a disappointment to me, over the years, that I had never yet experienced an earthquake. Having not yet been born, I had missed the, 7.1 magnitude, 1949 Puget Sound earthquake that cracked the state capitol dome and the streets in the Olympia neighborhood of my youth; and I had left for the East coast a few years before the 6.5 earthquake in 1965.

Believe me, there is nothing like three earthquakes in two years to assuage such a disappointment.

During the bus ride return from Oaxaca I snapped this photos through the bus window with my phone and now that I have received my new laptop I have been able to download them.

The bus passed miles upon miles of hills covered only in forests of these cacti, which I think is Organo Cephalocereus columna-trajani, and a variety of ground hugging shrubs. I have since read that this variety of columnar cactus grows to 33 feet in height and 16″ in diameter.

So as to provide a contrast below is a photo of the richly vegetated hills of Veracruz stare not too far across the Qaxaca state border.

Sorry about the lousy photo quality.

I don’t think I’ve ever reported that here in Mexico, at least here in Xalapa, in Merida, and in Oaxaca, when folks enter a restaurant it is customary that they bid the other diners  a “buenos dias, buenas tardes, or buenas noches, as appropriate, and a buen provecho”.

A few days I ago I posted this photo of a caterpillar I encountered on the wall of the apartment building where I live.

A comment posted this morning by moonrock motivated me to take a look through the internet to try to identify the creature.

I found this site with a photo and a bit of a description which identifies it as a Saddleback Caterpillar. And this site with photos of the moth it is to become.

Here’s a photo of an interesting caterpillar I encountered crawling on a wall of the apartment building where I live.

Some may remember I posted a report of My Walk to Rancho Viejo, there weeks or so ago. I had headed out on a walk to explore Colonia San Bruno and ended up, after four kilometers of climbing up and over a couple of hills along a winding road, at Rancho Viejo. Quite sweaty and thinking of a beer, as I entered the pueblo I found myself at the gate of a wonderful restaurant specializing in fresh, locally grown trout. It was one of those serendipitous travel experience that seem to arrive when one sets out with no plan.

Like the space cadet I often am, I failed to remember the name of the restaurant.

This afternoon I drove to Los Paredones, the wonderful restaurant in Rancho Viejo, for another trout lunch and Indio beer. This time taking my pen and pad.

As it turns out there are a number of restaurants in Rancho Viejo serving fresh trout, none that I saw offering the amenities and ambiance of Los Paredones, though with lower prices, I suspect.

Rancho Viejo, as I learned from Maximino Salazar, a trout grower and owner, with his family, of the restaurant, is located in a valley transversed by two small rivers, Rio Pisquiac and Rio Xoco Yolapan, neither of which ask me to pronounce. The rivers names are Nahuatl, the indigenous language of the Aztecs still spoken in areas of Central Mexican. The tranquil and sunny valley consists of a patchwork of pastures and forests containing Oak, Cedar, other tress of which I am unfamiliar, and a fairly open shrubby under story. The area brings to mind the hill farms flanking the “hollers” in the Appalachian mountains. It provides a tranquil relief from the traffic and smog of Xalapa.

Maximino, who indicated I should call him Max as no one knows him as Maximino, informed me that Rancho Viejo resides upon the sight of a former hacienda owned by a Spaniard, of the name Rodriguez, to whom the land was granted by dictator Porfirio Díaz. Rodriguez lost the land during the land reform movement following the revolution that deposed Diaz.

Max indicated that most development in Ranch Viejo has occurred during the last four years. He also invited me back to visit him in his house for coffee and conversation.

I hope locals, and those visiting Xalapa, will pay a visit to Los Paredones. The very reasonably priced ($65. pesos for a trout platter of about 15 varieties) food is as fine as I’ve eaten; the family operating the place is very warm and friendly; the bathrooms are modern and spotless; the service is great; and the ambiance provided by the open air, wood frame structure surrounded by gardens is relaxed and pleasant. The restaurant is open only on Saturdays and Sundays and you should plan to get there by 2:30 or so, as by 4:00 the placed was packed, including the unroofed adjoining patio, upon which tables were set as the guest arrived. To get there take Sayago, pass through San Bruno, and take the left fork at the road to San Andres. Its over just a couple of hills from San Bruno. The restaurant is on the left just as you enter centro Rancho Viejo. You will not be disappointed.

After you meal take a drive through Rancho Viejo, (tkae a left when leaving the restaurant parking area) where you will not encounter a typical centro plaza. There is a gorgeous river stone and mortar church on the right not far from the restaurant and picturesque farms along the road.

I had Trucha (Trout) Rancho Viejo, grilled trout laid open on the plate, complete with head, and covered with a crumble concoction containing Macadamia nuts, a bit of sugar, and I don’t know what else. The fish was accompanied by rice with peas and carrot bits, traditional hereabouts; cucumbers slivers in a mayonnaise sauce; a cup of soup; and chips, salsa, and a somewhat spicy chip sauce of mayonnaise, ketchup, and I don’t know what else.

A few days ago I posted pictures of the work of constructing an addition to the apartment building in which I live.

The workers are now placing the reinforcement bar for the beams that will support the upper floors and placing the form work for the second floor slab itself.

Above is a shot of some of the construction workers after work on Saturday afternooon enjoying a few hands of cards. I have become quite familiar with the fellows, who, I think, consider it a bit odd that a gringo would take such an interest in their work.

The photo at right shows the form work for the second floor slab. The posts are slender tree trunks which support wooden boards laid on edge, over which are placed thinner boards upon which the second floor slab will be poured.

Again, every bit of concrete used in the construction is mixed by hand on a concrete slab, using shovels, and placed into or onto the forms using five gallon buckets.

And here you can see a typical rebar bundle for the beams that will span from column to column and which support the upper floor walls.

The rebar is laid up essentially in the same manner as it is in the USA, but here the bundles are put together on site using only hand tools and manual labor. Often in the USA the rebar bundles are assembled in specialized workshops and shipped to the site for placement.

In the USA workers use special twister type pliers to secure the tie wire that is used to connect the pieces of rebar together. Here the fellows use a piece of rebar that is bent at 90 degrees and sharpened at one end to twist the wires that connect the pieces.

I find it all quite fascinating.

Those who know me, know that I am irreligious. That is, I find no use for religion in my life, being more grounded in science than in mysticism.

I am, however, not the least bit antagonistic toward those who find their religious beliefs to bring comfort to their lives. I have, in fact, been known to take on evangelicals expressing bigotry toward Mormans and intolerant gringos expressing their bigotry toward gringo Protestant missionaries here in Mexico. Neither do I believe that any religion is more valid than any other, believing them to all be equally invalid.

Having dispensed with such qualifications, I wish to tell you of my Jehovah Witness friends.

About three months ago I answered my buzzing apartment intercom to encounter a pleasant female voice asking, in very well spoken English, if mine was the apartment in which an English speaker resides. I responded that, yes, I speak English. To which she responded that she would like to speak with me for a bit . I answered of course, “uno momento por favor” and headed for the front gate.

There at the front gate awaited a quite fetching young Mexican woman, with whom I had spoken through the intercom, and an elderly Mexican woman who, I soon determined, spoke no English.

Introductions were made, I asked what was up and soon realized that the folks were Jehovah Witnesses “spreading the good news”, as they put it.

Immediately I very politely informed Erika and her companion that I am almost 60, have given much thought to religious matters over the course of my adulthood, am not in the least amenable to any type of proselytization, and didn’t want them to waste their time on such a hopeless prospect as myself.

None-the-less, the young woman, Erika, launched into her pitch, assuring that she was not intending to try and convert me. She asked me to read a propaganda pamphlet she left with me and asked if she could return in a week or so to talk again. I took the pamphlet and indicated she was welcome to return.

A week later Erika returned with an older Canadian fellow. I again immediately and politely assured them that I was a hopeless prospect. Erika asked what I thought of the pamphlet she had left during her last visit. I answered that I couldn’t read past the first page as I considered it to be nonsensical propaganda.

The Canadian fellow began presenting the usual insipid arguments against the Theory of Evolution. I assured him that there is absolutely nothing he could possibly say to me to dissuade me from believing the fact of evolution. He asked “why is it referred to as the Theory of Relativity?” I snorted my disdain at such a pathetic argument, feeling it not necessary to be as polite to a Canadian interloper as, being an interloper myself, I feel it necessary to be toward locals. So off they went in rather short order.

I did not hear from Erika again until a couple of weeks ago when I was hailed by a pleasant female voice as I walked along the street. I turned to discover Erika and two comrades following. Erika asked if she might again stop by for a chat and assured her she was welcome.

A week later Erika again buzzed through the intercom and I went to the front gate to find Erika and an older woman from Michigan. Off we went to a local restaurant for coffee.

During the ensuing conversation I again assured them that I was useless as a prospect and that it was useless for them to try to convince me through the citation of Bible verses, as I did not in any way believe the Bible to be the revealed word of God. It is a book, I averred, written by who knows who, who knows when, and motivated by who knows which of the seven deadly sins. I bought them lunch and they went on their way, feeling quite unsatisfied, I suppose.

Earlier this week Erika called and asked if we might speak again (Mondays are her day for my neighborhood) and I answered that I would meet her at the front gate. She was accompanied for this visit by her brother.

So off we went to a restaurant downtown for coffee, and essentially the same conversation I had before with Erika and her various compatriots. Again I assured them that I’m not into mysticism and to please hold the Bible verses. Both Erika, an accountant, and her brother, Hiram, an electronics engineering student, are quite pleasant. After I convinced them that their efforts were useless the conversation moved onto more interesting topics.

When living in the USA I gave none of my time to vendors of religion or insurance, sending them on their way as soon as I learned their purpose.

What can I say? I’ve plenty of time on my hands and I’m interested in meeting and getting to know locals.

As I mentioned a few days ago that I would , I spent new year eve at the Tavola Trattoria restaurant and stayed out later than I have since my thirtieth high school reunion ten years ago. I had spent my previous two new year eves here at home.

When I arrived at 9:30, no other customers had arrived and didn’t begin to arrive until after ten. Generally speaking folks here begin their partying or music events later and stay at it later, including the children, than that to which I am accustomed. (Many nightclub music performances don’t get underway until 9:30 or 10:00.) By 10:30 two of the three Tavola seating areas were full of celebrating families.

I spent the evening at a table with the restaurant owner, her mother and younger sister, a gringa from Chicago who teaches English here, and a friend of the owner and her ten year old daughter Nelany, a Hawaiian name meaning tranquil sky, as her mother informed me.

The was much dancing, which the young children seem to particularly enjoy; a delicious four course meal of appetizers, ravioli stuffed with four different cheeses and spinach, beef roast and mashed potatoes, and double chocolate cake; champagne; and sparklers for the strike of midnight. We were each also provided a glass with twelve grapes, one for each month. One makes a wish while eating each grape.

During the evening about a third of those present continually had their cell phones open, sending and receiving felicidades to and from their friends and families. At one point, Nelany asked her mother for her phones and her mother pulled three phones out of her purse, two of which were Nelany’s and only one hers, she assured me. She indicated that Nelany is familiar with all of the phone and her home computer functions while she, herself, was capable of only making calls and sending email.

At midnight the sparklers were lit and everyone in the restaurant got up and circulated to wish every other patron a happy new year, a wish accompanied by hugs, kisses, and hand shakes.

It was a wonderful evening.

There is apparently not the fondness for new year fireworks here, as I remember there is in Merida. There the explosions continued through the night. Here I heard only a couple of reports.

I should also note that the Chedraui store where I shop frequently put out racks of red and yellow bra/panty sets a week or so before new year eve.  I have since learned from reading “What I Do All Day” that the underwear is worn for luck, one color for luck in love and the other for money.

The owner of the apartment building where I live is adding more apartments. The construction site is what used to be a parking area where I was able to store my pickup. The work began in the Summer, and every day since there have been from two to more than ten fellows working on the project.

The work began with the demolition of the areas of the parking lot slab where footings would be poured and a small structure that existed on the site. Demolition was completed by a group of fellows with hammers and chisels. No machinery was used.

There is almost ubiquitous here during weekdays and Saturdays the clinking of hammers on chisels and the thump of sledge hammers colliding with masonry, as workers demolish or remodel existing structures.

Keep in mind that labor here is inexpensive so everything is done quite labor intensively. I believe the minimum wage for construction workers here is about 47 pesos per day, roughly the equivalent of $4.35 US.

These photos show typical construction in Mexico, which consists of concrete columns, spanned by concrete beams, and topped with a structural slab floor or roof. The columns you see here will support the load of two additional stories and a roof. You can also see that lumber supports have been placed against the columns, upon which the beam forms will be placed. The spaces between the columns will be filled with either brick or concrete blocks, which will be finished with a layer of stucco.

Every bit of concrete that you can see in the photos, and a substantial quantity which can not be seen, has been mixed by hand and poured into the forms from buckets. The concrete is mixed on the existing concrete slab, where gravel is placed in a bowl shape; sand, cement, and water are added; and workers with scoop type shovels do the mixing. Such is how concrete is typically mixed here. A couple of days ago there was a group of workers mixing concrete in Calle Calijero, one of the main drags through the Centro shopping district, with which to patch a relatively large portion of one side of the street which had been excavated.

Right after celebration of Revolution Day on November 20 Christmas decorations began appearing in Xalapa. Here are a few shots.

Here’s a rather obscure shot of the tree erected in the small plaza across Calle Enriquez from the state government building.

I ran across this great sculpture of an electrical lineworker and groundworker while walking the other day and thought my friends at McCleary Light and Power might enjoy the photo.  By the way guys, that’s a 75 kva transformer hanging on the pole.

The sculpture is  across the street from the main local CFE office and service compound.   As far as I was able to determine, except for the wires above, it is almost totally composed of concrete, even the rope held by the groundworker, who, by the way, is  holding a flashlight directed above.  As you can see at the bottom of the photo, the sculpture sets in the midst of a fountain.

Utility poles here are typically of concrete, thus the workers climb the poles using a couple of  straps into which they insert their feet and alternately slide the ropes up the pole.

CFE, Comision Federal de Electicidad, is the publicly owned utility responsible for the generation, transmission, and distribution of electrical energy throughout Mexico.

I think CFE is a good example of how a publicly owned enterprise, providing an essential public service can act to advance societal objectives, such as economic development and providing jobs.

Here most everyone uses LPG for cooking and water heating, and there is no space heating needs.  My latest bill, for the period of Sept. 28 through Nov. 29, is $191.78 pesos, about $17.75 USA at today’s exchange rate.  I consumed 244 kWh   during the period, with the first 150 Kwh charged at .637 (about 5.9 cents USA/kWh)  pesos per kWh  and the other 94 kWh at .751 pesos per (about 6.9 cents/kWh).

Last year I posted this photo with a bit of a story of the fellow, Jesus Villalobos Germiniano (what a great name), in Parque Juarez whom I visit periodically for shoeshine and conversation.

This morning I took some sugar cookies to Jesus and had a shine. I periodically take him cookies or banana bread I’ve made.

Jesus always asks where I’ve been since I last visited. I told him of my walk to Rancho Viejo and my drive the previous weekend.

Here’s a shot of a shoeshine lineup in Parque Juarez. Jesus is the fellow at center with the light colored shirt and white belt. You can see the canopies over the chairs contain campaign advertisements, though I don’t get the idea that the shiners necessarily support the candidate advertised on their canopy.

You can see just this side of his stand the lawn chair in which Jesus sits while awaiting customers. When I arrived at his station this morning there was a fellow in the chair and another waiting, while many of Jesus’ competitors were without customers the entire time I was there.

As Jesus was finishing up the shine he pulled this model of his shoeshine station out of a bag and presented it to me. Like the box above, he crafted the station from cedar in his carpinteria at his home in San Bruno.

OK, I’m a bit tardy in posting these photos of the November 20th parade but I’ve been busy furthering my self-education in web site authoring. I’ve learned specifically about add-on domains, as I didn’t want the Tavola site URL to include my domain name.

The parade, as it was last year, was composed mainly of school children parading in their school uniforms, performing various drills. One school group performed a stunning drill with yellow, purple and green umbrellas .

There were also groups of adults representing various government departments.

As you can see there were also quite a number of schools whose students, both girls and boys, were dressed as guerrillas and in traditional clothing. One group riding a train, which evoked thoughts of the famous photos of Pancho Villa and his troops on a train. The young guerrillas on the train would periodically disembark and lie in the street as if shooting at the enemy with their wooden guns.

Students and teachers from one of the sports school represented,as you can see in the photo below, pushed their wheelchair bound comrades along the route.

The parade lasted more than three hours, with spectators lining Calle Avilla Camacho, and wended its way past the reviewing stand in front of the state government palace.

It was all quite festive, though most of the children in the parade looked as though they wished there were elsewhere.

I am putting together a website for Tavola Trattoria, my favorite restaurant.  The colonial home in which Tavola is located is red and green also figures prominently into the decor, thus the colors of the website.  The header photo is of the sign attached to the street side wall of the building.

Tavola features jazz music Friday night’s and a variety of music genres Sunday afternoons.

Tavola serves the best pizza I have ever eaten, honestly.   I posted here about Tavola in October.

Today I drove to take a look at Ursulo Galvan, a colonia a bit off the road between Coatepec and Xico. Entering the pueblito one must cross a bridge over this rio.

The pueblo is nestled on a hill side overlooking the rio and is surrounded by the typical forest found in this area, often with an under story of coffee plant and banana trees.

I continued on to visit the pueblo of Texim, a pueblito a few miles beyond Teocelo, a bit off the road to Cosautlan.

I stopped on the way home at his restaurant in Coatepec and had a delicious late lunch of shrimp in a type of mole sauce, with rice, salad, and a couple of Negra Modelos. I took this shot while sitting at my table.

This flower arrangement, of what I think are some type of Lilly, adorned my table.

The beautiful church below is in Centro Coatepec.

I really like this clam shell sculpture facing Calle Cinco de Mayo in the yard of building across the street from the Centro park.