Noise

Sahuayo is a small town (pueblo) of 60,000 people. Nonetheless, sometimes the noise rivals a big city.

My room is three floors above the street. Unfortunately my window doesn't close all the way. There is a small crack between two of the panes. This means I hear everything. As I'm writing this on Saturday afternoon, it's not that bad. I hear the occasional car. During the week, I hear much more. Vendors drive cars with megaphones attached to the top. I hear the same ads day after day. Mopeds, ATVs, buses vans, pick up trucks, and cars produce a cacaphony of noise. I can hear the music in everyone's vehicles. Mexicans love to turn up the bass. Young adults who go out at night yell and laugh. If I knew more Mexican slang, I'd know what they were saying.

If the vendors aren't driving, then the taxi drivers are constantly looking for their next passenger. "Tax-EE!" they yell.

Earlier this week huge blasts woke me up at 6:15. When I woke up at my usual time two hours later, the power was out. I thought that a transformer had blown. Apparently, they were fireworks. Two nights later, I heard the same blasts. Ricardo, my director, told me Mexicans launch fireworks all year. As you all know, I love fireworks, but they have their place. I like them on Independence Day. I don't like them at 6:15 in the morning during the week.

At school, the noise is particularly annoying when I'm trying to teach pronunciation. The windows in my room are wooden doors. I hear everyone's music. When it's loud enough, it sets off car alarms. Kids down the street launch fireworks, for no particular reason.

The only sound I like is the bell that rings every hour on top of the La Parroquia, the church in the center of the city. It's calming and reassuring.

Kevin

Daily Life

Routine

I’m settling into a routine. On the weekends I wake up, run on Dos Barsco, and then come home and eat breakfast as always. My roommates are usually still asleep. I go to bed 12:15 every night, as I don’t have to wake up until 8: 15 during the week. I don’t want to wake up at a different time on the weekends. On Saturday I go to the Bodega to get both frozen and raw vegetables, paper towels, and other necessities. I go to the market on Tuesdays, since it’s only two blocks from my apartment. I update the blog, finish my lesson plans. I stretch before making dinner at 9:15.

During the week I wake up at 8:15 so I can teach my morning class, which has three students. I go home, and I either go to the gym, or I go running. I don’t like training after I’ve been awake for several hours. I prefer to get out of bed and work out, but what can I do? Afterwards, I have some lunch, take a shower, translate an article in Spanish, brush my teeth, and then go back to school from 3:00 to 8:30. On Tuesdays, after my morning class, I take a Spanish class with Salvador, a part-time teacher at CulturLingua. I come home at night, pack a lunch for the next day, make dinner, catch up on e-mail, read some news, and make preparations for the next day.

Inconveniences

I knew I would have to put up some inconveniences when I came to Mexico. Not only because I’m in a different country, but also because I’m in a new place. Traveling anywhere different requires adaptation and tolerance. I don’t pay for the apartment, which helps me save money, but this also means that the conditions aren’t as good as they are back in Virginia. My room is large, but doesn’t need to be, since it has no desk (other than a couple old desks found in a classroom), hardly any storage, and no dresser. But oddly it has two beds and a yoga mat (which I use).

Water is another problem. Water is not potable in Mexico. We therefore spend 80 Pesos every two weeks to buy five large water dispensers. I can’t rinse my toothbrush with the water, so I have to use the water in the tea pot. If I want cold water I have to take ice out of the ice trays in the freezer. Cold water requires advanced planning therefore. Hot water isn’t instant. When we want to take a shower, we have to turn on the heater for 15 minutes before we can take a shower. Even then the water temperature is only luke warm.

While we do have internet access, there is no printer. I still can’t find a store that sells office supplies, such as paper and pens. For those items I have to go to the Bodega every week. Half the light bulbs here don’t work. When it rains hard, some of the water seeps through the windows.

Kitchen

I require a good kitchen. Because I like to cook and prepare all my food, I need a large amount of space, and essential tools: colander, knives, forks, pots, pans, a blender, bowls, a teapot, pantry space. This apartment was not built for me. There’s only a small pantry for all my food. Erika told me that before I came the refrigerator was empty. I have to light the stove and oven with a lighter. There are no drawers. There’s no dishwasher, which means my roommates leave their dirty dishes everywhere. I basically own the freezer (Kris keeps some hot dogs in there). I keep everything I need in a separate place. I have my own measuring cup, my own cutting board, my own paper towels, and my own silverware.

But I'm adapting.

Kevin

Safe in Sahuayo

On Monday Night when all of Mexico was celebrating the country’s independence, bombs killed seven and injured at least 100 people in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan, the state in which I live. As the governor of the state, Leonel Godoy re-enacted Miguel Hidalgo’s famous grito, bombs and bells produced a cacophony and chaos and pandemonium. Authorities don’t know who attacked, but evidence does point to drug cartels. If true, this would be the most discriminate attack yet. Usually the cartels attack threats to their business, not citizens.

Authorities are blaming either La Familia, which denied it was involved, and the powerful Zecas gang. In fact, one suspect is from Sahuayo. One other is from San Pedro, a town not too far from hereLast Friday authorities found 12 dead bodies outside the capital. At the end of August authorities found 12 decapitated bodies in Yucatan. In Tiajuana, another four bodies were found. Violence in the northern part of the state, in places like Baja California, and Sinoloa is attributed to the Arellano Felix led by Fernando Sanchez Arellano, and a rival faction led by Teodoro Garcia Simental. Sinaloa is home to one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico, founded by fugitive leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Drug violence has killed 2,700 people, including 500 police officers. This is an inevitable result of President Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on the drug trade since took office in December 2006. Calderon’s plan has sent 40000 officers and 50000 federal police to hot spots in the country. Police commanders have been purged, good officers are promoted, new positions are being added, and the federal officers are receiving more pay.

The other problem is the police itself. In the state of Coahuila, police were carrying seven drug suspects when they ran into another caravan of suspects. In the ensuing standoff, one policeman was killed and 33 more were arrested. The suspects were police officers from Torreon. The country’s former drug czar, Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebello, was arrested ten years ago for colluding with the drug cartels. Mexicans fear the current czar, Genaro Garcia Luna, doesn’t follow the same path.

All this is bad for business, which has to spend more and more money on security and less on paychecks, expansion, or R&D. It does help that the drug cartels don’t seem to be affecting the country’s three largest sources of income: oil, tourism, and remittances.

I’m not writing this to scare anyone, only to assure them that I’m safe in Sahuayo. I have never felt unsafe here. In fact, it’s safer than San Francisco or Washington, D.C. I don’t see any bums here. People sit on the sidewalk and talk. Shops close early. Old men sit at the plaza and talk well into the night. Although most people here can tell that I’m a native, I don’t feel awkward. That’s why I was surprised, and a little annoyed, that my landlord decided to install a security door at the entrance to my building. It’s one more door to unlock.

Every morning I wake up and see the La Parroquia, the resplendent church in the center of the city. Perhaps God watches over us after all.

Independence Day

Today is Independence Day in Mexico. The country is now 198 years old. Sort of. On September 16, 1821 Miguel Hidalgo, the curate of Dolares, made his Cry for Independence or Girto de Dolares. In his speech Hidalgo spoke of insurrection and rebellion. Hidalgo demanded the end of slavery, equality among men, land reform, and an end to state monopolies over gunpoweder and tobacco. The revolution had just begun, however. Spain laid siege to Guadalajara. Hidalgo was captured in Chihuahua, and executed on July 30, 1811. Hidalgo’s disciple, a priest named Maria Morelos y Pavon waged a campaign until he was imprisoned and executed in 1815. It was only when a Spanish commander, Agustin de Iturbide, defected and joined Vicente Gurrero, that Spain relinquished Mexico. Guerrero and Iturbide, who would later become emperor, announced the Plan of Iguala, which made Roman Catholicism the only recognized religion, made all Mexican citizens equal, and established a constitutional monarchy. The Treat of Cordoba officially converted New Spain into Mexico on August 24, 1821. But Iturbide didn’t last long either. Only a year later General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana betrayed him, and executed him as well.
Like most national celebrations, Mexico’s Independence Day is inconsistent with history. The United States celebrates independence on July 4. But most of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence didn’t sign in Philadelphia that day. They signed it over the ensuing months. In fact, the declaration didn’t make America independent. It would be more than five years before Gen. Washington and Pierre Laffeyete surrounded General Cornwallis at Yorktown. That day was October 17 1781. The Treat of Paris, which formally recognized America, wasn’t signed until September 3 1783. Likewise, Bastille Day in France, July 14, wasn’t celebrated as a national holiday until 1880. Perhaps because other events such as September 22, 1792, the actual founding of the French Republic, or August 26, 1789, the day the Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted, were more important and symbolic.
I’ve already established that September 16 has little historical significance. But its symbolism is what Mexicans celebrate. And celebrate they do. Not only is September 16 a national holiday, but September 15 is too. Here in Sahauyo, there were festivals every night on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Men wore sombreros, and as you can see in the photo, so did the next generation of Mexicans. Women wore elaborate dresses. The people celebrated their history, their cuisine, their music, and their culture. The whole town congregated at Miguel Hidalgo plaza. It rained on Monday, and the power went out for awhile, but the parades continued.
Even though the Mexican revolution did nothing to alleiviate the problems that afflicted the country and burdened the population, at least Mexico can say that it has gone longer without a violent overthrow of the government than any other country in Latin America. 2010 will mark 100 years of the peaceful transfer of power in Mexico.

Maize

Maize is synonymous with Mexico. The Mexicans call it maiz, and it’s colloquially known as corn in the United States. Maize is the base of the Mexican diet. Mexicans use it to make tortillas, or thin cakes made of corn flour. To make tortillas, you soak and dry the maize kernels in lime juice and water, remove the skin, then stone grind the kernels into masa, which is the paste that forms tortillas

Tortillas are in turn the base for antojitos, which are like Spanish tapas, and are small plates of food. Tortillas are used to make tacos, flautas (tortillas tightly wrapped around chicken and fried with lettuce and cream), enchiladas, quesadillas, chilaquiles (fried tortilla chips in a spicy tomato sauce), tostadas (fried tortillas spread with refried beans and topped with anything). Tostadas are particularly popular in Sahuayo. They’re more like crackers than tortillas. Sopa de Tortilla is soup with tortilla strips. Mexicans even produce niquatole, which is a maize gelatin, or tejate, a drink made by marinating maize flour, mamey pits, white cacao beans in water and then sweetening it.

The tortorillia on my street, Insurgentes, produces over 800 tortillas per day. Buckets of masa sit on the floor, ready to be smashed into tortillas. The maize comes in bags, and leaves as a flat tortilla. The masa feels like mud.

Maize has been cultivated in Mexico for six thousand years. It was depicted in Olmec Art. According to the Mayan bible, Popul Vuh, humans were created from maize. Even today, people in the Oaxaca state call themselves hombres de maiz, or men of maize. Maize is more than a staple ingredient; it’s a form of identity. Today there are 340,000 farms that grow it in Oaxaca, in the Tehuacan Valley. This valley is known as the “waist” of Mexico because it’s the most narrow part of Mexico at 160 km (100 miles). Maize is usually not grown in large expanses of fields like it is in the American Midwest. Instead, farmers have retained the ancient growing pattern known as the milpa. A milpa grows crops in a way that they would grow in nature. Maize is grown next to squash, melons, beans squash chilies, yams, jicama, amaranth, and other staples, because they complement each other nutritionally. Neither contains all essential amino acids. But beans and maize combined would make a complete meal. For example, eating maize alone over time would lead to pellagra, a disease caused by a deficiency in niacin, an amino acid not found in Maize.

Not only is maize grown on thousands of farms, but the hundreds of varieties mean that each one is associated with a particular region, town, or even farm. Americans typically think of corn as sweet yellow corn. But in Mexico maize comes in different shapes, colors, and flavors. The reason for this is that maize openly pollinates, and farmers constantly sift through the different seeds to produce the myriad varieties.

Maize is as baffling as it is delicious. Kernels are wrapped inside a husk, so it cannot reproduce itself. Humans have to do that job for it. Botanists have never found an ancient ancestor to modern maize. The only similar grain is teosinte, which doesn’t look like maize and is not an efficient food source. Grains in most wild grasses form near the top of the stem, and then shatter. Mutations in wheat blocked this shattering, and allowed humans to cultivate it. There is no known form of non-shattering teosinte. Botanists, then, are not sure how Indians evolved a form of maize that doesn’t shatter.

Maize could have been combined with Zea diploperennis, a relative, or Eastern gamagrass. What’s more likely is that breeders thousands of years ago searched through teosinte stands for plants with desired traits. Indian breeders looked for the teosinte plants with the right mutations that would produce a non-shattering grain.

However they produced modern maize, today it's an integral part of Mexican life, and its spread throughout the world has fed millions.
Kevin

Welcome to Sahuayo

The town of Sahuayo is 10 miles south of Lake Chapalan, which is the largest freshwater lake in Mexico. Unfortunately, industrial pollution from Gaudalajara, the second biggest city in Mexico, has heavily polluted it with industrial waste. Gaudalajara is on the other side of the lake. Sahuayo has 60,000 people but two universities. So it’s like a Mexican college town. I saw plenty of young peeple walking around on the first night. Ricardo told me he loved all the “muchachas” here. Part of the city is built on a hill. At the top, it abruptly ends. There is no sprawl. Coming into town, visitors are greeted with McDonald’s, several car dealerships, auto repair shops, and a huge bodega (grocery store). It looks like one of those ugly towns along America’s interstates. The main highway bifurcates the city. The east side is very ritzy, with plenty of posh homes with gates, and an army of workers tending their gardens. The west side is where the central plaza, and the main cathedral is. It’s the city’s tallest building and it’s clearly visible frum the south of the city. If you want to know what Sahuayo feels like, without actually coming here, then I suggest you walk through an Hispanic quarter of a city. Powerlines hang above the streets and the buildings aren’t as well-maintained. It’s certainly not elegant, but not dilapidated. For entertainment the people like to sit in front of their homes or shops and tell stories. During the day, they like to congregate at the marketplace or at the central plaza. My apartment is on a Insurgentes St. It’s two blocks south of the main plaza. Restaurants, street vendors and a couple pharmacies surround the plaza. Just south of the plaza is the marketplace. This is where I found all the produce that I need during the week. There’s no shortage of melons such as cantaloupe, watermelon, and papayas. The traditional staples such as oranges, apples, and peaches, are at almost every stand. Some vendors sell dry beans, spices, candy, or baked goods. There wasn’t much meat at the market, other then shrimp and full chickens. It truly feels like an old world market. The vendors start talking as soon as you stand for a moment in front of their booth. They weigh the food and then tell you how much. Prices are elastic. If you don’t have as much as they want, they usually give you the food anyway. Either they’re very nice, or they give you an initial higher price. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.The whole city shuts down at 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon, at least on weekends. I wanted to buy strawberries (16 pesos per kilogram), but it was 3:30, and the vendors had had enough. I noticed that most of the other stores had closed as well. I could only go to the local pharmacy to find anything. The joyerias (jewelry stores), zapaterias (shoe stores), and ferreterias (hardware stores), had all closed. The only noises in the city were the motorcycles. People get around mainly by walking but a lot of people own mopeds. They don’t bother to wear helmets, or stop for pedestrians. This is bad because they are sacrificing safety. This is good because it shows peeple know what’s best for themselves and know what’s a reasonable risk. As long as people understand the rules, nobody cares. The streets are usually one way and narrow. Old vans take people to where they need to go. Vendors sometimes ride a bike with a carriage attached to the back to sell their goods. Some men walk around with bread (pan) in their baskets. My room mate Erika and my head teacher, Cecilia, both told me this area was safe. I believe them now. While I’m still hesitant to walk down some streets, for the most part I don’t have to worry. At least no more than in Washington, D.C.

Arriving in Sahuayo

Travel Day
From the time I woke up to the time I got to my apartment in Sahuayo, I had been traveling for 18 hours. Getting to Sahuayo required two plane rides, two bus rides and a taxi trip at the end. Clearly, Sahuayo isn’t exactly the most popular destination spot in Mexico. I couldn’t see much the first day. Everything was dark and I wasn’t sure when I had arrived. I wus eager to see my new home for the next five months. I’m glad it wasn’t any of the previous stops, which were not great places even by Mexico’s standards. When I arrived at the bus station in Sahuayo, Ricardo, the coordinator for my school, CulturLingua, somehow recognized me and said my name. I was amazed. Could it have been that I was the only young man with a backpack at a bus station in Sahuayo on a Friday night? Ricardo took me to my new apartment in downtown. We had to carry my 75-pound suitcase up three flights of stairs. I met my roommates, Erika and Kris. Erika is 20-years-old and from South Africa, while Kris is 24-years-old and from Ohio. Erika is the veteran; she’s been here for an entire two months. Kris has been here for only a couple weeks. Another teacher was at the apartment, and he had just arrived earlier this week. While they drank beer and told disgusting stories, I unpacked my life and looked forward to the rest. The photo is my room. It has two beds, but no desk and no dresser. Storage is a problem. The second photo is the living room. The place is spacious, but too much for me. I actually prefered the little room I had in San Francisco.