Jan & Steve's México Report #2 July 30, 2003
SEVENTEEN WEEKSJan & I have been busy. The big news is our new camioneta! "Camion" is Spanish for truck and "eta" means something small. So it makes sense that your little truck is a camioneta. This sure beats having yet another acronym in your VCR-MP3-VHS-CD-DVD filled vocabulary. The Ford Escape is our first company car. What an interesting perk. The company buys the car but you get to drive it. They get the bills, you get the fun, which is good when gas costs seven pesos per liter. Wait, that sounds like a well-planned divorce. I guess divorce lawyers moonlight in HR? My last blue car was a 1976 Datsun B210, which my Dad painted "222 Cadillac blue" or azule as we call it down here. Come to think of it, you can still see a few old Datsuns on the road here in México.
(3.78 liters to a gallon - 10.5 pesos to the dollar = 1 gallon of gas costs $2.52 US)
Driving continues to be an interesting experience. I no longer even notice stop signs, I just follow traffic. Since most private and public police drive with their lights on, we're learning to ignore them too. I do pay attention to sirens, since they usually are on fire trucks or ambulances, but last week, we saw a landscaping truck with a siren and headlights that flashed alternately. Either they were undercover Federales or someone needed their lawn mowed in a hurry!
FIJI
The rumors are true, I abandoned Jan and went on a two-week trip to Fiji with Habitat for Humanity. We had goals of building houses in a rural fishing village. Let's just say that it was an education.
THE MOVE
We finally moved into our apartment the weekend after I returned from Fiji. We expected to call our temporary apartment "home" with a beautiful view of a cement wall for a month, maybe two...not three months and six days! The movers arrived early on a Saturday morning. All of our worldly possessions had been compacted into three 7-foot square plywood cubes. The movers pried open each box and filled our service elevator with its contents. Neither of our sofas fit in the service elevator, so they used the main elevator (only slightly larger) for one...the other they carried up 6 floors by hand. Then, the sofa became wedged in the narrow hallway before our laundry room. It defied gravity, hanging in the air when the movers released it. Jan asked them in Spanish to "push harder" but in anticipation of an expensive wall tile repair job, I motioned for them to move it back into the stairwell. Once my tools where unpacked, I neatly sawed the rear legs off with the cool Japanese handsaw my Dad bought me. Now two stacks of books have temporarily replaced the rear legs. I'll get around to fixing it eventually.
The days around "the move" were frenzied. I had the guy from TelMex to set my DSL high-speed Internet connection, two guys from DirecTV, and Nicolas, the creative electrician who wired this apartment, all visiting on the same day. None of them spoke English. I felt like Charlie Chaplin in a silent comedy, trying to explain to this group of workmen where I thought the cables should go. At it's worst, I had to call Jan's secretary on my cell phone and have her translate...yes, the guys were laughing. Let me know if you ever hear that charades has been declared an Olympic sport, I think I've got a good chance at making the team.
Regretfully, I had to say goodbye to all my new friends at Jan's company. It was a sad day, saying goodbye to my new bowling partners. Yes, bowling. Bowling is cool here. They have leagues, their own balls and shoes, the whole works. I was asked to "do some bowling" one day over lunch (remember, lunch is two hours here). Juan (from the Taxco page), Marcelino, and Juan Carlos, met me in the lobby of the building, each carrying their gear. I didn't do too bad, but I really have a hard time taking this sport seriously.
Since we were bowling over our lunch hour, eventually we had to eat. I don't know how this slipped my mind, but my friends called some guy over and asked what was on the menu. That little voice in my head warned me, I was about to eat bowling alley food in México! How could I get out of this? Not possible. I ordered something with chicken, I think. I remember it came with soup. Walking back, I pictured a cartoon bomb with a lit fuse. Would I make it back to the office before the bomb went off?
FAMILY LIFE
Jan & I have had the honor of being invited to two Mexican family homes for dinner. Actually here the social meal is lunch, and on weekends, a 4:00 lunch. Both times we were dumbstruck by how polite and attentive the children in each family were. When we arrived, the children came to greet us at the door. They asked to have things passed to them at the dinner table and to be excused when they left. But, I was most impressed that they didn't leave. Here we were, a bunch of adults, talking about topics most kids would find boring...and they stayed at the table, listening quietly and asking intelligent questions. We were shocked. No whining that they were missing a favorite TV show, no fighting at the table or yelling. I felt like I was in Pleasantville.
COMIDA RAPIDA (Fast Food)
In spite of recommendations to the contrary, I've been eating at the "comida rapida" court in the shopping mall near the office when no one is available to go to lunch. There are plenty of choices, from KFC to McDonalds (I like the McNorteno - double the meat, cheese, and bacon), plus three regional styles of Mexican food, one Middle Eastern place, two Mexican-style Chinese, and a sushi joint. Yes, sushi is really big here. I don't know how and I don't know why, but I've seen more sushi restaurants here than McDonalds and Burger Kings combined. And, Mr. Sushi delivers. At lunchtime it's pretty common to find their mopeds backing in the sun with the rest of traffic.
I tried sushi from one food court vendor and remembered to ask for wasabi and "sin queso," without cheese. Yes, they put Philadelphia cream cheese in their California rolls. The name of each piece of sushi is still in Japanese, but the descriptions are in Spanish. My strategy is to order the item with as many words in it as possible, this usually produces a platter with a good variety of things to try. There's nothing like eating while listening to the best of Kansas, Barry White, the Spice Girls, and other favorites over the mall's speakers. I don't know which posed a greater threat, the sushi or the music. For the medically-inclined reading this, yes, both Jan and I have had the full series of hepatitis A and B shots.
CULTURAL NOTES
Always greet people in the elevator as you enter. A simple "buenos días, buenos tardes, or on the way home, buenos noches" will let everyone in the elevator know you aren't rude. Then, if you are the last one in the elevator, face the group, why face the doors?
"Buen provecho" means "good appetite" and you will hear it or simply "provecho" all afternoon instead of "hola" as people come and go from the office.
Mints. Mints or small wrapped candies are handed out as you leave restaurants. Toothpicks can be a little hard to find, but mints are always available. They normally have the restaurant's name on the wrapper.
I stopped the car before entering an intersection, allowing a group of pedestrians to actually use the crosswalk. They showed their appreciation by showing me the back of their hand, to say "gracias." It took me a while to get this. I'm accustomed to seeing the back of someone's hand with only one finger sticking up, and it doesn't mean gracias! Think of how the Pope holds his hands up in a parade. Perhaps the Pope is saying "thank you?"
Pastry is cheap. Simply pick up an aluminum tray and pastry tongs, pick out what you want and bring it to the pastry country. They place it on a sheet of plastic, then hold it by the alternate corners and somehow twirl it closed. Sandwiches are done the same way...and they stay closed.
I finally did it. I was warned, but I got sloppy and ordered a "Negro Modelo" beer at a dinner party in a nice restaurant. Luckily for me, the guy next to me explained that when he did made this slip, it was at a business dinner and his companions explained that he couldn't afford a Negro Modelo. He explained that he could and if he had to, he would put it on his corporate card. They laughed and told him that he probably couldn't expense a Negro Modelo. Negra Modelo is a beer, negro modelo is a hot black male prostitute!
Manzana Lift - Apple soda...not bad.