San Miguel de Allende has, for decades, been one of the shining jewels of Colonial Mexico, a mecca for painters, writers, musicians or anyone with artistic sensibilities who has been touched by its anc...
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Officials of the beach community of Puerto Escondido, in the state of Oaxaca, threw a December party to celebrate foreigners. A few hundred attended. Free food and drink remains an exciting lure. Mexican dignitaries were there and many immigration personnel worked the crowd, nice to meet you, so glad you are here. There were music, smiles and handshakes. A good time was had by all. How's that for welcome?
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Three Mexican fishermen, lost at sea for nine months and nine days, were world news for a few minutes in 2006.
Their survival was a miracle of faith and fierce determination, or the biggest fish tale ever told.
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Being an expatriate has nothing to do with a lack of patriotism, it merely means a person who lives in a country he wasn't born in.
You must be thinking of ex-patriot; someone who's turned against his country. It's a different spelling, like here and hear.
Usually the reasons are about experiencing a new culture and a different kind of weather, as they were for me. And they're always about reinventing yourself against a background that in Mexico I think of as simpático. It welcomes people in a mood for a lifestyle change.
But how does it work, really?
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No question about this, the monarchs are coming, the monarchs are coming from Canada and the United States to the massive butterfly campgrounds in the mountain ranges of Michoacan.
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The thought of driving in Mexico strikes a deadly fear into the hearts of many Americans and Canadians alike. Of course, they purchased Mexican car insurance when they crossed the border. Yet somehow this only made them feel legal, not safe. Now here's the reality as they ease their $46,000 BMW onto the pavement and point it south.
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It all began with a casual comment by my friend Rodrigo Orozco — also known as Tarantula Man, thanks to the anti-poaching project he leads in western Mexico — when I told him about a hike I was org...
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Question: I have read about the millions or billions the U.S. has lost on solar investments that went bankrupt. How is Mexico doing on green energy?
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Some of the tall tales about government bureaucracy and red tape are probably exaggerated but some are tragically true.
I and others got a chuckle out of the recent government campaign to identify "the most useless procedure" in delivering public goods and services.
Ordinary people jumped all over the opportunity to fuss about paperwork in triplicate which bogs down registrations, health care, education, social security, property transfers, tax administration, almost everything, even banking and discount cards — at state and local levels.
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One reader asked a generic "Anything going on?" which gives me a different opening: Indeed there is. It appears that Mexican holidays are undergoing Americanization.
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Perhaps you have heard that illegal immigration is down. The economy up north is supposedly discouraging. More and better border surveillance, patrols and the fence could be factors. Up, down or sideways, illegal immigration is, well, illegal. It is breaking and entering followed by an occasional game of hide and seek. All that said, sometimes bad ends up good.
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This is the story about Jeanine Lee Kitchel and her husband, Paul, who made their first trip to the Yucatan Peninsula in 1985 and fell in love instantly with the place.
They had visited various parts of Mexico before that and were quite taken with the country.
But the Yucatan beaches were of a different order.
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Aside from the small, private hospitals, often referred to as clínicas, there are four publicly funded and insurance-based hospitals in the city, as well as a hospital just outside of the city offering specialized treatment for a number of serious ailments. There is the Red Cross facility available to all, often used for emergency treatment only. The civic hospital provides free services or treatment at a modest cost based on a sliding scale respecting means. ISSSTE is a federally funded facility restricted to government employees who are members of a union. Finally, there is IMSS...
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Question: The Pan-Am Games are scheduled for October. Is excitement building?
Answer: Yes. The games were awarded in 2006 with considerable fanfare. Carlos Andrade Garin says all 23 stadiums will be 100-percent ready — just in time. Carlos also says Mexico will present "the greatest games every held" for about one third the cost that Canada has budgeted for the 2015 games. Emilio Gonzalez Marquez, governor of Jalisco, says "security won't be an obstacle..."
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As I walked through the hotel lobby, the weight of the three hundred $100 bills sewn to the waist band of my Jockey shorts pulled my underpants down over my small rear. The money was hanging at my knees. As inconspicuous as a penguin waddling through the hotel lobby at high noon, I could easily have been mistaken for an amateur drug smuggler. When I approached the front desk, the clerk asked,
"Qué le parece un caja de seguridad?" I knew my cover was blown when he offered me a Safe-deposit Box.
It had been a long trip
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Mexico smiles and accepts many foreigners — because they bring money. Most prove to be some degree of blessing. Some gripe and complain but do no real harm. A few become curses.
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Question: There is so much bad news along the border. Does anybody ever smile?
Answer: Of course — and sometimes we laugh out loud.
With all hell breaking loose around them, Border Patrol agents in the Juarez region caught a crowd of bad Barbie dolls trying to sneak into the United States.
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Nobody asked about holidays in Mexico so I just won't tell you but I will say happy 2011. And please wish us luck for the Pan Am Games coming to Guadalajara in October. Cross your fingers that arenas and housing will be ready in time.
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One long-ago year, my Dad was out of work, much as fathers are today, but he was determined we'd have a tree just the same. All four of us, Dad, Mom, my sister and I, went to McNally's, the local man who sold trees just once a year. We couldn't afford any of his trees, except the worst looking thing on the entire lot. To call it "scrawny" would've been a compliment. It had a skinny trunk an 8-year-old could put her thumb and forefinger completely around and it was not blessed with more than half a dozen nearly bald branches. Besides all that, it tilted like the Tower of Pisa. My sister and I looked at each other in teary dismay.
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Josefina is the woman who, when I was bitten by a scorpion and hysterically yelling for help, simply went to the top shelf of her kitchen cabinet, withdrew a glass jar containing a dead scorpion in sticky fluid, and applied the fluid to my wound. "Voila!" The pain immediately subsided, and that was the end of my trauma.
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There once was a questionnaire regarding what was best and worst about Mexico.
Wonderful winter weather was judged the single best thing about Mexico.
Compiled answers said the second best thing about Mexico was the food. Food was also listed among the worst things about Mexico. The ratio of favorable to unfavorable was about three to one.
Instead of Maya ruins or architecture in Guadalajara or ripe mangos at street markets, third among positives were beautiful women.
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Is Mexico moving forward or back? Perspective please. Do they sell Brita water filters in Mexico? Do they purify street water so you can drink it? Can it possibly be true that a Mexican invented color television? What are micheladas? I just heard a tidbit about Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. How did they get back into the news?
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My survey says half the households in Mexico have a dog or cat.
Our neighbors have two small, yappy dogs and one cat the color of a pale pumpkin. Another cat, mostly white, comes and goes but is not regarded as a permanent resident with full privileges. If it arrives when the food dish is full, it eats and stays a while. If its timing is bad, it apparently moves on.
Small children sometimes throw the pets around as if they were stuffed toys. I shudder. Somehow, all survive.
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For some, illegal immigration is a simple equation, what you risk for what you get.
Luis Alberto Martinez Gomez became an illegal four years ago. He was 16.
The family concluded Luis might be better off in the United States. There was an uncle who once made a promise to help the nephew if ever needed. He came through with cash for a border coyote.
Going north sounded so simple.
It wasn't.
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Question: What is a Mexican roof dog?
Answer: Glad you asked. It is a low-budget form of homeland security, a four-legged alarm placed on flat roofs of homes and businesses to look down on and discourage intruders, door-to-door salesmen and other nuisances.
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