Random Mexico, what I face on a daily basis
Trip Start
May 31, 2008
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19
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Trip End
Jan 17, 2010
Zihuatanejo, Mexico
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The rainy season really kicked in now, I guess it decided to show its powers before the dry season will come its way. Initially I had imagined the rainy season to be filled with nothing but rain, hard rain pouring down at any time of the day for months. But it seems it's a little different, luckily for us! The rain does hit hard, but it still leaves enough time to enjoy most of the day at the beach or whatever. I thought this is a very generous gesture of mother nature, but I was also told that this is the first year it's so hot during rainy season. So it's not mother nature being nice to us, but rather human race taking over and killing the climatic cycle. The evenings are supposed to get a little fresher in October, let's see. Well, back to the rain. I'm dedicating so much attention to it because it just amazes me how much water can come down within a few minutes. The consequences of just 30 min hard rain are quite, how can I say, stinky and dirty!! The mud and dirt from the mountains are washed down the hills and get into the canal system. System is probably a pretty strong word here, not sure we could call something like this a system in Europe, but most of the time when there is no rain it works pretty well. Anyway, the sewers get full with mud so that at one point in time, they can't handle the city's natural disposal anymore and the rain can't drain away. Therefore, rivers burst through the streets and manholes start to bubble brown water onto the streets. With this really bad appearance comes the smell! And you are probably pretty happy that I won't go too much into detail on this one. As soon as the rain stops, mud and dirt and the other sewer elements start to dry in the streets and the smell continues. This is the point where you don't have to be jealous of my adventures and can be happy of having a great actual canal system.
Mexicans are quite patriotic. The day of the Mexican Revolution, the 16th of September brought some holidays, and it also brought Mexicans from the inland and festivities. The city had perfectly been prepared for this day: green, red and white were THE colours around the whole city. People would only dress in those colours, their make-up would match and flags and balloons everywhere. I was super excited to see such a big festivity in person, but I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed. The 15th of September is when it all begins. The government organizes a huge party with great decoration. Jason and I got all fancy with our Mexican shirts on and were sticking out like crazy nonetheless due to Jason's golden curls. We enjoyed some of the very traditional dancing, some of the singing... and all those stands that only had food and drinks. Even though there must have been 40 or more stands, they were all packed. No point in putting an arts and crafts stand up or something creative, there is food and that should cover it all. It was really interesting to see though how festivities are taken out here. Back downtown, screens would show the incredible crouds in Mexico City. This special day is reason enough to go and get crazy. Not us though, we enjoyed watching and drinking tequila at our favourite café. We were told that a nice parade would go through the city the next morning. I was wondering why they would do that in the early morning but when we got there at 8:30 am I understood!! The parade was filled with all the school classes of Zihuatanejo. Girls in their little skirts and boys marching on the streets, some playing the drum with their excited mothers walking alongside the street. The only adults that managed to get up that early after a heavy night were the teachers and the mums who had to walk directly next to their child and ruined most of it. So this was the rather disappointing part, I know they have extraordinary parades, and school kids is not what I had expected.
What I was also not expecting is the extreme election campaigns. Elections are coming up on October 5th and since we got here, the city has been put upside down! I can understand the posters everywhere, but there are stages at the beach where the candidate's party gives out free t-shirts, stickers and I don't know what else. They do a huge promotion thing! The other day we were having lunch and we hear super loud music approaching from a car. Well, it was not only one car, but it was its own parade. Several trucks and cars had been decorated with the parties' colour and people were dancing on them throwing t-shirts. I have never seen anything like this for an election! It felt more like carnival for me. Something that I had expected for the revolution day. The candidates also have their own song. The candidate with most funds seems to be Alejandro Bravo. I know the song by heart, as passing cars have it on loud speakers and I can hear it in our apartment. Jason hates him since they stuck two stickers on Rosa-Maria without asking us. It really put him down. I'm very excited to see with what else they'll come up as we are approaching the elections.
That loud speaker method is being used for mostly everything. In small villages where most people are analphabetic, those cars read out the news. In other villages they sell oranges. Here in the city it has mostly been used for the election, but also to promote the circus when it was in town and the gas guy so you can run out to the street in time when you hear: Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaasss! It's pretty funny, the city never sits still.
Now here is something I want to share with you that I like a lot and actually realized quite late. The sidewalks here in the city are very unique. You mostly have to look down as you can get seriously injured. There are huge holes, the sidewalks are slippery because of the rain, there is no sidewalk at all or they have big metal sticks sticking out where Jason hit his foot twice and cut his toe. Those metal parts where installed when the city asked for money to get street lights. They did the initial work and once they received the money, they just used it for something else and street lights were never installed. But the most incredible thing for me about those sidewalks is that there is no dog poop anywhere. With all those street dogs everywhere, fat, thin, ugly, fluffy ones, the city should be covered with dog poop just like in Europe where dogs even have owners that are supposed to pick it up. Mexican street dogs are exclusive though, I learned they only like the grass and the sand. So they have their specific spots in bushes or at the beach where no people go and that's how they keep the city dog poop free. Quite amazing for me!
Quite annoying have been those ants in our apartment that I liked a lot at the start. The apartment, not the ants! Ants seemed to be under control, but I think were only fooling us. As soon as we finished eating, we would take care of the dishes and never leave any food lying around. They found ways to get into packaging and when they got into my Nutella glass, they declared war!!!! We bought tupperware and ziplog bags but they still manage to overpower us. I think they are getting desperate though as they are just everywhere. They moved in the bedroom, where there is no food. Since a few days they are in the bathroom, and surprise surprise they also like the toilet!!! How can that be? What stupid ants are those?
Let me tell you something about ants. There are so many types of ants and they all act differently. Here at home we have 4 different types of ants. There are the gigantic ones that come alone and almost look like small cockroaches. Then there are the regular size black ones that have taken over one bed that we don't sleep in. The other one was being eaten by termites so we put it outside and we are back on our sleeping mattress. There is also the crazy "I'm just running around" ant. They are very small and just run like crazy in circles. The most tricky ones are the microscopic ones that find their way into everything. They are so small that we didn't even see them at first. They are almost transparent and move very slowly. Now I used to spend most of my mornings to kill and spray ants before being able to have breakfast. I spend a whole hour spraying and spraying until they started to come out with their eggs trying to save them. What I haven't mentioned yet are the cockroaches. We have many nasty dark corners in the kitchen and one where there used to be a stove. I don't know how much old food is in the corners, but I know we had a nest there. Jason sprayed the hell out of the concrete and sure enough we had about 10 roaches lying on their back the next morning. This was definitely too much for me, living in a place with roaches and ants nests. We haven't had any roaches since then, but the ants keep spreading their colony. Jason and I went apartment hunting and viewed quite a few. Very interesting ones, even one super nice and fancy and expensive one : ( One that had mice poop and roaches all over, very inviting!!! Anyway, we decided for one that we are very happy about. It's one big room with a big and a small bed, a nice glass dinner table with metal chairs, a glass coffee table with a small couch, a light kitchen area with microwave and a real stove! It has a good bathroom and a nice balcony facing a pedestrian zone with trees and plants giving a lot of shade to the room. It is very light and I can't wait not having to face little dark corners anymore. We already moved yesterday and today but we'll be still quite busy the next days. Abuelita, the owner of our old apartment was a little angry at first, but Jason came up with a good excuse and then we were joking with here again. We will probably stay there for another 2 months and then the next episode will come.
