Failing at your own business–Taxi service

After dinner, last week, my husband began by saying I should hear him out about this plan he has and I immediately perked up and took notice. What new plan was this??? So he started with “There is this group of women and they would pay $100 each. . .” I thought perhaps he was talking about a tanda, which is a sort of chain savings plan where a number of women contribute a portion of their weekly earnings, paying it to the designated hostess and receiving it the week of her own hosting. I tuned out of the conversation for a bit while I tried to think of the word tanda and came back to full attention when my husband started making hugging and kissing pantomimes. What was he talking about?

His sister L, he continued, wanted to visit her young boyfriend (see Parenting challenge–Independence vs. safety) who is currently serving a five-year stint in the bote (jail) near Valle de Santiago on Sunday for a visit. She asked if my husband would drive her there in the truck. She had a group of 9 ladies or so that also wanted to go to visit their significant others and they would pay $100 pesos each for the ride. My husband pressed me to agree by saying we could drop them off at the jail, then go to the tianguis (flea market) in Valle and spend the day leisurely enjoying the shopping and refreshments with the profits of the trip.

I reminded him that every single one of his sister’s plans has caused problems for us. Her last move gave my husband a hernia, her involvement in some of our money making schemes has cost us money and so on. As recent as a week previously, she and the strapping Cornhusker-grown wife of M were brawling in the streets while my husband was trying to close a deal on the burra (donkey)  and he pretended he didn’t know either of them. How could any idea of hers be a good idea?

What if she was planning on breaking her man out of jail? I could just picture them, 9 cholos climbing out of the wrenched jailhouse bars that had been tied to the hitch of the truck, holding their pants in one hand and hopping in the back of the get-away vehicle (driven by my husband) with police and their Uzis firing after us.

As it appeared I wasn’t going to agree, my husband played his trump card. Well, if that did happen, he said, it would be something interesting for me to write about in my blog. OK. I’m in.

This was one time that the reality didn’t live up to my imagination. We got up at the unearthly hour of 4 a.m. Sunday morning so that we could take care of the animals before we left. We began the pickup round for inmate wives and families at 5 a.m.

I have privileged status, being the wife of the driver, so I sat in the front seat. My son however was ousted to the back of the truck so that a wife and baby could be in the front. I also was given a baby, a little tike about 3 months old, to hold. Although the driver is required to wear a seatbelt, no one else in the vehicle is subject to that law. Therefore, we held the babies in our laps. Fortunately, neither baby was fussy, so it wasn’t as difficult as it might have been.

The State Penitentiary outside Valle de Santiago

We arrived at the Ceresa (State Penitentiary) about 7 a.m. The ladies hurried to the gate, leaving their children behind in my care, to get their ficha (number). They came back 20 minutes later or so, happy. All of them had scored numbers between 30 and 40, so they would be towards the head of the line. Then they scattered again to hunt down pan (bread) sold by local vendors. They came back with 2 to 3 bags each. These sweetbreads were to leave with their incarcerated significant other for breakfast for the week. There seems to be a concern that the inmates aren’t fed, but I think that’s just not true. I’ve seen some recently released men and they are in no way starving–in fact they were some of the fattest men I came across in Mexico. But then again, maybe their wives and mothers are very conscientious about their weekly visit.

After the bread rush, the ladies rushed to the gate for a second time to claim their credenciales (visitor’s passes). Each lady has her own laminated card, complete with her name and picture, the name of the inmate she is visiting, and the relationship to the inmate. My husband’s sister is not married to her young cholo, so I asked to see her card. She is listed as being G’s concubina (concubine). I had no idea that being a concubine was a legal status here in México. Well, I expect that makes it easier for her to request conjugal rights.

So by then the sun had come up, so the ladies began to primp and preen as any girl might before a hot date. Gel and blush, combing hair and brushing teeth, even a quick change of shirt, something more feminine. I shamelessly eavesdropped while they worked on themselves and each other.

So I learned about the trip last week to see the hombres encuarados (nearly naked men) and some mean gossip about two other ladies that didn’t travel with us. I was especially interested in what their men had done to be in the carcel (jail) in the first place, but I didn’t know them well enough to ask. However, my husband’s sister was free with her own gossip. The one girl with the 2 kids that sat next to me was the daughter-in-law of the lady who gave us doughnuts. They were here to visit a man who was in for 7 years for beating another man to death with a stone in La Yacata. (Hmm, must have been before we moved there.) The mother of the baby I held during the trip was there to visit her man who had been arrested for selling drugs, like G. The older lady was there to visit her husband who was in year 7 of a 12 year sentence, but my husband’s sister didn’t know for what. And the last lady was there to visit her husband who was in for 30 years for kidnapping an elderly man and holding him for ransom.

Enough gossip, it was time to line up. They left their jackets, cell phones and purses in my care. My husband helped them carry their babies and bags of food to the line. They were called in by groups of 10. We waited until we were pretty certain they had all been admitted and then went to look for breakfast.

Even by rural standards, there was nothing nearby that even resembled a store or restaurant. We stopped at a place that had a few tables set up in the yard desperate to eat. The only thing on the menu was carnitas (fried pork) which is not what I really wanted for breakfast, but the pico de gallo and salsa were very good.

Breakfast of champions in Puebla Nueva

So then we went in search of a gas station. We didn’t have to wait in line and they had free and clean bathrooms.

Waiting in line at the gas station in Villa Nueva

We couldn’t afford to drive around and waste gas, so we went back to jail and parked under a mesquite tree outside the compound to wait for our passengers. With the heat and the owls hooting in the palm trees, I soon fell asleep.

Patience is a virtue that we have learned to perfect in México. My husband has taken up smoking to help him to wile away these long waiting periods and keep him calm. My son has learned to bring his rechargeable games (DS or PSP) when we expect something like this to happen. I bring my notebook to record everything for posterity. So went the afternoon. No shopping, no escaping cholos, nothing but the heat and an occasional passing vehicle.

My siesta was disturbed by the passing traffic.

So at 3 p.m. we entered the prison compound again. My husband went to wait by the door when he saw ladies beginning to trickle out. I was approached by some other lady, not one that had traveled with us who said that she was the friend of Mari (I still don’t know which one was Mari) and that she was going to leave these 2 benches with us to take back to Moroleón. I said, sure. Then she went back for 2 more. About 30 minutes later, our passenger ladies came out loaded with things. My husband moved the truck closer to the door. The ladies were peeved that there were already furniture items in the back because that meant less room for their own things.

Front door at the Ceresa

They had large wooden framed paintings of the Virgen of Guadalupe, several more benches, a large TV stand, a child’s desk, two children’s hat stands and some little end tables. My husband’s sister had a centerpiece sized paper swan that she was all paranoid about having damage. (I guess her man isn’t as talented as some and that was the best he could come up with.) After a bit of maneuvering of babies, women and furniture bits, we were finally loaded and left the compound at 5 p.m.

The significant other ladies all sported nice collections of hickeys that they did not have in the morning. I suppose it makes sense that since their men can’t be there to make sure the ladies aren’t stepping out during the week, that they mark their territories with hickies during visiting hours.

One under way, I asked that lady in the front about the furniture. It seems there is quite a prison industry going on. The inmates that wish to work are given materials and a weekly wage (about $700 pesos per week) and make these items. Their wives and mothers then come and pick up the items and sell them in their hometowns. The inmates also make shoes that can be ordered through by catalog.

I was amazed. $700 pesos a week! I expect that the families of many of these inmate workers are earning more now that their men are behind bars than they were before. Work is scarce in this area. Crime does pay after all.

So we made it back to Moroleón before it began to rain, made the drop offs and arrived home about 7 p.m. After we fed and watered the animals, I asked my husband how much money he had made with this venture. He ruefully admitted that he only had $300 pesos free and clear, after gas and tolls. It hadn’t been a good money-making plan after all but it did make a good story.

Battling Nature–La Cucaracha

Cockroaches (la cucaracha) are another yuck that I haven’t yet made peace with. Here, these crispy critters are nearly 2 inches long, and reddish brown. They seem to care little whether it is day or night, although they are more prone to ask friends and neighbors over to dally in the bathroom at night. Crunching underfoot as you walk in the street, flying (yes they fly!) overhead in the evenings and marching across the kitchen floor just as guests arrive, make them a hazard I am not thrilled to have.

As everyone knows, there is a Raid for cockroaches too. However, these are roaches like I’ve never seen before and I expect I would need to use the industrial strength spray to even make a dent in their existence.  After my incident with the Raid for flies, I decided to not go that route.

One thing I have noticed since moving out of Moroleón and into La Yacata is that having moved out of town, cockroaches are not so common. We might have one or two that pass through our house, but the plethora of party down roaches in town are no where to be found. Roaches are city folks. Whew!

Battling Nature–Lizards and snakes

Lizards are abundant in La Yacata, probably due to the fact that it is desert-like most of the year. Lizards, I have discovered, are not to be feared, although they do startle one at times, especially when answering the call of nature in the great outdoors. Their movements resemble that of snakes, which are to be feared.

My mother-in-law used to insist that lizards are dangerous and have been known to crawl up inside of women while they are sleeping. I’m not sure how true this is, however, just to be on the safe side, I at least will be wearing underwear wherever there is a plethora of lizards crawling about.

No desert is complete without snakes. One day, just arriving home from school, I heard quite a commotion outside with the chickens, and went to investigate. Suddenly, I heard hissing amidst the frantic clucking and lo and behold, a long, silver snake was trying to get at some eggs the hens had laid outside the fence. Apparently, it was one of the poisonous types, although I did not get close enough for positive identification. My husband snatched up a garden rake and machete and did some fancy dancing before finally trapping its head in the rake rungs and chopping it off. The icy cold adrenaline rush from close encounters with one of these is not pleasant.

I know that snakes keep down rodent and other small annoying mammal population, but once it has crossed into our yard, actually gone through the gate, there is no mercy shown. Snakes can crawl through chicken wired gates. Use the smallest mesh available. And in a land that is not your own, all snakes are subject to mistrust.

 

Parenting Challenge–Conformity and Education

The other day I was asked what secondary school my son would be attending. As he is only 11, I hadn’t thought much about it. This person, with good intentions, began listing the attributes of different schools in the area. I started to get stressed. Maybe I should start investigating? Maybe I should start visiting the schools to see what they offer and what the facilities are like? Maybe I should start planning for my son’s future? Then I had to take a deep breath and get ahold of myself. I had to remind myself why we sent my son to school in the first place.

What the traditional classroom does not teach our children

My son attends a Mexican public school 4 hours a day, 200 days a year. We made the decision to send him to school, not because we thought the school system here was adequate for life learning, but because we realized that in order for him to one day integrate into our community, he would need skills that neither I, as a foreigner, nor his father, who never went to school, could teach him. (See Homeschool Variation) We wanted him to learn the habits and customs of the region, along with the language, so that if he chose to remain here, he could do so with moderate to extreme success. With those reasons, who cares what school he goes to???

Mexico is no different than the U.S. in their educational methods. They employ a curriculum based on service to self rather than service to the world. Students have been taught to do as they are told, become successful in order to buy more things, pay their taxes, run the maze, never mind that isn’t enough to truly be. As we do not want my son to be like most men who. . .go through life without a single definite act of willing. Habit, convention, the customs of the world have done so much for us that we get up, dress, breakfast, follow our morning’s occupations, our later relaxations, without an act of choice.–Charlotte Mason — our daily activities are often at odds with the culture we find ourselves in. (see Forcibly Green–Obligatory Organic ) This way of life has caused some angst on the part of my pre-teen son. (see Parenting challenge–cultural apathy). Sometimes he just wants to do what everyone else does. I admit, sometimes I feel the same. It’s so hard to always be at odds with those who live around you, to not know the socially correct response in a given situation. When I start feeling this way, I have to remind myself that I made the conscious choice to live life as a field mouse rather than a lab rat and therefore this social discomfort is the price I pay. Teaching this ‘will’ can only be done through indirect means rather than a series of planned lessons. (see Parenting Challenge–Creating an Atmosphere for Education) Mostly it comes down to demonstrating through actions, the difference between what is and what could be, that there are no right answers, only more questions, and that there always, always is a choice and those choices always, always have consequences.

This service of man (or as Charlotte Mason says, service of God) is a difficult path to be sure. I’d like to give up, especially after being hammered with lawsuits (See Demanda 1 Demanda 2) for getting in the way of another’s service to self. But as I stand as example for my son, my actions, whether I wish it or not, are observed by him; my decisions, intentionally or not, affect his life; so I can not in all good conscience throw in the towel. But as for being stressed out over sending him to a good school? Bah. The best school is the one you make for yourself as you travel through life.

Freethinkers are not formed in a standard classroom setting.

Battling Nature–Scorpions

So after the chickens and ducks had become my salvation in the battle of the flies, I started thinking about what other enemies might they take on.

Scorpions (los alacranes) are also a hazard I hadn’t planned on. They come right into the house and make themselves at home. I’m worried I will come across one and get stung. They especially come out at night. As we have no electricity, a midnight trip to the bathroom may prove dangerous. This morning, I picked up my jeans that I had left puddled on the floor when I went to bed. Out fell a major daddy of a scorpion. Good thing I shook my pants out before putting them on. I don’t want to imagine the alternative. Reportedly, there is a Raid for scorpions too. It comes in a red canister. I was told to spray it around my bed to keep them out, but I’m not sure what is worse, the scorpion or the poisonous gas from the Raid right where we sleep.

Once, a visitor to our home, thought to help us rid ourselves of scorpions by giving us some herbs to burn in our fireplace.  Supposedly burning these herbs would create a smell that the scorpions couldn’t stand and they would vacate the premises.  Well, not to hurt her feelings, we burned the herbs.  They smelled a bit sulfury.  The thing is, I’m not sure scorpions can smell.

Local lore states that finding a scorpion in your home means you are to come into money. I initially pooh-poohed that idea. However, one night, there were no less than 3 scorpions scaling the walls. And the next day, we won the grocery store “rifa” (raffle) for $100 pesos of free food. So maybe there is something to that superstition after all. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to matter that the scorpions had been killed dead upon discovery.

I had this idea that chickens would make our house and garden safe from the dreaded scorpion. I imagined a flock of chickens in our yard, patrolling the grounds so that it would be safe to venture outside. Something like the mongoose and snakes I suppose. Well, I have been disillusioned. Chickens, if they eat scorpions, will die. So much for my army of patrolling chickens.

My husband is very leery of scorpions and he has been stung and several occasions. It is painful, although often not life threatening, unless the person has an allergy. Often however, the person doesn’t know he or she has an allergy until he or she has been stung. So when I holler that there is a scorpion, he comes with needle nose pliers in hand. He grabs the scorpion just below the stinger and kills it. There is no reason just to set it free in the wild. Then with one disposed of, we start the hunt for its mate. For when there’s one, there’s two or so goes the scorpion saying in Mexico.

My battle against the scorpions also extends to outside because scorpions don’t seem to be kept out with screening. Any scorpion within my garden realm is subject to extermination. Scorpions have stung our new puppies, killed off baby bunnies and any chicks who happen to try and make a meal out of one, injured our best egg layer and generally make a nuisance of themselves. To the best of my knowledge, scorpions have no natural predators, except me. So I fight the good fight and try to keep my area scorpion free.

Parenting Challenge–Cultural Apathy

El Día del Niño
Children’s Day
April 30th

April 30th in México is el Día del Niño (Children’s Day). I love this holiday! The main idea is to celebrate childhood and the children in your life and hasn’t gone too commercial yet. It isn’t about giving your kids toys. It’s about spending time with them–which is priceless.

So this April 30th, the school where I work on Saturdays sponsored a Children’s Day event–free to the public. About 200 hundred children in the immediate area were given an invitation that included a small bag of candy. Come the day of the event, 20 children attended. Well, not to be discouraged, we made the most of it. We played with a parachute. We played red light–green light. We had a tug-a-war contest. We played musical chairs. We did Zumba. We played gallitos (Little Roosters) which is a game where balloons are tied around the kids’ ankles and then the other team tries to stomp on them. (Anyone who knows me will tell you I personally hate this game since I have a moderate balloon phobia. However someone else directed it and I went and hid upstairs until the last balloon was gone.) We kicked the soccer ball around and generally had enormous fun. Prizes were simple, hula hoops, yo-yos, piggy banks and balls.

Of course, there were a few stick-in-the-muds. One little boy brought his PSP. I found him tucked away in the corner of a classroom playing in complete isolation. I took his game away and made him come out and do Zumba. Twenty minutes later, there he was again, hiding under some desks with his game. I threw my hands up in exasperation. Another little girl had some difficulty integrating at first–the kids ranged in age from 2 to 13 and most didn’t know each other from Adam–but about half way into the event, she was out there tugging her little heart out with her team.

My son, of course, was there the entire time, from set up to clean up, the price he pays for being the teacher’s kid. He even tortured his poor old mom with some balloon popping fun. There was no doubt he had a great time.

But when we got home, he was a regular gloomy Gus. He was disappointed that not one of his classmates came to the event. He asked me why he couldn’t be just like everyone else and have friends that come over and visit.

That was a two part question, so I addressed them separately, although the answers were somewhat related. I asked him if he had a good time. Of course he did. I asked him what he thought his friends had done instead of coming to the event. Watched TV or played video games. I asked who really lost out–my son or his friends. Well, his friends, because he really had a good time. So I said that no, he wasn’t like everyone else and probably never would be, because he participates in the opportunities life presents, and that wasn’t a bad thing.

Then to answer the second part of the question, I asked why he thought his friends didn’t come to visit him. The obvious reason is because we don’t live in town and coming to La Yacata requires a bit of effort, not because his friends did not want to play with him. He wasn’t entirely satisfied with that answer and said he would rather live in town.

I know that at his age (nearly 11) socialization is the end all and be all of his existence. I feel guilty as a parent sometimes that he doesn’t have any brothers or sisters to play with and that we live isolated from the bulk of the population. I also feel guilty that that way we have raised him creates a feeling of outsider, when all he wants to do is fit in. His values and priorities are different than the mainstream. I have tried to make him a citizen of the world and I may have succeeded too well and made him belonging to nowhere.

Yet, as agonizing as he finds pre-adolescence, having gone through it myself, I know that one day he will discover that “the road to a friend’s house is never long” and that acceptance does not guarantee happiness. Meanwhile, I will love him unconditionally through the prickliness and tears and laughter and joy with the hope that it will be enough.

Battling Nature–Flies

We live outside of town, surrounded by open space, grasses, and animals. Our garden wall is shared with the neighbors, who happen to be bovine. We have horses, goats, sheep, rabbits, and dogs,  and an occasional pig all of which poop. And the poop attracts the flies. In the months before the rainy season, there is a biblical plague number of flies. They are everywhere. We have screens over the windows, which for this area is eccentric, but necessary to keep out the swarms. But somehow they still get in. So I looked into methods of extermination.

First I tried Raid for Flies. Yep, it’s a real thing. Comes in a purple canister. I sprayed one day after I had left the garage door open and a gazillion flies peppered the ceiling. I sprayed the whole can and then stumbled outside, nearly unconscious. It did kill some of the flies, but I puked and puked and thought I was going to die as well. And when the air cleared, there were dead fly bodies and live fly bodies about. Not a victory there.

So then I asked what the locals do for the flies. The solution is to hang a clear plastic bag full of water at the entrance of the house. The theory being the approaching fly will see its own magnified reflection, think it is some sort of giant insect, scream and veer off. I see some flaws in this plan, the predominant one is that it doesn’t seem to keep the flies out.

When my mother-in-law moved her kitchen from in the house to an outside patio area the fly problem was exponentially increased due to the lack of walls. So her solution was to buy pink pellet poison, put it on plates and set them around the kitchen, on tables and the floor. The way it works is the flies are attracted to the sweet poison, eat it and drop dead. As testament to the effectiveness, little dead fly bodies littered the plate. Again, however, there was a flaw in the plan. No less than 3 of the household pets were also attracted to the pink sweet poison and died horrible deaths. I also thought it might be hard for my mother-in-law to win this battle with flies, as the kitchen was outside. In order for it to work effectively, she would have to exterminate all the flies in La Yacata. This seemed an impossible task and more than I was willing to take on. I only wanted flies to stay outside my house, not kill off the entire species.

So I asked around some more. Fly traps. That yellow sticky spiral tape stuff that you hang from the ceiling. Ok, this wasn’t venomous. I could try this safely. And each role is only 8 pesos. Within an hour, my house was fly free. I admit, its not pretty, dead and dying flies and their parts hanging in the kitchen. And if it is accidentally hung too low, a pain to get out of one’s hair. But it works. The simple way is usually the best.

Yet, there were still flies outside. Oodles of them. As I knew I wouldn’t win the battle against all the flies in La Yacata, being outnumbered, but I hoped to reduce the number in my immediate area. I thought about other enemies of flies. So what eats flies? Spiders. Ok. Large spider webs constructed in the garden were left in peace. Lizards. Again, found easily throughout La Yacata, but not really subject to permanent residence in the garden.

Birds. Now there’s something. Our chicken flock had been growing steadily and I noticed that there were less flies where the chickens were. I looked around again. The piles of animal poop seem to be gathering places and breeding grounds of flies. So why don’t we let the spare roosters have an area to patrol? The white rooster gets the sheep pen. The black rooster gets the goat area. The two little red roosters get the horse stall and dog area. For good measure, the littlest rooster has free range in the garden. The roosters fatten up quite nicely, and just as importantly, less flies.

Then, when we got ducks, yippee. Ducks love to catch flies and are entertaining to watch to boot. They lie in wait, motionless for so long that you think there might be something wrong and then, all of a sudden–blam! a vertical leap and beak snap and one less fly in the yard. And they get their protein this way. You know what they say “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”