Premature Observations on Mexico (and pictures)

Mexican street with a lot of foliage visible

Awesome clouds

More awesome clouds, obscured by powerline

Awesome lizard from the street I live on

Closer
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Closest

Things that strike you on traveling to Mexico.

1. The heat. It's hotter here than in Michigan, especially during the winter but also noticeably during the summer. It's not too uncomfortable most of the day, because we are almost always inside, but waiting for Erick to pick me up from school sucks.

2. The dirt. Outside of businesses and homes, where things are well kept and clean, the entire area seems to be really dirty. The streets are lined with inches of old garbage that has broken down beyond recognition to form a brown-gray layer in all the gutters. It is worse on the highways, and there are even places on the side of the highway that have giant piles of trash, in trash bags and not. There are always vultures circling overhead of them. It seems that here it is acceptable or at least common for people to just throw trash over their shoulder, so to speak.

3. The plants. The plants here are all of a type unknown in Michigan, and they are much more aggressive and prominent. Things are green all over, and it seems the plants jump at any chance they get. Wherever the city has let go its stranglehold on the landscape even a little, plants have filled in the gaps. There is also a lot of horticulture, for whatever reason. The gas station across the street has bears and such, and there are some "tree houses" that look like bird houses made of tree branches and leaves. The other interesting thing about the plants is that all the trees are painted white on the bottom. Erick told me this was for aesthetics, which seems questionable as it doesn't look particularly good, and to keep animals and insects out of the trees. I was under the impression both of those were supposed to live in trees. Who knew?

4. The cityscape. There are several notable things about the cityscape itself. First, it is extremely colorful. Houses are bright colors, bright pink and yellow and green and any color you can imagine, and not always solid colors either. The houses themselves are organized not by streets but by “Colony” or neighborhood. That is, we give addresses by colony, not by street, and colonies are a bit more unified and exactly defined than in the US. Usually they have walls, as well. There are walls and gates surrounding practically every house. The funny thing about the walls is that they are typically covered in advertisements, unless they are in more rural areas. The advertisements are typically pretty funny, too. Finally, regarding the cityscape, we have a lot of speed bumps. That is, almost literally every block. They are really helpful and a good idea, I think. The roads themselves are in fairly bad condition usually.

5. The food. The food is obviously different than it is in Michigan. In Mina, there is little fast food, first of all, and there are a lot of taco restaurants. All the small food vendors in town have a really great naming system, by the way. Instead of picking a clever or memorable name, like restaurants in the US do, they simply call themselves by their first names. For example, Taqueria “Juan.” Despite the relative lack of fast food, the small vendors serve really greasy and sometimes bad food. These vendors, to be clear, are not street vendors. They have business installations in buildings, though typically small ones. Pizza in Mexico is really terrible. Food is typically served with tortillas and salsa and “salad,” which means a lettuce and other vegetable mix to put in your tortilla. We put practically everything in tortillas, be it plantains or chili or soy meat. I have soy milk and granola for breakfast every day, but soy milk comes in a powder you mix with water. Granola is more expensive and typically used in smaller quantities with yogurt and fruit. For lunch I eat Quesadillas or cheese sandwiches and fruit. They are all delicious. Also, we eat four times a day. My host family was surprised to hear we only eat three meals in the US, because Americans are notoriously fat.
   

6. The animals. There are so many more wild animals here than in Michigan. They are primarily dogs and cats, but there are also many lizards and birds and insects and such. The dogs and cats all look starved and mangy and roam the streets in packs. They are not spayed or neutered, which for some reason looks odd to me. I am not used to dog testicles for some reason. People here also seem to have more pets, although they also seem to pay them less attention. We have a dog here who never seems to get much attention except his eye medication. I have never seen a Mexican pet their dog or cat. They also have lots of parrots and fish and even ferrets, however. I know at least two people with ferrets here, which is double those I knew in Michigan. Fanny and my YEO's daughter, Karina, that is.

7. The music. The young kids or whoever here like to go to the disco, and they like to listen to disco music. Disco music is mostly reggaeton and some bad techno. I don't mind it particularly much in the car, but I would never listen on my own. But the funny part is that Erick also listens to a Mexican brass band cd, which is pretty cool and has some rompin' tunes. There seems to be a mix between dance music, native Mexican music, and “Oldies” from the US. Also a decent portion of Scream-o and metal among the younger kids.

8. The police/military/Pemex. The police here drive around in trucks and carry M-16s. That's disconcerting enough in itself, but there are also huge military jeeps full of armored soldiers, also with M-16s. The reason for this, they claim, is to protect the two huge refineries that provide the majority of jobs and income for Mina. I am really quite unsure of who they're defending them from. Surely not the Zapatistas. . . I feel less safe with them around, though, that's for certain. The refineries are extremely ugly and are constantly billowing smoke and casting this ghastly yellow-red glow on the sky. My host dad, who works there, tells me the light is from giant fires, boiling something or other. They are like Hell. Pemex is the nationalized petroleum industry here, and all the gas stations are Pemex. They don't list prices because they are the only gas station and I guess prices are the same all over the country. The gas stations all have attendants who fill you up and clean your windshield, without tips. Some sort of government unemployment program, I guess. Pemex owns the refineries and employs all the people in our Colony. We are permitted to live here until my host dad retires, at which point we are kicked out, as far as I understand it. Also, there are white trucks all over town that say Pemex on the door. These I guess are given to employees while they work there, because we have one. I can't imagine they'll let us keep that either though. There is also a Pemex hospital in Mina, the only hospital of note in a city of 150,000 people. It is private (owned by the government) and serves only Pemex employees and their families. It has the right to refuse treatment and does so. The only public alternative is the Red Cross, which runs the ambulances here. After that stage of things, I guess you have to pay for another private hospital. I'm not sure.