The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Lesley Tellez

What happens when you have no water in Mexico

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Turns out that when the city cuts off your water service — which is what happened to us a few days ago — you can just pick up the phone and buy some more.

There’s a whole industry of private “pipas” here, which are basically big water trucks that pull up to your house and fill up your cistern. They’re in the yellow pages, so you can even shop around for a price. Ours charged us 150 pesos per apartment for 10,000 liters of water.

You ask: But where do they get their water? And if they have water, how come the city can’t use it, instead of shutting off water to residents in the name of conservation? This is the official reason why we don’t have service, by the way — because there isn’t enough water to go around. I asked my landlady this question, and she just shrugged.

Because a person will go insane if they ponder these kinds of things too long, instead I’m going to focus on the positive, which is that we do have water now, thanks to the pipa guys. Our toilets don’t work — we have to fill up the tanks every time we want to flush — but we do have TV and cable and light.

The real water will hopefully come sooner or later. In the meantime, maybe I’ll call a laundry service for all the clothes piling up in the hamper.

The honeymoon’s over, and we have no water

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In the past few days, when people have said to me, “Oh, you’re new! How do you like it here so far?” My response has been — thoughtful pause — “I like it…”

Everything is starting to grate on me, suddenly. The noise. The endless horn-honking. So much freaking horn-honking, I start composing symphonies of horn-honks in my head. Could one have a Hallelujah Chorus of honking? What about that gloomy Transylvania theme song, always blaring in haunted houses? That thing was made to be honked.

Then today, we woke up to find we had no water. It’s a problem throughout our neighborhood. Undeterred in my quest to become the cleanest woman in Mexico, I ended up taking a medieval-type shower, heating up water on the stove and then carrying it into the shower in my largest mixing bowls. It actually worked pretty well, to be honest. Something tells me tomorrow it won’t be as fun.

Other things I don’t understand about this country: Why paying a bill at the bank takes at least an hour. Why getting Internet at home, if you don’t have a phone line, takes two to three weeks. And why men make that weird lip-smacking sound at women walking down the street. It sounds like they need a toothpick.

I’m looking forward to getting out of here, at least for a little while. My friend Joy and I are going to the Yucatan at the end of the month, which will be nice.

So I’ve officially descended from my new-resident high. Still like it here, but it just feels more real. Not as magical.

Could you give me your food?

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Yesterday, in a burst of stupidity, I decided to walk home from Roma — where I’d been working on that freelance story — to our apartment in Cuauhtemoc. I was hungry and tired and didn’t feel like squeezing myself into the Metrobus. (The thing was so crowded, the doors had actually closed on one man’s belly. Off the bus went, the guy’s stomach sticking out in the night air.) Turned out walking was a worse idea — my laptop bag dug into my shoulder for 30 minutes, my knees ached.

Anyway, I happened to be carrying a to-go container with some leftovers from lunch. As I hurried through the streets, a little girl came up to me.

“Can you give me your food?” she asked. I said no before I even realized what she was saying.

A few minutes later, a teenage boy selling roses approached me. I started shaking my head.

“I’ll give you a rose as a gift,” he said, “if you give me your food.”

Suddenly I realized that among the sea of people hurrying home from work, nobody carried any to-go containers, anywhere. I was the only one.

I said no to that boy, too, and felt like a horrible person. When I got home I dug into the salad and tried not to think of how long it’d been since they’d both eaten fresh produce.

You know you’re a reporter in Mexico when…

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1. You call up a government office and no one answers the phone

2. You stop by the library during operating hours, only to be told they’re closed because they had a huge party the night before

3. You finally enter said library, and the very helpful librarian shows you relevant encyclopedias. Then she sends you out into the street with a stack of books and directions to a local copy shop.

4. You make an appointment to interview someone at their house. You show up at the agreed time. The other person, who is still getting dressed, says, “You’re so punctual!”

There are lots of great things about being a reporter here, too. When I was in Pachuca, people didn’t want to talk to me, but they told me so nicely. No one slammed the door in my face. (I’ve had the door slammed in my face before, but usually when I was inquiring about a dead child.)

On that happy note, I promise I will be blogging more once things calm down. You don’t even want to see my to-do list right now.

Pachucans love their pasties

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Pasties at the Restaurante La Blanca

I’m sorry I haven’t blogged as much lately. I’ve been working on a few freelance stories, one of which has taken me to Pachuca, an industrial town about one-and-a-half hours from Mexico City.

In the 19th century, Cornish miners came here to work the silver mines. They brought the savory beef pies known as pasties with them. (Not the other pasties, ahem.)

Pasties are everywhere here. Except they spell them “pastes.” There are even pastie chains, including Pastes Kiko’s, where I grabbed a quick, crispy mess of a pastie yesterday, filled with chicken in green mole sauce. I left with crumbs all over my lap. They also had pasties filled with rice pudding there.

Last night I went to Restaurante Mina La Blanca, a place near my hotel, and the waitress brought a plate of pasties to the table. She looked at me like I was a complete idiot when I asked, “What are these?”

I dug into the red mole version — that’s the half-eaten one above. It tasted like an empanada, but with a crisper, buttery crust. And it didn’t shatter or fall apart like the one at Kiko’s. I don’t even want to think about the amount of butter in that thing.

Might try to make pasties at home someday. Maybe I could find some Cornish mining songs to play while I work. Or the theme song from Pastes Kiko’s.

A few hundred signatures later, we now have a Mexican bank account

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I’ve been querying friends for a few weeks now on where we should open a bank account.

Pretty much everyone gave a different answer, so a few days ago I visited three banks. In the end I chose Ixe. They required the most pesos to open an account, but the bank executive there was friendly and patient, and he gave me his cell phone number. (As a sidenote, I had the worst experience at Bancomer. The bored-looking rep made me write down all the relevant info on a tiny receipt and he said he’d never heard of their special banking program for foreigners. “Dejame checar,” he said, which means “let me check.” I’m really starting to hate “dejame checar.” It’s a brush-off in sheep’s clothing.) Banamex was okay — I didn’t go with them because the crazy lines there scare me.

So Wednesday we went to Ixe to make it official. The nice exec offered us something to drink from the branch’s tiny cafe, and we declined. I figured it wouldn’t take too long. Naturally, we ended up being there for almost two hours.

We filled out a detailed application that asked us when and where we were born, our nationalities, how long we’ve lived in Mexico. (In the “civil status” section, I left the “regimen conyugal” part blank. Does that mean what I think it does…?) We waited while everything was neatly retyped, and then printed out for us to read. Then we fixed a few errors and waited some more.

After that came the flood of papers. We signed that everything was correct, that we were indeed opening a bank account, that “this is really me, and I am standing here in person, and this is my signature.” Finally we activated our checks and temporary debit card. Interestingly, every check here has to be activated here a special PIN number. I’m guessing that’s so you don’t get robbed blind. Also, even though we opened up a joint account, the checks only come in the principal account holder’s name. (ie, Crayton.) I can sign the checks and get my own debit card. But the checks don’t have my name. Oh well, I’m just the homemaker. I cook things.

We ended up getting renter’s insurance with Ixe, too. So we’re covered if the nearby volcano ever erupts.

Moist mango breakfast cake with granola crumble

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Mango cake

I was on a tear a few days ago to make Rick Bayless’ Mango Upside Down Skillet Cake. It’s from Mexican Everyday, a cookbook a friend gave me before I left. I’ve been reading it in little bites every day.

It was only after I started chopping my mangoes — purchased at the tiangius before we left on vacation, and ergo, slowly rotting in the refrigerator — that I realized I didn’t have enough. By a lot. The recipe called for three cups; I had barely one, after throwing one of the mangoes out. (Lesson here: One mango does not equal one cup chopped. Or, um, check your darn fridge before you start a recipe.)

I’m not usually a daring baker, but I decided to fold the mango into the batter and create my own cake. Adrenaline pumping (because this is the first time I’ve actually done something like this), I creamed the butter and sugars, whisked together the dry ingredients. Then, because I’m currently obsessed with amaranth granola, I decided to make a granola crumble topping.

That’s when the panic set in. I couldn’t remember how to create a crumble. Was it melted butter or softened butter? Or butter cut into 1/4″ pieces? Did you use a lot of butter and a little sugar, or the other way around? The cookbooks that could help were sitting in a box somewhere, and I didn’t have the Internet to consult. That’s getting installed — “supposedly” — tomorrow.

“Crayton!” I yelled. He was in the back room playing Mario Kart. “I need moral support here!”

Because he’s a great husband, he didn’t scream, “Whaddya want, woman?! I’m playing my game here!” Instead he wandered into the kitchen and offered to look up crumbles on his Blackberry. In the end, we mutually decided that finding a cookbook would be better. The Betty Crocker Book of Baking (a Christmas gift when I was 14) lay in the third box he opened. The crumble ratio, according to one recipe: A few tablespoons of softened butter and about 1/4 cup sugar.

The cake turned out pretty good — hearty from a big scoop of whole wheat flour, moist from 3/4 cup of yogurt and not overpoweringly sweet, because I like to use turbinado instead of the white stuff. It’d be perfect with coffee in the morning.

Here’s the recipe, if you’re interested. Although winging it is way more fun.
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Old lady shoes

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In the first few weeks of living here, it became clear that my shoes were crap. They couldn’t sustain all the walking I was doing. I developed a pain in my heel, which probably came from my tight hamstrings and tension traveling down to my feet. (Where is the fetish taxista when you need him?)

I had to buy new shoes. (Phantom Crayton voice: “But you HAVE shoes!”) Actually, if I say I need shoes, Crayton believes me. And then sometimes I end up feeling really bad because occasionally I stretch the truth just a wee bit.

In this case, I really did need new shoes. (And 30 minutes with my Shiva Rea yoga DVD.)

I looked around in San Diego and annoyed everyone with my indecision. I pondered Keds, then nixed the idea because they seemed too casual for an afternoon at say, Contramar. I tried on orange Croc-esque flats and looked at my feet with such woe that Crayton said, “Those aren’t you, honey. It’s okay.”

I went to Ross — rekindling my love for the place; they have everything there! — and I almost bought a pair of Sketchers with raggedy velcro straps and a spot on the toe. In the checkout line I asked myself, “What am I doing?” I left instead with a pair of narrow, five-inch heels with a strap that ties around the ankle. If I’m going to be practical, one teensy little shot of shoe-tequila makes it go down better.

Finally, the day before we left, I found Clarks. I tried on three pairs of shoes there and liked them all. They weren’t necessarily cutting edge — or even anywhere near the edge; they were more like cowering in a corner somewhere — but they were comfortable and practical. I ended up getting all three pairs (one was an early birthday present). I wore my new pair of black slip-ons on the trip home.

They’d seemed fine and even cute in the store. But suddenly, walking around the airport and looking down at my feet, I felt old. The rounded toe called out, “I need room in the toe box!” The slight heel said “middle-aged tourist” more than “slim elongated leg.” I looked at other young girls in their heeled boots and thought of all the heeled boots and pointy toed shoes I’d known and loved.

I felt… 30.

Granted, when I got home, my feet were comfy, and I didn’t take off my shoes and throw them across the room like I sometimes do when I’m being foot-tortured.

Still, though, I dream about the moment when I get to wear those five-inchers with the ankle strap. There will be pain and maybe some cursing. At the end of the night, Crayton may give me the “What were you thinking?” look and heaving sigh. But at least I’ll feel sexy and young again.

Back from San Diego

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Flamingos

We’re back now. It’s kind of weird to be here again. Although, on a happy note, I did just discover that the crispy, heart-shaped orejita cookies they sell at Starbucks (where I am right now using the Internet) are actually really good. Way better than the chocolate-covered graham crackers they sell in the U.S.

If you’re ever in San Diego, you must try The Linkery, an organic, slow-food type of place that makes its own sausage. If you’re in Culver City and you want a drink and a light nosh, we really enjoyed The Mandrake.

And, um… if you live in DF and don’t know the two-for-one drink greatness that is Papa Bill’s, you must try it out. It’s totally the annoying frat-boy-cousin version of T.G.I. Friday’s, but they have awesome music. (In the span of 10 minutes, we heard CeCe Peniston, Roxette and Daddy Yankee.) Oh, and they have chips and salsa there. And our waiter wore a top hat.

The picture above is from our trip to the San Diego Zoo with my nieces and nephew. I wanted to post more, but the Internet is too slow.

Not quite Mexican, and not quite American either

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When we got to the San Diego airport last Saturday, I immediately felt a twinge of culture shock. People were so much taller. The spaces were so much larger. Hell, the people were so much larger. And there was so much… stuff. Shop after shop of T-shirts, key chains, candy. I missed Mexico. I missed seeing fresh-squeezed orange juice on every corner and hearing the “Diez peso, diez peso, diez peso” over and over again from the people pushing their food carts.

Now that we’ve been here for six days, and wandered around the local lake, and sipped blood orange cocktails at Hash House A Go Go, my feelings have flipped. Part of me doesn’t want to go back. Life is so easy and comfortable here. We speak a language we know, we use the tap water to brush our teeth, I wear my wedding ring in public without a second thought. I can take as many things in my purse as I want — my entire wallet and all my credit cards! — and hang my purse on the back of my chair at a restaurant without worrying that it’s going to get stolen.

I know I just wrote a post about how safe I feel in Mexico, and it’s true, I do feel safe there. But I don’t think I’ve completely relaxed there yet. My guard is always up. Like Joy commented, you’re always taking certain precautions. It’s a fact of life. I just didn’t really realize how many precautions until I came back to the U.S.

We return tomorrow morning. I have lots of boxes to unpack, writing assignments to start. I’m looking forward to walking again and getting a big glass of orange/carrot juice from the guy on the corner of our street.