The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Expat Life

A water crisis in Mexico City, if you don’t have money

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Last weekend, the city’s water crisis was all over the news. From what I gathered — and I’m still figuring out how to read newspapers in Spanish — the government planned to shut off water to certain neighborhoods during the last three days of the month, in order to conserve and fix problems with the water system.

I couldn’t ever figure out which neighborhoods would be affected, so I assumed we’d wake up Saturday morning without water. Which, for us, isn’t that huge of a deal — we have purified water to drink and cook with. (And showers, eh, they can wait on the weekend.)

So on Saturday, I turned on the faucets. They worked normally. Then I looked at the paper online. Some of DF’s outlying neighborhoods — where people can’t afford to buy water — didn’t have any.

The fact that these people had no water and we did made no sense to me. If you’re going to shut off water for conservation purposes, why not do it city-wide? I told this to a friend of mine, and she said the city would never shut off water in our neighborhood. Too many embassy employees live here.

Suddenly I felt bad for being so blase about the lack of water in the first place. Of course we can buy our own. We just walk down the street to the supermarket, or tell our doorman we’re out, and boom. It’s there. It’s so easy to forget that there are thousands of people who can’t do this.

Of course, this raises the eternal question about Mexico, which is why so many people here still live in poverty, while the rich — or even solidly middle-class — lead normal first-world lives. It’s part of what makes the city so chaotic and fascinating, with entrepreneurs crowding the subways and the neighborhood knife-sharpener whistling down the street. But the concept of having so much more than so many other people is a hard thing to get used to. I don’t know that I ever will, to be honest.

I was chatting with Lola, our housekeeper, the other day and she mentioned she had a 12-year-old daughter. “But only one,” she said. “I didn’t want another because it’s too tough in this world.”

Crossing the street and trying not to get killed

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One of the most time-consuming decisions I make every day is deciding when to cross the street. No one really follows the traffic laws around here, so even if you’re crossing legally, with the light, someone might still bear down on you like you don’t exist.

So when can you actually go?

Obviously, when there’s a break in traffic. But that’s not the case 90 percent of the time. My second day here I misjudged the distance of an oncoming car and got so scared, I froze in the middle of the street, like a deer in headlights. Luckily the guy let me go.

Lately I’ve done this weird half-hesitation, half-step-into-the-street thing, and I think it just makes people nervous. Drivers slow down and look at me like, “What the hell are you doing?” I’ve also tried following other people, but sometimes they’re maniacs who step in front of moving cars. (Sorry, can’t do that yet.) Crayton says you just have to cross at the slightest gap in traffic, and that you can’t hesitate or they’ll run you over. I say: You do your thing, I’ll do mine.

Funnily enough, on my apartment search today, I was chatting with the broker about how I’m too scared to drive in Mexico City. She said, half-joking: “Oh no, walking is much more dangerous.”

Learning to relax amid chaos

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One of my goals is to find a new yoga studio here. I made my first attempt yesterday, taking a 5:30 hatha class at Anjali, a modern boutique-style studio about a 15 minute walk from my house. I wasn’t sure I’d know what the yoga teacher was saying — how do you say “downward dog” in Spanish? — but it ended up being fine. I just watched everyone else.

During our final meditation, the teacher, who had a soothing, deep voice, urged everyone to repeat this mantra in their heads: “Todo esta bien… todo esta bien.” I thought: “It’s all good? Really?” Bad yoga girl. I should have been clearing my mind.

After his third or fourth “todo esta bien,” two cars stuck in traffic outside decided to join in. The studio overlooks a busy intersection, and it was already rush hour.

“Todo esta bien…”

[Loud, screechy car horn] WAAAAA!

“Todo esta bien…”

WAAA WAAA WAAAAAAA!

The teacher ignored it.

Downward dog, by the way, is “perro cabeza hacia abajo.”

How to leave a tip in a Mexican restaurant

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Last night, our first night in town, we had dinner at El Bajio, a Veracruz-style Mexican place in the neighborhood. It was cute: Bright textiles on the walls, baskets, orange napkins. I had the ceviche verde, which was decent, and a yummy ensalada de nopales with strips of grilled panela. Crayton had enchiladas verdes. (When my salad arrived, Crayton eyed the white cheese warily. “What is that? Tofu?” I gave him a Look. “It’s CHEESE.”)

When it came time to pay the bill, the waiter asked us something about closing the account, or leaving it open. We said to close it. He looked confused. (And maybe a little offended.)

“Close it?” he asked again.

“Yes, yes,” I said. He didn’t move. He asked again if we wanted to leave it open.

Finally, Crayton said yes, okay, leave it open. The waiter whisked away the check and our credit card, and brought it back a few minutes later. We noticed nothing amiss: The receipt showed our final bill, and a space to leave a tip. Crayton wrote in the tip and I was ready to go. He suggested we stay and ask the waiter what “leave it open” meant.

I have this weird thing about not wanting to seem like a tourist, but these are the cultural things we need to understand. (Right?)

So we called the waiter back and I explained that we just moved here from the U.S., and what did this “leave it open” thing mean? The waiter very graciously said that it meant the customer would write in a tip on his/her own. And then he said some other stuff we didn’t understand. (About how some customers write the wrong amount on the check? Huh?)

Now we know, but still, kinda weird. Has anyone else in Mexico City ever experienced this?

Our new (temporary) apartment

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Crayton’s company put us up in Polanco, which just happens to be the Beverly Hills of Mexico City. It’s leafy and green and full of cafes and shops and men walking around in suits. (Or at least, they were this morning.)

Our new apartment — where we’ll be staying for the next month or so, while our stuff travels down to Mexico — is in a mango-colored building on Eugenio Sue, a pretty street right off Presidente Masaryk. Masaryk is one of Polanco’s main drags and home to of a lot of the city’s high-end shops. Last night while walking to dinner, we passed Diesel, Ecko, a place with evening gowns in the window.

Our place is a studio, so it’s small. Interestingly, the TV is suspended near the ceiling in the bedroom. (Maybe that’s a Mexican thing?) I spent part of yesterday watching a novela on TV about two teenage girls who didn’t take their virginity seriously enough. Of course, right before doing something they’d regret, they told their mothers, and everyone cried, and the girls were sweet and young again.

My next step is to find a place. (But not in Polanco, because it’s way out of our price range.) I’m going to start in earnest on Monday. On the agenda today: Find a supermarket and maybe stop at a yoga studio. I brought a DVD from the States, but there’s not enough space to do it at home. If I spread my arms I hit the dining table and the couch at the same time.

We’ve arrived. Or, ya llegamos.

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In the days before we left, people kept asking us: “Aren’t you excited?”

Really, it hadn’t hit me yet. I was too busy worrying about saying goodbye to friends and living in the Hotel California, AKA the downtown Dallas Westin. (How can the elevator button in the lobby not WORK?)

Finally, yesterday, when the plane was making its descent into Mexico City, I peered out the window and thought, “This is home…?” The air looked like it does when you fly into Southern California, only thicker, and browner. A sea of buildings stood packed into grid-like squares, leaning so close together that it looked like there wasn’t any air between them. Everything went on forever — the red-tiled roofs, the high-rise office buildings, the occasional spherical top of a cathedral. There was so much of everything. So much density. I thought: “How do people breathe here?”

Then I grabbed my notebook and wrote, “WE LIVE HERE?!?!”

A few hours later, I had learned the Spanish word for those little airport carts (“carrito”), and we were in a van cab headed to our new apartment in Polanco.

The pantry as a metaphor for change

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The moving company told me I couldn’t take any pantry items on the move.

The whole idea made me really sad.

I’ve spent the past two years building up my pantry. It’s the enabler of all my cooking whims. If I want to, say, make a quick buckwheat soup, I don’t have to go to the grocery store and buy mirin, because I have it already. Not that I’ve ever made buckwheat soup. But still — the mirin was there. And I’ll now have to give it up, without having explored its possibilites. Ditto for my sherry vinegar, and my bulghur wheat, and my bread flour. And don’t get me started on my sweet smoked paprika. It’s heaven dust.

The day before the movers arrived, I decided to ask our moving coordinator about the pantry. She’s the main one in charge — she specializes in moves to Mexico.

I started in easy. “Can I bring canned goods?” 

She said yes.

I said: “What about like…. baking mixes?” 

Her, after a short pause: “Are you saying you want to take flour?”

YES, lady, I want to keep my damn flour collection. I got white whole wheat and soy and semolina in there, the latter of which makes some kick-ass jalapeno cheese bread. I brought a hunk of it wrapped in foil to a Feist concert last year. (Oh, memories. See? This is why I want to keep this stuff.)

I said, “Well,  yes, flours. And pancake mix and stuff.” She was silent, so I added, not to seem like an American elitist: “I’m sure I can get everything in Mexico, but I don’t know, it seems like such a waste to throw it all away.” 

She said I can take small quantities of items, as long as they’re taped up tightly and won’t spill. 

Later, I thought: Really, why do I want these things so bad? They’re just things. And they won’t exactly help me create a new life and new pantry in Mexico. Part of the fun will be finding a new pancake mix, a new brand of canned tomatoes, and cereal, granola, olive oil. And I’ll get to buy fun stuff like dried chilies and tamarind pods and giant papayas. The American stuff should stay. I’ll give it to a friend who cooks. This is part of the process.

So… last Wednesday, the movers arrived. And contrary to what they said earlier, they packed up the entire pantry, including my half-eaten Dagoba chocolate bar.

All my “American stuff should stay” talk flew out the window. I get to keep my wheat flours! And my paprika!

I will bake celebratory loaves and a big bowl of chili when everything arrives in a month or so.