The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Expat Life

Fourth of July in Mexico

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Good old American hot dog n' potato salad

We spent Saturday at a barbecue sponsored by the American Benevolent Society and the American Society of Mexico. There weren’t any fireworks, but they had hot dogs and hamburgers, so that was nice. They also had apple pie. And kick-ass brownies.

The party was held at a private home in Lomas de Tecamachalco, a suburb west of here. Most folks there were probably our parents’ age, but we met some interesting people, including a woman who styles food for cookbooks, which I am in awe of.

Next year I think we’ll do our own cookout, assuming our grill works by then. (Update on that front: They have shipped us the part to repair our leaky regulator. Or rather, they say they have. We’ll see if we ever get it.) Can you imagine the spread? I could do mac n’ cheese, now that I’ve found sharp cheddar at the Superama in Polanco; burgers, dogs, my grandma’s potato salad with big chunks of hard-boiled egg and black olives. Mmmm.

Funny, but I didn’t really feel any burst of patriotism being out of the country on Independence Day. Actually, in my life, I only remember getting teary-eyed at one Fourth of July, when I’d just gotten back from studying for 10 months in Spain. My brothers wanted to watch the fireworks at the Queen Mary, but no one could get their act together for the long drive out to Long Beach, so we ended up at some random parking lot in Upland. As the fireworks went off, I stared up at the sky, so grateful and amazed to be back in the U.S., where they had pancakes and giant highways and actual Mexican-Americans! (Who didn’t yell at me for not knowing Spanish.)

Lately I’m just so grateful to be living in Mexico. July 21 will be six months.

Election day in Mexico: The PRI returns

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Pri LogoI don’t know much about Mexican politics, but I’m puzzled by the PRI’s big win in yesterday’s elections. They won five of the six governorships up for grabs (the state of Sonora is still in dispute), and they now control the Chamber of Deputies, which is the lower house of Mexican Congress.

Does anyone else think this is weird?

The PRI ruled Mexico with an iron grip for 70 years. To keep themselves in power, they did some pretty atrocious things: stuff ballot boxes, create fake voter lists, ignore complaints from opposition parties… not to mention they were the party in power during the 1968 student massacre at Tlatelolco, in which armed soldiers killed hundreds of innocent people. Well, actually, no one knows the real number of people who were killed, because the PRI government at the time refused to release any numbers. And PRI-controlled newspapers refused to report the true story.

This is the party that, in 1988, pretty much stole the presidential election from Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and unplugged computers from the wall to prevent opposition parties from seeing the true election results, before the PRI had fiddled with them. How do I know all this? I’m reading Opening Mexico, a fascinating/depressing look at 20th century Mexican politics. It’s written by two Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporters who were former correspondents in Mexico City.

Really: How can this party have any type of majority power again? The NYT and BBC say the Mexican people were fed up with the drug war and shrinking economy and wanted a change. Maybe voters really believed the PRI’s new slogan — “The PRI of Today: Proven Experience. New attitude.”

On a sad note — sad in my opinion — nearly six percent of voters across the country cast a “null” vote, meaning they didn’t vote for anyone at all, in protest of Mexico’s political machine. In Mexico City, this figure was as high was 11 percent. This strikes me as crazy. In a country where the first true democratic election happened in 2000, people are now refusing to exercise their democratic right and choose a leader?

No entiendo.

Land lines and wrong numbers

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For some reason, having a home phone line is considered super important in Mexico. When we signed up for cell phone accounts, we had to provide two references, and both people had to have home phones. When I went to the doctor’s office last month, they would not accept my cell phone number on the paperwork. “Don’t you have a home number you can put instead?” the receptionist asked me. I had to look it up on my cell phone because I can never remember it.

The crazy thing is, 99 percent of the time when my home phone line rings, it’s not for me. But I never know immediately, because no one ever identifies themselves, and you have to do this whole polite “buenos días” dance at the beginning.

This is what happened when my phone rang five minutes ago. It’s muy típico.

Me: Bueno.
Woman’s voice: Buenos días.
Me: Buenos días.
Woman: Hi, yes, can you please connect me to Mr. Edgar Rodriguez?
Me: You have the wrong number.
Woman: I’m sorry, to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?
Me: I’m sorry, but whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?
Woman: This is Banamex. Do you currently have a bank account with Banamex, or another bank?
Me: I have a bank account already.
Woman: Bueno, hasta–
Me: [click]

All these wrong-number callers are actually starting to make me a little loopy. When one lady called a few weeks ago and asked for Juan Valdarrama or something like that, I said: “Valdarrama?” And she said, “Sí.” Sounding all hopeful. I said: “Oh no, you’ve got the wrong number.” And then I laughed to myself. She kind of sputtered — “I have… I have..?” Then she hung up.

Maybe this means I need a hobby.

Channeling my inner Zumba hip-hop dancer

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If I could be anything in the whole wide world, skills be damned, I’d write books and work from home. But after that, I’d be a dancer. On tour with some famous singer. With outfits that twirled when I spun around.

Seriously: I love dancing. Love, love it.

This is a recent thing for me. I never took dance classes as a kid — I was more into soccer and track and cross country — but last year in Dallas, I took a burlesque dancing class and had a fantastic time. A few months later I took an aerobics class that mixed elements of hip-hop and adored that, too. My dance-love really cemented a few weeks ago, though, when I started going to hip-hop and Zumba classes at the gym a few doors down.

The teacher, an Afro-Latina woman with braids, is ripped. She hops in the air like she has springs in her shoes. (It’s probably her abs of steel.) She yells out the counts in this high-pitched, militarist voice: “Unooooo! Doooooos! Treeeeees!” And we all flop around and try to follow her.

I discovered that I’m not that bad. My arms and hips can actually move in the way I want them to. Moreover, it’s actually fun to kick my feet out in a pseudo-attempt at a quebradita dance, and to pitch my hips left and right in a merengue. (I think this is my inner Jennifer Grey coming out.) Plus it’s an amazing workout. By the end of the class, I’m ready to collapse onto my sofa with a big glass of water. But proudly.

Last week’s hip-hop class was the most fun yet. We learned a real routine — which called for flinging ourselves delicately on the floor! — and we performed it to some late-nineties pop song. (Teach needs help selecting the hip-hop tunes.) She’d scrutinize each of us as the music played, making sure we hit the steps correctly. This sounds cheesy, but I felt like I was rehearsing for a show or something, and that maybe in some alternate universe I was a real dancer. I’d be the girl who got started late in life, who always showed up to class in the same ratty tennis shoes; she’d be the critical teacher who expected the best from her students, and pounded a cane on the floor.

Of course none of that will ever happen, first of all because she doesn’t have a cane. And my tennis shoes aren’t that bad. Still, it’s nice to dream while I’m huffing and puffing.

The next class is tomorrow. I think I will get some new shoes, because my old ones haven’t been so easy on my knees. The last thing I want to do is start talking glucosamine-chondroitin just because I wanna dance.

The complicated world of Mexican banking

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Waiting my turn at Banamex

One of the strange things about banking in Mexico is the popularity of bank transfers. Meaning, instead of writing a check, you go to the bank and deposit the money directly into someone else’s account. This is how I paid the carpenter, when we got shelves installed in the kitchen. It’s also how we pay our rent and our bills.

Usually I don’t mind the “transferencias bancarias,” as they’re called, but sometimes it can get annoying. Last month, when I wanted to attend a Mexican wine dinner at a cooking school south of town, they would only confirm my reservation if I deposited the fee in their bank account first. (It’s like, Dude umm… what if I had to cancel at the last minute?) I wrote down the account number wrong and then I was so frustrated I didn’t want to go anymore. Then I got a stomach bacteria, so I couldn’t have gone anyway.

Had to stop by Banamex this morning to deposit money into the American Benevolent Society’s account. They’re throwing a Fourth of July party this weekend with beer and hot dogs and potato salad, so of course you know we’re going. Unfortunately, Banamex kind of stresses me out. The lines are always long, and they’ve got tons of windows, and I never know which section I’m supposed to go to.

Today I walked up to a little machine and pressed a button, which spit out a number. But the number-display screen wasn’t working, so they had a man in a Banamex uniform calling them out. (I thought: In Mexico, you really get paid to be the number-shouter-outer?) He was on 135 when I walked in; I had 166. Tried to pull out my newspaper and read, but the guy called them out rapid-fire, so you really had to pay attention.

“155!” he’d bark.

And then someone would jump up and rush to the window. I wondered how invalids were supposed to make bank transfers here. It’d be impossible.

After about 10 minutes it was finally my turn, and I deposited the money fine. (Deep, heaving sigh of relief.) The teller printed me a receipt and stamped the back. I have to fax that to the ABS, so they know I’ve paid.

On a related banking note, I will soon have my own Mexican ATM card. Not at Banamex — at Ixe, where the lines are much shorter. We had to make a special request since I’m not the principal name on the account. (I am the co-principal, which is much, much different.) Crayton had to sign the form authorizing me to receive my own card. Luckily he left the “monthly allowance” part blank.

Thanks, honey.

Attack of the mosquitoes, part deux

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Last night, somewhere around 4 a.m….

Me, envying how Crayton can sleep with half his body outside the covers, while mine has been tucked inside a sweaty, hot sheet cocoon and yet still gobbled up by mosquitoes: “Why don’t the moquitoes bite you?”

Him, not opening his eyes: “Did you put on your bug spray?”

Me, pathetically: “It smells.”

This reminds me of an exchange from It Happened One Night, one of my favorite old movies. Claudette Colbert plays a rich, spoiled heiress on the lam from her father; Clark Gable is a salty newspaperman in search of a story. They end up sleeping in a barn one night while running from the cops. “I’m hungry,” she huffs. “Eat a carrot,” he offers. “Noo,” she whines. That’s me. I’m the carrot-girl.

Now that the bugs have bitten me on my lower back, ankle, earlobe, and cheekbone in one night, it is time to stop whining and do something about this.

I am breaking out the Vicks Vaporub. Lola says it works.

I’ll start the new treatment after I get back from Puerto Vallarta this weekend, though. Something tells me that crawling into bed slathered in eucalyptus-and-menthol ointment would kind of put a dent in the whole “romantic weekend alone with hubby.”

The sad (and embarassing) state of The News

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The News screen grabA few weeks ago word hit that The News, Mexico City’s longstanding English-language daily, had been bought by Grupo Mac, a company that publishes two Mexican newspapers. It was an ugly day: None of the News’ staff knew the sale was coming, and two-thirds of them were laid off in a single day. Fourteen were rehired, but most have since quit. Eight employees resigned this week, according to Mexico Reporter. Only two native English speakers remain.

I wouldn’t usually care so much about this — sadly, I’ve become kind of inured to the newspaper industry’s collapse, thanks to all the job-hemorrhaging going on in the U.S. — but the News has suffered a spectacular decline in quality. I used to enjoy their arts, city and world coverage, and the voices on their editorial page.

This, however, is a Reuters story that appeared in the paper today. A friend actually typed it out and forwarded it me because it’s so rife with translation errors, it’s almost laughable. (If you weren’t also cringing at the same time.) Remember, this used to be a good paper.

Scientists had modified genetically an odd Mexican salamander that the ancient believes of the Aztecs considerate a transformed god, in the hope of that its capacity to regenerate parts of its body someday help to people who have lost limbs by amputation.

This slimy little animal, about 15 centimeters length, crowned with some hairy gill [ed. note: WTF?], and with little eyes, as buttons, had become the best option for a lot of scientists, in spite of its capacity of regenerate its hurt extremities, jaws, skin, and parts of its brain and spine. 

The salamanders can make regrow many parts of their bodies several times in his lifetime.  -REUTERS

If you squint at the screen grab above, which I took just a few minutes ago, you’ll notice a headline mentioning how ICE agents “will boast arrest power” and the Lakers’ “unbelivable” win. Elsewhere on the site, there’s news of a possible meteor striking Nuevo Leon:

NL readies for hurricane season

The News 

NUEVO LEON – Authorities in the northern state of Nuevo Leon announced an enhanced contingency plan to fron the upcoming hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, which has hit the state capital Monterrey very hard before.

 Governor Jose Natividad González Parás headed the first meeting of the Hydro Meteor Contingency Committee for the 2009 tropical cyclone season.



[snip]

“We are about to finish putting together the most complete High Risk Atlas that any other state in the nation has”, González said.



He added that it is of vital importance to continue working with municipalities and the federal government to take preventive actions before a meteor strikes the area.


I’m not just seeking to make fun here. It’s really, really sad that a formerly solid paper is now like a man who’s had his arms and legs cut off, and is walking around trailing blood everywhere.

It needs to either shape up, or shut down and save itself the misery. At this point I don’t know any English speakers who would read this paper and actually enjoy it.

A lazy, noisy Sunday around the Centro Histórico

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Sometimes I forget that Mexico City is an assault on the senses. Everything is loud — the cars honking, the parking attendants whistling, the branches of homemade brooms scraping the sidewalk, the peseros roaring down the street (they are the only thing that moves with urgency in this country), the vendors yelling about their latest deals.

In the air, odors layer upon odors: Grease, sizzling meat, car exhaust, dirt, garbage. Maybe urine, depending on if you’re walking through an empty section of a park. Sometimes you get stuck in a truly foul-smelling pocket of air, and all you can do is walk faster and hope that it goes away.

On Sunday, bleary-eyed after a late-night dominoes game with friends, Crayton and I went to breakfast at Sanborns at the Casa de los Azulejos in the Centro. The food there is average, but the inside looks like it hasn’t changed in 60 years, so it’s worth it. If you eat at the counter, they’ll serve you coffee in a little stainless steal creamer. It’s adorable.

Sanborns at the Casa de los Azulejos

Anyway, we couldn’t easily find a sitio cab afterward because of all the craziness of the Sunday cicloton, so we decided to walk back. This is what we heard while walking along this spot at Calle Hidalgo (it takes a second to load):

Calle Hidalgo in the Centro Historico

Not so scared of Montezuma anymore (and hoping he doesn’t smite me by saying so)

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On my first visit to Mexico City in 2003, I didn’t eat any fruit or salads or street food because I was terrified of coming down with Montezuma’s Revenge. I didn’t even want to say the word, or think about it. Contracting… you-know-what… in a land where you can’t even throw your toilet paper in the commode? It sounded completely awful.

Now that I’ve suffered two bacterial infections and have learned the difference between “Montezuma’s Revenge Lite” and “intestinal hell,” I’m much more at peace with the idea of a little gastrointestinal stress as the price to pay to live here. Diarrhea happens. It’s a fact of life. This city has so much to offer in the realm of food and drink that you really can’t get mired down in the fear, because it’d take all the fun out of living here.

For instance, it’s pretty magical to eat a taco standing up and douse it with salsa from a plastic bucket, or to sample the homemade requesón (the Mexican version of ricotta cheese) from the lady at the tianguis. Or to drink a homemade agua de mango, or sip mezcal inside the fading, formerly opulent Bar La Opera, where Pancho Villa once rode in on his horse and fired a shot into the ceiling. I’ve never gotten sick once by doing any of those things.

Of course, one has to exercise caution. But I’ve slipped on that lately. I now brush my teeth with tap water, like everyone else I know. I disinfect only certain items from the tianguis, such as lettuce and tomatoes. Apples and carrots go straight from the market into my mouth. And it’s fine. I even bought chorizo verde from a tianguis dude last Sunday and fried it up last night. Who wants green sausage and eggs.

It’s just funny how things change. We’ve been here barely five months. My dad got a little sick when he came to visit last week, because his stomach wasn’t used to the spicy food. I tried to calm him down by telling him that at least he didn’t have giardia or salmonella.

“If you had that, you’d really be in bad shape,” I told him. “You’re going to be fine. It’ll clear up in a few days.” It did.

So close to grilling, yet so far

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After spending a week trying to fill our propane tank — and finally succeeding! — it turns out we have a leak on our grill hose.

Crayton tested everything last night using the method called for in the manual (dish soap/water mixture on the hoses). Sure enough, bubbles appeared near one of the metal fittings.

EEEEEEEEEGGGGGGH. [That’s me cursing the day the grill was born.]

Since we’re still under warranty, he’s going to call customer service in the U.S. and see if they can send us a replacement part. Meanwhile, the little grill sits under our lona and waits. Probably snickering at us.