Mexican Improv

This morning I awaken to the sound of trash bells ringing:  the trucks are arriving and telling the residents to get their bags and cans of basura out onto the sidewalk for pickup.  I’m not sure they use this system because the people can’t plan ahead, follow a schedule, and put their bags out the night before like we do in the good ‘ole USA? Or because there are so many stray, hungry dogs that will attack the bags, the residents have no choice but to put them out on the sidewalk at the last second when they hear the bell.

Either way, it speaks to the spontaneous culture I’ve been living in for the last two years. Very little is planned:  things arise in the moment and people react, calmly and efficiently.  They sell natural gas that way, playing a jingle over a loud-speaker that prompts residents to come out to the street and pay the man to refill their tanks. And potable water is bought and sold that way too – an annoying beep-beeeeep-beep-beep.  Even the knife-sharpener has his chime, and the elote man his blasting mariachi.

Although it can be noisy, there’s something beautiful about this practice. You don’t have to keep a calendar. You don’t have to be disappointed or frustrated when an appointment cancels because you don’t track them. You’re just living in the moment.

And there are days when the spontaneous culture drives me absolutely loco! The less time I have, the more I need to get things programmed.  At the beginning of my service in MX this wasn’t a problem:  I had no appointments, and that was uncomfortable for me.  It’s true: a calendar full of activities makes you feel…important. But then I got used to it; I even lost my Blackberry after a few months here (a subconscious adaptation move?), tried replacing it with a Palm, then lost that, finally reverting to the old paper method.

But now, with just four months to go in my service, and some goals (and obligations) to fulfill before I leave, I need people to live up to their commitments – so I can live up to mine.

Last week was a disaster of broken promises.  A lunch date is one thing; but this was a last-minute cancellation by Procuraduria Agraria. We had scheduled a trip the trip to Zamachihue to gather the information needed for the Reglamento and the Acta Constitutiva, documents necessary for the registration of Vivero Esperanza de Zamazhihue as a legitimate native plant business and essential, in turn, to the community’s ability to sell the plants with facturasto the government for their reforestation projects.

What’s worse, it was the third week in the row of cancellations – and the women were waiting.What’s even worse, no one called me to cancel. I had to make calls and send texts to Cualtemoc, all unanswered, and finally send an email to the director to discover that, in fact, the trip was off. I’ve learned this much in Mexico, to confirm the day before; otherwise I end-up waiting out on the corner at the Pemex station at 7 am for a ride that never comes.

At first there’s anger – I feel the steam coming out of my ears and expletives coming out of my mouth.  It's a feeling of disrespect – not just for me but for the women of the community – as though our time is not valuable.  Then there’s the feeling of dejection and protection, ni modo, whatEver – if they don’t care why should I?  

But then, with luck and practice, the Mexican Improv kicks-in. I notice my brain searching for a Plan B, and beneath that my heart pushing to rise above the malaise and stick to MY commitments. Even if it means taking the bumpy throw-up bus 2 and a half hours to Corn City, that’s what I'll do.  

 

Truth was, the ride wasn't all that bad, as long as I kept my eyes closed or focused forward. The temperature at that hour was suffer-able, and the dust wasn't billowing into the windows like last time, thanks to a blessed sprinkling of rain. But best of all, as my bus pulled into the tiny station along the highway, I could see Angelica see me and smile.  She and her senior were waiting on the bench for me, as promised.  I did not have to contemplate a Plan C. They were as committed as me. 

We even took advantage of all being in the capital together to visit the Municipal head of Ecologia to talk about reforestation project in the region, practice our pitch, and try to sell some trees.  

Then it was time to take the one-hour dirt road journey to the community for the meetings with the mujeres to develop the Version 1 of their Reglamento.  More improv: the Ejido Hall was locked and the Comisariado with the key was nowhere to be found. So we gathered on the patio, brought in some chairs, pinned a sheet onto the wall, strung some electricity in on a fat orange cable, and started up my PowerPoint slide show.

Two hours later we had decisions on our Vision, Organization Structure, Leadership Team and Profit-sharing Plan – all the information Cualtemoc needed to get moving, no excuses, on creating the Acta Constitutiva.  I wish my SeeChange clients could be so efficient.

Then we retreated to Angelica’s house to eat her mama's infamous mole rojo with the handmade tortillas morradas, the ones made of the pink corn and so thick they tear like fabric and hold in all the spicy-sweet sauce.  And for desert, cool wet cactus tunas.

Mexican Improv has its rewards.

Cuckoo Racha

My shoes are strewn around the apartment – one in the bathroom by the toilet, one by the bookcase in the living room, the brown Keen in the kitchen by the stove – and I pad around in one flip-flop.  All night, I’ve been slapping at cucarachas the size of trucks.  I’m 5 for 5 tonight. They’re too big to dart – they lumber – giving me ample time to raise my size 10 in the air and connect with a loud smack, leaving yellow guts on my ceramic floor. I try not to look, but I have to scoop them up quick, or the baby ant armies will arrive in formation and deftly abscond with the corpses, a funeral march of insect proportions.

In my sloppy hast, I left a single leg on the kitchen floor –  came back 15 minutes later limping in my single flip-flop – and the leg was being carried out the service area door to the hoots and hollers of the victorious ant army – until I got out my bottle of Windex and commenced the chemical warfare.  I won.

Now perched on my sofa sipping my paloma, too squeamish to venture into the dark waters of sleep, I hold vigil.  Tiny movements of the wind in the drapes give me a start. I image the queen bee entering my Rincon, busting the door down, and devouring me.  

I take another gulp of squirt-diluted tequila, my ice melting fast, the sweat from the glass dripping onto my leg, and hope the agave gets to my head quick enough that I won’t know what hit me if that queen beetle did show up.

The Other Mexico

This is how the other half lives.  

I eat cornmeal encrusted salmon with wasabi-jalapeno dipping sauce; I gaze down at the lap pool from Nancy’s balcony;  I’m invited to a embassy-brat fiesta with a buffet table laden with American packaged foods, those flat pretzels  with hummus and flabby shrimp cocktail. And everyone’s so friendly and healthy and happy and they speak English and the toilets flush.

Makes me realize just how isolated I’ve been in Green River, just like the people in the communities, emulating them by accident, or out of necessity, to protect myself from the allure of the ‘otro lado’, the other Mexico, the other side of the peso, the VIP cinemas and saki bars and museum cafes….It’s all here in Polanco.  

Love and money and green spaces and recycling and rock-n-roll – no banda or ranchero in this pueblo. Lacoste shirts are in again, the gator on the breast bigger than ever; no mistakin’ who’s got dinero here. And boat shoes, please, those again? Bottles of Red Label whiskey in the middle of the table and a little serving cart with sodas and a silver bucket of ice with tongs.  

Nancy’s got a marble-floor apartment with granite countertops and wraparound balcony, maid brigade service that changes the towels and sheets daily, and I think about all that water, a special walkie-talkie phone to the embassy for earthquake or narco emergencies, concierge service, a gym, breakfast room, internet.  All this for 70,000 pesos per month?!  Granted, it's a temporary assignment, and Nancy didn't choose it - but when I compare this to Diaz Rincon 1-bedroom in the Rioverde Centro - 1500 pesos monthly - it's mind-boggling.  It's 50X more!

Do I miss all this? Book store cafes where no one is buying books?  Trendy cafes where a Corona cost three times what Rita charges at El Fenix and the waiter says:  you pay for this pointing to the lovely square and lovely square people occupying it.  Encrusted salmon entree, 300 pesos, but I sure can’t get that in Rioverde. So I pay.  And it’s worth every pesito.

Do I miss all that?

Yes, and no.  What I do really miss is this:  the ideas, connection, collaboration, camaraderie in this colossal effort.  

Sitting around the conference table with Nancy’s embassy colleagues on Monday, there was passion and energy for my ‘cause.’ Viva Viveros certainly wasn’t part of the USDA’s mission here; they are in Mexico to promote American products. Their website is www.buyamerican.com. But they want to help anyway.  They know people from Coke and Walmart and Bimbo at the Chamber of Commerce – big businesses that have a commitment to go green and socially responsible.  Laura from Monterrey is going to connect me to them – and invite our vivero groups to participate in the Green Fair in Monterrey in August.  And Elenita at the Ben Franklin Library wants me to come back and do to do a broadcast webchat about the women of Zamachihue. That’s the most press they’ve ever gotten.

So I reach across to the other side, almost guiltily, like dipping into the cookie jar.  But I know this much:  nothing it this world that’s worth doing can be done solo. And I thank Nancy for giving me a taste of the good life, a better life than either of us ever had in WDC, USA.

And I say this knowing in my bones Mexico’s deepest problem is this inequity – one day I can be in the campo with my Zama women, pissing in a hole in the ground, electricity strung by orange extension across dirt roads…and the very next day, three Auto Naves bus connections and 8 hours later, I’m in DeEffe eating cornmeal encrusted wild sockeye salmon from the Pacific Northwest.

Pitaya

I lament that the season of the piña is coming to an end.

Big fat grenades piled in pickups on the side of the highway, 15 pesos a pop, grab them by their bristly fronds and lop them open with a machete. First cosechas from Veracruz the sweetest of them all, juice running everywhere, down your arms as you bite into a wheel, down your legs, sticky between your toes.

But gracias a dios, the temporada of the pitaya has just arrived.

Round and red as rubber balls, these desert fruits perch atop their long-necked organ pipes waiting to be plucked, daring you. Some, already splayed open, reveal their scarlet guts: the birds got to them first, and now the bees nestle deep inside their flesh drawing out the sugar.

Javier reaches toward the blue morning sky with his gancho and lodges the V snugly beneath the fruit. Then with a flick of the wrist he loosens it from the thorny neck and it falls to the ground with a thump, decapitated. I dive for it like it’s a candy that just spilled out of a piñata. Cuidate, Javier tells me. It’s spikey and pricks my finger. But Don Javier knows how to handle it: from the tiny incision he peels away the papery skin like a flower revealing the magenta flesh inside. He offers it to me, bloody juice pouring into his palm. I take it gingerly, from the bottom, and bite into the ball of fruit, nature’s snow cone, wet and watery, sweet and sultry, it awakens my mouth, and I yearn for more. 

One is not enough, Rita tells me. She could eat them faster than she could pick them. It requires patience and delicacy; and she was always too eager, stabbing her pray with the tines of her gancho, leaving an entire cactus bush full of wounded fruit – and only a few on the ground at her feet to take home in a bucket to her mom.

Eight hours, her mother chastised, and only eight pitayas? Summarily, her mom dumped them into the sink and marched out the door with the empty bucket. She was back in an hour with a brimming bucket, gloating. You father never taught you anything.

But that wasn’t true because Rita says she’s an expert at eating them. Before her father died he brought buckets and buckets of pitayas home to her. He taught her how to peel them without pricking her fingers; and he watched in delight as she gorged on them, red juice running down her chin, and her tongue dyed purple with his love.

Meatballs as My Creation

Another week down, April Fools tomorrow, another month, 7 and counting, time accelerating as soon as the good stuff starts happening and I need more OF it.

That’s life, that’s the system. Time is like money:  when you need it you can’t get it – when you don’t, they’re shoving loans and credit cards down your throat.

Devegar – despacio – slowly.  Portuguese, Spanish, English. 

Hey-sus, I’m trilingual.  What about that?  Big smile of appreciation spreads inside. My brain’s no sponge anymore – more like a petrified rock.  It hasn’t been easy getting those new words to stick.  Thanks for that, the hard work, the patience and persistence.


And then the little voice says:  Well…not fluent. Still can't conjugate in the subjunctive.


But the big voice fights back:  Yeah, but…I can listen to a song in any of these languages and know what they’re singing about.  How ‘bout that.  Ha, I can read music too – a fourth language.
 
I’m so Lonely I could Cry, Bill Frisell’s blue notes say it all without words.

And then there’s the language of food.

I’ve spent the afternoon shopping for the ingredients at the market:  carne molida at Double-R butcher – he grinds the slab of lean shoulder right in front of my eyes, then to the pork guy for fresh chorizo – then the veg stand for parsley and basil and a good white onion – and the baker for breadcrumbs. 

The sauce was already made. I awoke at 7 am before my day of meetings and had the blender going, and my kitchen smelled like Lena’s! Fresh Santa Rita tomatoes from my b-day trip to the hydroponic hothouse with Rita.  The rise to the top and pop – and I remove the skin – careful not to burn my fingers.

I’ve invited my singing neighbor Yola over for cena; but that was last week, and I realize appointments are amorphous here.  I left a post-it not reminder on her door this morning. But I get home after work and it's still there. It’s 9 and I’m starving and she's still not home yet.  I pull the post-it not off her door and sit myself down to my table.  I light a candle, pop open a bottle of my Mexi house red, and serve myself a pile of green salad with balsamic vinaigrette and Perla’s smoked provolone and a bowl of ziti and meatballs,  Mexican-style. Grandma Lena would be proud – or appalled. She was a purist.   

I love that I cook and think of her – like we’re cooking together – like she’s speaking into my ear:  remember, let the meat sauce speak for itself.  Light on the herbs.  And she’s right.  With the chorizo in place of Italian pork sausages, I get the slight hint of Mexico chile on the tongue, and it’s a delight.

Albondegas as my creation!

Small Steps (Not Sure What Direction)

Made the trip to Rayon today – a 20-peso bus from the Dominos on the highway. When I got to the to the cruzero where the bus stops then continues on to Cd Valles, there was a 5-truck military checkpoint right in front of the Fondo Pame office on the side of the highway– young masked guys waving weapons around. Not sure whether to be scared or assured.  The senior with his mechanic shop along mud track leading down to Cecilio’s office told me:  no problema, checking for armas, holiday coming up, lots of movement, es necessario.  

It’s become the status quo here. But it gives me the chills. I walk briskly along the mud track with my eyes on my path to reach the cinder block office without incident.

Meeting with Cecilio and Sandra is always strange.  There’s this busy agitation about the place – she taps away on her laptop while he attends to an old composino, and I take advantage of the time to review their 1-page project budget.  It’s taken them 2 months to produce this?

Their office is hot and dirty and austere – a converted garage – no running water – I have to bucket water out of a tub to flush the toilet. There’s decade-old dust on the Steelcase filing cabinets.  They have a tiny display in the entryway of Santa Maria palm jewelery – but it’s dusty too, and discolored from the sun –and the wires a tiny bit rusty.  They throw wads of Kleenex and candy wrappers on the ground at their entrance – as though the earth will simply eat them up.  How can they be serious in preserving the life of the indigenous when they have so little respect for the planet?

They do have flipcharts covering the walls, many of them fallen to the floor, listing communities where they’ve scored funding – name, amount, and some scrawled notes.  I (want to) think they are doing good things. But what percentage to they get to keep?

Their 1-page budget from CDI, the government agency for the protection of the indigenous totals $160k pesos for Paso’s Vivero de Plantas Exoticas.  Most of the money is designated for jornales – day labor payments that will go to the people to continue to maintain and grow the vivero.  The problem is:  it’s only a loan.  I have to keep asking to get a clear answer.  

And how long do they get to pay the loan back?  

18 to 24 months, Cecilio replies.

Well, that could be rough – since the chamales take three years to get to a marketable size.

That long?  he replies with the Mexican ni modo, so it goes, tone.

Yes, sorry to say – it’s confirmed by the plant biologists from IPICYT – Dra. Laura wrote the book on cycades.  I show it to them.  Why should I hide this information?  But, I tell them, she's willing to come out and do an assessment and make recommendation to speed-up the process – is there money in the budget for this?  She can’t promise anything.  But she’ll check the water and soil and light – and recommend plants to diversify the production.  

The simple truth is the chamal is a sustainable plant – it’s been around for 250 million years – it outlived the dinosaurs - and its slow growth process may be part of the reason it’s survived this long. 
I have a lot to learn from that plant.  It’s a long-term investment for this community – no flash in the pan.  It takes time.  And in my opinion, all the more reason to focus on the community capacity-building – so the group has the staying power to tend to the plant and to the business details that will position them to sell it in 2014! 

Without my help I’m not sure that Cecilio and Sandra will get their money back.  I think they know that – that’s why they’re bothering to meet with me – after two postponements.

Their biggest concern is the Registro. But I tell them that’s the easy part – simply red tape – and I’ve got Procurdaria Agraria helping. The hard part is the market, the transportation, the commitment of the vivero team – their ability to shift their mindset – from government handouts to generating income.  I tell them frankly.  What do I have to hide?

I think they know that by now.  I think I know that by now.

We set a meeting for 15 days ahead to review and integrate our plans. I tell them I don’t want to be duplicating effort – or conflicting our messages.  If so, I’ll spend my time elsewhere and leave Paso to them.

No, no, they assure me. They’ll pay for the biologists to come – whatever it takes.

I’m worried about this loan: I payoff my credit cards monthly in full – and I’ve paid for every car I’ve owned, all used, in cash.  I don’t believe in loans. But I decide it’s out of my hands, it’s a done deal – my job now is to do what I can to position the community to pay it back.  Though I have this thought enter my sick brain:  maybe they’re not really expected to repay the loan.  What are the ramifications of defaulting? 

Judging on how other rules are enforced in Mexico, the answer may be:  none.