Mexican Life & Society

Early on Monday morning, civic ceremonies and small acts of individual rememberance took place all over Mexico to mark the 20th anniversary of the disaster.

Gicela’s story

photo: Leopoldo

TV news stations broadcast retrospectives and newspapers all covered the earthquake on their front pages. La Jornada, which was preparing to celebrate its first anniversary the same day the earthquake struck, published a 32-page pull-out supplement.

Even distant quakes get amplified in Mexico City. On this day, the effects were overwhelming and deadly. High-rise buildings built on the soft sediments of an old lake bed were jostled in the soup bowl that is the Valley of Mexico.

But while much of the attention has understandably focused on the tragedy that unfolded in the capital, the maximum registered intensity of the quake was felt in and around the industrial port city of Lázaro Cárdenas, about 210 miles southwest of Mexico City and close to the epicenter.

This week, Gicela has spoken to me again of her memories of that fateful day. She was 16 years old and had just started her second year at high school in Lázaro. This is her story…

* * * * *

September 19, 1985

It began much like any other Thursday. A school day.

As always, I was ready for school before my four brothers. Classes started at 8 o’clock. 

I sunk to my knees to say a little prayer. At 07:19 I was staring at the floor; it began to move. I got up and tried to steady myself.

The walls were swaying back and forth so much we thought they were going to collapse in on us. My mother instinctively hurried me and my brothers outside into the street to wait out the tremors. It was not easy to walk.  

The shaking was more intense and lasted longer than any we had experienced before. The ground rolled for over two minutes.

My mother kept repeating, “¡Dios Santo de los Cielos, esto no va a parar!” Will it never stop.

There was a crescendo of noise as household items like crockery and glass crashed onto polished concrete floors. Such was the movement of the earth that the rusty steel reinforcing rods which sprouted from almost every roof clanged together, announcing some terrible apocalyptic event.

The shaking eventually stopped and calm returned. I felt dizzy and my heart was pounding in my chest. Neighbours huddled in groups as the early morning sun dusted the tops of the houses. Amazed and thankful that the houses had somehow survived intact, we began to file back into our homes.

We went back into the house, rather gingerly. All the furniture had either shifted position or been turned upside down. Our possessions were strewn all over the floor. Although we sensed that this had been no ordinary tremor, at first we returned to our usual routines.

All through the quake, I had had my school bag tucked under one arm. Perhaps through shock, my mother put up no resistance when I announced that I was setting off for school.

The buses seemed to be operating normally. A few minutes later, I boarded a shuddering and groaning Ruta 1 at the stopping place next to the local market.

Not long into my journey I became aware of the many cars, buses and trucks parked up along the side of the main road. Their drivers stood next to their vehicles with bewildered looks on their faces.

My own bus stopped abruptly at the ramp of the bridge over the fast flowing Rio Balsas. The driver informed me, and the handful of other passengers, that this was as far as he would be taking us; the bridge was damaged and was dangerous. I stepped down from the bus and joined others who were crossing the crippled bridge on foot.

Once on the island side of the broad river, the magnitude of the quake began to dawn on me. A fracture scarred the road where the ground had opened up. It gaped a metre wide at one end. I peered into the chasm. It was dark and deep. I couldn’t see the bottom.

I walked on. Twenty minutes later I reached the palm trees which guarded the entrance to the school like sentries. I went straight to the lab. Outside I greeted a few of the other early arrivals – students who lived further a field. I don’t remember there being any teachers.

Many of the school buildings were visibly damaged; cracks zigzagged down walls; large chunks of concrete that had broken off buildings lay crumbled on the ground.

We felt aftershocks at regular intervals. These would continue all day [there were over sixty recorded]. They each lasted for only a few seconds. There would be a second major quake the next day. A crushing blow to frantic rescue efforts in Mexico City.

No classes. I returned home.

With no news, we began to think that the quake had been localised, that we were the only ones affected.

This optimism dissolved by mid-afternoon. The family began to get concerned for the well being of my father who had travelled to Mexico City to buy new stock for the market stall.

This feeling of unease feeling turned to dread once some power was restored and the chaotic scenes of destruction and loss of life began to appear on the TV news.

But Don Poli had been fortunate; he was already on his way back to the Pacific coast, asleep on the bus when the quake hit. He knew nothing of the disaster until the bus reached Arteaga, a couple of hours from home.

News began to filter through to our neighbourhood of the “pancaking” of a two-storey zapateria - shoe shop – in the town centre. It was now a pile of rubble witnesses said.

That night, many of my neighbours slept outside their homes. The nights were still warm and sultry. The mosquitoes made it difficult to sleep, so my parents moved their children indoors, under door frames.

There were credible stories of the ocean retreating, leaving fish flapping in the salty air; revealing rocks never before seen…before surging in to smash beach side properties.

To this day, my father exudes pride over the deep concrete foundations – zapatas - that he planted in the corners of the house in Lázaro. It was these, he says, that kept the house from toppling down on his family.

* * * * *

Gicela tells me that she never did learn of the full extent of the damage the earthquake caused along the Pacific coast – nor details such as the number of casualties. We will never know. But today we remember all of them.

Mexico City, Built on ‘Gelatin,’ Unprepared for the Next Quake - 23/09/05

There’s plenty to smile at in this set of photos - a window into the chaotic world of household meters, utility cables, fuses and breaker boxes.

I’m particularly drawn to the meter house and this one

The unruly clusters of illegal electric lines are known as diablitos, or “little devils.” They look like climbing jungle vines hanging from electric poles.

Now the Mexican government has launched a crackdown on illegal connections, installing tamper-proof meters and running TV spots and print ads urging people to report theft.

TV cables

“To the devil with diablitos!” say the TV commercials, depicting cartoon devils with electrical cords for tails prowling the streets of a darkened neighbourhood.

Luz y Fuerza del Centro (“Central Light and Power”), the state company that supplies electricity to upwards of 5 million households in Mexico City and the surrounding states of Morelos, Hidalgo, Puebla and Estado de México, says it loses about $350 million a year to theft, about 9 per cent of its total income.

Which one is mine?

The company has produced some helpful guides (and warnings) on how to install an electricity meter and hook up to the grid safely and legally.

Given that so many people build their own houses, it is not uncommon in Mexico for impromptu installations. I recall picking up a meter installation ’kit’ from a ferreteria - hardware store – for my father-in-law.

“Fulano esta robando la luz” is an often-heard refrain when someone discovers that a neighbour is tapping into their own supply illegally.

With all these cables draped across residential streets, this sort of thing is a fairly common sight in Mexico.

But so far, cabling catastrophe has been averted with old-fashioned sticky tape and improvision.

One unisex dark olive-green button-down shirt. Well-worn but comfortable; heavy-duty, grease-resistant, high strength fabric. Distinctive ‘eagle’ logo. A sweet and addictive whiff of gasoline…

Ed Fladung’s PEMEX overall

Ed couldn’t resist.

A Bucerias-based graphic designer and sometime surf dude, he recently left a filling station with more than the usual full tank of sin magna.

Ed Fladung’s blog

In Mexico, only PEMEX may legally distribute and sell fuel. The privatise-over-our-dead-body petroleum company “Petroleos Mexicanos” (PEMEX for short) has built a national network of gasolineras - filling stations.

As is the case with Ed’s local fill up, many are franchises (confirmed by the stitching on the reverse of his ‘new’ overall).

Friendly and helpful male and female attendants immaculately turned out in green overalls nod in acknowledgement as you enter. No self-service here.

In addition to filling your fuel tank, they will routinely check tyre air pressure and clear your windshield of smattered insects and mud. A small tip is customary.

Alternatively, you might follow Ed’s lead and offer to buy the shirt off their back.

Oh, before we leave the station forecourt (metaphorically speaking)…something to watch out for when buying fuel in Mexico: make certain that the pump display has been reset to ‘zeros’ before pumping starts.

Yes, that kind of fraudecito happens; but no - it does not happen very often.

During our 10-month road-trip during 2002/03, we travelled well over 15,000 miles and were (knowingly) cheated just once – outside Córdoba in Veracruz.

A minority of station owners also monkey with their pumps, claiming that their franchise profits are too low. The amount of “error” in the pump can range from a fraction more than zero to ten per cent or more.

The PEMEX station on the Querétaro-Tolimán road outside San Pablo (you may pass this way on your way to the Sierra Gorda) is well-known to locals as dodgy. I know this, so when in those parts I try to avoid filling up there, but sometimes cannot avoid it.

Of course, if you’re just travelling through, there’s no way you can pick up such advice. Not much you can do about it either.

Anyway, back to those shirts, or overalls…

Ed told me that each franchisee changes their style of shirt every few months or so, probably “to prevent previous employees from sneaking back onto the lot.”

Clearly now a student of fashion-on-the-forecourt, he has counted “at least ten versions of shirts and overalls, with colours ranging from dark green to olive-drab, brown to dark grey.”

Talli Nauman writes…

Campaign poster

Maybe next time protectors of the endangered sea turtles could hire a virile, scantily clothed man to advertise their cause, since putting a female Playboy model on their banners and posters has kicked up such controversy this time.

But the advertisers have already verified that two wrongs don’t make a right.

Their pandering a sex symbol to combat myths of sexuality has drawn criticism from the sex equality camp and caused coastal environmental authorities in Guerrero, who usually are pretty hip to the bikini billboards of Acapulco, to plead for the state to be omitted from the target audience list.

The campaign to vanquish the custom of eating sea turtle eggs as aphrodisiacs is being spearheaded by Argentine model Dorismar, who has been teamed up with members of the mega-popular norteño group Los Tigres del Norte by a whole menagerie of activist organisations.

Mexico’s National Women’s Institute says it’s degrading and sexist to attack the issue using sex appeal as the weapon. But the extraordinarily lovely “Dorita,” as she is fondly nicknamed, has relatively few qualms about heralding the human body as an object, of course, since that’s how she makes what appears to be a very honest living.

For its part, Los Tigres del Norte has announced that members do not eat turtle eggs – and their ratings have not diminished. Their volunteers distributed turtle protection information, postcards and stickers during their recent tour that ended in June, reaching thousands of fans in some of the centres of population where the custom is most prevalent - Mexico City, Ciudad Obregón, Hermosillo, Tijuana and Mexicali.

The groups Wildcoast, Pronatura Noroeste, Fondo Educación Ambiental, Colectivo Creativo, Selva Negra, Grupo de los Cien, and Fondo de Conservación del Golfo de California raised billboards and other ads during the Roman Catholic fasting period and observation of Lent in February and March, when consumption of sea turtle meat typically soars due to the mistaken belief that it is fish rather than red meat.

In their next step this turtle nesting season, the activists are putting up the Dorismar ads beginning in September on billboards near Mexico City and nesting states including Jalisco, Michoacan, and Guerrero.

The ads urge people to report illegal trade in the species to the Federal Attorney General’s Office for Environmental Protection (Profepa).

Outside of Mexico, media coverage of the gal with scanty coverage in the publicity already has been generous, drawing attention to the messages: “My man doesn’t need turtle eggs” and “Sea turtle eggs DO NOT increase sexual potency!”

Luis Fueyo, head of Profepa coastal enforcement, said the federal agency will participate and distribute the posters in its offices nationwide. So the controversy has worked in favour of the conservationists – and therefore hopefully in favour of the 200-million-year-old species.

Mexican beaches are nesting habitats for seven of the world’s eight sea turtle species, and all of them are in danger of extinction.

Since Mexico banned hunting, sale and consumption of sea turtles and by-products in 1990, manifold efforts have helped coastal residents formerly in the turtle trade to make their livings protecting the critters and in other lines of work.

So I thought the days of intensive commercialisation were over. But marine conservationists now say the ban has created a flourishing black market; and the interest in sucking raw turtle eggs to increase male sexual prowess has grown in recent years.

As if to punctuate this statement, 80 sea turtles were bludgeoned and butchered alive in one single massacre this August on the Guerrero coast. As many as 100 eggs can be removed from a dead female. On another stretch of Guerrero’s coast near Petatlán, at least 100,000 eggs have disappeared this nesting season.

Now that campaigners have answered to the feminist challenge about using a woman’s body to advertise the cause, they are bound to face the environmentalist challenge that billboards create visual pollution.

If only the message can filter down to the right people in the meantime.

Talli Nauman is a founder and co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, a project initiated with support from the MacArthur Foundation. 

This article originally appeared in The Herald Mexico – El Universal © 2005; Republished with permission.

The captain of the Mexican national team looks all set to become the first player from that country ever to play in English football’s top-flight after he told his club to let him go to England.

Jesús Martínez, president of “los Tuzos”, told press on Thursday that the club had accepted an offer from Bolton Wanderers for the striker. The fee is reportedly £900,000.

The deal – probably for two years – is still subject to a medical and agreement on personal terms.

Borgetti would join Barcelona’s “Rafa” Márquez as the second high-profile Mexican export to Europe.

But Borgetti does not seek publicity, which will have appealed to Sam Allardyce, who has grown into one of the most astute managers in the Premiership.

‘Big Sam’ seems able to work on a shoestring but bring some of the game’s best players to the Reebok Stadium.

He has also successfully avoided the millstone of long, lucrative deals in favour of short-term, well-paid contracts, which have attracted players of the calibre of Youri Djorkaeff and Jay-Jay Okocha. On and off the pitch he has engendered an impressive team ethic.

Borgetti is currently playing in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Last Sunday he netted two goals in a 4-0 win over Guatemala, joining Carlos Hermosillo and Luis Hernandez at the top of the all-time goal-scoring list for the Mexican national team with 35 goals. He will undoubtedly add on to his total.

Despite his consistent scoring, the player has had his doubters in Mexico. They point to his perceived lack of pace and unexceptional ball skills.

Unorthodox he may be, but the striker who hails from the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, has so far scored more goals than any other player on route to the World Cup Finals in Germany next year. Now he will play in Europe in the build-up to next year’s tournament.

He is certainly a great header of the ball. I particularly recall his clever backward floated header against Italy at the last World Cup.

Mexico continue their quest for the Gold Cup against Colombia in Houston this Sunday. Borgetti will miss that match through suspension.

It is not known when he will join up with the squad.

If Mexico reach the final, scheduled for 24 July, it seems unlikely that Borgetti will fly across the Pacific to join his new team-mates in Asia. Bolton play the final match of their Far East tour in Japan four days later.

The Lancashire club will play in the UEFA Cup next season – their first adventure into European football and open the Premiership season against Aston Villa next month, a day before Borgetti’s 32nd birthday.

But what I want to know is – will he be wanting chile in his pasties?

Update [25 July]

Picked up this story third hand.

Jim Benning of ”World Hum” follows the scent of an AP story published in USA Today a couple of days ago.

Tijuana trinkets

Jorge “Hank” Rhon, the slippery new mayor, has ordered street vendors on a pedestrian thoroughfare to wear ‘traditional’ clothes in bright colours to please tourists popping over the border from San Diego.

The silly rule, which applies on weekends, took effect on 25 June.

Jim, with whom I coincidentally exchanged emails today on World Hum’s redesign, appropriately files this one away under the “Planet Theme Park” category.

Thanks to Ron Mader for the tip off.

Check out James Garza’s anti-culture photo set, Four Hours in Tijuana

Many in the US celebrate Cinco de Mayo today (it is actually a quiet holiday in most of Mexico) to the accompaniment of violins, trumpets, Spanish guitars, vihuelas and guitarrónes.

My mind recalls how, three weeks ago, I was serenaded by an eight-strong mariachi troupe in San Miguel’s plaza on my 40th birthday. They approached silently but purposefully from the shadows and doorways of colonial mansions bathed in early evening sunlight. All immaculately dressed in dapper cream pipe-legged breeches and short charro jackets festooned with flashy brass-coloured buttons. Soon, the sentimental lyrics to Las Mañanitas filled the thin air. The third time I’d heard them sung in my honour that same day.

“Estas son las mañanitas que cantaba el rey David
Hoy por ser día de tu santo te las cantamos aquí…”

On some evenings (usually Thursday through Sunday), mariachi gather under the portales that border the plaza on two sides. One or two from each troupe will roam the jardín looking for business. Check out Billie Mercer’s wonderful series of photographs. She captures the mood and bravado beautifully.

Not sure how long this broadcast will be available, but you can still listen to Neil McCarthy’s exploration into the roots of mariachi. The programme first aired on BBC Radio 4 on Friday.

On Candlemas, a special mass for the 84-year old Pontiff has been held in the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Prayers were read after The Pope was admitted to the Gemelli Hospital in Rome suffering from acute inflammation of the larynx, brought on by a bout of flu.

Mexicans feel a special affinity with Pope John Paul II since he has visited their country – the second most populous Catholic country in the world after Brazil – on no less than 5 occasions during his 26-year papacy. The Pope kissed Mexican soil on his arrival for his very first overseas tour following his election in 1979. The most recent was in August 2002.

On Saturday, Kelly Hart ventured onto the busy Guanajuato streets with his digital camera. After a while he sat down on a bench near the mercado. Balancing the camera on his lap, he tilted the mirror from a small vanity case at a 45-degree angle to reflect the LCD screen image. Although upside down, he could at least check that the image was more or less framed properly. Some 75 clicks later, Kelly went back home to play with the results. Fifteen of the pictures ended up in this time-lapse Guanajuato street animation. Select the slideshow view (you can control the transition speed).

Individually, they are unremarkable. Just a continuous silent procession of passers-by ‘caught’ going about their business. But the best ‘street’ photographs tell some kind of story, and through their fleeting ‘ordinariness’, I think these do. Many of the vital components of street life are present: the main characters are a pair of dreamy-looking ‘Toy Story’ [?] piñatas – but there’s plenty of street chatter, passing buses, a delivery of 5 gallon garrafon jugs of purified water, a fresh-fruit stand, a woman damping down dust from the sidewalk, an ever-present and seemingly abandoned huddle of gas cylinders…

Mariachi – San Miguel

Cheap mariachi imitators and thieving customers are threatening a century-old tradition, reports Mexicanwave contributor Elizabeth Mistry for the Sunday Herald.