Viva Mexico - Corruption

 

Viva Mexico - Corrupciόn

        The year is 1968.  I am living in Mexico, Acapulco to be exact.  I have come to Mexico City to take some courses.  This is an Olympic year, and Mexico is hosting.  Things romantically are not going well for me, and in my depth of despair, I look for a gun to end my problems.  The underground buzz is that there is a crackdown on firearms.  A broad coalition of students have congregated in Mexico City, where the universal eye of the media is currently focused brightly.  Each day, the students come out of their apartments in a large apartment complex, into the square there, to protest for more political freedom from the authoritarian government then in power, the PRI party.

            The tension is rising day by day.  The government is feeling growing embarrassment as the world begins to learn that its democratic facade has failed.  The national guard is called out once again to control the mass demonstration; this time, their orders are to shoot.  Thousands are injured, hundreds die, including women and children. 

            Now I am retired, and once again living in Mexico.  Fifty years later, I am eager to see how this colorful, intelligent population with a huge heart has grown and evolved.

            The city buildings are big, modern, digitally wired. The city roads and highways are wide and well paved.    Up and down the Pacific edge Developments have grown; hotels, condos, eateries and overpriced souvenir shops sprawl along the sandy coast.   Only the wealthy can afford to have easy access to the precious white-sand Pacific beaches. The lovely open markets of Acapulco and the mixing of the classes no longer exist.  It, too, has been clearly divided between haves and have-nots.  Yet inland, In the countryside, such as Acapulco was in that distant time, time has stood still.

In that long ago year in Acapulco, there was a hillside as-yet underdeveloped.  The people had taken it as their own, their native land, and built houses there.  The city government, and the corrupt politicians who owned the government, prevented the people access to water and electricity.  The enterprising community had illicitly supplied water and power themselves.  An idealistic politician saw the injustice, and ran for mayor under the principle that the land belongs to the people.  In the course of his campaigning, he was shot down in the streets.  The land developers succeeded in chasing off the people, and slicing the pie for themselves.  Expensive homes were built, and the privileged few claimed exclusive rights to the God-created lofty vistas of the Pacific Ocean and magnificent sunsets.

            Here I am again, living in this blessed nation, still under the spell of an authoritarian system disguised as democracy.  People have the right to vote, but the elected officials have no power to change the status quo.  What changes have been made, such as empowering women’s rights to not be beaten and abused by their husbands, and a system of scholarships for students for higher education, are clearly on display when one looks for progress.  Much of the country is still rural and agricultural.  Away from urban sprawl, time has stood still. 

            In rural areas, children still do not have access to basic education because there is no rural system of school buses.  A family must still provide money for uniforms, and homemade foods for their midday meal.  This situation has greatly diminished over the years, as the extended families leave the farms to have homes in the towns, where they can board their country cousins during the school year.  The mindset, however, has changed little.

            One that has plagued me since I retired here is the mindset that says, if you have it and I want it, I can take it when you are not looking.  Theft is not a sin to these seemingly religious people who faithfully attend Mass on Sundays.  Dishonesty has always been a part of this Latin culture, where it is distasteful to abuse a person with the truth if a lie or half-truth would go down easier.  For a non-native to enter this society, picking your way through daily activities and official passages, not knowing whom to trust and where truth lies is not just maddening, it is disheartening.

            Bureaucrats are given narrow guidelines for carrying out their duties.  Paying taxes? Getting a drivers license? Registering a car? The legalities behind these operations are complex.  The average Mexican twists himself into a pretzel, or so it seems to me, to avoid paying taxes.  For example, I sold my house.  I wanted to keep my meager proceeds in the bank until I understood the lay of the financial land well enough to know how and where to protect it and grow it.  I was told by numerous people that a bank account was a bad option.  Why?  Won’t the bank protect my money?  The answer surprised me.  I, being American, expect to pay my taxes where they are due.  I understand that taxes are an economic necessity for the government to be run efficiently.  Government salaries must be paid.  Someone must pay for all the ink and printer paper that is consumed, the ink in the stamp pads that are universal.  But I was warned against placing my money in an institution licensed by the government, such as a bank or investment company.  I would be taxed on the sale of my property when deposited in the bank, perhaps as much as 25%.  If I could not falsify the amount paid and received, then the ‘right’ course of action is to keep the money under wraps.  The sale price, if recorded properly in the County Property registry, should be allowed to disappear in ledgers on dusty shelves, never being exposed to the bright light of the Revenue department.  

            I went to the Transit office to renew my drivers license.  I was given a list of documents needed.  I waited on a long, slow-moving line until my arthritic knees were screaming.  As I finally got to the door of the office, the guard at the door took a perfunctory look at my fistful of documents and identified ones that did not satisfy the requirements.  I returned home, made more copies, and added them to the stack for the next-day’s try.  The second day, long line, knees screaming, I got to the door and this time the guard realized that I was not just renewing my license, but transferring it from one state to another.  This called for an additional document.  Back home again, I found the document, added it to the stack, and waited for the next day.  I checked, of course, to see what the hours of operation were, on my first day there.  Here, on my third day I arrived on the line more than an hour before closing. About 45 minutes before closing, the guard came around to us standing on the line and said, go home.  There won’t be time to see you all before the office closes.  I had been so confident that this time, at last, as I had all the necessary documents and photocopies of them, I could not fail.  Me and all of that confidence turned tail and returned home for the weekend.

            My passport was among those documents I carried with me, even though it was not on the list.  Just in case it, though not identified as required, it was somehow implied.  When I got home, rather than putting the passport back into the home safe, I tucked it into a more accessible spot in my new house, where routines and ‘safe spots’ were not yet established. 

            Now, a couple of weeks later, I need to bring that bundle of documents plus some back into a different transit office to register a car.  This time a passport is on the list of requirements.  But I don’t know where it is.  I think, surely a birth certificate and a ‘green card’ (permanent residency) should qualify equally to achieve the purpose of showing a passport.  But here we are, dealing with a bureaucrat who does not need to read the fine print of the legality behind his job.  He is not interested in the spirit of the law, but only the letter, to the extent that he has read it.

            The police force is another area that is deeply entrenched in red tape, and corruption.  A Canadian lady was living with me for a few winter months.  We went to the hot springs for some relaxation.  On the way, in a lightly-trafficked four-lane road, a motorcycle police man pulled us over.  He informed us that she had driven through an orange traffic light.  He routinely asked us for our documents.  She said she has an international drivers license, but had nothing to show.  Even her Canadian drivers license had been left back at my ranch.  I offered him mine, which he took and attached to his clipboard.  His opening salvo, with my drivers license in hand, was to demand 4000 pesos from us.  An infraction for driving through a red light would be, probably, a couple hundred pesos.  Driving without a license might be a bit more.  It was in no way near 4000 pesos.  We negotiated for some time.  My companion did not understand the conversation being held in Spanish.  I was trying to negotiate down to 500 pesos, although I was not thinking about the driving without a license.  He escalated the situation, threatening to withhold my rear license plate until the fine was paid.  She was very nervous with the escalation of the conversation, and finally just took out 2000 pesos and gave it to him.  He returned my license to me and we drove off.  He never once offered to write a ticket.

            I can only imagine the chaos that must be traffic court.  I doubt it is anything like the process in the States.  I imagine you simply queue up at a window and pay the amount stated on the ticket, with no opportunity to challenge the justice of it. 

            I have fallen victim to a motorcycle cop who sits in wait, watching for an unsecured seat belt; plenty of people are casual about the seat belt law—and usually not a reason to stop a vehicle.  When I was victimized by such a vampire, who held my license in his clipboard, I shamed him for his obvious victimization.  He was not interested in writing a ticket, but only of securing a bribe.  I was willing to drive off without my license, rather to succumb to his thuggery.

Another example is this.  Instead of traffic lights controlling intersections, gloriettas, or roundabouts, are common here. In front of a heavily trafficked WalMart there is a glorietta, but there is also what would appear to be a turn lane.  That is, two lanes facing the glorietta, and one lane carved out of the meridian for a left-hand turn.  If you are in that lane, you cannot go forward to the glorietta without being forced to merge, which is not anywhere else a normal feature for a glorietta intersection.  It is logical to assume it is for the many shoppers who are approaching WalMart from the opposite directions, and just need to do the U to get into the parking lot.  There is no signage.

            I carefully made that choice, while there was no other car approaching the glorietta in the five lanes that existed there.  I was immediately pulled over and put into the position of negotiating for how much of a bribe I was willing to pay.  The policeman did not agree with my interpretation of the lay of the land.  In Mexico, if you get a ticket your rear license plate is removed, and to get it back you must queue up at a cashier’s window in a busy transit office.  This will eat up many hours of the next day, and is to be avoided at all costs.  Again, at that traffic office, there is no judge or opportunity to explain extenuating circumstances.  The cop rules supreme, his word is never questioned.

            So I question what is his impetus for extortion?  Is he underpaid, and need the extra money to put food on his table?  No, in fact, here in the city of Mazatlan his salary is above average, and well above the salary of, say, an English teacher, a career from which I am retired.  Again, how is the government paying his ample salary if the revenue from traffic stops is a fraction of what it would be, if all traffic stops were duly processed?

            I find myself, in theory, in the same position of those students in Mexico City on that Olympiad day decades ago.  I want to question the status quo.  I want to shake you up when you answer my question, Why do you put up with this?  “That’s the way it is.”  Shrugged shoulders.

            In the tiny rural village where I lived on my farm, I attended the State senate candidate rallies, to listen to the stump speech and ask questions, and express the community needs.  One hot issue that seems to garner popular support is, access to internet in rural areas.  Our village is in a slight depression of land.  A valley seems too noble a label, but in truth we are surrounded by mountains.  The highway connecting the population centers skirts the edge of the west hillside.

Common sense seems to point to the solution for lack of signal as being an additional tower in the valley to serve these depressed terrain.  The senate candidate came to us to garner our support, our votes.  We brought up to him the delinquency of the TelCel company in claiming our monthly fees for telephone and internet service, while not providing us with the same.  In our little hamlet it is common to see the residents strolling up and down in front of their houses, in the dirt road, talking on the telephone.  It is not for privacy.  Inside the houses are dead zones; no signal.  A call cannot be received while inside the house.  Yet everyone dutifully pays the TelCel company for service, every month.  Yes, the candidate earnestly responds.  Better internet access in rural communities is a definite need.  Undeniable.  Widely acknowledged.  Ask TelCel why they do not offer an additional tower, they will say it is not cost effective.  Yet, over the years, they have earned through unearned fees more than enough money to build such a tower.

I had a heart-to-heart conversation about this lawlessness with the pastor of my parish.  We saw the endemic nature of this mindset.  Homilies on the topic of a more fastidious examination of conscience were useless; each listener thinking of their neighbor’s guilt, but not acknowledging their own.

I was visiting Oaxaca one year when there was a mass demonstration lasting weeks, of educators, filling the streets around the center of the capital with tent-cities.

We think of the Bible verse, ‘train up your children in the way they should go, and they will not stray from it’.  Where to begin?  Where to get a fingerhold to pry open the mass delusion?  In the primary classrooms?  In teachers’ college?  In State education boards?  Who will finally not accept the response, “That’s the way it is.”

Can we expect the teaching professionals to be on the cutting edge of societal change?  While they are required to earn a higher education degree, they earn less than the police profession, which only requires a high school diploma.  Male teachers earn more than female teachers, regardless of excellence or lack thereof.  Mexican culture still puts the majority of household responsibilities on the female, whether employed or not.  Imagine the household of a policeman and a primary school teacher.  He comes home, sits on the recliner, opens a beer and waits for his meal.  She rushes home from class, maybe with a bundle of papers to review and correct, and struggles to put the meal on the table while attending to the physical and emotional needs of their two children.  Of course, in the traditional household there might be a grandma available to do the household chores.  However, there are not enough of those to go around in the average family, unless the family occupies a large compound housing family units in separate spaces.  That, too, is a dying dynamic.  This scenario used to be far more widespread in rural Mexico.

One feature of modern Mexico might be an instrument of pot-stirring.  Since World War II brought about major shifts in labor markets, when blacks no longer felt limited to farm work, Mexicans have picked up the slack.  The Brazero movement made it attractive for Mexicans to cross the northern border for agricultural work, and return each year with earnings.  This trend has seen many evolutions over the years, and has had a lasting effect on Mexican culture.  It is a very slow-moving change factor, more like lava flow than tidal wave.  For those for whom family obligation requires them to return to Mexico, or retirement, or are forced to through conflicts with the US law, they try to reestablish themselves back into their communities.  While in private conversations with the casual ex pat they might meet and indulge their longing for a better way, they are quickly swallowed up into the quagmire of the surrounding complacency.  “That’s the way it’s always been.”

            To conclude this essay I will recount what has happened in the past 24 hours. This morning just before noon my friend Oscaar walked through my front door, with Damian.  Oscar had brought Damian, a worker on his Durango ranch, down to Mazatlan to help out for a few days, to fulfill the promise Oscar had made to the landlord.  For reduced rent, Oscar would paint the house.  Meanwhile, on Sunday at church I connected with some local members who would look for a worker or two in the community to do the work at a slower, more considered pace.  During the previous day’s phone conversation I had told Oscar he need not bring this worker.  But once Oscar sets his mind, he is not easily persuaded.  Damian was in my house for a few days then, so I may as well put him to work.  It was late in the day now.  Oscar had left us to attend to a nephew in a rehab program.  Damian and I were awkwardly alone; so I put him to work.   I gave him a pair of wire strippers to fix a burned out outlet.

            Although it was late in the day, Oscar returned and the two of them set out for Durango.  On the way out of town they passed through the ‘Gold Zone’, a heavily touristed area.  Damian jumped out of the car to go to an Oxxo and buy a coke, while Oscar parked and dealt with a phone call.  Some twenty minutes passed, and Damian had not returned.  Oscar went to look for him.  The clerk at Oxxo said the police took Damian away in handcuffs.

            Oscar rushed to the police station, but he could not get Damian out; it was passed the hour for that.  He asked why the boy had been taken.  He was clean; no drugs, no booze, nothing offensive about him.  The police said they found a wire stripper in his pockets, which could be used as a lethal weapon. 

            Oscar was told to return in the morning at 8 a.m. to speak with the judge.  He arrived at 7:30, not wanting to be late.  He was made to sit unattended for an hour.  He asked, what is the holdup?  The judge was having breakfast, he was told.  He waited more.  Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock.  Eventaully he was told the charges, and what it would cost in fines.  He was told $1,800 pesos.  No, he said. The boy did nothing to warrant arrest.  Each party postured; this was the negotiation.  Finally, a whisper in his ear said all could be resolved with a bribe of 1,000 pesos.  And so the boy was set free.

            Both he and Damian counted the number of people that passed through the jail cells that night.  The station was busy with mostly this sort of nuisance arrest. They calculated that the police were earning about 70,000 pesos in one hour.  This is the real danger in the tourist area, not the drug traffickers like the media would have the public believe.

There was never a formal charge filed.  Nothing was put in writing.  It was a high stakes game played by the police, who had all the power.

            I am left with my unresolved question.  A large ocean liner has a proportionately small rudder.  Turning it around is a slow process; it cannot turn on a dime, like a speed boat.  Where is that rudder?

 

CV joints

         It is a Friday morning in late April. I sit here in the shade, waiting on the mechanics to set right my car again.  This shop is open-air, and so there is a strong cooling breeze blowing here in the shade.  We are having an early and persistent summer this year.  The land, the river, everything is drier than I have ever seen it.  This intense heat is burning up everything.  At this altitude, getting out of the sun means finding a cool temperature.  And so, I don’t mind waiting for my rear tires to be looked after.

               These days I find myself driving the hour to Durango every week, and back.  I have found a therapist who uses magnets in the ear to relieve pain and stress.  She changes them every week, fine tuning the treatment.  It is amazing the relief I get from these treatments.  However, all these kilometers on the car have uncovered a flaw.  The rear tires are so badly aligned that new tires wear out in a year; strips of steel band are exposed on the inside of the tire.  Last week I stopped at the Pemex/Oxxo station a few miles outside of Durango, on my way home.  A bunch of gentlemen were gathered there, taking a break.  Judging by their camo outfits, I thought they might be Guardsmen returning from an exercise.  I could be wrong, there was no standard uniform amongst them.  If I had encountered them on the highway in Montana, I might have thought them on a hunting trip.  Before I had gone a few steps towards the door to the Oxxo, they called to me.  My tire was flat!  A few of us gathered around it.  Was it a puncture, or something more serious?  The guy feeling around the inner edge of the tire recoiled his hand; it was pricked by something sharp.  Sure enough, the one-year old tire had worn through.  We checked the other side; same thing, just not flat yet. 

               They rallied to the call, gathered around, found a jack and a tire iron, and set to putting on my ‘temporary’ tire.  They advised me to drive very slowly on the way home.  I grabbed my ice cream bar from inside Oxxo and set out on my long journey home, going 40 MPH with flashers lit.  As I diligently attended to this dangerous journey, I reflected that I had given the men kudos, thanking them as heroes, but had offered no monetary reward.  Honestly, sometimes I wonder where my head is at.

               On the journey home I called my favorite used-tire guy, a friendly old codger just a few doors down from the Aurrera Bodega.  He rallied to get in the car and come help me.  Wow.  I explained that I was still coming on my own steam, and asked if he could find me a couple of tires while I was on my way to him. 

               My angels were ever so faithful to me, and so I arrived safely to the used-tire shop in Canatlan.  I pulled the only chair out of the back of the shop and onto the sidewalk.  The late afternoon sun was behind the building, so I sat in the shade and played backgammon on my phone for the time it took him to put on my two new used tires.  These, too, were an off-brand, and so would wear out in a matter of months if I did not fix the problem.  Sometimes he can find me a set of slightly worn Michelin’s, but this was not one of those times.  It is just as well, since without getting the rear end aligned, again they would be shredded in no time.

               Here I am, faced once again with the basic problem of life in a backwater like Canatlan.  It is filled with jacks of all trades, but master of none.  Where can I take my car for this repair?  I had no way to know if someone happened to be experienced in this task.  I wanted to take it to Durango, relying on my friend Oscar to guide me to a reliable shop.  However, Oscar is a busy landlord of many properties, and never did come through for me.  I took the car back to the very same place where I bought this last set of tires, a year ago.  I do not remember if I bought these new tires before, or after my car rolled over on the highway in January, 2023.  Did the problem with the rear tires crop up after that accident?  Did the awful man who was tasked with rebuilding the frame of my car swap out my good CV Joints with faulty ones, making a profit while he kept me in limbo without a car for five months?  Or, when the new tires were put on, did this tire shop simply not do a thorough check, putting new tires on an old problem?  At this moment, there are three young men clustered around the rear end of my car, looking up at the situation from the well.  I can only hope that among them there is enough know-how to find the problem and fix it.  One can hope.

               During the few short months that Christine, from Canada, spent with me at Luz de Compasion, through her online research,  she introduced me to the many hot springs in the area.  Now I try to go weekly to the one outside of Durango, not far from the farm where is the new owner of my beloved horses.  That is, the horses are there; he lives in a nice house in Durango proper.  Caretakers live on the farm, replacing me as their herd. At the spa, I met a group of retired people who seemed to all speak English.  In particular I had a long conversation with one gentleman, Jose.  Subsequently, I tried to make my visits to the spa on Wednesdays, hoping to see him again.  I’ve gone perhaps four times, but have not seen him or them again, except for one gentleman who wears a prosthetic leg, and comes diligently for water exercises.  I spend an hour soaking in the heat, and doing exercises to loosen up my damaged leg and hip.  I think this workout is doing some good, and along with the magnets in the ear, I have hope that I can get back maybe 90% of use of that hip.

               I get the news after inspection; the rear cannot be aligned as is, but requires a part.  This part must be ordered from somewhere far off, and so I await the news of when it can arrive.  Tomorrow, next week; as long as it is before my next trip to Durango.  These are the things that make me go over budget; my pension is just not enough.

               And here comes the news.  The parts are very expensive, and then there is the labor.  Not counting the new tires I’ll have to buy on my next trip to Durango’s WalMart, that bite is $5,000 pesos.  At the current unfavorable exchange rate, that comes to almost $400 US, almost half my monthly pension.  The cost of the new tires should bring it to over the top, beyond the 50% point.  That is not good news.

               Speaking of Christine, she should be flying out on her journey homeward this week.  During her time here, against my advice, she adopted a dog.  She said she wanted to take the dog back to Canada with her.  We discussed what had to be done to do that.  She knew she had to take the dog to the vet and get required paperwork; nothing more than ordinary shots.  In fact, we had gotten the dog spayed, and it may even be that nothing more was needed than the signature of the vet.  However, Christine never did this.  Meanwhile, the dog wound up back at Luz; and now she is mine.  That brings the total of indoor dogs to three.  Since one of those dogs is the neurotic Loki, who adopted me over his natal home a mile away, this is a bit much.  Her name is Betsy.  She comes with problems. 

               Although I enjoyed the company of Christine, she was getting restless.  Frankly, life here on the farm outside of town is boring.  She did not seem to like the TV shows I watched.  We played backgammon once on a makeshift board, but it wasn’t engaging enough for her to merit a second play.  She is marvelously gifted with plants, and so puttered about her house planting seeds, and finding cactus to root in pots.  After she left, I took the one tomato plant into my care, moving it to my porch and into a bigger pot.  With care, it has now grown quite tall and bears odd looking tomatoes, almost like grape tomatoes but longer.  The nascent stalks of cactus inspired me to start a cactus garden.  I used abandoned mounds of gravel and dirt outside the smallest house, and now have five of one kind and quite a few of an aloe vera and another very similar.   In time, these will all grow and fill out a nice five-foot square plot.  They will not die from lack of water, like all my other plants and trees.  They need water only twice a year.

There came an odor emanating from Christine’s house.  Over the weeks of her stay, it was growing stronger.  Just walking past the house, the odor permeated the very air outside.  I did not recognize it.  Was it the sewer? Was she putting something down the sink during her cooking?  Finally, I asked her to move into the other house while we figured out what it was.  I truly thought it might be toxic.

               This brought things to a head, and within a couple of days she packed up what little she had and asked me to drive her to a motel in town.  Betsy went with her.

               One day a few weeks later, while leaving the Aurrera Bodega with my groceries, I saw Betsy lying outside the store.  When she saw me, she went bonkers with joy, followed me to the car and hopped in to join Loki and Junior.  I went back inside to look for Christine.  I did not see her.  I started to drive away, but thought I might need to make a second look.  I didn’t want to think that Christine would knowingly abandon Betsy.  I drove back to the supermarket, parked, and did another walk-through.  I did not see Christine.  And so it was that Betsy is living with me again.  One day shortly after, all three dogs were lying on the bed while I watched afternoon television.  Suddenly I heard squealing, barking, scrambling of claws on the floor.  Betsy had fallen off the bed, broken her leg, and Loki went berserk peeing everywhere.  I had to take her to a dog orthopedist in Durango; her healing was trying, and expensive.  It was, at least, a clean break and did not require an operation.  Still, keeping it fixed and immobile while it healed was very problematic, and expensive.  Canatlan is just not equipped for more than the simplest veterinarian needs. [1] Betsy pulled off one bandage after another.  I took her to a local vet, who put on a cast and elaborate wrappings, for an exorbitant price considering that Betsy pulled it all off again in a day.  The vet had put a collar on her, which could have helped, except that the collar was the wrong size, wrapped too tightly about her head so that she had no visibility. She was frantic; I had to pull it off.

               Within weeks, I started noticing that smell again, this time in my house!  The problem stems from Betsy.  She has preferred to spend her time inside, in fact, on my lap.  She never seemed to need to go outside to pee.  I got out the mop and Pinesol, and magically the smell was gone.  Interestingly, I found Christine to be an immaculate house cleaner.  I do not understand how she could have allowed Betsy’s urine to accumulate in her house so.  But there it was.  Mystery solved.  Now Betsy must live outside, in the doghouse. 

               When I returned yesterday from my weekly treatment in Durango, I did not see Betsy.  I carried the groceries in with two trips, while the dogs were jumping in and out of the car.  I had left them home alone all day, and they were a bit exuberant at my arrival.  After the last trip, I left the rear door open; I forgot about it, and in the morning saw it was still open.  I needed two trips this morning to bring my computer and a chair into the car for the visit to the new tire shop, where the alignment was to take place.  Once there, I saw black-haired Betsy lying down on the floor of the back seat.  Now she lies beside me, as I sit here in the shade typing.  What am I to do with this dog?  Does the malodorous urine indicate that she is ill?  Her leg is almost healed now; she is beginning to put weight on it.  She seems to display no other indication of an internal illness, except for her lethargy.  I just found an engorged tick sucking on her lip, but that can’t account for this long-term smelly urine.  Since the Orthopede’s xray revealed that she has arthritic hips, I presumed that she was an old girl, and that accounted for the broken bone and her lethargy.  But I am told, not so.  She is only about three years old.  Some breeds, I am told, are prone to arthritis.  This was told me by a middle-aged veterinarian here in Canatlan, whom I found to be a bit full of herself.  I know that some large dogs, like retrievers and maybe German Shepherds, do tend to go lame in the hind quarters at around ten years.  I have never heard of a breed that gets geriatric hips at age three or four years.  Learn something new every day?  I still take this Vet’s opinion with a grain of salt.  Consider this.  About three weeks after Betsy broke her leg, after all my failed efforts to wrap the broken bone, I took her to this veterinarian trusting that she could succeed where I failed.  She called the clinic in Durango to get a copy of Betsy’s x-ray, without which, she said, she could not wrap the leg.  I offered to draw her the x-ray image, but she insisted she needed the x-ray from Durango.  She called.  She did not give my name nor Betsy’s; she only said that a foreigner brought in a dog with a broken leg.  The x-ray she received on her phone was clearly not Betsy’s.  When I pointed that out to her, she just shrugged her shoulders, dismissing me as a source of information.  This was not confidence-instilling behavior.  Yet, echoing what I said earlier, the competence level found in Canatlan leaves much to be desired.  Given all of this, I am at a quandary to know what to do with this dog and her stinky urine.

               The shop owner comes to me with the good news that he has found the CV joints, and that they are on their way from Durango.  There will be only a few more hours wait until the car is ready for me to drive off.  I get a ride back to town, where I can wait more comfortably until the car is ready.  My friend Lupita, in spite of all her own personal burdens, kindly leaves her job to pick me up and so I await at her place of work.  I can only hope that when the car is ready, the manager will call me and pick me up.  More likely, since we did not exchange phone numbers, I will take a taxi back there at the end of the day and ransom my car.

               The visit with Lupita raises an interesting opportunity.  This resourceful, hard working woman needs temporary help.  Although she is employed by the city of Canatlan as a cleaner, she somehow also has taken on responsibility for a tiny food shack on the grounds of the public park where twice a week vendors come to sell their goods.  I will learn how to prepare simple Mexican foods, like gorditas and zapatoes.  She will do the serious food prep the night before, and I will simply spend a few hours a day taking orders and assembling the simple dishes.  This will give her time to find another worker, one who will not steal from her as did the previous worker.  But that is a story for another day. 

              

 

 

              

 

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[1] See elsewhere the story of how Patas Blancas nearly died from an open-air gelding procedure.

To love or not to love

 

To Love or not To Love

 

Some women seem to need love.  A woman married for decades suddenly becomes a widow.  I have seen, time and time again, how this woman quickly attracts another mate.  This is not my experience.

In my youth I felt strong connections, serially, to men.  I called this ‘love’.  It could not have been love, however, because it did not last, it was never unconditional.  The emotion or state of being that I call love comes with a strength that cannot allow it to die.  Yet here I am, at the end of my life, alone.  I still do not know what it feels like to ‘love’

Now you come into my life.  I met you on vacation, and that should have been the end of it.  You are there, I am here.  But you do not let it die.  You call me daily, and renew your hunger for me.  This must be Maya, an illusion.  What is in it for you?  I am an old woman, on the verge of death.  I cannot give you babies, I cannot be a good Housewife.  I am at best a casual housekeeper and a seasonal cook.  If you had my love for a lifetime, it would be short lived.  So why do you pursue me?

Most of my life I have worked hard to gain control over my emotions and imagination.  I see through transient alliances for what they are.  I do not confuse them for the real thing, and so I hold back and protect my heart lest it break, once again.  No more!

You say you want ‘an experience’ with me.  That is a new one on me, what is ‘an experience’?  It is easy for me to sit here, miles away, and see your sweet face filled with love, and imagine that there could be more.  The Wise Woman in me reminds me constantly that this is merely an illusion.  Your words and sentiments are incredibly sensitive and romantic.  You sweep me off my feet, making me believe that you cannot live without me. 

The cynic within me says, ‘yea, right’.

This is a time of turmoil, in my life.  It comes with stress.  The cherished house I built, the home I live in, the land I have come to love, has been sold.  I must move on in the next few months.  To start my life again?  Where?  Why must I?  How long must this alien existence go on?  I want to go home, to my spiritual domain, shedding the bonds and limitations of this flesh.  Will the last ten years of my life continue as the previous eighty?  Alone, fending for myself, fierce intelligence protecting me from the world that is out there, each soul demanding its own, willing to give little of protection and love in return.

Now you come along, creating the illusion that at last someone has come into my life who wants to protect me, to take care of me, to lift from my shoulders the nearly unbearable weight of this self-protecting life.  Am I to fall back upon my youthful optimism and trust, the pattern of giving and getting transient ‘love’ in return?  Do you offer me one last, ultimate, heartbreak?  Is that cruelty, or a blessing?  Is it true, ‘it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’?  Isn’t that a loser’s lament?

Now we get to the word ‘love’.  It has taken on broad meanings over time.  There are many kinds of love, as the Greek language has shown us. 

Is it better to have had the love of a child, and then lost it, then never to have had a child at all?  No, I can say from experience, that offers a life time of pain.  Pain of separation, pain of feeling condemnation, of being not enough, of somehow abandonment and betrayal.  One could live happily without knowing this kind of love and loss.

There is paternal love, love of ones parents.  That comes with so many pitfalls.  Are we closer to one than to the other?  Buddhist philosophy tells us that at the moment of conception we are drawn in by attraction to one partner, which can then lead to jealousy of the other partner, setting us up for lifelong conflict.  Not all relationships are so easily defined, but in my case I think this may have been true.  I have felt very protective of my father, loathing my mother for her rough handling of him.  This has robbed me of feeling maternal love.  Even beyond death, my bond with my father remains strong.  I am still puzzled by the subtleties of maternal love.

There is fraternal love.  In a literal sense, that would mean love for and between my siblings.  I am blessed not to ever have been emotionally estranged from my siblings, but love for me has always come behind love for their partners, which is how it should be.  Having no partner myself, I often look to them for affirmation and loyalty, but that is not included in the ‘brotherly love’ package.  Spouse always comes before siblings, in my experience.

There is erotic love.  Through the years of cultural and social development, ‘maturity’ or perhaps more accurately, ‘decay’, I have seen the cultural confines of this kind of love loosen.  We live in an age of open pornography.  The nude body is flaunted everywhere we look, in films, in advertising,  in the flesh.  The privacy of the human body and sexuality used to evoke eroticism within the bonds of relationship.  Now it is open to the public, no modesty, no commitments needed.  Were we to allow ourselves the bonds of commitment and relationship, erotic love would be most private, most welcomed.  Erotic love is satisfying, deeply fulfilling, but not when it is cheapened by multiple partners in casual liaisons.  At least, that is my perception. 

Lastly, then, love such as is lacking in my life cannot be contained within ‘an experience’.  I have had a life full of experiences, adventures, and I do not crave more.  Now I crave alone melting into the eternal love and acceptance and glow that comes with death.  It is foolish of me to think that you could feel for me that committed love, that self-sacrificing love that puts the other first, that is ultimately loyal and continues growing until the final separation of death; and perhaps beyond.  You would have to be a highly realized spiritual being to go there.  As much as I feel your purity and sincerity, I see no evidence that you are that being.  You are still young, still looking to have experiences, to learn, to grow.  You did not come into this world to wait for our reunion, to continue a love that was kindled in other bodies.  I am enough of a romantic to imagine it could be so, yet the realist in me says that is a fantasy.

My sweet, sweet young man, I wish for you to find that love in a peer, so that you need not suffer the pain of separation too soon.  I wish for you an undying love that will hold you in its embrace for the rest of your life.  Do not squander your love on passing attractions.  Do not sully the purity of heart that I see in you now, by casual liaisons, or transient passions.

Know love, in all its forms, and do not give it away lightly where it will be betrayed.  Learn the difference, and know when to love and when not to love.  Ultimately, love is a gift, not a tool or a weapon.  I wish it for you in abundance.

Tale of the lost pony

 

Well, all right then.  The sun has crested the hill.  I’ve done my chores.  I’ve added nectar to the two hummingbird feeders, filled the three bowls with kittie kibble, and tossed a bunch of alfalfa into the corral for the horses.  I’ve brewed a cup of hot tea, and it’s time to tell a story.

As pets, horses can be a big expense.  Aside from the joy of admiring these handsome huge creatures and getting the occasional affectionate face hugs from them, they need to offer more to make it worth it. One should be able to climb up their backs and be carried out into the day.

Patas Blancas has been through various efforts by three different people to train him, in his four years. Lack of continuity has been our downfall.  It is high time that he cooperate and accept the saddle and bit.  In fact, he does accept certain people on his back.  But to give a good ride is yet beyond his reach.  He is willful.  A good horse will not only accept a rider, but will agree to also work together with the rider to accomplish a mutual goal.  Although he is healthy, and in the spring he was even fat, I have been negligent in his care.  I have made a firm commitment to turn over a new leaf.

Each morning at dawn I separate him from his filly, and lead him to a small enclosure.  Knowing a hungry horse cannot think of anything but food, I give each of them a small portion of alfalfa.  I keep the filly in the corral so that she will not be a distraction to him.  I go back in the house for my morning prayers and first cuppa.

My theory is that in fifteen minutes a day, he will slowly learn to understand and accept basic commands.  I lead him in moves around the 25 foot long rectangle, on a rope, and at the end of each revolution he is rewarded with a slice of apple. 

One day I was returning from a shopping trip to town, when I saw a yearling colt standing in the road, at my fence, communicating with my two horses.  I left the gate open, and he wandered in.  I had no idea who he was or where he came from, but wandering free on the road could not be a safe option for him.  I did not put him in the corral with the horses, but left him free to give them time to adjust to each other.

I started putting notices on my Facebook page, knowing that a few local women followed it.  No one responded.  For three days, I wrote reminders that the little guy was still here, waiting for his owner.  I went around asking if anyone knew of a missing pony.  I found out where the center for registered brands is located, in Canatlan, and went there.  The young man took a copy of the horse’s photo and said he would end out a notice to his list.  Days passed, and still nothing. 

Pony walks up to the fence and goes nose to nose with the filly for a moment.  Then suddenly she draws back and whinnies; an unseen message passed between them, and she did not like it. 

When they are all freely grazing around the two acres here, the pony keeps his distance.  When the pair go down the embankment to the riverbed pasture, he follows along behind them at a safe distance.  They all spend hours down there grazing.

They all three come back up and continue grazing.  If the pony gets too chummy, Patas lunges for his neck.  If he gets too close to the filly, she aims a hind kick at him.  I feel sorry for him.  It looks like they are not accepting him.

Sometimes he goes down to the riverbed alone.  I might bring him his morning rations of alfalfa down there, where he won’t have to fight the othr two for it.  The undergrowth is so thick there that I can walk the length of the area and see no sign of him.  He senses my presence, and before long reveals himself to me.   

One rumor had it that a woman at a ranch called La Luz was missing a horse.  Not knowing where that was, I drove to Rancho Seco, the nearest town down the road and heavily invested in horses.  I drove slowly down the dusty roads looking for someone to ask.  One old man sat on a stone under the eaves; I asked him; no.  I drove on a little further, and saw a bent old man leaning on a cane in the street in front of a car and a house.  He said he knew of this place.  As he described its location, towards the town of Sauceda, I knew that was too far a distance for this horse to wander lost. 

The untamed horse now walks after me, looking for food.  He follows me to the stable, and I close the door behind him.  My firewood guy rides up on his motorbike, asking about the sale of my two horses.  We agree on a price, at the moment he has the money but it won’t stay in his pocket long.  I am not ready to part with them.  I show him the pony and ask if he recognizes him.  He does not, but while the guy is here and the pony is enclosed in the stable, we put a harness on him.  First the guy makes a lasso of a thick rope, and tosses it over the resisting head of the pony.  It slides nicely into place, and we have the means to hold him still while we put the harness on him. 

This week the moon is full.  I am awakened by a strange noise, a thud.  I put on slippers and walk outside into the moonlight.  The two horses in the corral are close to the fence.  The pony is just a few feet away, standing by the locked stable where the hay is kept.  I walk up to him and talk with him a bit.  The still night air is magical.  He remains very still, relaxed, aglow with moonlight.  I freely pat his nose, and then his neck.  It was a tender moment.  My filly had been with me a month before she would let me touch her like that.

After a week, I heard that Tocho, here in El Pozole, had lost a pony.  I drove to the last known residence and left a note in the door.  I returned the next day, and found the note untouched.  I knew he had another place, out towards the Sierra.  One time when my horses had wandered off from the river onto the other bank, he had put them within his gates and, after a day, came on his motorcycle to tell me I should keep my horses in check, they were causing damage, the usual tirade.  that day I jumped in my car and followed him the few miles out.  There I saw my horses out in the distance on a slight hill, mixing with the cattle.  There were no damaged fences or crops in sight.  My horses do not rampage.  I called them to me, they ambled down the hillside in their own good time, and walked out the gate I had opened for them.  They returned the way they came, to the riverbed, across, through our fence and up the embankment to their corral.  That’s how I knew that Tocho had another place.

This day I drove back out to that place, as best as I could remember it.  In the dusty roadway there are various tracks leading off into other fenced pasture lands.  I could not find the gate and hillside I had in my memory.  Frustrated, I turned around and headed home.  I had not gone but a few yards when a motorcyclist, passing on the left, greeted me.  I recognized him as the youngest son of Tocho, the youth who had first tried to train Patas Blancas.  I threw my arm out the window and hailed him to stop, as I fumbled with the other hand to switch off the radio. 

I told him I found a pony.  A broad smile melted his face.  “You found my horse!” 

I drove back home, and waited for him.  After a while he returned, with a length of thick rope.  While I waited, I went down to the riverbed side of my property, where the three horses were.  The pony followed me up the embankment, no doubt in hopes that I would have some alfalfa for him.  I got him into the small stable, and closed the door. 

I showed the kid to the stable.  He went inside, and fashioned a halter with the rope he brought.  He removed the harness I had put on him.  While the kid went to bring up his motorcycle, I held the horse still and calm.  I said my goodbyes to him.  He is a sweet pony.  The kid led the horse away behind his motorcycle.  I thought my horse would be happy to be rid of him, this intrusion on his well-ordered life as king of the pack.  I was wrong!

Patas was in the corral as the pony was led away.  He went ballistic!  He whinnied angrily.  He galloped down the length of the corral towards the gate, whinnying noisily.  He galloped back and again, at full speed, to the corral gate, and back again towards the road.  He did it again, dancing and bucking.  It was quite a show.

I think I learned something that day about the nature of the horse.  He had put the colt through days of hazing, teaching him lessons he needed about his place in the herd.  Patas was not rejecting the pony, though it might have seemed that way to me.  As the leader of the herd, he was nurturing him, teaching him the way of horses, teaching him his place in the pecking order.

I am always humbled, when the horses teach me something, increasing my awareness of the nature of these most noble of beasts.  I have waited literally all my life to finally realize my dream to have my own horse companion.  I cherish every day, knowing our time together is so short. 

Here is Cinderella at dusk

Blancas and me, signing off

A different approach to Transgender

 It seems to me that transgender rights are administered unequally across classes.  ‘Gender reassignment surgery’ is very expensive. What about all those who feel dysphoric about their gender but don’t have the thousands of dollars needed for surgery?  I would hazard a guess that those who can buy the surgery are a minute percentage of their lower-income siblings.

I hear the stories of children who knew at a very young age that ‘something was wrong’ inside them.  They did not share their gender’s interests.  Boys who wanted more colorful or frilly clothes, and who preferred playing with dolls than ball and bat.  Girls who preferred to climb trees, wrestle, and learn to use tools under the hood of a car were traditionally called ‘tomboys’, but with budding breasts were forced into a different social class.

These children suffer depression as they grow towards maturity.  Why is that?  No doubt they experience bullying, name calling, and ostracizing from both sides of the gender line.  As a teenager experiencing new hormones, depression can occur, it is part of the experience for many, but for sexually dysphoric youth it is deeper and more terminal. 

Parents seek help, when they see their child suffering this treatment.  They may assume that the medical professionals have an answer, so they haul these young people off to a doctor’s office.  There they may find antidepressants, or hormone blockers.  For more desperate patents, treatments of estrogen or testosterone are condoned.

One day it occurred to me that maybe our culture is heading down the wrong path.  After all, theologians who have studied such things tell us that we choose where we will be born, in order to work out our path to spiritual awakening.  We choose our family, our siblings, our gender.  That being the case, how is it possible that we made a ‘mistake’ in the gender we chose?  Sorry, folks, but I don’t see that as a possibility.  We were born with certain personality traits, yes.  To assume that means we don’t have the body to match the personality does not make sense.  Is medical intervention the answer?  Only because we are thinking too small, too ‘within the box’, can we not see our way clear to a more equitable solution.

It is society’s reaction to the choices of these dysphoric people.  I see in my mind’s eye a feminine person, with dress, ruffles and flare, in full makeup, and a beard. 

What about the female to male transition?  I see far less of that on reality TV shows.  It is much easier for a woman to pass as a man, externally.  Does she want to perform like a man sexually?  Lesbians have been using strap-ons already, so why would surgery be necessary?  And when else does a penis come into play?  In a locker room?  That, again, is a societally-conditioned response.  Does that require surgery to change?

I envision a society, a culture, where people can express themselves naturally, without fear of being criticized, ridiculed, ostracized.  I don’t think it necessary for an athlete to compete outside their biological gender to feel fulfilled.  Boys feel more comfortable running with a group of girls?  Let them!  Just not when competing in the Olympics.  Girls want to run with the boys? Work harder in the gym.  Again, not in the Olympics.

If such a culture existed, a person could learn to live with the hormones they were biologically programmed to have, without feeling dysphoric. 

You get the idea.  Not necessary to belabor it.  I do wonder where I have missed the mark, since I am not part of this gender-dysphoric community.  Were I to write my biography without specifying my gender, it might well be ambiguous.  I have not lived a traditional role.  That, however, does not qualify me to speak for this community.  There may be things I am missing.  Surely that is so.

I never hear this subject debated.  I hear that people are fighting for their LGBTQ rights.  I would like to hear the terms of that movement extended.  If society accepted people who are ‘different’, if the roles dictated by society were to be reevaluated and modified, would people feel the need to be so vocal, so ‘in-your-face’ about their differences and different needs?  Would they still feel the need to organize marches?

My voice is not loud enough to engender a conversation over this different perspective.  I wish it were, because the unhappiness of such a large number of people disturbs my spiritual tranquility.  I would rather see a solution that comes from the minds and hearts of people, from growth in spiritual awareness, than from the medical profession mangling the beautiful human body.