Too much

This is just too much. I subscribe to a bunch of airline newsletters and promotions and Spirit Airlines sent its "Threesome" special this morning. Risque advertising can be effective, but when it's this desperate it falls on its three-sided face. (besides, I see too many asteriks here, and there was a bunch more fine print in the e-mail.)

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here's a sneak peak at future blog posts:

• We're going on 6 days without water. A detail of our desperation and dehydration.
  
• Mexico City banned free plastic bags yesterday.
  
• Hillary AND Obama are coming to Mexico.
• AND...RADIOHEAD was in Mexico last Sunday and Monday. I went to their spectacular, sold-out concert at Foro Sol on Monday, and I'll recount the amazing and must-do-before-you-die experience.
  

Homeless

This is a shock, especially for gringos -- and even gringos who have been living in Mexico City for 8 months -- seeing people with missing limbs or serious injuries. You see them in tourist areas, on busy streets and especially in the metro. I've seen blind people board the train and sell pirated CDs, a homeless person with exposed wounds and bloody, un-bandaged stumps panhandling with a dirty styrofoam cup and a paralyzed man pulling himself along on a hodgepodge skateboard functioning as a bed on wheels in the crowded Zocalo.

Poverty and homelessness are heartbreaking, uncomfortable and ugly, but they exist everywhere. You seem to see more of it in Mexico City than in other places. According to Ahmed, for a long time, Mexico City was the only hope for the country's poorest and most desperate. The U.S. as well, but with the capital being the most viable, millions flooded into the Valle de Mexico. Wikipedia says Greater MxC grew intensely until the 1980s, and population growth stabilized. With all of those people coming in, many were left with nothing.

Below is a photo of a woman I saw last week at the Chabacano metro station -- on the blue line, the most comfortable line of the metro system, and also the one that passes through many tourist areas -- who was walking on the platform. I don't know what she was doing, but I took her photo from the other side

Bizarre Mexican brands, I

I'm starting up a new series on bizarre Mexican brand names. Now having lived in Mexico more than a year and a half, I've seen many oddly named products. Some of the brand names I'm going to write about are just nonsensical words; some share the name with a different brand; and some are words in other languages that mean something completely different -- often sexual, goofy or ironic.

Take, for example, Kranky, a brand of chocolate-covered corn flakes made by Ricolino. Delicious, sweet, cheap, sold everywhere and addictive, the smile on the cartoon's face below and the brand name seem to disagree.

The only thing that made me Kranky about this candy is that they don't sell it by the kilo, 'cos I finished this baggie off in about twenty seconds.

Xochimilco

Trajinera jam in Xochimilco.

Yesterday, Ahmed, John, Allen and me went to Xochimilco (Zoe-chee-milk-oh), a system of canals Mexico City’s southern borough by the same name. You rent a trajinera (tra-he-nair-uh), or a large, flat canoe, and a trajinero weaves you through the shallow canals, pushing you along with a 15-foot wood pole. Sundays it’s always packed, with hundreds of trajineras filled with families, beers, music and food. Vendors on their own mini-trajineras abound, selling everything from (imitation Chinese) Mexican artisans, corn on the cob, micheladas, flower bouquets, and every imaginable type of antojito (snacks, like tacos, empanadas or quesadillas). And there are plenty of mariachi, norteño, marimba and banda groups who will hop aboard your trajinera and play you a few songs.

We got to Xochimilco late and ended up going on the floating-party “Paseo turistico” (tourist route), which most people go on. Last time we went on the more relaxed “Paseo ecológico” (ecological route), which takes you through the tourist route, but then you go through a beautiful reserve. Toward the end is a kitschy but cool “Isla de las muñecas” (Island of the Dolls), where dolls and parts of dolls are nailed to trees. The island has a creepy history, definitely worth the 10 pesos.

I recommend Xochi’s ecological route to anyone visiting Mexico City. It’s a little far from the main tourist areas, but it’s a relaxing escape from the smoggy, noisy city. You need about five hours for that route, and make sure you don’t get ripped off !!

Bowl-shaped Mexico City used to be a large lake, but after Spanish colonization most of it was drained out. Xochi is what survived, and it's a good way to see what Mexico City was like, más o menos.

The highlight of our day, though, was buying plants at one of Xochi's many nurseries. They grow easily on Xochimilco’s chinampas (“floating gardens”), and we took home a pine tree, gardenias, ferns, geraniums, and a bunch of others whose names I forget.

Living on traffic-heavy Insurgentes Avenue, having plants is a must. They create much-needed humidity, provide oxygen where car exhaust abounds, filter the air and make your place more pleasant to look at. And with plenty of sun (at least for half the year) in MxC, they thrive.

photos from yesterday (paseo turístico); photos from last June (paseo ecologico)

Height horrors

The economic crisis is the last of their worries.




Lowering and then locking himself in place.


About every month, five or six men creep downward, startling half the office as they clean the windows of Arochi, Marroquin & Lindner. Supported by nothing but a twice-looped, inch-thick rope and sitting harnessed on a piece of narrow wood, these brave guys clean the windows of the entire 31-floor Torre Mural (Mural Tower). They glide freely on their giant swings, quickly and efficiently swiping the glass with a soapy sponge and then wiping it clean with a squeegee.

On the west-facing side of the office, where I'm at, they cleaned the 20th-floor windows in less than two minutes today. But once they get to ground level (in one piece, hopefully), they'll start over, cleaning the tower's many sides.

For these guys, AM&L's twentieth floor probably isn't so bad; Mexico City's tallest skyscraper, Torre Mayor, stands 55 floors above Reforma Avenue.

Peso blues

Eek! (from www.xe.com)


The Mexican peso has been at record lows against the dollar recently, according to the News. Many factors, such as the world economic crisis, unemployment, imports and exports to the U.S. and inflation affect the exchange rate.

“The Mexican currency has weakened 32 percent over the past six months, the biggest decline among the world's major currencies,” the News says.

I’m working and getting paid in pesos, but I pay my credit cards, student loans and car in dollars, so I cringe a little whenever I see the peso becoming worth less and less. Almost every bank posts the exchange rate in big, arbitrary digits on their windows, and since I came here in June those numbers have gotten higher and higher. Back in August you could buy a dollar with 9.5 pesos, but now it takes about 15.5. In other words, I’d have to work 88 hours more per month to earn what I made back in August. Ouch.

Water-saving tip of the month

One of the most common-sense ways you can save water is to put a bucket in the shower stall or tub when you bathe. Use the bucket to catch water while you rinse, lather and wash off. Then, when you use the toilet, instead of pulling the flush lever, dump the water down the bowl, and the pressure the falling water creates pushes all the waste down the drain…use the whole bucket if there are solid things…

You can also reused boiled water after you cook things like pasta. If you collect pure water, you can also use it to feed your plants, throw it at street vendors who block sidewalks and subway station entrances or put the bucket in your room to create humidity, which has been lacking in Mexico City these months.

We've started collecting water in January, after the city announced it would cut water off three days per month to about half of residents until the rainy season. Luckily, we haven’t been affected, but in water-scarce D.F. you never know when te lo van a cortar.

Giant, black water tanks sit on roofs of most houses and buildings here, aka Rotoplas, and the super-noisy bomba pumps water into the tanks, so even if the city cuts you off, you still probably have a few litros waiting in the Rotoplas.