From Xico

Mexico: In danger of failing like Pakistan? Gimme a Break

Here is my translation of sections of the report of the statement to the press of Patricia Espinosa, Mexico's foreign secretary.  These quotes come from an article by Pablo Ordaz in ElPais.com on January 17, 2009.

This woman, who is fifty years old and who has long diplomatic experience has called correspondents from four international publications to explain the situation which, althugh grave, doesn't affect the whole country, but fundamentally only six of the 32 states of Mexico: Baja Califoria, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, durango, Michoacan and Guerrero.

"Violence is not generalized.  I don't want to minimize the problem.  We are the first to be worried.  But to speak of a failed state is to speak of generalized violence and of a generalized loss of control of the territory and this is not the case in mexico. It is true that there are certain places wehre violence has been exacerbated.  WE've detained the bosses, weakened their organizations, and their hatchet men are trying to regain control.  of every ten assessination, nine are people tied to narcotrafico gangs.  It is not the civilian population that is dying in Me

Espinosa explained that much of the present violence is a consecuence of decades of neglect.  "When President Calderón took office, he found a very deteriorated situation.  No government had done what we are doing now.  In the past, they had opted to agree to tolerate the situation and the criminal organizations managed to acquire a great amount of economic power, a great capacity to corrupt.  They were acquiring greater control of areas in the country.  So President Calderón decided that the policy of tolerance was not an option for Mexico.  In a country where there is poverty, where there are people who live marginalilzed lives, where there is so much need, to think in agreeing to tolerate the situation was to avoid the fact that the violence would  mean that many Mexican young people would be condemned to fall into drugs and to become criminals themselves.  All of this is very clear in the statistics describing those who are assassinated.  The greater part of them are younger than thirty, young people who were taken in when they left school, they were offered money, they were told they were going to be very rich, kings among their friends...."

On the Secretary's desk was a series of charts to support her argument that "except in some states where the streets continue to be fields of battle, the government is winning the


More than 4000 tons of drugs, more than 30000 weapons, sufficient bullets to arm an army for months, more than 13000 vehicules and 338 planes.  Lots of money in big billls....And the arms we've seized are not just revolvers.  They include 50 caliber weapons which can perforate armored cares, including missile launchers, weapons capable of bringing down helicopters...."

And where do these arms come from?  "When we spoke with Obama, President Calderón was very clear: It is important to the US that they have a secure border; to us it is as well.  We have a very important objective in strengthening our joint capacity to control the border.  Not only to stop illegals who come and go, but also to facilitate that which is legal.  But you must not forget, for the length of the 3000 km frontier, on the US side, there are more than 1000 gun stores plus the arms fairs which take place with great frequency.  And we in this regard have insisted that these stores comply with US law which prohibits the exportation of arms to countries where they are illegal."

She gave an example of illegal weapons seized in Mexico: "Just a few days ago, we had one of our biggest weapons seizures_ half a million weapns including Barret 50s, AK-47s and missile launchers.  We have proved that more than 90% of them came from the US.  The US department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)...came to Mexico and certified that this was true.  the arms came from the US.  So we said to Obama.  There's much to be done, and we must do it together."

The US and Mexico: What's Wrong with this Picture?

It's a bit like being in a Kafka novel or on the other side of the looking glass to read what the US press has to say about Mexico -- and now the very frightening report from the US Military.  The Joint Command of the Armed Forces has issued a report offering its vision of strategic problems for the US over the next twenty five years. This report claims Mexico is as much in danger of becoming a failed state (or almost as much) as Pakistan. 

This is either madness or very calculated or both. It is starting to seem as if the US is looking for justification to make a Bush-like pre-emptive strike against Mexico.  The fact that Obama really knows nothing about Mexico and has no one on his staff that I'm aware of who does and has indicated that he will be putting Mexico  "on the back burner," i.e. a place where he doesn't learn more about it, doesn't bode well. The utter ignorance in the US of Mexico, the totally wrongheaded images of Mexico, the racism directed towards Mexicans, is, to say the least, horrifying.  This report feeds directly into it, perhaps deliberately.

Below is my translation of the article in La Jornada by David Brooks, the US bureau chief for that paper (not the NYTimes columnist), describing this situation.

I hope you read it and then read the rebuttal that will follow in another post shortly (I hope -- I'm a bit swamped by work) by the foreign secretary of Mexico and then more information.

For reasons that are not clear to me, the US press and government have kept a very nasty and distorting spotlight on Mexico.    As you read the article, you will notice how some states are highlighted as "good" or on the right road. Cuba and Venezuela, as one might expect, receive their own special treatment.  At least Brazil and Colombia have problems as great as Mexico's. I don't know enough about Argentina, Peru and Chile.  I do know that today, Argentina's president is visiting Cuba.

As you read the report, see if it doesn't strike you that the military or someone in the US is trying to divide an increasingly allied Latin America and is trying to look for justification to invade Mexico.  The US has an unfortunate history of invading Mexico, though Americans aren't really aware of it.

Among global threats in the future, “most worrying is the sudden and rapid collapse of Pakistan and Mexico,” warns a report produced by the Joint Command of the Armed Forces of the United States.  This report’s purpose is to put forth a vision of the strategic problems of the next 25 years.

In the section of week and broken states, the document says that although the majority are in Africa and parts of Asia, one has to take into account the “phenomenon of ‘rapid collapse’” which happens in a surprising fashion, and the report highlighted  the case of Yugoslavia as an example.  The report, prepared for the highest military commands and those in charge of making civilian decisions in matters of national security affirmed that in terms of worst case scenarios for the Joint Chiefs and in fact for the world, two large and important states merit consideration [in the face of the possibility] of a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.

In the case of Mexico, compared with Pakistan, the authors pointed out that “it might be less likely, but the government, its politics, the police and the judicial infrastructure are all under assault and feeling sustained pressure from criminal gangs and drug cartels.”

It emphasized that the result of this internal conflict over the coming years “would have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state.  Any descent on the part of Mexico to chaos will demand an American answer based exclusively on the serious implications for the security of the United States.”

It insists: “the growing assault of the drug cartels and their henchmen on the Mexican government during the past reminds us that an unstable Mexico could represent a security problem of immense proportions for the United States.

Latin America

In the region, the report emphasized that “the military problems which arise in South and Central America probably will originate in the interior [of each country],” and mentioned in particular the drug cartels and criminal gangs, “while terrorists continue finding a place in some of the frontier areas of the continent which are outside of the law.”

It indicates, however, that “for the most part  the economic situation of South America suggests that the region would be able to be in a position to avoid these problems.”  Thus, “Brazil in particular appears to be on a course which would make it a major player among the great powers by 2030, and Chile, Argentina and Peru and possibly Colombia will enjoy sustained growth if they continue their prudent economic policies.”

It emphasizes the major potential challenges at present are Cuba and Venezuela.  It explained that the fall of the Castros will create the possibility of major changes in the policies of the island.  The future of Venezuela is more difficult to read.  The Chavez regime is redirecting substantial amounts of its oil revenue to promote the anti-American ‘Bolivian revolution’ and at the same time consolidating control of the power of the regime to distribute petroleum wealth to its sympathizers.  By trying to do both things it is delaying investments in its petroleum infrastructure which could have serious repercussions for the future.

 

It warned that “unless the present regime changed its direction, it would be able to use its petroleum wealth to subvert its neighbors for an extended period while promoting anti-American activities on a global scale with nations like Iran, Russia and China creating as a consequence opportunities to foment anti-American in the zone.

The report considers that “a serious impediment to growth in Latin America is in the power of criminal gangs and drug cartels which corrupt, distort and hurt the potential of the region.

Migration

In the section discussing demographic changes in the world, the report points out that for the decade of 2030 the US population will grow to approximately 355 million.  “This growth will result not only from births in American families, but also from the continuation of immigration, especially from Mexico and the Caribbean.  By 2030, at least 15 percent of each state will be Hispanic in origin; some states will be more than 50%.  The effects which may occur as Americans try to assimilate these new immigrants to the poltics and culture of the nation will play  a central role in the perspectives of the country.

The report Joint Operations Environment 2008  or JOE  was released this past December by the Joint Command of the US Armed Forces and its purpose is to describe the “future operational environment and its implications” for the conventional armed forces of the US.  The report is for use by those in charge of making military and civilian decisions  and to generate a broad dialogue over the nature of military threats and national security and possible military needs.

Effort to determine challenges.

The JOE report “is historically our informed effort with forecasts for the future to discover in the most precise manner the challengeswhich will confront us at the operational level of war, and to determine their inherent implications.  We recognize that the future environment will not be exactly as we describe it.  However, we are confident enough in the rigor of this report that it can serve to guide the development of concepts for the future,” writes General J.N. Mattis, Commander of the Joint Command, in the Introduction.

The  command is one of the new commands of the Department of Defense.  It is located in Norfolk, VA and has more than 1.16 million employees, civilian as well as military, from all branches of the armed forces.

Mountain stream, Veracruz, Mexico

 

 

Who would you save first?

Four or five years ago at a meeting of my spiritual growth group at St. Francis Episcopal Church in San Antonio (my all-time favorite group ever, by the way, which is still going on) we got onto the topic of the worth of animals vs. humans.  And somehow we got onto the question of whom would you save first, if both were drowning in a river headed for a waterfall, a stray dog or George Bush.  Some of us (I dare say most of us) opted for the dog. And then of course we wanted to ensure that Cheney was out there struggling, too, so he could go over with Bush.

Church ladies! You never know what they might be talking about.

I came home later and posed the same question to my husband who said without a second's thought (if I remember correctly), Bush, of course.  Humans are more important than dogs.  Well, I said something to the effect that no dog could do the damage Bush had done and continued to do.  I hate to say it, but I felt righteous, and I still agree with myself.

And I do tend to think that, while animals like humans protect their own first, they have every much as right to the planet as humans do, and, as my husband would probably agree, the planet as a whole, if we think of it as a finite sort of thing, would probably be better off without humans.

Anyway, today on DotEarth, Andrew Revkin's blog at the New York Times, I read of the death of Arne Dekke Eide Naess, the philosopher who articulated the concept of "Deep ecology."  As his obituary writer put it, Naess believed that living beings "need protection against the destruction [wrought by] billions of humans."  He opposed what he called shallow ecology which, he said, did not "confront [the consequences of] technology and economic growth."

I don't live as if I do, but I think Naess had it right. And for all his quick willingness to jump in after G.Bush instead of the poor dog, for the most part, I think my husband does, too.  As Revkin reports, Naess and George Sessions, himself a deep ecologist and professor of philosophy at Sierra College in California, developed an eight-point "manifesto" to move his ideas into a more public forum.

Here they are:

1) The flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth has intrinsic value. The value of nonhuman life forms is independent of the usefulness these may have for narrow human purposes.

2) Richness and diversity of life forms are values in themselves.

3)Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.

4) Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.

5) The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease in the human population.

6) Significant change of lifeconditions for the better requires change in economic and technologicalpolicies.

7) Life quality should be given more primacy than a high standard of living.

8) Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation to implement the necessary changes.

I confess to having difficulties meeting my obligation as laid out in number 8.

Being a wannabe deep ecologist, I recognize, and think we all must, that nature is by its very nature sometimes exceedingly harsh and exceedingly impersonal.  While trying to soften it for ourselves, especially the better off among us, we have intensified the harshness not just for "nature" but for other human beings.

Anyway, as Revkin's post announces, the NYTimes has, in this day of newspaper cutbacks, organized a new environment-reporting team to push environmental matters to the center of our attention.  ¡Three cheers and more for The New York Times!

Here is a picture of some grass-fed cattle not far from our house.  Don't forget, you can click on it to see it better.

Dinner with Friends

We had some friends from Xico over a couple of nights ago for cena, or supper.  Who came: our hostess from the first communion party, Doña G., her absolutely delightful daughter who is studying to be a teacher, her daughter's novio who works for the government, and his parents. 

I am learning to adapt, and I find it really a relief.  In the past, when we had guests for a meal, I set the table with all the plates, silverware, glasses, etc that I could think of. This time, I know I sinned, but I got small divided plastic plates and spoons and tortillas.  I cooked a stir-fry of sorts of poblano peppers, turkey breast arrachera, black beans and a kind of cole slaw. The arrachera was a mix of American and local: I bought these marinated breasts at Costco but I cooked them with all local veggies.  The black beans, definitely local, the cole slaw in an oil and vinegar sauce, definitely not local, though people ate it, politely I thought.  People here are used to having their food already on the plates when they get them.  I'm more accustomed to having people pass dishes around unless they are too big or unless carving is involved.  We compromised.  I brought the big pots of stuff out and then Jim ladled it onto our plates.

We also had a bottle of Mexican brandy and a bottle of tequila on the table with a bottle of orange soda.  Actually, we had discovered to our surprise that Mexican brandy and Fresca made a lovely combination.  Unfortunately, the tienda across the street was out of it.  I think I feel less guilty having lime juice, and since we have this kind of stunted, unhealthy-looking lime tree that nonetheless produces limes ceaselessly, that's what we mostly use.

We had a discussion about Costco meat: Mexicans don't like it, el señor told us.  It's too fatty, too filled with chemicals. It's too soft. It's scary.  Jim and I pretty much agreed, although the turkey was from a local company: Bachcoco.  One could get into a discussion about large poultry outfits here, but I won't.  I told him I got my carne de res, my beef, at Carnicería Suárez, which my friend Kris recommended, here in Xico.  A good place, he agreed.  People in Xico are used to eating local beef, and isn't it better?  I had to agree.  But it is definitely not what I grew up liking.  It is very lean.  It is darker in color. It is hard to get it to stick together for hamburgers, for instance, or meat loaf.  I buy carne molida sometimes.  I watch the butcher make it.  He takes hunks of beef and shows them to me first, then cuts off gristle, and gets a couple  of hunks of fat and puts it in the grinder, an electric gismo.  He pushes the meat down with a giant pestle.  Then he shows me the results.  What I notice is that the fat isn't really mixed with the meat. Ribbons of white dots thread through it. But it really, really makes for yummy eating.

I always ask for bones for my dogs, and he gives them to me for free.  A bunch of them.  We have decided that there is nothing the dogs like to do better in life than lie on the ground chewing those bones.  It is quiet in the house when they do it, except for the soft sounds of teeth rubbing against them.

Anway, back at our dinner, we discovered that El Señor is from a town in the State of Michoacán, his wife from Mexico City.  They live in Mexico City for thirty five years.  Their son as an infant had many sicknesses and allergies and they took him all over to try to cure  him, but to no avail. El Señor has a sister who lives in Xico and she suggested they move here, so they did, some 17 or so years ago.  Their son is now a strapping, healthy man.  He loves living here, loves animals, has two horses.  He also loves Doña G.´s daughter and she loves him, which is lovely to see.

We also talked about how once you were ripped from your roots, he from Michoacan, I from the northeast of the USA, no place else is quite like home, so you might as well live where you like.  We agreed we are all doing that.

El Señor and la Señora worked for the Mexican version of Goodyear Tires in Mexico City, for the distributorship.  Here they have a shoe store in Teocelo which is a town that is also, I think, a part of the Municipio de Xico.  It is STUFFED with shoes.  They are on rows of shelves which make me think of library stacks.  I am going to get a pair to bring with me to Boston.

Doña G. was quiet throughout the evening.  Her husband died last year, and I think it still makes her sad to be without him.

Cake, Cactus and Sunset

I am buried under the remaining hunk of a very long book that I am indexing so there won't be many posts between now and probably Tuesday.  But you never know. In the meantime, here is a picture of our Rosca de Reyes.

Jim and I both found Baby Jesuses.  We're not exactly sure what do make of this as there should only be one, as far as I know.  You're supposed only to be able to find one if you are a person of faith.  Jim found his first, then I found mine. Hmm.

Those are nopalitos on the right.  Just put them there for fun.  Doña Gloria, our vegetable lady, sold them to me yesterday. We've got a giant nopal in front of our house, but I've never used the hojas.  What a waste! And ours aren't even the kind that have those little prickly spines.

They are very easy to cook.  You can chop them and boil them for about ten minutes and then rinse if you want.  They are kind of slimy like okra.  Then you can fry them in oil with just onions, onions and garlic, onions, garlic, tomatoes, chiles, etc. You can put in a dab of epazote. You can eat them by themselves as a vegetable.  You can put them on tortillas with beans or meat or mix them with scrambled eggs. Whatever.  Here is a link to a site in English that has some creative-looking recipes.

Nopales are supposed to be very good for your health.  I make no claims, but if you can't bring yourself to try something unless it is somehow healthy, here is a site for you to look at.  It's actually a site of a company that is growing nopales commercially here in Mexico.

Below are a couple of pictures of the nopal plant in front of our house.  The coloring is odd-- they aren't so shiny-seeming in the day, for one thing,  because the sun was going down and I used the flash. I just now took them. This is such a good way to procrastinate doing the end of my index.

Here's the whole plant, maybe 7 feet tall.

 

Here's one of the pads sprouting fruit.  The fruit is called tuna and is very popular.  It makes a good agua fresca and is also eaten plain.  

 

Here's a picture of clouds near sunset that Jim took from our balcón a few days ago.  Nice, huh?

 

Yes We Have Some Bananas

Here's a picture of Guillermo preparing to harvest a huge bunch of bananas.  Bananas rushing to ripen these days. After a long banana-less spell, we now have several bunches hanging in the bodega which Guillermo is standing on. He plans to tie the trunk from which the bananas are hanging back onto the other stalks you can see so he can pull the banansas over the roof of the bodega to cut them off.

Non-Violent Activism in Gaza and an Incredible Video via Juan Cole and Korean TV

Here is a link to a group of brave (foolhardy?) young activists from all over who are documenting what is happening in Gaza.  It is called International Solidarity Movement.  As a somewhat old person, I shudder a little at the ummm hints of earlier times but if you want to see what's going on. 

You should see the extraordinary video on Juan Cole's post in which a very young and frightened woman is blocking Israeli soldiers from shooting at Palestinian rock-throwers.

Today Israel tanks shelled a UN school and killed at least thirty people among a couple of hundred civilians who had sought safety there. Here is a link to the article in Al Jazeera describing the carnage.

Here is a photo of a terribly distressed little boy at the school described in the above-linked article.

God Save Us from Nancy Pelositis

I'm getting very, very nervous about Obama's economic policies. Lots of appointments in other areas are great, but the economic appointees, the ones that matter almost the most, reek of the how-we've-always-done-it establishment, Clinton-George H.W. Bush type guys. (Are there any womenfolk among them?)  Guys who like money and don't want to share it and are still getting buckets of it as corporate welfare. Guys who think you can have your cake and eat it to, to repeat a cliche. And especially among Democrats, folks who still are driven to sell their souls to Republicans by singing the siren song of compromise. The glimpses of economic policy proposals show steps that are starting to seem scarily inadequate

Robert Reich, please yell louder!

Here is Paul Krugman today:

Bit by bit we’re getting information on the Obama stimulus plan, enough to start making back-of-the-envelope estimates of impact. The bottom line is this: we’re probably looking at a plan that will shave less than 2 percentage points off the average unemployment rate for the next two years, and possibly quite a lot less. This raises real concerns about whether the incoming administration is lowballing its plans in an attempt to get bipartisan consensus.

and here:

I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.”

        Let’s hope I’ve got this wrong.

Nancy Pelositis may turn out to be a terminal disease for the country.

Calendar of Saints' Days -- El Santoral del 6 y 7 de enero -- and Epiphany

Today the saint's day for Gaspar, Melchor and Balthazar are  celebrated.  These should be recognizable as the Three Kings or Magi and of course today is the Feast of the Epiphany. Here Epiphany is a big deal, and it used to be the bigger day for giving gifts to kids before the commercial tentacles of Christmas spread themselves around.  Those tentacles I suppose are not all bad. 

A number of houses in Xico have chains of very pretty stars hanging out front I am guessing to mark the star that guided the Magi to the baby Jesus.

Anyway, yesterday I had to go to that bastion of commercialism, Costco (well, I didn't have to, I never have to) and lo and behold they were handing out free toys for Ephiphany.  And today our neighbors and the local doctora Veronica are handing out toys in our Colonia.

The feast is also celebrated with a big ring-shaped cake, the rosca del reyes, or king's crown,  in which, if I'm not mistaken, a small plastic (these days) baby is hidden so you have to be careful not to chomp down too hard.  If you are the one to encounter the baby, you have to have the feast next year.  Only people of faith are supposed to be able to find it.

Other saints whose days are celebrated today are James, Frederic and Aparicio.  Tomorrow Raymond, Virginia, Albert, Theodore, Edward and Julian are commemorated. 

As sual, I don't know the English analoges for all the names, this time for Aparicio.

Bus Stations in Mexico and in St. Louis, MO and Street Smarts

Awhile ago I got a bit crosswise with my neighbor and fellow blogger John Calypso about a post he wrote on being careful in bus stations in Mexico.  I bristled at the notion that bus stations here were any more dangerous than anywhere else. I know I feel as safe in a Mexico bus station as I do in a US airport, for instance.  But why?  I think it's because longer-distance buses here in Mexico are the normal way to travel for all kinds of people, even people with cars. The waiting rooms have TVs and little stores and places to sit and have a cup of coffee.  They have two classes of bathrooms, ones for two pesos a person which provide tp and soap and towels, and are quite immaculate and free ones which don't have the paper products but which are generally clean. In the US, however, many depots are places most of us do our utmost to avoid: they tend to be filthy, smelly, and, yes, often crowded, but with people who have no alternatives available or affordable.  Ticket sellers and the like are curt and on edge.

John Laroquette, famous for his role in Night Court quite a number of years ago had a follow-up show called, surprisingly, The John Laroquette Show which was set in the St. Louis, MO bus station.  It was very, very funny, and particularly to me since I had a nodding acquaintance with the place.  I used to work in a state hospital (mental) (if I'm not mistaken, the only places so politely referred to as state hospitals were mental hospitals) in southern Illinois, right across the river from St. Louis where I lived. 

Anyway, every now and then we would find ourselves with a patient from a place you needed to take a long-distance bus to get to.  We weren't into funding plane tickets.  So when someone was stable enough to more or less behave himself on the bus, one or another of us, including yours truly, would drive him over to the St. Louis bus depot and stay with him long enough to ensure he was safely on his way away from us and preferable across even more state lines than the one which divided Illinois from Missouri. 

The TV show looked at the St. Louis bus depot in an almost realistic way, but not really.  It wasn't anywhere near as sad or unnerving as the real thing. In the real thing, you didn't see many people aside from stray social workers like me and poor college students and the like who looked like anyone even close to middle class.  You saw street people hoping not to be kicked out into bad weather, junkies, mentally ill people shuffling and talking to themselves, strange single men who looked like the best place they'd lived in a long time was a room in a seedy boarding house. You saw prostitutes past their prime. You saw raggedy women clinging to raggedy little kids. You saw people casing the joint on the off-chance they'd find someone who might want to buy a joint or a hot watch or who might, just might, have a wallet with a little cash hanging loose in his pants pocket. When I went, I brought only the barest minimum to pay for the patient's ticket.  I stuck my driver's license in a shoe or some place like that. I was on the lookout because by virtue of my good fortune, I was a target.  I backed off and sauntered away when people who seemed like they had stuff to sell seemed headed in my direction.  And I made sure I didn't have to go to the bathroom, the odors from which drifted out for all in the waiting room to enjoy.

I have to say I have had much better experiences with buses in the Northeast corridor of the US.  In the Northeast, many more people use buses along the Boston-New York routes, for instance.  And while I still would be exceedingly careful with my belongings, I think it's fair to say you can be a lot more comfortable in those buses.  My favorite line in the northeast is Peter Pan. (I have never ridden the line called PUTA whose buses I see in Springfield, MA.) All the Peter Pan buses are named after characters in the Disney movie, their cheerful pictures pasted on the outsides. Peter Pan provides service equivalent to standard ADO rides and is just fine.  But that's the Northeast for you.  Always have had decent mass transit, at least for as long as I've been around.

While the US probably can't suddenly provide high-speed trains criss-crossing the country, I can't for the life of me understand why under this new stimulus package Obama and friends can't develop decent local, intermediate and long-distance bus service a la the Northeast, or even better, a la Mexico where it is decent and affordable for a lot of folks.  The luxury lines here are, for those who have a little bit of spare change, quite posh and still very, very reasonable.

And here is a picture of the St. Louis bus station that I took people to in the early 1990s.  I'm not sure it's still standing.  It was in a marginal area of the city. is the link to the original.

Below is a picture of the outside of CAXA, the long-distance Xalapa bus terminal, link here.

Below is a picture taken from a site called Cyberbuses of TAPO, the bus terminal in Mexico City which services the eastern part of the country.