From Xico

Our Favorite Walk, May 7 2010, With an Emphasis on Flowers and a Farm

Actually, we call it our traditional walk.  It's our fall-back walk when we want to go for a walk and get a tiny bit away from the house (maybe fifteen minutes) and don't want to try a new one.  It's also very beautiful.  In this post, among other photos,  I'm going to put photos of some of the flowers we saw.  I have been wanting to document them according to the time of year I see them. Mostly they grow along side of the road.  All are found in both sunshine and in shade. I don't know the names of any of them and would welcome your help identifying them.

First, a picture from the top of the hill at the beginning of our walk:

 

These are tiny blue flowers, about half an inch in diameter each.
 
 

This flower, maybe an inch in diameter, is actually much more intensely lavenderish-
 purple than in this photo.

 

This yellow flower (it seems yellow flowers predominate), also about an inch, or maybe a bit more or less, in diameter tends to grow in extravagant clusters.

 

But they arae different from these:

 

This flower looks kind of like a rose.  It is also about an inch in diameter.  Its petals are thickish and fuzzy.

  

A tiny yellow star:

These are very small white flowers that grow in clusters. When they open a bit more, the seeds fly out gently like dandelion seeds.

 A little blue flower.  I doctored a bit so it looks kind of fake.  But the blue is more intense than in the original.  We saw lots of these in Texas, too.

 

White flowers on a stalk maybe three or four inches long:

 

I suspect these are wild lantana:

The yellow flowers are at most half an inch in diameter.  The white, as you can see, are truly tiny.

 

The one below is not a good picture at all, but I was intrigued by the long stalk that wends its way more or less from the center down to the right.  The little dots are very very small pinkish flowers that seem  to have only one petal each.

 

A natural fern wall:

Here you can see some truly deadly-looking thorns,  Those are thorns, not branches.

 The stream we cross:

 

Giaco enjoying it, as much as he's able to enjoy a stream. 

Going up the hill on the other side of the stream is a farm that I think one man owns.  We talked to him on this walk.  Here are some scenes from his farm.

 This is a living fence he has made.  I forgot the name of the trees he is using, but you just have to stick a hefty branch in the ground, and they take root and grow like mad. The other posts are also tree trunks.  They I don't think were intended to grow.  By the way, that's Jim you see walking.

 

The sheep have been sheered.  Here they are in a field, including one shot with a bull.

 

 

 

The farmer is putting a second story on his house.  He has a fabulous view from his hilltop.

That's all for now! 
 
 
 
 

 
 

  
 

 

Being Old Americans in Mexico -- We get our DIF cards

NOTE: You will need your passport, your FM2 or FM3 or Mexican ID card plus if you are Mexican I think a birth certificate, a bill no more tha three months old showing your name and current address (Phone bill, electric bill, something like that) and your CURP card.  The card is free.  Ask anyone where Quinta de las Rosas is, especially after you get to 20 de Noviembre and they will direct you.  It's hard to miss.  I have forgotten the little cross street.

At sixty-six, Jim and I are already in our "third age" which starts here in Mexico at sixty.  One of the benefits of being old is that we are eligible for DIF cards, actually issued by the part of DIF called INAPAM, roughly, the National Institute for Older People which give us fifty percent off all bus fares and lots of museums and a number of other things. As you'll see, INAPAM also has an array of services and activities for older people as well.  Yesteray we finally got around to getting the cards.  We had made some initial exploratory forays to DIF offices in Xalapa, the first being when we found a small DIF office on a shady, quiet street which is where someone or other had told us to go.  It was dark and looked empty, but it was unlocked, so we walked in. Perhaps it was lunch hour?  Hmm.Too early  We wandered from one empty office to another and looked at each other and said, We're not supposed to be in here. Outside again on the street, we were copying the information on the sign hanging over the door when a man came out buttoning his shirt, followed by another man.  They were very friendly. Indeed, the office was closed. Although not a national holiday it was after all Cinco de Mayo and city and state offices were closed. They came out to wait for some other people who turned up to take them to a party at the DIF headquarters where they said, we could get further information, but obviously on another day.

So we headed up a day or two later to the DIF State headquarters which are in a large building on the far side of the hill known as Macuitepec. It was a busy, crowded place.  After some searching, we found a woman who told us we had to go yet further, to La Quinta de las Rosas, which sounded quite intriguing. Since the hours we could apply were limited, we didn't have time to go to this third place.  Instead we got back in the car and meandered down towards El Centro.  And I mean meandered.  Not the road not taken that we should have taken, but the road taken which we shouldn't have because it sure took a long time on a very hot day and we don't have air conditioning in the car.  Normally this is fine, but Xalapa traffic is as jammed and gridlocked as traffic can be.  And on a hot day in barely moving traffic the sun beats down and you cook. Jim thought to try some side streets....nothing goes exactly straight, nothing follows a grid in Xalapa.  Normally you assume that going uphill is going north and away from the center and going south is going down to the center.  Generally, if you are  headed towards the center from the north, when you get a glimpse of it, Cofre de Perote will be on your right. However, lots of downhill streets seemed to end and we couldn't see Cofre. So we zigged and zagged for more than an hour through what is a very small geographical area.  

But it's always interesting.  Big box stores have not defeated the jumble of commerce that fills the streets: stores selling fruits and vegetables, selling wood, selling gifts, selling shoes and paper goods and meat and chickens and tiny restaurants with three tables crammed in them and nightclubs and bars and elegant second story restaurants with balconies and photo shops and copy shops and internet cafes and clothing stores and miscelanea stores and offices and plumbing supply stores and hardware stores and religious item stores and churches and chapels and clinics and labs and microhospitals...and people walking and talking and shopping and rushing and standing and watching fill the streets.

Yesterday we finally found our way to the right place and we had all the right papers with us.  We had been given a tiny piece of paper with instructions which including arriving at 8:30 am.  Well, we are old hands now, so we didn't arrive until 10:30.  I mean to say, Jim and I are old hands at being late, whether it be in Mexico or elsewhere.

La Quinta de las Rosas is a beautiful and shabby place (most places here are shabby and many are beautiful). Quinta can mean a country estate or a small farm, perhaps, either of which these grounds might have been (or both).  Today it still feels peaceful behing a great red wall that protects it from the cacaphony of the now-definitely-not-rural Avenida 20 de Noviembre.

 

On these grounds, all sorts of activities go on for people over sixty years of age, from classes and workshops to performances and church services and fiestas.  There is a clinic with geriatric specialists and a dentist and a cafeteria. The food is inexpensive, the rest, I believe is without charge.  In one classroom we glimpsed women dancing with vases. In others, it appeared there were people teaching, people discussing, who knows.  

 

There are lovely peaceful places just to sit.

 

Here's an old fountain that looks carved out of volcanic lava.

The officewe were headed for lay at the very back of the grounds at the back of a patio which had large planters in the middle and along a far wall filled with roses in various stages of blossoming. People said "buenas días" as we passed, and we greeted them in return. Although it was obvious there were a lot of people ahead of us, we were directed into the small office to see if we had the right documents and to get numbers.   There were two clerks taking the information and reviewing the documents and then entering the required data on each ID card via electric typewriters. It was slow, but everyone was amiable and patient. People came alone or with spouses or friends or daughters and sons and sometimes grandchildren. One of the grandchildren was a wiry, energetic child who spent the time making up games for herself, running and jumping and smiling to herself as she met some self-imposed challenge. There were country people and city people, people who looked like housewives and people who looked like teachers or clerks or businessmen. There were a couple of imposing, imperious looking women who followed their ample bosoms as they walked to and fro. There was a thin, elegantly dressed woman wearing high-heeled sandals who smiled graciously at people until her husband, a slightly plump, balding man in a guyabera jumped up, rushed into the office and back and scolded her for missing her number. A thin man with a very large belly who was dressed in tight black jeans and a black shirt and a cowboy hat and gold-tipped cowboy boots crossed the patio with great energy a number of times. One woman with fluffy hair and a flowery shirt sat with feet planted wide apart. She was wearing bermuda shorts, something you wouldn't have seen until quite recently. 

Next to the patio was a pavillion which served for celebrations and also as a basketball court.  As we waited, we could hear the music and speeches and the mass that celebrated a combination of Mother's Day and Day of the Teacher.  I didn't take a picture of it, but here's a picture of the same place, though of a different celebration, that I have stolen from El Dictamen Online from the Fiesta de Alegría held at La Quinta de las Rosas to celebrate its twentieth anniversary this past April.  This is how it seemed yesterday, too, though there were no beautiful young dancers.  You can see in the  picture that there are people of different ages. Yesterday, too.  People of all ages tend to hang out together even at places for old folks.

 

After the mass and some speeches, a line of aging musicians passed by us to play. We heard the first song in a voice that had soured a bit over the years, but it hardly mattered.  It strengthened and calmed as people joined in with the familiar words.  That song was followed by what I think were boleros by the great Agustín Lara.  Everyone knew them, everyone sang, everyone applauded.  After what was meant to be the last song, a loud chorus of "otra, otra, otra" burst forth, Mexican for encore, and the band played on.

At one point, a woman maybe in her seventies, a bit stooped, a bit stiff, her hair in a whispy gray bun,  came  to go into an office next to where I was sitting. She couldn't resist the music and suddenly was dancing, light on her feet, smiling broadly at everyone, and everyone smiled back..  A lovely moment.

Across from where we sat, a somewhat bedraggled notice hung on a door:

 It announced a writing competition in honor of the defense of the Port of Veracruz in 1921. It was called "Memories of Age and the Sea." The deadline for submission was April 21, the anniversary of the US invasion of the Port when Mexico's courageous defense of it began.

Just on the off chance you don't know about this invasion,  in 1914, when the Mexican Revolution was overwhelming Mexico, the US invaded the Port of Veracruz.  This was a tangle of nasty international interference in which Mexican naval cadets conducted themselves with great honor.  For more, in Spanish, look here. It's a fairly long article appearing in El Diario de Xalapa, and it starts off:

"With the hope that the heroic acts of our military institutions are not forgotten and that new generations have at hand the historical facts of the defense of the Port of Veracruz in April, 1914, it is important to make known...the crucial facts of this event, one of the many interventions of the US in our country.

"In 1914 there were people who gave their lives to bequeath to us what we now have and which is lamentably deteriorating...."

So the writing competition. It is sponsored by The Secretary of the Navy of Mexico incelebration of the heroic defense of the Port of Veracruz in 1921.

The competition's objectives are "to draw people older than 65 closer to the sea, to our naval culture, motivating them to develop their capacity, through writing, to reate their experiences, their yearnings, and their anecdotes, having to do with the sea."

Some of the rules:

The contest is open to all who are Mexicans by birth and over 65 who live in the national territory of Mexico.  They are to write a piece recounting experiences, yearnings, or anecdotes having to do with the sea.  The work musts be original and unpublished.  Participants should be lovers of literature, not professional writers, so that many people can participate.  

Anyway, the contest is over, and there were three winners from each state, as you can see here.  Forty six people submitted entries from the State of Veracruz.

And then it was our turn. The  very friendly clerk went through our papers and asked a few questions.  Suddenly, there was a howl from outside: the charming little girl who had been making up her own games, jumping and running here and there while waiting perhaps for an abuelita to get her card, fell and hurt herself.  Our clerk jumped up and ran out and with a crowd of concerned adults took her over to the clinic across the patio. "She's fine," she assured us when she came back to finish up our paperwork. She made a typo on my card, putting an "m" in instead of an "n" and painstakingly corrected it by hand.

When we left, we said goodbye to the people we walked past, and made our way through the gardens back to the busyness of Xalapa.

Obviously a place like La Quinta de las Rosas wasn't built to house social services, and you didn't have to look far to discover its history.  It is recorded on the General Directory, right at the entrance to the grounds.

 

It tells us:

"Don Miguel Viveros sold Don José Pérez Toledano a plot with a house made of planks in the Place of the Alameda, according to what is recorded in the first Public Record of the property, dated the 25th of June 1977 on which the seal of King Carlos IV can be seen in the margin.  In 1890, the sale of the property by Don Isauro Conde to Don Agustín Muñoz was recorded. On September 8, 1895 it was recorded that Don Emilio Lendechy sold House no. 2...[on the property] to a British citizen named Eliza Felicitas Blackmore, originally from Bournemouth English.   At the end of the 19th century, the property became the seat of the Consulate of Holland [it appears as a rental property], and it remained thus until the expropriation of the petroleum industry.  Holland was one of the three powers which controlled crude oil in our country.

"On the 29th of July, 1924, Sra. Isa el Grace Blackmore sold the property to Don Rafael Murillo Camacho, a sugar producer and founder of the first banking institution in Xalapa.  He constructed the buildings [perimetrales -- on the street side maybe?] on the land and, being a lover of flowers, baptized it "La Quinta de Las Rosas." The Murillo family inhabited the Quinta for many decades, and upon the death of Sra Laura Paniagua, widow of Don Rafael Murillo, the property was acquired in 1988 by Sr. Jorge Salda...a who sold it to the government of the State in 1990.  Since September 7, 1990 La Quinta de Las Rosas has been used as the "Centro Integral para la atencion de los adultos en plenitude" (The Comprehensive Center for Attention to Adults in the Prime of Life -- now that's a great way to put it!)  of The Sistema para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (The system for the Comprehensive Development of the Family, known everywhere as DIF), promoting the development of cultural and recreational activities as well as companionship and rest."

 

Obama Vows End to ‘Cozy’ Oversight of Oil Industry - NYTimes.com AND the Same News in La Jornada

Read the NY Times version of what Obama said (among other things) by starting below and then following the link. 

THEN read the report of what Obama said and some more information as it appeared in La Jornada via AFP (Agence France Press) and Reuters.

WASHINGTON — President Obama angrily denounced the finger-pointing among the three companies involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a “ridiculous spectacle,” and vowed on Friday to end what he called the “cozy relationship” between the government and the oil industry that has existed for a decade or more.

via www.nytimes.com

And now, the same news as reported in La Jornada via AF¨P and Reuters (my translatation):

Headline: Obama Attacks Oil Companies and Anticipates Strict Control

He blames them for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; will terminate the intimate relationship with oil companies and government agencies.

Washington. The president of the United States, Barack Obama, on Friday attacked the petroleum companies for trying to blame each other for the black sea in the Gulf of Mexico, and swore to put an end to the "intimate" relations between the industry and public regulatory agencies.

In an unusually harsh tone, Obama said that he had ordered reform from "op to bottom" of the federal agencies charged with authorizing drilling in the sea and announced that regulations would be revised to comply with the norms of environmental protection.

The White House said that Obama was "profoundly frustrated" by the fact that petroleum continued gushing in the Gulf of Mexico three weeks after the spectacular explosion of April 20th which two ays later flooded the oil platform Deepwater Horizon.

The President attacked the three petroleum companies involved in the accident who made what he calle "a ridiculous spectacle" by trying to blame each other for the tragedy in front of the Senate Commision.

"I am not going to tolerate more finger pointing or more irresponsibility," said the president at a meeting with his advisors.  Visibly angry, Obama said that the federal government had to assume responsibility and he  promised stricter control of the petroleum industry.

Experts advised that the leak of crude oil could be ten times more intense than the original estimate of 800 thousand liters daily [a liter is roughly 1.06 quarts].

Scientists who analyze how far and fast particle sof petroleum move in a video distributed by BP declared to the US media that the well actually was discharging around 10 million liters daily, with a margin of error of +/- 20 percent.

The data suggest that this black sea is already the worst environmental disaster in the history of the US, eclipsing that caused by the Exxon Valez.  But British Petroleum, BP, questions the data.

The director of operations for BP, Doug Suttles, also impugned the new estimates alleging that they had not use a reliable measure for the leak.

"But what I can say is that we are organizing the largest answer ever organized, which does not depend on whether it is 5 thousand barrels a day or a different quantity," Suttles told CBS News.

BP´s latest effort consisted in an effort to connect a "funnel" at the bottom of the sea over the well to channel the crude into a container ship.

The work began on Thursday, but the process is taking more time than was hoped, BP announced.

"It is truly complicated because of the depth" at which the work is done, which is 1500 meters (roughly 4920 feet), John Crabtree, a BP spokesman, told AFP.

Rebecca Bernhard, another BP representative, confirmed that remotely controlled submarines were working t adjust and place the "funnel"....

The gigantic petroleum company is under increasng pressure to stop the flow of crude which threatens the fragile and ecologically important wetlands of Louisiana.

The Coast Guard Admiral, Thed Allen, whom Obama has charged with supervising, said this Friday that the spill was breaking into smaller and smaller pieces.

"This is good and bad at the same time," he said."As it disperses wiely, it is difficult to manage, but at the same time, it arrives at the coast in small quantities."

BP promised to protect the coast and undertake a complete clean-up, but up until now it hasn't even been able to slow the leak.

Suttles said Friday that new effort to stop the escape of oil would not begin until the end of next week. "The techniques which we are going to use in the next 24 hours, you have to remember, are to reduce the flow, not to stop it."

Meanwhile the US PResident added that legislation will help insure that BP pays the costs of the disaster in the Gulf, not US taxpayers.

He said he shared the anger of the residents of the affected area and demanded that all resources be used to stop the disaster.

"The potential devastation for the Gulf Coast, its economy and its population require that we continue working withot stoppping to stop the disasster and to contain its damages."

....

San Juan Copola: The Roots of the Violence – CIP Americas

On Apr. 27, a humanitarian caravan carrying journalists, social activists and international observers headed for the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, was attacked with high-power weapons by members of the PRI organization UBISORT (the Triqui Region Social Welfare Unit). Alberta Cariño Trujillo, of the organization CACTUS, and Tyri Antero Jaakkolo, a native of Finland, were killed in the attack.  For several hours, other passengers in the caravan were missing, compelled to flee into the woods to save their own lives.  This humanitarian mission was headed for Copala in order to break the siege that UBISORT, an arm of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had imposed.  In fact, since the beginning of this year, around 700 inhabitants of the autonomous municipality, surrounded by armed members of UBISORT, have not had access to basic services like water and electricity.  The doctor at the health center has had to leave, the children are not attending school, and the scarcity of supplies is worsening daily.

via www.cipamericas.org

this is my translation for the Americas Program. Check out its elegant new site!

Elena Kagan: I have to Say This

Elena Kagan went to my high school:  ¡Yay! Hunter College High School, ¡YAY!  One of the best high schools in the US of A, still, after all these years.

Mesoamerican Ballgame Exhibition Opens in South Africa Before the World Cup

MEXICO CITY.- The Ballgame was for ancient Mesoamerican peoples an allegory of the access to the underworld as well as a possibility to reborn, and it is present as part of the FIFA World Cup celebration in South Africa through the exhibition Worldview and Skills: Ballgame in Mesoamerica, an archaeological collection about this practice. The show was inaugurated in May 6th 2010 at the Mapungubwe Museum at the University of Pretoria, in Johannesburg, and will be open until June 10th 2010. South Africans and visitors will be able to admire Mexican archaeological heritage from different museums part of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). The Mexican Ambassador to South Africa, Luis Cabrera, and the Dean of the University of Pretoria, Professor Cheryl de la Rey, presided at the inauguration ceremony, attended by officers of the South African Government, members of the Mexican diplomatic corps, academics, and members of the community. Ambassador Cabrera mentioned that this exhibition is presented for the first time in Africa thanks to the joint efforts of INAH, the Mexican Foreign Affairs Ministry (SRE) and the Mexican Embassy at South Africa. He remarked that the 13 Prehispanic pieces exhibition is also part of the Bicentennial of the Independence and the Centennial of the Revolution commemorations. Among the Totonaca, Maya, Mexica and Western Mexico pieces made out of terracotta, stone and alabaster, there are replicas of a temple and a court, a ring and representations of the ball, padlock, rail, yoke and other items part of the game. Curatorship of Worldview and Skills: The Ballgame in Mesoamerica was in charge of archaeologist Laura Pescador Canton, where the nearly 3,000 years of history of this practice are accounted. Until now, more than 1,500 Ballgame courts have been located, distributed from the south of the United States of America down to Honduras. Four sections integrate the show: The Ballgame; The Practice; The Court, and Rituals and Ceremonies. The Ball GameIn the Mesoamerican world and in ancient Mexico in general, the practice of a complex ritual known as the Ball Game (“Juego de Pelota”), was very common and it summarized the understanding of the universe known to the ancient Mexicans. The ritual included a series of ceremonies in which the characters that played ball were involved. Among the ceremonies was fasting and physical preparation, the purification of the body, the confrontation between players on a court built for this purpose and finally the sacrifice of a player by decapitation or removal of the heart. Players were sworn in as cosmic deities and warriors and their preparation required skill, competitiveness and profound knowledge of religion and of the worldview of the society to which they belonged. The Practice of the BallgameIn this section you will be able to learn about the spatial and temporal distribution of the practice of the ball game throughout ancient Mexico, as well as who the players were, the variations and the various methods of practice, general rules of the game, and clothing and instruments necessary for the game, including the ball as the focus of the ritual. It is important to note that some variations and patterns of the ball game are still practiced in several states of modern Mexico and are traces of those that were implemented before the arrival of the Spanish in the New World. The Court for the BallgameThis part of the exhibition is devoted to the description of the architecture and decorative elements that relate to the practice of the Mesoamerican ballgame. It analyzes the different types of architecture, its meaning, and the healing elements of it, as well as buildings that relate to the ball game. The tour will be by region and period, showing the different types of courts and its distribution. Rituals and CeremoniesThis item will present the different meanings of the ritual of the ball game, and the change of its meaning for the ancient Mesoamerican societies, which was related to the vision of the universe, with fertility, war and the struggle of opposites as a means of preservation and continuity of life.

via www.artdaily.org

Mesoamerican Ballgame Goes Traveling

Mothers' Day in Mexico Plus a Bit about Obesity

Yesterday, Monday, May 10, was Mother's Day here in our neck of the woods.  We went to Coatepec to buy a cake to take to our friends in Xico for comida.  The sidewalks and streets were packed with people of all ages buying flowers and cakes for their mamís.  Our friends had for the meal an enormous pot of caldo con camarones y jaibas -- shrimp and crabs -- in a delicious and very picante broth.  The shrimp and crab are cooked whole, and after everyone washed their hands, we dove in, breaking shells off, cracking claws and sucking the meat from them and just generally pigging out. Shells and napkins piled up.  It was a quieter meal than we normally have: someone said it was because it was more work to eat!  Things got noisier with dessert: two yummy and creamy cakes. Somehow the conversation turned to talk of ghosts and our experiences with them.  Jim was as always the reasonable skeptic, but the rest of us shuddered deliciously at each other's tales.

We also noticed that everybody had lost some weight, except Doña Gloria who doesn't need to.  They were doing it as a family. The Mother's Day desserts were exceptions to their diets, just for that special day.  

Which leads me to bring up the following article appearing in today's Diario de Xalapa.  Problems with obesity are obvious in our area. They are starting to get attention, which is a good thing.

The picture below is captioned, "Obesity has become 'the mother of all pathologies'."

 

The article, on the front page of the online edition, is headlined, "A Crisis of Health Looms Because of Obesity"

Written by Miguel Zalazar, it says among other things, that "resources will be insufficient for treating hypertensives and diabetics within fifteen years. Our state, Veracruz, will be one of the most seriously affected because of its dense and large population. 

The article quoted Pedro Antonio Lara Ruiz, head of a branch of the Health Department's program for adults and seniors.  He pointed out that the problem can easily be reversed if and when people take it seriously.  He pointed out that the two major approaches are not expensive but very necessary: "a break with a sedentary lifestyle and adoption of a healthy diet."  He also pointed out that diabetes and hypertension were more and more frequently recognized early because of increased medical knowledge and attention to public health.

In Veracruz there are now policies which provide public education to people, which, according to the Sr. Lara Ruiz, is the best approach.  He urged these policies be strengthened and extended.

*******************

I don't know if I know the culture in our area well enough to say this for sure, but it seems to me that people here don't rebel against such information, they don't feel that it is somehow treading on their individualism.  They tend to take it to heart, at least believing it's true, though finding junk food a hard habit to break.  Just as in the states, junk food is omnipresent and very cheap and easy for hard-working parents to provide for their kids. It's also, I think, seen as somehow fancier and better than the fruit which often falls to the ground uneaten in the countryside within a short walk from our house, and even in neighbors' yards.  I am always reminded of the tragedy we watched unfold when we were in the Peace Corps many years ago: the school's bursar and his wife had a new baby that got sick. The baby's parents had succumbed to the advertising of Nestle and had bought powdered formula instead of having the baby nurse. The water used for the powdered formula probably was contaminated. The parents thought that orange soda, bottled and expensive, must be better for the baby than something made from local ingredients as a treatment.  The baby died, at least in part, from malnutrition.

I notice that in the article, Lara Ruiz emphasizes that obesity can be combated with low cost diet.  I hope people recognize that this means the complete protein provided by tortillas and beans, the vitamins and minerals and more protein in the fruits that hang on the trees and in the vegetables, fruits and fish and chicken easy to obtain in local markets.

As ex-pats, we and others like us recognize that by following local guidelines for a good diet, we eat better for less than many of us ever have.

 

Foreign Policy In Focus | Going Beyond Immigration Policy

Democratic Party leaders recently introduced their latest proposal to reform U.S. immigration policy. The proposal, which is given little chance of passage in a polarized election year, offers carrots and sticks in an attempt to bring some semblance of order to a broken and outdated policy that has left nearly 12 million people in the United States without legal documents.

read the whole thing via www.fpif.org

Important documentation on the need to reform big agriculture that is a root cause of much illegal immigration.

A Visit to Cempoala, Veracruz on a Cool and Rainy Day

[Check out Leah Flinn's comment -- click "comments" at bottom of post -- for some more on the Voladores and a video of them.  EKB]

One day when my brother-in-law John was with us, we all went to Cempoala.  I have always wanted to visit, but somehow it kept sliding down our list of places to go.  We had the impression it wasn't very interesting: second rate ruins, if such a thing could exist. Whatever.  We of course were wrong.

Cempoala is right near the Gulf Coast.  It was rainy, but much warmer than up here where we live. We drove from the highway down an ordinary road in the flatlands into the town of Cempoala.  You can see where it is on this map, and where Xalapa (on the map spelled with a "J") is. Where we live is maybe a an eighth of an inch south of Xalapa.

This map represents the slice of Veracruz which includes Cempoala at about the time Cortés found it.  The Coatepec you see just under the last part of the name Tenochtitlan is not our Coatepec. 

 The town of Cempoala today is scruffy, busy, trafficky.  Graffiti artists work here.

 

We tend to groan at graffiti, but sometimes I wonder: through much of history, people decorated their buildings with carvings and mosaics and paintings.  And they did in old Cempoala.  The graffiti on this building shows real creativity.

The city park:

 

The main church:

 

A once brightly colored, now faded sign pointed us towards the ruins, and after a couple of blocks, there was a gate and a smallish guard house.  We parked on the street in front of the gift shop, across from some houses.

Today the people in modern Cempoala live comfortably with the ruins of old Cempoala, physically as well as culturally. And of course they profit from the association. Today's people share their backyards with those from a long time ago.

 

Here you see John and Jim climbing in the ruins while a neighboring house peeks through the trees.

 

To the neighborhood dogs, it's all one big playground.

 

Perhaps five hundred years from now, the sands will have blown across it all once again, seeds will have sprouted, trees grown up and died.  Gentle mounds covered with soil and plants will hide the today's past as well as the past of  five hundred years ago.  Maybe, for whatever fate has befallen mankind, people will once again cultivate the land with hand-held ploughs.  The plough will catch against an object perhaps brought near the surface by rains and erosion.  The farmer will reach down and look at it: a licuadora, perhaps.  He kicks the dirt.  A plastic container with food still in it, turned to dust.  The head of a doll, its eyes long gone.  A bowl, a knife.

And since the ruins of five hundred years ago have been brought to life for today, archaeologists of the future will find those remnants side by side with the licuadora and the plastic food container.

The Totonacos lived here before Christ was born and live here still.  The ruins of Cempoala which represent the pinnacle of Totonaco power, probably were completed in the 15th century.  They were powerful, these people, and accustomed to war as well as to rich harvests and brilliant fiestas and ordinary life.  They could muster 50,000 men to fight from a population of perhaps a quarter of a million. They were early allies of Hernán Cortés's because they were chafing at the reach of the Aztecs.   

Here is what you see through the camera's eye at the entrance.  The grounds sprawl left and right from here.  Jim is holding an umbrella.  It was a drizzly day, cool even here near sea level.

 

There's a lovely small museum on the grounds:

 

In its small space, you can get an excellent overview not just of the grounds, but of the history.  The Totonacos of Cempoala shared a lot with other Mesoamerican cultures

Ball games:

   

 
  

A sign in the museum explains:

Locks, yokes and balls are the materials associated with the ball game which one generally found as offerings and which are characteristic of the Gulf of Veracruz.  All are made of very strong materials, polished, semipolished, or left rough. 

The majority of these pieces [in the museum] have been found in the land cultivated by the community of Zempoala [Cempoala].

For a delightful explanation and demonstration of aspects of this Mesoamerican game, check out this link.

Cempoala shared pottery styles:

  Many figurines have been found at Cempoala as have clay stamps for printing and a variety of tools:

 

These are printing cylinders:

Here are some dog figurines:  

The dancers who leap from high poles are from this area.  Here is a picture of some of them from the Museum:

And here is a pole on the grounds of Cempoala that I think is still in use:

 

According to a museum description, "The ceremony is related to the fertility of the earth and is dedicated to Tonathiu, the god of the sun.  The four fliers represent the seasons of the year.  Originally [the dancers] had to spin in a spiral thirteen times from the top of the pole to the ground, which multiplied by by four gives 52, the number of years [cycles of seasons] in the Mesoamerican century.

A few photos from the grounds -- many more can be found elsewhere online.

Here is Jim walking past a temple base:

 

The gladiator ring in front of a larger structure:  

Gladiator ring with throne construction behind it:

 

Here you can see stages of discovering a ruin, uncovering it, starting restoration and the finished product.  The original builders used ground shells from the coast in a mortar mix.

 

There are a number of trees called nacaxtles on the grounds of Cempoala.  This is I think the biggest:  

This is the nacaxtle's seed pod:
Nacaxtles are indigenous to the coastal area where you find Cempoala.  They grow up to twenty meters tall and have trunk diameters as much as 2 meters in length. Sometimes the reach of their branches horizontally is greater than their height.  As is the case with so many plants in our area, they are put to much use. Their wood is good and used for everything from beams to furniture, trees being cut after they reach twenty years of age up until around 100 years of age.  People like them because they grow easily in fields where they provide shade for cattle.  Cattle can eat the seed pods, but not too many because it can give them diarrhea. The seeds contain something called saponino which can be used as a substitute for soap, and even though they may cause digestive problems for cattle, they provide a useful medicine for the same problem in people.  The trunk exudes a liquid useful in the treatment of bronchitis. Mature fruit contain a gum-resin which when mixed with the fruit's ground pulp can used to bind charcoal.

I'll end with a personal touch. Here is my brother-in-law John at Cempoala:

 

And here are Jim and I:

A Visit to El Camarón de Tejeda, Veracruz and Some History

[Check out Richard C's comment -- click "comments" at bottom of post -- with more information on the French Foreign Legion and its presence in Camarón...I'd love to hear more about their unauthorized presence! EKB]

Recently a friend of ours suggested a visit to El Camarón de Tejeda.  We'd never heard of it.  He's a history buff, though, and had more than heard of it -- he'd investigated it.  El Camarón is the site of an unusual battle during the same period of time as the Battle of Puebla, which you in the states celebrate on Cinco de Mayo.  Cinco de Mayo is not even an official holiday in Mexico, probably because it marks a victory that was perhaps pyrrhic: the Mexicans won it, but ended up at least temporarily losing the war  a bit later on.  The French had decided to invade Mexico after the president, Benito Juárez, had suspended interest payments on Mexico's international debt in 1861.  This is a complicated bit of history, and I won't go into it here except to say that Napoleon III wanted to expand his empire to include Mexico and saw this as an excuse to go for Mexico. The Cinco de Mayo battle occurred when the French successfully marched from Veracruz, on the east coast, through the mountains to the City of Puebla where they were stopped by Mexican forces on Cinco de Mayo, the 5th of May, 1862.  It is notable that the Mexicans were outnumbered 2:1. One of the Mexican generals in charge was named Seguín.  I'm not sure if he is related, but there is a long line of Seguíns in the San Antonio, Texas area, including one who fought on the US side against Santa Ana at the Battle of the Alamo.

Anyway, the following year, the French brought down Puebla by means of a siege.  During the siege,  a small force of the French Foreign Legion was escorting French supplies from Veracruz to Puebla when it was attacked by Mexicans.  Apparently there were a couple of thousand Mexicans and maybe 75 members of the French Foreign Legion.  The Legion refused to surrender until finally there were only two or three surviving.  They said they would not give up unless they could transport their mortally wounded leader to Veracruz and then to France.  This battle was very important to the Legion: it marked their move to fighting outside of Africa and it gave them self-respect. The Legion was apparently created to employ all kinds of vagrant remains of Napoleon's army, and was regarded as riff-raff by more respectable French types.  At the Battle of Camarón, they fought with great bravery.

The day is marked by the town of El Camarón de Tejeda in honor of the bravery of the Foreign Legion.  An interesting phenomenon: the Mexicans honoring the French.  In France, it is the biggest celebration the Legion has.

Anyway, we went to El Camarón this year for the celebration.  El Camarón is in a hotter, flatter, dryer part of Veracruz than we are used to.  At about 1200', at this, the hottest time of the year in our whole area, the daytime highs tend to be in the mid-nineties or higher.  It is bright and glaringly sunny.  BUT I must be getting better at heat because I survived pretty well.

We picked up our friends in Coatepec at around 9 in the morning of the 30th of April and mosied down towards Camarón figuring the parade would probably start at around noon.  On the way, we crossed this single-lane bridge:

 

This level is for cars.  The sign says to obey the signal for your safety.  Trains go on the upper level.  It is quite a drop to the river below, and the boards, laid across railings but not anchored, rattle and creak the whole length of the bridge.  But it works.

We arrived in Camarón to find that we had actually missed the parade!  The celebration has been stretched to three days, starting on April 29, and the parade actually took place at 9:00 in the morning on the 30th.

So here are some POST-parade photos.

This is the giant area commemorating the battle: very large for a town of about 5700 people.  It says "hommage to the combatants of Camarón."

 

There was a big welcome sign, a little bedraggled  by the time we got there.  The government of Veracruz invites the French to come and participate, and indeed, there were French tourists, I think French diplomats and French Foreign Legion folks.

 

It is in French, and my VERY, VERY rusty French leads me to believe it says: Dear Legionnaire friends, the Council of  Brotherhood and the inhabitants of Camerón offer you welcome and a good time at the celebrations for the 147th anniversary of the Battle of Camerón.  (Corrections welcome).

There is a cattle and ranching association that must have been impressive marching in the parade.  Here are some afterwards with a banner thanking the Governor -- I'm not sure for what.  Maybe for recognizing the day and coming with other dignitaries in his helicopter to participate in the ceremonies.

 

We wandered through the town a bit.  The railway still goes through twice a day.

 

The old train station:
A horseman passing an old building on the street behind the railroad station.

 

More horseman (they were wonderful to see):

 

Some actual French Foreign Legionnaires (or maybe just French soldiers):

 

A dude with a camera:

 

And finally, a public service announcement about saving water. I think these may be more effective than spots on TV.

 

It says, in part:

Water is indispensable.

Without it, life would simply not exist.

John Todd, Jr. has a very nice article on his site on Camarón and his adventures learning about it here.