Well, inspired by Jim Hightower's excellent article on Walmart in Mexico, (orWalmart,Wal-Mart,Wal*Mart depending on the year or whether you're talking Wall Street or down the street or corporate headquarters or Walt-Mart if you're a person in Xico), which you can and should read, I was going to talk a bit about SERIOUS RELATED ISSUES. I was only incidentally going to remind you that in our very own Xico municipality we are awaiting a Walmart offspring flying under the banner??????and I couldn't remember the name, so I looked it up: it's called Aurrerá, Bodega Aurrerá, or maybe Mi Bodega Aurrerá (there are three versions, depending on of course marketing considerations).
The Aurrerás were orignially started as a supermarket chain by two Mexican brothers, but they were swallowed up by Walmart. You can if you want read about them here on Wikipedia. They also have their own website where I discovered that the Aurrerás have a ¡¡¡¡¡SUPERHERO!!!! You can click on the picture to get it not quite super-sized.
Here is the link. If you go to it, you can also ¡¡¡¡get pictures to color and wallpaper for your desktop!!!!!
Anyway, I don't know when our Aurrerá is due to open. As I believe I mentioned earlier, significant progress has been made. HOWEVER the leg of magically bache free, super smoooothe road from San Marcos to Xico is now under construction, so you have to use the rambling side road which is where we were running when the strip from Coatepec to San Marcos was under construction. The dust is of course incredible. INCREDIBLE. The side road is loaded with rocks and baches. We know someone who took TWO HOURS to get from Coatepec to San Marcos (now easy) to Xico (not.) Will this impede plans to open Bodega Aurrerá? I wondered, gleefully,hopefully. How could it not THEN I thought maybe Walmart paid someone off to redo the road just for the store. There will be a double grand-opening with Doña (Mamá) Lucha leading the parade. Of course other moneyed interests may also have had a hand in the construction. Who knows? They tore up a perfectly good black-top road (well, not perfectly, but you know what I mean).The dream of SOMEBODY for a four-land boulevard leading into Xico seems to have died. But you never know. Much of anything, actually.