From Xico

Mexican views of US elections and some odds and ends.

First, I want you to please look at the website of my deceased sister-in-law's art.  It is worth the visit many times over.

Second, I want to tell you that the rainy season has come to an end.  This doesn't mean we won't have more rain, just that it is likely to be  softer, sometimes steadier, sometimes lasting for days, sometimes absent for days.  The mornings dawn crystalline and cool.  The mud is drying up on the dirt roads and narrow paths we hike along.  We have just started taking our baby dachsund, all seven weeks of her, with us, and much to our suprise she wants to trot along with us, dodging Jim's heels. She climbs over little rocks and skips around slightly larger ones.  She sticks very close.  The other animals are bit by bit getting used to her.  Her name is Daisy. Here are far too many pictures of her.

Daisy and me

Daisy and jim

}

Daisy and Rita

Daisy and Rita again

Daisy looking over a very, very low wall.

Daisy walking on our regular walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, I thought you might be interested in what at least some Mexicans think of the upcoming US elections, at least those who answered the survey questions of Consulta Mitofsky, a Mexican polling firm.

According to Mitofsky, 36 percent prefer that Obama win, 6 percent prefer Romney. For more details, you can visit the site (in Spanish) here.  The 42 percent is obviously nowhere near 100 percent, largely because of the knowledge of many Mexicans about US elections.

Sex Ed

Recently we were talking with our friend the doctor about the success Mexico has had reducing its birthrate from something like 7 or 8 children per woman during her childbearing years to slightly over 2 children per woman in her childbearing years.  He said indeed attitudes towards birth control have changed dramatically with each new generation and that now, with this generation of child-bearing women, birth control has become almost universally accepted with a few exceptions.  Jim asked if perhaps people in rural areas were resistant.  Our friend said no, acceptance was high in most rural areas. I´ve mentioned before that sex ed materials in the public schools are direct and very informative. There are, however, a couple of states, notably Guanajuato, where resistance remains high to anything deviating from the teachings of the Church.

I think before I mentioned that in our local pharmacies, educational promotional materials from (of course) drug companies were prominently placed.  Now there is prominently placed

information on the "day after" pill.  I asked the pharmacist if you needed a prescription for birth control pills of this sort, or just regular birth control pills. She looked at me as if I was nuts.  "Why would you need a prescription," she asked.  

Here are the first three pages of the little brochure on the day after pill, with some translation (by me).

THIS page says, Okay, you know a lot about sex...Do you know about contraception?  PILDORA for the next day.

 

THIS says:

Plan

decide

act

and

live

 

I like the graphic.  Very interesting

 

 

This says

 

 This says,

In contraception there are man options.....eve for the emergencies such as the day after pill ....Ask your doctor.

What contraceptive methods exist?

The contraceptives can be divided into temporary and permanent depending on whether you want to have children in the future or whether not to have them is a permanent decision.....

The brochure, which as I said, is available on the counters of local drugstores and repeats information available in schools.

Abortion is a different issue.  Abortion is legal in Mexico City.  I am not sure about other states.  Here people are not violent when the issue is brought up, but seem reluctant to pursue it when a woman gets pregnant, although clearly some do.  One does not hear about backroom abortions.  I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that obgyn's perform them, but do not publicize them.  In our colonia there has been a rash of young "marriages" recently due to pregnance.  I put "marriages" in quotes because civil and church weddings are very expensive so people often set up households and consider themselves married without official blessings.  Families accept these.

In my next blog, I will give you a rather opposite example from the state of Guanajuato which I've mentioned before and which seems to pride itself on being the most conservative state in Mexico.  As Carlos Fuentes pointed out in "Buenas Conciencias", conservative religion does not appear to have much to do with holiness, more to do with power and getting along with the society.

 

 

My Sister-in-Law Barbara Buddenhagen Winkelstein

My sister-in-law Barbara Winkelstein.  A role model I could never match.  An incomparable artist because of the way she captured the spirit, the soul of her subjects in her work.  A San Franciscan who lived in the perfect San Francisco setting: two houses joined together, once the home of Ansel Adams, a house that I suspect was far more filled with life and color when Barbara lived in it than when Adams did.  The house survived the collapse of a gigantic drainage pipe that sucked into the earth neighboring houses.  Barbara and her husband Peter's house trembled at the edge of the abyss, but never collapsed.  

She was such a strong woman, demanding of herself, but ever kind and loving to the rest of us.  I don't know how she managed to care for so many people with such loyalty and consistency. She suffered from various physical ailments but never complained.  Even at the end, it was us she asked after, not being interested in talking about herself. 

She came from a family almost like that in an American legend: a tough father and mother who were born at the turn of the twentieth century to midwestern farm families.  Her parents turned into sophisticated travelers, ever stern and worldly at the same time, ever demanding. They lived in Holland and in rural Oregon, in Venezuela and in Portland and suburban Los Angeles. They traveled to South Africa and Mexico, Barbara's mother driving Barbara and her brother herself over the then-dusty, unknown roads from the US to Mexico City around 1940.

She died last year around this time.  When there was only a short time left, she had caregivers and hospice workers.  They treated her like a queen, she said. She deserved no less. She died at home after saying good bye to each of her children.  She was with Peter. She said she was ready to go.

Finally I can look at her pictures without feeling an overwhelming sense of loss.  I hope you look at them too, the ones collected by her husband on this website: http://barbarawinkelstein.com.  There is so much more to say about Barbara.  Maybe someday I will be able to.

 

 When there was only a short time left, she had caregivers and hospice workers.  They treated her like a queen, she said. She deserved no less. She died at home after saying good bye to each of her children.  She was with Peter.

Macadamias and Us

In our second terreno in the colonia there stands a lone macadamia tree.  We -- or I should say Oscar Reyes the jefe ín charge of making a jardín over there has just harvested maybe 75 pounds of macadamias.  Now these are nuts within shells within shells, so the final yield will be far less.  Like coffee, macadamias requaire quite a bit of work.  The leaves of the macadamia tree and the branches are all spiny, and there is no easy way to avoid them. It is best to get them off by climbing up and knocking them down and then collecting them. Oscar did that job.  He is on the right in the photo below.  Guillermo is helping him.  Guillermo is in charge of the garden here at the house we live in.

 

 

Next, you have to lug the bag to our house where you hope for a few sunny days to dry the outer shell.  This shell cracks when it is ready to be peeled off.  THEN you hope for some more sunny days so you can dry the next layer.  This can be removed when you hear the nut itself rattling around inside.  .

The first picture is our sack of macadamias, our harvest.

Here below are some macadamias, the bigger ones still in their outermost shell, the smaller one in the interior shell.

Getting them out of the interior shell is the really hard part. One day we came home to find our neighbor Ismael drenched in sweat sitting on our curb hammering away.  It wasn't a hot day. I want to tell you, each nut is a big deal.  Ingrid, his wife, and their three kids were watching.  Ismael gave us a nut.  That was extremely generous, given the labor involved.  Macadamias get a good price, but it is hard-earned.

Our area is the biggest macadamia producer in Mexico.  There are other ways besides a hammer to crack the shell but you have to know you will have enough nuts to warrant the expense.  I think we may.  We are going to investigate.  I once had a small bag of macadamias in a drawer in our kitchen when we lived in San Antonio, a bag I'd bought on a trip down before we lived here.  We never succeeded in opening more than a couple.