Loonies and the flu - que lastima

The radio entertainer called it the "Mexican flu" and, without bothering to check the facts, suggested everyone avoid Mexico and Mexicans.
CNN used a graphic calling it the "Killer flu," and other cable TV shows, needing something to fill their time, ramped up coverage to the point of semi-hysteria.
Tabloids in London used thinly veiled racist language about Mexico and Mexican.
The Chinese government has locked up all Mexicans, in quarantine, after one case turned up.
Readers in San Francisco, arguably America's most liberal city, railed about slamming the borders shut, leaky borders being the problem, and the flu proving the lunacy of allowing Mexicans to come to the U.S. to work, even legally. Racism was explicit in many remarks, and implied in others.
Ignorance -- more kindly defined as a lack of education -- is almost always the breeding ground for fear that leads to racism.
Gotta blame somebody. And never let the facts stand in the way of stupidity.

As a U.S. citizen who has just returned from two weeks in Mexico, where we were treated well and courteously, this is really embarrassing.

I hope my friends in Jalisco never see or hear the ignorance some of our pubic figures have shown, and the racism that seems to jump out of many of the comments -- particularly those posted anonymously on the web.
For the record: this flu has indeed affected more people in Mexico than elsewhere, so far, but the scientists who are studying it say it may have originated in Europe or the U.S. or Mexico, no one is sure at this point. I am hoping it turns out to the the Texas flu, which is one of many possibilities.

And while some people have died, it is not -- on the global scale -- a killer flu like the one in 1918.

My friend Michael, who lives in Mexico, found a pretty pointed song about the swine flu at this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT7LF8rSrlw

Cut and paste it into your URL slot. It is funny, and crude.

Then today the New York Times reported on some of the over-reactions and how Mexicans have become scapegoats. That is located at

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/world/asia/05china.html?hp

A few facts might help defeat this sort of over-reaction.

Everyone is concerned about catching the flu. But it is quickly becoming apparent it is not a "killer flu" as it has been depicted, any more than any other flu. You might want to compare the death rate of this specific flu to automobile deaths, homicides, or other facts of U.S. life.

Maybe I can start a movement. Let's all go out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant this week, order an expensive dinner, and leave a big tip with an apology.

Or, better yet, take a vacation in Mexico.


We did, and enjoyed it.

What about the flu?

We don't have it.

We never even heard of anyone being sick in the towns we visited, or in the state of Jalisco while we were there.
Depending on who you believe, the flu incubation period is 48 hours, maybe up to five days in rare cases.

Our last exposure -- if there was any -- was in the Los Angeles airport terminal Wednesday. The airport food was so expensive it made me sick and irritable, but other than that we are fine. Still ticked off that they charge $18 for cheeseburger.


We have decided to self-quarantine until Monday, and besides we just want to do laundry and sleep a lot. We feel great, but don't want friends and family to feel weird. It is rainy and cool here, probably snow in the higher altitudes, and we have a fire in the stove. Burning incense cedar smells like home.

We never saw anyone in Mexico or LA who appeared to be sick.
Even the Red Cross workers in the Mexico Airport were not wearing the masks which dangled around their necks. They must have done the research and learned they are not very effective.
Amiga Sylvia Fox took this picture of us with the Red Cross volunteers in the Manzanillo Airport just before we went upstairs for one more cerveza and quesadillas. That's me on the left holding onto my good health, and Captain Michael on the right, holding onto the ladies. Por que no?




It was warm and we were outdoors most of the time, both conducive to good health.

We have been washing our hands like crazy.

Our only current health issue is the allergies that kicked in as soon as we landed in California. It is Spring, after all.

The bruises from dropping a kayak on my head seem to be going away.

And I have mild symptoms of beer and beach withdrawal.





Courtesy of Past Expiry Cartoon

La Manzanilla Mexico Vacation 2009

La Manzanilla, Mexico -- I cannot image a better vacation than the one we just ended in Mexico.
It was not our first visit, but it certainly stacks up as one of the best ever.

This blog covers only the second half of that vacation, spent in the seaside village of La Manzanilla in the state of Jalisco, about half-way between Puerto Vallarta to the north and Zihuatenejo to the south, on the shores of Tenacatita Bay. It is a short drive to undeveloped Pacific Ocean beach for surfers and serious beach combers.

We stayed right on the beach at Alegre Mar, the home and vacation rental belonging to Oregonian Kate Fisher. Kate has two elegant rental apartments downstairs, and a small efficiency upstairs. Kayaks are thrown in, and you can pet her bright and friendly dog Elsa almost anytime.
The pictures say everything necessary about her accommodations, and her decorative skills. The apartment was clean, beautiful, excellent, a bargain, and in a perfect location.

The busiest gringo bar in town -- Palapa Joe's -- is just across the street if you need it, as I did once in a while. Their Cuba Libres will make you want to go overthrow Fidel, and their Margaritas will calm you down so you can contemplate the sunset. The burgers are good, and so are the quesadillas.

One morning while walking in town near the plaza we happened upon what appeared to be a revival meeting at the Catholic Church, and sat in the back pews while enthusiastic speakers and musicians kept the crowd in its feet, clapping and singing. We don't really know exactly what was said, but it was very interesting and uplifting.
During an early morning walk on the beach I came across the tracks of eight turtle crawls, where sea turtles come up to lay eggs at night.
A very large glass of orange juice on the main street after that walk cost me 10 pesos, or about nine cents. You can pay more at a place that caters to U.S. citizens and Canadians, but it is not necessary. A week's worth of laundry was spotlessly delivered for about $3 US. I over tipped.
La Manzanilla is a bit unusual in that it has bi-cultural vacationers, and it is still a pretty small town. This is not Club Med.
The main street of town was paved for the first time last winter. No traffic lights. You can walk the entire length of town in an hour. The developed beach front is about six blocks long.
You can walk three miles north on the beach in the early morning, and run into three or four other people. The beaches, and the town, are not spotless. Plastic curses the entire planet, but neither Sanibel Island or Miami Beach were clean last time I looked.
If you come during the peak winter season from February to Easter, the place hosts a lot of folks from the U.S. and Canada and it gets crowded. After Easter you have the place to yourself.
There are numerous good places to eat and drink that cater to gringo tastes, and we enjoyed several. Or you can eat breakfast in a small cafe with local construction workers, who know where to find a good meal at bargain prices.
The beaches revert to Mexican majorities and are very crowded during the Easter holidays, with hundreds of people coming in by charter buses. For a brief spell the beaches and the tourist businesses thrive enthusiastically on Mexican families.
And then everybody goes home, and you have a quiet vacation place as we did this year.
Kate's one bedroom apartment was $125 a night this year, a bargain compared to any similar place I have ever been. If that's too much, you can find a hotel room for two for less than $50, and I even saw a campground which advertised $8 pesos per night, so low I doubt it was real. Or contact Tamarindo, to the South, and they will arrange a millionaire's condo.

If you need big cities and crowds and boisterous bars and jammed beaches, this is not for you. There is no Spring Break crowd, and, thank goodness, MTV has never heard of the place.

But if walking on a deserted beach and keeping pace with a pod of dolphins just beyond the surf line is the sort of thing that appeals to you, give La Manzanilla some thought. That happened on our last morning in Mexico.

La Manzanilla can be checked out at the following web sites:

www.stardatejune07.blogspot.com/

www.lamanzanilla.info/

www.lamanzanillamexico.com/




How to get there: Alaska Airlines, and others, fly into Manzanillo Airport about an hour south of La Manzanilla. Adventurous folks can drive from the U.S., but be careful to drive during the day, use main roads, and plan ahead where you want to stay.
Where to stay: La Manzanilla has a range of accommodations from camp grounds, RV parks, private homes and condos right on the beach, and small inexpensive hotels just off the beach. Check the websites for options.
What to pay: It's up to you. You can find safe clean rooms for as little as $50 a night, or a beach front home for several thousand a week. But pay in pesos, or dollars in advance if agreed upon. The town has no bank and credit cards are not normally accepted.
Weather: During our stay it ranged from 61 on a cool night, to about 85 on a hot day. The breeze from the ocean keeps it pleasant, and we never turned on the air conditioning. It gets hot in the summer.
What to do: Are you kidding?

Adventures of an aging gringo

La Manzanilla, Jalisco, Mexico -- I was bit by a cobra today, but it is not as bad as it sounds.
It was a boat bite. The boat was a kayak named Cobra. Anyone who works around boats, as I do from time to time, knows that they will bite you once in a while.
Usually it is when you are working on them with tools.
Today it was when I failed to recognize that for some reason I am not able to tackle very large waves in a kayak. I used to be able to do that, so I did not think twice about jumping into the Tenacatita Bay surf, even though the waves were making a WHUMP! sound once in a while.
The first time I tried to climb aboard the Cobra kayak and paddle quickly out through the waves I was gently picked up and tossed over the side. The water was not very deep, and was refreshing.
No big deal.
I righted the kayak, retrieved the paddle, and tried again.
The second time the wave was a bit bigger and it rolled me over in the water, took my new hat and washed it toward the shore. Pat retrieved the paddle from the sand while I collected by dignity, righted the boat, and prepared for a serious assault.
(Meanwhile, my friend Michael, had straddled his kayak and gone straight over the surf into calmer water where he sat waiting patiently.)
The third attempt was when my judgment lapsed a bit. I was pretty sure the local folks were taking bets by this time, and I ignored what turned out to be the largest waves of the day and started back to the sea. Picture the wave scene from the Perfect Storm movie.
I realized, as the kayak began climbing the wave as it crested in front of my face, that I may have made an error in judgment.
Down came the wave. The kayak flipped up into the air -- without me aboard -- did a rather pretty flip in the air and began to drop back into the sea.
Meanwhile, I was rolling around directly underneath where the kayak was spinning, bereft of hat and paddle, sunglasses firmly strapped to my head, which proved to be solid.
The boat hit my head first, glanced off for a rather direct hit on my shoulder, rolled a bit and managed to clip my elbow with a metal fastener.
The foam in my mouth kept my language from being heard by anyone but the fishes.
I recovered and got to my feet with as much dignity as I could muster, noticed the blood dripping down my arm, thought about the movie Jaws, and followed the kayak back to the shore and a waiting beach lounge.
Beer in hand and ice pack on shoulder, I heard the best news of the day: my main squeeze, first wife and beloved of more the four decades had decided early on to put down the video camera and watch quietly from a safe place.
Our friend Sylvia looked at Pat and said, "That would have made a great blog video."
Perhaps.
But we are more into scenery, sunsets, and watching the surf roll in.
The video just wouldn't show how rough it really was, so Pat put the camera aside after the first dump to stand by in case she needed to call the Coast Guard.

Living the life

Arroyo Seco, Jalisco, Mexico -- We just spent a week here with our friends Michael and Sylvia, who are establishing roots in this small rancho (a village smaller than a pueblo).
They began seriously looking at living in Mexico a few years ago when they sailed their 48-foot sailboat Sabbatical down the Mexican coast, and found that the area around Tenacatita Bay both charmed and lured them.
They were extremely careful, looked and learned, and then purchased some land in the area that they thought held promise as a place to live, or an investment, or both. They thought about living on the ocean beach, but opted instead for this village. Instead of being isolated from Mexican people and their culture, they chose to be immersed.
They sold the boat, which was their home, to make it work.
Now, a couple of years into the experiment, it is working just fine.
Currently, they are the only two non-Mexicans living inside the rancho. They are gradually building a compound on a large lot in the heart of the village. Last year they had electricity, septic a storage building and a small trailer. This year they have added another larger trailer for sleeping quarters, showers and toilets, a laundry area, a communications tent, and a kitchen. They have guests frequently.
But the most striking features are the palapa, a very large tile-roofed shade structure, with tile flooring, a bar, a dining area, and room to welcome the entire neighborhood for a party or an English class, or -- as is scheduled this weekend -- an operating room for the local veterinarian to perform surgeries. Sylvia is fast becoming known as the lady who cares for dogs.
And, Michael has used his green thumb to create a garden of palms and flowering shrubs, plus a central yard (or jardin) of real honest-to-goodness grass. In a place with no paved streets and lots of wind and dust, it makes an enormous difference in air quality, and in the coolness on hotter days.
They have not "gone native." They still have internet and telephone connections to stay in touch with the outside world, but they are out on the streets every day, caring for a needy animal or going to a taco stand at 9 p.m. for a light dinner.
They have made friends with families, and neighborhood children feel free to drop in anytime the gate is open and stay a while. They have been invited to weddings, and christenings.
They are not escaping the world outside their home, and still spend their summers at a lake in New York and the Falls teaching at a university in California.
But it looks a lot like they have found a place they can call home.

Village life in Rancho Arroyo Seco

Rancho Arroyo Seco, Jalisco, Mexico-- This small community is home to about 300 people, many of them children, many of them related.
It apparently grew from a small group of farmworkers who gathered to work at one of the large ranches or plantations in the area, and grew from there.
Life here is not simple despite the temptation to see it that way.
On the surface, it appears bucolic and straightforward: we awaken every day to the sounds of chickens clucking and geese honking. You still see someone ride a horse nor burro to pick up tortillas from the local tienda. Restaurants are a few tables set out on the side of the street in front of homes, serving mostly tacos. If you need a coke or beer they will walk across the street and buy it for you, but they expect you to go get it yourself.
Homes have electricity and running water, but drinking water is universally purchased from trucks that come here daily.
Stereotypical Mexico, whatever the stereotype, does not exist here.
Everybody works, often including children, and many people make a living with two or three skills or jobs. Our neighbors manage a ranch, have a small store with incidentals for sale, run a restaurant on the street three or four nights a week, and will do anything they can to provide well for their family of five.
There are extended families in the rancho that own large and expensive equipment such as dump trucks, tractors and grading equipment, items that help them make a decent living. The tienda next door has at least $300,000 worth of such equipment parked out back. It's part of the income producing work they do. Another tienda in a home down the street has an enormous big screened television set where the public can view movies certain nights of the week. No admission charge, but they do expect you to buy a beer or coke or snack from the store.
Another neighbor drives a $45,000 pickup truck, and several families use quads to get around town and to the nearby beaches.



Many of the residents are literate. Some are not. Many are bilingual because they have worked for higher wages in the United States. Some are not. The younger generation seems to have an interest in education -- 30 neighborhood kids came to a free English class here recently -- and the 17-year-old across the street is planning to go to college. While he works on completing high school, he can and does work at a variety of jobs, basically anything his family needs him to do.
Some families are land rich and cash poor. One family we know inherited significant land when it was broken up years ago, and is building an RV park on the beach. But they don't have a lot of money, or at least don't display it.
The poor are here too.
Some children do not wear shoes except for special occasions, and one elderly man sleeps on a pallet under a tree. When the rainy season hits he is brought inside by family or friends. He is not quite right.
But most of the children dress well, particularly for school and church and community events. Cleanliness is expected, and enforced, by parents.
Almost every family has animals, including pets. How well they are cared for may depend on economic circumstance and education. No one here buys Alpo, for example, but the ever-present little Chihuahuas are fat happy and healthy. Farm dogs don't fare as well, but get by on scraps and chicken bones.
Only three non-Mexicans live inside the rancho limits, our friends Michael and Sylvia who arrived last year and a California surfer drop-out has been happily near the beach fort ten years more more. By necessity, they all speak Spanish and all live a lifestyle that is a blend of Mexican and Norteamericano. (Gringo, incidentally, is not a bad word. It means "someone not from around here" in local vernacular.)
Family is very important. It is not at all unusual to run into three generations enjoying each other's company. Our neighbors probably are related to 40 or more people here directly or through in-laws.
There are good people and bad people. As a visitor I am not privileged to know which is which, but the local folk know and that makes the community function quite well. Not everyone likes each other, and old disagreements seem to be remembered. But there is no open animosity or yelling and screaming. I have not heard of any violence in a week, and drugs don't seem to be something people think much about. The police show up, if at all, once every few weeks to by a cool drink at a store and move back to the highway.
In this place, only few adults drink alcohol and there are no rowdy bars. Why pay $3 for a beer, as gringos do in town, when you can get one at the tienda for less than a dollar and enjoy a visit with your neighbor on the sidewalk?



This is much more a snapshot of life here than an anthropological study. But this is a very interesting place. Folks have made us feel welcome. And it's not much like life currently in the U.S.A. Perhaps, if the recession gets a lot worse as some folks expect, we can learn from our neighbors how to get along with less.

Viva Mexico

Rancho de Arroyo Seco, Jalisco, Mexico -- We are living this week in a Mexican village, though technically it is called a rancho, with a population of about 300.
So far, everyone we have met has been polite and welcoming, and it doesn't seem to bother anyone that we are among the few gringos who ever come to this place.
The video is a snapshot of early morning at the Arroyo Seco home of Michael Fitzgerald and Sylvia Fox They call it Palapa Flamingo and have created this home in the past year.
We awake every day to the sounds of birds singing, children laughing, and ever a burro braying. The commerce begins early with the sound of the metal doors of the tienda next door being raised, and the vendors arrive to sell their goods along the street. Each has a distinct way to blow the horn of the vehicle so people will know what is for sale. You can buy a bed, or masa, of beer, or meat, or almost anything from the vendors. Most of the people buy the groceries they do not grow from the tiendas. It's easy to eat out when there are four small family restaurants and they only charge about 20 pesos for a nicely done taco. A meal for four last night cost about seven US dollars.
In the tourists towns the prices are higher, but even there food is a great bargain most of the time.
There will be more details later.