Back Again

It has been a long time and there is certainly a lot to catch up on. We should start back in the first week in June when Kelly and I went to Managua, Nicaragua. While it is a beautiful country with a very vibrant culture it still doesn’t remain the safest place on Earth.

We tried to do a little research before we went and there were very mixed reviews. Once person claimed that it was the “greatest location in Latin America,” quite the claim I would say. The city has fallen into odd shape; after an earthquake in 1972, 90% of the downtown skyline was destroyed and it has yet to be rebuilt. This, as you may imagine makes things very confusing, especially when it comes to where you are or more importantly where you are going.

As an example, this was our contact’s address:

Ron Rivera
De La Vicky una cuadra al lago y
Una cuadra arriba, (ultima casa)# 152
Managua, Nicaragua

Roughly translated: one block from the lake and one block up (last house). Apparently if you get into a cab and say that to the guy he’ll go “oh sure” and you’ll be on your way; luckily we had a driver but I still can’t believe it would work.

We arrived to truly sweltering heat; the kind that really gets you right out of the door. There was a guy covered in clay holding a sign with my name on it. That was the first time there had ever been somebody with a sign with my name on it. The fact that he was covered in clay was a good indicator that he was the guy that would take us on tours of ceramic factories. We were met by our contact, Ron Rivera. This guy, oh this guy.

Ron is the nicest guy in the world, leans a little left for my taste buy he’s been living in Nicaragua for thirty-some years. He is passionate about water filters. Everything he does is filters. His dream is to open one hundred filter factories world wide, right now he has opened 29 in 25 countries. Each of these factories churn out at least five hundred filters a week, some quite a few more. That being said at minimum, in a year, his filters reach 174, 000 families. Hopefully I will be able to start a similar factory here in Oaxaca.

Due to some crime in the area where we were scheduled to stay we altered our accommodations to the on the five star hotel in Nicaragua: the Holiday Inn. Ah, it was a taste of home: heavily bleached floors and a continental breakfast. The hotel was quite nice, quite the upgrade from downtown Managua. Over the few days that we were there we visited various filter factories and talked about what would be required to get things rolling here. Ron was very amiable and showed us a great time in Nicaragua.

The last night that we were in town were came down to the lobby to meet Ron and there were a bunch of people with cameras. The lights were up the dancing girls advertising Movistar mobile phones even made an appearance. When we asked one of the staff what all of this was for they told us that Enrique Iglesias was staying at the hotel because he would be performing the following day. When we finished with dinner, prepared by Ron’s wife, we went to the Pharaohs Casino that was in the Holiday Inn. Sure enough he was there. Smaller than I though he was but he sure commands a room of slightly inebriated Nicaraguans playing slots. Kelly was dying for a picture of him (but secretly so was I) but he had a 12” pile of chips in front of him and he had been playing reasonably-high stakes cards all night and it and they were keeping people away. It’s not like the play Gin Rummy or that I could afford to belly up to the table so we were left unsatisfied. Although we did get free drinks because I brought a blond girl, so I think we broke even.


On the way home we had a long layover that ended up working against us. And another thing: it is already weird to keep Oaxaca time, then all of a sudden I’m keeping Managua time, and then before you know it, I’m keeping Mexico City Time. While the modern conveniences afforded to us should allow us to make the appropriate changes it is often human error that gets us in the end. We thought we were getting to the gate an hour and thirty minutes early early but in fact they were in final boarding. Oh dear. We went to the gate and waved our tickets to no avail. Things in Mexico aren’t so much like they are in The States. Here they’ve managed to evolve to a system where things leave early and everybody is late. I don’t know how it works but it does, unless you are a pair of gringos.

We were informed that they moved up the flight time and that “it’s just the way we do things here.” Well the journey continues: Bienvenidos al Radisson Mexico City Aeropuerto. All of our stuff was in Oaxaca but all the essentials were with us so it wasn’t to bad to spend the night in the second largest city in the world.

When we arrived to Oaxaca it felt like home only for Kelly it was a mere pit stop; she’s back up stateside working for a few months before she starts up her fancy schoolin’ once again.

Since she’s been gone it has been a steady stream of work: the group from Stanford has arrived and we are making sure everything is set for them. They will be doing an environmental project at Los Narajos Coffee, a plantation about five hours outside of Oaxaca, between the towns of Pachutla and Huatulco (you know, because that will help you). Before the group arrived yesterday, we spent Sunday visiting the plantation, out and back in the same day. It was ten hours of very windy roads with various military checkpoints that slowed things up, definitely not a place you can commute to. That being the case I will be out on the plantation starting in the middle of next week. The living isn’t easy out there but the people are very hospitable; I’m just not looking forward to the bugs. I am excited for fresh coffee everyday, all they drink around here is Nescafe, and I’ll tell you: I’d rather drink the tap water.

I am back in the city for a few days getting ready to head out west. Mexico is home for at least the next few weeks and then it might be stateside again for me. But until then, that’s all the news from the deep deep south; more as the story develops.

You Can't Get There From Here...

Mexico is the only country I have every been to where everybody is always late but all public transportation leaves early. While you may be wondering how it is that a society can operate in such a way, I'll have to defer to somebody else on that question because I have no freakin' idea.

Today started earlier than I usually like to get up. It was my job today to take an intern from Michigan to a small village of ~450 people called San Miguel Tequistapec (te-kwees-ta-peck). It is the case, 'round these parts, that a pueblo is named for the patron saint of the local church followed by an indigenous name. This was a concession by the conquistadors, having grown tired of wiping out entire populations, so that they would be allowed to build their churches on what we would call tribal land. Spaniards of the time used this combination of names, as well as the mass conversions taking place in all of conquered Latin America, as evidence that the natives were receptive to "civilized life" and "the one true God." The fact of the mater was the tribal jefes had seen their neighbors disappearing quickly and it was Vatican law that no Christian people could be enslaved; hence the mass conversions. That being said, these communities are less the melding of two cultures and more the aftermath of about 300 years of imperial subjugation.

To get to San Miguel Tequistapec (and you have to say the whole name every time because there are like 10,000 San Miguels in Mexico...made that mistake before) you have to take a series of buses. When I went to a planning meeting with the folks at Museos Comunitarios, the organization this specific intern would be working with, it was presented to me that we were to board a single bus bound for Mexico City and that we were to tell the driver that we wanted to get off at the 2nd toll booth near San Miguel Tequistapec. It is a rare feeling for me in Mexico to go into a transportation situation and know exactly what I am doing; when I got up this morning to catch our 7:15 bus I thought that I did.

When we reached the ticket window I asked for two tickets to Mexico City but that we would be getting off early, thinking that there might be a price break.
"No se donde esta Tequistapec" I don't know where Tequistapec is, he said...crap. I asked him where the phantom toll booth is thinking that it might give him at least some idea but he firmly replied that there are hundereds of toll booths in Mexico and the 2nd one was really relative; but in Spanish and he didn't say "relative". I was simultaneously informed by several other patrons of Autobuses Sur that I was holding up the line and that I couldn't take a bus to Hollywood from here. Very helpful people in Oaxaca, very very helpful. After some talking to the driver, who coincidently had a brother-in-law from San Miguel Tequistapec, if ound out that I needed to get to Coíxtlahuaca (co-chit-la-waca); so I got back in line. After waiting again I was informed: "no puedes ir allí de aquí señor," you can't get there from here. The bus was quickly filling and I wasn't in a standing-room-only mood so I went back to the driver asked him how to get there and he informed me that I needed to go to Noíxtlahucan (no-chit-la-wacan); so I bought the tickets and made him break the largest bill that I had with me mainly because I couldn't give him the finger in front of the intern.

Upon reaching Noíxtlahucan we learned that we had an nearly two hours to kill so we tried to find a restaurant. When we arrived the first thing we saw was a sizzling cow skull on a very greasy griddle.
"We have the brains, the cheeks, the tripe, and the chorizo." I looked at the intern, who had returned from another trip to Chiapas some three hours before we started on this adventure, and she was so close to a dry heave that I thought it best we leave. We found a place that had good 'ol quesadillas, coffee, and a color tv, and we waited.

On the next leg of the trip the bus blew a tire because that's how they roll down here. But it was surprisingly easy to identify the 2nd toll booth and when we arrived there was somebody there to meet us.
"There was some confusion about the time." He said.
"Si, our bus blew a tire."
"No, I mean they told me you would get here at 8:00." And it was 11:30. I told him that we left at 7:15 so there is no way we could have gotten there by 8:00, furthermore we had called his boss to tell him we would be late.
"I don't have a phone." He said.

I thought it important at this point to find out what time the bus to take us back was since I am leaving for Nicaragua on a 6:30 flight tomorrow morning. He told us that it was at 3:00 so we had 4 hours. By this time it was noon and I did not know if he was just not good with numbers or what the deal was.
"You mean three hours?" I asked.
"What time do you think it is?" He asked back.
"Noon," I said.
"We don't observe horario verano (Mexican daylight savings) here, it's only 11."
"Ah." I said.

San Miguel Tequistapec is a beautiful place with scenic views and salt-of-the-earth people. The town is located around a central plaza with the Church of San Miguel standing prominently in the center. The pueblo was settled late for the region, that is, there are cave drawings nearby that date to the 1520s, which is odd considering cave drawings are most commonly much older than that indicating that the locales were pretty far removed from foreign colonization. It is the case that the church was really the first "modern" building to arise in San Miguel Tequistapec so its construction, while on the backs of natives, reflects European styling and not native tastes. Everybody we spoke to had mixed feelings about the church: while they are a devoutly Catholic people that love God and Jesus they recognize that it was there fallen forefathers that are entombed in its walls. I found this profoundly interesting because it must really tear at them; how can you hate the home of somebody you love so much? However, everybody was in agreement that things were on the upswing: the plaza was being rebuild with local red stone while the stones for the church were all imported. There was a clear sense of pride throughout the community that they were building part of the church for themselves.

We talked about a lot of things while I was there, the Pope (Benedict is definitely not as popular as Juan Pablo II down here), the government, and clean water; all in all I think we accomplished quite a bit. We will be returning there soon to do some additional work with an archaeological museum that has been started there and hopefully to talk more about what we can do to bring clean water to the 450+ living there in an affordable and sustainable way.

We returned to rain in Oaxaca but that's good news because it means that the rest of this year's first tropical depression has cleared Central America. We will visiting a water filter factory similar to the one that I hope to start here so that we can avoid some of the beginners mistakes. Hopefully I will be able to post a few videos when we get are there but we are unsure of the kind of internet access we will have; but if all else fails we'll be back on the 7th.

Those are some of the things were working on down here, more from South Central LA (Latin America) as the story unfolds.