A Soiled Nest: Acapulco 2008

A 20 minute tourist stop at Tarzan's hotel

Narco trafficker "The Hummer" caught. Acapulco's

economy is a mix of tourism and drugs.

Johnny Weismueller and John Wayne co-owned

an Acapulco hotel - Los Flamingos. Tarzan was filmed

in Acapulco's jungles - now strip malls.

Acapulco beaches - a taxi driver warned me to beware

of the raw sewage.

The divers launch themselves 4 times a day.

The divers scale the rock face to get to their diving perch

Warning: Dive only when the waves roll in!

A Soiled Nest: Acapulco 2008

My deepest apologies to my Aunt Diane and dear friends who have spent fabulous vacations and romance-filled honeymoons in Acapulco. Savor your memories.

In October 2008, it was the taxi drivers themselves – those whose livelihoods depend on tourists - who told me not to swim in Acapulco’s stunning bay. The physical beauty of the giant cove remains but the sewage waters of the 5 star hotel towers slosh and lap the sandy shores.

The beachside strip is crowded with Senor Frogs, Hooters and a string of U.S. chains in the shadow of the hotel towers. Thousands of bathers wade in the compromised waters, a few hundred yards from the exhaust of the choking traffic.

I have to admit that my generosity towards the place was colored by just having spent 3 days at a forum of communities affected by large dams, mining operations, and spiraling electrical rates. La Parota dam is scheduled for construction just 50 miles from Acapulco, where the forum was held, to power the hotels’ washing machines and air conditioners. The cost of the dam to the thousands of farming families slated to lose their land is incalcuable. Insult to injury is that Mexico already produces an energy surplus; much of it is destined for the U.S. through an integrated grid, that might be called upon on a particular hot New York day to power that metropolis’ air conditioners.

Opposition to these “mega projects” is fierce. A seemingly benign windmill project being developed on Oaxaca’s isthmus is vehemently opposed by the peasants whose land is usurped and who don’t consume any appreciable amount of energy. The affected communities organizing power is considerable; with help from international friends (get on the phone to tell Obama not to satisfy US energy thirst by flooding out Mexican peasants!), the farming families might just prevail.

On the way to the airport, we narrowly avoided collision with a swerving black Hummer, no plates. The taxi driver sheepishly explained that he wouldn’t consider an obscene gesture; it was probably a narcotraficante (drug dealer) against whom he dared not lift a finger. At this point, it’s not clear how much of Acapulco’s booming economy is due to the flow and washing of drug dollars or the (diminishing) flow of tourists. The taxi driver alleged, as did many others, that Acapulco’s municipal government and indeed the state government of Guerrero is controlled by narcos.

I did have the occasion to spend the night (missed a plane due to a giant traffic snarl) at the joint briefly co-owned by John Wayne and Johnny Weismuller. Tarzan movies were filmed in the 40s and 50s in jungles outside Acapulco – jungles long since converted into strip malls. The hotel is perched on cliffs, down which John Wayne allegedly dashed his shot glasses in a drunken daze. In stunning topiary, right next to the hotel’s flagship room, Casa Tarzan, there sits a bush shaped into the bust of Cheetah, Tarzan’s monkey.

With such an illustrious past, the Tarzan hotel was smack on the tourist trail. Starting at 9 am, tour buses deposited wheezing big-bellied clients for a 20 minute stop. It was a Sunday morning but trays of beer and Coke went quickly.

I’m sorry to be such a cynic. It must have been a remarkable place, Acapulco, in its day. But today, the golden goose is ailing. Except for the cliff divers – my deepest bow to their nervy acrobatics.

Sabina, Sabino, Sabina

Dona Sabina, zapoteca who runs a restaurant in
Santa Ana del Valle with Sabina

Sabina leaning on a sabino tree

Climbing a sabino tree in Santiago Apoala

Sabino trees (and Sabina) love riverbanks

Dead Dog Alley and Beyond

Dead Dog Alley and Beyond

We live pressed up against the mountains – the Sierra Juarez. Oaxaca city sits in a valley at about a mile’s altitude; the mountains across the road from us rise to nearly 10,000. Some mornings the mist shrouds the ridge; other windy days, the forested peaks are brilliant against the blue sky. When we can work up the strength for a vertical run, we jog up into the foothills.

But first you have to make it through dead dog alley.

Dead dog alley is the unfortunate road that leads from just outside our little community to the road, first asphalt, then dirt, then rocky path heading up towards said high ridge. What gives dead dog alley its unfortunate name and powerful aroma is – you guessed it – discarded corn sacks stuffed with dead animals, disguised among a strew of garbage that adorns the road (garbage service here is a bit spotty). The dog population around here grows exponentially – packs of randy street dogs congregate on dark street corners. Some people unhappy with the canine gangs take the situation into their own hands and feed the starving dogs poison. They either end up in a corn sack, or worse, paws up bloating on the side of the road, sometimes sprinkled with lime to keep the stench down.

I apologize for the discouraging detail; the glory lies just ahead.

In an apparent act of resistance, a highway traversing the foothills was cancelled leaving a deteriorating path that is perfect for running and walking. (I say apparent because much as we try to untangle the politics behind the demise of this road, we can’t seem to get one story. Alas, that seems to be true of much political intrigue down here.) Nearly all of the many walkers and runners carry a staff to ward off the dogs – those that haven’t met their maker on dead dog alley.

The dogs thin and the forest grows as we pant up the hill, past fields of corn and maguey (the primary material for mezcal). The temperature cools and the relief of the valley below smoothens – it is sensational to look up and down upon a valley that has been cultivated for thousands of years. Oaxaca sprawls below, what was once a provincial backwater cut off from the rest of the country now counts nearly half a million residents and is growing at 9% a year. Mexico City, the western hemisphere’s largest city at 20 million strong, lurks just 300 miles to the north.

The lands that we jog through are ejidal lands of the municipality of Donají. Ejidos were born from the Mexican Revolution in 1910 in a massive land reform program which expropriated lands and distributed them to millions of peasants in the form of ejidos - collective land titles. (Unfortunately, a 1992 amendment to the Mexican constitution – timed to lubricate land markets for NAFTA - allowed for the ejidos to be broken into pieces through sale of individual plots. This undoing of the ejidos is blamed for much of the current rural crisis.)

Among these trees and arroyos gurgle the springs that provide water to communities downstream, with Oaxaca city taking the lion’s share. Pine trees appear the higher we go… and the more beauty the more tired we get. We choose a patch of shade in a ravine as our destination and then turn back for the knee-crunching slog back down the hill, back through Dead Dog Alley and home to the shower.

Obamanos and Mexico's Expectations for Change

Obama promised me immigration reform

Obama, a hope to not shut doors

November 8, 2008 OBAMANOS!! Election night we gathered with friends around their large screened TV drinking agua de Jamaica and mojitos as the results tumbled in. At 11pm with cheeks wet with tears, hugging our children, the elation took over watching Barak Obama and his family on stage. WOW! ANDALE! Our new leader, the new face of the United States, the possibility of change. A leader we can listen to, admire, respect. An African American man who has already galvanized so many and is going to head us down the road of change. We can finally hold our heads higher as people from the United States. The next morning at our kids school Mexican friends hugged us saying, "Por fin, ganamos la democracia!" Finally democracy wins! Later that day I walked down the dusty road to get some vegetables from a local vendor and he greets me with a toothless grin "EY guera, ganamos la democracia y Bush se va a ir volando!" Hey white one, we won democracy, and Bush goes flying! While surfing the web for blogs and news on Wednesday the videos and text of people celebrating in Africa, India, Sydney Australia show some shifting of tectonic plates in how the US is seen from afar. Talia wakes up in the cool Oaxacan morning and tells us at breakfast with great calm and clarity, "I knew that Obama would win." I think of her being unfettered and not burdened by the weight of 8 years of Bush and beyond! There was no question in her mind that the absolutely best candidate would win and that we can move forward with hope to make change!! OBAMANOS!!

And now as Obama assumes the presidency, it's not just the U.S. public that has high expectations for change. Take a look at the headlines above - Mexicans desire big changes in our immigration policy - an embrace perhaps, instead of a shut door.

Politicking with the Dead

Death of the small farmer due to government neglect

The Skull of Neoliberalism and the tombstone of the market

Graffiti on the governor's office - "rat's nest" and

"Ulises (the governor), killer of indigenous people

An enormous sand sculpture in front of

main cathedral in Oaxaca's zocolo "jail to Ulises assassin (governor)".

The sculpture lasted over a day before it was removed.

Politicking with the Dead

What better way to do politics than accuse a policy or politician of murder or being dead already? The Day of the Dead is a terrific moment to criticize policy. And it’s not hard to find public policy here that causes death symptoms - slow or rapid bleed or plain old death to Mexico’s poor majority. Take for example, agricultural and trade policy that is bleeding the countryside. Take a look at the photos – plenty of policies in the cross hairs.

Only somewhat related to this theme is a seminar I attended put on by the Universidad de la Tierra (Universidad de la Tierra). It was led by a highly respected social analyst and former government functionary, Gustavo Esteva. He’s a natural popular educator and in his participatory style, he poked people to describe what were the “muertos” – ideologies and concepts either dead or dying – that were turning up floating and bloated in the wake of the global economic crisis. Some of the dead policies and the ideology behind them discussed were: 1) that regulation of banks and general public oversight of the private sector are unnecessary 2) that public sector spending is unnecessary 3) that the United States is a trusted global leader – economically, politically and ideologically – that the U.S. leads the world responsibly. I’d say news of the death of these withering truths is a bit premature but if this economic crisis kills off these ideas once and for all, it will be some solace to the pain felt around the world.

Bumper Cars and Good Clean Fun

Day of the Dead

Talia's class after the Day of the Dead parade

"La Llorona" or the Wailer, in the white veil. She

drowned her children and repents - a traditional Day

of the Dead costume.

A Day of the Dead art exhibition

Day of the Dead "tapete" made of sand

Day of the Dead street art in Xoxocotlan

Cemetery in Xoxocotlan

Dead of the Dead sculpture

Maria Sabina was a Mazateca healer whose cures

employed psychedelic mushrooms. This altar is in the

entrance to the kid's school.

Tyler making our altar. On Day of

the Dead, families put flowers, food and

fotos on an altar for their loved ones. We drew pictures.


A sand sculpture on top of a tomb

Food offerings

Taking a moto taxi to the cemetery with flowers

Singing to the dead

NOVEMBER 4, 2008
PREELECTION JITTERS… TO… DAY OF THE DEAD CALM

There is a sense of calm as I sit here listening to the early morning birds and gaze at the beautiful hills outside my window. For weeks the sensation of not being able to sit still because of the election stateside was a constant companion. Yet the Day of the Dead celebrations from October 31 through November 3 began to alter the pre-election reality. We prepared our altar with marigolds, candles, sugared skulls and hand drawn pictures while entering a spiritual and magical time here. Throughout the city truckloads of gold and fuscia flowers arrived and on street corners vendors arms were laden with flowers. The dedications to spirits of ancestors and loved ones enveloped this city.

Our friend Liz took all of us after school to the large city market of Los Abastos. With her seven year old daughter in hand she zipped along and guided us beyond the imported Halloween holiday section (consumer goods that have increased dramatically since NAFTA) to the endless rows of stalls of vendors selling ribboned candles, candied skulls, rocks of copal incense, paper mache skeletons, pan de los muertos-sweet bread representing the souls of the dead, bags of moles-negro, rojo y coloradito, and colorful “papel picado” cut paper. I went there twice last week in preparation for Day of the Dead driven by pure sensual need and an endless desire to absorb these holy days filled with both determined preparation and focused honoring. On both visits to the central market I was accompanied by Oaxacan women who knew and loved “Abastos” and led me through its labyrinth of vendors and curious stalls through pathways of bloodied meats with some recognizable animal body parts to row upon row of pirated dvd’s to freshly cut flowers that smelled like nirvana . Sabina’s teacher had worked in Los Abastos market for many years with the children and families of the vendors there as dedicated teacher and social worker with one of the handful of organizations that work with street children in Oaxaca. She told me stories of the kids who lived there and how she tutored them with her sole mission statement of “learn to study on a street curb and figure out how to eat and stay somewhat clean”. We ducked behind countless stalls of mole vendors to get to “the place” to buy the mole that her class would use in preparing tamales for their school celebration. It was well past 8pm, the lighting was sparse but single bulbs cast yellow hues that beckoned us further through plastic pathways. The market had slowed down from its earlier hectic pace, shop owners were ready to converse and not just sell their wares. Los Abastos was a cozy place that night.

Our Day of the Dead celebrations began with an invitation to celebrate the altar in a Home for children of women that work in the sex industry in Oaxaca. I have been volunteering there with my friend Susanna. We do art and activity groups with the children and have begun to work with the mothers of these children offering them a private space to explore and reflect upon their lives. It has been a remarkable blessing to have encountered this project which is the heart and soul of a Mexican woman, Coco and her family. That night we introduced our families to the Home-Coco, her husband and her wonderful sons, and the children who were living there and ate delicious tamales prepared by on the of the childrens mothers. How to become economically self sufficient apart from the sex trade is the biggest dilemma for these young mothers as is their incredibly demeaned sense of themselves and their own lousy experiences of being parented or not parented at all. Fantasies of an urban garden or a small comedor (restaurant) are active dreams for these struggling mothers.

We accompanied a neighbor and his family to their ancestral graveyard in a nearby pueblo, Xoxo. The large urban cemetery was filled with people, music, flowers, mezcal and incense. Some families in quiet reflection, many prepared to spend the entire night wrapped in blankets, rocking little ones while communing with their ancestors. After visiting other cemeteries in the city of Oaxaca, San Felipe, Azompa and a moonlit parade in San Pablo Etla we ended the weekend with friends from the rug weaving village of Teotitlan del Valle. The Zapotec people in Teotitlan stretch celebrations over another day and escort their ancestors back to their graves on Monday afternoon. After a delicious mole feast prepared by Leonora and looking at many photos of their extended family we accompanied her son to the cemetery for the final despidida/goodbye. The sun was setting over the central valley of Oaxaca infusing the sky with the nectar of plums, peaches and cochineal as troubadors crooned tunes among the marigold scattered tombs. We drove home that early evening mesmerized by all of the events of our long weekend immersed in the celebration of “Los Muertos” in Oaxaca.