MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE and to all a HEALTHY AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
December 24, 2012
What a Difference a Day Makes....
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE and to all a HEALTHY AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
December 22, 2012
The Christmas Season in Mexico
Whereas Christmas is somewhat of a serious, sombre religious affair, the day falls right in the middle of a highly developed religious circuit of fiestas that occurs in the villages along the north shore of the lake. These start in the village of Ajijic in November and end in Jocotepec in mid-January. In sharp contrast to Christmas, these festivities involve very gay, noisy, exuberant public processions in which the patron saint of the village is paraded through the village and returned to the church. Different occupational groups within the village proudly sponsor their day in the festivities, each one trying to raise their status by showing a greater financial contribution than the other groups. This competitive aspect means the noise, rockets, fireworks, music and dancing go on relentlessly for the duration of that fiesta. At that point the fiesta in the next village begins on a similar schedule. Between November and January, the dogs and their masters sleep very little on the north shore of lake Chapala.
Christmas in Jocotepec is a pretty simple family affair, compared to the madness north of the border or the festiveness of the local fiestas. The family will gather together and have a simple meal and then attend Christmas Mass at the town church below. On Christmas Day, the town is very quiet as the families will celebrate the day quietly behind their family walls.
There are not a lot of what we would consider Christmas decorations around town. The town's decorations focus on the creche set up in the communal living room of the town: the town plaza.
Above is the Bandstand in the center of the plaza. Later in the evening there will probably be music and there will be lots of stalls selling food and sweets for the family's. Below is a stand selling all kinds of sweet treats for the kids.
The town of Jocotepec is quite proud of their history. Below is a large stone plaque celebrating their four hundred and fiftieth anniversary, from 1529 to 1979.
Even before Christmas festivities start to fade in the town of Jocotepec, preliminary preparations around the town for the patron saint "Senor del Monte" can be observed...
Merry Christmas from Barbara and Rick in Mexico.
Christmas in Jocotepec is a pretty simple family affair, compared to the madness north of the border or the festiveness of the local fiestas. The family will gather together and have a simple meal and then attend Christmas Mass at the town church below. On Christmas Day, the town is very quiet as the families will celebrate the day quietly behind their family walls.
There are not a lot of what we would consider Christmas decorations around town. The town's decorations focus on the creche set up in the communal living room of the town: the town plaza.
Please notice the large rock in the foreground of the creche. It is claimed by the town to be a meteorite that fell in the hills adjacent to the town many years ago. It was brought down as a monument for the town, and has held a place of honor in the plaza ever since. It is also in the photo below on the right side. It has been deliberately included inside the creche.
Above is the Bandstand in the center of the plaza. Later in the evening there will probably be music and there will be lots of stalls selling food and sweets for the family's. Below is a stand selling all kinds of sweet treats for the kids.
Even before Christmas festivities start to fade in the town of Jocotepec, preliminary preparations around the town for the patron saint "Senor del Monte" can be observed...
Merry Christmas from Barbara and Rick in Mexico.
December 19, 2012
Noise...
Now everyone you will meet in Mexico, whether Mexican, American, European or Swahili, will freely admit to you that Mexico suffers from an extraordinary abundance of noise pollution. Dogs tied on roof tops bark at passing strangers all day and sometimes all night. Cohetes (rockets) go off to celebrate religious events erratically day and night, sometimes series of them, dozens of them. Trucks lack mufflers. Bamba music is ubiquitous, and sometimes an eventos (club) can spring up right next door and pump out the glory of that until 5AM!!! No-one can ever take for granted a peaceful night. We do the best we can where we are, but during fiesta season when music and bamba noise (I consider them separate species) float out across the water, even our home reverberates and makes sleep a "mission impossible"....
And yet, there is one kind of noise that honestly, I have almost never heard. I never hear babies cry. I never hear toddlers scream. The world of distracting, annoying, spoiled brats is completely alien here. If it happened, we would definitely know, because the streets are teeming with families and babies of all descriptions, sizes, ages and genders. Babies are present in places and at times you would never see them at home, day and night. Mind you, sometimes it is hard to know FOR CERTAIN that they actually are a baby, because you can't see a single hair on their head. Mama is transporting around town a large sausage size parcel wrapped in a blanket...could be a baby...but then could be a 10 pound load of bread. Who's to know??
Babies are fully integrated here. Families march down the sidewalks, proud papas and mamas holding the little ones' hands, all the children dressed immaculately, the boys' hair slicked down like Dick Tracy...the girls in frilly frocks. But there are amazing things to notice. First of all, these wrapped up parcels in their mama's arms are always motionless and noiseless. Without knowing otherwise, how can one know if they are even breathing, I wonder?? Once in a while the mama lifts a well folded corner and peeks underneath. Satisfied that baby is still there, she smiles with contentment and goes back to leaning languorously against the brick wall in the middle of the busiest street in town chatting casually away with a girlfriend/relative who probably also has a baby, whether swaddled in her arms, or standing patiently by her side clutching her clothes, or perhaps several in various positions all silently and quietly watching mama and listening intently and exhibiting NONE of the usual baby or toddler behavior we in El Norte have come to think of as "normal". I do wonder how they do it. But I have a theory. Babies here are coddled. They live in their mothers' arms. Day and night I am sure. When baby cries, out flips a breast or two and the need is addressed. Mind you, I have seen that event happen because all of these babies are sleeping contentedly. I can only ASSUME that is what happens. In between feeds, if mama isn't there, then an aunt is. Or an older sister. Or even better, grandmama! Grandmamas love to spend vast amounts of casual time rocking a blanket wrapped bundle or two.
These little bundles become active toddlers. But they are very different from ours. As soon they can walk, and especially if mama has had another bundle by this time and has no free hands, the little toddler walks along beside his mama clutching on to her side. Now keep in mind that mama is walking along an irregular, narrow, roughly cast sidewalk only inches away from cement trucks and motorcycles and buses throttling through town. And yet larger baby is on the vehicle side, and no-one shows any particular alarm. Will older baby let go and tumble off? Never happens. Sometimes you see mama straddling a scooter or quad, one baby dangled under the left arm, another elder one clutching onto the right side, or sometimes a mid-range size of baby (one who can sit but not walk) will be sitting in front of mama who is driving with one hand, the other hand clutched around the precious baby. Do these babies fall off? Never happens.
On the side streets where houses abut each other and traffic is slowed to a crawl, these babies know how to dodge it, and how to play near or even on the street without ever getting run over to the best of my knowledge. And here is another thing I have observed. They never stray from the area directly in front of their own homes. It is as if there is an invisible line drawn along each property line into the middle of the street. Old people love to sit on the sidewalk in front of their house and watch the happenings outside, but they too, never stray from the area directly outside their front door. Children stay inside this domestic boundary with grandparents and only when they reach a certain indefinable age do they stray further...
All observations conclude with the fact that Mexicans have some secret knowledge that allows them to rear their babies in such a way that reduces stress or anxiety. We, apparently know NOTHING about rearing ours....
And yet, there is one kind of noise that honestly, I have almost never heard. I never hear babies cry. I never hear toddlers scream. The world of distracting, annoying, spoiled brats is completely alien here. If it happened, we would definitely know, because the streets are teeming with families and babies of all descriptions, sizes, ages and genders. Babies are present in places and at times you would never see them at home, day and night. Mind you, sometimes it is hard to know FOR CERTAIN that they actually are a baby, because you can't see a single hair on their head. Mama is transporting around town a large sausage size parcel wrapped in a blanket...could be a baby...but then could be a 10 pound load of bread. Who's to know??
Babies are fully integrated here. Families march down the sidewalks, proud papas and mamas holding the little ones' hands, all the children dressed immaculately, the boys' hair slicked down like Dick Tracy...the girls in frilly frocks. But there are amazing things to notice. First of all, these wrapped up parcels in their mama's arms are always motionless and noiseless. Without knowing otherwise, how can one know if they are even breathing, I wonder?? Once in a while the mama lifts a well folded corner and peeks underneath. Satisfied that baby is still there, she smiles with contentment and goes back to leaning languorously against the brick wall in the middle of the busiest street in town chatting casually away with a girlfriend/relative who probably also has a baby, whether swaddled in her arms, or standing patiently by her side clutching her clothes, or perhaps several in various positions all silently and quietly watching mama and listening intently and exhibiting NONE of the usual baby or toddler behavior we in El Norte have come to think of as "normal". I do wonder how they do it. But I have a theory. Babies here are coddled. They live in their mothers' arms. Day and night I am sure. When baby cries, out flips a breast or two and the need is addressed. Mind you, I have seen that event happen because all of these babies are sleeping contentedly. I can only ASSUME that is what happens. In between feeds, if mama isn't there, then an aunt is. Or an older sister. Or even better, grandmama! Grandmamas love to spend vast amounts of casual time rocking a blanket wrapped bundle or two.
These little bundles become active toddlers. But they are very different from ours. As soon they can walk, and especially if mama has had another bundle by this time and has no free hands, the little toddler walks along beside his mama clutching on to her side. Now keep in mind that mama is walking along an irregular, narrow, roughly cast sidewalk only inches away from cement trucks and motorcycles and buses throttling through town. And yet larger baby is on the vehicle side, and no-one shows any particular alarm. Will older baby let go and tumble off? Never happens. Sometimes you see mama straddling a scooter or quad, one baby dangled under the left arm, another elder one clutching onto the right side, or sometimes a mid-range size of baby (one who can sit but not walk) will be sitting in front of mama who is driving with one hand, the other hand clutched around the precious baby. Do these babies fall off? Never happens.
On the side streets where houses abut each other and traffic is slowed to a crawl, these babies know how to dodge it, and how to play near or even on the street without ever getting run over to the best of my knowledge. And here is another thing I have observed. They never stray from the area directly in front of their own homes. It is as if there is an invisible line drawn along each property line into the middle of the street. Old people love to sit on the sidewalk in front of their house and watch the happenings outside, but they too, never stray from the area directly outside their front door. Children stay inside this domestic boundary with grandparents and only when they reach a certain indefinable age do they stray further...
All observations conclude with the fact that Mexicans have some secret knowledge that allows them to rear their babies in such a way that reduces stress or anxiety. We, apparently know NOTHING about rearing ours....
December 17, 2012
The bear went over the mountain....
In somewhat typical fashion, the concrete pour scheduled for last Friday did not eventuate. The general assessment was that the concrete company had received a bigger order and needed our truck for the job. So of course, the big order took priority. We understood. So many times, expats down here do not understand aspects of the local reality and jump to understandable but totally inaccurate assessments of events. One of those events is the concept of time, either the issue of being late, or not not showing up of many other variations of the above. And here is my advice on this subject. No matter which permutation of the above you are experiencing, there is always a reason! You may never figure out what that reason was, but given a lot of time, experience and mental reflection, your ability to "read" situations grows. And our ability said, "What the heck. They got a better job. Good for them!" and we re-scheduled the pour for today. Hopefully it was happen. But too soon to tell.
After losing our schedule entirely, we were in a quandary over what to do with our free weekend. We decided to "go over the mountain to see what we could see". For a number of years, we have been aware of the existence of another village over our mountain, right behind us. That village is on the south side, on the edge of an extremely shallow salt lake. We see it from the cuota (toll road) when we go down to the coast. But to access it is not an easy task. However, we woke up Saturday morning in a mood to investigate the possibilities. The Mexican road map told us that if we took our highway 15 back out to the end of the mountain range (about 15 miles) to the intersection with the cuota, with a little jiggling we could get onto the free road that paralleled the cuota south. After a couple of miles on the cuota, the map showed another road that turned left and crossed the cuota and ended up in the village we were looking for, the village of San Marcos. This was essentially a very large circle route. For an added extra, we would also pass through another village on the way called Los Pozos. But first, we had a leisurely breakfast on the winter terrace, enjoying the fruits of our own papaya tree.
The trip was highly enjoyable. We crossed the cuota here. The mountain in the background is the backside of our mountain.
The road into the two villages was very quiet. Part of it was paved, part of it was cobbled and part of it was dirt and it dead-ended at Los Marcos, so there was very little traffic and what there was of it, often had either 2 legs or four:
The approach into the villages, was also different from our highway 15 on the other side of the mountain. This side was the hot dry side of the mountain and it was covered with forests of cactus, but the valley floor was growing sugar cane (not cattle as on our side) and looked relatively lush. I wondered from whence came their source of water:
Across the road, were the remnants of lago San Marcos and its salt flats:
The villages themselves also had a different feel from ours on our side. These are ejidal (communal) villages, quite poor even by Mexican standards, but neat as a pin. Instead of being built adjoining and right on the sidewalk, the houses were frequently free standing with tiny but attractive gardens in the space between the sidewalk and the house. The houses were decorated with all sorts of Christmas decorations. Who would see them, I wondered, if not just their neighbours and the gas man or other service deliverer? We were the only strangers in the village on a Saturday at noon!
The two villages differed, one from the other, as well. Los Pozos had the only visible store, and school:
And it had very friendly inhabitants! We passed by a street closed off and being decorated for Christmas by some of the ladies of the town. They asked us (with enormous smiles) to take their photo:
The other thing Los Pozos had, was the grandest house:
Now an astute reader might well ask themselves, is there ANYTHING left for poor San Marcos, the last village on the road, squished up against the mountain? Is there anything possible it might have to compare with its neighbour up the road???
Well, here it is!
After losing our schedule entirely, we were in a quandary over what to do with our free weekend. We decided to "go over the mountain to see what we could see". For a number of years, we have been aware of the existence of another village over our mountain, right behind us. That village is on the south side, on the edge of an extremely shallow salt lake. We see it from the cuota (toll road) when we go down to the coast. But to access it is not an easy task. However, we woke up Saturday morning in a mood to investigate the possibilities. The Mexican road map told us that if we took our highway 15 back out to the end of the mountain range (about 15 miles) to the intersection with the cuota, with a little jiggling we could get onto the free road that paralleled the cuota south. After a couple of miles on the cuota, the map showed another road that turned left and crossed the cuota and ended up in the village we were looking for, the village of San Marcos. This was essentially a very large circle route. For an added extra, we would also pass through another village on the way called Los Pozos. But first, we had a leisurely breakfast on the winter terrace, enjoying the fruits of our own papaya tree.
The trip was highly enjoyable. We crossed the cuota here. The mountain in the background is the backside of our mountain.
The road into the two villages was very quiet. Part of it was paved, part of it was cobbled and part of it was dirt and it dead-ended at Los Marcos, so there was very little traffic and what there was of it, often had either 2 legs or four:
The approach into the villages, was also different from our highway 15 on the other side of the mountain. This side was the hot dry side of the mountain and it was covered with forests of cactus, but the valley floor was growing sugar cane (not cattle as on our side) and looked relatively lush. I wondered from whence came their source of water:
Across the road, were the remnants of lago San Marcos and its salt flats:
The villages themselves also had a different feel from ours on our side. These are ejidal (communal) villages, quite poor even by Mexican standards, but neat as a pin. Instead of being built adjoining and right on the sidewalk, the houses were frequently free standing with tiny but attractive gardens in the space between the sidewalk and the house. The houses were decorated with all sorts of Christmas decorations. Who would see them, I wondered, if not just their neighbours and the gas man or other service deliverer? We were the only strangers in the village on a Saturday at noon!
The two villages differed, one from the other, as well. Los Pozos had the only visible store, and school:
And it had very friendly inhabitants! We passed by a street closed off and being decorated for Christmas by some of the ladies of the town. They asked us (with enormous smiles) to take their photo:
Now an astute reader might well ask themselves, is there ANYTHING left for poor San Marcos, the last village on the road, squished up against the mountain? Is there anything possible it might have to compare with its neighbour up the road???
Well, here it is!
December 12, 2012
"Havin Fun", How we did it.
Many of you will recall that early after our arrival here in Mexico, we had a tractor out to the property to cleanup the driveway after the summer rains. That helped the lower straight portion of the road but unfortunately it actually made the switch back corner worse. The driver had dumped several bucket loads of loose rock on the corner and tried to pack it down with the tractor tires. That lasted about two days. We struggled with it for about a week, then decided we needed a permanent fix. Concrete was the answer!
To get started, we had another tractor come out and this time we just scraped off all the loose rock from the corner and brought it down to the original solid roadbed. That was a step in the right direction as it now became quite passible again but we knew it would not stand up to the summer wet season.
After some consultation with Don on what materials we would need, off I went to Home Depot to buy some 4X8 sheets of OSB plywood and miscellaneous lumber necessary to construct concrete forms. That was an interesting experience in itself. 99% of the construction in this area of Mexico is masonry and lumber is only used to make furniture, cabinets , doors etc. Dimensional lumber like 2X4's, 2X6 etc are very hard to find and when you do find them, they only have a very limited stock. For instance, looking for 2X4's at Home Depot, they only carry 8', 10' and 12' lengths. They were out of the 8' and 10' and had about 6, 12 footers of which only one was straight enough to buy. When the Mexicans do concrete work, they use prefabricated steel forms that are not available to us DIY'ers.
We started by outlining the inside and outside edges of the curve using several garden hoses connected together.
We tried to make it wide enough to be easily navigable by vehicles of different sizes but not so wide as to use more concrete than necessary.
With Don's table saw we ripped the OSB into strips 4 inches wide by 8 feet long. We then we screwed the strips together with a short overlap on each to make a long board that we could use to form the edge of the curve. Don had metal stakes that we drove into the ground along the curve and that we could attach the plywood to with screws.
Here is what it looked like after we were done.
We used a string stretched across the top of the forms to check for high spots. We needed to make sure we had at least 4 inches of clearance all the way across.
We only bought enough wood to outline the section that we would be doing with the first pour of 6 cubic meters of concrete (about 8 cubic yards) with the intention of reusing the forms on the second section.
The next step was cutting and laying out the heavy wire mesh that was to be embedded in the concrete to tie it all together. The wire is a 6X6 inch mesh that comes in a 48 inch wide roll and 20 meters long (66 feet). Because we did not want the concrete truck to drive on it, we had to cut each piece to fit as we went around the corner, then remove it and set it off to the side to be put back in place behind the truck as he went down the hill discharging the concrete.
The last step of preparation was to prepare a 2X4" to go across the top end of the forms to be put in place after the truck had come up, turned around and passed back down. Also we needed 1x4" expansion joints periodically along the run so the concrete will not crack when it expands and contracts in the heat of the sun. Those had to be precut to length and set aside to be installed as we went.
The night before we were scheduled to pour the concrete, I watered down the surface to minimise the amount of water absorbed by the earth out of the concrete mix.
Barbara described the events of "Pour" day in the previous post.
That's all there was to it. On the morning after, Don and I removed the forms from around the concrete, pulled up the stakes, and laid out the next section. We will do it all over again on Friday.
Here are some photo's of the first section and also the forms installed for the next.
To get started, we had another tractor come out and this time we just scraped off all the loose rock from the corner and brought it down to the original solid roadbed. That was a step in the right direction as it now became quite passible again but we knew it would not stand up to the summer wet season.
After some consultation with Don on what materials we would need, off I went to Home Depot to buy some 4X8 sheets of OSB plywood and miscellaneous lumber necessary to construct concrete forms. That was an interesting experience in itself. 99% of the construction in this area of Mexico is masonry and lumber is only used to make furniture, cabinets , doors etc. Dimensional lumber like 2X4's, 2X6 etc are very hard to find and when you do find them, they only have a very limited stock. For instance, looking for 2X4's at Home Depot, they only carry 8', 10' and 12' lengths. They were out of the 8' and 10' and had about 6, 12 footers of which only one was straight enough to buy. When the Mexicans do concrete work, they use prefabricated steel forms that are not available to us DIY'ers.
We started by outlining the inside and outside edges of the curve using several garden hoses connected together.
We tried to make it wide enough to be easily navigable by vehicles of different sizes but not so wide as to use more concrete than necessary.
With Don's table saw we ripped the OSB into strips 4 inches wide by 8 feet long. We then we screwed the strips together with a short overlap on each to make a long board that we could use to form the edge of the curve. Don had metal stakes that we drove into the ground along the curve and that we could attach the plywood to with screws.
Here is what it looked like after we were done.
We used a string stretched across the top of the forms to check for high spots. We needed to make sure we had at least 4 inches of clearance all the way across.
We only bought enough wood to outline the section that we would be doing with the first pour of 6 cubic meters of concrete (about 8 cubic yards) with the intention of reusing the forms on the second section.
The next step was cutting and laying out the heavy wire mesh that was to be embedded in the concrete to tie it all together. The wire is a 6X6 inch mesh that comes in a 48 inch wide roll and 20 meters long (66 feet). Because we did not want the concrete truck to drive on it, we had to cut each piece to fit as we went around the corner, then remove it and set it off to the side to be put back in place behind the truck as he went down the hill discharging the concrete.
The last step of preparation was to prepare a 2X4" to go across the top end of the forms to be put in place after the truck had come up, turned around and passed back down. Also we needed 1x4" expansion joints periodically along the run so the concrete will not crack when it expands and contracts in the heat of the sun. Those had to be precut to length and set aside to be installed as we went.
The night before we were scheduled to pour the concrete, I watered down the surface to minimise the amount of water absorbed by the earth out of the concrete mix.
Barbara described the events of "Pour" day in the previous post.
That's all there was to it. On the morning after, Don and I removed the forms from around the concrete, pulled up the stakes, and laid out the next section. We will do it all over again on Friday.
Here are some photo's of the first section and also the forms installed for the next.
December 11, 2012
Havin' Fun, Mexican Style
I know that all of you probably have this romantic vision of Rick and I swanning around our terrace, coffee mug in hand, reading our latest novel, chatting over tea and crumpets in the delightful Mexican sunshine. I hope this episode will take care of those romantic notions. Because no matter how "finished" one of our building projects becomes, there always seems to be something that requires attention. And yesterday it was the driveway.
It is hard to describe our driveway. It comes onto the property at the bottom about 300 feet below the level of the house at the corner of the property and it immediately straightens a bit and comes slightly angled but steeply up the mountain to the top, where it does a last switch-back up onto the terrace where the house is located. It is a fine, properly built road bed, covered with what the Mexicans call tepate, a mixture of rock and a sandy element that when watered acts as a binder to hold it all together. The main problem is that in the wild drenching summer rains, the upper switch-back often becomes impassable and the torrents pouring down the main section wash out the sand leaving behind gullies of rock where the vehicle treads need to be. It is still passable, but often only for 4 wheel drive.
After 10 years of messing around with this problem, we finally decided it was time to get serious and concrete the driveway, starting with that annoying upper switch-back.
Our neighbour and caretaker Don, a retired building contractor from Arizona, enthusiastically took over as project manager. He had just done a huge pour up on his property, forming the slab for his new dome house, and he had all the right contacts for putting this project together.
The primary one was his buddy Sergio, a local Mexican-American, bilingual, who could order the concrete truck from the yard in Guadalajara and in Spanish, which meant we would get the Spanish Mexican prices and not the one for English gringos which is at least double. Also, he could explain our location and arrange everything. Sergio was a king pin in the planning of this project. Our trusty Antonio was working elsewhere yesterday so we fell back on our 65 year old trusty handyman Jose Luis. He arrived promptly at 8AM wearing the Home Depot style back support that I brought down for him 2 years ago. Jose Luis is always 100% prompt. He lays aside that stereotype of the irresponsible Mexican worker. The only time he ever didn't show up for work, was the day after his father Don Manuel passed away, and even then Jose Luis sent an urgent apology through a neighbour. So we knew we could count on Jose Luis. However, the handyman lent to us by a friend failed to show. And then Sergio, who was supposed to meet the concrete truck at the nearby highway intersection, phoned to say he wouldn't be off work from his job as as a security manager for another half an hour. It started to devolve into the usual Mexican chaos. Don immediately took off to meet the concrete truck. And lo! Jose Luis was on his cell phone asking his nephew Alejandro to bring him out his medicine which he had forgotten. Ten minutes later Alejandro arrived by bicycle and Rick immediately asked him in Spanish "You wanna work today?" And Alejandro (although dressed in white shorts and tennis shoes) immediately agreed. Chaos averted. Only an hour late, we could see Don in his vehicle leading the concrete truck gingerly along the track below, and Sergio in his SUV following him. It looked like everything might be working out.
The truck driver left the concrete truck at the bottom and Sergio drove him up the driveway to the house so he could get a sense of the job. There was a lot of pallaver over the switch-back corner and whether or not he could get around it. The truck driver wanted to back up the driveway to discharge. Our crew wanted him to drive up forwards, turn around at the house and then discharge the pour on the way back down. The driver attempted to drive the concrete truck up around the corner.
Couldn't.
Another pallaver and the forms on the inner curve were removed. The driver made it successfully, turned around, and inched back down the corner and halted right in place to start the pour.
Rick hustled around to replace the inner forms, Jose Luis and Alejandro took care of the screeding, Don manned the shute, and Sergio was master of ceremonies shouting instructions in English and Spanish as required, handling a shovel when required and, generally the problems all melted away and a driveway started to appear.
The whole job was an intense choreography of tasks but it was all over in 1 1/2 hours. And when finished, the concrete was exactly where it was supposed to be, and so was the truck..facing down the driveway, still upright, and not in the ditch or over the side. The worst was over, the corner was done, and the next pour on Friday should be much easier as the truck will be able to just back up the hill in a straight line.
So much for tea and crumpets on the terrace.
It is hard to describe our driveway. It comes onto the property at the bottom about 300 feet below the level of the house at the corner of the property and it immediately straightens a bit and comes slightly angled but steeply up the mountain to the top, where it does a last switch-back up onto the terrace where the house is located. It is a fine, properly built road bed, covered with what the Mexicans call tepate, a mixture of rock and a sandy element that when watered acts as a binder to hold it all together. The main problem is that in the wild drenching summer rains, the upper switch-back often becomes impassable and the torrents pouring down the main section wash out the sand leaving behind gullies of rock where the vehicle treads need to be. It is still passable, but often only for 4 wheel drive.
After 10 years of messing around with this problem, we finally decided it was time to get serious and concrete the driveway, starting with that annoying upper switch-back.
Our neighbour and caretaker Don, a retired building contractor from Arizona, enthusiastically took over as project manager. He had just done a huge pour up on his property, forming the slab for his new dome house, and he had all the right contacts for putting this project together.
The primary one was his buddy Sergio, a local Mexican-American, bilingual, who could order the concrete truck from the yard in Guadalajara and in Spanish, which meant we would get the Spanish Mexican prices and not the one for English gringos which is at least double. Also, he could explain our location and arrange everything. Sergio was a king pin in the planning of this project. Our trusty Antonio was working elsewhere yesterday so we fell back on our 65 year old trusty handyman Jose Luis. He arrived promptly at 8AM wearing the Home Depot style back support that I brought down for him 2 years ago. Jose Luis is always 100% prompt. He lays aside that stereotype of the irresponsible Mexican worker. The only time he ever didn't show up for work, was the day after his father Don Manuel passed away, and even then Jose Luis sent an urgent apology through a neighbour. So we knew we could count on Jose Luis. However, the handyman lent to us by a friend failed to show. And then Sergio, who was supposed to meet the concrete truck at the nearby highway intersection, phoned to say he wouldn't be off work from his job as as a security manager for another half an hour. It started to devolve into the usual Mexican chaos. Don immediately took off to meet the concrete truck. And lo! Jose Luis was on his cell phone asking his nephew Alejandro to bring him out his medicine which he had forgotten. Ten minutes later Alejandro arrived by bicycle and Rick immediately asked him in Spanish "You wanna work today?" And Alejandro (although dressed in white shorts and tennis shoes) immediately agreed. Chaos averted. Only an hour late, we could see Don in his vehicle leading the concrete truck gingerly along the track below, and Sergio in his SUV following him. It looked like everything might be working out.
The truck driver left the concrete truck at the bottom and Sergio drove him up the driveway to the house so he could get a sense of the job. There was a lot of pallaver over the switch-back corner and whether or not he could get around it. The truck driver wanted to back up the driveway to discharge. Our crew wanted him to drive up forwards, turn around at the house and then discharge the pour on the way back down. The driver attempted to drive the concrete truck up around the corner.
Couldn't.
Another pallaver and the forms on the inner curve were removed. The driver made it successfully, turned around, and inched back down the corner and halted right in place to start the pour.
Rick hustled around to replace the inner forms, Jose Luis and Alejandro took care of the screeding, Don manned the shute, and Sergio was master of ceremonies shouting instructions in English and Spanish as required, handling a shovel when required and, generally the problems all melted away and a driveway started to appear.
The whole job was an intense choreography of tasks but it was all over in 1 1/2 hours. And when finished, the concrete was exactly where it was supposed to be, and so was the truck..facing down the driveway, still upright, and not in the ditch or over the side. The worst was over, the corner was done, and the next pour on Friday should be much easier as the truck will be able to just back up the hill in a straight line.
So much for tea and crumpets on the terrace.
December 5, 2012
Tuesdays and Thursdays
To the surprise of some of my friends who have known me for half a century or more, I have become somewhat of a recluse. To be honest, it isn't that I don't enjoy socializing, it's just that I would like to have some control over it. And Lake Chapala, Mexico is a centre of fierce and intense expat socializing. We located ourselves deliberately just beyond the fringe of expat communities, so that we could join in when we wanted but were remote enough to discourage most uninvited guests from inadvertently wandering in. Even so, it takes enormous self- discipline to ignore all the invitations, avoid all the gathering sessions, turn down all the solicitations by clubs for new members.
On the other hand, we also find that Mexico is so seductive in its relaxing atmosphere, that without some social structure, one tends to forget what date it is, what time it is, and what one's own name is. To prevent that consequence, we have chosen one main weekly social activity for Tuesdays and Thursdays to anchor our Mexican life. And that activity is YOGA CLASS.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-4PM, you will find me and Rick on the highway heading around the south side of the lake, in the opposite direction from the expat communities of Ajijic and Chapala. One would know immediately that this south shore is completely different. No signs in English. No large gated expat villas. Small, self contained Mexican villages surrounded by agricultural fields and backed up by Mount Garcia, the tallest mountain around the lake at over 8,000 feet. We pass through San Pedro, and then San Cristobal, and just before reaching the municipal seat of San Luis, we turn off and down the hill into a small enclave of modest but very pleasant homes lining the lake.
It is here that a small number of (mostly) women expats cluster on the pool deck of a retired phys ed teacher from Wellesley Island, NY. My friend Jean taught phys ed for many years in Buffalo NY and now has retired to her summer cottage in the American section of the Thousand Islands, near Gananoque Ontario. She and her husband Frank spend their winters on the south shore of Lake Chapala, and for her own amusement and self improvement she offers free yoga classes to whomever wants to come. I have been coming for 3 years now and Rick joined last year. We have found that yoga can do amazing things to lubricate and expand aging joints and improve posture and balance.
We were away last week at the beach when Jean started her winter sessions. We came home to a terse email message: WHERE ARE YOU she said. WE HAVE STARTED YOGA. I hastened a response confirming we would be there next time and we were.
There is something very pleasing about doing yoga around a swimming pool. It is even more pleasing when looking out across a lake to a village jumbled up a mountainside, and even more pleasing again when the temperature is 74F and the breezes slight. It is to my thinking, quite perfect.
Afterwards, we wandered through Jean's garden. She offered us pomegranates or oranges or maybe some limes or lemons? but alas the pomegranates won't be ready until tomorrow.
And besides, on the way home, where we enter our little pueblo off the highway, there is a long line of lime and lemon trees lining the raspberry fields where all of the locals help themselves. That includes us. So we stop the car and pick half a dozen limes, bounce our way home along the dirt track and decide for yet another time, that next year we will keep up the yoga when we go home and not have to re-adapt our joints every fall at Jean's pool. When we go home this time, we say, we will do yoga every morning, even just 20 mins, just to stay flexible and relaxed. We won't of course. But we always say we will...
On the other hand, we also find that Mexico is so seductive in its relaxing atmosphere, that without some social structure, one tends to forget what date it is, what time it is, and what one's own name is. To prevent that consequence, we have chosen one main weekly social activity for Tuesdays and Thursdays to anchor our Mexican life. And that activity is YOGA CLASS.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-4PM, you will find me and Rick on the highway heading around the south side of the lake, in the opposite direction from the expat communities of Ajijic and Chapala. One would know immediately that this south shore is completely different. No signs in English. No large gated expat villas. Small, self contained Mexican villages surrounded by agricultural fields and backed up by Mount Garcia, the tallest mountain around the lake at over 8,000 feet. We pass through San Pedro, and then San Cristobal, and just before reaching the municipal seat of San Luis, we turn off and down the hill into a small enclave of modest but very pleasant homes lining the lake.
It is here that a small number of (mostly) women expats cluster on the pool deck of a retired phys ed teacher from Wellesley Island, NY. My friend Jean taught phys ed for many years in Buffalo NY and now has retired to her summer cottage in the American section of the Thousand Islands, near Gananoque Ontario. She and her husband Frank spend their winters on the south shore of Lake Chapala, and for her own amusement and self improvement she offers free yoga classes to whomever wants to come. I have been coming for 3 years now and Rick joined last year. We have found that yoga can do amazing things to lubricate and expand aging joints and improve posture and balance.
We were away last week at the beach when Jean started her winter sessions. We came home to a terse email message: WHERE ARE YOU she said. WE HAVE STARTED YOGA. I hastened a response confirming we would be there next time and we were.
There is something very pleasing about doing yoga around a swimming pool. It is even more pleasing when looking out across a lake to a village jumbled up a mountainside, and even more pleasing again when the temperature is 74F and the breezes slight. It is to my thinking, quite perfect.
Afterwards, we wandered through Jean's garden. She offered us pomegranates or oranges or maybe some limes or lemons? but alas the pomegranates won't be ready until tomorrow.
And besides, on the way home, where we enter our little pueblo off the highway, there is a long line of lime and lemon trees lining the raspberry fields where all of the locals help themselves. That includes us. So we stop the car and pick half a dozen limes, bounce our way home along the dirt track and decide for yet another time, that next year we will keep up the yoga when we go home and not have to re-adapt our joints every fall at Jean's pool. When we go home this time, we say, we will do yoga every morning, even just 20 mins, just to stay flexible and relaxed. We won't of course. But we always say we will...
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