IS MEXICO A DEVELOPING COUNTRY?

For the past 9 years I have been travelling to what I always thought was a developing country.  One always thought of the world divided into our world and the 3rd world.  Well there is a lot to be looked into, because all of that is not true.

What makes a country a developing country?  Is it the fact that they do not have running water and indoor toilets like my stay in Central Africa?  Is it that there is running water but no hot water as in Central America?  Is it that most cook outside as in Uganda and there is only a common outdoor toilet, though there is running water in the shower?

Mexico is far advanced from the above.  Yet, like most of the Central American and South American countries I have visited, there is much that is limited.  Consider:

• A home of small space with little room for individual bedrooms,
• A small bathroom with lukewarm water to shower and only a shower, not a bath,
• Limited items in the stores,
• Individuals in homes and on the streets selling their wares,
• No health insurance. Limited hospital care.
• Primary education which may or may not be government funded. 
• Infrastructure is poor or poorly maintained.
• Transportation is frequent but crowded and roughly driven.
• Yet there is good social welfare, such as orphanages

Take my new home for instance:

This is the living room, dining room and kitchen..

Everything is done here, other than sleeping.

     
                          The bathroom is basic, no problem, but there is only lukewarm water.
                  And as in most of Central America, one must put used toilet paper into a basket.

                          Though Rosa has a washer (other side) many homes only have a scrubbing
                           area like this.  All clothes is dried on a line. With the beautiful hot weather,
                           why not!

I have been given the only bedroom with a door (lower picture).  Rosa sleeps in an area at the far end of the kitchen and a divider allows for another bed for her daughter.

The reason I show all this, is that one has to ask if Mexico is a developing country.  The main roads are excellent, flights go here and there as do nice coaches. Yet Rosa, who is a primary school teacher's aid is living like this.  To be noted:
                                     AVERAGE SALARY per month IN US DOLLARS

United States   $4055                                        Info as of 2015
U.K.                 $3075
Canada             $2283
Mexico            $1018
Brazil               $ 788
Slovak             $  706

So where does Mexico stand?  Not all that far off from Canada.  I think we need another category e.g. Low, high, and medium developed countries.  I am thinking that I am not needed here.  It really is a medium to high (the high being in richer areas) developed country.  What do you think?

A TOURIST IN CUERNAVACA

To be a tourist in Cuernavaca means that one concentrates on the centre of the city.  I have been driven all over the place and to me it all looks the same with cemented buildings often opened to divulge a small tienda usually selling junk food, drinks and the like.  These are interspersed with others selling clothes, or cell phones, or handmade items, or fruit.

Then there is the centre.  Around a lovely park are street upon street with stores that sell mainly shoes (I have never seen so many shoe stores). Equal or in second place are stores for cell phones and cell phone stuff.  I could not find a battery for my camera.  There is only one camera store and it didn't have my kind of camera.  EVERYONE has one of the latest cell phones. And yes, they are on it almost constantly.

But let's look at the best part of Cuernavaca...el centro.

This is in the central parque where bands are heard daily.

                        My teacher and I in the park.  He is buying juice from one of the many stalls.

                  These are shots from the gardens outside an art museum and no one was there.

These three churches are situated around a beautiful square with lovely gardens.  The top one offers mass in English, the second in a the local language and the bottom is part of the La Cathedrale which is a 15th century building.

This whole area is beautiful and relaxing, but it is so hard to get to in that it takes me an hour of rough bumpy bus riding to get there.  I did spend a couple of hours in the cafeteria overlooking the gardens. Unfortunately there was a negative side to my pleasure: I spent $12 on a plate of fruit, a brownie and a popsicle.  I had not calculated it until later.  When you see $25 you need to stop and think that this is in pesos and that amounts to our $2.50 or so.

What makes me so dumb these days!! I am learning. But oh, so slowly.

DAILY LIFE IN CUERNAVACA

Starting the day is difficult for me because I awake so early and everybody is still asleep.  Thanks to WIFI I can read or go on line.  Usually everyone (Rosa and Angelica) are up by about 7:30. 

In order to take a shower, I have to turn a little knob just above the washing machine which is outside.  Then, I will get lukewarm water. 

After dressing or before, I usually have a breakfast of a chocolate grainy thing and milk.  Rosa calls it granola. There is a problem with meals, in fact.  Rosa's sister in law has had trouble delivering her baby, so Rosa and Angelica have been spending the day with her.  Also, Rosa confided in me that the amount Alfredo (the organizer) has given her is "not enough".  For either of those two reasons, food has been scarce. When I arrived the fridge was bare.  As of now, she has not provided more than 2 or 3 meals.  I fend for myself.  In fact I don't mind, because then I manage to eat the things I prefer.  I sometimes eat at the "Fondation".  Most meals consist of a carbohydrate (rice or beans) tortillas and some other thing not usually meat and a sauce.

My day is made up of a morning of studying or a morning at the "Fondacion" a home for street kids.  If at the latter I am counseling young boys.  If it is a study morning then I am working in the afternoon with an 18 or 19 year old who is passionate to learn English.

Pro Chavos is the name of the foundation.  It is part of a foundation made up of a number of smaller locales such that the children are in a family-like situation.  Where I am working is a lovely compound of grass, trees and a wonderful ambience. There are "corales"  one containing 3 adult sheep and 2 babies, another containing all 2 turkeys, a few geese, ducks, chickens, hens, and rooster. There is a large plastic covered area, about the size of my house, which is devoted to hydroponic vegetable farming.  Along the front wall of the compound is a fish hatchery pond along side of which are 4 or 5 turtles. The house is not very big.  It contains a kitchen and bedrooms where the boys sleep in bunk beds, four to a room.  Most of what is done, including what I do, is done outside on a large lawn, under the shade of beautiful big trees.

To see more, check out the website:   Pro Chavos a.c.

The trip to and fro consists of a walk down a hill from Rosa's gated community to a bus that comes every 5 minutes or so.  I clutch my 8 pesos to hand to the driver.  The ride a sVERY bumpy one, some distance, until we get to a stone wall which is my cue to say "para por favor" and off I get to start the trek down a steep hill, across a bridge around a corner and up a very steep hill, past a hospital down a street along 12 foot cement walls until I get to a metal blue door.  I crack open the door, say "Hola" and I am in.

Returning the way I came, I finally trudge home in the hot sun, arrive at my domicile to the barking of two small dogs who are true ankle-bitters, I mean they actually try to bite me when they are out.  If I am lucky they are inside.  I make it into a nice cool house, head for my room at the end of the house and take all my clothes off.

This will be my life until the end of the month.

Carnaval Jiutepec

We danced, that is if you can call leaning on one foot then the other to the rhythm of the music.  It was hard to do otherwise considering that we were belly to back, shoulder to shoulder.  There were 4 or more bands and at the end of each song we would all shout ooooo!!
It was very colourful and very loud.  

My phone and camera were not working but good videos are on:
     Carnaval Jiutepec Mexico

Weekend

Mexico City

I, all on my own, took a bus from here to the centre of Cuernavaca, walked to the Pullman bus station, and headed for Mexico City on Saturday morning, a day of no studies.  This is a moment to talk about buses.  The local buses come every 5 minutes or so and are rumbly old machines whose drivers grind gears, change them frequently making the bumps in the road all more jarring.  The inter city bus however was as smooth as silk.  It provided a movie and comfortable reclining seats.  What a change!

I chose to go to Mexico because I was not intending to go back there to fly out and I figured I was close enough to take a look.  Well, I am going to go there for a few days after my stint here, because I am really taken by it.  I took a "jump on jump off" bus to tour around.  Since I arrived at near noon and had to leave by 4 or so, I did not have time to do just that.  There are so many lovely parks and museums to see that I will have to stay for a few days and do the "jump off and jump on" in earnest.

The architecture and park system us superb.  Beautiful old buildings with intricate design like the cathedral are mixed with magnificent modern sky scrapers.  The latter stand out because they are given space around them.  Not like our buildings down town which are too close together to appreciate.  Art is prime.  Parks are prime.  I must have seen at least a half dozen of them or more.  I am not talking about little patches here and there, I am talking about huge areas the size of 5 or 6 blocks. And as in all Latino countries and cities, there are plazas, many  with marketing stalls.  The most startling one was Cathedral Square.

As I popped up from the metro stairs I saw this expanse of concrete surrounded by 16 and 17 century buildings.  At the corner was a huge covered stage with a mariachi band playing full force.  On my right were 2 magnificent churches of the most intricate design.  Beside it was a group of Aztec dancers dancing a complicated dance to a drummed beat. On the far side of the square were streets after streets of pedestrian only shopping.  Each street specialized in one thing only, e.g. jewelry only, or glasses only, or clothing only, or food only.  Fascinating.

I wished I had more time, so I definitely will go there and stay for a while.

CUERNAVACA

Well here I am in a city where homes are built in ravines,on and around hills and cliffs, up and around 75 degree roads with cars driving fast over potholes until they meet a speed bump every 20 feet or so.  Ah watch out, we are going around a blind curve and oh my gosh there is a car coming out of a side street with no stop sign!

I am supposed to be here to work with kids in an orphanage.  We went to the place the other day and I am impressed.  It is huge, consisting of many sparkling white  buildings, a pool, playground, and many vans for transportation.  I have brought a number of things from my playroom for the young ones and now find out that I will be working with teens as well.  Oh, but I won't. there is a plague of measles and the place is quarantined!

So the organizer of this jaunt, who drives a taxi on the side, and who failed to pick me up at the airport, drives me around and around Cuernavaca to meet Rosa's family and friends. Alfredo is his name.  He had two groups of people to pick up at the airport, one being Rosa's uncle and aunt, the other me.  Well I waited 2 hours and finally took a taxi and got 6 hours sleep at a decent but cheap hotel.  We finally made contact via email and he picked me up the next morning. Seems he was late because of having to deposit the one group and returning to get me.....whatever.

I am living with Rosa and her 11 year old daughter.  Neither speak a word of English, so here I am immersed.  She has been wonderful in dragging me around all weekend.  We have had breakfast at her mother's little restaurant, if one can call it that.  It consists of one room, the size of a large bathroom, and a table outside.  But boy, the food is great!  I now have met all the family, including the group picked up from the airport,  They have come in from Chicago and turn out to be Rosa's uncle and aunt.  Since no one else speaks English, it was nice to talk Trump with someone who spoke English.  

I have now also had breakfast at Rosa's brother's place as well as a BBQ at a friend's birthday party.  That brings me to the topic of food.  We seem to eat 2 meals a day, both consisting of about the same thing.  It's good, but very much the same, consisting of tortillas, into which or around which could be beans, a mix of onions, tomatoes, cactus, green beans, apa, and sometimes meat.  Everyone shouts at me when I go for some salsa or onion combination, saying "picante"!  They are very aware of my response to such concoctions when I dipped a radish into what I thought was guacamole. Gad!!  I thought my mouth was on fire!  Yet this is common fare.

The house I am living in could fit into my living room and dinning room.  And I have the only bedroom.  Rosa and Angelica sleep in beds that are part of the rest of the house.  The house is part of a series of boxes all around a minuscule pool.  The whole place is gated.  In fact gates, metal doors, iron bars and 10 to 20 foot cement walls iare the norm every where. I pointed it out to Alfredo and he replied that there were a lot of criminals around.  I wonder at the open spaces in the rest of north America and all the violence in the U.S.  We should be building walls???

Since I am not working at present, I am concentrating on my Spanish.  I am getting 2 hours of lessons every day.  Alfredo is a good teacher and he presents interesting topics.  I have only had 2 days of lessons, the first based on Mexican sayings and the second on jokes told by a Spanish Kermit.  Alfredo is quite dramatic, so our discussions are fun. Everything is in Spanish.  I have not spoken English since seeing the folks from Chicago.  Hope that means I will get better.  I still cannot understand anything on T.V. nor when people are nattering to each other. Yet, I do converse with Rosa and Alfredo.  Maybe time will tell.