Category: Mexican Daily Life

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Loca

Ernesto has two daughters by Loca, a woman from his neighborhood. He is adamant that he didn’t like Loca and never married her, but he has always loved his daughters. He calls them Princesa and Reina. In this essay, I call them Uno and Dos.

Loca’s mother owned the house that Neto and Loca rented when the girls were young. Most mornings, Loca’s mother would put her fat head in his bedroom window and yell, “Get up you good-for-nothing lazy ass.” When I first met Ernesto, he was working nights as a security guard at a parking lot. He had often just returned home from working overnight when his landlady appeared at his window.

The first year Neto worked for me, he was excited  about Christmas. He saved $700 from his paychecks to buy gifts for Uno and Dos, who were six and ten years old. It was the first time he had money to spend for gifts. He bought bicycles and art supplies. The girls were delighted when they saw their gifts on Christmas night. They called him Papí and gave him hugs and kisses.  After he put the girls to bed, he came back to the living room and Loca threw him out of the house. She told him never to return. He was too embarrassed to tell me or his mother what had happened, so he went to sleep on the beach. The girls woke up  the day after Christmas Day and he was gone.

When Neto came to work for me the next day, I asked him, “How was your Christmas?”

“It was nice,” he told me. “The girls really liked their gifts.”

Neto spent the next nine months sleeping in the sand. He slept on the beach until he moved into my house the following September.

Loca tormented me the entire time I lived in Mazatlán. She didn’t want Neto to live with her and the girls, but she didn’t want him at my house, either. Eventually, she chased me out of Mexico. She was not the only reason I left, of course, but she was one of the main ones.

Loca’s weapon was the telephone. She called my house at all hours, wanting to speak to Neto. If I answered the phone, she hung up and immediately called back. One night, when Neto was at his AA meeting, she called sixty-three times in a row. It was a landline so I could get calls from the U.S. After that, I unplugged the phone and only plugged it in when Neto was home.

Loca knew that Neto was devoted to his daughters, especially Dos. She would call late at night with alarming news:

“Dos has been raped. You need to meet me at the hospital.”

“Dos is choking. You need to take us to the hospital.”

“The girls have run away. You need to help me look for them.”

Neto would jump on his bicycle and fly out of the house. Of course, all of these were false alarms, but what father would take a chance? Certainly not Neto.

The five years I lived in Mexico, I noticed that the girls wore clothes that were dirty, torn and wrong for the season. They didn’t do well in school. Uno failed two grades in elementary school and didn’t move on to middle school until she was thirteen years old. Neto tried to get custody of the girls but was denied by a judge, who was bribed by Loca’s mother.

One day, I heard someone pounding on my front door. I opened the door and saw an armored truck full of police carrying automatic weapons.

“We have reports that you have kidnapped this woman’s children,” said a policewoman, who spoke English. “Where are they?”

“I did not kidnap them! They are not here,” I answered.

Loca was standing next to two policemen. She was speaking in agitated Spanish. I lost it. I started screaming in a mixture of English and tortured Spanish. “This woman is crazy! Because of her, I’m leaving Mexico and never coming back.”

“Please don’t leave,” the policewoman said. “We believe you. But we had to check this out.”

I left Mexico in 2010 and Neto went back to living at his mother’s house. They girls visited him every Sunday, asking for money and food.

Follow-up:

Uno is now 28 years old. She has a son and a daughter, by a man from the neighborhood. He is a known drug-dealer and is often in rehab. Uno lives with her mother-in-law and works full-time. She calls Neto about once/week.

Dos is 24 years old. She has two daughters. She lives with a man who is an Uber driver and she calls Neto only when the Uber car breaks down. She seldom calls, unless I am visiting. Then she calls relentlessly, just as her mother did years ago.

The parish priest recently came hurrying down the street to find Neto. A band a neighbors were close behind.

“Neto, you have to do something with Loca.”

“Why? What is she doing?”

She is standing outside my church, yelling, “The Virgin Mary is a whore!”

“Call the police,” Neto told them. “I’ve never been able to do anything with that woman. She’s Loca!”

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Ransom

Two years ago, Ernesto qualified to compete in the Mexican National Surfing Contest. He was elated. It was the second time in his life that he qualified for the tournament. The first time was more than forty years ago, when he was 21 years old. That year the tournament was canceled because the waves were not high enough for competition.  Neto went home, disappointed and disgruntled. He had trained for a year and didn’t have his moment to shine. He decided to leave Mexico and go the United States. He wanted to learn to speak English and surf the California beaches. He didn’t return to Mexico permanently for almost twenty years.

Now, at the age of sixty-two, he had a second chance to compete in the Mexican National Tournament. He had accumulated enough points in two separate spring trials to compete in the fall. He was determined to get in shape and win. He surfed throughout the spring and early summer. He was a man with a mission.

Neto called me one night in July, 2022, clearly upset. “I just got the worst news of my life,” he blurted out.

“Oh, my God, what happened?” I figured someone had died or been in a terrible accident.

“Someone broke into the warehouse and stole a lot of surfboards, including my two competition boards.”

I was relieved that no one had died. I didn’t understand that this was traumatic for Neto. Without his boards, he couldn’t compete in the national tournament. He couldn’t practice. There was no longer a reason to get in shape or even get out of bed in the morning.

Dear readers, you need to understand that surfing is Neto’s life. It is his reason for being. His passion for the ocean is what has saved him all these year. This was a major existential crisis.

Neto and the other surfers who had their boards stolen mounted a campaign to get them back. They combed the beaches and notified their friends in surfing towns up and down the Pacific Coast. They visited every surf merchant and pawn shop in town, to no avail. The boards had disappeared.

Neto learned to surf when he was thirteen years old. He was a surfing pioneer  and is easily still one of the best surfers in Mazatlán. His style is smooth and graceful. He looks like a dancer on top of the water.

Neto’s surfboard is as easily recognized as he is. It is bright blue, and 6’4″ long. He’s had it since 2010. Looking out into the ocean, seeing that blue board bobbing in the water waiting for the next big wave, everyone knows that Ernesto Flores is about to take another ride. No robber could sell or pawn that board without getting caught. But it was gone. Nowhere to be found.

Without his board, Neto became more and more depressed. He didn’t want to go to the beach. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He started drinking again. He laughed and pretended that he was ok, but he wasn’t.

This winter, more than a year after his board was stolen, Neto stopped looking for his stolen boards and bought another board. His new board is yellow and black. It is a 7’4″ long-board. He was happy to be surfing again. His friends were happy to see him back on the beach.

Two weeks ago, the surfing community was buzzing. There were rumors that someone knew where the original stolen boards were being kept. They were still in Mazatlán, in someone’s garage. Publio, Neto’s best friend and surfing buddy, found the man with the garage. The man swore he wasn’t the person who stole the boards, but he was willing to return them ~ for a price. He wanted  Publio to be the intermediary. He didn’t want Neto to confront him in person.

Neto was willing to deal. He would do anything necessary to get his blue board back. He scraped together the ransom money and gave it to Publio. Last Tuesday night, Neto waited anxiously at Publio’s house, while his friend drove to the suspected garage. Two hours later Publio returned, the blue board strapped to the top of his silver Volkswagen station wagon. 

Neto’s board is back. So is he!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Mango Wars

There were two huge mango trees in my Mazatlán courtyard. They were a source of welcome shade throughout the year and wonderful, fragrant blossoms beginning in January. By spring the trees were heavy with delicious sweet mangoes. Thousands of mangoes! More mangoes than one person could eat or even dispose of without a plan.

But Neto had a plan. He hung a sign on the door that said, “Free Mangoes!” and invited anyone walking down the street to ring the doorbell, come inside and help themselves. I didn’t realize that Mona and José, my next door neighbors, wouldn’t like what I was doing.

 

First Mona pleaded with me to ban the neighborhood children from coming into the courtyard. She wanted me to put mangoes in bags and hand them out the door, as if it were Halloween.

That way, she reasoned, no one would know what my courtyard looked like. Her exact words were, “You don’t know what you are doing. These kids are bad. They are surfers!”

Mona told me that even the police were angry with me for opening my courtyard to children coming from the beach. When I told her that I would be careful but I intended to continue to give away free mangoes, I thought she would explode.

Later that day, Neto and his best friend, Publio, were up on the rooftop picking mangoes when José came to the open window that overlooked my house. He started screaming at Neto. “You are looking in my window! Stop looking at me! Stop looking at me”

José picked up a fallen mango and pitched it right at Publio’s head so hard it could have killed him. Luckily, José, an old and unsteady pitcher, missed. Publio, who is generally very passive, said that if he’d gotten hit he would have just started pitching mangoes right back at the old fool. And by that time, Publio had an arsenal of more than sixty mangoes at his disposal.

I wish I had used that opportunity to tell those two busybodies to close up their windows and they wouldn’t have to worry about people looking in or climbing through the windows to rob them. Of course, then they couldn’t watch what I was doing, either.

Soon whole families were at my door, holding plastic bags. Word spread throughout the neighborhood about our ripe, juicy, free mangoes. We brought the families inside, and turned on the music. There was dancing and laughter in the courtyard. There was a party goin’ on! 

One Saturday, after a week-long Mango Fiesta, my doorbell rang about 2:00 in the afternoon. I opened the door to find two uniformed policemen standing there. I remembered what Mona said and figured they were there to arrest me or, at least, warn me about the dangers of opening my door to children. 

Before I could say anything, one of the policemen pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket and asked, “Are you still giving away free mangoes?”

“Por supuesto! Of course!” I said. “Here use this ladder to get on the roof and pick all the mangoes you’d like.”

“And,” I added with a smile, “Come back any time.”

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Mona and José

In September, 2004, I wanted to move to Mexico. It was an impulsive decision on my part and I never regretted it. I flew to Mazatlán and talked to a realtor. I asked him to show me homes for sale in El Centro, the downtown section of Mazatlán. The first place I saw was a huge house, owned by Mona Felton and her husband, José Fuentevilla. The home took up an entire city block.

“Only half the house is for sale,” the realtor explained. “It used to be where the servants lived and worked. Mona and José have run into financial problems and need to sell this part of their home. They are going to continue to live in the main house.”

The realtor opened the door marked 222 Circunvalacion. My eyes popped. The home was at least one hundred years old. The servants left long ago. There were huge mango trees in the courtyard and banana trees it the back. It looked as if the patio hadn’t been swept in months. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to put a fountain in the middle. I wanted to make this big house my own. 

I bought the home eight months later. Jose and Mona became my neighbors in an on-again-off-again friendship. I learned that Mona was from a very old, very influential Mazatlán family. The Feltons were early entrepreneurs from England. They established the water system, the lumberyard and a technical college. They ran for political office and usually won. 

Mona met José on a trip to Spain, when she was a young woman. They fell in love and were married, much to the dismay of her aristocratic family who did not approve of Jose’s dark skin. I found José to be very charming ~ except when he wasn’t. The same was true for Mona.

One of the first weeks after I moved in, Mona invited me to go to dinner with her in the Zona Dorado ~ the Golden Zone. Zona Dorado is the tourist part of town, known for its multi-story condos and fancy restaurants on the beach.

Mona picked me up in her white Chevy Blazer. The car lurched as she sped away down the street. Her eyes were everywhere except on the road. As I reached to put on my seatbelt, Mona grabbed my arm. “Please don’t put that on,” she said. “People will think I’m a bad driver.”

Over the course of the five years I lived in Mazatlán, I had many encounters with José and Mona. One of the first was when Neto and I realized that someone was stealing our water.

ME: “Neto, why is our water bill so high? Does everyone pay this much for water.”

NETO: “This bill can’t be right. We’re paying as much for water as a whole block of people.”

AHA!! Neto search the back patio. He looked behind the banana trees and saw a water pipe going from our hook-up straight into José’s kitchen. He cut the pipe and capped it off.

ME: “Are you going to say anything to José?”

NETO: “No. He’ll figure it out.”

José and Mona kept a pack of fancy dogs on their second floor balcony, overlooking our patio. I never saw the dogs but they barked constantly. There must have been five or six of them. No one ever walked the dogs outside. I assumed they were “rooftop dogs” ~ a common practice in Mexico of keeping dogs on the roof. They are considered guard dogs and are not treated as pets. I asked Mona about them,

“Mona, why do you have so many guard dogs on your balcony?”

“Oh, those aren’t guard dogs. Those are my breeding dogs. They are very expensive. I sell their puppies for extra money.”

I hated those dogs. With their constant barking, they didn’t give me a minute’s worth of peace.

One day I noticed that we had a bunch of mice running around our courtyard. I talked to Neto.

“Neto, is there anything we can do about all these mice? They are all over the courtyard and I really don’t want them in the house.”

“Sure. I can get some mouse poison. If we don’t stop them now, they will be in the kitchen by tomorrow.”

Neto put mouse poison in the courtyard. Before they died, the mice went crazy. They ran up our mango trees and into Jose’s balcony, where the dogs were barking as usual. The dogs chased the mice and ate them.

The next day, I saw Mona at the tortilla shop across the street. She looked terrible.

What´s happened, Mona?”

“All my dogs got sick and died. Now I don’t have any dogs to breed. I don’t have any more puppies to sell.”

“Do you know how they died?”

“No. I came outside when I didn’t hear them barking. That’s when I found them. They were all dead.”

I didn’t say any more. I didn’t expect to kill Mona’s dogs when I poisoned the mice. I felt guilty when I realized that I was happy not to hear their constant barking.

I asked Neto, “Should I tell Mona that we are responsible for her dogs dying?”

“No,” he answered. “She won’t figure it out.”

One of my last conversations with José was in 2008, when I returned to Mazatlán after cancer surgery. 

“Where have you been? Neto has been here without you all summer.”

“Oh, José. I’ve been recovering from cancer surgery. I’ve been really sick.”

Then José told me that he’d been diagnosed with cancer, too. “But my doctor told me about a cure.”

“Really? What?”

“Every morning, I pee in a pitcher. I mix my urine with fresh orange juice and drink it. It doesn’t taste bad. It’s going to save my life.”

Last year I learned that José died of prostate cancer. He and Mona were my friends. He was a good guy. I wish his doctor’s cure had worked for him. I hope he died knowing that I was happy to be his neighbor..

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Lobo

The years I spent in Mazatlan, running a home for snowbirds, are some of my fondest memories. The people I met were fun and funny,  thoughtful and kind. Some of them became my friends for life. With one exception. Because I can’t use his real name, I’ll call him Lobo.

The last summer I lived in Mazatlan, I was ready to sell my place and return to the U.S. I needed someone to house-sit while I was away. Someone who would sweep the courtyard every day and make sure the kitchen was clean. Two of my guests recommended Lobo. They met him at church and were impressed by his demeanor and intelligence. According to them, Lobo was an attorney with two daughters living in the U.S. He was a tennis player and a Spanish-speaker. He was about my same age. I thought Lobo was the person I was looking for.

I met with Lobo and explained his responsibilities. I had him sign a rental agreement that stated that he could use the guest quarters, but that the owner’s side of the home would be locked. I would not charge him rent as long as he lived up to our agreement.

Lobo had free rein in the kitchen, but my telephone was off-limits. Lobo pushed me to let him use my office but I held firm. I told him that a friend would be checking my home on a regular basis, to see if everything was ok.

I was back in Colorado for only a few weeks when i started receiving emails. Everything was not ok! Lobo was not sweeping the courtyard, which was now full of mango leaves. Lobo was seen urinating on the front door when he came home drunk at night. The neighbor complained that Lobo often walked around the courtyard totally naked, in full view of the neighbor’s young grandchildren. Lobo needed to go.

I called Neto and asked him to meet me at the airport to help me evict Lobo. When we arrived , Lobo was not yet home. We found a set of lock picks on the kitchen counter. The door to my office was wide open. We swept the courtyard, which was ankle deep in dead mango leaves, and cleaned the kitchen while we waited for Lobo to come home. He was surprised and not happy to see us.

When I told Lobo we were there to evict him, he went crazy. He bellowed like a bull. He pounded his fist on the kitchen counter and started spewing lawyer talk. He said he wasn’t leaving and we couldn’t make him. He grabbed the telephone off my desk and started running down the courtyard toward his room. Neto ran right behind him. When I told Lobo to stop, he threw the telephone at me, hitting my upper arm with full force.

Neto was a super-hero. He’s the most athletic man I know. His nickname is “Chanfles” because of the powerful left kick that was his trademark when he played soccer as a kid. Neto’s famous left kick landed square on Lobo’s testicles. Lobo fell to his knees and whimpered like a baby. We told Lobo to start packing. We were going to find a lawyer.

We returned with a lawyer and Lobo was still screaming. He hadn’t packed anything. We called the police, who arrived and said we needed to go before a judge. The police put Lobo in their car. Neto and I went in the lawyer’s car and we were off to see the judge.

Lobo sat quietly in the corner of the courtroom. The judge immediately pointed at Neto and said, “What has this guy done?” The lawyer said nothing. Neto explained that he was not the criminal. He was the owner. The criminal was the old man sitting quietly in the corner. We needed the judge to sign an order to evict him. Lobo responded that Neto had kicked him in the balls and he wanted to press charges. He offered to show his bruised balls to the judge, who declined to take a look.

The judge ruled in our favor and everybody trooped back to our house: Me and Neto, the lawyer, the policemen and Lobo. The police told Lobo to start packing. For forty-five minutes nothing happened.. The lawyer said he couldn’t do anything. Finally one of the younger policemen told Lobo he had five more minutes to get in the car. They would drop him off at a hotel up the street.

The young policeman then turned to us and asked if the room was now available to rent. He would like to live there. He would love to be our house-sitter. 

Lobo climbed into the back of the police car, looked at me and said, “Nos vemos.” (See you later.)

I replied, “Vete al Diablo.” (Go to Hell)

The lawyer approached us and said we owed him $1000.00. U.S.

I replied, “Besame el culo.” (Kiss my ass.) I was barely a Spanish-speaker but it’s always a good idea to learn the bad words first.

I still google Lobo’s name from time to time. He’s now living in a fancy retirement community in Florida, where he regularly terrorizes the residents with his obnoxious behavior. He recently spent six weeks in jail for impersonating a lawyer. I was lucky to get rid of him with only a bruise on my arm. 

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Osprey, Neto and Me

I love the osprey who spend summers on a tower at the edge of a pond at the Boulder Country Fairgrounds. The resident osprey pair fly in from separate far-away places about the middle of March. And the drama begins. 

Some of us follow the osprey every year, hoping for eggs to hatch and healthy baby birds who learn to fly.

 We don’t know where the osprey spend their winters and we wait anxiously for their arrival. We worry that they may not both arrive safely. Usually the pair arrives on different days. The fun begins as we watch them get to know each other once again. 

The osprey are bonded as a pair until one of them dies. Only then do they find a new partner.

It’s a policy not to name the osprey who return to Boulder every spring. But if they had names, they would be Lynda and Ernesto.

Neto and I are very much like the osprey. For one thing, I’m older than he is. We live far apart, in two separate countries, and once a year we meet up in a familiar place. We try to arrive on the same day, but never at the same time. When we get together, we trade stories about places we’ve been and people we knew together. I imagine that’s what the osprey do, too.

The birds spend time remodeling their nest and making sure they have food. The female shrieks, “Food… Food! I’m hungry. Bring me a big fat fish!” And Ernesto leaves the tower and swoops down to find a fish for them to share.

Nights are especially tender as they share space on their perch, high in the sky, and watch sunset together. 

This year both osprey arrived at the nest on the same day. That’s where mine and Neto’s story differ from the osprey pair. I arrived in Puerto Vallarta on Sunday, April 9, after an especially easy travel day. Friends met me at the airport and took me to lunch before I checked into Las Palomas, the sweet little hotel where Neto and I stay before going by bus to Mazatlán.

While my trip was easy and predictable, Neto’s journey was simply horrible. He boarded the bus in Mazatlán at 10:45 p.m., Saturday night, expecting to arrive in Puerto Vallarta five hours ahead of me. He slept all the way to the state of Nayarit. He awoke when two inspectors boarded his bus in front of a clinic, near the bus terminal in Tepic. It was 3:30 a.m.

“We believe some people on this bus have Covid,” the inspectors announced. “Everyone needs to be tested.” 

At 5:30 a.m., the inspectors allowed the young people to exit the bus, believing that only people over the age of fifty-five might be sick. A few elderly people in the front of the bus were coughing. Neto began to think he had a fever.

Passengers had to surrender their ID’s. They were not allowed to talk to each other or make calls on their telephones. Neto texted me to say he was going to be late. The passengers sat quietly on the bus for four more hours, until 9:30 a.m, when employees of the clinic boarded the bus and began testing people.

 At noon the passengers were informed that they all tested positive for Covid and would be quarantined for 24 hours. My plane was scheduled to arrive in ten minutes.

All the passengers were escorted off the bus and into the clinic. They were given a cot  and a sandwich. I received only sporadic texts from Neto, and most of them were too cryptic to understand. Was he really sick? Was he contagious? Should I catch a plane back to Denver?

I didn’t hear Neto’s voice again until noon on Monday, when he was allowed to make a phone call and leave the clinic. He was not allowed to get on a bus to Puerto Vallarta because, after all, he tested positive for Covid. 

Neto caught a taxi to a different bus company and decided to take a bus to Guadalajara. At 5:00 p.m, Monday afteroon,I received a text from Neto. He was in Guadalajara and expected to meet me at the hotel  in six hours, by 11:00 p.m. 

By midnight, Neto still wasn’t at our hotel. I called him. His bus was not the newer, faster, express bus that travels on the toll road. Instead, it was an older, slower bus that stopped in every small town to pick up more passengers.

At 3:00 a.m, Tuesday morning,  a lovely hotel security guard walked Neto to our room, where I was waiting for him. The trip, which normally takes less than eight  hours, took more than fifty-two. I was as happy as an osprey to see him again! It had been a long, hard flight!!

 

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A Rough Beginning

I landed in Puerto Vallarta on Sunday, October 2nd. I knew it would be rough because there were warnings of a Category 4 hurricane up the coast, from Puerto Vallarta to Mazatlan. I didn’t know how rough the beginning would actually be.

First the hurricane. My plane landed on time, without incident. Neto took off from Mazatlán the night before. Usually his bus ride to Puerto Vallarta takes seven hours. Because of the hurricane, his ride took seventeen.

I heard from Neto after my plane had landed and he was still four hours outside of  Puerto Vallarta. He’d been on the bus all night, while the bus was battered with wind and rain. Roads were washed out by mudslides. I waited sitting in the only chair I could find, at the Subway restaurant inside the airport.

We spent the next two nights at Las Palomas, a lovely small hotel in Tondoroque, across the road from the crocodile farm and Flamingos golf course.

Tuesday morning the weather was beautiful. The hurricane missed Mazatlan but hit Rosario, a small town south of Mazatlán. By the time it made landfall, the hurricane was downgraded to a Category 1. Roads and fields were flooded but damage was minimal.

We went to the bus station early Tuesday morning and bought two tickets to Tepic. The ticket agent assured us that we could get a connecting bus in Tepic and be in Mazatlán by 4:00. Not so.

We arrived in Tepic and was told that there was only one seat available on the bus to Mazatlán. Another bus would be available in three hours, at 2:15. p.m. 

We waited outside, eagerly watching for bus #2008 to arrive on time. Aye, no! An official looking woman let us know that the bus coming from Guadalajara had a flat tire. 

“It will be here in two hours,” she assured us. I should have known better. Mexican people are famous for telling you what they think you want to hear, rather than what is actually happening. It was almost 5:00 by the time bus #2008 arrived. We were still four hours from Mazatlán.

Ernesto called our host throughout the day, to let her know we were going to be late. When we arrived the host told us she couldn’t meet us.

“I’m sorry but I have a commitment at my son’s school.” Really?? By this time it was 10:0, on a Tuesday night.

Between Ernesto and the taxi driver, we were able to get through two security gates and find the key to our unit. It was not at all what I expected.

The kitchen cupboards were broken. Doors were off their hinges and the drawers wouldn’t close. Living room furniture was dirty and worn. There is a washing machine but no dryer. The patio is not warm and inviting. In fact, it is downright ugly. The host has mostly 5-Star ratings. I thought we were in the wrong house.

That’s when Ernesto let me know that his boss called and he needed to go to work “for a few hours.” He arrived home at 9:00 the next morning. The security guard who was supposed to relieve him, never showed up. Neto has no access to his phone at work and I had no idea where he was.

“All the guards stayed home during the hurricane and never came back,” he explained the next morning.

The same day (Wednesday) when we were going to go to the store for groceries, Ernesto was called into work at 3:00 p.m. His boss promised him double pay and reduced hours. He made a quick trip to the local convenience store for a loaf of bread, some mayonnaise and a package of Chihuahua cheese for sandwiches. 

“I should be home by 10:00.” By now, you know what happens next. Neto wasn’t home by 10:00 p.m. He was home by 10:00 the next morning. I told him to quit the job. 

“Don’t expect to be paid,” I told him. “We’ve been through this before.”

On Thursday, Neto went to work, cleaned out his locker and resigned. He waited until 5:00 to pick up his final paycheck, which never arrived. None of the other guards were paid either. They are all still waiting.

On Friday, Neto got up early, in search of his paycheck. While he was at the job site, he decided to go for a swim in the ocean.  We still hadn’t been to get groceries. I was out of patience. We were out of food. I hadn’t seen the swimming pool.

I sent pictures of the broken cabinets to the Airbnb host and told her we were not responsible for the damage. I made myself yet another cheese sandwich. I was a screaming banshee. I told Neto I was miserable and wanted to go home. 

But today is better. We finally made it to Walmart for food. I’ve seen the pool and it is lovely. I’m looking forward to a more promising week ahead.

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¡Viva Independencia!

Dia de Independencia (Independence Day) was my introduction to over-the-top holiday celebrations in Mexico. I had just moved to Mazatlán and my furniture hadn’t arrived yet. I carried a sauce pan, a frying pan, and a few plastic dishes in my luggage. I bought a small bed, a tiny outdoor table and two plastic chairs at Sam’s Club. I went to the used appliance store and bought a stove and a refrigerator. I had enough to survive but I was eager to get my belongings.

My moving truck was stalled at the border because the inspector found a package of new sheets in one of my 250 boxes. Because I couldn’t prove that I paid sales tax in the U.S. for the sheets., I had to give the inspector $200.00 to approve my move across the border.

I know it was a bribe. I know the bribe cost more than the sheets were worth. I was lucky. He didn’t open the box that contained the digital grand piano. That didn’t have a receipt either.

Truly, I felt trapped that day, September 16, 2005, as I watched Neto and his friends install a fountain in my courtyard. There was nothing I could do until the moving truck arrived.

And then I heard a police siren announcing a parade. The most wonderful parade I’d ever seen.

That’s when I knew I made the right decision. My home was right on the parade route. For the next five years, I watched every parade, (and there are a lot of them!) from my plastic chair placed right in front of my doorway.

Día de la Independencia marks the moment when Father Miguel Hidalgo, a Catholic priest, made his cry for independence. His chants, ¡Viva Mexico! and ¡Viva Independencia¡ encouraged rebellion and called for an end to Spanish rule in Mexico.

The Spanish regime was not prepared for the suddenness, size, and violence of the rebellion. From a small spontaneous gathering at Father Hidalgo’s church in Delores, the army swelled to include farm workers from local estates, prisoners liberated from jail, and a few soldiers who revolted from the Spanish army.

Farmers used agricultural tools to fight. Rebel soldiers had guns and bullets. Indians, armed with bows and arrow, joined the cause. The revolution rapidly moved beyond the village of Dolores to towns throughout Mexico.

Father Hidalgo was captured and executed on July 30, 1811. Father José Maria Morelos, a seminary student and friend of Father Hidalgo, took charge. The movement’s banner, with an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, was symbolically important. She was seen as a protector and liberator  of dark-skinned Mexicans. Many men in Hidalgo’s forces went into battle wearing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on their clothes. The War of Independence was won on September 27, 1821.

Much like the Fourth of July in the U.S., Mexicans celebrate their country’s Independence Day with fireworks, parties, food, dancing and music. Flags, flowers and decorations in the colors of the Mexican flag – red, white and green – are seen everywhere in cities and towns throughout Mexico. Whistles and horns are blown and confetti is thrown to celebrate the occasion. Chants of “Viva Mexico” are shouted among the crowds. And school children, dressed in Mexican themes, march through the streets of their neighborhood.

The following day a moving truck with all of my belongings pulled up in front of my house. Out jumped six strong, handsome Mexican men, ready to unload everything. Boxes containing everything I thought I would need and some things, like Christmas decorations and recipe books, I wasn’t yet ready to part with. And my piano!

¡Viva Mexico!

 

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Neto’s Knee

It started when Neto was running to catch a bus to go home after work. His phone was in his pocket and fell out as he was climbing the steps. The bus took off while Neto was still climbing aboard. Just like that, the bus ran over Neto’s cell phone. What happened since then is a typical Mexican nightmare.

I learned that Neto no longer had a cell phone because he called me from a phone booth two days later. I knew something must be wrong when I didn’t hear from him. Usually he calls me twice a day.

“I’m sorry I haven’t called but the bus ran over my cell phone. Don’t worry. I get paid today. I’ll buy a new phone tomorrow.”

Weeks went by. Neto called me every couple of days from the same pay phone. He could only afford to talk for one minute.

Finally I said, “Do you need me to send you money to buy a new phone?”

“Yes, if you could, please. I ran out of propane and I had to spend my whole paycheck on gas and electricity.”

Here is where the story takes a bad turn for the worse. Some of you will shake your head and believe that Neto is just plagued with bad luck. But this is not a story about luck. It’s a story about life in Mexico, away from the sun and fun of tourists and the resorts.

Neto called to say thank you for sending him money to buy a new phone. Then I didn’t hear from him for five more days. I prayed that he was in jail. It was better than the alternatives.

Sure enough, five days later Neto called me. He was still calling from the same pay phone to tell me he had been in jail. When he went to the phone store to buy a new phone, he was approached by two Mexican policemen. They demanded to know where he had gotten the money to buy a new phone.

“My friend sent it to me from the U.S,” he told them.

“Prove it,” they said. “Or we’re taking you to jail.”

Neto knew they were asking for a bribe. But he didn’t have any money to pay them. He had just spent all the money he had to buy a new phone. So the policemen took him to jail. He left the phone in the store to be set up with a SIM card while he was away.

Without a phone, there was no way Neto could call anyone to ask for help. When he finally saw a judge and was released, Neto again called me from a pay phone. His knee, which was giving him trouble before he went to jail, was now so sore, he couldn’t walk.

Neto hobbled around on the bad knee for a week, not able to go to his job as a night watchman. When he went to a clinic, the doctor told Neto that he needed to have surgery immediately, or he would never walk again. He would never swim or surf. 

“They said I have a ruptured ligament in my knee,” Neto told me. 

Do I know that’s what was really wrong with Neto’s knee? I don’t know anything at all, except that I don’t trust Mexican doctors. Some people swear by the Mexican medical system. I don’t. Unless they have been trained in the U.S. I have no confidence that Mexican doctors know what that are doing. They just make stuff up and convince themselves it’s true.

Neto had surgery that same night. He still had no phone. There was no way for me to get in touch with him. I was frantic, bordering on hysteria.  By now I was praying that the doctors hadn’t cut off his leg. 

Neto was in the clinic for five days. Every couple of days someone would push him in a wheelchair out to the street, where he would call me from another pay phone. Sometimes the calls went through. Often the phone would disconnect as soon as I answered. He kept reassuring me that someone was going to go to the phone store and pick up his phone “tomorrow.”

This past Monday, i was getting worked up again. I hadn’t heard from Neto for days. I didn’t know if he was home or still in the surgery center. I found Neto’s friend, Publio, on Facebook and sent him a private message. I explained that I needed him to find Neto. Publio agreed to go right away.

This week I finally heard from Neto. He is at home and has a cell phone that he’s borrowing from someone. He still hopes to have his own phone “tomorrow.” Because it isn’t an iPhone, I can text Neto but I can’t call him. I’m happy that he is able to call me. 

Here is what Neto is telling me now:

  • The doctor used a laser to fix his knee. Neto is in a lot of pain but the doctors tell him everything is going to be fine.
  • He’s still using a wheelchair and won’t be able to walk “for a couple more weeks.” 
  • He went back to the clinic Wednesday for a check-up. They gave him a shot of something in his ass. He went back yesterday for another shot and will have the final shot on Monday. He doesn’t know if the shot is for osteoporosis or for a yeast infection. Does Neto really need a shot of something every three days? Probably not. But Mexican doctors love to give shots and patients love to get them. They make everyone feel better
  • I pray that Neto will eventually get his job back. I pray that he will surf again.

The moral of this story is this: Being a poor man in a poor country is a curse. That is true, wherever you are. It’s true in Mexico. Let’s not fool ourselves. It’s, likewise, true in the United States.

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Mi Amiga, Eunice

When I lived in Mazatlån, January 2nd was the best day of the year. We called it, “Saskatoon Day.” It was the day our best friends, Eunice and Gordon Laidlaw, arrived from Canada, to spend the next three months with us. They were our first long-term guests and they came back every year from 2006 – 2010. Every day we spent with them was a joy.

In 2006, I was volunteering in the local English-language library when a man came in the library to ask if I knew of any available rooms for rent. Ernesto and I had talked, just that morning, about renting rooms in our house to make some extra money. Ernesto and his crew had finished all the repairs and every room was freshly painted and decorated.

“Well, yes,” I told Gordon Blair. “My house is just around the corner. I have three rooms to rent. You can see them this afternoon, if you’d like.”

“Sounds good. Can I meet you here when your shift is over and we will walk to your house together?”

On the way to my house, Gordon Blair explained that he and his wife, Verna, had just driven from Canada to Mexico with their good friends, the Laidlaws.

“Our place is ok, “ said Godon Blair, “but our friend’s place is dirty and too far away. This is our first visit to Mexico. I hope we haven’t made a mistake.”

“I think you will like it here,” I assured him. 

The door to my home was old and deceiving. It didn’t look promising. But as soon as we opened the door, Gordon’s face lit up. The fountain was bubbling water. The courtyard, with three huge mango trees, was spotless. I showed him all three bedrooms, with cheerful bedding and private bathrooms. The community kitchen was huge. 

“I’m sure our friends will love being here,” Gordon told me. Eunice and Gordon Laidlaw moved in that same night. 

I learned that Gordon Blair had been a funeral director and drove a big, comfortable, black SUV. Gordon Laidlaw used to manage a bank. Eunice and Gordon had been sweethearts since eighth grade.

Verna Blair and and Eunice Laidlaw were homemakers and best friends. They quickly became my best friends, too. 

Verna and Eunice loved to cook and sew. They had children and grandchildren they adored. They went shopping almost every day. Occasionally  the two couples would take side trips in the big black SUV to small villages outside the city. Once in a while I would ride along.

Every day while the ladies were shopping, Gordon sat in the courtyard with Neto, drinking endless cups of coffee and smoking cigarettes.  Gordon loved to listen to Neto’s stories and teased him relentlessly.

“Neto, you and I both act like we’re retired. The difference is, you’ve never worked.”

That winter was sublime. The weather was perfect. Soon our home filled with other guests, who were easy and charming Every day was filled with music and laughter. Eunice fell completely in love in Mexico and Gordon was willing to do anything to make her happy.

The following year tragedy struck Verna Blair, however, when she suffered a severe stroke, from which she never fully recovered. Although the Blairs were not able to return to Mexico, nothing was going to stop Eunice. She promised that she and Gordon would fly back next year, on January 2nd.

Eunice was Mazatlan’s greatest champion. She made friends throughout the city. She especially loved the children she saw on the street and the sunsets she watched every night from the beach near our home.

In 2008, my mother-in-law died and I needed to come back to Colorado, so I put Eunice in charge. She was more strict with Neto than I ever was. She wouldn’t let him have a third cup of coffee until he swept the entire courtyard. She scolded my guests if they didn’t leave the kitchen clean. I came back to a home that was spotless and tidy, but with a diagnosis of breast cancer that was going to require surgery.

The following year was my last year in Mazatlán. I was weak from an undiagnosed staph infection following surgery. Eunice and Gordon, along with Neto, helped me keep my house in order as I gradually became strong enough to climb to the top of the lighthouse again.

I sold my home in 2010 and returned to Colorado. Eunice and Gordon found other accommodations and continued to come to Mazatlan every year. Ernesto and I visited other cities during the winter ~ Los Cabos, Bucerias, Puerto Vallarta, and Curnevaca ~ but I could never convince Eunice to leave her beloved Mazatlan. We stayed connected by lengthy emails and occasional phone calls.

In 2012, I had a sobering message. Eunice was diagnosed with stomach cancer but she  was determine to “kick Cancer’s butt!” and come back to Mazatlan again. Cancer was tough, but Eunice was tougher. She fought like a tiger until her stomach cancer was gone in time for another winter away from Saskatoon. When she returned to Canada the following spring, she was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Again, she went through months of cancer treatment, with the goal always to return to Mexico on January 2nd. Bladder cancer was gone, only to be replaced with breast cancer. And then cancer of her spine. Every year she convinced her doctors she was strong enough to return to Mexico.

I met up with Eunice again, in 2020, right before the pandemic. I decided to come back to Mazatlan, mainly to see my dear friend. She looked good. She was as upbeat and entertaining as ever. 

Neither of us traveled in 2021 ~ due to the pandemic. This year, 2022, Eunice and Gordon were back in Mazatlan, with her cancer once again in remission. They rented an apartment on the beach, so they could watch sunset every night from their balcony. Her doctor, however, felt that her immune system was so compromised by cancer treatment, he recommended that they return to Canada by mid-February. Eunice wrote that she was tired and ready to go home. She wore a mask wherever she went and went outside only to buy groceries. Gordon was always right next to her.

Two weeks ago, I received a very sad message. Eunice wrote to say that cancer had invaded her entire body and she was now “out of options.” She was going into hospice care to die. 

My sweet, funny, dear friend, Eunice Laidlaw died last Friday with Gordon and her children by her side. 

Adios, mi amiga. You will live in my heart forever. Vaya con Dios! Go with God.