not just pineapples and mangos

Mexico is filled with magic moments.

I shared one with you on Saturday (hold the colada). But Mexico is far more complex than being a tropical Disneyland for northern visitors. It is like anyplace in the world with its warts and carbuncles.

One of my pet peeves continues to be garbage. I have written about this private little obsession previously (taking out the trash; cats and birria). And it still rankles.

While the lady who owns the house next door lives her other life in The States, workers have been busy working on the property. Whatever is being done requires breaking up concrete and digging dirt. I know that because a pile of concrete bits, soil, and sand miraculously appeared one morning in the lot across the street from her house.

I do not know who owns the lot. But I know who does not. Undoubtedly, no one bothered to get permission for this act of trespass vandalism.

The next day, the workers were mixing concrete on the ground in the street. It is quite an interesting process. We don't need expensive cement mixers here in Barra de Navidad.

When the workers left, several empty concrete bags had joined the dirt and chunk pile. Along with plastic soft drink bottles and the detritus from several lunches. All just abandoned on someone else's property.

So, you may ask, what are the workers supposed to do with the debris created by their work?

At my house, the workers who performed work carted the debris away. Of course, for all I know, they dumped it in an empty lot around the corner.

What strikes me as odd, though, is that we have almost daily garbage service here in the neighborhood. Had the workers simply bagged up the concrete sacks and their lunch bits, the county garbage workers would have gladly hauled it to the dump.

The fellows who are renting the house do not seem to be much better. After their beer parties, they simply dump all of their empties in the middle of the street.

Why? I really have no theory. I would understand if we had no garbage service. But we do. A very good service. Dogs strewing garbage is one thing. People doing it intentionally is another.

Sixteen months ago, I wrote:

A Mexican friend once told me, when we were discussing litter: "Once a piece of paper leaves a Mexican's hand, it is no longer his concern."  I do not know how valid that statement is, but the empirical evidence on my street would support the postulate.

Nothing has happened since then to disabuse me of my friend's observation. If anything, it has been reinforced by the pile across the street.

Does it make me dislike living here? Of course not. But it does put a patina on the experience.

I know the solution. In a day or two, when the pile really starts to bother me, I will fill a large garbage bag -- doing what the workers should have done two days ago.

And I will go on enjoying life in Mexico.