The PR department of Mexpatriate passed along a photograph that appeared in the current edition of The Guadalajara Reporter -- a regional English-language weekly.
Translated from High Hubris (a language I trade in often), that means that two kind souls informed me a photograph from my cultural awareness presentation was tucked into the "Barra de Navidad & Melaque Journal."
My long-time blogger colleague, Nancy of Countdown to Mexico was first. Her news sent me on a wild-goose chase because my usual source had run out of newspapers.
Yesterday, reader James Johnson gave me a list of alternate retail sources. So, this morning, on my morning walk, I trekked over to La Bruja in Barra de Navidad to retrieve the blurb to share with you.
It may have lacked the vague hysteria of the front page stories ("Jalisco gas shortage drags on"; "Motorists suffer as fuel runs out at Lakeside service stations"), but I was pleased to see the church's cultural awareness classes were getting an additional plug. Thanks, Baylea Willan.
Without the stories in the newspaper, I would not know there is a gas shortage in parts of Mexico. I have seen the photographs and heard the testimony of people I know who have sat for hours waiting for gasoline -- often to discover that the station has just run out of fuel.
The gasoline crisis was government-created. The new president is intent on dealing with corruption in PEMEX, the nationalized petroleum country. He started with the cartel members who regularly siphon off a large percentage of the country's gasoline shipped through pipelines.
He simply shut off the pipelines and told PEMEX to make its delivery with tankers. Unfortunately, there are not enough tankers to keep the supply running. Thus, we have a government-manufactured gasoline crisis. Sort of like rationing combined with wage and price controls on wheels.
But it is not nationwide. I filled up an hour ago in Melaque. There was one car in front of me. Total time for a full tank -- 8 minutes.
A commenter, who lives in Colima, asserted on another blog site that our area has plenty of gasoline because the gasoline comes to Manzanillo by ship. I have no idea if that is true. If it does, I am not certain where it comes from.
But, for whatever reason, we have no problem here in Barra de Navidad-Melaque. I was in Manzanillo yesterday. No problem there, either.
I feel sorry for the Mexican people who have to deal with the government's rather ham-fisted approach to gasoline theft. But I am thankful our area has not yet been impacted.
Instead, we have stories about our recent chili-spiced food contest and photos of wahoo catches. Given my choice, I will stick with the stories about things edible.
After all, those stories do reflect the life I live in Mexico.
And Max tells me "the cameras have arrived."
No comments:
Post a Comment