skimming the waves

I am a BS kid.


Before soccer -- that is.


When I was growing up, my friends and I did not have the frenetic schedule of British prime ministers -- being chauffeured from engagement to engagement by a now-outdated hot voter group.


Blame it on soccer.


Sure, we had little league and Pop Warner, but we never traveled long distances for games.


Soccer seems to have inducted American children into the same migratory class as the Sooty Shearwater.  Think locally.  Drive globally.


I thought about that lifestyle this past weekend while I watched a three-day skimboard competition here in Melaque.


If you have not seen skimboards in person, you are missing one of life's true sports.  (I took a literary run at the topic in gidgets wanted.)


Imagine standing on a beach that has a single surf break just a few feet from the shore.  Your sole sports kit is a board less than four feet long, similar to a surfboard -- but with no fin. 


You need to watch for the hint of a wave powerful enough to lift you and your board, but not too large to overpower your skill level.  You know it when you see it. 


When you do, you run as if the IRS is hot on your audit trail.  You drop your board on the wet sand proving Newton's laws of motion -- as it speeds along with your strides.


You jump on the board as it enters the water, and you skim out to your wave.  If all goes well, you do a spin or two on the crest -- or a jump -- or a curl.  Whatever your free spirit chooses.


It is a young person's sport.  Until this weekend, I would have said "a young man's sport."  But I finally saw two young women skimboarders on Saturday.


But it is definitely not a sport for the post-20s set.  The legs go.  The center of gravity shifts.  Stay in skimboarding too long and you will look as ridiculous as Dick Cheney in a mosh pit.


The competitors this weekend did not look ridiculous.  They were as graceful as Baryshnikov.  As athletically powerful as Michael Jordan.  Or did I mean that in reverse?


I should have taken the time to learn the competition rules.  I didn't. 


I simply enjoyed the experience as an art form.  Camus would have been proud of me.


And I knew I was in Mexico when the competition was over.  The competitors did not climb into their mothers' vans.


They simply walked back to their homes and hotels.


Just like BS kids.



Note:  If you are interested in seeing part of the competition, take a look at: Skimboard Competition.

spreading wings

Capistrano must feel like this on 23 October each year.


Full one day; deserted the next.


Melaque's snow birds have started their migration north.  Perhaps it is the lure of Olympic gold.


We know differently.


It is simply the rhythm of nature.  They make the trek north in March as deliberately as they make the trek south in January.  No monarch flits on its circuit with more regularity.


They set up house here for a few months in the tropical sun.  They preen.  They feed.  There are even rumors that they breed.  (But that is a topic better left to a less family-friendly blog -- or for the speculation of commenters.)


Every winter our church in Melaque needs to hold two Sunday services to accommodate our swollen ranks.


Not any more.  At least, until next December.  Enough snow birds have flown our little coop in one week that we are back to one service this week.


Most local restaurants are still open all week.  But that will not last.  They are almost empty.


On Friday night I went to one of my favorite shrimp restaurants: The Red Lobster.  (No relation to the downscale American franchise that uses the same name.)


I usually end up waiting for a table in the winter.  Not Friday.  Other than a Canadian couple, who was leaving Saturday morning, I was the sole customer.


By the end of April, my favorite places will cut back to a few nights a week -- or they will simply close until the winter season starts up.  Three places have already closed -- two of them with no plans to reopen, no matter the season.


Melaque's summer weather was terrible -- followed by a financially stressed winter. 


The local merchants are now hoping that the two-week Easter (Semana Santa) holiday in April will bring enough peso-spending tourists from Guadalajara to help offset what the sow birds did not bring.


In late April, Melaque will settle down to its slow tropical beat.  Eating out will be restricted to a few hearty spots, and there will be few competitors for tables.


But this, year, like the Capistrano swallows, I will be gone.  Later than the snow birds, but just as gone.


Anne Murray's lilt will echo for us all:  "Spread your tiny wings and fly away."


And like those snow birds, I will return -- come next winter.

mexico dreamin'

I should be waking up in Pátzcuaro this morning.


Or Guanajuato.


Or Morelia.


But not in Villa Obregon.


This was supposed to be the week I started my "let's move to the highlands, and not wear a kilt" tour.


Instead, I have spent the past week puttering around town -- enjoying the rhythm of life that drew me to Mexico.  Talking with friends.  Sitting.  Thinking.  Reading.  Writing.


The spirit of mañana wraps her seductive arms around me and whispers (in what must be Salma Hayek's voice): "It will be there tomorrow.  Sit.  Relax.  Have something to eat."


And she is correct.


If the Aztecs could not conquer the people around what would become Pátzcuaro, I suspect it will still be there in another week or two.


So, I sit.  Relax. Eat.


Mañana.

the beggar woman

Unlike Billy Pilgrim, she seems stuck in time.




But never on Sunday.  Just like Melina Mercouri.  That is her day to honor God.  Not to toil in the fields -- or streets -- of Mammon.


The right hand upturned in the universal sign of need.  Weathered with honorable age.

The eyes searching for compassion.

The voice as plaintive as a supplicant before the crucifix.


A mouth ready to break into a grateful smile or simply to wish the tourist God's hand on the day.

She is our local beggar woman.

But there is something special about her.  She has majesty and grace.

No beggar rags for her.  She wears a clean duster with a color-coordinated sweater.  If she would trade the sandals for a pair of Anne Kleins, she could play Carlos Slim's mother.  Or, at least, the mother of some prosperous fast food chicken chain owner.


And she is good at her job.  Not many Nordic hands pass without dropping a coin or two into hers.


If the eyes cannot melt the heart of the tourist trying to juggle grocery bags and those baffling peso coins, she will offer to sing a song -- or say a prayer.


Her voice is angelic.  If her prayers have the same quality, they may be the best buy in the village.


The tourists love her.  Little girls fight with one another to have their photograph taken with Mother Teresa's doppelgänger.


Her Mexican neighbors are not as generous -- either with their donations or their appreciation for her talents.  I have heard the same tale from each of them.  She is not poor.  She owns three houses.  Her family is wealthy and provides her with support.


I tend to discount what sounds like "sour grapes" because I hear the same urban myth rap wherever I go.


The beggar in Athens who is rumored to own a ship yard.  The Gypsy children in Rome who are heirs to a fortune that would cause Croesus to blush.  The man at the Santa Monica freeway exit with the "Help a Vet" sign who makes more money than the CEO of Paramount.


Begging is one of those vocations (or avocations) that causes us Westerners to wince.  It lives on that narrow frontier between rugged individualism and Christian compassion.  And we don't know how to react to it.


A beggar in Baghdad is honored as a part of a noble tradition in Islam.  But in Mexico?


I visited Cuba in March of 2001.  A Cuban-American friend arranged for her cousin, a Communist Party functionary, to show me around.


He proudly showed me around old Havana (where I did not tell him I knew that it had been restored with capitalist donations from a Spanish businessman) and boasted of the successes of the communist revolution.


"Unlike the rest of the Americas, we have no beggars," he crowed.


God must wait for moments like this.  No more had he finished the sentence than a very dirty woman approached us and asked for money to feed her child.


He immediately changed direction, and without prompting, responded with the same line I have heard in Melaque (but with a Cuban twist): "She should be arrested.  She doesn't need money in Cuba."


Well, I don't know if the beggar woman in front of the Melaque grocery store needs the money or not.  What I do know is that her grace and humor touch me each time our eyes meet.


And if, at the end of each day, she climbs in her Bentley and is chauffeured to her suite at El Tamarindo, I will still have learned whether I have a soul of compassion or a heart of stone.


I hope for the better nature.


Sing me another song, mother.
Monday through Saturday, she stands guard at the exit of the tourist grocery store in town.

knocking at the wrong door

The War on Terror is over.

Either that, or al Qaeda has decided to start marketing party tapes.

Either of those options are possible based on a Washington Times story: "Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico."

I won't quote the entire story.  You would be rolling on the floor -- instead of reading this post.  I do have some priorities.  Respect for my readers knows no bounds.

But here is the summary.   American counterterrorist officails (what we once called intelligence agents) discovered an al Qaeda recruiting tape -- while it was being televised on an Arab station.  The recruiter bragged about slipping a biological weapon into the United States from Mexico -- through a tunnel.  He also talked about making common cause with white supremacist groups in the United States.

Before you roll your eyes too far, intelligence sources have declared the tape to be "authentic."  I think that means that the source of the tape is considered to be al Qaeda, and not that the recruiter is anything but stark raving mad.

The tape is a hoot.  Here is the recruiter raw and (mostly) uncut:

Four pounds of anthrax -- in a suitcase this big -- carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S. are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers there. * * * One person, with the courage to carry 4 pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this 'confetti' all over them, and then we'll do these cries of joy. It will turn into a real celebration.

Scary?  You bet.  Until you start thinking through the elements of this little rant.  The threat simply does not hold together -- at least not as it is played out on the recruitment floor.

Tunnels?  Who needs a stinkin' tunnel?  They have been an on-going problem for the decade the Great Wall of Shame started going up.  If a barrier gets in front of a determined person, he will go under, over, or around it.

There were some attempts to tunnel under the fence when it was first constructed.  And they were shut down years ago.

But most people decided to simply go around.  Doesn't al Qaeda watch movies?  Say, like Men in Black?


The Sonora desert is not Gaza -- despite some topographical similarities.

Of course, with a small package, there is no need to go around anything.  It could merely accompany a happy family in a soda cooler returning from holiday in Ensenada -- or Toronto.

And who drives the family van?  Hardly a white supremacist with swastika tattoos and a "Mein Kampfer van" bumper sticker.

Imagining a white supremacist and an al Qaeda operative sitting down together to hatch this little caper is as unbelievable as Joe Biden and Doris Kearns Goodwin setting up an Original Writing Ethics Foundation. 

Someone must have been wearing his headdress too tight on filming day.

But the anthrax is a nice touch.  The stuff is downright nasty -- if disbursed properly.

Nothing panics the American psyche like diseases.  Just think of the irrational reactions to last year's swine flu.  Against all facts to the contrary, Americans were convinced that we were all going to die, not with a bang, but a snort.

And that is why, silly as the idea sounds, people are treating it with a degree of seriousness. 

What amazes me is the Mexico element.  None of the 9-11 terrorists slipped into the United States through Mexico.  And, even with the added element of smuggling a 4-pound package into the United States, Mexico offers no greater advantage than any other border, airport, or dock.

The borders of the United States are porous because its citizens travel as free people, and an incredible amount goods pass through its ports.  Trying to stop the elements of terror will always be a sucker's game (the performance art of airport security is a perfect example).  The trick to ending terror is to detect it at the source and, then, to neutralize the terrorists.

I find the tape baffling.  My first reaction was that the allies had managed to bump off all of the smart people in al Qaeda.

But I suspect the tape is simply a ramble session to build up the morale of new recruits.  Undoubtedly, someone with a bit more cunning is planning the next round of terror for the West

I just hope that someone on our side, with just a bit more cunning, is one step ahead.

fault in the afternoon

I had lunch on Tuesday with a relatively new blogger -- Beth Berube of Barra Beth's Blog.


She and her husband live part of the year in Barra de Navidad; part of the year in Seattle.


They settled here because, in her words:

My love affair with Barra de Navidad began ten years ago as soon as I wandered its cobblestone streets and drank in its color. It has multitudes of delicious restaurants. Some of them are fine dining eateries but without an ounce of pretense. If you are in the mood for dancing, there are some live music venues, too. Yeah, I have fallen for Barra, hook, line and sinker.

She contacted me about some blog questions before I started my trips in December, but we were unable to meet for lunch until today.


For two hours, Larry, Beth, and I talked about blogs.  How to post photographs.  How to monitor comments.  How to interest more people in reading a blog.  The type of topics that are usually handled at the Latin American Bloggers Conference.  (By the way, does anyone know if it is happening this year?)


And we talked about our experiences in Mexico. I always find these blogger meetings fascinating. I have yet to be disappointed in meeting a blogger who seemed interesting on line.  THis was no exception.


Every Mexico blogger has a personal take on living in Mexico.  Hers is "As the Taco Turns."


Her most recent blog started some of my own thoughts on Spanish construction -- the language, not the missions.


She correctly points out: "Mexicans have cultivated a guilt-free and blameless approach to life. Even the Spanish language supports this philosophy."


Whatever the reason (and some of us would lay it at the feet of the prevailing Ibero-Catholic culture that pervades Mexico), Mexican Spanish is built primarily on the passive voice.  The type of sentence where there are no actors.  Things just seem to happen.  As if the love child of a succubus and a poltergeist was in charge of nature.


You know the passive voice when you hear it.  It is the voice of bureaucrats and teenagers.  Where responsibility is a stranger.


The odd sentence in meeting minutes: "It was decided to delay any further discussion."


The hidden bandit in regulations: "It is a requirement that all businesses pay a fee of $5,000 each day."


The excuse of the tear-stained face of your younger son: "It went off the road -- all by itself."


Beth has her own take on the use of the passive voice in Spanish:

Mexicans have an innate understanding that grudges and finger pointing, especially towards themselves, are counter productive. At least when it comes to day to day annoyances. Maybe that is why they are so joyful in their dance, their music and their celebrations.

I am not certain I agree with her sanguine approach.  That "day to day annoyances" may save her -- but is is a huge qualifier.


Anyone who has listened to the blame-ridden speech of some Mexican politicians or who has read the bloody history of how Mexicans have dealt with one another in their civil wars would draw a different conclusion about grudges. 


But that history may be the reason that Mexicans tend to avoid confrontation when basic rights are not at stake -- such as who has the right to pass whom on a highway.


Take a look at what she has to say.  And comment on her take of life in Mexico.


I think you will enjoy both experiences.

plight of the iguana

Last month I plunked down some hard-earned dollars to visit Jurassic Park.


Not the one with the live lawyer-eating Tyrannosaurus rex -- though there was a bit of masochistic thrill in the notion.


The one in Burbank that delivers a few plastic dinosaurs.


I should have shown more patience. Mother Mexico will deliver -- if you just wait long enough.


And deliver she did.


I managed to capture a snapshot of a very small iguana late last week on my nature shamble. Nervous as Don Knotts, he would peer over the pier, and duck his eye, but not his crest, out of my sight.


And then he was gone -- in a flash of self-survival.


What I do know is sighting an iguana around the laguna is about as rare as bagging an Apatosaurus.


Not too long ago the local authorities in my small fishing village by the sea decided to build a walkway around our benighted laguna -- at a time when you could actually see water. A nice place to take the family for an evening stroll to enjoy both water and wildlife.


"Wetlands" and "construction" are not two words that coalesce naturally in my NOB mind.


It turns out that the combination did not set well with the regulatory hierarchy in the local political food chain, either. The walk is now as unfinished as a Schubert symphony.

The iguana population around the laguna appears to have diminished. And the theories for their disappearance is as self-serving as they are interesting.

And as you might expect in the world of small town politics, both decisions have their defenders and detractors. Blame flows like intellectual diarrhea.

The walkway destroyed their nests. Villagers ate them. The hyacinths have destroyed their habitat.


You can see him at the top of this post. For all I know, they are all correct.

I thought that would be the sole iguana for the week. But that evening I was returning from shopping in the village, and the beast below darted across the street. "Darted" is a bit generous. He waddled. Crashing into walls in his desire to avoid becoming an Arkansas road pancake.


Huge. And as colorful as a mardi gras reveler.


How he avoided cars, dogs, boys, and the stew pot in the center of the village is his own secret. Maybe his size provides him with a survival talisman.


I can recall when iguanas were used as dinosaur stand-ins in some of Hollywood's cheesier cave man dramas in the 50s and 60s. In their Cretaceous makeup, they seemed to have their dignity stripped away. Like poodles in tutus at the circus.


But both of the beauties I saw last week had not lost a gram of their dignity.


And they were certainly far more exotic than their plastic Burbank cousins.