The Move, Part 2
Posted by enrico | Under Living in Mexico, Personal Sunday Dec 2, 2007OK, so I said in part one that I’d post this entry “tomorrow,” but as usual, things got in the way. I also mentioned that I had some bad news that I’d save for the end for the end of the post, but I never got to it. Well, here it is: I have been living on a dial-up connection now since I got here. DIAL-UP. I pay for 2048kbps (2Mbps) DSL; I have been living on a roughly 42kbps modem connection. It’s been hell. Hearing the squawks and screeches of a modem negotiating immediately threw me back to my computer infancy. My power saw was taken away and replaced with a spork. My herbed brie on crusty sourdough with a glass of astringent, yet full-bodied cabernet was savagely replaced with a mayonnaise sandwich and unsweetened Kool-Aid. You get the idea…
But back to the move story…our little caravan got here just fine. Claudia stayed downstairs to act as the main traffic cop for the incoming workers, I was upstairs directing that which came up to either my study, the master bedroom/bath, or the baby’s room (or just right there in the middle!). As I was trying to huddle w/Claudia and get some organization, orient her to how I’d labeled the boxes for my study (by far the largest # of boxes for upstairs), once again, these harvester ants-on-crack were practically bulldozing us to get things inside. Things were starting to go so fast that there were boxes coming in unchecked.
Twice I had to call a “time-out” so we could survey what was going where and if some things needed to be temporarily placed elsewhere. These workers were coming in so fast that if you did anything else but point to a room, such as go in with them to tell them where exactly to put something, there was someone else already coming up the stairs as you came back out. Since I was the only traffic cop upstairs, I wasn’t paying attention to the bulk of boxes in my study. It was like playing Jenga getting stuff out because, I guess in an attempt to minimize clutter, they had stacked boxes 5-6 deep against the wall in multiple layers. Except that they had no care about which was my book boxes and which were lighter, soft-top boxes. I was not happy.
Related to exactly that, I had intentionally labeled the boxes in Spanish with room and appropriate “fragile” or “this side up” information to make it easy for the workers to deal with. What I didn’t count on was the fact that at least half of the workers couldn’t read. I was shocked. Mexico technically mandates at least the equivalent of a 6th grade education (I think that’s right–feel free to correct me), but it doesn’t take a long time being here to observe that it’s simply not enforced universally. Be that as it may, simple words like “sala” and “baño” (living room and bathroom, respectively) should be obvious with minimal education–we’re not talking about Pablo Neruda poems here–but one guy actually laughed about the fact he couldn’t tell what the box said. Amazing.
One worker specifically asked me during loading why I had so many book boxes. I said I was a med student, and I like keeping books regardless. He just shook his head and said basically that the book boxes I had was a lot/too much. (”pero son muchas [cajas]!“) I was practically paralyzed processing the irony of someone who is illiterate making commentary on whether or not I have a “reasonable” amount of books. I think I still am.
But where they lacked in basic academic skills, they certainly made up for with sheer labor, never complaining or questioning their need to do something (”I don’t do that,” is not part of their vocabulary). They helped me get a TV up on a ceiling-mounted stand that was in the bedroom, for example. That took 2 guys and me to make happen–no complaints. I also had one of the smaller guys scale up to the roof where the gas tank is (Mexico doesn’t pipe gas from the street to the houses directly) to open the valve now that we were at the house (thankfully, a one-time operation). Again, no questions. It’s understood that tips are involved, and I was probably more generous than I needed to be, but I was just so happy to get everything into the new house.
Unpacking, while still a chore, is at least a downhill ride. It’s about damn time!! 
In my opinion, a low level of education especially for the poor and those even poorer in the campos, is one of the things holding Mexico back. Even if a large manufacturing plant would be built here in San Miguel, it would not help most of those in the campos because their ability to read and write is so low. The children get 4 books per school year and in most of the schools in the campos, there are few to no books for them to read. Pencils and paper are in very limited supply.
There is no pipe gas in Guadalajara? That is weird…maybe it’s your section in town? You probably shouldn’t say “Mexico doesn’t have pipe gas” since it’s not all of it. We always had pipe gas where I was from, and it was a smaller city than Guadalajara.
I’m also, like you, surprised that the movers couldn’t read. Mexico now requires up to 9th grade as mandatory, but it’s possible that these guys were born before that time or that they were simply never sent to school for lack of money or God knows what else.
A good thing that a lot of the “maquiladoras” or factories are doing nowadays is to offer night classes where workers can complete high school, or learn a little bit of English. There are many people who never had the chance to get their high school diploma who have benefited from those programs, at least it sets the bar a little higher for future generations and hopefully that will propel gradual change (change is never immediate, after all).
Guadalajara has rejected any idea of pipe gas because of fear resulting from the Guadalajara Gas Explosion in 1992. All homes are equipped with stationary gas tanks which are on the roof. We either have routine fill up or you can call 24 hours a day for a refill.
Interesting. I remember my grandfather used to say that pipe gas was just a time bomb, that it would cause problems eventually. Of course, tanks can also explode, but I guess he just found the idea of underground gas a little scary.
Given the probably crappy infrastructure of a lot of neighborhoods and the lack of law compliance of many constructors, maybe it’s better to just keep things the way they are…maybe.
O M GOD! CrazyGuad comes out of lurking! Tequila shots for all…Just come on over and I will break out the Patron!
S: like I said, what the law says and what reality is are two different things. You think they have truancy officers to police kids not being in school? Please! I was at a farmacia just yesterday in the daytime with a 10-12 year-old bagging at the checkout with two police officers (Zapopan, not GDL) chatting in the entrance. It’s very clear that if a family needs their children to work, that’s what they do. This is not a Guadalajara problem, either. I grew up on the border, and trust me–it’s not like the streets are children free during weekdays. Hardly.
Change is definitely needed and welcome. You see the evidence/advertisements of programs trying to make things better. It needs to start somewhere, but authorities need to stop turning a blind eye because of this “work will make him a man” bullshit and poor Mexican families need the financial help to afford to let a kid finish school before putting him to work.
No, there is currently no effective system set in place to monitor school attendance, especially when you can’t really force parents who barely have anything to eat to spend money to buy their children uniforms and pay the “voluntary” registration fees.
I wasn’t disagreeing with you, I just said it was WEIRD, because Mexico has more than a 90% literacy rate these days. Are you sure they weren’t just making fun of your handwriting?
Living on the border gives you some perspective, but you weren’t born and raised there (I was). I’m offering you MY perspective, that’s all.
I suppose if you can’t read, then books truly are nothing but dead weight to one’s back.
Oy.