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This is a long one, but only covers a couple of days and is in the past. It takes forever to find time to write. I truly thought this wouldn’t be the case in retirement! Please hang in there if you can.
Victor and I are on our own
Lucia went off on business for a couple of weeks and it fell to Victor and I to look after each other. Ok, well I looked after Victor; he kept me on my toes; and Chiquita, (remember that new dog?) kept Victor clean. They are best of friends now. Inseparable, except when Victor is at school.
Lucia took off on a Saturday so Victor and I had the weekend to feel each other out; to determine who was going to be the boss in Lucia’s absence. For as Victor has told me, “When mom is around, she is the boss and we are the minions.” And this was said with kindness because truth be told, he doesn’t really object to having his every need met, on demand most days by Lucia.
By Monday, it was apparent that I was fully in charge, or how else would I have gotten Victor to school? Victor hates school with a passion. The teachers make the children sit in chairs while the teacher “blah, blah, blahs about nothing.” Makes me realize that not much has changed since I was a kid. His description sounds similar to the endless number of meetings management held at work. Some argue that school is simply a vehicle used for conditioning children into conformity. A means of preparing them for those work meetings.
Anyway, good news is that the construction on the main highway has come to an end and the buses have been zooming along. The travel time has been cut from about an hour and 15 minutes, which usually meant we were running late, to about 1/2 an hour. This is huge when temperatures are sitting in the low 30s, and there is no air conditioning (see the bus system). For Victor it is a double edge sword. Instead of complaining about how long the bus takes to get to school, he complains about getting to school too soon; too early, where he has to endure yet another day of “blah, blah, blahs”.
On Monday we were in plenty early, and I returned home to work on a backlog of projects that just seem to continue to accumulate, and I don’t have any of the meetings anymore!
The election results are in and the peso plummets
This particular Monday was a day we were waiting for. The theory was that following each Mexican election, the peso looses strength and us foreigners get a break on the exchange rate. True to the theory, the current party, Morena, winning in a romp, drove the peso down. We gained a little under a peso per dollar. This brought the peso back closer to the October 2023 rate. Very helpful when you are planning a large purchase, say like a house, or land (more about this in another post) or car etcetera.
My first encounter with a demo in Mexico
I was sitting at my computer moving some money around to take advantage of the exchange rate when Lucia sent a message letting me know that the main road from Coatepec to Xalapa had been shut down tight like a sardine can without an opener or something to that affect! This would potentially interfere with my picking Victor up from school. If there was anything worse than getting to school on time, it was not getting picked up on time.
I yawned. How much time would I actually need to get past a demonstration. I needed to be at Victor’s school for 2 p.m.. Now that the construction was gone, it took about half an hour to get to the school. Leaving at 12:30 would give me an hour and 1/2 to navigate the demonstration. So at 12:30 l walked over to the bus stop. There were no buses. I flagged a cab and asked “Cuanto a Xalapa?”. In Mexico, you always ask the price before getting into the taxi. The driver told me that the road was blocked and it wasn’t possible. I flagged another cab and asked how much again.
“Ciento veinte pesos.” (120, about $10 CAN) the driver responded. (Trusting everyone reading is impressed with my command of the language!)
The deal was struck and I hopped into the taxi. Off we went. Down this side road and that side road. Each road brought us into a long line of traffic. I got to see a fair bit of countryside I had never seen before. After about 30 minutes of moving from one traffic jam to another; lots of conversations between drivers and locals trying to help, the driver told me we would not be able to get through and we needed to return. He drove me back to the bus stop. I paid the full fare to Xalapa, the destination I never got to, because I admired the effort he made in attempting to find a way. His car also took a beating travelling the backroads.
During the time of the countryside tour, I was messaging Lucia. I was telling her things looked bleak and to have Victor’s friend’s dad pick Victor up when he was picking up his son. I also asked her to let the school know. My messages didn’t go anywhere. There was no signal while driving around in the taxi.
To be dramatic, I told all who would listen that I was going to walk to Xalapa to get my son. My actual plan was to walk to the demonstration, see what was going on, and hope that a secondary road, known locally as Briones, would be accessible. If not, I figured that once I walked by the demonstration I might find a ride to Xalapa. So off I went.
Most traffic travels down one street in Coatepec to a roundabout that feeds into the main highway towards Xalapa. From the roundabout, looking into the distance, all I could see was a blocked highway with a car here and there. There was lots of human traffic mostly walking towards Coatepec. I started walking down the road.
After about 20 minutes of walking, I could see the demonstrators. There were vehicles parked across the road blocking access in both directions. In the middle of the road, between the two lanes, were some demonstrators holding signs and listening to speakers. At this point I didn’t know what the demonstration was about. What I found interesting was how a few demonstrators had managed to bring an entire area to a standstill and there was no police interference.
I passed by the demonstration, continued walking on down the road, and within a few minutes a taxi came along; beeped his horn to get my attention, and before you knew it, the front seat passenger had moved to the back with some other passengers and I was sitting in the front seat heading to Xalapa. I asked the driver how much, prepared to pay a lot. To my surprise, he said 45 pesos (about $3.50 Canadian). So nice to see that the circumstances were not being used to gouge.
It wasn’t long before I had been let off at one of the main bus terminals in Xalapa.
Meanwhile, Lucia had managed to read my messages and communicate with all those who needed to know that I was navigating the roadblock. She even set up a Whatsapp chat so I could communicate with the dad of Victor’s friend. I gave him a call to let him know that I had arrived in Xalapa. He told me that they were at the Pizza Hut near the school.
I grabbed a taxi and made my way to the Pizza Hut. Once there, I paid for the ride. Another 45 pesos, a common fee for a taxi ride within Xalapa, and crossed the street to the Pizza Hut. Inside I found Victor, his friend and his friend’s parents all waiting for their pizza. I was 20 minutes later than I would have been without a roadblock but just in time for pizza. As we sat chatting and eating pizza, I realized I had left my hat in the cab. Darn! It was only two days old.
While we ate Pizza, I learned the protest was over the forest fires. The protestors were pleading for help. The fighting of the fires was being carried out be the local citizens in the affected towns, They were low on resources. They were pleading for help.
We finished our pizza and left the restaurant. After standing outside for a bit and chatting more, I offered that Victor and I were okay to start making our way back home, should they have other things that needed doing. They accepted my offer of freedom and we parted ways.
Victor and I walked for a while before negotiating with a Xalapa taxi driver who insisted there was no way of getting through the roadblock. I suggested we go down the Briones road. He agreed to take us as far as the roadblock would allow. This essentially meant to where the Briones road met the main highway. We agreed on a price and off we went.
The Briones road is a beautiful road to drive down. It twists and turns through lush semi-tropical landscape. It’s a lot cooler due to all the vegetation and tends to be, even when there aren’t demonstrations, free of traffic. In about twenty minutes we arrived at the roadblock, preventing drivers from entering the main highway. We paid the driver, got out of the car and crossed through the barricades and began our walk to Coatepec.
We weren’t on the main highway for very long when a taxi with Xalapa plates that had somehow managed to get past the barricade, and was heading in our direction, asked if we wanted a ride to the centre of the city. We gladly accepted. I imaged we had found a generous soul that had picked us, me looking older and Victor being a child, as an act of kindness. We were relieved to have a ride. When we got to the centre of town, out of courtesy, I asked how much, the driver attempted in English, “fifty pesos”. We were being over charged but I paid. After the cab drove away, we realized Victor left his custom made – by him – hat in the taxi!
I asked Victor if he wanted to take another cab to get home, or if he would prefer to walk, and I would give him the fare (35 pesos – the going rate inside Coatepec) instead of the taxi driver. Victor preferred to walk. He was saving up for a particular action figure.
We made our way down one of the main street that crossed over the street that lead to our neighbourhood when Victor noticed a cockroach. Cockroaches in Mexico are serious creatures. Then he noticed another and another. We were passing one of our favorite pizza shops that was being fumigated. There were 100s of cockroachs gaging their way on to the sidewalk. We renamed the stretch of sidewalk to “cockroach road” and crossed the restaurant off our favorite list fully knowing that this was not unique to this particular restaurant.
Epilogue to the protest
The protest continued the next day, but lacked the same impact. There were fewer participants. Where the number of participants was large enough to block traffic, the police had been called in to get the traffic moving. The approach used by the police was much different than what we had seen used by Toronto police and other police around the world during some of the recent protests condemning the Israeli genocide. Protestors were not punched in the face or thrown to the ground before being pummeled. Instead the police set up corridors to ensure the traffic could move down the road.
The protestors wondered why the police weren’t being sent to help fight the forest fires; as for what police assigned to anti-genocide protests, might be doing instead beating on protestors, I will leave that to the readers wonderings.
The rains finally came and the forest fires were extinguished.
Lucia returned home, and Victor, I mean I, was no longer in charge.
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