Jemima Peláez and one of her 'stoplight learning' classes.
The coronavirus pandemic pushed teachers and students out of the classroom, leaving some of the most vulnerable students without access to education. But some teachers found creative ways to connect with students upon seeing the challenges they faced.
For Jemima Peláez, the lightbulb moment was when she saw a young girl named Dany on a street corner. She thought about how the pandemic had left behind many of the poorest students, those who most needed access to education.
Peláez began to give Dany and other migrant and homeless children classes outside, right on the street corners where they spent their time.
“It made me sad to see the great need that exists in Mexico and the children in poverty. It has become normalized for children to ask for money in the street or sell things at the stoplights. I would go home crying. I covered two stoplights, but there were many more.”
Peláez asked for help on social media and gathered more volunteers. Now, her “stoplight learning” initiative has 23 street-corner classrooms managed by volunteer teachers in her state of Querétaro and 90 teaching places at the national level. Her strategies have been replicated in Jalisco, Mexico City and Veracruz.
Jemima Peláez’s ‘stoplight learning’ program in Querétaro.
As for Dany, who dreams of being a teacher, she can now read and write.
Peláez is also working to set up schools that are easier to enter for vulnerable students, many of whom do not have birth certificates and other paperwork normally required to sign up for school.
Another teacher, Rodrigo Rubio, took a different approach to reach his students, many of whom were not signing in for their online classes. He surveyed students and found that TikTok was their most-used social media network so he set up an account and familiarized himself with the video sharing app. Soon he was dancing, dressing in costumes, even riding a dinosaur in his quest to entertain his students.
Before, he said, he would remind them of class but few would log in. Now, with a constant stream of funny videos keeping them connected to their teacher, “They want more. They are connected!” Rubio said.
Carlos Rodríguez of Monterrey, Nuevo León, had also lamented the loss of connection with his students. Now known on social media by the nickname “The Cool Teacher,” he decorated his classroom in the style of the Mario Bros. videogame.
It’s complicated enough, he said, to hold the attention of 40 children in a classroom but to connect with them through distance learning is more so.
But by being innovative with his presentations online, such as the use of the Mario Bros. theme, Rodríguez has not only connected with this students but attracted new ones that were not in his class.
“It’s gratifying to see now, in spite of not personally knowing them, I have created this link with the students.”
The teacher of 33 years, conscious that his students have only one childhood, says he tries to make it a memorable one and “give it all he’s got.”
This Maya stone carving is believed to represent an axe used in the Mesoamerican ballgame.
The Mexican government said it will take legal measures to stop an auction of pre-Hispanic artifacts by Sotheby’s New York auction house. The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said the artifacts are part of Mexico’s cultural history and should not be sold.
The most valuable of the Mesoamerican pieces is a Mayan stone carving from A.D. 550 to 950 with a starting price of US $38,000. The piece belongs to the Albright-Knox Gallery and is expected to sell for as much as $70,000.
Sotheby’s describes it as an artifact that probably represents a ritual effigy of equipment used in the Mesoamerican ballgame, in this case an axe.
A Maya orangeware pottery vessel depicting a cormorant, dated between A.D. 250 and 450, has a starting bid of $30,000 and is predicted to be worth as much as $60,000.
This Maya orangeware vessel has an estimated value between $40,000 and $60,000.
An Olmec serpentine head from 900 to 300 B.C. is expected to fetch between $5,000 and $7,000.
In the Sotheby’s catalogue, most pieces include a brief description of their origin but it is not clear when or under what conditions they were removed from Mexico.
INAH reported the auction to Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office and requested diplomatic and legal assistance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Interpol.
In February, a similar auction took place at Christie’s auction house in Paris. It included 33 artifacts that Mexico said were part of its cultural history. Despite actions by the INAH and the Mexican government, the auction went ahead and 27 of the pieces were sold.
On May 12, Mexico City saw more rain fall in four hours than it usually receives in a month. But scientists warn the torrential downpours of recent days may become the exception to the rule. Recent studies show that the Valley of México is at risk for entering into a prolonged drought.
The current rains are due to the La Niña meteorological phenomenon, said Benjamín Martínez, a researcher at the Center for Atmospheric Sciences (CCA) at the National Autonomous University.
Long-term, however, Martínez said that the risk of drought remains.
“In a study that analyzed 2,000 years … it was found that there have been humid periods but also brutal droughts that last not one or two years, like we have seen, but decades or even centuries,” Martínez told a press conference.
In addition, deforestation and changes in land use have diminished water infiltration leading to severe consequences like biodiversity loss and forest fires.
Mexico has been in a state of drought since 2020, with 84% of the country experiencing some level of drought conditions. Conditions vary throughout the country: while the northern states of Sonora and Chihuahua suffer through extreme drought, in the Yucatán Peninsula there is no lack of rain.
Nuñez and some students at the cultural center workshop in Durango in 2018.
You might have heard of Durango, Colorado, or the Ford Durango or perhaps you have even seen the map of the Mexican state in the movie Rango, but most foreigners have no clue about this Mexican city.
I know I didn’t until I spent three months there subbing for a teacher on maternity leave.
The city is where colonial Mexico meets the northern frontier, on an isolated fringe of the Central Mexican Plateau. But thanks to one of the highest bridges in the world, it is only three hours from Mazatlán.
Like many isolated parts of Mexico, Durango has managed to conserve much of its distinctive culture and in the case of local artist Trinidad Núñez Quiñones, reinvent it.
Trino, as he prefers to go by, is a quiet, modest man. Long hair streaked with gray, maestro Núñez looks younger than his 73 years.
Maestro Trino at the workshop at the Durango city cultural center. Anthony Arena
He is a longtime fixture at the state university and the city’s main cultural center. The ceramics workshop there is named after him.
His career came from a twist of fate. He was born the youngest of six on his family’s farm in the municipality of Canatlán, famous for its apples. His upbringing was normal until 1953, when a neighbor came for his father over a dispute about horses.
In the end, the neighbor lay dead, and the family had to separate and flee. Trino, his mom, and his siblings wound up on the outskirts of Durango city with nothing.
The upside was that in public school he found that he had a talent and passion for art. Since then, he says, “Art always came first — my true mistress.”
Núñez has worked in various media, canvas, sculpture and even papier-mache (or as it’s known in Mexico, cartonería), but his main success and contributions to Durango come from his work in ceramics, both as handcraft and fine art.
Among his ceramic work, what stands out most are the vessels and other items that he’s decorated with finely detailed designs based on the local Chalchihuite culture. The idea is similar to the recreation and reinterpretation that resulted in Mata Ortiz pottery in neighboring Chihuahua, but Núñez’s work stays a bit more faithful to the look of the original.
Pot in progress before firing.
They are made by painting a burnt orange, blue or green clay slip over the main body of the piece, then painstakingly etching the lines by hand, a technique called sgraffito.
The process is simple but requires patience and a very steady hand. Although the idea come from indigenous culture, this version of it is all his.
Like many artists and artisans, teaching pays the bills. But over 50 years, it has provided the maestro the opportunity to develop an artistic community in a town far more associated with cows and movie sets for westerns.
Although he retired from the university in 2012 after 40 years, Núñez still runs the workshop at the cultural center he founded in 1980 and teaches students of all ages and interests.
When I was there, an Australian woman was having a go in the workshop, attracted by both the man’s work and his reputation.
He estimates that he has taught over 8,000 students in various arts and handcrafts. Teaching projects have also included programs in extremely poor and indigenous communities in the hopes that pottery and ceramics can raise income levels.
Etching and setting up space for sgraffiti decoration on a pot. Anthony Arena
He has a home-based workshop, Taller Toltecatl, where he works with wife Norma Elizabeth Campus and his son, Gerardo. Here, they work not only on his signature sgraffito but various other styles of pottery as well.
One type has bright colors and bold designs, and the other consists of pieces painted to imitate works in copper and bronze.
There is a jet-black type inspired by Oaxaca’s black clay pottery, but the forms are quite different from what is done there. The color comes not from painting or the clay itself, but rather firing with a kiln filled with smoke.
The cultural center downtown is currently closed due to the pandemic, but that has not stopped the maestro. With the help of younger family members, he has ventured into online teaching and now has a Facebook page, Productos Cerámicos Trino.
He also found a silver lining to the lack of teaching work — more time to experiment with more types of ceramics.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
A nurse in Puebla has been suspended after she failed to correctly administer a Covid-19 vaccine to a woman on Thursday.
The nurse pierced the skin on the senior’s upper arm but didn’t inject her with a vaccine. The woman’s daughter recorded the incident on her phone and later posted it to social media.
Puebla Governor Miguel Barbosa confirmed Friday that the simulated vaccination occurred at the Northern General Hospital in the state capital.
The state Health Ministry contacted the affected woman’s family and made arrangements for her to receive her second required vaccine dose on Friday.
Barbosa told a press conference that authorities will determine whether the nurse made a mistake or failed to inoculate the woman on purpose. They will subsequently determine what punishment will apply, he said.
“Nothing will be hidden,” the governor declared. “We’re angry at this conduct of the nurse.”
Puebla Health Minister José Antonio Martínez García also expressed his indignation, declaring that the department he heads “condemns the act.”
He called on citizens to trust the brigades of health workers administering the Covid-19 shots but also urged recipients to be vigilant and make sure they are actually being injected with a vaccine-filled syringe.
As of Thursday night, just under 22 million vaccine doses had been administered in Mexico, according to Health Ministry data.
Most of the shots have gone to health workers and people aged 60 and over but the government is now offering vaccines to people in the 50-59 age bracket.
When we last left our intrepid crocodile seekers, they had discovered a farm where the reptilian stars of their proposed episodes of the reality-TV show The Gator Boys would be procured and had scouted a golf course where the crocs could be “spontaneously discovered” by terrified bystanders. Now they just had to wait for the Discovery Channel crocodile handlers to arrive — the fabled Gator Boys …
As promised, the producer sent a reptile wrangler, Tre — whom we nicknamed Snake Man — to us in Mazatlán. His job was to help catch and transport the five reptiles from the Crocs-R-Us Farm to the Acuario Mazatlán aquarium, our expert partner in this endeavor. The manager, Jorge, had prepared an enclosure for the creatures.
Snake Man explained that, despite their appearance, crocodiles are hypersensitive when it comes to fluctuations in temperatures.
Since this was September in the tropics, hauling these five snappers 140 miles would require a temperature-controlled environment — not too hot, not too cold. We needed a large van, with an open cargo area and good air conditioning.
The Captured Tourist Woman (TCTW) was handling the more detailed requirements of this endeavor: accommodations, special entry visas, a catering service and transport of all the production personnel, actors and other items. The producer told us he’d arranged a couple of tour vans at our disposal.
Reality TV stars The Gator Boys. Discovery
When I approached our driver and asked about using one of his vans to haul crocodiles, his response was that he and the vans rented by the day, whether they hauled people or carnivorous reptiles. His remark seemed rather flippant, so I pushed for a commitment before he contemplated the many potential horrors of the downside.
Myself and the Snake Man spent an afternoon removing all the seats in one of the vans, except the two in front. We then taped down a continuous sheet of heavy black plastic, forming a tub, in case of croc crap.
The next morning, the Snake Man and our van driver headed out early for the three-hour journey to Crocs-R-Us.
When they returned in the afternoon, Snake Man looked a bit peaked, but the driver was downright green and drenched in sweat. Who knew that crocodiles discharged an abundance of runny excrement when stressed out?
The loathsome liquid, I was told, was sloshing in the black plastic tub at every bump and turn. Since the trip had brought only two crocs, another run would be needed the next day.
Our reptile wrangler was willing to do it again; after all, this was not his first croc haul, and he was a professional; but our driver balked. He started raving about massive compensation for his van, which would forever stink of croc crap.
It took an hour and several cold beers, along with a fistful of pesos, to quell his agitated state. We promised to pressure wash the interior of the van and then spray it with several gallons of Febreze ….. if we could please use it again? He finally relented and said we could use the van for one more haul, but he would have his partner drive.
Directly after our second trip, I was asked to build a couple of plywood boxes to contain the reptiles and whatever they might excrete for the short trips to our capture sites. The van driver let us know that he was seriously reluctant to haul the boxed crocs even the short distance to our staging areas during the weeks of filming.
I reasoned with him, explaining that his van smelled as bad as it ever would, so why not keep going? This was his opportunity to be a part of something truly epic, something he and his friends would talk about for years to come.
And there was a bonus: as a tour guide, he could regale his clients with tales of 10-foot predators riding in this very van! Just take a deep breath and savor the distinctive aroma of a Mexican crocodile.
Eventually, he acquiesced. For the first time in this escapade, I felt confident we would have reasonable transportation for the snappers.
Meanwhile, TCTW was busy stocking up on the various types of junk food and energy drinks the cast and crew required to get through the long days of shooting. It became apparent that, although it was difficult to find here, Monster energy drinks were one of the things that kept them going.
Imagine having this in the back of your van for a few hours.
I am neither a doctor nor a chemist, but the quantity of sugar and caffeine these people were projected to consume on a daily basis was frightening.
When I next talked with the producer, he told me that the plan was to record enough material for two shows by taking local side trips between the catches. I couldn’t help but envision something akin to National Lampoon’s Mexican Vacation.
The cast of the show included the two Gator Boys — Paul and Jimmy — with minor characters popping in and out between the life-threatening captures. The others included Jimmy’s girlfriend Ashley; Scott, who seemed to be the young prankster; and Tre the Snake Man.
There was a new directive from Eric, our Hollywood producer. We were to find a beautiful and very young Mexican woman who had perfect English. Eric also asked me to talk to Jorge at the aquarium to see if we could use the large boa constrictor in one of the aquarium displays.
Since the mayor had said nothing that would prevent us from doing a snake capture in the city, we thought we could plant the eight-foot boa in a local neighborhood and then have the Snake Man capture the 40-pound reptile.
Now we were only one week away from meeting the total cast and crew at the airport.
What scene will we shoot first? Will the condo gringos actually become hysterical when they see a croc in their pool? Will a load of croc crap add to their hysteria? Will we find a beautiful Mexican woman? Will her English be of a dialect understood by Florida rednecks?
Find out all this and more in the next edition of The Crocodile Chronicles.
The writer describes himself as a very middle-aged man who lives full-time in Mazatlán with a captured tourist woman and the ghost of a half-wild dog. He can be reached at [email protected].
Thursday's celebration of the founding of Tenochtitlán: four years early?
The government is manipulating historical fact for political gain by commemorating Tenochtitlan’s foundation on the wrong date, according to archaeologists and other academics.
But despite the critics, a ceremony to mark Mexico-Tenochtitlán “and more than seven centuries of history” was held on Thursday.
Experts in the field maintain that no historical source points to 1321 as the date of the foundation of Tenochtitlán, which later became Mexico City, and that the majority believe that 1325 is the more likely date.
But the numeric symmetry must have been hard to resist for government planners: 2021 marks 200 years since Mexican independence and 500 years since Hernán Cortés’ victory at Tenochtitlán, and 15 events are planned this year to celebrate.
The president first made the claim about Tenochtitlán’s foundation in September last year. “We are working together so that this year will be known as the Independence and Greatness of Mexico, 2021, because it coincides with the foundation of Mexico-Tenochtitlán,” he said.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who was charged with organizing the events, repeated the claim. “Mexico-Tenochtitlán, our home, meeting place, place of freedom and rights is getting ready to celebrate its more than seven centuries of greatness,” she said.
Their comments sparked objections from archaeologists, anthropologists and historians who said there was no evidence that the Mexica people founded the city in 1321, arguing that records indicate the pre-Hispanic year of “2-Calli,” coinciding with 1325.
Archaeologist and anthropologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, who directed excavations at the capital’s Templo Mayor, was succinct in his criticisms. “It’s an absurdity to commemorate a year that does not appear in any written source or ancient document, as several researchers have already pointed out … It’s really poor that without foundation they have begun to make propositions for a political purpose. It is a clear way to manipulate history…” he said.
“Now they have become historians, [and] they are trying to amend the dates. There is always a way to discuss and make criticism, but scientifically speaking not with people who are improvising. I do not want to imagine what the textbooks are going to say about the topic,” Matos added.
Fellow academics treated the president’s and Sheinbaum’s opportunism with equal disdain. “I prefer scientific history,” said historian Alfredo López Austin.
“Archaeologists are scientists, not tailors who produce dates to measure,” said archaeologist Leonardo López Luján, current director of the Templo Mayor Project.
Matos said the historical manipulation is more than political opportunism, but part of a wider mistreatment of indigenous groups. “One of the parts of history that has been forgotten is that of the indigenous. Sometimes [those in power] have acted in a patriarchal manner,” he said.
Stormy weather near Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo. deposit photos
There will be as many as 40 tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans this hurricane season, of which up to seven could make landfall in Mexico, according to the National Water Commission (Conagua).
Conagua forecasts there will be 15-20 tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and 14-20 in the Pacific. Hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30 in the former and May 15 to November 30 in the latter.
The Atlantic Ocean is predicted to get between eight and 11 tropical storms, four to five category 1 or 2 hurricanes and three to four category 3, 4 and 5 hurricanes.
Conagua forecasts that the Pacific Ocean will see between seven and 10 tropical storms, three to five category 1 or 2 hurricanes and four to five category 3, 4 and 5 hurricanes.
“Above average activity is forecast on both coasts,” Conagua chief Blanca Jiménez Cisneros told a press conference.
“[There could be] between five and seven impacts on national territory this season so the public must be attentive and prepared,” she said.
The first tropical storm of the Pacific season formed off the southwest coast of Mexico on Sunday six days before the official start of the hurricane season.
Tropical Storm Andres was the earliest tropical storm to ever form during the satellite era in the eastern Pacific, surpassing Adrian in 2017, CNN reported.
A Covid-19 rapid testing station in Cancún in April.
Quintana Roo is at high risk of regressing to red on the state’s coronavirus stoplight map due to a recent increase in cases, Governor Carlos Joaquín said Thursday.
In a video message posted to social media, Joaquín noted that the entire state is currently high-risk orange but warned that if residents don’t take care, it was “very probable” that Quintana Roo will switch to maximum-risk red next week, “which would mean lockdown, closures and cancellations,” he said.
The governor said that new case numbers have been on the rise in the Caribbean coast state for five weeks. According to federal Health Ministry estimates, there are currently 945 active cases in Quintana Roo, the fourth highest total among Mexico’s 32 states.
“We knew that during Easter week there were great risks. We knew that there could be a large number of infections, and unfortunately, that’s what happened,” Joaquín said. “There is a significant number of infections, and hospital occupancy has increased,” he said.
According to state government data, there were 163 hospitalized coronavirus patients on Thursday. Benito Juárez, the municipality that includes Cancún, has the highest hospital occupancy level, with 25% of the beds set aside for coronavirus patients being used.
The occupancy level is 16% in Solidaridad, which includes Playa del Carmen. In Tulum, it’s 8%, and 6% in Cozumel. In Othon P. Blanco, where the state capital Chetumal is located, occupancy is at 5%.
“We’re not yet at alert levels, … occupancy is still at green-light levels but … yesterday we had 26 people going into the hospital,” Joaquín said, highlighting that the figure increased from admissions in previous days of 15, 16 and 18.
“… We relaxed the [health] measures, we lost control, we reduced the level of responsibility at … businesses,” the governor said, adding that while proprietors who are not behaving correctly might be able to avoid the authorities, avoiding the coronavirus is very difficult.
“We’re facing a very significant risk. Going to red means lockdown; lockdown means closures,” he said, highlighting the impact that it would have on the economy and employment.
The state has recorded 24,626 confirmed coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic and 2,677 Covid-19 deaths, according to Quintana Roo data.
Mexico’s confirmed case tally currently stands at 2.37 million, while the official death toll is 219,901.
Looks can be deceiving: the Santiago River looks ideal for swimming, fishing and more, but the polluted water is deadly.
I live in a rural community eight kilometers west of Guadalajara. One day, this post appeared in our local chat forum:
“Save your eggshells! Don’t wash them! I will be collecting them regularly for the Santiago-Lerma Clean Water Project.”
That got my attention because I’ve long been concerned about the abominable state of both the Lerma River, which flows into Lake Chapala, and the Santiago, which flows out of it. I was delighted that people in my own community were suddenly trying to do something to clean them up … but with eggshells?
For every project, there is, of course, a Facebook page. Searching for h2oJalisco, I soon found myself talking to Bernardo Galán, a Guadalajara representative of this new movement. I asked him to explain what they were up to.
“This is a project that started out for the purpose of obtaining acceptable water from the Lerma River and is now focusing on the Santiago,” he said. “It’s nonprofit and apolitical. To make this happen, we are attempting to collect four tonnes of eggshells, four tonnes of quicklime (cal in Spanish) and four tonnes of magnesium oxide.
Volunteers fill a trench with dried eggshells, quicklime and magnesium.
“All of these will go into two wells near the Santiago River — exactly where, we haven’t yet decided. It could be in El Salto; it could be in Zapopan or maybe in Chapala. The idea is to make a physical-chemical mixture that will absorb some of the heavy metals and fecal matter in the wells and also to put healthy minerals back into that well water. We calculate that each well will provide clean water for a period of eight months, and our idea is not to do this just once but on a permanent basis.”
Galán explained to me that the mixture of the three ingredients goes into a ditch dug between the well and the river, a ditch exactly as deep as the well so that it will tap into the underground water feeding the well.
“We fill the ditch with our mixture during the rainy season to make sure it will affect the water table and therefore the well,” he explained.
Galán says that the collection of eggshells for this year will end August 2. Two weeks later, they plan to be filling the ditches.
“We are seeking permission to do this on government land near El Salto, but if permission is denied, we will do it on private land,” Galán said. “By the way, the scientists who began this project will come and analyze the water in these wells, both before our intervention and one year afterward.”
The eggshell plan was originally hatched by Evangelina Arias Ortega in Lerma de Villada, located 50 kilometers west of Mexico City.
Together, the Lerma and Santiago Rivers run for 1,183 kilometers.
There, water from the well in the center of town was sickening children and the elderly because it was contaminated with arsenic and heavy metals. Arias Ortega became concerned and approached two scientists at the National Autonomous University (UNAM).
Together, they worked out a plan which eventually succeeded in cleaning up a total of seven wells. In 2021, they hope to do the same for two more wells in the state of Jalisco.
There is no point that better demonstrates the problem of pollution along the Santiago River than El Salto waterfall, located just southeast of Greater Guadalajara. It’s hard to believe, but long ago El Salto de Juanacatlán on the Santiago River was considered one of the most beautiful sites to visit in Jalisco. It was promoted as “The Niagara of Mexico,” and tourists came from far and wide right up until the 1970s to stand in its spray and marvel at its beauty.
Thirty years later, they might have landed in the hospital for doing that, if not in the morgue.
This was demonstrated all too tragically in January of 2008 when 8-year-old Miguel Ángel López fell into the water at the base of the falls. The boy immediately entered a 24-hour cycle of severe vomiting, hallucinations and diarrhea and then went into a coma. He was diagnosed as suffering from septicemia (a severe systemic infection) and a worsening infection of the brain. The child died after 18 days.
Eventually, the state Medical Arbitration Committee determined that Miguel Ángel had died of arsenic poisoning. The state water commission admitted that there were at least 80 sites where untreated sewage and industrial wastes, including arsenic, lead and mercury, were being dumped into the Río Santiago in its first 100 kilometers.
An eggshell collection center at Los Cubos in Guadalajara.
Nevertheless, Jalisco’s Ministry of Health claimed that the river’s water was normal, with the exception of high levels of harmless manganese, aluminum and iron, something they said posed no cancer risks.
In 2012, Greenpeace activists marked World Water Day by rowing into the sudsy waters at the base of El Salto to leave placards drawing attention to the fact that toxic substances such as mercury, cadmium, arsenic, chromium and lead were being dumped into the putrid-smelling, foam-covered river.
This inspired Sam Morrison, a sixth-grade science teacher at the American School in Guadalajara, to organize a rafting trip down the Santiago from Lake Chapala all the way to where the river enters the Pacific in order to call the world’s attention to the plight of those who live alongside its filthy waters. Amazingly, the crew of four survived the experience (with the help of gas masks) and produced a documentary called Deadwater to Delta, 540 km Down the Most Polluted River in North America.”
The Jalisco water commission finally admitted that the levels of these contaminants were four times higher than what is considered acceptable … and also reported that fecal matter in the river was 400 times higher than what is tolerable.
The extent of the pollution problem was brought to my attention in 2016 when a researcher invited me on a tour of the Ahogado River, which flows into the Santiago. We drove to the corner of two streets quaintly named Biblia and Rosario, next to what looked like a drainage ditch and stepped out of the car to be hit by a stench that nearly gagged us.
A young lady was pushing a baby carriage across a bridge over this canal, which was the natural bed of the Ahogado River. Ahogado, perhaps appropriately, means “drowned man.”
Scene from the documentary Deadwater to Delta, following four Americans rafting down the Santiago from Lake Chapala to the Pacific.
“The raw sewage from all the houses around here flows directly into this arroyo [stream],” professor José Luis Zavala explained to me, “and here is where the problem begins.”
We then followed the river downstream to where it flows past the Guadalajara International Airport. What we saw and smelled was pure sewage with great gobs of garbage floating on its surface.
Among the plastic bags, worn-out tires and “icebergs” of Styrofoam, we spotted the bloated corpse of a dead dog. To make matters worse, it appeared that the airport’s wastewater was flowing directly into the pestilential stream.
Just across the highway from the airport, the river flows right into a grim-looking swamp called La Presa del Ahogado, which stinks to the high heaven. Because it’s officially a wetland, it’s federal property.
All around it are factories: textile manufacturers, toolmakers, etc. All of them seem to be spilling their residues into the smelly bog.
In spite of the building of a treatment plant at El Ahogado in 2012, the Santiago River remains one of the most polluted in Mexico.
A dismal bog outside El Salto. Factories dump industrial waste here, where it mixes with wastewater, then flows into the Santiago River.
Nevertheless, concerned people like Evangelina Arias have decided to stop waiting for the government to do something and have worked out a practical way for local people to get usable water from wells alongside the river. No wonder the eggshell project quickly spread from México state to Jalisco and is beginning to inspire people all over the country, from San Miguel Allende to Guanajuato.
“We have made an effort, and it has been successful,” said Galán. “Now it is time to increase those efforts.”
To locate the eggshell collection point nearest you, call 56 2509 9767. The organizers are also looking for help in logistics and advertising and for donors of quicklime and magnesium.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be foundon his website.
Through this drain, untreated sewage flows into the Arroyo Ahogado.Wastewater from hundreds of homes pours into the Ahogado Arroyo and eventually flows into the Santiago River.A filtration trench filled with eggshells and ready for use near the Lerma River once the rainy season begins.El Salto waterfalls on the Santiago River were once known as “Mexico’s Niagara.”
