A common sight just after Mexico's topes is a driver fixing his car's undercarriage.
I want to meet the guy who came up with the idea for topes.
For those fortunate few who don’t know what topes are, they’re basically wider and higher speed bumps than you’re probably used to that are randomly placed on many Mexican roads for no apparent reason.
Well, that’s not fair. There are apparent reasons. Mexicans tend to drive like maniacs. The idea behind topes, I guess, is to get Mexicans to at least slow down. Getting them to drive safely is pretty much impossible.
The thing about topes is, they really don’t get drivers to slow down. What they get them to do is burn out their brakes and clutches.
This is the way it works: people drive at their normal reckless speed until they see a tope. Then they slam on the brakes, slowly climb over the tope and speed away.
There are some places where officials apparently have some kind of heart because they’ve put up warning signs that you’re approaching a tope or have painted the tope with white or yellow stripes to alert you. To be honest, the signs don’t give you a heck of a lot of warning, and the paint on virtually every tope I’ve ever seen has faded to worthlessness. That means that just after many topes you’ll often see cars pulled over with someone underneath trying to patch the undercarriage back together.
But if individual topes are bizarre, “tope zones” take it to a whole other level.
As their name suggests, tope zones are places that have several topes in a short stretch, often just a few feet apart. Driving through one of these zones is kind of like being on a demented amusement park ride.
As usual, a driver will approach a tope at top speed, slam on the brakes and then slowly drive over it. He will then accelerate to make it as quickly as possible to the next tope, where he’ll slam on his brakes again. This pattern is repeated until he’s finally out of the zone, at which time the driver may be incapacitated with a severe case of whiplash.
I guess topes are a noble first attempt to make the roads safer, but someone has to accept that they’re simply not working. I mean, we’re dealing with a nation of people who are in such a rush that they think nothing of passing a truck while going uphill on a blind curve on a two-lane mountain road — where there are no guardrails between you and the valley bottom several hundred feet below. This is not an exaggeration: I’ve been in vehicles doing exactly that.
So, does anyone really think that a lousy bit of raised asphalt slapped into the middle of the road will do all that much to change things?
I have my doubts.
Joseph Sorrentino is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
A mobile hospital in Chihuahua is being shipped to Mexico City to help handle the increased case load.
The coronavirus outbreak in Mexico City will overwhelm the capital’s health system in January, according to academics in Mexico and the United States who collaborated on a study.
Academics from Mexico City’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) and Stanford University predict that by the middle of next month demand for hospital beds for coronavirus patients in the capital’s metropolitan area will be 50% higher than the current capacity of approximately 10,000 beds.
Their prediction assumes that there will be more social distancing over the vacation period than there has been recently.
“Under all scenarios and policies, current hospital capacity appears insufficient,” the academics wrote. In a worst case scenario, more than 35,000 coronavirus patients could require a hospital bed at the same time in January, they said.
“Officials should prioritize rapid hospital capacity expansion.”
A Covid patient is admitted to a Mexico City hospital.
The news agency Bloomberg said the “study is the clearest evidence yet that Mexico’s virus response is insufficient to deal with what appears to be a second, more virulent outbreak.”
Mexico City has been the country’s coronavirus epicenter since the start of the pandemic, and is now nearing 300,000 confirmed cases. More than 20,000 people have lost their lives to the infectious disease in the capital and just under 5,400 coronavirus patients are currently in hospitals across the city.
More than three-quarters – 77% – of hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently in use, according to the city government.
The CIDE and Stanford academics said the only way to avoid the collapse of the health system is to maintain very strict coronavirus restrictions well into 2021.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum last week ordered a three-week suspension of nonessential activities after the coronavirus risk level in the capital was raised to red light “maximum” but it remains to be seen whether it will have the desired effect on reducing case numbers and hospitalizations.
Senior government officials greeted the arrival of Covid vaccine today in Mexico City.
Having ruled out any possibility of enforcing strict lockdowns, the government appears to be hoping that a rapid vaccination campaign will help control the virus. But the reality is that inoculating enough people to end the pandemic will take many months at the very least – if things go smoothly. Some doctors fear the government will bungle the vaccination process based on its lackluster pandemic response.
Still, the arrival of the first batch of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines on Wednesday provides the country with some much needed hope.
Mexico has signed an agreement to purchase 34.4 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and the first 3,000 of that number arrived in Mexico City Wednesday morning via DHL from Belgium.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, Health Minister Jorge Alcoer and Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, who is leading the government’s pandemic response, were among the officials who met the plane on the tarmac.
Mexico is the first country in Latin America to receive a Covid-19 vaccine and among the first 10 in the world, Ebrard said. He said that vaccines will be made available free of charge to all Mexican citizens and the vaccination process will start soon.
“It’s true that we’re still facing a terrible pandemic, the worst we’ve lived through, but today is the start of the end of the pandemic,” Ebrard said. “Today we can clearly see that we’re going to defeat this virus that has … disrupted our lives. … We have hope and today we are very happy.”
Estimated active Covid cases by state. milenio
The government has already presented a vaccination plan that stipulates that frontline health workers and the elderly will be prioritized. The vaccinations are in the possession of the military and the first shots will be administered on Thursday, the Health Ministry said.
The arrival of the first batch of vaccines comes a day after Mexico recorded a new single-day record of confirmed coronavirus cases. The Health Ministry reported 12,511 new cases on Tuesday, increasing the accumulated tally to just under 1.34 million.
An additional 897 Covid-19 fatalities were also registered, lifting the death toll to 119,495.
According to the federal government stoplight system, there are currently three red light “maximum” risk states – Mexico City, México state and Baja California – and 24 “high” risk orange ones.
But authorities in Morelos announced Wednesday that red light red restrictions would apply in that state from Thursday on. The government warned Monday that tighter restrictions would be implemented if citizens didn’t comply with current rules and today acted on that warning.
Governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco said that all nonessential economic activities will be suspended from Christmas Eve until January 11. That means that the same shutdown that already applies in Mexico City and México state extends to the capital’s southern neighbor.
“Reducing [economic] activity and social mobility is urgent,” Blanco said. “That’s the only way we’ll be able to stop this increase of Covid-19 in our state.”
The government’s decision to enforce red light restrictions comes despite Morelos having recorded fewer than 10,000 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic and having a hospital occupancy rate of only 43%.
There are currently 286 confirmed active cases in the state, according to the Morelos Health Ministry, up from 190 on December 1.
In 2020, any little way you can find much-needed peace is valid.
By the time this piece is published, the winter solstice on December 21 will have passed, and Christmas will be upon us. What I write for Mexico News Daily is, for me, always personal. But this one today will be extra personal: a reflection of my individual experience this year, illustrated as a drop of water — that’s me — being carried in a societal ocean wave. We are all drops, after all, and moved around together a lot more often than you’d think.
While I’ve been known to identify as a snarky atheist in the past, I’m still human. And so, like all humans, am preprogrammed for both belief in the supernatural and the ability to find pattern and meaning in things that may or not contain pattern or meaning. You can be sure that a lot of that is going to be happening this week at my house as I, like all of you, try to make sense of all this. The winter solstice is an especially potent metaphor this time around, the longest and darkest night in an extra sad and scary year.
My hope lies in the after, and the idea that this is a turning point. The sun will extend its stay each day afterward, gradually, imperceptibly. If we can get through this night, we’ll have made it through the worst of it. If we can get through this part of the deep, dark tunnel of the pandemic, we’ll have passed the halfway mark. There’s still tunnel, and it sucks. But at least we’ll be on the way out instead of the way in.
It’s been a rough year. If you’re reading this paper, it means that though you may very well have been on a bitter tour of hell lately, you and I are still luckier than a lot of people who aren’t even alive to cry about things. So many of us have been dragged through the mud and hung up wet, but at least we’re still around to shake our fists at the gods about it.
My year on a personal level has been a mixed bag. My husband and I separated at the beginning of it. (Divorces are conspicuously up in some parts of Mexico, though in my case it’s just a coincidence.) We have been navigating the choppy seas of parenting in a pandemic with the twin sucky emotions of deep hurt and fear about what is safe and what is not. Like any two people, we don’t completely agree on every point.
The tentative excitement of moving to a new home was immediately dampened by the cancellation of schools and other nonessential activities that rolled in just as I was putting the finishing touches on the new house I’d rented. Its completion and readiness for guests happened just as it would no longer be advisable to receive guests.
My daughter suddenly found herself in a strange new house where her father did not live. She was cut off from her classmates and friends at the same time. She’s better adjusted now and seems to be settled in and enjoying going back and forth between us, as well as to her online classes — at least as much as a first-grader can appreciate online classes. For a while there, though, it was rough.
I haven’t seen my own family since last Christmas and have been feeling the effects deeply of being a single mom with no extended clan in an incredibly family-oriented culture. My sister was supposed to visit me in late March, but the week before she was to travel, the idea of closing borders was being floated all over the news media. She was afraid not just of the virus but of getting down here and then not being allowed back home at the end of her trip.
I saw quite a bit of translation work dry up as the year went on, as well: I primarily translate current events and news, and reporters simply weren’t able to go out as much and report. As I mentioned in my article about President López Obrador’s proposed outsourcing law, I’ve always worked rather precariously as a contractor, but the pandemic has added quite a bit of extra instability to it all. At least I have an income; I’ve seen many friends and acquaintances have to close their businesses, some of the more than one million that have gone belly up in the absence of any meaningful emergency support or disaster relief.
All that said, I’ve had it so much better than so many others. First, my health has been good. I haven’t been sick that I know of (though I often think back to the last week of February when I was suddenly hit with a high fever, chills, and a terrible sore throat). I’ve been able to meet a few very special people — carefully and slowly, the way the two hedgehogs in one of my daughter’s books go to great lengths to hug each other without hurting each other with their needles.
Slowly but surely, I’ve been finding more work opportunities. I’ve finally bought private health insurance, something I’ve been meaning to do for years. I have a plan to pay off my debt and maybe even eventually have some savings if I can avoid any kind of major catastrophe between now and then.
By the time you read this, December 21 will have been the darkest, longest night of the darkest, longest year that most of us have ever experienced. We might have had some individual bright spots, but on the whole, collectively, it’s been terrible.
But the day after the solstice, it won’t be the darkest night. Each day following this day up until the summer solstice will have a little more sun in it. From day to day, we won’t notice it, the way we don’t see our hair growing longer. But then one day, you look in the mirror and see that you could really use a trim. You look outside and see that it’s almost 9:00 p.m. and there’s still a little light, perfect for an evening barbecue.
The winter solstice is one of those times where I practice my own improvised version of very likely impotent witchcraft. I write down what I want to let die and burn the paper. I write down what I want to create and grow and put it in a special place, maybe with some flowers. And when things are just too awful even to get out of bed, I stay there under the covers and tell myself I’m a seed, letting, as best I can, the painful lessons cleanse me with their burning and merge with my DNA in preparation for the resurrection of an even stronger version of myself.
We prepare ourselves and grow in darkness, but the light is coming back. Get ready.
Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com.
With authorities urging Mexicans not to gather with their extended families and friends this Christmas due to the coronavirus threat, many people are turning to online celebrations to get into the spirit of the season.
One such person is Crisóforo Juárez, a Mexico City man who is determined to have a happy Christmas despite the absence of his 26-year-old son, a cancer sufferer who died in July after contracting Covid-19.
Juárez told the newspaper Milenio that he and his family needed to “fill themselves with positive experiences” to balance out the tough times they’ve gone through this year and for that reason he organized an online Christmas party with his work colleagues.
He said that the attendees will participate in a virtual gift exchange in which they give each other presents selected from e-commerce sites.
Juárez added that he and his workmates will socialize over wine and cold cuts supplied by their employer and play a game of lotería mexicana (Mexican lottery), which is similar to bingo. The virtual celebration is set to go ahead Wednesday night.
“Cheer up! Things will change, nothing is eternal, these are circumstances that will end,” Juárez said.
Another person who has turned to technology to brighten up the festive season is Alejandra Durán of México state. In fact, she has created her own Christmas party business perfectly suited to the current times.
Durán has turned her living room into something akin to a movie set and from there she beams Christmas-themed parties/shows into the homes of people who have contracted her services. The shows from her living room – dubbed the fabrica de sonrias Alegría (Happiness smile factory) – of course feature Santa Claus as well as a couple of his trusty elves.
Durán, who has experience entertaining attendees of baby showers and bachelorette parties, leads a range of activities with the virtual party guests including games, sing-alongs, dancing and cookie decorating.
Families who pay for a virtual party receive a kit with everything they need before it is held, she explained.
Durán said that people might not be able to hug each other due to the current circumstances but they can still have a good – and safe – time together.
For his part, Santa told Milenio during a video call that “we must overcome the situation all together,” adding: “[Have] a happy Christmas, but as you already know with all the [health] recommendations.”
Virtual karaoke parties, trivia nights, talent shows and scavenger hunts are just some of the other fun activities that family and friends can participate in together online while remaining physically and safely apart.
On my first Christmas in Mexico, I was convinced that midnight Mass was what I needed to feel festive.
The small town where I lived had a beautiful pink-tinted cathedral that was lit up inside with enough Christmas lights, blinking at enough different speeds, that I felt I might just have an aneurysm watching them. A friend from Australia came along, and she brought a friend from London and her friend’s two parents, who were Hindu. We were quite the troop, sitting as close as we could to the back row, hoping to be inconspicuous as the only foreigners in attendance. Unfortunately for the very nervous father, he ended up at the end of the row that met with the center aisle. As passing parishioners handed out little cups of confetti, he looked at me with terror in his eyes.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” he whispered.
“Just throw it at the baby Jesus when he comes by,” I whispered back.
This provoked anxiety that I have rarely seen in a grown man. I was about to offer to switch places, but it was too late. The baby Jesus was already being carried down the aisle on his way to his mother Mary’s arms at the front of the altar. Suffice it to say, the confetti throwing from our row was a bit of a bust.
When I was a kid all I ever wanted was for each Christmas to be exactly the same as the last. The consistency – the ritual, the traditions – were all an integral part of the holiday’s joy for me. Over the years, my Christmases in Mexico have taught me to appreciate the unexpected and made me realize that surprises, good and bad, are what make the memories.
At posadas, a costumed Joseph and Mary ask neighbors for room at the inn.
One year, Juan the butcher invited me and my then partner to a celebration known as a posada at his house just a few doors down from ours. At that point, I didn’t even really know what a posada was. The word means “inn.”
The event starts with a parade of neighbors who go from door to door, singing songs that were not unlike carols.
The pageantry reenacts the Virgin Mary and Joseph going from inn to inn in Bethlehem, looking for a place where Mary — ripe with child and tired from her journey — might rest for the night. Mary and Joseph are turned away by homes in the neighborhood several times before the last house they visit that night lets them in. Once inside, the parading troupe is greeted with piñatas and sweets and tangy, hot ponche (punch) all around with a bit of tequila tipped into the mug for adults.
Being new to the posada tradition, we were nervous about what we should bring, how we should act, but those things melted away when Juan, his wife and their half-dozen kids welcomed us with smiling faces and the heated exuberance that comes with a lively party and a little bit of liquor.
We stood at the edge of their garage, doors wide open to the street, and watched the children desperately trying to break the piñata while adults looked on with the wistful smiles of their own childhoods remembered. It was only my second Christmas away from my family — even in college I mostly made it home for the holidays — and the worry that I might feel lonely or nostalgic dissipated with the joy of those hardworking families and neighbors taking the night to just relax and revel in Christmas.
The Christmas that taught me about Mexican nativity scenes came with an invitation to help Cris and the women in her family make hundreds of tamales in a single afternoon. Each year, one family oversaw making the tamales for the Christmas pilgrims that would parade around town, and its residents had an insatiable love for them; at least three or four were needed for each person.
A blow-up nativity scene awaiting a loving home.
By the time we arrived in their village of 50 families, the corn masa was already ground and mixed, ready to be spread onto dried corn husks. All you needed to add was a smear of red or green salsa and a sliver of chicken or pork; then, presto, it went into one of the six massive steamers waiting for the holiday parcels.
A massive nativity scene had been erected in their living room a few days before. It had elements that you might imagine — the baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the wise men, a few farm animals — but there were also ducks, a wishing well, elephants, camels, a tiny model pigsty, a few cartoon figurines for good measure, angels, dogs and cats. All this was laid out in an undulating plain constructed from particleboard and some kind of modeling material to create hills in the scene the size of a small dining room table and covered in decorative straw. There were rivers, hills, fences and bridges. It looked more like an entire Bethlehem than the simple nativity scenes of my youth. This suddenly became one of my favorite Mexican Christmas traditions ever.
When we moved to Mexico City, Christmas lost some of its small-town charm. Instead of posadas it was the monster light displays in the zócalo that meant Christmas was here, as did images of holly and snowflakes that didn’t seem completely coherent in the heat and sunshine of the capital’s mild December.
One year, we went to see the skating rink set up in the middle of the central plaza, where millions of Mexico City kids in t-shirts waited in line for hours for their 30 minutes on the ice. In the evening it got cool enough to grab two piping hot chocolates from Sanborns and sit on the steps of the Guardiola Building, listening to a jazz quartet’s impromptu performance on Madero St., a pedestrian walkway. Shoppers were out picking up last-minute purchases, and no one could help but stop and listen to that angelic music reverberating off the colonial facades of the historic center.
Each year that I have lived in Mexico City, my favorite Christmas activity has been visiting the markets and their winding romerías — outdoor markets that sell blinding sets of Christmas lights, decorations, poinsettias and fresh-cut Christmas trees. It’s a little painful for an environmentalist like myself to see all those trees that by mid-January will decorate the curbs of the entire city as they wait to be trashed, but the smell of aisles and aisles of Douglas firs and spruce is unmistakably intoxicating. I liked to hit up the big markets for the colors but take to my local, smaller Mercado Medellín to make my final purchases. More than once I lugged a tree taller than myself on a tiny dolly the 10 blocks from the market to my house, then the four flights up to my apartment, where its tight spaces would immediately fill with the smell of pine.
A new Christmas tree from Mexico City’s Medellín market.
Last year I spent Christmas with my parents and boyfriend in Bacalar.
“Christmas in the Caribbean!” I promised them, even though during the first several nights, we froze in the beach house, which was unprepared for anything colder than about 27 C and had no blankets.
The cold didn’t so much snap as flicker, and in a few days, it was tropical again. My mother, as our family is wont to do, brought all the traditions with her that she could, including stockings. We had no fireplace to put them on, so we hung them on curtain rods and chair backs. We tried to make our traditional sub sandwiches, but it turns out that pepper jack cheese and old-fashioned loaf are not that easy to come by in Mexico, so we made do with manchego and sliced turkey. We did succeed in watching the family classic, A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott, with a tiny portable projector and a makeshift screen made from a sheet, but sitting in our tank tops and shorts, I never felt farther away from the snowy, cold London on the screen.
That Christmas reminded me of another Mexico Christmas, years before, in a different relationship and with a different family, that I spent in Manzanillo on the Pacific coast.
It might have been the hottest Christmas I can remember (except the one I spent in Buenos Aires during their worst heatwave in 20 years). My girlfriend’s family had come from Argentina to celebrate with us, and I was insistent on getting a tree to decorate. I drove her crazy for days going from big-box store to big-box store until I found an extremely overpriced and sad-looking fake spruce.
We made ornaments with the kids, who were over the moon about the glitter and when I pulled out my mom-approved stockings in the morning, overflowing with gifts and nonsense, I was sure their heads would explode; gifts in Argentina are mainly given for Three Kings Day, and this was like celebrating twice!
One way to stay cool attending a warm-weather Christmas is with picadas.
We sweated out Christmas night on the patio, drinking ice-cold white wine and staying cool with a picada, an assortment of cured meats, cheese and olives, while sending Chinese floating lanterns into the air, wishing for brighter things for the New Year.
Because of Covid, I won’t be going back to the wintry north this year to see my family for Christmas. After almost a year of quarantine, the prospect of gathering around the old yule log to celebrate sounds awfully nice, but after so many Christmases spent in my adopted country, I know that there is bound to be some little detail that has yet to amaze me.
And I can count among my precious gifts this year that the people I love are at home, safe and healthy in front of their fires and that I will be enjoying Christmas in Mexico once again.
Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
León is the first city in Latin America to offer free 4.5G Wi-Fi on public transit.
Bus commuters can now surf the internet while they ride in León, Guanajuato, making the city the first in Latin America and the fifth worldwide to offer free 4.5G Wi-Fi in its public transit network.
This first phase of Wi-Fi installation on more than 850 of the city’s municipal buses connects the city’s existing Wi-Fi offerings, which include 91 bus stations and substations.
The number of equipped buses represents half the city’s entire fleet of around 1,700. Nevertheless, the innovation puts León’s bus system on par with those in cities like Beijing, New York, and Seoul.
Guanajuato Governor Diego Sinhue said the new service gives León a world-class transportation system.
León Mayor Héctor López Santillana said city officials are offering free internet to encourage more riders to use the city’s online scheduling application, which they had determined many residents do not access because of cellular airtime costs.
“Now they will be connected at all times and will be able to know with precision at what hour their bus will arrive, making better use of their time by avoiding waiting and unnecessary lines,” he said.
The upgrade was part of an ongoing overhaul of the city’s public transit system in the last 2 1/2 years. Other new buses include 23 new environmentally friendly vehicles that feature handicapped and maternity seating, as well as surveillance cameras.
The Wi-Fi installations for the buses were provided by Mercedes-Benz, which supplied the new buses.
“It makes us proud to bear witness to a further step in mobility in Mexico, to the first integrated system that includes 100% connections to the internet aboard public transportation buses,” said Raúl Gonzalez of Mercedes-Benz. “It’s a pleasure to work with committed carriers who continue to invest in keeping citizens connected with the mobility and technology like in Leon, Guanajuato.”
Many social housing projects were built too far from sources of employment to be of any use.
Renovating just one home can be challenging. How about 175,000?
That’s the number of abandoned social housing dwellings the federal government aims to restore before it leaves office in late 2024.
According to the newspaper Milenio, an average of 119 homes will have to be renovated every day during the next four years for the government to achieve its goal.
There are an estimated 650,000 abandoned public housing dwellings in Mexico including large numbers of empty, dilapidated houses and apartments in northern border cities that are home to numerous maquiladoras, or factories.
There are about 31,000 abandoned dwellings in Ciudad Juárez, 25,000 in Reynosa, 18,000 in Mexicali and 16,000 in Tijuana. There are also significant numbers of empty, neglected public housing units in outlying areas of the greater Mexico City area including the México state municipalities of Zumpango and Tecámac.
The project will have to restore 119 homes a day to meet its goal.
Now, the National Workers Housing Fund (Infonavit) and the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning intend to renovate 175,000 homes located in those six municipalities and more than 80 others using funds allocated to the Abandoned Housing Regeneration Scheme.
Urban Planning Minister Román Meyer Falcón told Milenio that during its first two years in office, the government has been evaluating the abandoned home problem and preparing to do something about it. The actual renovation work will start in 2021, he said.
Louise David, director of the Alliance for Urban Regeneration, a think tank, said that to achieve its ambitious goal, the government will need to collaborate with state and municipal authorities, the private sector, social organizations and residents of the areas where the abandoned homes are located.
Infonavit has already signed cooperation agreements with authorities in several municipalities including Ciudad Juárez, Mexicali and Tijuana.
Meyer said the plan is not just to renovate the abandoned public housing dwellings but also ensure that the areas in which they are located have access to essential services such as water, electricity and education.
Meyer, David and Infonavit chief Carlos Martínez Velázquez said there are a range of reasons why more than half a million public housing dwellings have been abandoned.
Among them: they’re too small for growing families, they’re far from work centers, they lack access to basic services and they’re located in areas with high levels of violence.
“There is a lot of insecurity,” said a man who lives in an area of Tecámac where there are a large number of abandoned homes. He explained that muggings are common and that many former social housing residents left to live with their parents or other family members, or rented homes that are closer to their workplaces.
Many of the abandoned homes in Tecámac and other municipalities have been broken into by thieves who steal anything they can: doors, any furniture that has been left behind and boilers, among other fittings.
If the government achieves its goal of renovating 175,000 homes and finding owners or tenants for them there will still be 475,000 abandoned dwellings scattered across the country.
Restaurateur Antonio Meneses has always strived to create interest and excitement at his establishments in unique ways. In years past and together with his brother, chef Felipe Meneses, and wife chef Noria Zendejas, they created “Clandestine” dinners for patrons to dine in luxurious secret locations around Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo.
In early 2020 and pre-Covid, Meneses hosted internationally acclaimed guitarist Josue Tacorante Ortero and his wife vocalist Paulina Alverez at an outdoor concert. Their restaurants also feature numerous artists and groups from the exceptional talent pool that the region is well known for.
This year, and mindful of restrictions in Guerrero, Meneses decided to bring opera to his newest restaurant, Tanta Vida, located on the beautiful beach of Playa Palmar in Ixtapa.
The star-studded evening highlighted the internationally acclaimed tenor, Juan del Bosco, with performances by the incredible operatic voices of Karla Fonesca Villanueva, Montserrat Muzquiz, Juan Marcos Martinez Mijares and accompanied by pianist Andre Sierra, all from Mexico.
Juan Del Bosco is a Mexican tenor who graduated from the Manhattan School of Music at just 14 years of age and made his debut at Carnegie Hall, Apollo, and Paramount Theatre in 2016. He has performed in such prestigious halls as Palacio de Belles Artes, and the Lincoln Center.
Concert-goers Monday at Tanta Vida restaurant.
Karla Aurora Fonseca Villanueva, originally from Acapulco, is in her second year of a singing degree and her accomplishments include many solo performances around the state as part of a social project called Orquesta Coro Infantil y Juvenil.
Montserrat Muzquiz from Morelia, Michoacán, began her training at 17 years of age in the choir of the orchestra Esperanza Azteca Michoacán. She began her studies for her bachelor’s degree in music at the Conservatory of Roses in Michoacán, where she has performed numerous occasions as a soloist in ensembles and choirs.
Juan Marcos Martinez Mijares began his music studies at 19. Also from Morelia, Michoacán, Mijares is no stranger to the international stage, having performed in operas such as Carmen, playing Figaro in the opera Wedding of Figaro and Don Giovanni in the opera of the same name, in countries such as Austria, Germany Bulgaria, and the U.S.
Pianist Andre Sierra of El Manta, Tamaulipas, began studying piano at age 7. He moved to Morelia years later to study piano with Alexander Pashkov and has participated in various artistic events around the country.
Strict protocols were in place at Monday’s event; masks were worn by everyone and hand sanitizer was available at the door.
The program included classical Christmas carols such as What Child is This, Adeste Fideles, Hark the Herald Angels Sing as well as fun pieces made popular by Frank Sinatra such as Let It Snow. Although equally enthralled by all performances, in particular I enjoyed my favourites O Holy Night by Adolphe Adam and the Franz Schubert version of Ave Maria. The finale was a combined effort of Silent Night in English, Spanish and the original by Franz Schubert in German.
For the first time this year, I felt the Christmas spirit envelop me beneath a canopy of stars as I listened to the beautiful voices soar above the faint sound of the surf. The experience of the magical evening only reiterated for me my decision to come to Mexico given that my home province Ontario, Canada, was in lockdown. And for a moment in time, I could almost forget we were in the middle of a pandemic.
“We wanted to bring a feeling of Christmas in a family setting,” Meneses said when I told him how much it meant to me being so far from home and family this season. “It was important for us to bring people together especially this year.”
I think everyone who attended would agree that they accomplished what they set out to do.
Merry Christmas to all and a happy New Year. Stay safe.
The writer divides her time between Canada and Zihuatanejo.
The 10,000-peso loans to small businesses will be repayable over two years.
The Mexico City government has announced an 830-million-peso (US $41.3 million) economic support package for people affected by the capital’s red light coronavirus risk designation and the three-week shutdown of nonessential businesses.
Authorities announced last Friday that Mexico City was switching to the maximum risk level due a recent increase in coronavirus case numbers and hospitalizations. Nonessential businesses must remain closed until January 11.
Administration and Finance Minister Luz Elena González announced on Tuesday four different measures to support small businesses, workers and families affected by the economic shutdown.
The government will offer 50,000 interest-free loans of 10,000 pesos (just under US $500) each to small businesses, she said. They will have 24 months to repay them, and their first repayments are not due until four months after they receive the money.
The government has set aside 500 million pesos for the program.
The second measure announced by González is the provision of 2,200-peso (US $110) lump sum payments to 100,000 formal and informal sector restaurant workers. Restaurants are limited to take out and delivery service during the shutdown, meaning that many employees have likely been laid off.
The workers’ assistance package is worth 220 million pesos.
Thirdly, the government will provide payments to families with children enrolled in public schools. The payments, designed to help parents cover school expenses such as the purchase of uniforms and supplies, range from 710 to 830 pesos per student.
Families with a child enrolled at a school for students with disabilities will receive a 900-peso payment.
“One family with two children, for example, will be receiving between 1,400 and 1,800 pesos … as support for these times we are going through,” González said.
A total of 89 million pesos has been allocated to the program, which is expected to benefit the families of about 1.25 million children.
The fourth and final measure is the cancelation of the payment of payroll tax in January for nonessential businesses located in Mexico City’s historic center. The scheme is expected to save businesses a combined 20.5 million pesos.
González stressed that the four measures are in addition to economic support that federal and city authorities are already providing.
“These are extraordinary [measures],” she said.
Some business groups said the assistance is insufficient to counteract the impact of the three-week closure.
The Mexico City branch of the Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) said an economic package of some 3.2 billion pesos – almost four times the size of the one announced – is needed to help businesses and workers survive the shutdown.
“Coparmex Mexico City urges the city government to take a serious look at its budget estimates and propose a real program … to protect jobs and companies,” said president Armando Zúñiga.
México ¿Cómo Vamos? director Sofía Ramírez welcomed the support packages.
He said that canceling payroll tax in January was a good idea but questioned why the scheme was limited to the capital’s downtown area.
“[It’s] completely discriminatory for the remainder of formal companies that have suffered the effects of the pandemic,” Zúñiga said.
He and other business group leaders who spoke with the newspaper El Financiero said that businesses need more support to be able to pay workers’ salaries. They also said they should be given extensions to pay expenses such as electricity and rent.
Gerardo Cleto López Becerra of the small business association ConComercioPequeño said the economic package is insufficient and charged that the Mexico City government has underestimated the size of the problem businesses are facing.
He said that 10,000-peso loans would do little to help businesses that have seen their sales fall by 80% this year and could even harm them.
“Businesses are in debt, … it’s not possible that [they’re] offering more debt to indebted businesses,” López said.
The package did find some supporters, among whom were a think tank chief and the president of the National Chamber for Industrial Transformation (Canacinta).
“You have to recognize that they’re doing what we’ve seen has worked in other places – precisely this package of loans to micro and small businesses and support for one of the worst hit sectors, … restaurants,” said México ¿Cómo Vamos? director Sofía Ramírez.
She also said that the additional support for families with school-age children is welcome.
“Any additional income will do people a lot of good,” Ramírez said, noting that the governments of other states haven’t provided additional support for students, most of whom have studied remotely for virtually the entire year.
Canacintra president Enoch Castellanos said that Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and her government have demonstrated empathy with businesses and workers in announcing measures to help them survive the red light restrictions. He called on the federal government to emulate what the authorities in the capital are doing.
President López Obrador and his administration have been heavily criticized by the private sector for not providing enough support for businesses and workers amid the sharp coronavirus-induced economic downturn.
Hundreds of thousands of people were affected by flooding in Tabasco last month.
Three civil servants in Tabasco have been suspended after a video came to light showing them not-too-subtly demanding a bribe from a flood victim in exchange for processing her request for aid.
The federal government’s Welfare Ministry said it had identified and suspended three of the employees involved after it learned of the video via social media. Spokesperson Fernando Vázquez said the agency was investigating the incident and emphasized that 90% of the 200,000 people in Tabasco documented as affected by flooding have received recovery aid “in an honest and direct manner.”
The video shows a Ministry of Welfare employee in Teapa soliciting the bribe while other employees look on. In the video, the official says the victim can receive aid, but that she also had to support “the [civil] servants.”
The victim had approached the agency Monday to find out why the 10,000 pesos she had been promised was not delivered. She told local media that she had recorded the conversation with her phone after hearing from other residents who had received aid that one had to negotiate with the employees at the office to receive payment. Her mother surreptitiously recorded the video, she said.
The victim said she was first told that she had not been paid because the agency had received reports that no one lived in her community, despite the victim recognizing one of the employees in the office as her neighbor.
The civil servant then told the victim she could receive the aid promised but that she needed to pay 5,000 pesos, half the amount the woman was slated to receive.
“Yes, you can receive aid, but we also want you to help us,” the woman says on the video, “so that the civil servants receive the same support.”
After revealing that she had recorded the conversation, she was told that that no one had agreed to being recorded. Ultimately, her aid application was rejected on the grounds that she was already receiving aid from another program, a claim she refuted.
