But that wasn’t the case on Thursday in Ixtlahuaca, México state, when a truck rolled over, spilling products made by Gamesa, Mexico’s largest maker of cookies.
About 80 residents of San Pedro de los Baños spontaneously organized themselves, some surrounding the truck to protect it while others collected the spilled merchandise and temporarily stored it in a nearby house.
Then they waited for the trucking company to send another truck to collect the merchandise. When it arrived, residents went back to work.
A Facebook video posted by Emmanuel Ines shows a human chain loading the boxes of products on to the second truck.
“There are a lot of videos where people loot trucks after accidents,” wrote Ines. “But this is a very different story, and it deserves to be recognized, and to serve as a teaching moment for everyone who sees it . . . Change starts within.”
Some of the math students who will travel to South Africa.
A film director and beer maker will help 12 young Mexican mathematicians fly to South Africa to participate in an international math contest after they issued a plea for support.
Film director Guillermo del Toro, whose film The Shape of Water won best picture at the 2018 Academy Awards, will pay for the students’ flights while Grupo Modelo has offered to pay for the team’s accommodation in South Africa.
The Mexico City Math Olympiad team will represent their country at the South Africa Mathematics Olympiad August 1-6 in Durban.
The team of elementary and middle school students had said they would be unable to send a full complement to South Africa because of cuts by the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt).
The council gave the team 1.6 million pesos (US $84,210) this year, 35% less than last year.
A round-trip ticket from Mexico to South Africa costs at least 41,000 pesos (US $2,157), or $25,884 for a team of 12.
The cuts to Conacyt are part of the austerity policies of the federal government.
Conacyt, which has been dogged by scandals of alleged embezzlement, misuse of funds and nepotism, was hit with a 12% budget cut this year. President López Obrador referred to the corruption scandals and the high salaries of Conacyt employees to justify the cuts.
“There are mafias everywhere, even in science,” he said.
But many in the scientific community are worried about the effects the cuts could have. Alonso Huerta, president of the National Network of Councils and State Science and Technology Organizations, criticized the president’s attitude towards science education.
“If we want to reach our economic growth goals, which are quite ambitious, we need to promote science and technology, and connect it with the productive sector,” he said.
Federico Gómez Children’s Hospital let 100 nurses go due to cutbacks.
The Secretariat of Finance (SHCP) has released more than 2 billion pesos in funding that was withheld from hospitals and national health institutes.
Public health executives met with lawmakers Thursday to demand that the government provide funds that had either been withheld or cut, warning that health institutes and two specialist hospitals in Mexico City were on the brink of insolvency and that their capacity to provide care was at risk.
Maricela Verdejo, director of administration at the National Institute of Rehabilitation, confirmed that 2.46 billion pesos (US $129.1 million) was released.
“Yes, the resources were frozen but today [Friday] 2.46 billion pesos that was withheld from the [health] institutes was released. It now appears in the Secretariat of Finance reports,” she said.
Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer said that after he saw a document submitted by the national health institutes – which detailed the problems the public health system faces due to federal budget cuts and the freezing of funds – he met with Finance Secretary Carlos Urzúa and the matter had been “fixed.”
He rejected that health funding had been cut or frozen, stating that some money earmarked for the sector was held up only because it was “necessary to evaluate” it.
Similarly, President López Obrador has maintained that no money has been cut from the health sector, stating yesterday that the accusations were “inventions.”
However, media reports and accounts from people who work in the health sector contradict his claim.
A report published Wednesday by the newspaper Milenio said that federal budget cuts are causing problems at hospitals in 24 states while the leader of a union that represents government workers said that there have been 10,000 dismissals in the public health sector since López Obrador took office.
On Tuesday, Germán Martínez cited budget and staffing cuts at the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), a large health care provider, as key reasons why he resigned from his position as agency chief.
Yesterday, the director of administration at the Federico Gómez Children’s Hospital of Mexico, Carlos Plascencia Pacheco, said the employment of 100 outsourced nurses was terminated in February because there was no federal money to pay them. The hospital has also faced shortages of anesthetics and nitric oxide due to budget cuts.
However, the SHCP has told authorities at that hospital that it is committed to restoring its full budget, while Alfonso Ramírez Cuellar, president of the budget committee in the lower house of Congress and a lawmaker for the ruling Morena party, said the government is committed to adequately funding the entire public health system.
“[Funding] will be guaranteed. There is an absolute conviction and a decision to absolutely guarantee all health services . . .” he said.
López Obrador yesterday offered a similar pledge.
“Let it be absolutely clear: for the health and the education of the people, there is no limit in terms of budget.”
Three of the kidnapping suspects arrested in Mexico City.
Five federal investigators were arrested in Mexico City yesterday on suspicion of kidnapping and extortion.
The members of the federal Criminal Investigation Agency were themselves assigned to investigating kidnappings.
The arrests followed an investigation that began after a kidnapping in the borough of Miguel Hidalgo in January. Early inquiries indicated that the perpetrators were with the federal prosecutor’s office.
It is the second time this month that evidence of corruption has surfaced in the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
Police arrested two kidnapping suspects on May 15, one of whom was employed by the FGR.
Business owners in the historic center of Guadalajara have urged municipal authorities to draw up a plan to rehabilitate and repopulate the city’s downtown as part of a strategy to combat insecurity.
The historic center branch of the National Chamber of Commerce (Canaco) argues that the cornerstone of the plan should be the construction of high-rise housing on lots occupied by abandoned non-heritage buildings.
“Families should come and live here to start to create a social fabric,” said Alejandro Salas, the outgoing president of the downtown Canaco branch. “A master plan is needed just for this issue.”
According to the Guadalajara government, there are 624 abandoned or under-utilized dwellings in the center of the municipality as well as 268 vacant lots within the vicinity of Line 3 of the light rail that could be used for high-density housing developments.
In addition to insecurity, Salas said that homelessness and cleanliness of the streets were other issues that need to be addressed in the downtown area of the Jalisco capital.
At an event yesterday to swear in Salas’ successor, the president of the citywide chapter of Canaco issued a plea to local authorities to crack down on the rising number of street vendors in the historic center of the city using the strategy adopted by former mayor turned state Governor Enrique Alfaro.
“The increase of the informal economy concerns us, Mayor Ismael del Toro already knows that and it’s important to get down to work in that respect,” Xavier Orendáin said.
“Nowadays, street vendors have a strategy of setting up in the afternoon and in a lot of cases they bring problems of insecurity, piracy and other serious impacts to the community,” he added.
The new chief of Canaco in the historic center, Víctor Zetter, said there was a painful urban image of abandonment and danger in a lot of the streets” of Guadalajara’s downtown.
He added that residential and commercial areas of the city’s center that were once alive are now dead because “thousands of businesses, offices and residents falsely believed that leaving was progress.”
In response to the issues raised, Mayor del Toro said “our policy for the [historic] center has three pillars: zero tolerance for corruption, enforcing order and compliance with regulations – the [last] two allow us to have a safe city.”
He also said that his government was committed to rehabilitating the historic center following the loss of 2,500 jobs and a negative economic impact on business owners to the tune of an estimated 600 million pesos (US $31.5 million) during the construction of Line 3 of the light rail system.
Colli Club members doing the seven cascades of Micos. Luis Rojas
Guadalajara has several very well organized clubs specializing in outdoor activities like hiking, camping and mountain-climbing. They offer excursions every weekend of the year and their members get to see natural marvels that most tourist guidebooks never mention (except my book, Outdoors in Western Mexico, of course!)
Some of these groups have been around for a long time, so today’s members benefit from discoveries of little-known sites made by other members decades ago.
Grupo Montañista Colli is a non-profit club dedicated to promoting love and respect for nature under the guidance of dedicated and experienced personnel since 1962.
One of many nice things about its leaders and members is that they welcome newcomers, even old gringos like me so, thanks to Grupo Colli, I was able to visit the gloriously beautiful rivers and waterfalls of La Huasteca Potosina, about which I had previously known nothing.
If you find all of this interesting, you might want to look up “grupos de montañismo/senderismo/excursionismo” in your area.
Bathers find a spot for themselves in Río El Salto.
La Huasteca is one of Mexico’s most beautiful regions, and includes parts of seven states. It is so called because it was formerly the stomping grounds of the Huastec Indians — before they were sold into slavery by the infamous Spaniard Nuño de Guzmán. La Huasteca is one of Mexico’s most bio-diverse regions, dominated by tropical rainforest and housing more than 2,000 species of plants.
The small area I would be visiting, La Huasteca Potosina, lies within the state of San Luis Potosí and is filled with picture-postcard waterfalls in rivers that flow eastward from the mountains of the Sierra Madre Oriental. I was told I should not miss the glorious waterfalls of Micos and the stupendous Cascada de Tamul, 105 meters high.
The area is also famous for its sinkholes and caves, including El Sótano de las Golondrinas, a pit down which enthusiasts rappel 333 meters, in a single jump, to reach the bottom.
To travel to San Luis Potosí, Grupo Colli arranged for us to board their bus at night. During the eight-hour trip I slept like a baby thanks to a sleeping pill and woke up refreshed the next morning in front of the Hotel-Spa Taninul, located 10 kilometers southeast of Ciudad Valles.
A few hours later, we were driving toward the famed waterfalls of Micos — driving, I say, not speeding, as these buses are, fortunately, unable to exceed 95 kilometers per hour.
Micos means spider monkeys, which were once abundant in the region but these days it really means breathtakingly beautiful cascades and pools of turquoise-blue water, as clear as crystal and “room temperature:” just perfect for swimming.
The proper way to enjoy the crystal-clear, warm water of El Salto River at Micos.
On arrival, we split into two groups: those who would don life jackets and leap or slide down seven falls over a one-kilometer stretch of Río el Salto, and those who preferred a leisurely swim in the “flatter” part of the river downstream — replete with exquisite mini-falls.
What was it like for the cascading group? My friend Luis recalls: “I stood atop the tallest fall, nine meters high and looked down at the tiny pool far below me. One of my two ever-conflicting personalities said, ‘Híjole, this is lunacy!’ and tried to pull back. But my dark side shouted, ‘Go for it!’ and pushed me right over the edge with no further ado. What an adrenalin rush!”
Group No. 2’s heartbeats were also accelerated a bit because they had to descend some 600 stairs to reach the river, after which it was pure relaxation, lolling in any one of hundreds of frothing natural Jacuzzis while balancing a frosty can of Modelo on your belly — ah, what a life!
Later, back at the Taninul Hotel, we could hike, explore a cave, fly through the air on zip lines or steam ourselves in a temazcal and finally soak in a pool of sulfur-rich hot-spring water. Enough said?
The next day, we were on the bus at 6:00am and drove to the Tampaon River where we climbed into long wooden boats called pangas, which we then rowed upstream until we came to rapids, at which point we hiked along the shore while our guides pulled the boats past the flying foam.
This picturesque river, whose waters once again are room temperature, is bordered on both sides by high cliffs and spectacular, white, limestone spires, among which, I was told, one can sometimes spot spider monkeys, onzas (perhaps cougars), badgers and even jaguars!
[soliloquy id="79519"]
Paddling again, we slowly approached majestic Tamul Falls, 105 meters (344 feet) high and of such beauty that we all concurred it was well worth all the rowing and sweating. On the way back, we stopped at a flooded cave to swim or float in its (to our surprise) ice-cold water.
The day was topped off by a meal featuring one of the most delicious dishes I’ve ever eaten anywhere in the world. It’s a specialty of San Luis Potosí called zacahuil. The ingredients are chicken, cracked-corn meal and yummy spices, all wrapped in banana leaves and baked for eight to 10 hours. Amazingly, even the chicken bones melt in your mouth while still remaining crispy!
I was surprised to discover that zacahuil is translated as “tamal” or even “corn pudding.” In my opinion it is unlike any tamal I’ve ever seen and didn’t make me think of pudding at all. No, I suggest it ought to be reverently referred to as zacahuil and only as zacahuil.
Apparently the true meaning of the word is bocado grande which means “big mouthful” and it is traditionally prepared for the Day of the Dead by dozens of people working together. The ingredients may weigh as much as 50 kilos. They are wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in a canoe-shaped metal container over hot coals. The proper way to eat zacahuil is with a spoon, from a bowl placed on a banana-leaf place mat.
If you are looking for adventure and want to know the real Mexico, I suggest you contact a hiking/camping club near you and join them for an experience you will surely never forget.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 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 found on his website.
Environmental concerns and accusations of governmental irregularities have plagued an ambitious development project in León, Guanajuato, but authorities have declared that nothing is amiss.
Mexico Retail Properties is building a sprawling residential and commercial development in northern León in an area adjacent to the Cárcamos park. It has been dubbed “the most avant-garde project in the Bajío region.”
The first stage represents an investment of 2 billion pesos (US $105 million), and includes a 14-floor office building, a 183-apartment tower, cinemas and other entertainment venues, a shopping mall and several restaurants.
Topping off the project, called City Center, are two hotels — one a five-star property with 300 rooms and the other a 120-room facility aimed at business travelers.
Environmentalists have protested the project and denounced a number of irregularities in the permits issued by the municipal government.
An organization called Salvemos el Humedal de Los Cárcamos (Save the Cárcamos wetlands) has documented what its members described as ecocide and accused municipal and state officials of indifference.
Municipal environmental official Jorge Cabrera González has countered by declaring that the City Center project is legal and “the project is a go.”
Mexico has proposed that the United States fund seven projects aimed at generating economic opportunities and well-being in Central America and stemming the northward flow of migrants.
After meeting with United States Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan in Washington D.C. yesterday, Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard told reporters that he presented “what would be the Mexican strategy with respect to the countries of the Northern Triangle: Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.”
He described the meeting as “very useful and interesting.”
The foreign secretary explained that several of the projects are energy-related, including construction of an electric grid and a network to distribute natural gas.
A US $1-billion plan for schools in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to be led by the United Nations Children’s Fund is also among the seven proposed projects.
“I cannot tell you now whether the United States will take all the projects we bring, but certainly Mexico’s perspective needs to be taken into account,” Ebrard said.
“I hope President Trump, once he has the information we are providing, can reassess what Mexico is proposing,” he added.
“In a few words . . . what we are saying is that Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador should form part of the North American economic region, which is the largest in the world, but for that [to happen] we need to take these decisions and make these investments in the short term because if we don’t, the [migration situation] won’t have a solution.”
Ebrard was originally scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo but he had to cancel at the last minute for a meeting with President Trump.
Yesterday’s meeting with Sullivan came three days after Ebrard and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean presented a regional development plan designed to improve economic and social conditions in southern Mexico and Central America.
The foreign secretary remained in Washington today, where he met with senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan and other officials.
After the meeting, Ebrard wrote on Twitter that “we explained the Mexican vision proposed by President López Obrador to attend to the causes of migration,” adding “it’s time to commit to the development of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.”
He also told a press conference that he hoped the United States would commit to additional development funding for southern Mexico and Central America beyond the US $10.6 billion it agreed to in December.
“We will seek, if possible, a higher figure but I won’t say it now because it’s possible that I’ll increase resistance,” he said.
Nowhere in Mexico is violent vigilante justice more common than in Ecatepec, México state: there were 28 lynchings or attempted lynchings in the municipality between 2015 and 2018.
A new report by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said there were 336 lynchings or attempted lynchings in all of Mexico in the four-year period, and that the number of cases rose every year.
There were 43 in 2015, 59 in 2016, 60 in 2017 and 174 last year. The 2018 figure represents a 190% increase over the previous year.
A total of 188 municipalities recorded at least one lynching case during the four years studied by the CNDH.
There were 561 victims of whom 121 were killed in last year’s cases, the CNDH said. More than 90% of the victims were men.
The number of lynching cases in Ecatepec – a sprawling, heavily-populated municipality in the metropolitan area of Mexico City that is notorious for violent crime – is more than twice that in Puebla city, which recorded the second highest incidence of violent mob justice with 13 cases between 2015 and 2018.
Cárdenas, Tabasco, was next with 10 cases followed by Iztapalapa, Mexico City, with eight cases and Naucalpan, México state, with seven.
Milpa Alta, a largely rural borough in the south of Mexico City, Tehuacán, Puebla, and Villahermosa, Tabasco, all recorded six cases of lynching between 2015 and 2018.
The CNDH said that in 69% of cases the lynchings or attempts at lynching were retaliation for robberies, attributing the high percentage to the fact that it is more likely to catch someone in the act of stealing than when committing other crimes.
Alleged kidnappers were targeted in 11% of the cases while people believed to have committed sexual assaults were victims in 7%.
Last year’s cases occurred in 23 states but just five – Puebla, México, Tabasco, Mexico City and Hidalgo – accounted for 76% of cases.
A total of 34 people were killed in lynchings in those five states in 2018.
Impunity and a high perception of insecurity are key factors in the rising number of lynchings occurring in the country, the CNDH determined via a survey.
The United States asked the Mexican government and the private sector not to accept investment from China, especially that directed to strategic projects, President López Obrador’s chief of staff has revealed.
Speaking at a meeting of the Mexican Iron and Steel Industry Chamber yesterday, Alfonso Romo said the request came from United States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross at the conclusion of a bilateral business conference in Mérida, Yucatán, last month.
After the conference ended, several members of the Mexican delegation had a meeting with Ross, Romo said.
“I’m going to tell you a very interesting anecdote . . .” Romo said.
“He told us: ‘I want to request several things. We want to strengthen the [bilateral] relationship because the only way the United States can compete with China is to have a very strong common-front trading bloc,’” he continued.
According to Romo, Ross then said: “‘Secondly, we don’t want the participation of very active Chinese investment in Mexico, especially in strategic projects. Thirdly, we want you to help us to stop migration from Central America and fourthly, the president [Donald Trump] made a compromise, and consequently we’re going to take a lot of care with how we negotiate the 232 [metal tariffs].’”
“I remained silent. Then I said to him . . . you ask four things of us but you don’t want [Mexican] tomatoes; you have to decide if you want tomatoes or migrants, or steel or migrants,” Romo said.
Later in the meeting, the chief of staff clarified that investment from China, and any other foreign country, is welcome in Mexico.
“We want foreign investment to go from $29 billion or $30 billion [a year] to 35 or 40 billion. We see that a lot of American companies could come to Mexico, they’re Americans that produce in China and now because of the trade war they will look for a place to move,” Romo said.
“We must take advantage of the opportunity . . . a lot of industries that are there [in China] don’t have North American content [in their products] and they should come to Mexico.”
