In the Tierra Caliente region of Guerrero, an area notorious not just for hot weather but drug production and lawlessness, one farmer has been producing some of Mexico’s most delicious melons for the past 35 years.
“My dad was a farmer in Sonora, that’s where I got to know the fields and I became interested in growing cantaloupes,” Lee Shipley told the newspaper Milenio.
“We grew grapes and sent them to Mexico City with a distributor,” he added.
“He [the distributor] spoke to me about a place called [Ciudad] Altamirano, where there was a lot of water and a lot of land. That’s how I heard about this region. He sent me here with a guide, I started planting [cantaloupes] and now I’ve been here 35 years.”
Production increased over time and Shipley is now the largest melon grower in the country.
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All these years later, Shipley still arrives at the farm every day before sunrise and throughout his work day he is constantly busy, allocating tasks to his workers, monitoring his melons, checking them for insects and disease and thinking about what he can do to improve the quality of his crop.
The farmer, who admits to being obsessed with achieving perfection in his fruit, said the introduction of drip irrigation and the use of hybrid seeds had been particularly beneficial for his business.
“The hybrids that we started using in 1986 helped a lot. Production increased by between 20% and 30% and the fruit also had a longer shelf life,” Shipley said.
He also said that bees have played a vital role in his success, explaining that farm workers first found African beehives on his property in 1990, at which time officials from the federal Secretariat of Agriculture (Sagarpa) “saw them as a threat.”
Shipley explained that “there are African [bees] and Italian [bees] and the secret is to treat them with respect” regardless of their origin.
“. . . We learned to look after them and not to kill them because they’re at the service of pollination. When we fumigate by tractor, we do it at night when they are not there and that way we preserve them,” he said.
Shipley is proud that he has been able to achieve a dream that he first had in his childhood and remains committed to producing the best fruit he can.
“The sweetness of a melon is one thing and the flavor is another. We’re looking for the best flavor [and] the best color, which without a doubt is the key to having the highest possible internal and external quality of each fruit.”
San Miguel de Allende, No. 1 city in the world. travel+leisure/getty images
Three Mexican cities have made the list of the world’s top 15 cities for 2018 and San Miguel de Allende has ranked No. 1 for the second year in a row.
Oaxaca city, capital of the state of the same name, moved into second place from last year’s sixth and Mexico City returns to the list, placing 11th.
The annual awards program is operated by Travel + Leisure magazine, whose readers choose their favorite cities based on sights and landmarks, culture, food, friendliness, shopping and value.
What makes a city truly great, the magazine says, is “jaw-dropping architecture, distinctive restaurants, a rich array of cultural offerings, and intriguing shops . . . . A teeming street life, a friendly population, and a harmonious relationship with nature are equally essential.”
Travel + Leisure said it was “no wonder” that San Miguel, with a score of 91.94, topped the list again. “With its colorful, flower-festooned architecture and cobblestoned streets, San Miguel has the feel of a village, but its large population of artists lends it a cosmopolitan air.”
Said one reader, “This is one of the best cities in the world. There are lots of stores selling local artisan crafts, jewelry and art. Bring an extra suitcase!”
Oaxaca was not far behind with 90.52, while Mexico City scored 87.65.
In third place was Udaipur, India, followed by Ubud, Indonesia; Kyoto, Japan; Florence, Italy; Luang Prabang, Laos; Hoi An, Vietnam; Chiang Mai, Thailand; Charleston, South Carolina; Mexico City; Cape Town, South Africa; Rome; Istanbul; and Beirut, Lebanon.
On the list of the world’s best hotels 10 are in Mexico, led by the Viceroy Riviera Maya in Playa del Carmen leading in 20th place.
The other nine were Cala de Mar Resort & Spa in Ixtapa, Guerrero; the Resort at Pedregal, Cabo San Lucas; Las Ventanas al Paraíso, San José del Cabo; the Rosewood, San Miguel de Allende; the Banyan Tree Cabo Marqués, Acapulco; Nizuc Resort & Spa, Cancún; Chileno Bay Resort & Residences, Cabo San Lucas; Rosewood Mayakoba, Playa del Carmen; and Esperanza, Cabo San Lucas.
The musical mayor of Jiutepec, Morelos, lost his reelection bid on July 1 and appears to have been peeved by the results.
Following José Manuel Agüero Tovar’s loss at the polls in Morelos’ second largest municipality there has been a massive layoff of non-unionized municipal workers and the suspension of his administration’s free public services and social programs.
Those programs were highlighted last May in a promotional video online in which Manolo, as the mayor is known, leads a choreographed dance routine with children, men and women of all ages and a clown.
The emphasis of the video is a long list of his administration’s achievements, all of which were free: garbage collection, shoes and school supplies for children, public transportation, scholarships, medical examinations and parks.
Continuing those free services and programs became Agüero’s campaign promises.
On election day, close to one-third of the voters — more than 27,000 — chose to stick with Manolo but it wasn’t enough to beat the Together We Will Make History coalition candidate, Rafael Reyes Reyes, who received more than 38,000 votes, or 46%.
One week later, Agüero suspended the free solid waste collection service, announcing there would be a charge of 50 pesos per garbage can and four pesos per garbage bag.
He also fired 300 non-union municipal staff, allegedly for not supporting his reelection campaign.
That was the accusation made by one of the fired employees, Ana Luisa Méndez Corona, who worked for 18 months in the municipal water department. She was laid off on July 3, two days after the election.
She told the newspaper El Universal that her firing was part of a “political vendetta.” Non-unionized workers like her, she said, were told to attend political rallies and events in support of Agüero during their leisure hours. She and other workers refused.
“During the campaign I received text messages in which I was told ‘We don’t see you sharing,’ ‘We don’t see you participating or joining the campaign,'” said Méndez.
Agüero explained that the layoffs and the suspension of free services and programs were intended to close off his administration and hand over a healthy financial situation to his successor in December.
Mothers give a press conference after the deaths of their babies in a Morelos hospital.
Parents of newborn babies that died in the Doctor José G. Parres General Hospital in Cuernavaca have charged that the deaths — at least 10 — were caused by a bacterial infection and claim negligence on the part of the hospital.
Patricia Aguirre told a press conference she gave birth to premature twins late last month but one died on June 28.
The following day, two more babies in the hospital died and four more succumbed between June 30 and July 1. On July 2 came the second blow for Aguirre when her second child died. Two more deaths followed.
Aguirre said her babies had been moved to an isolation ward because they had contracted what the hospital described as a very contagious bacteria.
Worried about her newborns, Aguirre questioned one of the physicians, who told her that they were infected with Klebsiella, which can be spread through person-to-person contact or, less commonly, by contamination of the environment. The bacteria is not spread through airborne contact.
Another mother who lost her child told reporters that a doctor told her the infection was contracted within the medical facility.
América Jocelyn León said a night shift doctor told her it could have been a result of reusing equipment that had not been properly disinfected.
The two mothers said that they would file formal complaints.
State Health Secretary Patricia Mora wrote on Twitter that she was in touch with the parents and explained that state and federal health authorities are collaborating in an investigation of the Cuernavaca hospital, including its facilities, equipment, supplies and procedures.
Mora gave an assurance that the cause of the deaths would be found.
In Amacuzac, Morelos, the candidate who won the election for mayor on July 1 did little campaigning because he could not: he was behind bars.
This week, some of his supporters held a protest in Cuernavaca demanding his release and that president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador intercede on his behalf.
Alfonso Miranda Gallegos ran for mayor under the three-party coalition Together We Will Make History, led by López Obrador’s party Morena.
Miranda was arrested in May on charges of organized crime and kidnapping his political rivals in May. Miranda has served as mayor of Amacuzac before. But federal authorities say there is evidence that he used his position to protect the Rojos crime gang.
After his arrest he was sent to a federal penal facility in Durango, where he was able to record a message to voters, asking for their support. The message was posted online where it seemed to have the right effect. Miranda won 3,672 votes on July 1; his closest rival won fewer than 1,000.
The mayor-elect, who has also served a three-year term as deputy in the Morelos state Congress, is the uncle of Los Rojos leader Santiago “El Carrete” Mazarí Hernández. Rumors about Miranda’s alleged criminal connections and illicit activities started circulating as early as 2009, his first year as mayor.
Yesterday, his supporters marched in the state capital. “He’s our leader and many of us want him . . . we want him before January 1st [the date the mayor-elect is sworn into office],” said spokesman Roberto Fernández.
He claimed Miranda’s arrest was part of a “political vendetta” and threatened a massive protest in Cuernavaca if he is not released.
Miranda’s lawyer told the newspaper Milenio that he’s awaiting a legal ruling that would allow his client to leave prison and be sworn in.
Christian Fragoso Velázquez said he was confident that the court will rule favorably, there being no concrete evidence backing up the charges against him.
The president once again highlighted the contributions of Mexican emigrants to the U.S. economy during her Sunday speech. (File photo)
It’s a long way from Mexico City to Ontario but that didn’t stop the ramifications of the September 19 earthquake being felt by a watermelon farmer in the Canadian province.
Pete Gubbels, who has a 120-acre farm about 25 kilometers west of the city of London, has legally hired seasonal workers from Mexico for years to tend to and harvest his crops.
He welcomed more Mexican farm hands to his property this week but due to the partial collapse last September of a building in Mexico City that housed labor secretariat offices, some of the familiar faces he has relied on in past years were absent.
The paperwork and the database necessary to hire his regular workers were destroyed or lost in the rubble.
“Some of the guys we normally had aren’t coming because the paperwork was destroyed,” Gubbels told Ontario newspaper The London Free Press. “So they sent us new people instead.”
The farmer said he had filed the necessary paperwork in January but “from there it just turned into a nightmare for us.”
Gubbels also explained that he had been in regular contact with some of his previous employees who told him that they couldn’t travel to Canada to work without government approval and that their applications were bogged down in a slow bureaucratic process stemming from the earthquake.
The London Free Press said that “it was an unexpected glitch” for Gubbels and other local farmers who have come to depend on Mexican labor and “who are constantly on a deadline to plant, tend and harvest their crops.”
One of Gubbels’ most reliable workers finally made it to Canada this week, two months after he was supposed to arrive.
However, others who were slated to arrive in May and June are still waiting for their paperwork issues to be cleared up in order to board flights north.
“There’s nothing we can do on this end,” Gubbels said. “It all has to be done in Mexico.”
A spokesperson for the Canadian agency that helps farmers connect with foreign workers also said that there were no issues on the Canadian end.
Canadian farmers have been legally inviting Mexican workers to the fertile southern Ontario farm belt for decades.
According to Mexicans who have worked on Gubbels’ watermelon farm, working in Canada in a legal program with a mandated minimum wage is like winning the lottery compared to the exploitative wages and conditions illegal agricultural workers sometimes face in the United States.
All told, Gubbels said that he employs 14 foreign workers and 40 Canadians, who work either part or full time, but added that he still needs more staff.
“We cannot find enough Canadians to do this job, but the guys from Mexico would gladly do this,” he said.
A demonstration by relatives of missing persons in Nuevo Laredo.
Federal authorities have found the bodies of nine of 35 people who were reported missing in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, between February and May.
The United Nations said on May 30 that there were “strong indications” that federal security forces were responsible for the disappearance of 23 persons.
But the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) has now turned the focus of its investigation on to the Zetas drug cartel and suspects that the organization’s leader, Juan Gerardo Treviño Chávez, known as El Huevo, is behind the disappearances.
Members of cartel criminal cells who specialize in carrying out enforced disappearances are suspected of committing the crimes while wearing fake navy uniforms.
PGR personnel located the nine bodies at different locations in the northern border city and autopsies confirmed that the victims had been executed, presumably via gunshots to their heads.
Authorities also found a woman who was abducted but not killed. She said she had been let go by a criminal group.
The enforced disappearance investigation unit of the PGR has opened a total of 26 files in relation to the 35 missing persons. Four of the victims are women and five are minors.
Since the first disappearances occurred in February, victims’ family members accused navy personnel of carrying out the kidnappings. There are also claims that the real number of victims is higher than the 35 cases officially reported.
The Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee said it has documented 57 cases of disappearances in which the navy was allegedly involved.
PGR personnel have now inspected naval facilities in the border city but they didn’t uncover any evidence suggesting that marines were involved in the disappearances.
However, the federal agency has not yet interviewed navy personnel who were transferred to Mexico City from Tamaulipas while the investigation takes place.
As three PGR officers and seven experts who are contributing to the investigation left naval facilities in Nuevo Laredo Monday, they were attacked by armed members of the Zetas cartel, adding further credence to authorities’ suspicion that the criminal group was involved in the disappearances.
Soldiers and Federal Police officers who were guarding the PGR personnel returned fire and a lengthy gun battle followed, splintering into confrontations across several neighborhoods.
The newspaper El Universal reported that one soldier and four civilians not involved in the confrontations received non-fatal gun wounds. Among the victims was the driver of a city bus.
Nuevo Laredo residents posted videos of the gun battles — which took place in close proximity to shopping centers and restaurants — to social media, showing witnesses in a state of terror and some of them getting out of their cars and throwing themselves to the ground to take shelter.
Officials said that personnel working for the PGR’s enforced disappearance investigation unit as well as Federal Police and criminal experts previously came under attack on June 12.
Following Monday’s incident, the head of the PGR’s missing persons search unit said in a media interview that evidence was mounting that organized crime rather than the navy is responsible for the series of abductions.
“Now with the progress [in the investigation], with the direct attacks, we are corroborating the involvement of organized crime, wearing uniforms similar to those the navy uses, in the disappearance of the [35] persons,” Abel Galván said.
Happy birthday: a boy blows out the eternal flame in Guanajuato.
An eternal flame of liberty at a museum in Guanajuato is no longer burning: a six-year-old boy blew it out last week.
The youngster and his family were among visitors at the Alhóndiga de Granaditas museum, site of the first battle in the war of independence, for a celebration of its 60th anniversary.
Upon seeing the flame burning inside its cauldron, the boy kneeled in front of it and began blowing as if it were a candle on a birthday cake as his younger brother looked on.
His parents were standing nearby but made no effort to intervene. After the youngster finally succeeded in blowing out the flame, a guard approached and asked them to leave the area.
The flame will remain extinguished until July 28 when a monthly ceremony is held in which it is relit, a traditional renewal of the flame on the 28th day of every month.
The first independence war battle took place on September 28, 1810.
How the Mexico City-Querétaro train might have looked when it was first proposed.
Mexico’s next transportation secretary has breathed new life into the suspended Mexico City-Querétaro train project, declaring that it forms part of the incoming government’s plan for a new national railroad network.
Javier Jiménez Espriú told the newspaper El Financiero that the transportation plan also includes building a new railroad between Cancún and Palenque, modernizing the existing line between Coatzacoalcos and Salina Cruz and starting the construction of Guadalajara-Tijuana and Querétaro-Nuevo Laredo routes.
The current federal administration awarded a US $3.75-billion contract to a Chinese-led consortium in 2014 to build a high-speed rail line between Mexico City and Querétaro but the project was later postponed as part of budget cuts announced in January 2015 and it hasn’t been revived since.
But following Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s landslide victory in the July 1 presidential election, it would appear that the project is back on the agenda.
“Our idea is to establish a national railroad network; the network has different important sections and within those we will determine which sections [deserve] the most urgent attention based on the impact they will have at both a social and economic level, because the [different] sections will trigger regional development projects,” Jiménez said.
In a separate interview with the newspaper Milenio, Jiménez said that the next federal government will continue practically all the infrastructure projects that have already been started but added that the development of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region in Oaxaca and the Maya area of Calakmul in Campeche would be priorities.
In the former region, the future cabinet secretary said, in addition to modernizing the train line between Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, and Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, work will also be undertaken to improve the highway network.
In addition, the ports in the respective cities and the airport at Ixtepec, Oaxaca, will be modernized, Jiménez said.
There are also plans to establish an extensive fiber optic network in the Isthmus region and López Obrador said yesterday that the possibility of establishing a free zone with a lower value-added tax rate is also being analyzed.
The projects planned for the region, which took the brunt of the powerful September 7 earthquake, will complement the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Coatzacoalcos and Salina Cruz that were established by the current government.
“The other big project is the passenger train from Cancún to Bacalar and Palenque to develop the Maya area, mainly Calakmul . . .” Jiménez said.
He added that during its six-year term, the López Obrador-led administration would prioritize the construction of paved roads in 250 municipalities that currently only have dirt-road access to their main towns.
The projects will create employment in rural areas and prevent communities from being cut off due to heavy rains that can make the dirt roads impassable, Jiménez said.
He also said that by the end of the next government’s term, the aim is for all Mexicans to have access to broadband internet services.
With regard to the new Mexico City International Airport project, the future communications and transportation secretary said the López Obrador transition team would first analyze its technical aspects — such as the suitability of the ground it is being built on — as well as environmental considerations to determine whether it is feasible in an operational sense.
The president-elect has previously threatened to scrap the project, charging that it is too expensive, corrupt, not needed and unfeasible due to its construction on an ancient lakebed.
Jiménez said that if it is determined that the project is technically feasible, the incoming administration would turn its attention to analyzing whether the contracts are in order and if it adds up financially.
If it doesn’t, “there is the solution of the other airport,” he added, referring to the proposal to adapt an existing air force base in México state for commercial use.
Whether the new government decides to continue with the current project or instead develop the Santa Lucía air base — located about 50 kilometers northeast of the capital — Jiménez said that a new airport must be ready by 2023 to alleviate pressure on the existing facility.
The new museum, located in the Centro de las Artes in San Luis Potosí.
The prisons cells of an old state penitentiary seem an unlikely place for museum exhibition rooms but that is exactly where you will find the recently opened Leonora Carrington museum in the city of San Luis Potosí.
This very surreal setting makes the perfect backdrop for the British-Mexican artist’s work, which drew upon Celtic, Irish and, later, some Mexican folkloric influence to produce fantastical figures and surrealist scenes.
Carrington, who would have turned 100 last year, has seen a recent surge in international notoriety with a number of books about her life being published in the United Kingdom and beyond. Her bronze sculptures adorned Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma in 2017 and the Museum of Modern Art inaugurated the exhibition of her work, Cuentos Mágicos, on April 21 to bustling crowds hoping to get the first look.
The Leonora Carrington opened in late March and has seen close to 45,000 visitors already. There is no doubt that the museum is helping to put San Luis Potosí on the map as a tourist destination.
Born in rural England, Carrington came to Mexico in 1942, where she lived and worked until her death in 2011 at the age of 94. Carrington’s early life was spent in rebellion from her upper-class family.
‘Mother Is Always Right:’ bronze sculpture by Carrington.
Her love for art started young and she moved to London to study at the Ozefant Academy. In London she met and fell in love with the German painter, Max Ernst, who was married and 26 years her senior, but despite the seemingly large obstacles she ran off with him to Paris when she was just 20 years old. Here she met and socialized with many of the well-known surrealists of the time and her love for the art form was solidified.
While seemingly the ideal muse for the many men of the surrealist movement, she vehemently rejected this position, holding her own and forging ahead with becoming an artist in her own right.
“I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse,” Carrington is quoted as saying. “I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist.” When the Second World War broke out, Carrington’s beloved Max Ernst was captured and taken to a Nazi prison camp and Carrington’s deep distress at this led her to be institutionalized.
She escaped by marrying Mexican diplomat Renato Leduc (Ernst, at this point, was free and had married Peggy Guggenheim) and moving via New York to Mexico City, where she divorced Leduc and later married Emerico (Chiki) Weisz, with whom she had two sons.
Her son, Pablo Weisz, was involved in curating the Leonora Carrington museum, and some of his own artwork, which appears to draw heavily from his mother’s influence, is also exhibited there.
Leonora is said to have missed England and continued to drink English tea, served with biscuits, throughout her life in her house in the bohemian Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, where she befriended Spanish artist Remedios Varo and other well-known Europeans. Plans are in place to turn her house into a museum, but opening dates are still unknown.
Carrington at work.
Arriving at the museum in San Luis Potosi, the thick walls and castle-like turrets are the first sign that this museum might be a little unusual. The entrance is via a stunning open courtyard, with bright pink walls that are offset by San Luis Potosi’s impressive skies.
A few of Carrington’s sculptures sit around the courtyard to entice visitors to explore the museum, which is housed in one section of the Centro de las Artes. Once inside, the exhibits are set within old prison cells that now act as exhibition rooms, the Mexican pink walls belaying the fact that this was once the state penitentiary.
Many cell doors have been removed while others have been adorned with Carrington’s fairy-tale-like drawings. The metal staircases serve as a reminder of the building’s prior function and as a result the visitor never quite forgets.
The fact that Carrington’s work is pure escapism seems to sit both in complete contrast and in total harmony with the surroundings.
Carrington was a multimedia artist, something that is made clear when visiting this museum. There are rooms that contain her bronze sculptures in various sizes and others that display her paintings and drawings. Every room is dotted with beautifully lit quotes by the artist that demonstrate her strong character and illustrate just how much her art and the surrealist world that she created were entwined with her very being.
“The world that I paint, I don’t know if I invented it, rather I think it invented me,” one rather telling quote explains.
In addition to her sculptures and paintings, there are two small rooms that hold her silver work behind glass, and include elaborately surrealistic tequila bottles and fantastical figurines. The museum has gone further than just displaying the artist’s work, however, and director Antonio Garcia Acosta and his team got wonderfully creative in collaborating with other visual and sound artists to bring Carrington’s work to life.
‘Camaleón:’ another bronze.
The Hall of Mirrors enchants with an animated version of the first part of Carrington’s book, White Rabbits. The animation of the story set on the imaginary Pest Street, directed by Luis Cabrera, illustrated by Richard Zela and dramatized by Beatriz Cecilia, sees ghost-like figures and insects floating from mirror to mirror and is as eerie as it is delightful.
Carrington was also a rather surrealist cook, famously cooking up omelets made with her own hair. The museum has yet to open a café although it is in the plans, but hopefully this kind of culinary masterpiece will not be on the menu.
While it is unknown if Carrington spent much time in the city of San Luis Potosi, she certainly traveled to the state to visit her fellow countryman Edward James. Another surrealist artist and poet, he is best known for his construction of the surrealist garden, Las Pozas, near Xilitla in the tropical Huasteca region. James was a friend and patron of Carrington’s work and Carrington visited Las Pozas often.
It is, therefore, rather fitting that another Carrington museum is due to open in the town of Xilitla within the next few months. The two museums as well as Las Pozas and the ghost town of Real de Catorce will only combine to put San Luis Potosi well and truly on the map as Mexico’s most surrealist state.
Leonora Carrington Museum, San Luis Potosi
Location: Calzada de Guadalupe 705
Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday 10:00am- 6:00pm
Entrance fee: 50 pesos (free entry on Wednesdays)
Cuentos Mágicos, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City
Location: Paseo de la Reforma , Bosque de Chapultepec I Secc, 11560 Miguel Hidalgo, CDMX
Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday 10:15am- 5:30pm (until September 23)
Entrance fee: 65 pesos (free entry on Sundays)
Susannah Rigg is a freelance writer and Mexico specialist based in Mexico City. Her work has been published by BBC Travel, Condé Nast Traveler, CNN Travel and The Independent UK among others. Find out more about Susannah on her website.
