The kindergarten teacher was at his new post for less than four months before the group of mothers reported him, leading to his resignation. Kimberly Farmer / Unsplash
A kindergarten teacher in a remote village in Guanajuato is accused of sexually abusing six girls.
Ernesto “N,” known by his students as “Teacher Ernesto,” was a trainee teacher who had only arrived at the José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi kindergarten in Camino Real on March 1, but was deemed ready to teach classes alone. He allegedly abused the children after covering the windows of the classroom under the pretext of showing movies, the newspaper Reforma reported.
Mothers from the village of some 280 inhabitants became concerned about Ernesto’s unconventional teaching style but were assured by the kindergarten that his classes were educational. Suspicions of abuse surfaced after a 5-year-old girl told her mother that Ernesto had touched her.
Other parents asked their children, and their fears were confirmed: five other children also said they were abused. The 25 square meter (82 square feet) kindergarten only had a total of 18 students, from 3-6 years old.
On June 24, the victims’ mothers made a legal complaint in Silao and said their concerns had been ignored by officials at the kindergarten. That same day, Ernesto resigned.
According to education experts in the state who spoke to Reforma, it’s common for trainee teachers to teach groups alone in remote communities, a decision which rests with the administrator of the kindergarten.
An investigation was launched into Ernesto on June 27 and the administrative officials at the kindergarten have been suspended.
The Guanajuato Education Ministry (SEG) has offered legal and psychological support to the victims and parents. A new trainee teacher was assigned to the kindergarten on July 4.
A man, left, holds up a chair as if to throw it at opponents at a polling station in Durango on Sunday. Voting was suspended at some polls across Mexico due to such violence. Internet
The ruling Morena party’s internal elections were marred by violence and other irregularities for a second consecutive day on Sunday, but President López Obrador nevertheless characterized the democratic exercise as a success.
Morena members went to the polls Saturday and Sunday to elect party officials across 300 districts. Some of the successful candidates will take a seat in Morena’s National Congress, the party’s most important decision-making body.
Incidents of violence, vote-buying and acarreo — in which voters were not only given an incentive to vote for certain candidates but also transported to polling places — sullied the elections, according to various reports.
Violence led to the suspension of voting at polling places in some parts of the country, such as Gómez Palacio, Durango, where there was a clash Sunday between supporters of opposing candidates. The newspaper Reforma reported that chairs were thrown, ballots were burned and one man was hit with a baseball bat during the confrontation.
Ballots set on fire in Chiapas. Internet
Ballots and/or voting booths were also burned at polling places in some other states such as México state and Chiapas.
Vote buying and acarreos were reported in several states including San Luis Potosí, Morelos, Guanajuato and Querétaro.
In Morelos, Governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco was accused of supplying government buses to transport Morena members to polling places so that they could cast a vote for his brother. In Guanajuato, voters were taken to polling places in taxis, buses and Uber rideshare vehicles, El Financiero reported. Their votes were allegedly “bought” for packed lunches, groceries, or cash — 1,500 pesos or about US $75 — in some cases.
Similar incentives — which were widely used by the once-omnipotent Institutional Revolutionary Party — were on offer in other states: social media posts showed that some accareados — as herded voters are known — carried slips of paper to remind them who to vote for.
Morena party members also denounced other irregularities such as the failure to guarantee a secret ballot, inadequate checking of voters’ credentials and the exclusion of designated scrutineers.
John Ackerman, a Morena supporter, academic and husband of former cabinet minister Irma Sandoval, denounced “shameless acarreo and voter pressure” in Coyoacán, a Mexico City borough. “Enormous disappointment. We’re gathering an unbelievable volume of evidence,” he tweeted Saturday.
In another Twitter post on Monday, Ackerman said the Morena National Convention would put together a “fraud expo to demonstrate that the irregularities … weren’t ‘isolated’ but generalized.”
He also said that the national convention was committed to “cleaning up the process” used to elect party officials.
Morena members elected party officials in 300 districts. Some polling sites saw large crowds; in Cuernavaca, hundreds slept overnight in the Palace of Government’s atrium.
Alejandro Rojas, an advisor to Morena Senate leader Ricardo Monreal, described the internal elections as “the fraud Olympics.”
“We saw all the practices of coercion and vote buying as well as manipulation, deceit [and] the rude and outrageous mobilization of beneficiaries of the [government’s] social programs,” he said in an interview.
On Twitter, Rojas called the elections “a carnival of acarreo and simulation” and asserted that Morena had “opened the doors to the scourges of politics: patronage, self-interest and cronyism.”
“This is the first step toward a new state party and an anti-democratic and authoritarian regression,” he added.
For his part, Morena national president Mario Delgado said Saturday that where there was evidence of acarreo, election results would be annulled. Old practices of other parties won’t be allowed in Morena, he said.
López Obrador – Morena’s founder – accepted that the elections were marred by acarreo and other bad “practices,” but rejected claims of widespread irregularities.
“[The irregularities occurred] at very few polling places. It wasn’t generalized,” he told reporters at his regular news conference on Monday. “It wasn’t as the opposition would have liked.”
AMLO highlighted that some 2.5 million people cast a vote and declared that the elections were a good democratic exercise. “The participation was massive for an internal election,” he added.
Morelos Governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco was accused of using government-owned vans like these to transport voters to the polls so that they could vote for his brother.
The president also responded to criticism from opposition political figures, asserting that the irregularities reported over the weekend were nothing compared to those that have plagued their own parties.
The Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve offers some amazing natural beauty. Google
Way back in 2011, my husband Alex and I did a road trip from Mexico City to the Sierra Gorda in northern Querétaro. I remember being pleasantly surprised at the good road conditions on the libre highway from the town of San Juan del Río northwards. More recently, someone told me that she had done the drive and liked it as well.
So in June 2022, I decided to drive the road once again. This time, my goal was to make it to Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, to see the Edward James surrealist gardens. I’m happy to report that the drive is still very enjoyable, but do it leisurely as there is so much to see along the way.
Whether you come from or pass through Mexico City or Querétaro, your adventure should start at the rapidly growing city of San Juan del Río on Route 120 north; but the sightseeing really begins at the Pueblo Mágico of Tequisquiapan.
Filled with colonial charm and wrought iron, it has become popular both with weekenders from various cities as well as a growing population of expats. It is also the beginning of the state’s Wine and Cheese Route (Ruta de Vino y Queso), celebrating Mexico’s second largest wine-producing area, which also happens to have dairy farms as well.
The Peña de Bernal monolith looms over the Magical Town of Bernal in Querétaro’s wine country. Alejandro Linares García
From Tequisquiapan, you will want to veer off Route 120 onto 200, then onto 100 toward Bernal. Along the way, you will see a number of vineyards helpfully marked, allowing easy visits.
Bernal is another of Querétaro’s Pueblos Mágicos, most famous for its Peña de Bernal monolith rock formation, one of the largest in the world and one of Mexico 13 Natural Wonders. It, too, is popular with weekenders, in part because the big rock has a reputation for having positive energy, so services such as ritual cleanses and temazcals (like a sweat lodge) are available here.
A little further up the road is Tolimán, an area noted for its strong Otomi-Chichimeca traditions, which prompted UNESCO to add the town’s culture onto its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009.
Route 100 rejoins Route 120 to continue onto the Sierra Gorda of Querétaro.
Father Juniper Serra started his mission building not in California, but in Querétaro, like this church in Jalpan. Alejandro Linares García
The Sierra Gorda essentially is a high, rugged mountain area that blocks much of the moisture coming in from the Gulf of Mexico. As you make it up and over, the changes in the vegetation are quite noticeable in a short distance (as the crow flies).
It is a rugged region with various microclimates and an important national biosphere reserve. Until you reach the town of Peñamiller, which calls itself the gateway to the Sierra Gorda, the climate is dry; the land relatively flat; and the road relatively free of potholes, speed bumps and really tight curves.
From here on, your luck with potholes and speed bumps continues, but not with the curves.
To be fair, I have been on far curvier roads in far worse condition with far fewer guardrails, but in more than a few places, there are curves where you can just see yourself just going off a cliff. And there are crosses on the side of the roads to drive that idea home.
View of the town of Pinal de Amoles, Querétaro, and its surrounding forest. Juan Carlos Fonseca Mata/Creative Commons
Peñamiller, on the southwest edge, is bone-dry, but as you make your way up to Pinal de Amoles, the flora gradually changes to cloud forest — pines at the highest elevations. From that point, the descent begins, the air gets more humid and the pine forest eventually gives way to semi-tropical.
When you cross the Querétaro border into the Xilitla municipality in San Luis Potosí, there is no doubt you are in rainforest. The abundance of rain here is quite striking.
But before you jump into Xilitla — another Pueblo Mágico — the Sierra Gorda has a lot to offer in the way of natural beauty and history. It is home to the second largest pit cave in the world, the Sótano de Barro, with its numerous hiking trails and camping.
It is also home to five Franciscan missions established by Father Juníper Serra in the 18th century, the forerunners of his famous California missions. The most noted is in Jalpan de Serra, which is yet another Pueblo Mágico.
Salvador Dalí famously quipped about Edward James — who built this sculpture garden in San Luis Potosí’s rainforest — that he was ‘crazier than all the Surrealists together.’
It and the other four in Tancoyol, Concá, Tilaco and Agua de Landa together are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Upon crossing the border into San Luis Potosí, you leave the natural protected area, but there is no lack of natural beauty. While very rainy and humid, the area is only semi-tropical because of its elevation. It is a coffee-growing region, which becomes apparent in Xilitla with the prevalence of cafes and tours to the coffee fincas (farms).
But the real reason people come here is the former house and gardens of British surrealist poet Edward James.
Built over time in the mid 20th century, the remains of his never-finished compound continue a valiant battle against the constant moisture, moss and jungle growth that threatens everything here with complete ruin. The box canyon with its waterfall is still beautiful and was probably every bit the paradise that James called it when he came to the area in the mid 20th century.
As good as the road conditions are, I would not recommend driving back the same way. The stretch in the Sierra Gorda is challenging. You drive that road to enjoy the journey, taking it bit by bit.
For the return, I recommend Xilitla to the city of San Luis Potosí (worth visiting as well), then south back to the city of Querétaro. Yes, it is longer, but it is certainly faster and easier.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
On a hot day, there's nothing to help you cool off like a classic frozen margarita.
Margarita lovers know there’s a world of difference in how this classic drink can be made; packaged mixes and mixtures may save time and a few pennies, but like the saying goes, ain’t nuthin’ like the real thing.
You want to use the best ingredients you can afford. This is the premise for any simple recipe, from salad dressing to tacos. The fewer the ingredients, the more the quality and freshness of each one matters.
If you’re a devoted margarita fan, it’s worth taking the time to research tequilas available in your area. Talk to a knowledgeable bartender or chef and do your own tasting with margaritas made with different tequilas. It’s never too late to train your palate!
For a classic margarita, use clear, unaged blanco tequila for a bright, refreshing taste. For a warmer, more mellow flavor, reposado tequila can be used.
A Sriracha-Mango margarita is the perfect blend of sweet and spicy.
The kind of orange liqueur you use also matters. Each brand has its own characteristics, depending on what kind of oranges and alcohol are used in the distilling process, as well as other factors. But then it gets confusing: are Cointreau, Curacao and Triple Sec the same thing? I’ll let the experts in this link explain here.
The French brand Cointreau mixes sweet and bitter orange for a distinctive balanced taste. Curaçao — made with Laraha oranges grown only on the Caribbean island of the same name — has a unique sweetness. Triple Sec either means it’s made with three kinds of oranges or is triple distilled.
And Grand Marnier, with a brandy base, lends subtle flavors of oak and vanilla along with orange.
Margaritas, a contemporary classic, are consistently rated in the top 5 of the 100 most popular drinks in the world, says Drinks International, a ranking confirmed by the IBA (The International Bartenders Association). Here’s how to make yours prizeworthy too!
Classic Margarita
3 oz. blanco tequila
2 oz. Cointreau
1 oz. fresh lime juice
Garnish: lime wedges, coarse salt for glass rims
Run lime wedge around rims of 2 rocks glasses; dip in salt. Set aside. In a cocktail shaker, combine tequila, Cointreau and lime juice. Fill with ice and shake until thoroughly chilled, about 15 seconds. Strain margarita into glasses straight-up or on the rocks. Garnish with lime.
Spicy Cucumber Margaritas
1 lb. Persian cucumbers (about 7 cucumbers), roughly chopped
½ cup chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems
⅓ cup sugar
1½ tsp. finely grated lime zest
¼ cup fresh lime juice
2 tsp. minced jalapeño plus slices for garnish
Salt
6-8 oz. tequila blanco
Ice
In blender on high speed, process cucumbers, cilantro, sugar, lime zest, lime juice and minced jalapeño until foamy and blended. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve set; you should have 1½ cups strained liquid; discard solids. Add 1/8 tsp. salt.
Mix cucumber liquid with tequila; set aside or refrigerate up to 8 hours. When ready to serve, rim glass with salt. Fill rocks glasses with ice.
Working in batches, shake margaritas in ice-filled cocktail shaker. Garnish each glass with slices of jalapeño.
Use smaller, more tender Persian cucumbers for this Spicy Cucumber margarita. And don’t forget the jalapeño!
Mexican Martini
2 oz. tequila reposado
1 oz. Cointreau
1 oz. fresh lime juice
¾ oz. fresh orange juice
2 green olives
½ oz. olive brine
Salt
Wet half the lip of a martini glass and dip in salt; chill in refrigerator. Pour tequila, the lime and orange juices and the olive brine into a cocktail shaker; fill with ice and shake vigorously for 10 seconds. Strain into glass. Garnish with olives on a spear. — www.cookingnytimes.com
Moisten rim of 1 cocktail glass with lime wedge. If desired, rim glasses in salt. Place tequila, mango nectar, lime juice, Sriracha and frozen mango in blender; cover and process until smooth. Pour into prepared glass. Garnish with lime wedge and sliced mango.
In blender, mix pineapple, lemon juice, lime juice, simple syrup, salt, tequila and Cointreau with ice cubes. Blend on high until smooth and frothy. Pour into pitcher; serve over ice.
Frozen Margarita
8 oz. blanco tequila
1 cup lime juice
4 oz. Cointreau
2 oz. simple syrup or agave syrup
4 cups ice
Garnish: lime wheels or wedges
In a blender, process all ingredients until slushy, adding more ice as necessary. Serve immediately, garnished with lime.
Mexican Margarita anyone?
Margarita Shandy (for a crowd)
1 (12-oz.) can frozen limeade concentrate
8 oz. reposado tequila
12 oz. water
1 lime, thinly sliced
24 oz. lager or pilsner beer, chilled
Salt for rimming glasses
In large pitcher, mix limeade concentrate, tequila and water; stir well to mix. Refrigerate up to 6 hours or proceed immediately to next step.
Just prior to serving, fill pitcher with ice, lime slices and beer, stirring gently. Serve immediately in salt-rimmed glasses.
Watermelon Margarita
6 oz. fresh watermelon juice from 1½ cups of chopped seedless watermelon, blended and strained
2 oz. tequila blanco
2 oz. fresh lime juice, rinds reserved
1 Tbsp. salt
1 tsp. Tajín (find it in your Mexican market’s spices section)
Ice, as needed
Optional: 2 oz. Cointreau
On a small plate, combine salt and Tajín. Set aside. In a shaker filled with ice, combine watermelon juice, tequila, Cointreau (if using) and lime juice; shake well. Rim 2 rocks glasses with lime juice and salt mixture. Fill glasses with ice; strain margaritas into the glasses and serve. — cookingnytimes.com
Jamaica Tequila Cooler
½ cup sugar
½ cup water
1/3 cup dried jamaica (hibiscus) flowers
2 oz. lime juice
1 tsp. lime zest
1 cup homemade hibiscus-lime syrup (see below)
1 cup blanco tequila
2 cups tonic water, chilled
1 lime, sliced thin
To make the hibiscus-lime syrup: in small saucepan, simmer sugar and water over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; add jamaica and lime zest. Stir, cover and steep 15 minutes. Strain, cool and add lime juice.
In a pitcher, place lime slices, hibiscus-lime syrup and tequila. Refrigerate up to 6 hours or add tonic water, stir and serve over ice.
The president was buoyant this week despite announced budget cuts and a prediction by the credit rating agency Moody's that Mexico will likely enter a recession in 2023. Photos: Presidencia
President López Obrador was in Nayarit last weekend, eating seafood, checking up on a new canal and welcoming Cuban doctors.
Monday
As he had promised, the president revealed the salaries of Mexico’s public servants who earn more than him. Despite a law change obliging state workers to earn less than the head of the executive, some had “applied for amparos or did not care about what the constitution establishes,” the president said, referring to a legal defense often used as a delaying tactic.
The head of the consumer protection agency Profeco, Ricardo Sheffield, dished out the numbers and job titles. Among the 11 government officials earning more than AMLO are the Attorney General, Alejandro Gertz Manero; the head of the National Statistics Institute, Graciela Márquez; and the head of the National Electoral Institute, Lorenzo Córdova.
Other “little angels” in the judiciary, Sheffield added, were earning more than twice the president’s salary.
Mexico’s top civil servant salaries are more economical than those of the U.S., Canada and Germany, but AMLO was miffed that some are higher than his, in violation of the law.
Further legal fog arose later in the conference when the president confirmed it was full steam ahead for his Maya Train project. “There is no legal problem,” he insisted, following renewed construction on the project, which was recently declared a project of national security despite a standing suspension order on construction from the courts.
The tabasqueño chief executive then detailed the pressing security threat to which the train’s national security designation referred: “A foreign government is intervening,” he said, naming the United States government as the offending foreign party. He also added that a loss of “the people’s money” due to delays was another security issue.
Tuesday
The next day, Cuba took center stage as the president commemorated a symbolic date of the Cuban Revolution. A lifesize painting of Cuban politician and poet José Martí hung at the back of the stage, and the president announced that one of his favorite Cuban singers, Amaury Pérez, would perform.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard also announced the return of 8,970 globally dispersed pieces of heritage art during AMLO’s administration. In a separate, somewhat counterintuitive victory, Ebrard said the U.S. would bump visas for Mexicans by 45,000 this year — from 310,000 — and that 55,000 U.S. visas would be available for Central Americans and Haitians.
“I want to … thank the president and his cabinet for the solidarity, the courage, the generosity with which they have been at Cuba’s side, defending Cuba, helping Cuba, understanding Cuba, opening up to Cuba in a brave way … I want to tell the president that Cuba … respects him and loves him,” Pérez said, backed by an acoustic guitarist providing a melody.
Pérez performed three songs, the second dedicated to the Mexican Catholic patroness the Virgin of Guadalupe.
“Should I sing another?” Pérez asked the room, met by an affirmative response from journalists. “That’s how the Mexican press is; I love them,” he told the gleeful reporters, who were probably long starved of affection at AMLO’s morning conferences.
AMLO’s ‘favorite Cuban singer’ Amaury Pérez performed at Tuesday’s press conference.Wednesday
“We’ve brought a lie and a piece of good news,” the government’s media monitor Elizabeth García Vilchis said to introduce her usual “Who’s who in the lies of the week” portion of Wednesday’s press conference. García assured that the press was wrong to link the “pothole” on a runway at Mexico City Airport (AICM) to the cancellation of the semi-built airport in Texcoco in 2018.
The large chunk of missing asphalt temporarily closed the runway at AICM days earlier.
García turned to Bloomberg for kinder reading, which had lauded “Mexico’s super peso.”
“Amid the carnage in emerging-market currencies this year, there’s been a surprisingly resilient outlier: the Mexican peso,” García read from the article, which pointed to Chinese factories moving to Mexico as a major contributor.
Yet, despite the super peso, the president announced that he was committed to even greater governmental frugality. “We are going to pass from the phase of republican austerity to a more advanced phase, that of Franciscan poverty,” he told reporters, referring to a Catholic order that forbade its members from owning property and forced them to beg while preaching.
In practice, the president said public servants would travel abroad less, before commending the fact that not a single new vehicle had been bought for state workers during the administration.
Thursday
The president signed a decree to ensure drinking water would remain available to the drought-stricken state of Nuevo León.
After announcing severe belt-tightening on Wednesday, Thursday was a day to revel a bit in one’s accomplishments: 2.5 trillion pesos were saved through AMLO’s austerity plan in 2021, the president said, and this year, the government has saved even more.
Given the apparent strength of the coffers, AMLO was unperturbed by credit rating agency Moody’s prediction that Mexico was heading for a recession in 2023. “They are measurement models that go hand in hand with neoliberal politics but are in a clear decline; the neoliberal model is in crisis in the world,” he said.
“Honesty,” the president added “is the greatest wealth of Mexico … even if there is a crisis, if there is honesty, if there is no corruption, we can handle it.”
That resilience may soon be put to the test after the governments of the U.S. and Canada initiated legal proceedings over a possible breach of the USMCA trade agreement. Mexico’s two northern neighbors have complained that Mexico is unfairly favoring state energy companies.
“Even in the case of the most important market in the world, if having access … means us giving up sovereignty, we can’t accept it. We can’t hand over our independence to any foreign government,” the president insisted before reading Chapter 8 of the USMCA document, which protects Mexico’s ownership of hydrocarbons.
Friday
Discussion of an even more natural resource headed Friday’s conference: water. Access to clean water for drinking and sanitation is a human right, but it can be scarce in Mexico, where droughts are severe. Conversely, at some times of year, flooding can pose an even greater immediate threat.
The president signed a decree to support the Nuevo León government to ensure drinking water would remain available. Since early June, in the metropolis of Monterrey, running water has only been available six hours per day, if at all. López Obrador added that the state was a victim of its own success and that infrastructure hadn’t kept up with the growth of its population.
Later in the conference, there was more economic news to celebrate.
“I’m going to say it to boast a little. There was economic growth for the second quarter. We had 2% growth last quarter in relation to the previous one, while in other countries it is being reported that [economies] are declining,” the president announced, briefly before striding away to attend to the nation.
Oversized pickup truck parked on a Houston, Texas, street. Facebook
As I write this, I’m snuggled up under a thick, navy blue blanket, velvet on one side, wool on the other. My feet are tucked under me to prevent them from turning into ice cubes.
Outside, it’s literally 101 degrees.
Frigid air conditioning! My old nemesis, I’d nearly forgotten about you.
Last week, I wrote about how I arrived in Mexico from Texas a full 20 years ago. So, this week, I’ve decided to write about my impressions of being back in the States after a full two and a half years of not having returned here.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect when our plane touched down. After all, it’s been a pandemic-long while since I was here last. The narrative of U.S. political life seems like it’s been extracted from the first few pages of some futuristic dystopian novel.
I’m an avid reader of the news, and every time I’ve had a conversation with a paisano of mine in Mexico over the past couple of years, my main question has been, “What the hell is going on up there?”
So far, though, my experience with people on the ground has been pretty good. Thank goodness!
One of the things I was a little worried about was our masks: in Mexico, everyone is still wearing them … some even wear them outdoors when they’re walking alone along the street!
While I’m a bit flexible depending on the situation, my 8-year-old daughter is at a time in her life when everything is very black-and-white, and she has worn her mask religiously on every trip out of the house.
But here, no one is wearing them — even indoors — except me and my kid. I’d heard stories of the types of people who thought COVID-19 was a hoax mocking people in masks, and I was nervous about encountering them. Even commenters on my articles have been a bit mean about it, the most memorable of them calling masks “face diapers.”
Fortunately, I’ve been reminded several times since arriving here that Texans are mostly just really, really nice despite some pretty crazy voting patterns (though I insist that Texas is easily a purple state at worst, which is more of a voting problem that an ideological one). Several people a day strike up friendly little conversations, and many women especially have complimented me on my tattoos (it’s too hot for sweaters here).
The things that have taken me aback?
Monster trucks. Like, a lot of them. They’re as big as houses, and I don’t get it. I don’t think most people driving them are building contractors that have to haul tons of bricks from one place to another, so what’s the deal?
The air conditioning also really is extreme. I don’t know how to dress for the day. It’s 100 F heat outside, and 65 degrees inside which, to me, is way too cold. Isn’t there anything between a sauna and a refrigerator? Right now, I’m wearing pants and a T-shirt. I brought shorts and dresses with me, but I’m too cold inside houses and buildings to put them on. It’s not the worst problem to have, I suppose, but it seems absurd that our extreme differences in temperatures must mirror our extreme political differences.
There are pro-life billboards everywhere. Dudes, you won. Whom are you trying to convince? I’d be really impressed if the money spent on these billboards went instead to helping families care for all those “saved babies” that they insist should be born instead of just saying to them upon birth: “You’re welcome, now start pulling on those bootstraps, kid.”
Prices. They’re high. On our second day here, some friends invited us to a water park. It was cool and nice, but tickets were about $60 apiece, so how many people can afford that kind of fun around here? Even a local (somehow nonprofit) production of The Wizard of Oz (very cute) was $25 per ticket. As in most places, there’s a correlation between race/ethnicity and economic prosperity, and it was a bit unnerving to see a sea of almost exclusively blonde heads in these places when white people make up less than half of the Texan population. How’s everyone else having fun?
Well, at least really good ice cream is cheap and plentiful (Blue Bell, you will always have my heart), and I’ve got some tightening pants to prove it.
My daughter is also having a good time, though she’s still a bit disoriented language-wise; her “stranger language” is Spanish, so while she speaks English perfectly, she mostly just stares at people, stunned, when they say something to her here.
I don’t blame her: on my first days back in the States, I often say things absentmindedly in Spanish; it’s my “stranger language,” too. I gave some money to someone standing on the sidewalk asking for help on the way home from the airport (there seem to be a lot more of them now) and said, “Tenga, señor.”
My sister thought I’d said it in Spanish to avoid striking up a conversation, but I honestly didn’t realize I’d not used the right language until she pointed it out.
It’s been a few days, so I’ve finally stopped embarrassing myself by wishing people “buen provecho” as I leave restaurants. But the trip is young! I’ve got a week and a half left of adventures here.
During it's annual festival, a group of visitors leaves Mixtlán in search of mushrooms, each group accompanied by an expert. Robert Ornelas
Mixtlán is a very small town located about halfway between Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta in Jalisco. Its name means “the place of the clouds,” but in recent years it has become better known as the land of mushrooms.
This is thanks to Mixtlán’s Director of Tourism, José de Jesús Preciado de León, founder of the town’s popular Feria del Hongo: the Mixtlán Mushroom Festival, which was held this year over the weekend of July 15 to 17.
“I founded the Feria in 2016,” Preciado told me, “so this is the seventh edition of the event. This festival is educational, with emphasis on science and ecology. For example, we have activities that take place during guided tours in the woods. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, groups leave town at 8 a.m. and they head up into the highest parts of the hills surrounding us.
“Each group is accompanied by an expert mycologist from the University of Guadalajara. The mycologists identify the varieties of mushrooms the group finds and explain how to distinguish them from other mushrooms and also how to pick them and how to transport them.”
Over 160 species of mushroom grow in the vicinity of Mixtlán, 40 of which are edible. Jesús Preciado
I was surprised to learn that there is a proper way to pick and transport mushrooms. The correct way to collect a mushroom, Preciado says, is to cut it off at its base with a knife. Grabbing and pulling it is all wrong because that mushroom is just the “fruit” of the fungus, which is actually a network of mycelium fibers hidden from view under the ground and literally connecting together all the trees in the forest.
While we commonly think of mushrooms as plants, it seems they are really more closely related to the animal kingdom.
Once you cut the mushroom, comments Preciado, you should deposit it in a basket: the woven kind, made from wicker or reeds. The reason for this is that the mushroom is constantly liberating spores in order to reproduce itself. So, the construction of a traditional basket allows the spores to fall to the ground.
“Yes,” confirms Preciado. “As we walk about collecting mushrooms, we are also distributing its spores all over the woods.”
A University of Guadalajara mycologist, center, answers questions about mushrooms.
This ecological aspect of the festival takes place out in the hills, and when the mushroom gatherers get back to town, they find an extensive exhibition laid out on tables. Here the mushrooms have been cleaned, classified and tagged by the mycologists and then carefully placed on a decorative bed of moss and other wild plants.
At each table, there are experts to explain or clarify doubts the visitors might have about mushrooms. The public can admire them and photograph them, but they’re not allowed to touch them.
“In Mixtlán, we have over 160 kinds of wild mushrooms,” says Preciado. “With the first rains, they start popping up in the meadows and clearings. Here we call them porras or champiñones silvestres (wild mushrooms).
“As the rains continue and the temperature drops, all kinds of them begin to appear in the high forest, reaching their maximum in July and August. Of the 160 types that grow around here, 40 species are edible: that’s a lot!”
By carrying freshly picked mushrooms in a wicker basket, their very fine spores are spread far and wide. HomEr-MotayAyin
The town of Mixtlán is full of mushroom eaters, he says.
“When the rains are upon us, families head for the woods to collect mushrooms: children, grandparents, everybody goes out together to pick mushrooms! So this festival of ours is a homage to these traditional hongueros (mushroomers) who are passing down from generation to generation the culture of mushroom-gathering.”
Preciado says that Mixtlán is the most “mushroom crazy” of all the communities in Mexico’s Sierra Occidental, “We eat the most and have the greatest respect for them: so that’s why we have a mushroom festival, to commemorate the benefits that Mother Nature provides for us.”
Mushrooms are considered a “complete food,” containing a lot of protein — although not as much as meat or milk. They have all the essential amino acids required by human beings and even a little fat. It is said that if they had to choose between meat and mushrooms, many of Mixtlan’s citizens would opt for the latter. “This,” states Guzmán Ávalos of the University of Guadalajara Mycology Lab, “is definitely not the norm in Jalisco.”
The people of Mixtlán traditionally eat only four kinds of mushrooms. “But,” says Preciado, “in 2015, I began looking at some of the other species. I brought mycologists here, and based on what they told us, we begin to try some of the others … and now we are enjoying 10 edible species … and there are still 30 edible species more that we haven’t even tasted yet, out of an abundance of caution.”
With a picture like this, it’s easy to see how Mixtlán residents get excited about hunting down mushrooms! Art Guevara
“They are safe to eat, but we don’t know how to prepare them, and we’re afraid to eat them. But little by little, thanks to the Feria, we are slowly exploring this panorama of options — all those other edible mushrooms that are never taken out of the woods.”
Jesús Preciado became Director of Tourism in 2016. “At that time,” he says, “I got the idea for a festival, but I wanted something well-organized, not a pachanga (noisy party). No, we wanted our festival to be ecologically sound, educational, scientific, gastronomical, cultural, musical and a source of income for the townspeople.
“This year, we inaugurated the festival on Friday, July 15. We had walks to the woods on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., and in the afternoons, there were workshops and conferences conducted by experts from the University of Guadalajara. Then there was a Best Drawing Competition for kids, followed by the Biggest Mushroom Contest. We had 11 entries for that, and the largest measured 32 centimeters in diameter.
“It was a brown Ganoderma, and the person who picked it received 1,000 pesos. We also had stands offering mushrooms to eat. Mixtlán has a population of 2,000 people, but over this three-day festival, our little town received around 6,000 visitors!”
Experienced mushroomer Lorenzo Preciado displays his Caesar’s mushrooms (Amanita caesarea).
Besides the Feria del Hongo, what else does Mixtlán have to offer?
Rock art is one option. Mixtlán has four or five sites with petroglyphs. as well as the ruins of pre-Hispanic settlements. There is also a spring with naturally carbonated water. Local people add salt, chile and limòn (lemon-lime) to make a drink called “la rusa” in Mexico. Finally, for the brave-hearted, there is a lovely waterfall and pool called El Charco del Condenado (The Pool of the Damned), into which, a legend says, the irate townsfolk once threw a local man who had been transformed into the Devil.
“This is a great place for a swim, but people still fear that if they jump in, they will grow horns,” Preciado told me.
To appreciate everything that little Mixtlán has to offer, mark your 2023 calendar right now. Next year, the Feria del Hongo will take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, July 14–16 — and don’t forget your wicker basket!
The kiosk of Mixtlán, decorated and ready to receive visitors to the annual Feria del Hongo.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, since 1985. His most recent book is Outdoors in Western Mexico, Volume Three. More of his writing can be found on his blog.
Mixtlán’s Director of Tourism, Jesús Preciado, in the sombrero, introduces the press to the area’s local mushrooms.
Mushrooms collected in the woods are cleaned, classified and laid out for exhibition by mycologists. Magaly Rayita
Mixtlán gets its name from the Náhuatl words mixtli (cloud) and tlan, which means ‘place.’ Jesús Preciado
This petroglyph, located not far from Mixtlán, appears to be a patolli, a kind of ancient “board game” popular in pre-Hispanic times. Diego Vigo
Dogs chasing pelicans and Múlege’s elephant seal were topics of interest on social media this week in Baja California Sur.
In the port town of Pichilingue, four dogs were captured on video hunting pelicans on Thursday. Evident from the video is that the pelican was already injured, as it didn’t fly away from its attackers even as they got close and started to circle it in the water.
Whether the dogs were hot in the 30-degree heat, hungry or just bored, they did seem to understand that the pelican was defenseless and that this moment in the video was their best chance to capture it.
The one-and-half minute video shows the four dogs swimming out from the shore toward the pelican as it tries without success to swim away. The dogs finally corral the bird until the four canine hunters surround and attack it.
— Carlos Alfredo Godinez León (@CarlosA94203364) July 28, 2022
The video ends there and so does the story.
Also back in the news was the elephant seal that has been spotted several times in the last few months along the coast of the Gulf of California on the eastern side of the Baja California peninsula. This time it was a siting of the more than two-meter animal swimming near the river entrance at Múlege that connects to the gulf waters.
The animal seems to have little fear of humans and has been seen sunning itself on the beach next to groups of families and making other appearances to tourists along the coast. It’s believed that the possible effects of climate change, a search for food, or a mishap along its migration route has caused the female to be so far from the U.S. and Canadian shores where northern elephant seals are usually found. It has become a bit of a local celebrity, popping up on El Coyote and other local beaches to the shock and awe of beachgoers.
This latest video, uploaded by the same Twitter user as the pelican-hunting dogs, shows this massive creature content as can be while floating up the Múlege river. While wildlife is a common site in the bio-rich Baja Peninsula, up close and personal encounters are always a particular thrill, especially for first-time visitors to this popular tourist destination.
The Fuerza Territorial Poblana's leader Eloy Merino Mendoza died in a clash with the Familia Michoacana cartel on July 20. But his group says it isn't deterred. FTP/Facebook
A Puebla self-defense force’s decade-long fight against narcos intensified last week with an armed confrontation that left six of the self-proclaimed good guys dead.
But with authorities failing to protect residents of the state’s Mixteca region, members of the Fuerza Territorial Poblana (FTP) have not been deterred by the deaths of their comrades, In fact, they are as determined as ever to do what they can to protect themselves and their families – despite the risks they face.
The clash with presumed members of the Familia Michoacana crime group occurred July 20 in Jolalpan, a Mixteca region municipality that borders both Guerrero and Morelos. Among the six dead was FTP leader Eloy Merino Mendoza. Sixteen other people were wounded, one report said.
According to a Milenio newspaper report, the FTP formed 10 years ago when Los Rojos was the dominant criminal gang in the Mixteca region of Puebla, which borders Oaxaca, Guerrero and Morelos and is part of a drug trafficking route. The FTP was successful in weakening Los Rojos, but the Familia Michoacana subsequently moved in and started making threats against residents.
The deadly clash between the self-defense group and cartel members happened in the municipality of Jolalpan, Puebla, which is near Puebla’s border with Guerrero and Morelos. Google Maps
Since then, the self-defense force has been focused on keeping the Familia Michoacana at bay. In 10 years, its membership has grown to almost 2,500 autodefensas, including elderly men and women.
“The group formed to defend ourselves because we were fed up with so many threats and deaths,” Arturo, a 75-year-old campesino-cum-vigilante, told Milenio.
“… What do we have to do? Find the way to defend our own lives and families because nobody wants to die [at the hands of a crime group],” he said.
“When will the government do its job?” questioned another FTP member. “That’s why we pay taxes. … If the government did its job, we wouldn’t have to go around with weapons, we wouldn’t use them anymore,” he said, repeating a refrain uttered countless times by self-defense force members in states such as Michoacán and Chiapas.
The vigilante, who asked not to be identified by name, told Milenio that he and other FTP members didn’t want to be “police” but had no choice.
An elderly female autodefensa also said she felt obliged to take up arms. “At this age, we have no option but to pick up a weapon and defend ourselves,” she said. “To be sincere, I’m scared, taking up arms frightens me … but we all have families.”
Milenio reported that the FTP has taken control of security in 27 Mixteca region municipalities, most of which don’t have certified municipal police. In Jolalpan, where last week’s clash occurred, there have been no certified officers for 10 years, according to a local councilor.
“The truth is there haven’t been any certified police since 2012,” said Bernabé Cortez. “I don’t know [why] because we’re [a] new [municipal government],” he said.
Puebla Governor Miguel Barbosa, seen here five days after the Jolalpan clash at a ceremony to destroy decommissioned military arms to prevent them falling into criminal hands, calls self-defense groups’ efforts ‘unacceptable.’ Miguel Barbosa/Twitter
The state government, which is responsible for certifying police, has condemned the FTP’s efforts to keep the peace, even accusing it of being involved in crime. But it hasn’t guaranteed the Mixteca region’s security itself, vigilantes say.
Yet another FTP member who spoke with Milenio rejected accusations that the self-defense force is in fact a cartel.
“They’ve been accused of being criminals but there’s no proof of that. Not one authority can prove that we’re a cartel or collude with a cartel. No, we’re merely campesinos, sugar cane workers, farmers, stockbreeders, doctors, engineers, there are all kinds of people here [but] there are no narcos, at least as far as we know,” he said.
To keep criminals out of FTP ranks, new members are asked to prove that they don’t have a criminal record and present identification and even personal references, Milenio said. Vigilantes said they would only lay down their arms if a military or state police base was built in the Mixteca region, where Milenio’s reporter saw no federal or state forces during a recent trip.
The group has its own social media presence and a logo. But members say they wouldn’t exist if the government provided security against criminal groups. FTP/Facebook
President López Obrador announced in May that new National Guard barracks would be built in the region, but it was unclear when they would be completed.
Puebla Governor Miguel Barbosa, who has described the operation of unofficial self-defense forces as “unacceptable,” said after last week’s confrontation that a “very specific strategy” involving all three levels of government was needed to return peace to the region.
A United States government commission said earlier this year that the federal government’s non-confrontational security strategy – the so-called “hugs, not bullets” approach – was insufficient to combat synthetic drug trafficking.
The runway closure will affect flights that take off and land between 11 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. until December.
Just days after fixing a pothole that appeared on one of its runways, the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) has announced a major repair project for the other that will affect overnight flights until December.
Then came another surprise: after the airport tweeted on Tuesday that its other runway (not the one with the pothole) would be closed for routine maintenance between 11 p.m. and 5:50 a.m. from July 26–31, it announced two days later that the runway was undergoing a major repair project that would keep it shut during those overnight hours until December so that a range of improvements can be carried out.
Estimated to cost some 700 million pesos (US $34.4 million), the project includes the laying of new asphalt, the widening of the runway, the replacement of lighting fixtures that have been in use for over 20 years, the painting of new lines, the relocation of drainage systems and even weeding to “inhibit the presence of fauna that could affect operations.”
The US $34.4 million project includes, among other improvements, laying new asphalt, widening the runway, and painting new lines. AICM
“The rehabilitation of the 05L/23R runway allows the correction of its deterioration due to weather conditions and the load it receives from airplanes that operate at AICM,” the statement said, adding that the project will allow operational safety to be maintained.
“So that the work can be carried out, the runway will be closed between the hours of 23:00 and 05:50, during which landing and takeoff demand is lower,” AICM said.
The airport said that preparations for an “executive project” to repair the 05R-23L runway – the one where the pothole appeared – will begin at the end of the year. It highlighted that each runway is subject to a safety inspection once a week.
“This is carried out in daylight in order to visually check the physical conditions of the runways [and] identify necessary repairs,” AICM said.
Carlos Torres, an aviation sector analyst, said it was concerning that AICM didn’t plan and announce the major runway project in advance and thus give airlines the opportunity to alter their schedules.
“There will be more flight delays and cancellations in the summer vacation season [as a result of the project],” he told the newspaper Reforma.
Fernando Gómez, another analyst, also said that the project will affect flights, despite the work being carried out late at night and early in the morning.
“The landing and take-off of planes will be limited,” he said. “In this case, flights in the early hours of the morning will be affected, they’ll have to be rescheduled,” Gómez said, adding that the runway repair project will have an impact on both passenger and freight aircraft.
In addition to the runway work, the federal government intends to carry out repairs to attend to structural damage in both AICM terminal buildings. Earlier this week, the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport announced an investment of 46.5 million pesos (US $2.3 million) to carry out a range of projects to strengthen the foundations and superstructures of terminals 1 and 2.
