Security forces fail to prevent 2,000-strong migrant caravan heading north from Tapachula

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October 25, 2021

Migrants on the highway north of Tapachula, Chiapas. ben wein

A large migrant caravan is heading north after leaving Tapachula, Chiapas, where National Guard troops in riot gear were unable to stop it despite a blockade across the highway on Saturday.

As many as 2,000 migrants set off from Bicentenario Park in Tapachula at around 7:00 a.m. and marched north up the main highway. The National Guard attempted to block their path near the town of Viva México but the front of the caravan charged the police line and, amid chaotic scenes, crowds of people ran past the authorities, who were unable to deter the surge.

By Sunday night the caravan had arrived in Huehuetán, having met no serious attempt to stop it, though immigration officials, National Guard officers, the army and the navy were seen traveling on the highway.

The majority of the migrants are from Central America. Pregnant women, seniors, one person in a wheelchair and many families pushing strollers with young children are among the convoy. Many said they had asylum claims or that the living conditions in their countries were intolerable. The caravan’s leader, Mexican-U.S. activist Irineo Mújica of Pueblos Sin Fronteras, or Peoples Without Borders, said the goal of the march was to travel to Mexico City, but many migrants said they were committed to reaching the United States.

The convoy’s first major milestone is Huixtla, about 40 kilometers north of Tapachula. Organizers said the success of the march could depend on whether officials try to obstruct the caravan near there. From there, the group plans to move toward the state capital Tuxla Gutiérrez, about 330 kilometers farther north, from which Mexico City is another 840 kilometers.

Here is the moment earlier today the caravan, under the sign of the cross, broke through the lines of the Guardia Nacional. pic.twitter.com/Dy217NZ3MF

— Jonathan L. Krohn (@JonathanLKrohn) October 23, 2021

Most of the migrants are poorly prepared, many wearing unsuitable shoes and walking in extremely hot conditions. They sleep in the warm open air without tents or cover. There is no system for the migrants to be fed and one woman was treated for exhaustion Sunday morning.

The convoy’s leaders are keeping one lane of the three-lane highway open to passing traffic. However, sometimes the migrants stray into the third lane causing traffic to build up behind.

Representatives from the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said the caravan was smaller than previous ones, but recognized a considerable presence of pregnant women and children.

Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Honduran, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan are the principal nationalities, but Cubans, Colombians, Ghanaians, Nigerians, a Chinese family, and at least one Panamanian are also part of the convoy.

Haitians, thousands of whom are in Tapachula, have not joined the caravan in large numbers.

The group slept in the small town of Álvaro Obregón Saturday night. The atmosphere was peaceful and local merchants appeared pleased with the sudden increase in business. They spent Sunday night in similar conditions in Estación de Huehuetán, and were well received by locals.

Víctor Manolo Contreras of El Salvador carries the cross at the head of the caravan. He blames corrupt governments for the mass exodus. ben wein

Faith plays an important role in caravans, also known as the “Migrant’s Way of the Cross,” a term that relates to the Catholic pilgrimage tradition. The caravan is spearheaded by a large wooden cross, which is normally carried by Salvadoran Víctor Manolo Contreras. He blamed corrupt Salvadoran governments for mass migration.

“The rich and the politicians are always looking to benefit themselves … we came from 30 years of disgraceful governments. They robbed with their hands full and finished the country,” he said.

Caravan leader Mújica is a devout Catholic and another leader, Mexican Luis García Villagrán of the Center for Human Dignity, is an evangelical Christian.

García said the spirit of the caravan would help it overcome obstructions in a speech on Saturday night. “There are more than 1,000 men, young men, we are more than them … They [security forces] try to look the part with a uniform and a helmet. But we are guided by our hearts, we are guided by necessity, we are here to survive,” he said.

Representatives from CNDH and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are following the caravan in an observational capacity. Officials from the National Immigration Institute (INM) are providing medical assistance. Mexican human rights NGOs and Save the Children are also present.

Tapachula is the modern Casablanca: a city flooded with migrants, desperately awaiting their papers, which may never arrive. Their legal status is increasingly clouded: they have been banned from leaving Tapachula while they await the outcomes of their applications to the government refugee organization Comar and the INM. However, both agencies have buckled under the pressure of migrant influxes leaving undocumented migrants waiting for responses to applications without any reliable time frame.

The INM has not responded to applications for residence for more than two years in some cases, the newspaper El Orbe reported.

Many of the migrants who enter Mexico illegally quickly become well acquainted with the INM, which sends them to the prison-like migrant detention centers that it runs. Their imprisonment is called “rescue” by federal officials.

Mexico News Daily

Coming to terms with grief: the psychological perks of Day of the Dead

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Leigh Thelmadatter

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October 23, 2021

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Women in Catrina makeup and Yucatán huipils — Women in Catrina makeup and Yucatán huipiles for Day of the Dead in Yucatán. Pxhere.com/Creative Commons

The animated film Coco has probably done more than anything else to take the “ew” factor out of Day of the Dead for those of us who grew up with nothing like it.

This is great because there are good psychological reasons for celebrating it.

Grief is universal, but how we cope is largely determined by culture. European cultures have mostly lost their equivalent to Day of the Dead, with only All Souls’ Day and Halloween as distant reminders that we, too, used to actively honor our ancestors. Instead, a belief took hold to see anything associated with death as evil, something to be shunned, ignored and fought against at all costs.

Mexico is not completely immune to this, says National Autonomous University of Mexico professor and researcher Beatriz Glowinski, an expert on death and grieving. But that Day of the Dead has survived gives Mexicans a special outlet for their emotions.

Simply put, Day of the Dead is an annual festival dedicated to remembering lost loved ones and, yes, to mock something we fear. The underlying belief is that the dead can come back at this time to the land of the living, but it is no coincidence that it occurs at the end of the harvest, when fields die to sustain the living.

Large public Day of the Dead altar in Durango sponsored, perhaps appropriately, by the Hernández Funeral Home in that city. Leigh Thelmadatter

It is a syncretism of Mesoamerican and Catholic beliefs or, more accurately, the survival of Mesoamerican beliefs about death with a Catholic veneer. It survives in two forms.

The older and more “intimate” Day of the Dead is a gathering of friends and family to remember those important to them. The dead are not lamented but welcomed back as part of a family reunion.

The other Day of the Dead can be found in the large festivals and parades that have grown in popularity in both Mexico and the United States. In Mexico, they began to become more important as local and national efforts to counter the influence of Halloween began in the 1990s.

Many communities today have one or more open public events on this day, and Day of the Dead celebrations are popular in schools from kindergarten to college.

All cultures recognize the psychological need to grieve, but they also put limits on how long and how publicly a person may be in mourning.

“It is very complicated and very difficult … there isn’t a period of time … it does not exist,” Glowinski says. “It can take years, depending on the person.”

Day of the Dead observance in cemetery, Mixquic, Mexico City — People decorating graves in Mixquic, Mexico City. This is one of the most traditional and colorful observances of Day of the Dead in the capital. Leigh Thelmadatter

And if grief is not addressed adequately, “a person can become stuck in their lives personally and professionally,” she says.

Even after the proscribed mourning period, grief lingers and returns, and Day of the Dead addresses this. Simply visiting graves, as is done in other cultures, can have the same purpose, but it is often a solitary activity, whereas Day of the Dead by its very nature is social.

On and around November 2, Mexicans have permission and even the expectation to acknowledge their losses in a supportive environment. The ritual of shopping for supplies, preparing an altar and sharing time with loved ones is therapeutic. Areas we do not casually visit, such as cemeteries, become a place of social gathering, both for those attending to family graves and those of us looking on.

There is nothing morbid or even remotely Halloweenish about this.

It is easy to see how lighting candles on graves fulfills this purpose, but what about the superficially corny skull and skeleton decorations? These decorations, parties and parades are about showing the relationship between life and death and take the morbidity out of thinking about death.

Many public festivals also have allusions to the cultural and historical past, making Day of the Dead also about connecting to heritage.

Day of the Dead in Patzcuaro, Michoacán — Day of the Dead in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, one of the most popular destinations for Day of the Dead tourism. El Motivo de Viajar

Many might have trouble with the belief that the dead come back, but counselor and psychotherapist Merrie Haskins says that such a belief can be beneficial. “[It] means that you have the chance to say anything that was left unsaid before they died.”

Taking the stigma out of talking about death also leads us to express what we want when it is our time to die and to communicate that to family. This is important because said family will be able to find closure when the time comes, knowing that they respected those wishes.

In the U.S., Day of the Dead was originally something celebrated privately only by Mexican-heritage families, but it’s growing in popularity. In the 1970s, public observances began with the aim of asserting Mexican American identity. Only recently has there been interest from the culture at large in the holiday, introduced in schools and with decorations now available in Walmart and Target.

If Day of the Dead becomes a larger part of the U.S. culture in some way, it is because it provides something that our native mourning rituals lack: social recognition and support for the idea that those who have gone are still important to us.

It’s not necessary to literally believe that the dead come back, nor be Catholic, to benefit from the observation, Glowinski says, but the communal aspect is essential. The annual observance is “ … a phenomenal way to deal with the emotions that remembering our loved ones bring,” she says, adding, “They externalize such emotions, and this is very liberating and healing.”

On a personal level, I find Day of the Dead particularly meaningful as I live so far away and rarely go back “home.” In particular, I cannot visit my mother’s grave as much as I “should,” and the yearly ritual of setting up the gringo side of my bicultural home’s altar is a more-than-acceptable substitute.

It even makes me smile as I place my favorite picture of my mother, in a 1970s plaid skirt and cat glasses, with the ever-present mug of tea in her hand.

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.

Wild at heart: Mexico’s mushrooms have a long and varied history

By

Janet Blaser

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October 23, 2021

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This creamy mushroom soup is just the thing when you're craving comfort food.

There are a good number of edible wild mushrooms native to Mexico, found mostly in the cooler mountainous regions of Oaxaca, Mexico, Morelos, Mexico, Puebla and Hidalgo. The Mexica (Aztec) deity Nanacatzin (from the Náhuatl word nanacatl, meaning “meat”) was the Lord of the Mushrooms, responsible for making them suddenly sprout overnight. It’s no wonder, then, that hongos silvestres have a long culinary, medicinal and religious history in Mexico.

If you do come upon wild mushrooms in a market somewhere, be sure to ask the vendor exactly how to prepare them and follow their instructions to the “T.” Some are only used for medicinal or religious purposes — not for eating — and you want to be sure of what you’re getting before you throw them into a stir-fry or something.

For the most part, what we find here are the common white or button mushrooms, usually called champiñones. In the last few years, portobellos have become popular too, appearing on menus as vegetarian alternatives for burgers and in other dishes.

It was a surprise to me to discover that those little white mushrooms grow up to be big brown portobellos! And, in their “teenage” stage, they’re called creminis, or “baby-bellas.” As they mature, besides getting bigger and darker, Agaricus bisporus develop more flavor as well. Mexico is a big producer of these kinds of mushrooms, with the state of Guanajuato growing the most.

Mushrooms are a versatile source of umami, that elusive flavor component that just makes everything taste better and richer. You may be able to find more exotic varieties of dried mushrooms, like shiitake or oyster mushrooms, in Asian stores or sections of bigger grocery stores.

Mushroom in adobo — These mushrooms in adobo make great taco filling, or just eat them on their own with rice.

Mushrooms in Adobo

Serve inside tacos or as an entrée with rice.

1 cup sliced white, cremini or portobello mushrooms, or a combination
3 dried guajillo chiles
3 dried morita chiles
1 medium white onion
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp. white vinegar
¼ cup fresh orange juice
Salt and pepper
½ tsp. ground cumin (or more)
2 tsp. olive oil

Carefully remove seeds from chiles, then soak them in warm water for 15 minutes. In blender, process the soaking water, half the onion, garlic, vinegar, pepper, cumin and orange juice and blend until smooth. Set aside. Heat a skillet over medium heat; add olive oil.

Mince remaining half onion and sauté until shiny. Add mushrooms and marinade. Cook 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Classic Creamy Mushroom Soup

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 lbs. mixed mushrooms (1kg), sliced
Salt and pepper
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. flour
1 cup dry sherry or white wine
1 cup milk
5 cups chicken or vegetable stock or water
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme, if available
Garnish: Minced fresh herbs (parsley, tarragon, chives), extra-virgin olive oil

Melt butter in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms, season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until liquid evaporates and mushrooms are browned.

Add onion and garlic. Continue stirring until softened. Add flour; stir to combine. Add sherry/wine.

Cook until reduced by about half, scraping up browned bits from bottom of pan. Add milk, stock, bay leaves and thyme. Simmer on low for 20 minutes.

Remove bay leaves and thyme. Blend with an immersion blender or in batches using a countertop blender. Adjust salt and pepper. Garnish with fresh herbs and a drizzle of olive oil.

Coconut-Tomato Soup with Shrimp and Mushrooms

1 (14-oz.) can whole peeled tomatoes
1 (12-oz.) jar roasted red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded and roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
4 Tbsp. olive oil, plus more for drizzling
8 oz. mixed fresh mushrooms, cut into 2-inch pieces (about 4 loose cups)
2 cloves garlic cloves, sliced
1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced or grated
1 Tbsp. lime zest
Salt
¼ cup sliced scallions
2 shallots, peeled and diced
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 (13-oz.) can full-fat coconut milk
½ red habanero chile, seeds removed
1 lb. large (tail-on) shrimp, peeled and deveined OR 1 lb. firm white fish, cut into 2-inch pieces
Steamed white or brown rice, for serving
1 cup mixed fresh herbs, such as cilantro, mint, basil or dill

Process whole peeled tomatoes, their juices and roasted red peppers in a food processor or blender until smooth.

In large pot, heat 3 Tbsp. olive oil on medium-high setting. Add mushrooms; cook without stirring until lightly browned, 2-3 minutes. Add garlic and ginger. Cook 2 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Season with salt and a drizzle of oil. Add lime zest and scallions. Toss, set aside.

Pour remaining 1 Tbsp. oil into pot. Heat on medium setting. Sauté shallots until softened and translucent. Add tomato paste; cook about 2 minutes, until it darkens and begins to stick to bottom of pot. Stir in puréed tomato mixture, coconut milk, chile and 1 cup water, scraping to remove any stuck bits. Simmer about 20 minutes uncovered, until sauce reduces slightly. Season with salt. Add shrimp/fish. Cook 2–3 minutes until just opaque. Remove and discard chile.

Divide soup and shrimp/fish among bowls filled with rice. Combine fresh herbs with mushrooms and sprinkle atop soup. Drizzle with more olive oil; serve.

Chard and Mushrooms in Dijon Mustard Sauce

2 ½ Tbsp. olive oil
2 small bunches scallions, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ lb. mushrooms, sliced
1 lb. fresh chard, julienned
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

Heat oil in large skillet. Sauté scallions and garlic for 2 minutes; add mushrooms, cook 5 minutes more. Add chard, cover and cook over low heat 5 minutes, till chard is tender but still crisp. Mix in mustard, heat 2 minutes more and serve immediately.

Janet Blaser is the author of the best-selling book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, featured on CNBC and MarketWatch. She has lived in Mexico since 2006. You can find her on Instagram at @thejanetblaser.

Nintendo in the trash, too much global cash: the week at AMLO’s press conferences

By

MND Staff

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October 23, 2021

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The president answers reporters' questions on Wednesday.

Unfortunately for his critics, President Lopez Obrador is difficult politician to pigeon-hole. As mayor of Mexico City he created pension plans and invested in education: so far, so left. However, he also partnered with Latin America’s richest man, Carlos Slim, to gentrify much of the capital’s downtown with private investment.

At the end of his mayoral term, one poll had his approval rating at 84%.

Monday

A compressed conference on Monday. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry was in town and AMLO was destined for his spiritual home Palenque, Chiapas, to show off the tree-planting Sowing Life project. The president has touted it as a solution to Central American poverty and migration.

AMLO said there would be little time for questions, and he was proved right. One journalist may have lost favor among her colleagues for her rather elaborate approach. Corruption was the topic and Sonora, she said, was full of it.

A former governor, Guillermo Padrés, had sent AMLO a letter from jail in 2018. Some months later he was released. Was the Tabascan involved?

“No, because it doesn’t correspond to me, and we are respectful of judicial powers. I don’t establish relationships of complicity,” he replied.

“There is no impunity,” he later affirmed.

Tuesday

The president made a call for any unvaccinated people to get a shot: “Changing opinion is a way of the wise,” he said.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said coronavirus case numbers were lower than they ever were between the first and second waves. He later stated that no one could be prevented from working because they don’t have a vaccination certificate: “In Mexican law there is no justification for this … it is not legal to put conditions on access to work,” he said.

Deputy Health Minister, Hugo Lopez-Gatell reported on the status of the pandemic on Tuesday.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell reported on the status of the pandemic on Tuesday.

The president dug out an article by the director of the newspaper Sin Embargo, Alejandro Páez Varela, which argued that there is indeed anti-AMLO media bias. “[Critical journalists] see a man who does not exist, and they put on their gloves to strike the shadow that their own crooked analysis generates. In my way of seeing things, their contempt for the president clouds their strategies,” he said poetically.

Helpfully, AMLO had the cure for any rancorous critics: “They really should breathe deeply; breathing exercises are great to avoid getting angry, always be calm, calm,” he advised.

A stronger remedy might be in order for ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto, his former foreign minister, Luis Videgaray, and the former leader of the National Action Party, Ricardo Anaya: a journalist said the attorney general was preparing charges against them.

“I don’t have information,” AMLO insisted.

Wednesday

Security officials lined up for the monthly security report. The commander of the National Guard, the navy minister and the defense minister all gave their spiel before － as is customary － Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez offered the juiciest details. Federal crimes were down 23% in annual terms in the first nine months of the year; financial crimes had dropped 20%; homicide was down 3.4%.

The president had another security concern on his mind: the Nintendo; his shorthand for video game consoles and gaming culture. Deputy Security Minister Ricardo Mejía Berdeja recounted a case where teenagers were recruited to work for a cartel through a shooter game. Rodríguez returned with a 10-point plan for parents to guide their teenagers’ playing habits.

Elizabeth García Vilchis was on hand for the media lies of the week, and looked to God for support. Or at least, God’s terrestrial representative: “To the media, I ask that you end the logic of post truth, the disinformation, the defamation, the lies and that perverse fascination with scandal and dirt and that you seek to contribute to human fellowship,” she said, quoting Pope Francis.

In replying to the “fake news” of the week: no one died at the Dos Bocas refinery strikes in Tabasco and no firearms were used; and there would be no sanctions against young people if they fail to register with the tax authority.

Thursday

Cigarettes, of the electronic variety, were a hot topic on Thursday. AMLO repeated his disagreement with a Supreme Court judgement that called the ban on electronic cigarettes unconstitutional. “We’re going to present a legal initiative to combat this … business can’t be put ahead of the health of the people,” the president affirmed.

He backed the integrity of the attorney general in the case of Emilio Lozoya. The former CEO of Pemex, arrested on corruption charges in 2020, had been photographed in a fancy restaurant in Mexico City. Last year, AMLO had said Lozoya was a collaborating witness, but said Thursday that no plea deal had been struck to keep him out of jail.

AMLO spoke out against electronic cigarettes on Thursday.

Friday

Race, the president said, was a concept that should be discarded on scientific grounds: “It is proven scientifically that there are no races. There are only cultures. If there are no races, how are you going to be racist? It is absurd. It has to do with this conservative thinking of seeking to be superior,” he said.

However, the 67-year-old was in no mood for a fight. He’d picked up an injury while engaged in his favorite pastime. “I hit a run, and I came back to bat for the second time … and I tore something … I kept batting … but then I got to first base and I couldn’t continue … in these cases ice and rest is recommended,” he said.

Inflation, which a journalist said was at 6.12%, wasn’t going to cause damage, AMLO assured. The president attributed it to two factors: productivity dropped globally, causing prices to rise, and the United States’ mammoth stimulus package that had “heated up the economy” and created more demand than supply could satisfy.

As ever, time was short, and AMLO had a weekend excursion planned. The mountain region of Guerrero beckoned: 19 poor municipalities in the southern state where the Mixe people reside.

“I’ve got to go, that’s the third call. You’re down for Monday. I give you my word,” he said to a waiting journalist.

Mexico News Daily

Trees deserve our love and protection, yet we keep destroying them

By

Sarah DeVries

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October 23, 2021

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The netleaf oak, or encino in Spanish, is one of Mexico's many native trees. — The netleaf oak, or *encino* in Spanish, is one of Mexico's many native trees.

“All the ways you imagine us – bewitched mangroves up on stilts, a nutmeg’s inverted spade, gnarled baja elephant trunks, the straight-up missile of a sal – are always amputations. Your kind never sees us whole. You miss the half of it, and more. There’s always as much belowground as above. If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we’d drown you in meaning.”

I’ve always loved trees — so much so that my entire back is covered in a tattoo of a tree. But the book from which the above quote is taken, Richard Powers’ The Overstory: A Novel, especially helped me to think of trees as living, conscious things and of forests as communities, as opposed to simply natural decorations set into the ground by the gods that may or may not be useful.

While the very definition of consciousness as we perceive it is debatable in terms of which living things it might include, we do now know that trees have more in common with us than we used to think.

They communicate with each other through their roots. They care for their young. They send medicine to their sick compañeros. As an extra touching surprise, we’ve discovered that dying trees send out the last of their nutrients to others before passing, like someone making sure to give away their last cent before heading to the other side.

So whenever I read news articles about trees in distress, I worry about them. What might they be going through?

I’m not trying to show off my interspecies altruism here; I’ve got as many despicable moral blind spots as the rest of us (humans, eh?). But that one line, “we’d drown you in meaning,” speaks to me.

It reminds me that in the community of life, even when there aren’t other people around, we’re not alone.

So here I am to remind us all of how deserving trees are of both our protection and even our love songs — and to sound my barely perceptible piece of the alarm about the danger to them.

The Mexican tree-planting program Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) is of specific concern, both because of its consequences — which have been contrary to its stated goals — and because faith in the program, at least on an official level, seems to be expanding rather than contracting.

Planting trees that are specifically useful to us, a major tenet of the program is, of course, not something I’m going to rail against. What makes me recoil a bit (and only a bit) is that in doing so, we’re doing it only for us.

The program has shown many cracks since its inception, including accusations that there are not enough saplings to meet the demand, that they are sent out at the wrong time of year for planting, that the on-the-ground organizers are charging farmers to participate in the program and that program officials’ insistence on only enrolling beneficiaries with bare land parcels is encouraging landowners to deforest their plots in order to join.

The president has made it very obvious through his proposed legislation that moving us globally toward a clean and sustainable environment is not a top priority for him, despite claims to the contrary.

Planting trees is great, but billing that as a gigantic step in solving Mexico’s environmental problems is akin to those giant polluting factories — responsible for a very significant chunk of pollution — launching energy-saving campaigns to encourage the public to turn the lights out in their homes while making no effort to find environmentally sustainable production solutions.

Indeed, environmentalists contend that many of President López Obrador’s environmental proposals are wildly outdated.

Then, on top of all that, we’ve got illegal logging by organized crime to contend with — which has depleted about 15% of Mexico’s total territory, which is a lot. My, my. Is there any way that criminal groups aren’t allowed to diversify around here?

If we haven’t been able to protect people, I can hardly see how we’ll be able to protect trees. The will for it doesn’t seem to be there, anyway.

The Sembrando Vida program has problems woven through it, although heaps of confidence are being piled on top of it as a catch-all solution for everything from environmental degradation to mass migration. But what other things could we do to save the environment?

For starters, we could get serious about allowing clean, alternative energy to operate in the country; it’s going to be a reality at some point anyway; the Federal Electricity Commission and Pemex might as well face that reality now and adapt before facing inevitable demise when their supplies run out.

We could develop urban community gardens and more green areas, maybe tear up a bit of the concrete around here that’s contributed so much to flooding — not a bad idea considering how much more intense our weather is getting.

We could focus our efforts on protecting the trees and plants that we have now rather than saying, “Oh, just cut those old ones down; they’re not useful to us” — in that shortsighted way that humans often do.

We could listen when people who intimately know the land they’re living on tell us what needs to happen to keep it safe and healthy.

I hope and pray that we can learn to respect our communities of trees. In the end, it might be their patient and wise presence that ends up saving us rather than the other way around.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com and her Patreon page.

Hurricane Rick forecast to make landfall Sunday evening in Michoacán

By

Tony Richards

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October 23, 2021

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Rick's forecast track as of Saturday morning. conagua

A hurricane warning is in effect between Técpan de Galeana on the central coast of Guerrero and Punta San Telmo, Michoacán, the national weather service said Saturday morning.

Hurricane Rick, rated Category 1, was situated about 335 kilometers south of Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, and 300 kilometers southwest of Acapulco at 10:00 a.m. CDT, reported the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).

It was moving to the north-northwest at 11 kph and was expected to approach the coast late Sunday as a major hurricane due to rapid strengthening over the next couple of days, the NHC said. Maximum sustained winds Saturday morning were estimated at 130 kph.

The Mexican weather service predicts Rick will become a Category 3 hurricane by 7:00 p.m. Sunday and make landfall in Michoacán, just west of the Guerrero border.

Other areas that will be affected are east of Técpan to Acapulco and west of Punta San Telmo to Manzanillo, where a tropical storm warning has been declared.

Mexico News Daily

COVID roundup: AMLO slams health agency again for slow vaccine approval

By

MND Staff

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October 22, 2021

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WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus invited AMLO to learn more about the organization's vaccine approval process earlier this week. — WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus invited AMLO to learn more about the organization's vaccine approval process earlier this week.

President López Obrador has once again criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) for its tardiness in approving the Sputnik V and CanSino vaccines.

Asked at his Friday morning news conference whether he would send experts to the WHO to learn about the vaccine approval process, as Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus advised him to do, the president took the opportunity to rail against the organization for a second time this week.

He said it was “unbelievable” that the WHO has not approved the vaccines given that they are being administered on a massive scale around the world and have passed clinical trials.

“How long does it take to gather the data to grant the registration or not?” López Obrador asked.

He said that certification of the unapproved vaccines is urgent because many people inoculated with them need to travel to the United States which, starting November 8, will only admit travelers fully vaccinated with WHO-approved shots. López Obrador confirmed that he sent a letter to the WHO asking it to expedite its approval process.

“They shouldn’t get angry, they should hurry up, that’s what I respectfully say to them and that’s what I set out in the letter,” he said.

It is proven that the vaccines that have been used in Mexico despite not being approved by the WHO protect people from serious illness, the president added.

In other COVID-19 news:

• Mexico’s accumulated case tally rose to 3.77 million on Thursday with 4,798 new infections reported. The Health Ministry reported 322 additional fatalities, lifting the official COVID-19 death toll to 285,669. There are 33,880 estimated active cases.

• More than 486,000 vaccines were administered Thursday, lifting the total number of shots given to 113.95 million. According to The New York Times vaccinations tracker, 55% of Mexico’s population (adults and children) is vaccinated and 41% is fully vaccinated.

• Vaccination of youths aged 12 to 17 with underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to serious illness will begin in Mexico City on Monday. To get an appointment, adolescents are required to register on the federal government’s vaccination website.

To get a shot on the day of their appointment, the youths will have to present a diagnosis, prescription or other document that proves they suffer from one of 40 ailments that make them eligible. The federal government hasn’t announced any plans to vaccinate minors without any health problems, despite a court order directing it to do so.

Mexico News Daily

Mexico drops five places on freedom of expression index

By

MND Staff

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October 22, 2021

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A protestor displays a sign reading "Freedom of the press," at a 2016 protest against violence against journalists in Mexico City. EFE

Mexico dropped five places on the latest edition of an index that measures freedom of the press and expression in Western Hemisphere countries.

With a score of 49.2 out of 100, Mexico ranked 16th out of 22 countries included on the Inter American Press Association’s Chapultepec Index 2021. It ranked 11th last year with a score of 55.

The only countries below Mexico were Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela.

Based on more than 200 expert reports from the 22 countries, the index scores are derived from four different dimensions that measure the freedom of everyday citizens to express themselves: the freedom of journalists to do so; violence against journalists and the media, and the levels of impunity for such crimes; and government control of the media.

Mexico scored 11.57 out of 23 in the first dimension, 6.86 out of 10 in the second, 11.35 out of 42 in the third and 19.43 out of 25 in the fourth.

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) said that Mexico’s rating in the third dimension – violence against journalists and the media – is “alarming,” noting that 12 Mexican journalists were murdered in its one-year assessment period, which concluded at the end of July.

President López Obrador’s frequent attacks on sections of the media create a “poisoned atmosphere” and risk inciting violence against journalists, according to Roberto Rock Lechón, general director of the news website La Silla Rota and president of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information at the IAPA.

The Mexico representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists said late last year that the president’s attacks on the media pose a threat to freedom of expression.

“The political climate in Mexico doesn’t encourage freedom of expression. When the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office we saw some positive signs; for example, the commitment to put an end to impunity, censorship and the murder of journalists,” Jan-Albert Hootsen said.

“Unfortunately, almost two years later there is a climate of significant polarization, … a rhetoric of confrontation with the press [and] a division between good press and bad press,” he said.

Little has changed in López Obrador’s third year in office. In fact, the government’s vilification of the media may have worsened since it introduced its weekly fake news exposé sessions earlier this year.

AMLO's regular press conference segment, 'Who's who in the lies of the week,' has been credited with contributing to an atmosphere hostile to freedom of expression. — AMLO’s regular press conference segment, ‘Who’s who in the lies of the week,’ has been credited with contributing to the vilification of the media.

The president also expressed his disdain for the media in his recently published book.

“… The vast majority of media outlets, with their commentators, columnists, contributors and news presenters, have completely given themselves over to defamation and lies,” he wrote.

Mexico’s overall score on the Chapultepec Index is 6.4 points below the regional average. Mexico is part of a group of countries where there is “partial restriction” of freedom of expression, according to the IAPA. The other countries in the same group are Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala and El Salvador.

There is “high restriction” of freedom of speech in Brazil and no freedom of speech in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, the organization said.

Uruguay and Chile ranked first and second, respectively, on the index and are the only two countries where there are no restrictions on freedom of expression, according to the IAPA.

Ranking third to 11th were, in order, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Canada, Costa Rica, Peru, Paraguay, Panama, the United States and Honduras. There is “low restriction” on freedom of expression in those countries, the association said.

Mexico News Daily

Get your kids moving and learning on Chuyville Loop’s beginner’s hike

By

John Pint

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October 22, 2021

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Primavera Forest, Guadalajara — Hiking alongside the sheer canyon walls of the Río Seco. Bakpak Revista de Aventura

Over the course of some 35 years, I have written descriptions of more than 100 hikes to out-of-the-way sites in what I call the Magic Circle around the city of Guadalajara, within which all five of Mexico’s ecosystems just happen to converge.

Every now and then, people would ask me to organize a hike to one of these picturesque places and I would do so, inevitably choosing a route that involved clambering over rock walls, squeezing under barbed wire fences, slogging through swamps or hanging on to a cliffside for dear life above a 100-meter drop: just the sort of excursion I considered challenging and fun in my younger days.

I would think, “They wanted an adventure, and what an adventure they got!”

However, the most common request I received from people who participated in those hikes was, “When are you going to organize something I could bring my kids to?” and more specifically, “I want a hike where I can take along my five-year-old.”

Honestly, I had so many requests for hikes suitable for a five-year-old that I finally started looking for trails that might satisfy this criterion. I sought out caminos (paths) that were interesting, challenging and not very long.

hikers in the Primavera Forest, Guadalajara — Examining a scorpion on Chuyville Loop, a relaxing interpretative trail in Jalisco.

Loops, of course, are always more fun than trails where are you have to backtrack, so I focused on loops no more than three kilometers long. To make everything more interesting, I got the help of botanists, biologists, geologists and archaeologists to tell me about features along the trail that I could later present to families doing the hikes.

The Chuyville Loop is one of these interpretive trails that I believe will delight not only kids and their parents but abuelitos and abuelitas (grandpas and grandmas) as well. It’s situated entirely inside the huge Primavera Forest, located adjacent to Guadalajara along the western boundary of the city.

The hike begins in the Río Seco (Dry River) Canyon alongside the community of Pinar de la Venta.

The high, sheer canyon walls have a story to tell, the tale of a huge explosion that took place 94,000 years ago, shooting 40 cubic kilometers of volcanic ash and pumice into the air and leaving behind a great hole in the ground that geologists call the Primavera Caldera.

Long horizontal lines on the canyon walls — indicating layers of sediment — tell us that the caldera filled with water and became a lake for 10,000 to 20,000 years. Eventually, volcanoes popped up in the lake and spewed out their volcanic froth, which then hardened into lightweight pumice.

These great “icebergs” of pumice floated on the surface of the water for a while and then sank to the bottom of the lake, forming a stratum, or layer, several meters high, now known as the Giant-Pumice Horizon.

It’s easy to spot, even for a five-year-old.

In the Dry River, we also find pieces of obsidian, volcanic glass that was perhaps more valuable than gold to the pre-Hispanic indigenous people here.

They didn’t have metal tools, but an obsidian knife can be sharpened far finer than a steel blade. Obsidian was also the raw material for much-needed cutting and scraping tools and a truly clever flat sword called the macuahuitl.

This weapon was made of hardwood with a groove along its edge, into which sharp obsidian blades were glued using chicle (natural gum). It’s hard to believe, but the Spaniards testified that this native sword could decapitate a horse.

From the Río Seco, we plunge into a pine and oak forest. During this 325-meter stretch of the hike, there is no trail.

We make our way uphill through a great patch of aromatic wild sage plants interspersed with wildflowers. If it happens to be near October, we are likely to see the Flor de San Francisco, and the sage will be replaced by jarra plants, whose stalks were traditionally used to make charcoal sticks, a favorite of Mexico’s muralists.

Now, we are immersed in the forest, walking on a carpet of pine needles, occasionally dodging the pointy spikes of the Agave guadalajarana, endemic to the area.

In this neck of the woods, the most common pine tree is Pinus oocarpa, known as el pino amarillo in Spanish and as the egg-cone pine in English. This species was the progenitor of many of the other Mexican pines.

As is clear from its name, its small, oval-shaped pine cones make it easy to identify.

It appears that the pine nuts inside these little cones are also delicious, judging from dozens of pine cone cores lying everywhere on the hillside that were recently gnawed by hungry squirrels.

Here we also find plenty of robles with big, wide leaves and encinos with long, slim leaves. Curiously, both of them are oak trees, but it’s only the acorns of the encinos that the local woodpeckers choose to store in hundreds of holes drilled not into oaks but into the soft bark of the egg-cone pines.

Reaching a high ridge, we follow a very old and well-worn trail to Chuyville, which is the name I gave to a flat clearing in the woods that looks like a little village. It’s dotted with rustic shelters made of tree branches and other ad hoc material.

HIker in the Primavera Forest, Guadalajara — “This shelter was built by kids like me,” says a young visitor to Chuyville.

Each shelter represents a project carried out by kids who, over the years, have participated in month-long summer courses taught by nature photographer Jesús “Chuy” Moreno.

In these courses, around 80 children of all ages spend eight hours a day — rain or shine — learning all about flora and fauna by seeking, finding, collecting, measuring, dissecting, drawing and sometimes eating the wonderful plants and creatures hiding in the woods.

Moreno’s hands-on approach to teaching science has turned hundreds of Mexican kids on to nature, inspiring quite a number of them to choose biology, botany or agronomy for their career in life.

The Chuyville Loop takes about two hours to do at an easy pace, but that can easily turn into three hours if you can’t resist stopping to look at every praying mantis, mushroom or woodpecker you happen to come upon.

If you’ve never visited Jalisco’s celebrated Primavera Forest, you may agree with Luis López, who commented, “I think this caminata (walk) was the perfect introduction to Bosque la Primavera!”

If you live near Guadalajara and would like to do the Chuyville Loop, you can check out the route in advance via Wikiloc.

If you prefer to have a guide, you may want to participate in one of the short hikes I occasionally organize. Just send me an email ([email protected]) and I’ll sign you up for the next one.

The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.

woodpecker in the Primavera Forest, Guadalajara — The acorn woodpecker, Melanerpes formicivorus, is easy to recognize from a long distance, both by its red cap and its raucous cry.

Egg cone pines in the Primavera Forest, Guadalajara — The silhouette of Pinus oocarpa, whose pine cones are small and egg-shaped.

Flor de San Francisco — The Mexican aster, or flor de San Francisco, is said to bloom every year around October 4, the feast of San Francis of Assisi.

On average, thieves steal 380 vehicles a day in Mexico

By

Rose Egelhoff

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October 22, 2021

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The Nissan Versa is one of the most popular cars among thieves.

In the last 12 months, thieves stole 380 vehicles a day on average, a 17% decrease from the previous 12-month period, according to a report on stolen car statistics by the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions (AMIS).

Despite car insurance being obligatory on federal highways and in many states, the reality is that in Mexico, many cars are uninsured. So out of the nearly 140,000 vehicles stolen over the past year, fewer than 63,000 had insurance, leaving 54.8% of victims without any support to cover the cost of their loss.

Of the insured cars stolen, close to 29,000 were recovered, AMIS director Norma Rosas said. The recovered cars represented 46% of those stolen, a percentage that has steadily risen over the past five years.

México state, Jalisco, Mexico City, Guanajuato, Puebla and Veracruz had the most robberies, with seven out of 10 thefts happening in one of those states. The most-stolen models were the Nissan Versa, the Nissan NP300 pickup, the General Motors Aveo and Beat, and the Nissan Tsuru.

The organization also shared its data on vehicle accidents where both parties were insured, which peaked in June with more than 30,000 reported accidents.

There were also 6,906 thefts of tractor-trailers, buses, trucks and other heavy vehicles, a 21% decrease from the same period last year. Rosas credited the decrease in thefts to work her organization undertook in coordination with authorities and other industry organizations.

“We have a working agenda with the Citizen Security Ministry and Canacar [the National Chamber of Cargo Transporters], which has strengthened the safe roads program,” Rosas said.

With reports from Forbes México