Some indigenous people in Chiapas are eschewing Covid-19 vaccines, placing their faith instead in a traditional Mayan liquor and a beloved patron saint.
Chiapas has the lowest vaccination rate among Mexico’s 32 states with only one in five residents inoculated to date.
The low rate is attributable, at least in part, to religious beliefs and the scant information about vaccination in mountainous regions of the southern state.
Vaccination is such a vexed issue in some Sierra communities, such as the Mayan town of San Juan Chamula, that if an outsider even mentions it to residents, he runs the risk of being detained, led to the town square by a rope placed around his neck and fined 100 to 200 pesos (US $5-$10), the newspaper Milenio reported.
Neighboring Chamula is the municipality of Zinacantán, where vaccination against a disease that has claimed the lives of more than 200,000 Mexicans is equally unpopular.
“Everyone agreed not to allow vaccination,” said local artisan Juana Bárbara Vázquez, explaining that people believed that many deaths have been caused by inoculation against Covid-19. “They’re scared,” the 46-year-old told Milenio.
“The truth is I’m not going to get vaccinated either. I think I’m fine as I am because everything is calm here in town, thanks to God nothing has happened to us,” Vázquez said.
She said that most people believe that pox – a traditional corn-based spirit commonly fermented in people’s homes – will protect them from Covid because it’s considered an infallible remedy for all ills.
“We can use pox to cure Covid, we drink it. They say that Covid is killed with [pox] and a lot of people are buying it,” Vázquez said.
“… Besides, San Lorenzo, who is the patron saint of the people of Chiapas, protects us. … Since Covid-19 started [in Mexico] last year, nothing has stopped [here], we haven’t stopped. Covid was very strong in August elsewhere but we celebrated the August 8-10 feast of San Lorenzo normally, with a lot of people,” she said.
“We thought there were going to be a lot of infections, but thanks to San Lorenzo nobody got infected. Many people said they dreamed it – that if we celebrated the feast nothing would happen but if it wasn’t celebrated [a coronavirus outbreak would occur]. Thanks to him we’re alive.”
The San Juan Chamula Civil Protection chief acknowledged that there is strong resistance to vaccination in traditional Mayan communities but explained that authorities are trying to overcome it.
“There is resistance, people don’t yet understand the sense of urgency, that we’re in a pandemic and there is a virus that can affect people’s health a lot,” Francisco Avilés said.
“… We’ve set up [information] booths … to raise awareness among people but I believe they still don’t understand [the importance of vaccination],” he said.
Milenio reported that vaccination sites in larger population centers such as Tuxtla Gutiérrez and San Cristóbal de las Casas are attracting residents, but acknowledged that the numbers are still low compared to cities in other parts of Mexico.
Chiapas is low risk green on the federal government’s most recent coronavirus stoplight map – the Health Ministry has so far failed to update it for the July 19-August 1 period – and has the second lowest accumulated case tally among the 32 states after Colima.
The state has recorded just over 13,000 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic and almost 1,600 Covid-19 deaths. Chiapas currently has 246 active cases, according to Health Ministry estimates, the third lowest total in the country after Tlaxcala and Aguascalientes.
Vast swaths of sea foam appeared in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, on Friday, forcing the closure of nearby beaches.
More than one kilometer of the coast adjacent to the neighborhoods of Puerto México, Petroquímica and Playa Sol was shut off to visitors. The area borders a giant petrochemical industrial park where Pemex and its subsidiaries’ plants operate.
Civil Protection meteorological expert Saúl Miranda said the phenomenon didn’t present any danger. “This type of phenomenon is usually sporadic and short in duration, and generally doesn’t represent any risk to bathers,” he said.
Authorities took samples of the water to investigate the origin of the foam which was reported not to give off any unpleasant chemical odors.
The 20-centimeter-high foam, which resembled snow, attracted the attention of passersby who approached it to take photos.
One social media user, Enrique Burgos, posed for selfies. “The truth is, it looked fantastic,” he wrote.
Sea foam is a worldwide phenomenon that can arrive suddenly on beaches without warning. It can be caused by the disintegration of algae cells which release a substance that when moved by the wind and waves takes a foam like form.
The effect can be exacerbated by water temperatures, and turbulent weather conditions.
Mazatlán's historic center, like much of the city, saw a major decrease in traffic during 2020 restrictions that kept people at home.
In the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the local pharmacies had been plundered for masks, we bought a box of 20 from a vendor on Mercado Libre for 980 pesos.
Two months ago, from the same vendor, I bought a box of 50 for 85 pesos.
This is just one example of what a long, strange trip it’s been.
As a country, Mexico seems to bumble right along with the distinct appearance that no one is actually in charge. Enforcing the coronavirus restrictions started off well enough, but even just a month into it, things were getting slack.
All stores that were open required customers to wear masks. The bouncers at the door — charged with keeping entrants to a certain number and ensuring that each stepped carefully onto the mat of supposedly anti-viral liquid — would take your temperature. They did that while squirting a dollop of mucilaginous sanitizer in your palm.
A street vendor in March 2020 selling masks but not choosing to wear one herself.
Of the people on the streets, about half were wearing masks. But many of the masks were positioned below the nose.
As 2020 wore on, the sickness spread and the death toll climbed. Everybody knew many families that had been badly hit. The crowds outside the hospitals were pictured daily in the newspapers, and articles explained that there were no more beds and people were being sent home to die.
Gradually, eventually, 98% of the people on the streets were wearing masks in a fashion approaching the approved method, with just a few noses showing.
For me and The Captured Tourist Woman (TCTW), voluntary extrication from all face-to-face social activities began in early March of 2020.
The good news is that we love our home, so it felt more like a vacation and less like incarceration. The bad news was only seeing our friends on Zoom. But we quickly learned that sharing drinks virtually wasn’t so bad: we could be completely unkempt from the chest down; that freedom was somewhat liberating.
Then 90% of the businesses here were shuttered and the beaches were closed. They eventually forbade the sale of alcohol. The airlines suspended services in April 2020 as snowbird friends frantically scrambled to find a way home.
While most of North America was hoarding toilet paper, we stocked up on copious quantities of our favorite adult beverages. We figured if the lockdown continued and the city forbade the sale of alcohol, in a few months we could trade bottles of mediocre wine for large amounts of toilet paper; we’d have both ends covered.
Several months into the lockdown, the troubadours and the roving bands that depend upon tourism were in desperate straits.
Ramón, whom we have known for more than 10 years, is a local minstrel who spends his day roving the beaches and sidewalk cafes, seeking pesos for traditional ballads. On one of my weekly trips to the centro mercado (central market), I saw Ramón wandering through a row of closed cafes with his battered guitar hanging at his side.
I stopped and handed him a 200-peso note and watched his whole demeanor transform. His gushing gratitude could have been embarrassing if we weren’t the only people in that block.
As I pedalled off to the market, I realized Ramón had lost a noticeable amount of weight.
A few weeks after my encounter with him, I began to notice groups of musicians playing on street corners where there were traffic lights. Sometimes there would be groups on opposite corners while their designated bag men circulated through the waiting cars, collecting coins. I and several people in my lane put something in the can — community supporting community.
With their venues closed during lockdown periods, many musicians took to Mazatlán’s streets to ply their trade as best they could.
One day, the TCTW heard the distant sound of musicians on the move. She went outside to greet them about a half block away and gave them 200 pesos. They watched her retreat into our house, so they gathered right in front to serenade their new benefactor.
There are basically three types of music played by the various troupes who ply the cafes and beaches of Mazatlán: ballads, mariachi and banda. Banda was created in the 1930s in a village just east of the city and is a combination of bad polka and the arbitrary clashing of drums and horns at great volume played, in operatic terms, “with gusto.”
Well, the group that set up in front of our home was an eight-member banda ensemble. The multiple snare drums and trumpets, backed up by a tuba and a trombone, shattered the relative quiet of the neighborhood. It sounded like banshees were falling from the sky.
After 20 minutes of energetic performing in 90-degree heat, they wandered off, seeking other patrons. We emerged from hiding and reopened our windows.
Two days later, they were back with just as much enthusiasm and volume; we had inadvertently created a cacophonous trend.
Our own up-close-and-personal exposure to the virus came about in July of 2020 when I had a brief conversation with a proud and ardent anti-masker. I was eating an ice cream cone at the time, so my mask was off. The super-spreader probably didn’t own one.
Of course, I passed the Covid infection he gave me on to TCTW, whose symptoms began as a total body rash and escalated from there. Our regular doctor had died of Covid, so we started the process of finding her a doctor with sufficient knowledge of the disease ASAP.
Finding the doctor was an odyssey in itself.
Like so many things here in Mexico, asking someone the question “Can you ________?” will invariably bring about a positive response, delivered with the enthusiastic certainty of a skilled professional.
This ardent assurance is ubiquitous throughout the working population: bankers, carpenters, masons, accountants, mechanics, plumbers and, of course, doctors. An enthusiastic pitch is frequently based upon factors that have nothing to do with actual competence.
Having spent most of my life in the building trade, I can successfully evaluate the skills of a plumber, a carpenter, an electrician and others. But how do you evaluate the expertise of a doctor without having a degree in medicine or at least a couple of years in med school?
This very Mexican conundrum is dealt with by seeking referrals from someone who has actually had a particular doctor successfully solve a pressing medical issue. Since neither one of us wished to attend medical school at our advanced age, we went the referral route.
Temperature checks in the city.
All across Mexico, all the expat enclaves have some type of online forum or Facebook page by which they share information that is constantly being scoured by gringos needing referrals for plumbers, masons, carpenters and, of course, reliable doctors.
Compounding our difficulties was the unsettling issue, of which we have long been aware, that anyone and everyone who would come forward on these forums with a referral would declare their doctor to be “absolutely the best in town.” And that is exactly what happened.
Part 2 is soon to come, so stay tuned to find out if we eventually found a competent Covid doctor. Learn something about the Mexican hospital experience. But most of all, find out whether TCTW lives through the deadly plague.
The writer describes himself as a very middle-aged man who lives full-time in Mazatlán with a captured tourist woman and the ghost of a half-wild dog. He can be reached at [email protected].
Aranza Ramos and her husband: she was killed after spending seven months searching for him.
The story behind a film about a woman’s search for her kidnapped daughter, which was screened last week at the Cannes Film Festival, was almost replicated in real life on Thursday in Sonora.
A woman who had joined a search collective to hunt for her missing husband was kidnapped and murdered in Guaymas.
Gladys Aranza Ramos Gurrola, 28, was abducted from her home and shot dead. She had been searching for her husband, Brayan Omar Celaya Alvarado, since he went missing in December 2020. The couple had a 1-year-old child.
Ramos was a member of Madres Buscadoras, or Searching Mothers, a group of around 1,200 people that has taken up the search for the missing victims of drug cartels in the absence of official efforts. The collective discovered 19 clandestine graves in Guaymas in January, and has unearthed about 500 bodies in 300 graves. It has also returned about 300 people alive to their families since it formed in 2019.
The group said Ramos had been involved in a search on Thursday that turned up “several clandestine crematoria, some still with embers and smoke at the time of discovery.”
In her last post on social media, Ramos pleaded for information about her husband’s whereabouts. “Please, if you know where he is, let me know, I just want to be able to have a little peace. It’s been seven months and eight days without hearing from him, and I don’t think I can continue anymore,” she wrote.
The state Attorney General’s Office described Ramos as “always brave, active, enthusiastic and showing solidarity” in the group’s searches. It stated it would bring to justice the “cowards” responsible for the murder.
The search collective posted a tribute to Ramos on social media. “A great person whose only sin was to love her husband with all her soul, whom she has tirelessly searched for since he disappeared. Why kill her? What crime did she commit? She was not looking for the culprits or for justice; she was just looking for peace and to find a dignified place for the love of her life, the father of her daughter.”
“We are outraged and in pain that we who are searching are at risk of being killed,” it added.
The group’s leader, Ceci Patricia Flores Armenta, said threats against her from fake profiles on social media had risen since Ramos’ murder. The messages tell her to “take care” of herself.
“Now that Aranza has been killed, we are afraid … because she was also threatened … Unfortunately now we mourn her death,” she said.
The Cannes film about a mother searching for her missing daughter in Tamaulipas won a Courage award at the festival. She too was murdered.
La Civil tells the the true story of Míriam Rodríguez, who brought her daughter’s killers to justice and led a collective of families searching for their disappeared children before being killed herself on Mother’s Day 2017.
Steady increase in new cases is attributed to the spread of the Delta variant. el economista
The coronavirus risk level has been raised to red light maximum in Sinaloa, while five states regressed to medium risk yellow from low risk green on Monday.
The changes were announced even though the federal government – without warning – failed to publish a new stoplight map for the July 19-August 1 period.
The Health Ministry said Sunday it had presented “new measurement parameters” for the stoplight system to members of the National Health Council but didn’t say when it intended to publish a new stoplight map.
The new parameters will “respond to the current dynamic of infections, hospitalizations and deaths as well as the ages [of people] mainly affected by the epidemic,” the ministry said, adding that the dynamic of the pandemic in Mexico has changed due to the vaccine rollout.
Despite the absence of guidance from the federal government, Sinaloa authorities announced that the risk level in the northern state would increase from yellow to red on Monday after the state recorded 7,783 new cases in the first 18 days of July for a daily average of 432.
Despite the switch, no new restrictions will be implemented, said Governor Quirino Ordaz Coppel. However, authorities were set to ramp up enforcement of existing restrictions, especially at businesses in coastal areas frequented by tourists.
There are 4,383 active cases in Sinaloa, local authorities said Sunday. Just over half that number –2,198 – are in Culiacán, the state’s capital and largest city, while Mazatlán ranks second with 542. At the municipal level, Culiacán has the fifth highest number of active cases in the country after four boroughs in Mexico City.
Six other Sinaloa municipalities have more than 100 active cases. They are Ahome, 502; Escuinapa, 205; Navolato, 184; Elota, 154; El Rosario, 137; and Guasave, 129.
Only Mexico City and México state have more active cases than Sinaloa, which announced 653 new cases on Sunday.
Federal data shows that the state has the highest occupancy rate in the country for general care hospital beds, at 62%, and the third highest rate for beds with ventilators, at 47%.
The northern state has recorded just over 50,000 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic and more than 6,600 Covid-19 deaths, according to Sinaloa government data.
Culiacán and Mazatlán lead for active case numbers in Sinaloa.
Sinaloa is currently the only state in the country at the red light risk level, even though Mexico is amid a third wave of the pandemic that is largely fueled by the highly contagious Delta strain.
Nineteen states were low risk green on the most recent map published by the Health Ministry, which expired Sunday, but authorities in México state, Michoacán, San Luis Potosí, Oaxaca and Guerrero all announced that the risk level would increase to yellow light medium on Monday as case numbers rise.
México state has the second highest number of estimated active cases among the 32 states with almost 7,500. Mexico City, which remains yellow despite a worsening outbreak, has 28,766, a figure than accounts for one-third of the 85,512 estimated active cases across Mexico.
The federal Health Ministry reported 4,438 new cases and 91 additional Covid-19 deaths on Sunday, increasing the accumulated totals to 2.66 million infections and 236,331 fatalities. Sunday’s tally came after more than 12,000 new infections were reported on four consecutive days. Lower case tallies have been registered on Sundays throughout the pandemic, presumably due to a drop-off in testing and/or the recording and reporting of test results.
Case numbers reported so far this month show that the size of the outbreak has grown quickly.
A total of 139,868 new cases were reported during the first 18 days of July for a daily average of 7,770, an increase of 121% compared to the daily average in June, which was 3,518.
Health authorities reported 3,284 Covid-19 deaths in the same period for an average of 182 per day, a decline of 42% compared to last month.
While the number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients has recently increased, occupancy rates are still well below those recorded in the first and second waves of the pandemic. The Health Ministry reported Sunday that 69% of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients and 76% of those with ventilators are available.
It also reported that just under 54.3 million vaccine doses had been administered since the rollout began on December 24. Just over four in 10 adult Mexicans – 42% – have received at least one dose of a vaccine, the ministry said, adding that 21.6 million people are fully vaccinated and 16.4 million have received one of two required shots.
Mexico ranks behind Latin American countries such as Chile, Uruguay, Cuba, Argentina and Brazil in terms of shots given per 100 people but ahead of many other nations in the region including Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela and Guatemala. Forty-three jabs per 100 people have been administered here, according to The New York Times vaccination tracker.
Mexico’s North American trade partners, Canada (120 shots per 100 people) and the United States (101 shots), rank 12th and 28th, respectively on the Times‘ list. Mexico ranks 71st along with Panama and Azerbaijan.
Prayers for the Stolen is a story of young girls growing up with narco violence in Guerrero.
Two Mexican films recounting tales of violence have been awarded prizes at the Cannes Film Festival.
La Civil and Prayers for the Stolen (Noche de Fuego) were recognized in the Un Certain Regard (from another angle) category where 20 films with unusual styles and non-traditional stories are presented.
Prayers for the Stolen tells the story of three girls in the Guerrero Sierra who live amid a backdrop of gunshots and narcos, while they battle to maintain their innocence.
The 110-minute film was awarded a special mention by the jury and Salvadoran-Mexican director Tatiana Huezo dedicated the prize to Latin American women who are “teaching [their daughters] that they can be free.”
La Civil tells the true story of Míriam Rodríguez, a mother in Tamaulipas who searched for her daughter after she was kidnapped by a cartel. The 140-minute film, directed by Romanian filmmaker Teodora Mihai, received an eight-minute standing ovation after its screening. It was awarded the Courage Prize by the Cannes jury.
Trailer de Noche de fuego — Prayers for the Stolen subtitulado en inglés (HD)
Rodríguez was able to collate sufficient evidence to bring her daughter’s murderers to justice, only for them to escape from prison in Ciudad Victoria along with 29 other inmates. She led a collective of families searching for their disappeared children before being murdered herself on Mother’s Day 2017.
Director Mihai dedicated the award to families who are searching for their loved ones. “It seemed like a topic that needed to be given a platform,” she said.
The film stars Mexican actors Arcelia Ramírez, who plays the mother, Cielo, and Álvaro Guerrero who plays the father. Following the screening, the actors spoke of the importance of publicizing the issue of violence in Mexico, and expressed hope that it could effect change.
“It is very important to be here and that this issue is seen around the world, that it is talked about, that it continues to be made visible,” said Ramírez.
“It is a subject that moves me and touches me deeply. There is so much to do … I hope this helps in some small way,” Álvaro said.
According to the National Search Commission almost 90,000 people have disappeared since 2006. Identifying bodies — usually discovered in unmarked clandestine graves.
Los Machetes were presented to citizens on Sunday.
Thousands of residents from 86 communities in Pantelhó, Chiapas, gathered on Sunday to show their support for a new self-defense force that intends to protect the municipality from organized crime.
The Tzotzil Mayan residents also declared that they don’t recognize the legitimacy of the current and incoming municipal governments and will choose new authorities.
A self-defense group made up of some 100 men armed with assault weapons and machetes was presented on Sunday to the residents of Pantelhó, a municipality in the Altos de Chiapas (highlands) region where several crime groups operate.
Called Autodefensas del Pueblo El Machete, the self-defense force announced its formation on Saturday, saying it would expel sicarios (gunmen), drug traffickers and other members of organized crime from the municipality in order to avoid more deaths of indigenous residents.
The locals offered their support to the group, denounced the presence of organized crime in their communities and expressed their desire to live in peace and freedom, the newspaper Milenio reported.
Los Machetes are armed with assault weapons and machetes.
They blamed a criminal group called Los Herrera for a recent wave of homicides and asserted that it has links to the municipal government. Residents also denounced another armed group called Los Capotes and accused municipal police of constantly harassing them.
Los Ciriles, a group allegedly linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, also operates in Pantelhó.
A spokesperson for Pantelhó residents said the “narco-council” has been murdering Tzotzil people for the past two decades, forcing locals to take up arms. He said that sicarios linked to Democratic Revolution Party governments have controlled Pentalhó communities during the past 20 years, a period during which residents say almost 200 indigenous people have been killed.
Many people have been displaced due to the violence, although some returned to their communities this month after federal security forces were deployed.
During a meeting on Sunday, residents called on the Chiapas government to investigate Mayor Delia Janeth Velasco Flores for links to crime and annul the results of the June 6 election at which her husband, Raquel Trujillo Morales, was elected as the new mayor. Trujillo is in cahoots with organized crime and should be jailed, they said.
The residents said they intend to choose their own political representatives who will administer the municipality using a traditional from of government known as usos y costumbres.
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The head of the Commission for Dialogue with the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico attended the meeting and assured residents she would take their concerns to authorities. Josefina Bravo Rangel also said that authorities are committed to bringing peace to Pantelhó, located about 60 kilometers northeast of San Cristóbal de las Casas.
San Cristóbal Bishop Rodrigo Aguilar called on authorities to act to put an end to violence in Pantelhó and neighboring Chenalhó, where armed conflict has also caused large numbers of people to flee.
“… Thousands of people have decided to leave their homes. … There are many women and children among these people, pregnant women have given birth in this situation … of displacement. It appears that some people have returned to their places [of origin], we don’t know how many, but there continues to be thousands of displaced persons,” he said.
It was another jolly week at the morning press conferences.
A political animal, President López Obrador has represented three different political parties in his 46-year career. He joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1976, when Mexico was a one party state.
In 1989, he joined the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and became mayor of Mexico City in 2000 under its name. In 2014, he founded the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), which delivered him to high office in 2018.
Here’s a rundown of what AMLO, as the president is commonly known, has discussed in his morning conferences this week.
Monday
The president was feeling at home on Monday. The conference was broadcast from Tabasco, his home state, the culmination of a weekend whistle stop tour of the southeast to evaluate the progress of the Maya Train.
“We are really delighted to be here, on home ground … here there is more sun, more clarity: this is the tropics,” the president said, doing his bit for the local tourist board.
When the floor opened, Cuba came first. The way to resolve protests on the island was to end the U.S. trade embargo, the president said. “The truth is that if [the international community] really wanted to help Cuba, the first thing to do is suspend the blockade … as the majority of the world’s countries are demanding … That would be a truly humanitarian gesture.”
“No country in the world should be surrounded, blocked: that is absolutely contrary to human rights. You cannot create a fence and isolate an entire people for political reasons,” he added.
The next topic raised the tropical heat: since the president’s administration began, 56 activists had been killed.
“It’s more propaganda from our adversaries disseminated by Reforma,” AMLO said, lambasting his least favorite newspaper.
“Is it an attack to count the number of activists who have been murdered?” the journalist responded.
Looking stern, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez waits her turn while Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell checks his messages.
And then, breakfast. The president listed the Tabascan delights that had made the menu: “chanchamito … tostones, torrejas, chipilín tamales.”
Tuesday
An update on the the third wave of the pandemic kicked off Tuesday’s mañanera. The deputy health minister explained that while the third wave had taken a similar shape to the previous two, hospitalizations and deaths were down around 75% thanks to the vaccination drive.
Back to political matters, a journalist announced that Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard had stated his ambition to run for the presidency. There were no backroom dealings involved, AMLO replied.
The unsold presidential plane returned to the forum. An English company had contacted a journalist to ask if the plane had to be sold outright, or whether it could be used for a “super VIP” per ticket service, allowing the grounded jet to take to skies once more.
The president saw an apt opportunity to deride his predecessor’s imprudence. “I fly [to different parts of the country] every weekend … we probably spend about 50,000 pesos return … per year 6 million pesos … In the last trip made by president Peña Nieto … 7 million pesos were spent just on the internet service,” the left-wing leader asserted.
Wednesday
AMLO had evidently drunk his morning coffee on Wednesday. The mañanera started with a long solo effort, which addressed a range of themes at a canter: media bias, humanism, neoliberal corruption and the new Mexican middle class.
When the fake news patrol rolled up, Ana Elizabeth García Vilchis offered an assurance to journalists in the room: “We insist that here no journalists or media organizations are stigmatized.”
Two “lies” were addressed. The first related to an investigation into the Sowing Life forestation project; the second to reporting on the government’s importation of Birmex, an anesthetic for Covid-19 patients.
Later, an unwelcome relative came knocking: Spain. Earlier in his term, the president had written to the King of Spain and the Pope to demand an apology for historic wrongdoing in the conquest, which the government of Spain then “vigorously” rejected.
A dual nationality journalist tried to mediate the dispute, and suggested that apologies were not an appropriate demand.
The president reads his 1,000-word, two-year-old letter to Spain for the benefit of the uninformed.
“The Spanish were invaded by Muslim countries and they brought knowledge, they brought mathematics … The same goes for the Roman Empire when it invaded Spain … we didn’t ask them to apologize, rather we thanked them for it.”
The president, however, had been made to feel slighted. “I sent a letter … in a very respectful way, and they didn’t even have the manners to respond,” he said, and preceded to read the 1,000-word letter.
But the dispute was not purely historical, he conceded. “They abused us in the neoliberal period and committed acts of corruption on the part of Spanish companies, they saw us as a place of conquest and dedicated themselves to stealing.”
Thursday
Guerrero, one of Mexico’s most historically violent states, was back on the agenda Thursday. It was to be the president’s weekend destination.
“What is the strategy for Guerrero, where 19 paramilitary groups are serving 18 criminal organizations,” posed a journalist.
“The violence in Guerrero originates in a large measure from abandonment of the communities there … the best way to confront the violence is to create opportunities, work, well being,” the president replied, pointing to the government’s success in providing fertilizers to farmers, which has helped lower malnutrition, and the Sowing Life project which had created alternatives to growing illicit crops.
“I maintain my philosophy, that human beings are not bad by nature, it is the circumstances that take some down an antisocial road,” AMLO added, exhibiting his Rousseauian world view.
Before finishing, he set himself a weighty challenge with regard to security. “If we don’t manage to pacify Mexico … we are not going to be able to call our government a success,” he said.
Friday
Security spilled over into the final mañanera. This time it was Guanajuato, the most violent state in the country.
An investigative journalist gave his perspective: “We have found constant … complicity … between officials who have been in for a long time, between politicians and an attorney general who has been in office for 12 years … we have been spied on … we are at risk, president,” he said.
AMLO agreed it was time for change. “Guanajuato is one of the states with the most violence and for quite some time … If he [the attorney general] were the manager of a company, with those results he would have been fired,” he affirmed.
Before the president could head for Guerrero, there was a disgruntled journalist to negotiate with. The man in question had written up an investigation into the Sowing Life project, which had been denounced by the fake news patrol two days earlier.
“Last Wednesday … with absolute lack of rigor and evident disregard for the truth, a text of my authorship was alluded to and entitled ‘False data from Sowing Life’ … it was branded as misleading. The ‘who’s who of lies,’ president, … is destined to be useless and tendentious if there is no trained person behind it,” the reporter seethed.
The Tabascan opted for hugs, not bullets. “Criticism is fundamental, it is basic, it helps us purify public life.” And then, a humble admission: “What is said here [in the mañaneras] is not the absolute, irrefutable truth,” he said, shortly before striding away to attend to the nation.
I’ve always been afraid to try to make mayonnaise. Even though chef friends said it was easy, and even though I’d watched numerous videos and cooking shows where both everyday folks and professionals turned eggs and oil into creamy aioli, I was sure it wouldn’t work for me. It would curdle or separate or just be glop.
All of that changed once I got an immersion blender. Now I make perfect delicious mayonnaise in literally a couple of minutes. It’s so easy, it’s ridiculous!
There are some differences: mayo whisked by hand will be glossier and more of a sauce, and one made with a machine (a blender or food processor) will be thicker and creamier. But both are delicious; you choose.
Who came up with the idea to make what we know as mayonnaise? A handful of theories trace it to mid-1700s France, when references to an olive oil-based sauce began to appear in various accounts.
Once you’ve made mayonnaise yourself, you won’t know how you lived without it.
Food historians point to bayonnaise, a specialty sauce of Bayonne, in the south of France, and say the word was eventually modified to “mayonnaise.” Others say it comes from the Old French word moyeu (egg yolk) or the word manier (to stir).
Whatever the case, it was as popular then as it is now and became a favorite all over Europe. Mayonnaise made its American debut in 1913 thanks to a German immigrant named — you guessed it — Richard Hellmann, who owned a deli in New York City.
The recipe for the creamy condiment actually came from his wife, Margaret Vossberg, who learned it from her mother, but credit was not given to either of the women until last year on International Women’s Day, when the company finally acknowledged their role in the creation of this timeless favorite.
Some tips: it seems that lemon juice makes the finished mayo taste better than lime juice; it’s subtle, but there is a difference. So do splurge and get yourself a limon amarillo if you can.
Also, be sure to use fresh oil — I’ve had the unfortunate experience of using slightly turned oil that probably sat on the shelf in my local tiendita for a few too many hot days and nights. It imparted a musty taste to the finished product that was distracting and irritating. Not rancid, just too noticeable — in a bad way.
And although one might think olive oil is the thing to use, the pros say a neutral oil (canola, vegetable) is best, as olive oil can get bitter when it’s blended at high speeds. (Unless you’re whisking it by hand, in which case olive oil will be fine.) Or use a mix: start with a neutral oil, and once it’s emulsified and stable, add some extra-virgin olive oil for flavor.
To all of you Kraft Miracle Whip lovers: It’s not mayonnaise, although you may use it as such. It’s got a cooked base and is legally labeled “salad dressing” as it doesn’t meet the standards for mayonnaise.
Two-Minute Mayo
1 whole egg
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp. lemon* juice for acidity
1 cup neutral oil (canola or vegetable; olive oil gets bitter when mixed at high speeds)
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: 1 clove minced garlic
*You can use fresh lime juice instead but may need more than 1 Tbsp.
Using immersion blender, lower it all the way to the bottom, turn on to mix all the ingredients. As it spins, it draws the oil down. Slowly lift it and voilà! Fresh, tasty, beautiful mayo! — www.seriouseats.com
An immersion blender is the quickest, easiest way to make perfect mayonnaise
Vegan Aquafaba (Chickpea) Mayonnaise
Aquafaba is the protein-rich liquid in a can of chickpeas.
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
3 Tbsp. liquid from 1 can of chickpeas, plus 12 whole chickpeas
½ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
With an immersion blender: Combine garlic, lemon juice, mustard, aquafaba and chickpeas in a tall container just large enough to fit the head of an immersion blender. Blend at high speed until completely smooth.
With a regular blender: Place garlic, lemon juice, mustard, chickpea liquid and chickpeas in blender and process till smooth.
Next, with blender running, slowly drizzle in vegetable oil. A smooth, creamy emulsion should form. Using a rubber spatula, transfer to bowl.
Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
Store in covered container in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Classic Mayonnaise
Careful! If you add the oil too fast, it will separate. “The first 30 seconds of adding the oil are the most crucial,” says chef Gordon Ramsay.
2 egg yolks, at room temperature
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice (or white vinegar)
1 cup neutral oil (canola, vegetable)
Salt and pepper
In a bowl, whisk yolks, then drizzle in oil very slowly. Once it starts emulsifying you can add the oil more quickly. Whisk for 3–4 minutes, then whisk in lemon juice and then mustard. Once thickened, add salt and pepper.
After you make your mayo, you can add flavors like garlic or sriracha aioli or chipotle.
Making mayo in a blender/food processor:
1 egg
4 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper
1 cup neutral oil
Process egg, lemon juice and mustard until well combined. With the motor still running, add the oil in a very slow, thin, steady stream and blend until mayonnaise is thick and smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Add any of these flavors after your mayo is done:
Garlic aioli: add finely minced garlic
Sriracha aioli: add sriracha and lime juice to taste
Remoulade: add cornichons, fresh dill, capers, garlic and cayenne pepper
Lime: add minced red onion, lime juice and garlic
Chipotle/jalapeño: add minced canned chipotles or jalapeños.
Have you ever tried making your own homemade mayo? Did you find it worth the effort? We’d love to know!
After more than a year of staring at screens, many kids are simply over online learning. Shutterstock
It’s been over a year since my daughter has set foot on a school campus.
For this entire school year, she has been learning at home through Google Meet with her teachers and six other classmates. From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. (with one break) Monday through Friday, she’s been sitting in front of an iPad, trying to follow along and do the work through which her teachers guide her and the other students.
There have been plenty of mornings that she hasn’t wanted to participate. She frequently stares blankly at the screen while the teacher tries to get her to answer a question (to be fair, she sometimes stares blankly at me).
When the teacher asks for them, she doesn’t always find the papers that the school has sent and that we’ve printed out. Her report cards have said things like “clearly smart but has trouble focusing.”
My first-grader is over online learning.
She’s one of the lucky ones. As a private school student at a school that has not had to close in the wake of the pandemic, we parents have had the privilege of being in constant communication with school personnel about our children’s education and expectations.
Under the circumstances, the education my daughter has received this year has been excellent. Her teachers are well-trained, prepared and attentive. Each class is planned out perfectly and made as dynamic and interesting as it possibly can be. They let us know ahead of time if they need special supplies during their classes.
But this is not normal and, at least so far, there’s no end in sight.
As well as things were going in the spring, I was feeling confident that students (OK, fine — at least my student) would finally return to school in the fall. But how?
Even if the entire country were at low-risk “green,” we have some unprecedented logistical problems to face: many of the country’s private schools have closed because they were unable to collect enough tuition to stay open during the past year and a half. Public schools were already overcrowded to begin with.
It’s been nearly a year and a half, and after a hopeful gaze at the fall of 2021, there is, once again, no school opening in sight.
Why is no one talking about this? Few other countries have closed their schools for as long as we have, and from other countries’ examples, I don’t think we can confidently conclude that they suffered because they didn’t keep theirs closed as well.
If someone were to walk in and evaluate the situation, I think they’d easily come to the conclusion that we simply don’t care about education for children; at the very least, they’d conclude that while we may love our own children, we don’t care about children as a group.
Because if we were really serious about getting kids back to school, we’d prioritize that before anything else. Nothing — not bars and restaurants, not sports stadiums, not gyms, not malls, not for-profit play areas, not movie theaters (all of which are open for business in my state) — would be allowed to open until schools were able to open.
It seems that we have collective blinders on. As adults have opened nearly every other type of gathering place in the country, many of them — which are essentially playgrounds for grown-ups — a great number of actual playgrounds remain closed as our children sit at home, wander around or work.
The least lucky among them do so alone; the slightly luckier may have reluctant and possibly resentful extended family members taking over while their parents work; the luckiest have at least one parent who can be at home with them.
My daughter, fortunately, is in the last group. I work from home (though I struggle to get much done since writing isn’t something one can do with one eye and half one’s brain on a little one), and so does her father.
We do our best to let her interact with a limited number of other people and entertain her ourselves, but there are, of course, limits to this. She’s not supposed to just be hanging out with us. She’s supposed to be in a community, like all children are.
Many parents have said that they don’t want their children to return to school until it’s safe to do so … but studies and examples from other countries, I believe, should prove the precise level of risk that going to school would pose — and make a point of comparing that risk to others that we take all of the time.
Would anyone change their mind, for example, to know that the odds of their child dying in a car accident are much higher than of suffering serious effects from Covid-19? They’re gruesome statistics to be sure, but I feel we need comparisons to put things into perspective.
And now that most adults — grandparents already, and parents hopefully by the end of the summer — have received their vaccines, the line about not wanting students to “bring Covid home” will no longer stand.
It’s not that I want to put our children in danger. It’s that I think they’re in more danger from being out of school than from being in it.
And anyway, let’s get real: no one has kept their child sealed inside of their home for the last year and a half. They’re already out and about because we simply can’t keep them inside 24/7.
If we let that happen already, then I think it would be more prudent to let them be “out and about” in a structured, controlled environment where they can have at least some semblance of what’s left of a normal childhood.
These are scary times. The world is not safe. But the world was never safe. And at least for now, children’s mental and emotional well-being is at far greater risk than their physical well-being.
