Saturdays are my only day off

Indeed, Saturdays are the only days I'm not working. I have a 5-hour day on Friday with the preschool and a 6-ish hour day with The News on Sunday, but Saturdays are mine!

Last weekend, Azul and I ventured over to Real de Montes, a small stop in the state of Hidalgo, just north of Mexico City. It's only a 1.5-hour drive away, but we took the 3-hour local bus. The city is beautiful, and it's really nothing more than that; quiet streets, friendly residents and walls painted varying shades of yellow, pink, red, orange, blue, green and purple, the windowpanes painted a bold white or covered with curling wrought iron. There must be some kind of city ordinance that requires all walls be incredibly pretty to look at.

I creeped Azul out when I blogged about our trip to Taxco, she was disturbed by how much detail I remembered and penned down. So Azul, this is for you!

Once we hopped off the bus, we headed for fuel: hot, spiced café de olla and "sopes," a thick tortilla disk filled with a multitude of toppings, or, if you're vegetarian, with just mushrooms and/or cheese. We climbed up and down the undulating city streets, taking vanity shots of ourselves against the aforementioned beautiful walls. Azul is a professonial photographer, that's at least how we justified the endless series of self portraits. She also climbed a VW Beetle in a quest to grab some crabapples down from an orchard tree sticking out over a brick wall.

We came across a pair of raisin-faced ladies selling snacks at a little stand and started chatting them up. One of them guided us up the path to a small chapel, where she showed us a very morbid Jesus statue completely covered in blood and topped with real human hair. It's her duty to clean the one-room chapel once a week, which I assume means sweeping the floor, clearing away dead flowers on the altar and giving Jesucristo a nice polish.

We bid our lady friend farewell and continued wandering around Real, a colorful dot of a town surrounded by giant, pine-covered hills in the distance. Snack time brought yummy strawberries-and-cream bars from the ice cream lady and a 10-peso bag of gummy worms from a candy vendor in the city's central square. Our next food stop was at a nice restaurant where a TV loudly blasted scenes from a Cantinflas film (he's Mexico's Charlie Chaplin or something like that). I ordered a plate of cucumber slices covered in lime juice and chile sauce, a simple, typical dish here.

Our last culinary excursion brought us "pastes," which, as indicated by obsessive signage, is Real de Monte's gastronomic pride. The fried, flaky dough presents itself much like an empanada, and I'm not really sure what the difference is between the two. I bought one stuffed with rice pudding and a "hawaina" stuffed with ham, pineapple and cheese for Matt.

Speaking of food yet again, this Saturday Matt and I ambled along the Culturas Amigas festival on Paseo de la Reforma, the city's main thoroughfare. I ruined our fun by deciding to take pictures for a 2-page photo spread in this week's Embassy Row supplement, so what would've been a relaxing afternoon was more like me getting in everyone's way to get decent angles with my unprofessional camera. But we did enjoy a fried plantain patty from the Colombia booth, spicy rice noodles from Tailandia and a small bottle of white wine from South Africa.

The last was a delicious and nostalgic treat for me: tortilla patata (potato and egg) on top of a crusty piece of baguette and topped with a single roasted red pepper, from the Spain booth of course. It took my back to my Spanish host mom's house, where she often made me these starch sandwiches to take along on my weekend excursions. I also scored a free cup of Honduran fruit juice, the server anticipating some wonderful publicity for his restaurant in my photo spread (note: yes, I can be bought).

Well, today is Sunday, meaning all fun has ended for the week! Have a great one yourself!

Why the Mexican newspaper industry sucks

If you've been wondering where all my witty comments and wonderfully written culture features have gone, let me tell you: they've been replaced by an endless cycle of work, from sunrise to sunset.

I wake up in the morning to tend to the niños until 1 p.m., when I change clothes in the big-toilet bathroom and grab the metro then a smelly "pesero" to The News' office in Las Palmas. I've also become that nasty person who eats lunch on the bus with her fingers. Swine Flu Round 2, anyone? Once in the office, I plug away at my Embassy Row supplement as my 12 beleaugered co-workers put in even more work to run an entire paper by themselves. They're editing, designing, procuring photos, and shamefully translating horrible, horrible stories that are sent to us from our Mexican editorial department.

Our first day post-apocalypse (i.e. when 70% of the staff was fired), the new editor-in-chief assured us that The News would still be our paper with our own editorial control. But really he meant that the stories he'd be sending us, which are written by journalists working for other papers under our parent company, would be poorly written, one-sourced and rife with accusations and loaded statements that are never backed up or balanced. It's essentially 'this governor said this.' End of story. I know true objectivity doesn't really exist in journalism, but can't we at least try our best to get there?

My day in the office ends around 8 p.m., although this is kind of an arbitrary time, since it would be impossible to pull off the supplement by working my part-time schedule. I usually leave alone since everyone is still working on the paper, taking another pesero in rush-hour traffic. I eat dinner, yell at Matt and work on my stories until my brain literally turns to mush and I can no longer pull sensible sentences from out of my head.

This was last week at least, we'll see how this week goes. It's been tiring and draining, but I think the hardest part has been everyone's morale suffering a terrible blow. Our managing editor last week was fired, for what I understand as trying to gain back some editorial control so that our paper doesn't totally suck. Another editor is leaving Monday, and most others are thinking about quitting, as 11-hour days and reduced pay don't really jibe well for them.

I myself am waiting to see what transpires. My supplement is pretty independent of the rest of the paper, so as long as the designer and photo editor don't quit too, it would probably still be possible to pull it off...well, if preschool ever ends! But the best part of being overworked is that my Mexican editor told me I had to take my byline off two stories. He said it would be better if the supplement didn't appear to have been written by one person. So we'd take my name off my two least favorite stories and give readers the illusion that another reporter was helping me. What I ended up doing is moving my byline from the top of two stories to the bottom, still giving myself credit but making it less conspicuous to the unobservant reader.

I'm still not sure how my paycheck is going to work out...they're making us all declare taxes with the Treasury, at task that requires presenting yourself in person once a month or so along with a handful of the 21 million that live here. But I still don't have my FM-3 work visa, so I can't get the ID number necessary to fulfill this duty. Pues........

So that's my life thus far. Matt finally moved to Mexico City! But we only see each other for a few stressed-out hours during the week. He's been working most days on the video project with the Institute of International Education and leaves for a week of work in Peru in July! Oh to be able to leave this dead-ended rat race.

Fast Food Nation

During my half-hour recess supervision this afternoon, I approached a group of little niños playing inside the hard plastic fortress. I went up to the window and ordered from them a hamburger and fries, as if it were a drive-thru window. In that instant I had a flashback to my own niña days, when Johnny, Fuzz and I would play "Wendy's" by speaking into an oscillating fan, muffling the sound of our voices as if we were talking through the microphone attached to the plastic menu in the drive-thru lane.

Then I wondered if other cultures have fast food ingrained into their very essence from a young age, or if it's just us gringos.

I pictured my littlest students playing "tamales guy," calling out to their siblings or playmates, "Hay tamales, oaxaqueños, calientitooooooos" like the vendors who peddle around on their bike carts blasting the same prerecorded solicitation. Or mimicking the shriek whistle of the camotes (sweet potato) vendor as he pushes around his cooker-on-wheels. I've already heard the kids playing Mexican metro vendor, offering imaginary wares to each other by bellowing "tres pesooooOOOOooos." But, I suppose with a little help from globalization, all kids will be playing "drive-thru" as their little tushes get stuck going down the green plastic slide.

UPDATE: The other day one of the infant teachers sung a song in Spanish to the tune of "A Pizza Hut, a Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut. McDonald's, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut." That nearly sealed the deal for my hypotheses.

My thoughts exactly...

[For those who don't already know, I am blessed to have kept my job at The News, despite having only worked there one month. Instead of the colorful culture pieces I've written in the past, my focus will now be on putting out an 8-page supplement on all things foreign (embassy, commerce chambers, philanthropic organizations, etc.). Certainly not what I was expecting or necessarily hoping to do, but it will promises to be a challenge and adventure, if nothing else].

Explaining our transition

It was an image not unlike those we have published a thousand times. A group of employees of a Mexican company standing outside their office, bewildered, having been mistreated by their employer. This time, we were on the receiving end: The News has been bought by Grupo Mac, a media company that owns Cambio, Rumbo de México and Estadio, among other publications.

The fault does not lie with them - they are the acquiring company. The fault lies with Víctor Hugo O'Farill, the former owner of The News. The fault, too, lies with Mexico.

At The News, we have never had an agenda of focusing on the negative or tarnishing someone's name for the sake of it. But we do consider it our obligation to point out faults in the system that holds Mexico back.

There are ways of treating employees that Mexico must learn if it truly wants to be a member of the OECD and not be perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a third-world backwater.

When you run or own a small company like The News, which operates more for the greater good than it does the bottom line, treat your employees with respect and humanity. If you don't, it will come back to haunt you, as you will have a reputation preceding you when you try to hire new employees for your newest venture.

If you are going to give employees contracts, give them real ones that clearly spell out their rights and yours. There is no point in creating false contracts filled with loopholes - your employees know you are giving them a raw deal and they will never invest what you need - their lives and hearts - into your firm.

When you lay off dozens of employees by surprise - as happened at The News on Friday, and as is to be expected in any merger, anywhere, particularly during an economic crisis - make a personal appearance to break the news. Have the "cojones" [balls] to fire people yourself, thank them for their hard work and effort and face any possible backlash, rather than leaving the dirty work to the lackeys and muscle-for-hire.

Last year, Mexico passed reforms that, according to the World Bank, made it easier to close a business, but fell 14 spots to 56th place in terms of ease of doing business. It failed to make any improvements regarding treatment of employees. According to the World Bank, wealthy investors were among the most vocal opponents of some of the most heralded reforms. The nation must do much, much more.

In any case, The News continues. Our editorial line will remain the same. The foreigners on our staff love living in this country, of which our Mexican colleagues are an integral part. We will continue to report on the reality of Mexico - the good and bad - as we see it from our perspective.

We will be streamlining - to 24 pages, Monday through Thursday. (On Friday you will receive a 32-page weekend edition; we will no longer be publishing on Saturday and Sunday. We, too, enjoy our weekends.)

Content-wise, I'm pleased to say we will be increasing our focus on Mexico, thanks to the Grupo Mac resources at our disposal. We expect that working with our partners - with their reporting and editing resources, their knowledge of Mexico and their experience in publishing newspapers here - to be nothing but fruitful. We also hope to use our experience in the business here - we did win a global design award or two, and some of our reporting has been worthy of awards, even if we are not eligible for any major ones - to help lift the standards for Mexican journalism, which has been improving for years.

We hope you continue with us as we cover and uncover Mexico - and also, please bear with us as we deal with the adjustments of the merger - and we look forward to being your primary source of news in this wonderfully exciting country.