Oaxaca

Oaxaca: A Mexican State facing the Pacific Ocean; Oaxaca, also the capital city of the state of Oaxaca approximately 100 miles inland from resort town Puerto Escondido site of an annual surfboarding contest in November when the waves are many and large.

The State of Oaxaca is home to a large Native Indian population, the majority of whom still speak native Indian language(s) as well as Spanish. The ones I met either owned stores on the Adoquin at Puerto Escondido, or were employed by those tourist stores frequented by people from all over Latin America and from Europe.  The last surf contest I attended (as a spectator!) was sponsored by a French clothing manufacturer who told me soto voce that he resented the lack of sponsorship by local merchants. Mexicans, in general, are deeply resentful of foreign tourists: in fact, American tourists, especially elderly retirees,  are routinely murdered, and I therefor strongly recommend that an American simply never go there.  I lived in Mexico for nearly five years, in Guadalajara first, in the State of Jalisco, then Puerto Escondido; I was safer than I might otherwise have been because I was accompanied by my Filipina wife who spoke Spanish, and because I had close Mexican friends, one of whom had worked in America for several years, and who had three sons working in the USA Carolinas.  At the end of our stay we lived in a beach front, two storey house owned by an employee of the PRI (ruling political party) in Oaxaca (city) but who lost her job when the PRI was voted out of office. We could have bought the house, but we'd had trouble owning anything in Mexico so we came home instead: we gave the piece of land we bought to Arturo, my close friend, who has built a house there with a great view of the Pacific Ocean with its sunsets to die for.

We were vastly amused every Christmas to New Year when Mexican tourists flocked to that beach, Playa Zicatella, and stripped. During that time of year I made it my business to walk from our rented house to the post office in town and view the scene, male and female nudes, three miles of them along the whole length of the beach. The rest of the year, in the State of Oaxaca, I believe, almost universal decorum reigns. Another beach, further South,smaller, has year round nudity, but for reasons beyond my knowledge the show there is somehow furtive, and perhaps guilty, so embarrassing to be looking even briefly. Swimming at that beach is really dangerous because of the currents that when I swam there seemed to travel strongest parallel to the shore. If you swim with the current you'll be safe, but swimmers panic and try to fight the current and drown. The same thing happens at Playa Zicatella: there are small plaques cemented into the rocks, remembrances of the dead, mostly young people who very likely had never been to the ocean before their trip from Mexico City for the holidays. There are no lifeguards. There are no shark lookouts. As a former Australian such ommissions seem deliberately suicidal, or just plain dumb ass macho suicidal.

One of several reasons I retired to Mexico, beside the obvious strength of the dollar against the Peso, was my fantasy that The Church would be strong there; I wanted to be a better Catholic. The truth turned out to be that the Church in Mexico is primarily decorative. I saw more ardor for spirituality when a rain stain on the walls of an overpass was taken as a reproduction of a portrait of Mary, the Mother of God. The site became a shrine. A trucker left a picture of himself and his truck attached to the wall of the underpass near the water stain. Others left letters and prayers. On TV I watched the Catholic wedding of a Mexican movie star and his movie star woman. They giggled and looked at each other during the entire ceremony. I'm not positive, but I believe Pope John Paul skipped Mexico on one trip to the New World.

We left Mexico, myself, wife pregnant, and son Vincent on September 10, 2001. The next day, 9/11, we stopped for gas en route to California.  A laughing, gas station attendant, told us that Boston had been bombed. What he'd gotten from the news he garbled: he meant that a plane leaving Boston had turned itself into a bomb in NYC.  See? Mexican just dote on seeing Americans in pain; oh how he laughed!

When we crossed into California the border guard was oh oh oh so pleasant and welcoming!!!! With a very broad grin he walked to our  vehicle and asked, "Well, what have we got here?!" I replied "A wife and kids." "Welcometo America" he said.  He wouldn't even glance at our papers.

Barry