Elections and Farming

An Aztec legend relates the story of my beloved Popocatepetl and its sleeping companion (pictures of which seem to begin a fair number of my blog posts). An ancient warrior was sent to war by his king, and if he won the battle he was promised both the king and hand of his beautiful daughter in marriage. However, during a battle, reports were sent back to the daughter that her beloved warrior had died in battle. Her sorrow was so deep that it led to her death. When her warrior returned from battle, he was devastated to find his love had passed away. Impetuously, he lifted her lifeless body and carried it to the gods, pleading that they might make her immortal. In response to his plea, they turned her into a sleeping mountain (Iztaccíhautl, on the right in my picture) and placed him as a smoking volcano south of her, eternally watching over the body of his sleeping love. Well, I don't know how true that might be, but this was a beautiful picture I took early one morning this week and I thought the story would go well with it.


In other news, this has been a great week! The biggest event, though it presently has a minimal effect on my internship, was Mexico's presidential election yesterday. All week I was preparing for it, studying about it, and still was disappointed at the result. To explain, I should begin Thursday with a fabulous conversation I had with a professor of Political Science at the BUAP.

Doctor Paulino Arellanes is an experienced faculty member whose name appeared in local papers and in the minds of other professors often enough that I was intrigued before I even met him. He more than fulfilled my expectations. Our two-hour discussion covered themes of political history, current problems, and possible future outcomes of the election. Mexico's political history has been marked by a series of authoritarian regimes, it began as a colony from 1521 to 1810, then came dictators like Santa Anna and Porfirio Díaz until 1910, and finally from 1926 to 2000 they experienced the one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). This party allowed government corruption, ethnocentric policies against pure-blooded Indians, backward agricultural policies, and anti-US policy to become institutionalized in the country's politics. I also skip over some good things it did, but overall it was too focused on government handouts and keeping people happy today (securing its own power) to focus on long-term solutions to Mexico's deep-rooted problems of rural poverty, urban sprawl, lack of competitiveness in the global market, education, and corruption. Finally in 2000 a slight majority of Mexican citizens voted for the presidential candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), Vicente Fox. However, this party was formed by and for big businessmen and social conservatives (very Catholic), and while the policies have been more stable for economic growth, they have been less tolerant religiously and have made limited attempts to assuage the chronic poverty that still plagues the nation.

All that information is a summary of books, talks with other citizens, and Dr. Arellanes. This Sunday Mexicans went to the casillas to vote, and it is apparent that the candidate of the PRI, Enrique Peña Nieto, has won, putting the formerly corrupt and inefficient party back in power. Explanations abound -- the PRI has an excellent history among peasants and the poor, often putting them in trucks and driving them to polling stations to vote, and though it is not likely that this was widespread during the 2012 election I have talked to enough people from this economic situation to know that the tradition of voting for the PRI is still very strong. Another possible problem is that many of the pre-vote polls showed the PRI with a 20% lead over the next candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (of the PRD), most likely convincing people that it was a done deal, but many think those polls were funded by the PRI itself because the real split was only about 6%. Finally, the major problem is the lack of good information for many Mexicans. Most of them, with little education and limited access to the internet, rely heavily on tradition and the television for their political opinions. And there is a widely-spread charge that the PRI paid Mexico's dominant TV carrier (Televisa) to promote its candidate and proposals on its airwaves -- and Televisa is relied on by between 60 and 80% of Mexicans. Additionally some journalists claim that the PRI exceeded the government's limit on campaign spending and... oh, I should stop there. The point is that many, myself included, are convinced that democracy's worst side showed itself here, with a misinformed public bringing a powerful and self-serving party back into power after only 12 years. Well, we'll see what the next 6 years (one presidential term) bring...

That was longer than intended. And I'm afraid that I currently know more about Mexican presidential candidates than I know about Romney and Obama... but I have a few months to fix that. I have become more convinced down here, however, that politics really can and does make a difference in our lives. What a blessing that we live in democracies where we have at least somewhat of a say in politics.

The rest of the week was mostly filled up with workshops. We got to experience two very different groups -- early in the week, we had one of our most willing groups yet, and had a ton of fun with them. The weekend began with a group that was much harder. They were great people, but many of them questioned the usefulness of our material and were not eager to participate in the sometimes-silly activities. About halfway through the second day, however, after several activities that helped them to interact a bit more, Taylor and I started feeling comfortable enough to joke and be a bit more friendly with them. By the time we finished, I definitely thought that our participants had opened  up and were finally getting what they needed out of the workshop. That's a wonderful feeling as a teacher. I put a picture of the group above and to the right. One thing I learned? You can learn to love anyone, with prayer, persistence, and a good attitude. And usually they learn to love you!

One of my favorite things from the week was a trip to the countryside on Friday, supposedly to finish my map of Santa María. However, I decided to stop in at Miguel and Antonia's house, and that was the end of my plans. I just love hanging out with them... Miguel and his son were just heading out to their fields to spread fertilizer and prepare the ground for a few hours, and of course they asked me to come right along. Once out there, they placed a sombrero on my head, gave me a bucket full of fertilizer (apparently fertilizer is by far their biggest expenditure as farmers), and set me to work walking between rows and throwing it out...

Then I got to watch Miguel and his son Miguel Ángel fight their unruly horse to plow a few rows in order to plant beans sometime this week. This was the first time the horse had been hooked up to the plow all year, and it's never the most cooperative beast by all accounts, so the bucking and running and stopping made for quite a show! I wanted to give it a try, but they seemed to be having enough trouble without a gringo stepping in.

Finally I ended the day by trying to mount that same horse. They told me it would buck me off for sure, but instead...

All right, I admit, it's an entirely different horse! This is actually their neighbor's horse that they take care of at times, a much more docile animal. It hardly moved a muscle as I jumped on, took the picture, and slid back off. All in all it was a wonderful day, and Miguel and I even discussed the challenges of subsistence farming and government programs and cooperatives during as we spread fertilizer. It's so nice to talk with someone with real experience in all of that stuff. And with such a different life from that which I had growing up.

Lastly, right before I left Santa María, Miguel and Antonia asked if I would attend the middle school graduation of their daughter to be an escort! They said they'd really come to enjoy my company and trust me, and would appreciate the gesture. Of course I wholeheartedly agreed, so I'll be back there Wednesday and Thursday to attend a school graduation, accompanied by a Catholic mass and everything. What a country this is...