Village Living in Mexico City
Last night we ate in the village square at Los Danzantes, an open-air cafe overlooking what was once the stomping ground of Cortez (a man who knew how to stomp). The appetizer was particularly spectacular: Huitlacoche, which my hosts, Kevin and Mary, later explained was a kind of fungus that grows on corn stalks. In fact in English it apparently means "corn smut." Everywhere you look these days, smut rules.
[Mental note: When cooking, pay more attention to the fungus kingdom.] [Also to archeobacteria and anaerobic microbes -- that stuff never gets any respect.]
This morning Kevin and I strolled down the oldest paved street in North America, moving away from Cortez's house, then turned left along a jacaranda and bougainvillea-enveloped lane, hung a right on bustling Miguel Angel de Quevedo, and soon found ourselves in a temple of black gold, that precious treasure that has driven men mad, lured them through hostile landscapes, and fueled their dreams, passions, and blogs: A coffee shop. [Why pretend otherwise: It's a Starbucks.] Everyone should stroll to a coffee shop in the morning. The colonial village part is optional.
Reforma, one of the local papers, is jammed with advertisements honoring the late Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, the flamboyant intellectual who helped Fox end the PRI's 71-year monopoly on power. One might easily imagine that some of the corporations and institutions that paid for the ads did not enjoy every utterance of Zinser. But that's one measure of political success: Your enemies pay tribute. (On the front page we see Condi Rice bowing her head in a moment of silence; Zinser was an outspoken opponent of the U.S. policy in Iraq.)
The lead headline in the Deportes section: Van Pistons por otro titulo. The TV executives must be grief-stricken. Miami had the glitz and star power, with Shaq and that second coming of Jordan we call Dwayne Wade. In an alternate universe the NBA finals feature Wade vs. Nash, Shaq vs. Stoudemire, Heat vs. Suns. Instead we will endure another round of trench warfare, Pistons-Spurs, a defensive battle in which the team that can somehow manage to score 80 points a night will win the series. Thank God for circus performer Manu Ginobili.
But back to Mexico: They say there's 20 million people here, but it's hard to imagine that anyone can keep track. A scientist yesterday gave me a tour of sorts, and we went up the most congested avenue in the most congested city the solar system: Avenida de Insurgencias [er, as commenters point out, known more commonly Insurgentes]. We left from the university, which has 130,000 students and covers an area roughly the size of San Francisco. It took an hour to reach the core of the downtown, driving stop and go the whole way, the street overrun with peddlers, everyone running red lights, the whole thing a demographic wonder. How this city operates is a mystery: There's not enough water, the air is dirty, the crime is terrible, the corruption is endemic, you hail a cab at the risk of your life. And yet the city grows, and grows, everyone filtering in from the countryside, where farmers who would settle for a meager existence cannot find even that anymore.
Urbanization is not just a trend, but almost a biological principle of the humans species. Hunter-gatherers became farmers, farmers became factory workers, and now something like 70 percent of humanity lives in a city, a migratory process that has been straight-line-steady on every chart for a century. Is it adaptation or self-destruction?
In any case, we have become an urban species. And most cities on this crowded planet don't look anything like Bethesda.
By
Joel Achenbach
|
June 6, 2005; 8:50 PM ET
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Previous: Life and Death in Coyoacan
Next: At the Zocalo
Posted by: City Boy | June 7, 2005 11:06 AM | Report abuse
And let's not forget, once upon a time Bethesda didn't even look like Bethesda. Urbanization has many phases ... kind of like coffee. Tastes terrible going down, but just wait for the caffeine buzz.
Also, Joel, as a development economist, I think we should be careful about how the urban migration is characterized. Farmers are not absolutely poorer than before. Rather, city life even in developing countries, for all its ugliness, is profoundly more attractive than subsistence agriculture. The relative prosperity is a giant people magnet.
Posted by: Kane | June 7, 2005 11:27 AM | Report abuse
There's more chiquitas in the city, si!
Posted by: Brad Pitt | June 7, 2005 11:37 AM | Report abuse
Dear Joel,
You came in such a hot time! In my humble opinion, while a lot of people move to Mexico City for economic reasons, there are some (like yours truly) whom are just attracted to the experience that such a big metropoli can offer. The crime rate is high but is what you would expect of its demographics and, well, the traffic just has no excuse! I know you wouldn't believe it now, after a short visit, but this city grows on you. Dont leave without having a beer in an outdoor bar in "La Condesa", the area with the best athmosphere and the best looking girls. I recommend "El Pata Negra".
Posted by: Aline | June 7, 2005 12:59 PM | Report abuse
Don´t want to be picky, but the avenue you mention is not called Avenida de Insurgencias, but Avenida de los Insurgentes.
I don´t think people are moving from the country side to Mexico City, they are actually crossing the US Border.
Posted by: Jesús de la Torre | June 7, 2005 1:18 PM | Report abuse
It's "Insurgentes" and you came in the worst time, right now a confined lane bus project is underway as part of the public works that Lopez Obrador, the Mayor has undertaken in his bid for the presidency.
I was surprised at Condi's gesture, I think it took everyone as a surprise, then I remembered that both Zinser and her were at the same time National Security Advisors from in 2001 and 2002, for sure they held many meetings together.
Posted by: MxWPFan | June 7, 2005 1:20 PM | Report abuse
Uh, Joel? Hello? Actually the Spurs won in the west. Way to stay on top of that...
Posted by: andy | June 7, 2005 3:00 PM | Report abuse
He said smut...hehhhhhhhh.
Posted by: Beavis | June 7, 2005 3:04 PM | Report abuse
One of the more interesting, if exhausting, experiences of my life occured after flying into Mexico City. Within a few minutes of leaving the airport in a rental car we were stopped by a policeman who demanded a bride. Somewhat rattled by this, we turned the wrong direction on Avenida de los Insurgentes. We drove all the way to the outskirts of the city before realizing our mistake, turned around and drove the entire length of that Avenue to get to where we needed to be ... all with a tired 11-month-old in the backseat! I think I saw just about every variation of humanity on that drive.
Posted by: Eric | June 7, 2005 3:17 PM | Report abuse
When they serve that fungus at Starbucks they're gonna call it a "Mexican Truffle."
(I know they don't cook food at the 'bucks but who knows, eventually they may add an omelette station...)
Posted by: kbertocci | June 7, 2005 3:46 PM | Report abuse
Andy, the context of the sentence makes clear that I meant Spurs, not Suns, but fortunately most of the readers of this blog pay no attention to basketball, only to quantum physics and occasionally to class warfare.
Posted by: Achenbach | June 7, 2005 3:57 PM | Report abuse
I changed it to Spurs. I left my original mangling of Insurgentes and added a notation with the correct spelling. I don't consider corrections from the commentators to be "nit-picking," by the way, as I rely on everyone else to catch my typos and brain freezes -- especially when I'm in another country and writing on the fly, as opposed to the careful methodology used in the District of Columbia. And by the way, I love Eric's post about the cop who demanded a bride. That's going WAY too far. In the old days they just wanted money.
Posted by: Achenbach | June 7, 2005 4:04 PM | Report abuse
I agree with Zinser's thoughts that the US sees Mexico as its backyard due to past accounts. Maybe his resignation was forced, maybe not. Same as I feel regarding the US and Puerto Rico relations.
Dr. Achen que disfrute Mexico!
Posted by: Fdg31 | June 7, 2005 4:38 PM | Report abuse
You mention you took a turn onto Av. Miguel Angel de Quevedo. If memory serves, the namesake of that thoroughfare and the late Adolfo Aguilar Zinser mentioned elsewhere were related -- father/son, or father/son-in-law.
Posted by: Another Eric | June 7, 2005 4:39 PM | Report abuse
Mmmm, mocha-fungus-chip Frappuccino. Better make it a decaf; the psychedelic effects of the mushrooms will provide more than enough buzz.
Posted by: Achenfan | June 7, 2005 4:43 PM | Report abuse
Eric,
how did the bride bribe story end, did you ante up, or float a few pesos with total worth of .000000000001 US dollars?
Posted by: WannaKnow | June 7, 2005 4:54 PM | Report abuse
Speaking of corn smut, I highly recommend visiting "the sneeze" at "thesneeze-dot-com". He has a section called "Steve, don't eat it!"...corn smut is the delicacy at the very bottom.
Posted by: Edward | June 8, 2005 4:18 AM | Report abuse
I had to bribe the Mexican police once. When you're the only American around, standing in the middle of the street, with a girl you were dancing with and her boyfriend screaming and slapping each other, surrounded by a crowd of children, at 3 in the morning...well, let's just say I learned my lesson. And it's hard to reason with cops that carry sub-machine guns.
Posted by: jw | June 8, 2005 7:57 AM | Report abuse
Mexico is the backyard of TX !!
Posted by: W | June 8, 2005 11:18 AM | Report abuse
For W-
Overheard at a bar in Dallas:
Texan: "Oklahoma is just an outlying province of Texas."
Okie: " No way man, no place can outlie Texas!"
Posted by: kurosawaguy | June 8, 2005 2:03 PM | Report abuse
I lived in Las Lomas in the early 80's. The Caballo Bayo was the place to be then for huitlacoche. Do you believe it is possible to convince any american who has never been in the unsantized non fonatoured parts of Mexico to understand just how much corruption is an integral part of the society down there? The gun battles up at the froniter between the federales and the local heat are just a power struggle for the drug bribes. Remember " In Mexico, the only crime is getting caught" or, "They have no laws and they break them anyway".
Posted by: eldrikthered | July 3, 2005 10:10 AM | Report abuse
The comments to this entry are closed.
Joel,
are you sure you left DC?