Because there are only two entrances (and exits) to the colonia, things can get pretty congested. As vehicles wait on narrow streets for lights that will let them get back onto the main road, it’s common for a car to be waiting right on top of the tracks. We’re scrunched up, and people are impatient to get out of there. To make matters more dramatic, the lights for going straight or turning left are incredibly short; if not everyone’s paying attention, it’s perfectly possible for only three cars to make it out at a time.

In case you’re wondering, let me put your mind at ease: no, there are no railway crossing gates. There might be a sign somewhere that indicates there’s a track there, but honestly, if there is it doesn’t stick out enough to be memorable. 

Wait, I found it!

So how do you know a train is barreling down the tracks? Well, they’re usually pretty good at blowing the train whistle when they know they’re about to pass a highly-trafficked area. Also, you might see it if you turn your head. Those two indicators are about it.

Like many countries in the Americas, passenger train service was a big deal in the 19th and 20th centuries in Mexico. In 1937, President Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized Mexico’s train service, creating the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (the Mexican National Railroad).

Alas, the automobile increased in popularity and affordability as the 20th century wore on, and passenger trains became less and less utilized.

Regular passenger train service ended in Mexico with the 1995 Constitutional Railway Reform. According to Infobae, “The scarcity of public resources…and the conviction that state ownership did not guarantee better management of the sector” were the main arguments in favor of privatizing the railways. Private companies would improve the now pretty decrepit rail infrastructure in ways the government couldn’t (or wouldn’t) afford to. Those private companies, however, were only interested in maintaining freight service. It was the final nail in the coffin for passenger service.

Those students of more recent history, though, know that one of former President López Obrador’s (2018-2024) biggest goals was reviving passenger train travel. His two biggest signature projects in this area were of course the Maya Train and the Interoceanic Railroad.

Now, I’m on Team Train. Anything that helps get us to a point where more public transportation is available is, to me, a good idea. In a place absolutely stuffed to the brim with individual vehicles, it’s nice to know that the government is prioritizing opportunities to travel efficiently and quickly around the country. Every person on a train or a bus, after all, is one less stuck in traffic (well, a bus can get stuck in traffic, but you know what I mean).

How are the trains doing? Well…

Let’s set aside the recent derailment for a moment (we’ll get to it later, I promise).

The Maya Train is working, after having gone over budget and facing backlash from environmentalists and local communities. Well, what’s new? Most big projects in most places in the world take longer than they’re meant to and cost more than originally estimated. That part gets a resounding shrug from me. And of course, any project is always going to have its detractors; things will be lost when a big project that requires land comes to town. I’m not here to argue whether it’s a “net good” or a “net bad,” for now. It needs more evaluation time.

Is it making money? No, and likely won’t for a couple of decades. But you know, sometimes you just have to build it and hope they’ll come. After several decades of Mexicans having zero access to passenger train travel, it’s going to take a while for them to start considering it a real option. I mean at this point, a couple of generations of Mexicans have never been on a train at all. It could take some time to get people using it.

It could especially take people a while to start using it if they think they might die when they’re on it.

I’m speaking now, of course, of the terrible end-of-year tragedy on the Interoceanic route that killed 13 people. (It was certainly not the only train-related accident of late. As Mexico regrows its railway system, accidents with other vehicles have been increasing).

We still don’t know exactly what happened. We do know, though, that some passengers perceived the train as going “extra fast” as it approached the curve. Was that it? I’m literally on the edge of my seat waiting for those results.

I have my suspicions, of course. Like many government projects — especially the “incorruptible” Morena ones — corners get cut and questionable decisions are made. (For some good reporting on how exactly, check out El País’s articles on irregularities both with the Maya Train and the Interoceanic Train.)

Sometimes it seems that asking Mexican politicians to not engage is corrupt behavior is like asking toddlers to hang out unsupervised in a candy shop and not eat anything. Really, what do we think is going to happen?

Also, can someone tell me what the freaking Navy knows about trains? Serious question.

So if we want trains to regain their footing (or railing, as it were), what do we need to do? At least regarding this accident, Sheinbaum promised to “…look for the best certification body so that, if they make recommendations on what needs to be done about these curves or … to make the route safer, we can take them into account.”

Okay, good. Good start. Certification body. Might I suggest a certification body from…China? Japan? France? Really, just anywhere where they already have admirably functioning train systems in place? And then could they stick around and help us build out the system once what’s here already is fixed? At the very least, how about an exchange program: we send Mexican railroad engineers to China for a few years to learn from the best.

Because you can’t get people to trust you unless you prove yourself trustworthy. And unfortunately at this point, even those of us who really, really want to see these train projects succeed would be hesitant about boarding.

And for God’s sake, can we please get some of those automatic railway crossing gates? Maybe it’s just me, but I think drivers should be told pretty dramatically if they’re in danger of getting run over by a train. Then there are the bozos who think they’re Speedy Gonzalez and can outrun it that need to be physically stopped.

Passenger trains could be all over Mexico. But to get people to actually use them, they’ve got to have a reasonable assumption that getting close to or on them will not lead to death.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.

The post If we love trains, we need to love train expertise appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Can you see a pattern here? I sure do.

I’m hooked, you’re hooked, we’re all hooked. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the dude driving the train that went off the rails in Oaxaca was scrolling on his phone in the minutes before (victims so far have simply commented on the speed with which a sharp turn was approached.)

I’ve been musing lately with my partner that the only way to make an interesting movie lately is to set it in the “before times” — you know, before we had powerful, fast smartphones with the whole of human knowledge and entertainment at our fingertips. Some plots cause the characters to lose their phones for some reason, while others simply pretend they haven’t taken over our collective attention spans. Hallmark and Lifetime-type movies especially tend to create a special world where people practically forget they have smartphones in the first place. A phone rings, they pause as if trying to figure out what’s making the sound, and then fish it out from the bottom of a bag? Please.

Lots of movies and shows these days are set in the past, I think, to get around this problem. Why? With everyone walking around with their eyes glued to a tiny computer, there’s just less novel activity to notice.

What does this have to do with Mexico?

Well, Mexico’s being swept up in the same technology as the rest of the world is. As of 2024, over 80% of the Mexican population were internet users, with most of them accessing the internet on their phones.

Uh-oh.

The internet, of course, is not in and of itself bad. It’s a tool, and there’s a lot of great things to be found — like this website, for example! Smartphones are also a tool, as are computers, as is the much-hyped but fairly brain-smoothing Artificial Intelligence. And as much as I gripe about too many screens, I still got my kid a new iPad for Christmas (in my defense, I can control app use and screen time).

Perhaps it’s the ability to take these “tools” with us everywhere that’s the problem. When I arrived in Mexico in 2002, cell phones were still a relatively new thing. Some people had radio-like “Nextels” instead, actually. They were really noisy and made the users sound super important.

I had access to the internet back then, but I had to go to the internet café across the street to use it. I’d write some emails and maybe chat on MSN Messenger for a bit — the preferred platform then — and then go about my business. I’d do that maybe once or twice a week. These days, it’s nearly impossible, and not a little panic-inducing, to even think of going an entire day without my phone. What if something happens?

Most often, of course, nothing happens, and the phone serves as simply a distraction device. I have conversations on WhatsApp and check my email. And though I’ve long since removed the “slot machine” apps from my phone (goodbye, Facebook and Instagram!), I still find myself reaching for it in times of boredom or anxiety, simply as something to do. Does the fact that I mostly use it to read news articles make it any better? [Editor’s note: Yes, if it’s MND] Maybe for my brain, but certainly not for my social skills.

To make things more complicated, we actually miss out on a lot of important things without it. How many locals do you know, for example, that you can get a hold of by any means besides WhatsApp? Banks require smartphone verifications, and essential communication for our jobs happens over an array of messaging platforms.

You could give them a ring, except for the fact that most people don’t even answer their phones anymore. Extortion by phone is so rampant, and landlines are becoming a thing of the past. The option to simply ignore your phone is really just a privilege. We’re expected to be forever available on it, while expectations for in-person availability have plummeted.

In the end, the feeling now is that the tech overlords have simply won. We’re addicted, and now we’re so addicted that we can’t do much to stop them. All of us, I believe, have a hunch that it can’t be good for us, the way smokers must have before there was actually hard evidence of the damage smoking caused.

Shortages of available land and water for AI? Oh yes, that does sound very bad! We’ll think of what to do about it as soon as we’re done watching this TikTok.

And that right there — I mean, it was a joke, but still — is our whole problem. Look up while sitting in a café or the park these days and I guarantee you’ll see at least half of everyone, workers included, with their heads bent toward their phones. No more chatting in public transport; everyone’s in their own private world now. For introverts, it’s likely a welcome change. For me, it’s scary and sad.

And then there’s our poor little atrophying brains.

Like Travis said, AI particularly has the real potential to make us dumber. And like the insidiousness of smartphones themselves with their unlimited endless scrolls, I fear that by the time the majority of us realize we need to do something about the damage they cause, especially to kids, it will be too late. For all the hype of AI, most people are using it as simply another distraction.

Mexican companies are mostly using it to be “more productive,” which, as far as I can tell, is code for saving money on writers and translators [Editor’s note: see me].

Maybe there are some good things coming as a result. I mean, murder and crime are down, no doubt in part because would-be criminals are too busy watching funny YouTube shorts.

But when we go along with the rest of the world in allowing our phones and endless scrolls and unlimited access to both the real and the AI-generated distract us, we lose something. Casual chats in lines and on buses disappear. Opportunities to hang out, to convivir. We don’t learn each other’s languages.

Being social is a skill, and one that Mexicans have traditionally excelled so much at that they’re famous for it. But Mexicans aren’t immune to the technology that’s seducing us all. I hope we can get a handle on it before we’re all zombies.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.

The post Mexico isn’t immune to the seduction of the smartphone appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has done a fantastic job at keeping her firecracker counterpart north of the border relatively calm. Ideologically, they might as well be opposites. But as I’ve said before, there’s no greater skill a Mexican politician can have than knowing how to keep literal gangsters happy-ish. And if you can deal with narcos, you can deal with Trump.

But this isn’t meant to be a year-in-review. Who’s got the memory for that? Instead, I thought I’d outline a list of wishes I have for Mexico in the coming year.

Without further ado:

1. That we’ll finally get a handle on our justice system. Getting justice ain’t easy around here, that’s for sure. Between undertrained and underpaid police forces and narcos making sure everyone knows who the real bosses are, it’s an uphill battle. AMLO had it partially right — that lack of opportunities for young people certainly contributes to the problem of crime. But that’s not the only thing that needs to be solved. A growing militarized National Guard makes me a tad nervous, I’ll admit. But drawing the “on-the-ground” law enforcement that needs to be happening away from super localized forces seems to be doing some good. And how have all our newly elected judges been doing? Well, it’s early. The jury’s still out (get it?). But crime is down, and that’s a win. Let’s hope for more!
2. That the peso will keep doing well…but not too well. Oh, Mexican peso. You are making me sad. Please stop?           
   This is, of course, a complicated one. On the one hand, we want Mexican currency to do well, and it is doing well. On the other hand, for those of us depending on US dollars to live down here, things are tough and getting tougher. And remember, “rich” expats aren’t the only ones living on U.S. dollars: families relying on remittances from abroad are, too. As prices continue to increase and the dollar continues to lose value, it sure feels like 2023 is back again!
3. That the root of gentrification — inequality — will be addressed and made less painful. There’s been quite a bit of talk about gentrification this year. Once protests kicked off in Mexico City’s choicest neighborhoods, it seemed there was no going back. Now, it’s a complicated topic with its true root in economic inequality and the power that we allow money to have these days.
   And while workers aren’t starting to see their fair share fast enough for this crazy socialist, we’ve certainly made some progress this year. The minimum wage is up, and a 40-hour work week is in sight. This is only true for the formal sector, of course, but hey — it’s a start. Now if we could just figure out how average workers might earn enough to buy houses for themselves…

   

4. That Mexico’s migrants and returning immigrants will find their place. When I think of immigrants living in the U.S. right now, it’s all pain, pain, and more pain. Deportations have not only ramped up — even for those with legal permission to be there — but some gratuitous torture seems to have been thrown in for good measure. “Detention centers” resembling concentration camps in their treatment of those inside are popping up like dandelions with, so far, no sign of stopping.
   Even so, home is home. If I were told I had to move back to the U.S. immediately, I’m not sure what I would do. For those who’ve lived in the U.S. for years, the transition back can’t be easy; especially when it comes to the vast difference in wages. What will receiving so many people back mean for us? Hopefully, all good things and new ideas for how to make things better for all of us.
5. That we’ll get a real handle on our natural resources and their equitable distribution, and will go up, up, up in clean energy! I was very excited when Sheinbaum was elected, in part because of her background as a climate scientist. Finally, a president who would make room for clean energy in Mexico!
   I won’t lie — I’d really hoped she’d move faster. Pero algo es algo, and hopefully with time we’ll see renewable energy plants popping up everywhere, as well as water catchment systems become standard equipment in most homes. This place is too pretty to pollute.
6. That we’ll actually let government workers professionalize. Every time we get a new governor in Veracruz, it’s the same thing: a bunch of people lose their jobs. Why? Because the new government “brings in their own people,” often owing them favors for help they gave during the campaign. This means that soon after, you suddenly have lots of new people working in government posts. This isn’t true for every single job, but true enough that many simply have to “reinvent the wheel” with every change.
   In addition to not letting people get really, really good at certain jobs, it’s practically begging for corruption. “Get what you can now because later you’ll be out of a job with few chances of getting the kind of insider-help you might now.” Yikes.
7. Public transportation infrastructure will get some major investments and updates. In my head, I have several “fantasy routes” for my city, Xalapa. Its car population has literally doubled over the past few years, and man, it’s a drag. I’d personally be willing to take buses almost everywhere if they were even a little reliable time-wise. As it is, we’re all at a standstill — there are just too many vehicles on the road.
   But if I’d take a bus, I bet a lot of other people would, too. We could leave our cars at home, using them just for getting groceries or going on road trips. So far I’ve got 5 fantasy routes (at least 50 buses per route) and counting. Perhaps at least a few of them will show up this year?

Happy 2026, Mexico. I hope all our dreams come true.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.

The post Wishes for the New Year in Mexico appeared first on Mexico News Daily

I’ve reviewed a few of his movies here before. Each one, really, is a Mexican classic. Watching them, you’d think he’s utterly without hope about our ability to shed our cultural habits of the sins of corruption and contempt. That’s the part that makes me uneasy. To watch his work, your only conclusion could be that corruption is baked into the culture. Like a cancer, it’s never completely eradicated; it hides in the cells and emerges opportunistically.

The problem of extortion in Mexico

If you’ve got a strong stomach (and a tolerance for nudity and sex scenes that are both hot and off-putting), it’s a fantastic show to watch. I mean, I wouldn’t let my kid watch it. Not because of the sex scenes, but because of its bleak view of humanity. Why let her in on this cynical view of the world so soon?

I’ve been thinking about “Las Muertas” as I’ve read about Sheinbaum’s desire to curb extortion. Clearly, extortion is a problem in Mexico. “Pay me and I won’t destroy you.” In fact, many businesses consider it a cost of doing business in the first place.

What exactly is extortion? Well, it’s forcing people to give you money by threatening them. “Pay up or else.” In Mexico, this often takes the form of “cobro de piso” (officially a “floor charge”), which is when criminal gangs, typically, charge businesses a sort of “tax” for “protection.” Protection from whom? Honestly, from the people charging the cobro de piso.

The poorest are most vulnerable

It breaks my heart that there are so many people willing to take advantage of others. It breaks my heart more that there are people who think they have a right to take advantage of others. They’re preying on the most vulnerable, of course. A fruit seller is paying 1,000 pesos of his meager earnings a week. Liverpool is not. The more money you have, the more protected you are.

That’s not all, of course. Extortion is increasingly attached to very scary scams. In the absence of any real authoritative controls in prisons, for example, prisoners with nothing but time on their hands and phones can spend all day trying their luck at tricking people into believing that a loved one has been kidnapped. “Pay up to this bank account, or else.”

How these prisoners have access to phones and their bank accounts in the first place is beyond me. Okay, it’s not really beyond me — it just amazes me about how confidently and brazenly those behind bars can act and with such few repercussions. Sheinbaum’s administration is doing what it can — signal jammers, security scanners — it will take more than that, of course.

Bribery and extortion are two sides of the same coin

In the show “Las Muertas,” the idea of “money as social and legal lubricant” wasn’t so much happening around extortion, but around bribery. Alas, they are two sides of the same coin, and sometimes indistinguishable.

In the show, the women got away with so much because they bribed every government official they could. “Money and extra special treatment at the brothel? You’ve got yourself a deal!”

Unfortunately, in Mexico, bribes still very much work. A common example that nearly every Mexican I know has encountered is being stopped by the transit police. Even for minor infractions, the threat is often that they’ll need to have the car towed off right then and there. “Or ...”

To get out of such a fate, most drivers pay the police a mordida — a bribe. But is it really a bribe if they have to pay it to keep their vehicle?

Extortion is forced upon the payer; bribery is voluntary from the payer.

Laws and the difficulty in enforcing them

Then there’s the icky in-between kind, like bribes to traffic cops and bureaucratic workers. “You know, I could focus on getting this paperwork through a lot faster if I didn’t have to work a second job to afford my poor mother’s medicine …”

For so long in Mexico, under-the-table money has been the lubricant both for getting out of frictional situations and into the kinds of situations you want.

And as I’ve written before, the “on-the-ground” law in Mexico takes place at the local level, not the federal. Mexico City can turn out however many laws it wants, but without the cooperation of local governments, how can they be enforced?

So though Mexico City might say, “Okay, everyone, don’t let extortion happen in your towns and cities,” if the same people meant to enforce the law are benefiting from extortion schemes, how effective can that be?

Making extortion a federal crime

What’s the new proposal, then? Rather than being a state crime, extortion would now be a federal crime. That means it’s no longer a crime against the victim only; it’s a crime against society.

In addition to that, the burden would no longer be on the victim to report it. This is smart. Who’s going to report a crime when they’ve been told they’ll be killed if they report a crime? It’s not like they could trust the police to protect them — they’re often in collusion with the very criminal gangs they’re supposed to be protecting people from. It sounds cowardly, but police officers are people too, with families and fears. And they certainly don’t get trained or paid enough to go above and beyond in selfless ways, so what are we expecting?

But this law would up the ante: “Officials who are convicted of failing to report known extortion crimes face up to 20 years in prison, and prison authorities or public servants who facilitate extortion could be jailed for up to 25 years.”

Well!

Extortion is disgusting; I do not approve of it under any circumstances. But you have to ask: Why is it so prevalent? And given the prevalence of extortion and bribery, why do so many people think this is the only viable business they might be able to maintain?

For answers to these questions, might I suggest a Luis Estrada movie?

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.

The post How to stop extortion in Mexico appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Instead of staying with my host family like I should have done, I accepted an invitation to spend Christmas with my then-boyfriend and his family. He was from Coatzacoalcos, a city in Veracruz that can best be described as the opposite of a postcard. That was my first mistake.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, it didn’t occur to me that it might be too different an experience in Mexico. My first hint came with the discussion of Christmas dinner. My boyfriend’s family was not planning to cook, but rather to order food from a restaurant. I thought it was a little strange, but I wouldn’t dare begrudge someone resistance to cooking a big meal.

The worst Christmas ever

Now I know ordering Christmas dinner is pretty common. That’s fine. I was also amused that the family really wanted spaghetti at the meal. Like, it was super important to them (spaghetti and Jell-O: two foods that you eat when you need something as basic and cheap as can be in the U.S., but party food here).

The real surprise came, though, when I realized that we were not only eating very late, but that we’d be going out to a nightclub afterwards. Oh my!

Mistake No. 1 was wearing heels that were high and sexy but very uncomfortable.

Mistake No. 2 was assuming we’d dance for like an hour and go home.

As it turned out, we stayed at this club all night and went home around 7 a.m. as the sun was rising Christmas morning. I had not impressed anyone by whining and eventually sleeping on the hard bench of a table (spoiler alert — we didn’t make it), but I didn’t care. I’ve got the circadian rhythm of a hen, and being forced to stay up all night is basically torture for me.

When I talked to my mom midday on Christmas, I struggled to keep my voice cheerful so she wouldn’t worry. But really, it was the worst Christmas ever.

Why do I regale you with this story, dear readers?

Well, the holidays are upon us. And even though I’ve had no repeats of that first Christmas here — thank goodness! — it is a day that always makes me feel a little out of place, even after all these years.

There are strategies I’ve come up with over the years, though, to make it more special and less homesickness-inducing. Let’s have a look!

Tips for beating the holiday blues in Mexico

Learn all you can about how things are celebrated here! Some traditions, like la rama in Veracruz, are very localized. Others, like the traditional Posada, are more widespread. Children and adults alike enjoy participating in pastorelas, a kind of funny Christmas play that’s a little different each time. There are devils!

But there are plenty of overlaps too: Christmas trees, lights, poinsettias — did you know they’re Mexican? You might hear some familiar Christmas carols in Spanish, and find Santa at the mall if you’re lucky! The more you can find, and sometimes create, crossover, the happier time you’ll have!

Remember that the culture of gift-giving here is different. In the U.S., families go pretty overboard with presents. Here in Mexico, most people don’t. Presents are mostly for the kids, and are primarily given on Three Kings Day (January 6th). While adults do sometimes give each other presents, the expectation isn’t as ingrained here as it is up north. If you want to do a gift exchange, propose one!

Hang out with other people from your culture, if you can find them. Normally, I’d say, “No, what you need to be doing is hanging out with Mexicans!” And this is true, you should do that. But for especially familial holidays, it can be hard if you’re here without a family. Next best thing? People who are from your own culture. You don’t have to be best friends or anything, but maybe plan a nice Christmas outing or something. Next Saturday (which might be the Saturday this is published), I’m hosting a Christmas get-together with our “desayuno de extranjeros” group!

Keep some of your own traditions alive, and invite others to participate! For me, that’s cookie-making and watching the Mikhail Baryshnikov version of The Nutcracker ballet (it’s on YouTube!). This year, we invited my kid’s two besties and their moms to join us. This made it both a new and old activity, and very fun!

Do a little decorating. You don’t have to go all out. If you’re not up for a tree and all its trimmings, fine. But a poinsettia point or two can just make things look so bright and festive, and you can find them everywhere around this time.

For me personally, I like decorating for Christmas almost better than Christmas Day itself. It’s especially been nice since I hauled a lot of the Christmas ornaments on the tree when I was a kid down here. Those ornaments from the 1980s, my grandmother’s little nativity scene … it’s the little things!

More good tips

Go to Christmas events! Depending on where you live, there are probably some good Christmas spectacles to be had. In bigger cities, you might be able to go see “The Nutcracker” or go to Christmas concerts. If you look on Facebook and search for city name + cartelera (basically event announcements), you’ll likely find some fun options. Invite someone to go with you!

Give aguinaldos, the holiday bonus, to anyone who works for you. It will be much appreciated. I like to throw in some fancy chocolates, too!

This last one might seem silly, but I love it: make a playlist! Put on your favorite Christmas carols, and mix them with some Mexican holiday songs as well. It’s a good way to transform homesickness to excitement for your new home.

The holidays aren’t always easy, but especially with some community — the key to everything, really — they can be made very special.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.

The post How to beat the holiday blues in Mexico appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Who, indeed.

Well, here we are, all buying water in bottles. Its market share worldwide is now at nearly US $350 billion. But it’s sure worth thinking about alternatives to this reality. Wouldn’t it be something if we could go back to saying, “Water in a bottle, for money? But it falls from the sky and gathers on and below the ground for free!”

The reality of water in Mexico

The reality is, of course, that water is not free. And even when we’re prepared to pay for it, it’s not necessarily forthcoming. In Xalapa, where I live, tandas de agua (water rationing schedules) have been a thing for years now. Doing too much laundry on the wrong day or accidentally leaving a toilet running for a few hours means you could be out of luck for a few days afterward.

If you were here in the spring of 2024, you might remember some scary potential scenarios. Talk of “Day Zero” — the day that Mexico City would officially run out of water — was everywhere.

And yet, there were certain entities in Mexico who, curiously, never seemed to run out of water, even as the communities surrounding them rationed. For several weeks that spring, I personally remember a scarcity of even bottled water and garrafones. Curiously, there was no shortage of Coca-Cola and other sodas: those were stocked up as usual.

In the very-worth-reading report “Los Millonarios de Agua“ (“Water Millionaires”), authors Wilfrido A. Gómez Arias and Andrea Moctezuma point out a perhaps unsurprising fact: 3,304 “water millionaires” (1.1% of users) use 22.3% of all the water available in Mexico.

Wow.

A new water law in Mexico

Water is the important resource, of course. Whoever controls it literally controls everything. It even surpasses money in importance: money might be an important resource, but money is just a symbol. Water is a resource we cannot live without.

Now, we’ve got a new water law that’s caused quite a bit of uproar, specifically among farmers. It’s meant as an antidote to correct a President Salinas-era law, circa 1992, that essentially privatized water concessions. This allowed individuals and institutions to basically administer their own water from national territory with no involvement from water authorities at all. From there, they could basically do whatever they wanted in terms of access to their allotted amount of water…even sell it. This new law is an attempt to rein that in. It’s not a good look, after all, when everyone is rationing except a select, very wealthy few.

Farmers have fought the law, saying it will impede them from selling or passing on their land to their children. The government, for its part, has assured them that they will still be able to do so. The only circumstance in which they’d have to get a new concession would be if the use of the water changes.

Who gets access to water and who doesn’t?

My main question about the law is this: Are the water millionaires, accounting for about 1% of companies and individuals, still going to be able to extract over one-fifth of the country’s water?

Will resort pools and golf courses stay full and green while the surrounding areas continue to ration? From what I can tell, most likely. Concessions won’t be able to be transferred to others without state involvement. Fine. Is Coca-Cola or Nestlé going to be trying to transfer their concessions? My guess is no.

And if that’s true, then how exactly does this law guarantee water as a human right? It’s not that it causes harm — it’s that it doesn’t seem to really do anything to change the status quo. We’ll still be paying for water. We’ll still be rationing while the big players continue to use their concessions.

‘One water, one law’

So what does it mean exactly for water to be seen as a “human right” rather than a “good”?

I’m with the “One Water, One Law” crowd on this one. “The law they’re proposing is a simulation,” said María González Valencia, director of the Mexican Institute for Community Development (IMDEC). “It keeps the old privatizing structure intact and treats water as a market, not a human right.”

Well, exactly. If they can still extract water and sell it back to us while we ration, what exactly is changing? And will heavier state involvement in water concessions be an area in which Mexico is magically not corrupt? I know that sounds cynical, but it’s an honest question: What’s the plan for making sure this all goes down like it’s supposed to?

I’m glad, though, that they’re at least trying to deal with the issue. It needs to be dealt with — it’s literally a matter of life or death.

How much further could they go? “One Water, One Law” advocates have some good ideas: “Participants demanded publication of a full list of concession-holders delinquent on their fees and urged that new permits be conditioned on sustainable use,” wrote the author of an article on the movement, Tracy L. Barnett, in MND. “Others proposed regional water councils with citizen participation to monitor local supply, and mandatory rain-harvesting systems for public buildings to reduce pumping from Lake Chapala.”

And here’s an idea, surely shared by many, that I’ve hoped for for a long time now. We don’t all have access to wells, but it rains on us all at least sometimes. Water catchment and purifying systems — Mexican-grown! — already exist. If the government were to subsidize the installation of those systems in homes and buildings around the country, that could ensure an important lifeline.

Wouldn’t it be something if Mexico became a model around the world for its handling of water for a growing population?

Trying to rein in some of these big guys by cutting off the possibility of treating water as a commodity without government oversight is a start.

But let’s take this all the way; there’s so much more we could do.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.

The post All about agua in Mexico appeared first on Mexico News Daily

The young woman in question was indeed walking exactly in the middle of the street. “No, that’s smart,” I told him. “It’s harder for someone to jump out at you from some dark corner if you’re as much in the open as possible. Besides, if anyone tried, others would be more likely to see it happen.”

I also told him about how most women, including me, walk with our keys poking out from our fists when walking alone at night. “If you go for the eyes, they’re less likely to be able to chase you.”

This is part of the wealth of knowledge shared among almost all women, especially urban dwellers.

Incidents of groping 

President Sheinbaum’s groping incident — and the subsequent accusations of it being made up — have had me thinking a lot about unwanted touching on the street.

Thankfully for me, it hasn’t happened in a while. Part of the reason, I think, is that I’m older and therefore not as conventionally attractive as I used to be (to random dudes, anyway — I think I’m super cute). I’m also often with my partner and kid. Finally, people pay less attention to others these days now that they can read WhatsApp messages or check Facebook while they’re locomoting. It’s the sunny side of us all being smartphone zombies: creeps sometimes being too distracted to ogle and harass women.

There was a time, though, when I’d get my butt grabbed by a strange man on the street at least once a year. Usually, they’d walk straight past with a smirk, though once I had a particularly scary incident in the early pre-dawn morning. He’d grabbed me under my skirt, no one around, then stared at me for a few seconds as if deciding where to go from there. (Thankfully, my yelling made him “decide” to run off.)

It’s part of the reason I have a marked preference for big, scary-looking dogs. “That’s right! Better cross the street, dude!”

Even now, if there aren’t too many people around, I’ll stop and pretend to look at something on my phone or fidget with my keys until a strange man walking briskly behind me passes. It’s like the kind of response people who’ve been badly bitten by dogs feel when one starts barking. Pounding heart, panic growing: the response becomes physical and involuntary.

A sense of entitlement

The fact that this happened to the president of the freaking country does not surprise me at all. Why? Because I know from personal experience — and so do all women — that there are men out there who simply believe they have the right to do what they want with women’s bodies, the main obstacle being a reasonable chance of getting away with it.

It’s not the majority — thank goodness — but it’s enough for us all to have had experience with the gross shock of it. Multiple experiences, mostly.

It’s not just a problem in Mexico, either. Women politicians all over the world put up with the same behavior.

As for the PRI politician who suggested it was set up as a distraction, I’d argue the accusation itself is a distraction. From what? The fact that opposition to (the very imperfect) Morena movement can’t get good enough proposals together to move people, that’s what.

And it was an ill-thought-out tactic, at that: accuse the woman in question of orchestrating it? Read the room, man.

Security for AMLO and President Sheinbaum

AMLO, the father of the party that has since won a supermajority in Mexico, was famous for, among other things, eschewing bodyguards. He surrounded himself with “citizen helpers” (the “ayudantía,” in Spanish) instead. It’s a great political tactic, especially for a populist: “I don’t want to be separated from the people. I want to be with them.”

“You will have access to me if we’re in the same space” is a great way to convince people you don’t see yourself as above them.

La presidenta has continued this tradition, surrounding herself with a group of ayudantía of her own, and not necessarily with security training.

I love it for PR. I don’t necessarily love it for her actual security. In a country famous for its political assassinations and femicides and machismo, I’d personally want at least one extra layer. Even if it were discrete, it seems some sort of subtle secret service detail would be a good idea.

Scrutiny for the justice system

In any case, that’s her decision. I’m glad she pressed charges, anyway. This gives the justice system a chance to be scrutinized, too: What are you going to do about it? (As of this writing, he’s being held in the sex crimes division of the FGJ after assaulting two other women. Lovely guy.)

Pressing charges was also a great signal to the women of the country: these things are worth making a big deal about. They’re not, as many argue, “part of the job.” If you ask me, that’s a big, important change from the last administration. I generally — mostly — liked AMLO. But one of my biggest complaints about him was that he didn’t seem to take women’s issues seriously enough. Remember his complaints about the women’s protests?

Instituting gender parity in politics was a great move, but if we’re really to achieve equality, it’s got to be on all levels: the macro and the micro.

With Sheinbaum, I’m seeing his antidote: women’s issues are serious, and environmental issues are serious — exactly what we’d been missing.

President Sheinbaum isn’t going to solve the problem of sexual harassment in Mexico. But she is elevating it to the point that it gets the attention it deserves and is setting an important precedent. Through her actions, the message is clear: it’s not something to ignore and be embarrassed about. It’s a crime, and like all crimes, it begs for justice.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.

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But as someone who actually spends quite a bit of time writing and reading, I am still usually able to spot what’s written with AI and similar tools. And I’m definitely aware of the limitations of AI when it comes to nuanced, complicated tasks like translation. 

For some things, AI is helpful. A friend of mine uses it to practice her Spanish — nice and slow, everything written. I have a friend, an experienced teacher, who uses it to help reduce lesson planning time. Sometimes you can use it as a thesaurus: “What’s a better word for ‘throb’ that doesn’t sound weird and sexual?” 

Sure, AI will make up sources that don’t actually exist, but most people don’t seem overly concerned. When it comes to the environmental impact of the gigantic power grid-draining data centers AI must use, though, I fear we’ll only react properly once it’s too late. Or maybe people will think it’s a fair price to pay for all this convenience.

Admittedly, most of my relationship to AI has not been all that positive, and I’m glad that Mexico doesn’t seem to be diving in headfirst into AI as quickly as the U.S. is. As a “service” that none of us voted to have, which, on top of that, is using all of our data to “learn,” I feel pretty defensive. 

And none of us are protected from its effects — we’ve all been tossed into the Wild West without seatbelts or helmets. Even AI company leaders admit that AI “might” end up destroying humanity, but they just “have to” move forward.

Do they? Do they have to move forward? I personally heard no booming voice from the sky, and I’ll gladly just go back to using thesaurus.com. Really, it’s fine.

An endless retraining loop

So when I hear people bring up using AI to learn Spanish, I bristle somewhat.

My first bristling instinct is admittedly selfish: Nearly every skill I’ve learned while living in Mexico that can actually keep me surviving in the economy is ripe for the AI picking. I’m still a writer, but writing doesn’t pay the bills. Teaching English did for a while. Translating did for a good while, though all that work has now dried up too. 

Currently, I’m an audio description writer (kind of like making subtitles for the blind), a job that I love. But I know that it’s only a matter of time before AI gets good enough to swipe that one away.

How many times can a person be expected to retrain while also juggling all of life’s other requirements? With some predicting that AI will soon be able to do the job of anyone who works in front of a computer, a lot of us might be about to find out.

For now, I’m hanging on as well as I can.

What AI can and can’t do

I keep hearing the same platitude when it comes to jobs: “You won’t be replaced by AI, you’ll be replaced by someone who works with AI.” Cute.

And in the language field, that’s kind of true, I guess? Usually, the “someone who works with AI,” though, is the company itself working with AI so that it doesn’t have to pay anyone to work with you.

As someone who’s been involved in many of these human-to-machine transitions, there are a few things I can say with confidence:

1. AI is not a good transcriber

One of my many professional hats over the years has been as a legal transcription editor. In many courtrooms these days, AI transcription services are being used to get what was said into printed words. And let me tell you, it does not do a good job — not even the professional-grade software that you pay for.

Accents, mumblings, people following the natural cadence of speech that they do all mean that if you want an AI transcript to be legible, you’d better have an experienced editor on hand who can listen closely to all that and write a clean copy for you. And to use those cool services like a translation app or the new AirPods, people will have to speak slowly and clearly in complete sentences to be understood.

Now, if you and the other person don’t speak each other’s languages at all, I suppose it’s better than nothing. Still, it’s not the miracle it’s made out to be, and misunderstandings are likely.

2. AI is a pretty good translator…if it’s all transcribed properly (it’s not)

If you’ve got a well-written text with proper spelling and grammar, most AI software will do a fairly good job translating it. What it won’t do is translate style. Spanish writing, I’ve long said, is the king of the run-on sentence. “Break things up,” I’d advise new translators. “English speakers can’t stay focused reading a sentence that goes on for more than three lines.”

When there’s a dual AI job — transcription and translation — things get stickier. After most of my subtitle translation work dried up, I would occasionally get assignments to “proofread” AI’s translations. Most of the time, it wound up being more work than doing it from scratch would have been — and for far less money. If the transcription was bad, then the translation was bad, and it became quite a bit to untangle.

3. There’s nothing like actually talking to people to learn how to talk to people

For all my grouchiness about AI, the point is not to discourage you from using it as a tool to help with your Spanish learning. Whatever helps you communicate is good, and whatever helps you learn is good. But AI companies are trying to convince us in so many areas that AI is just as good or better than other humans. When it comes to language learning, it’s simply not.

While AI might be able to explain every detailed grammatical rule that you like, it can’t build a relationship with you. It can’t be your friend or tell you about its personal experiences, always intrinsically linked to the culture and language around the tellers.

So if you’re able, use the tools you need, but try to learn the language and make friends the old-fashioned way. It’s worth it.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.

The post AI won’t solve your language problems: A take on using AI for language translation appeared first on Mexico News Daily

When you’re 22 and in love, you don’t need much.

Most of our friends were of equal starving college student caliber. Many of them also had novios, but unlike the lucky two of us, no place to spend — ahem — quality time together.

And that’s how my boyfriend one day came home almost crying with laughter. His friend, who had one of those beat-up old Volkswagen bugs (vochos here, which used to be ubiquitous), had parked in a secluded area with his girlfriend. Soon, much to their disappointment, a police officer knocked on the window.

What did he want? Two hundred pesos to not halt their fun, of course. Thankfully, the friend was ready with a disarming quip: “If I had 200 pesos, we’d be at a motel instead of in my car!”

Ah, the Mexican motel. Truly an institution, though one could be forgiven for not connecting the dots upon their arrival.

As a kid and even a teen, I had no clue about the difference between a hotel and a motel. My family wasn’t the kind to afford too much traveling, and the novelty of staying anywhere besides my or family members’ homes was enough of a luxury.

My sister and I would marvel at the Motel 8 room in a Texas city two hours away. Everything was so clean! Lights above each perfectly made bed! The true delight, however, came from there being a Denny’s across the parking lot.

Freaking. Score.

But when I moved to Mexico, I realized that there was indeed a difference between the two, and that at least here, it was significant.

But first let’s back up a bit to official definitions. A hotel, of course, tends to be bigger, with access to the rooms from hallways rather than from parking lots. They also typically have more amenities and are more expensive.

The word “motel” is a combination of the words “motor” and “hotel” (I looked it up in the Merriam-Webster dictionary). Basically, you can drive to the room you’re staying in. Simple. They also tend to be cheaper, as it’s hard to argue that a view of a parking lot and the freeway are pinnacles of elegance worth paying top-dollar for.

In Mexico, prices between low-tier hotels and motels don’t tend to differ too greatly. The difference comes from their main usages.

Now, I’m not naïve; I know that an affair can very well be carried out pretty much anywhere. But here in Mexico, the motel is the chosen place for one, or simply for a couple to find some alone time.

Why?

The main plus is privacy. Whereas one’s car might be spotted near a hotel or in its parking lot — or someone might see you walking in — motels are the kings of discretion. Spending a few hours alone with your partner? Even if everyone you know drives or walks by the exact place, they’ll never know because your car will be hidden inside your own personal garage to your own personal room, sealed from the outside world. Even when you enter motel grounds, you don’t have to hang out close to the road; most are fortresses.

So first, you get onto the grounds, away from passing traffic; a motel employee comes out to ask what kind of room you’d like, then directs you to an open garage. Once inside, you can close the garage — usually they’re automatic, but I’ve seen simple curtains, too! — and walk up the steps to your room above.

(As a side note, you don’t have to have a car; you can get a taxi to drop you off! A taxi driver once told me that nearly all of his rides on Valentine’s Day, for example, are to and from motels.)

Once there, the extreme discretion continues. There’s usually a kind of turnstile — also private — device on one of the walls that leads to an outside service area for the motel workers. There, you pay for the time you want, and can even order room service! Beer, snacks, condoms, toys — they’ve got it all! It truly is a brilliant business model.

So we’ve already talked about discretion. They’re also cheap, and often available for four or eight hours rather than a full 24. (To be clear, you can rent a room in a motel for the night or for several, and I know plenty of people who do for totally non-sexy reasons. I think most accept dogs!)

For most people, though, motels are simply a place for sex, and motels know it. And that’s how you might, as an innocent traveler just looking to sleep somewhere, might wander into a room with mirrors on the ceiling and a stripper pole. The decor can be interesting for sure, but there are times I’ve gone simply for the pleasure of sitting in hot water (some have jacuzzis!). Bath tubs, in fact, might be the home feature I miss the most when I’m down here.

Anyway! I don’t note these details to be crude, but to let you know what you’re in store for if you don’t already: wonder into a motel unaware, and it’s going to feel real weird.

Why does it seem like they’re all over the place, usually on the outskirts of cities? Well, you’ve got to think about both the culture and logistics around here.

Both because of culture and economic restraints, it’s not traditionally been common for unmarried couples to live together…especially when they’re younger. Think of our poor friend in the vocho above. And with large households but not always large houses, it can be hard to find much private time, or even to have a room of your very own.

When friends come to visit, they’re often shocked to see couples making out, sometimes heavily, in public places. “Well, they can’t make out at their houses with their whole family watching,” I say.

There are plenty of things you can’t do with your whole family watching, it turns out. Motels are the solution that have filled the void.

And where do you say you’re going? Don’t say a motel; think of something plausible!

There’s a motel in Veracruz, for example, that has caused us endless laughing every time we drive by it. What’s it called? “El Cine” (“the movies”), as in, “Be back in a few hours, fam — ¡vamos al cine!”

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.

The post The motel: a Mexican institution appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Really, the airlines’ insults are endless.

Before my travels, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I live in Mexico full-time and mostly gauge what’s happening in the U.S. through news stories and my sister’s observations. From the outside looking in, the U.S. currently seems hands-down bonkers. An administration openly hostile to half its citizens, ready to designate them as domestic terrorists? No money for anything except billionaires and plain-clothed masked secret police? What the hell is going on up there?

My Mexican friends asked if I was nervous about going back. “Yes,” I’d say.

Granted, not for my personal safety, though the presence of open carry laws — in Texas, no less — does make me nervous. More than anything, I was nervous about potential hostility from those who might (correctly) clock me as a member of “the left” during a time when the left is being labeled as, basically, demons by the slim minority in charge. Would I run into my most hostile MND commenters in real life? If I did, might they try to…punch me? The anger and sense of righteousness on “the other side” — which is weird, because they’re clearly winning pretty much every battle — is palpable.

I’m happy to report that they were mostly viewed from afar. No one tried to pick a fight with me — well, almost no one. One kid checking me out at Target wanted to lecture me about how Israel basically ran the world. I’m with Claudia — and the rest of the world — on my view of Israel’s actions in Gaza, though this kid’s complaint sounded more like a thinly-veiled “the Jews are a secret cabal, you gotta believe me.”

Of course, that’s just my impression after 10 days. My sister, who works in higher education, is noticing a lot more: politicians wanting access to course plans and syllabi, for instance. Demonstrations against abortion, which I categorically do not get. Again, they won — abortion is illegal now in Texas. What are they protesting? An increased presence of both ICE and law enforcement checkpoints in general, specifically the further south you go.

One of her students recently told her that his father was taken by ICE. An acquaintance, an elementary school teacher, cried as he told her about four kids taken from his class during the school day. Then there’s the issue of military-style immigration raids in Chicago. And all the while, “the left” gets accused of outrageous violence? What is happening?

The violence against both Mexicans and other immigrants that we’re seeing play out north of the border is heartbreaking. Unfortunately, it’s not new: we’ve gone through many waves of anti-immigrant sentiment before, especially if those immigrants happen to not be white. Sure, Trump is doing what he said he’d do — and more!

Most people believed him when he said that they’d focus on criminals. Did the many Latinos that voted for him believe him? I so want to know.

In the end, that’s not what’s been happening: people who’ve lived in the US for a very long time are getting snagged up too, and sometimes killed. Even having the proper papers doesn’t seem to matter right now. If we don’t like you, you can’t be here, constitutional right be damned!

And in an almost split-screen reality, there are Latinos, in Texas at least, showing pride and even defiance. In Waco, a truck with the Mexican flag splayed on its hood drove through the neighborhood. “Impressive!” I said aloud as I gaped. Several homes further south had Mexican flags swaying outside in front. Some without even US flags!

In the current environment no one is safe, but plenty of people are not afraid.

And Texas is Texas, and Latinos are the largest ethnic group in the state, after all. Things are happening, but white guys with ski masks and combat boots are outnumbered. Thank goodness.

Beyond Texas, there’s plenty of defiance as well. Take the NFL: Bad Bunny will be performing the half-time show! And according to our very scary Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, ICE will be all over it. (Incidentally, Bad Bunny has said he would no longer give concerts in the US because of the risks of raids on his audience. I guess the half-time show was too fancy to pass up!)

Do I think the NFL is trying to take a stand against the Trump administration?

Well, no. With such a seemingly defiant move, though, you can bet there’s going to be record viewership.

But there’s plenty more. Remember when Mexican actor Diego Luna guest-hosted Jimmy Kimmel’s show? He was not subtle about his political views, even as Trump’s anti-immigrant machine was rumbling.

And, September 15-October 15 was Hispanic Heritage Month! Even at the Target with the antisemitic check-out kid, they were selling Celia Cruz shirts.

Then there’s NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, which’ve been featuring more and more Latino,  many Mexican, artists. Grupo Frontera‘s is by far my favorite, and if you haven’t seen the recent Macario Martínez one, it’s also well worth a listen. Flor de Toloache, filmed almost nine years ago, is another favorite of mine.

Can you tell I’m really into Tiny Desk?

My point is this: right now, there’s the Trump administration, and a few people who agree with absolutely everything they do. But that group of people are not the majority. Plenty in the US are outwardly celebrating Latinos, many of them Mexicans, despite their immigration status. This, I am proud of.

The government is one thing; culture is another.

For now, I pray that our culture of accepting and celebrating new immigrants can overcome this ugly period of rejecting them, breaking up families and destroying lives. It’s a dark time up there right now. Let’s hope our larger desire to accept and love another wins out over our most tribal and exclusionary instincts.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.

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