Two weeks ago I went to Zihuateneo with my brother. Here we witnessed a tsunami, a result of the earthquake in Japan.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Campaign tactics
Do you want to win a local election in Mexico? You better have money. Not only for radio or television commercials, but also for buckets of paint and mattresses.
I was recently in Toluca, the capital of the state of Mexico, located about an hour from Mexico City. In the town square I saw a rally with hundreds of people in red hats chatting and listening to music booming over the loudspeaker. As I walked closer to investigate, I also noticed a line of pick-up trucks along the square loaded with five-gallon buckets of paint.
These red hats belonged to supporters of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party) or PRI, and the rally was to support the PRI candidates in the upcoming legislative and gubernatorial elections. The rally itself was really just for the tried and true supporters, but the paint was different; it was there to convince the swing voters. And soon it would be handed out or delivered to certain voters who signed a pledge to vote PRI.
This is not a unique story. I heard a similar one from a student who volunteered at the polls in Nezahualcoyotl, a suburb of Mexico City. She described various party officials giving away $200 peso gift certificates to a local grocery store, so long as the recipients signed an oath to vote for the official's party. In this poor suburb, $200 peso ($18 dollars) can feed a family for a number of days.
I was with a friend of mine when I witnessed this spectacle in Toluca. She recalled a similar story about when her father ran for the mayor of their town, also in the state of Mexico. According to her, his main opponent gave away mattresses to select swing voters, and with this tactic (and claiming that, if elected, her father would shut down the churches) his opponent won.
It's tempting to dismiss these stories as comical, but when honest democratic discourse is deterred such as in these examples, governments become less responsive to the needs of their citizens.
I was recently in Toluca, the capital of the state of Mexico, located about an hour from Mexico City. In the town square I saw a rally with hundreds of people in red hats chatting and listening to music booming over the loudspeaker. As I walked closer to investigate, I also noticed a line of pick-up trucks along the square loaded with five-gallon buckets of paint.
These red hats belonged to supporters of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party) or PRI, and the rally was to support the PRI candidates in the upcoming legislative and gubernatorial elections. The rally itself was really just for the tried and true supporters, but the paint was different; it was there to convince the swing voters. And soon it would be handed out or delivered to certain voters who signed a pledge to vote PRI.
This is not a unique story. I heard a similar one from a student who volunteered at the polls in Nezahualcoyotl, a suburb of Mexico City. She described various party officials giving away $200 peso gift certificates to a local grocery store, so long as the recipients signed an oath to vote for the official's party. In this poor suburb, $200 peso ($18 dollars) can feed a family for a number of days.
I was with a friend of mine when I witnessed this spectacle in Toluca. She recalled a similar story about when her father ran for the mayor of their town, also in the state of Mexico. According to her, his main opponent gave away mattresses to select swing voters, and with this tactic (and claiming that, if elected, her father would shut down the churches) his opponent won.
It's tempting to dismiss these stories as comical, but when honest democratic discourse is deterred such as in these examples, governments become less responsive to the needs of their citizens.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Troubling Incident
Mexico City has a number of very pleasant, upcoming neighborhoods. Many of these, such as Roma Norte; are still accessible to the middle class, contain a mix of colonial buildings and modern apartments, and have tree-lined streets free of trash (unlike others in the city). I can spend the better part of a weekend in these areas, drinking coffee at a cafe or shooting pool in one of their billiard halls. It is in these progressive parts of the city that one is given hope about the future of the country.
Every so often, however, even in these rebounding neighborhoods, I am reminded of how far the country still needs to go.
A few weeks ago, I was walking to the subway station after teaching English to the workers at the Hotel Reforma. I had just passed the Biblioteca Benjamin Franklin and was approaching a broad intersection. I heard a siren coming my way and so I waited for the advancing ambulance to pass before I crossed the street. As I stood waiting, however, it began to slow down as it approached the intersection, then it came to a stop in front of me. The ambulance driver stuck his head out of the window, and then asked me if I knew how to find the Hospital Londres.
I was shocked. An ambulance on an emergency call was driving around asking pedestrians for directions to the hospital! Why didn't they have a dispatcher guiding them or, better yet, a GPS on-board?
An incident like this would not happen in US. Many Americans decry their government regulations, but it's because the Seattle government, for example, has strict guidelines for ambulance companies that my family feels confident in their emergency services. I don't know if Mexico City lacks sufficient regulation for emergency personnel or if the rules simply aren't enforced. But it's clear that, because this ambulance was unprepared, a patient was put at risk.
And, unfortunately, I couldn't help him. I didn't know where the hospital was.
Every so often, however, even in these rebounding neighborhoods, I am reminded of how far the country still needs to go.
A few weeks ago, I was walking to the subway station after teaching English to the workers at the Hotel Reforma. I had just passed the Biblioteca Benjamin Franklin and was approaching a broad intersection. I heard a siren coming my way and so I waited for the advancing ambulance to pass before I crossed the street. As I stood waiting, however, it began to slow down as it approached the intersection, then it came to a stop in front of me. The ambulance driver stuck his head out of the window, and then asked me if I knew how to find the Hospital Londres.
I was shocked. An ambulance on an emergency call was driving around asking pedestrians for directions to the hospital! Why didn't they have a dispatcher guiding them or, better yet, a GPS on-board?
An incident like this would not happen in US. Many Americans decry their government regulations, but it's because the Seattle government, for example, has strict guidelines for ambulance companies that my family feels confident in their emergency services. I don't know if Mexico City lacks sufficient regulation for emergency personnel or if the rules simply aren't enforced. But it's clear that, because this ambulance was unprepared, a patient was put at risk.
And, unfortunately, I couldn't help him. I didn't know where the hospital was.
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