Most Mexican morning
The other day I had a conference, so I took an alternate route. Normally I have a short walk to work, through a mostly residential area. This day, I walked through the main park of my delegation (Coyoacan) and through business streets.
First, I saw every business owner doing what small business do every morning. First, they open the giant metal garage-style doors that protect storefronts at night, and then they wash the floor of the store or restaurant as well as the sidewalk in front of their door using soapy water and a broom to scrub. A lot of them also have giant squeegees that they use to push the rinse water out.
Second, I had my boots shined, because I was going to a conference and wanted to look sharp. I have never had shoes shined before because it always seems weird and problematic to me, but I had a few minutes, and the guy had no one else passing by for shines. We chatted a little bit and I heard some neighborhood gossip about a cache of major military-level automatic weapons found and confiscated from drug lords in a local house. I also saw his colleague across the street setting up his shoe-shine stand. He came over and borrowed a little water from my guy, who had it in a 5 gallon bucket. Who knows where he got that water, because in Mexico City everything is a commodity and you have to have access to get it, but I thought it was neat that he shared it with his competition.
Finally, I went through a typical Mexican experience of trying to get a taxi. One thing that characterizes living in Mexico is that everything—EVERYTHING—is a pain in the ass. Part of it is that I don’t know the systems like someone born there would, and part of it is my personality of leaving things to the last second and always forgetting at least one critical item behind when I leave the house in the morning, but part of it is that most things aren’t really run that well. This morning, my cell phone was out of credit, so I went to a store to buy a new card. They didn’t have any, but they told me one that would, so I walked over there. They didn’t have them either, so I went to a third store and got phone credit. Then, I called the taxi company that I usually use and they put me on hold for a good ten minutes and then told me they didn’t have any units in my area. Finally, I called another taxi company and they sent me a unit, but because of road construction they had to pick me up several blocks in the opposite direction. It was fine, and I am used to lots of runaround, but it was certainly typical.
I love Mexico, and mornings like that make me really appreciate what I have living in Mexico City.