Older journal entries

Here's another piece of the puzzle. It may be damaged and incomplete, but I thought it would be better to post than to hold back.

2004/03/05 - Interestingly enough, de Soto was mentioned in yesterday's Toronto Star, which I only got around to reading today. He apparently is advising Prime Minister Martin to step outside the norm of Western commitment to world poverty (i.e., hardly any), in the form of encouraging the formalization of property rights in developing countries and the availability of capital to small businesses and would-be investors. Apparently 90% of the economy in some countries is underground, because of a lack of laws surrounding most economic transactions and methods of business. This makes sense enough, but what about the merits of group-based ownership and the limits of the consumerist/capitalist system when it spreads to the world? Already the West is getting worried as it becomes cheaper and more effective to outsource tech jobs (such as Web programming) to the Third World than it is to employ locally. If we really think we're on top because we're better, we wouldn't be scared of such a thing. If all 6 billion of us were university-educated professionals, would there be enough room? How long would the environment survive?

2004/03/04 - Researched Latin American economic situations, and found an interview with Hernando de Soto, the author of a book describing how Latin America's current problems were America's 150 years ago. An interesting quote that contrasts the Lubicon Cree stories from GS102 was this: "We know that when you started organizing territory on lines of sovereignty and giving away to your Indians, it doesn't work. People eat other people's sovereignty. Property rights, those are more respected." On the other hand, he is also of the view that Western democracies are "good" and that that's why the West is wealthy. That's a bit off the deep end if you ask me. Maybe our democracies are better than the Latin American democracies he describes, but we're wealthy because we historically got lucky and, wanting to stay on top, crushed those below.

2004/02/23 - Picked up a book written in 1976 by an American University student as a PhD dissertation. I wish I had the same material from a Mexican or Canadian perspective--the author very much sees our two countries as "dependent" upon the US, which is as arrogantly oversimplified as the common belief that "immigrants take up all the jobs".

2004/02/22 - Left

2004/02/21 - Dinner at Carioca to celebrate Dad's birthday (early).

2004/02/20 - Spanish cartoons, stomach weirdness

2004/02/19 - Went to further mall (saw Alain again)

2004/02/18 - Met Alain

2004/02/17 - Second city tour, bartered and got ripped off at Barra de Navidad, tried coconuts, etc., fancy dinner, daquiri; went over the Sierra Madre hills to Colima (pop. 500k); Gabriel guide: VW car plant now Nissan & Chevy; VW hubcaps embedded in road as speedbumps; volcano active; coconut shack: bought banana chips and tobasco sauce, and drank some coconut water (kinda bland, not bad); saw magé (silver cactus the roots from which tequila is made) plantation (guard siesta-ando!); watermelon stands; same products here as Hawaii (same lat.): coconut (green or yellow), fresas, papayas, limes (limónes), mangos, peppers, bananas, pineapple, coffee, sugar cane, grapefruit, manzanas, y naranjas; Colima Liberty Square (w/old prison)--cathedral in service in middle of weekday; went to an UNAM-lead archaeological dig La Campana: sacrifice pits (to volcano gods), low pyramids, walls, stands; museum of Alejandro Ranjel Hidalgo w/paintings (stippled, very detailed and colourful), "Jake" statues (fat dog), and other artifacts from the dig; lunch with mariachis, lime-salt heat solution, excellent tortillas and quesadillas and tacos and enchiladas, G's point about putting the glass down silently (unlike Ciudad M.); real estate guys gave us their card on the street; "magnetic hill";

2004/02/16 - City tour #1, no good books, Hectours' Roberto (BA in geography; hectours.com): drove around rich people's houses; up to summit of peninsula; many new five-star resorts and world-class golf courses popping up for a half-Am, half-Mex audience (Mex esp. on weekends as a break from work in other cities); many mansions for famous actors of Western nations; up to port; downtown shopping; trains; VW;

2004/02/15 - Today, Mary, my sister Jenn, her boyfriend Dan, my mom and dad, and my aunt, uncle, and I left for Manzanillo, one of the largest trading ports in Mexico.

2004/02/09 - I actually bumped into Abe at another event, this time visiting UW with a friend who was in town, but I didn't get to talk to him much, because it was really loud. Hopefully I'll get to connect with him at some point.

2004/02/06 - We had our first study tour meeting today, which was somewhat interesting, mostly because I got to meet everyone who's going on the trip. There's quite a variety of backgrounds and motivations involved, which is excellent, but I also noticed that only one person admitted to be going on it "for a vacation". I say "admitted" because even though we are there to learn and to have our lives changed, anything that gets us away from our mundane daily existence over here, even if it's hard work, is still a vacation in my opinion. As Mary would tell me (contrary to what my parents might), vacations are not synonymous with relaxation. Anyway, the level of knowledge about Mexico in the group seemed to be mostly based on media stereotypes and tourist views, with only a few people having experienced it outside those realms. It sounds like the group will be an excellent one with which to experience this trip.

2004/02/05 - Unfortunately, Abe wasn't at Feeding Frenzi. The event is actually being cancelled for now due to a lack of funding, so if I see him again, it won't be there for at least a few weeks. I did meet some interesting people in the kitchen, though--a woman who used to have a management position at Ten Thousand Villages, which I have still yet to check out, and a man who was raised in Thailand by his missionary parents. I also talked with Matt, whom I had met the week before also, over dinner about the problem of homelessness, which I had recently become directly entangled with. I know there are many cynics and many whose hearts seem to outweight their wisdom when it comes to helping out the homeless, and I know that there are reasons for both. This makes me wonder about what the proportion of non-poor cynics to (maybe not-so-)poor scam-artists/actors/untrustworthies is. (I doubt it's possible for mere humans to get an accurate statistic on that.) All of this also lead me to the question many ask--why worry about "over there" when are problems here are so bad? If we attacked spiritual problems here rather than physical ones, wouldn't it start to solve physical problems here and over there? What do we do in the meanwhile? On the other hand, thinking that way will never allow for more of the kind of healthy bilateral links Lappé and Lappé have found all around the globe. Aside from goods and physical resources, what do Canada and Mexico have to offer each other?

2004/02/04 - Today I poked around for another hour and a bit looking at the various Mexico-Canada connections written about on the Internet. Much of it is very economy-centred, and at least half of it mentioned or focused on NAFTA in some way. I remember from when we went to Manzanillo last year how our boat tour guide said that there's hardly any poverty or crime in the city, not because it feeds on tourism, but because primarily it is Mexico's second largest trading port (or perhaps the second largest on the west coast--I can't remember at the moment), so everyone has a job, be it menial or managerial. On the other hand, Mexico, from the typical Canadian perspective, is synonymous with a hot climate, very high poverty, and cheaply-made goods. What made and makes Manzanillo succeed where, for instance, other Mexican coastal cities or even Newfoundland--in some ways--have failed? Would it be feasible to apply the same "success formula" to many other cities, or does the model necesitate a rich/poorish/impoverished divide?

2004/01/29 - Tonight at a church-meal gathering for students ("Feeding Frenzi"), I met a guy named Abe, whose family moved up here from Mexico when he was little to escape the extreme poverty. I can't remember the city he came from, but it wasn't one I had heard of before. He was student-age, but was looking for a job (to get by, it seemed) rather than an education and a climb up a corporate ladder. I hope to talk to him more next week to get to know him (and his story) better.

2004/01/20 - During a lull in copyediting at The Cord, I was finally able to dig around on the Internet for more information on the Summit and Canadian-Mexican ties. I found that Canadian news sites tended not to care, whereas L.A.-based and other southern area news sources had some information, but the main focus was still on how Fox and Martin were at least perceived in their own countries as Bush puppets. One name came up that was worth looking into--Señor Gaëtan Lavertu, Canada's ambassador to Mexico. Sites in Spanish and English that mentioned him also mentioned general trade relations between the countries that sounded much like those between Canada and Jamaica.

2004/01/13 - I picked up a newspaper today, as my new schedule allows me to do three days a week without inconvenience, and there were many stories about the featured Summiit of the Americas. Other than Mexico being mentioned as the host country, the only mention I found about anything Mexican was that President Fox and his wife had a nice dinner with our Prime Minister earlier in the week, and this was buried in a tiny article at the bottom of page 6. All of the feature articles talked about Martin and Bush and how there was a lot of hoopla and no real changes. What happened with Mexico? Hopefully I'll get some time to research this this week online. I'm sure I'll find something in an unknown independent journal (or certainly at least a Mexican source) somewhere.