Getting to know the real Mexico

Rob McKenzie

Rounding Some Corners

January 09, 2012

 

 

   This column comes to you from deep inside Mexico in the city of Mazatlan on the Pacific coast.

But there are no tumbleweeds blowing through dusty villages with chickens running around or banditos wearing oversized sombreros or decapitated bodies strewn along deserted highways.

U.S. media and the Mexican drug cartels have done a number on the country.

   Years of news reports on murders combined with a steady diet of over-the-top Hollywood Westerns have created an indelible perception of a crazy and unstable neighbor to the south.

   Hard to believe, considering it was the U.S. that took about half of Mexico's land through the peace treaty signed after the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War — increasing the size of the U.S. by one-third with these states: Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and even parts of Kansas and Wyoming.

   Hard to believe also because of immigration. American immigration, that is — about 1 percent of the Mexican population today.

   Americans come for the warmer climate, the less expensive but outstanding health care and the overall better quality of life.

   Meanwhile, the distorted images that flow through U.S. media portray a Mexico that is hapless and dangerous. A country to be avoided unless you go to one of the safely chaperoned tourist sanctuaries like Cancun.

   But the reality is that Mexico has an incredibly uplifting spirit combining the old with the new. For example, the succulent food borrows from indigenous traditions as well as European and American influences to yield the freshest fruits, vegetables, meats and seafood, cooked with layers and layers of spices and sauces handed down through hundreds of years.

   How tasty it is to drink a Licuado blended from ripe mango, papaya and pecans (yes, pecans).

Mexico also has ingenious and beautiful handmade goods, like barbecues made of hub caps, model airplanes made from soda cans and jewelry made from precious stones, ocean coral or mined silver.

  And the list of Mexican amenities goes on and on: innovative architecture, pristine beaches, excellent public transportation, colorful surroundings.

   The Mexican people are friendly, hard working and easy going, and it's typical for them to laugh at their circumstances in a philosophical (not a resentful) way, as when a man with a big smile offers you a ride in the back of his pick-up truck, joking that this is Mexican air conditioning.

  Yes, Mexico has a big problem with drug cartels and violence. Yes, you need to drink bottled water in Mexico. Yes, there are scorpions in Mexico.

   But those who know the real Mexico believe it deserves a siesta from its calamitous reputation north of the border.