Services in Mexico

Here are a few observations I´ve made over the past couple of weeks:

Every morning, including Saturdays, a truck drives around the streets selling canisters of gas, which people hook up to their stoves for cooking, heating water, etc. About five guys man the truck, which parks on the street, (on our street it parks just under our apartment) while they wander around for 15 minutes or so shouting "Gaaaaaaaas!" "Gaaaaaaaas!" at the top of their lungs. Only, it doesn´t sound like "gas". It sounds like just a hollow, deep "OOOOOOOOOOOO" sound. And it wakes me up every morning at 7 (when, thanks to our flexible Mexican office hours, I should really be able to sleep another hour and a half at least). Sometimes they like to ring the buzzers on all the apartments, just in case you can´t hear their incessant yelling. Often Marco and I (neither of whom are morning people) come shuffling out of our rooms in the mornings and greet each other with a disgruntled: "I hate them!"

Instead of having a specific garbage day when you leave your garbage bags on the street, there´s a garbage truck which drives around each day, proceeded by 10 minutes or so by a guy ringing a bell. When you hear the bell, you are supposed to bring your garbage down. The only problem? The truck comes by at 11 AM, when we´re at work. Luckily, Marco has a cleaning lady who comes once a week, and she brings down the garbage. (This is unlike most of his neighbors who have full-time cleaning ladies who live in tiny rooms on the top floor of the apartment building). I´m sure there must be another way for people to get rid of their garbage, but we haven´t discovered it yet.

There are other people who drive around offering services: there´s a guy who has rigged up his bike so the pedals turn not only the wheels but also a set of knife-sharpening stones. He drives around and parks the bike, putting it up on blocks, then sits backwards on it on a little wooden seat he´s built onto the crossbar, and people bring down their dull knives for sharpening. There´s also a guy with a little ice cream cart who drives around, but instead of a bell or a little tune he has some kind of steam whistle which is very loud.

Our office is one block away from the US Embassy, and every day I see several full-sized coach buses parked on the corner. One day I asked what it was all about: it turns out these buses come in every day full of Mexican citizens who have appointments to apply for a visa to visit the U.S. Each person pays $100 for their visa interview and have to come with paperwork proving their financial stability and other reasons to believe they intend to return to Mexico. Unfortunately, that $100, which means A LOT to most Mexicans, doesn´t guarantee anything, and is not returned if the visa request is denied.

Yesterday I experienced a different kind of service: Jorge (Marco´s friend, the film location scout) called to say that his abuelita (grandmother) had died at the age of 96. I had been out with Jorge, scouting out a theater for a scene to be filmed inside a dressing room, just the night before and he had to head home to be with his grandmother, who was very sick. Unfortunately he didn´t get home in time and she had already passed away by the time he got there. In Mexico, funerals are held immediately, and this one was held yesterday morning, only 12 hours after she died. The funeral was followed by a 24-hour wake at the funeral home; the closest family members would be there all night. We didn´t go to the wake, we just met Jorge and took him out for a walk and a change of scenery.

Only one more work day, and then I head home on Sunday!