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Wow! We have been too busy to take the time to write down what we have been doing. I often write a paragraph in my mind, but by the time I get back to the computer, I have forgotten it. The problem is that many of the little things I would like to report and remember are ephemeral and I only remember them later in relation to something else, so that I am building up a corpus of experiences that together inform my views on living in Mexico, but that separately are hard to pin down as isolated events. Things like the Indian ladies who sell things they have made (baskets, embroidery, dolls) or bought (little plastic toys or gadgets) either by sitting on the sidewalk or wandering from café to café and who then sleep with their kids in a doorway. Giving one of them $10 MN (they usually only get a peso or two) makes them just stare; and it is heart breaking not to be able to do anything really lasting or worthwhile for them and their kids. The kids we work with at Niños y Niñas are also street kids, but their mothers are a little more urbanized than the ladies with the Indian clothing selling handicrafts; and I often wonder if working with our kids will have a lasting effect anyway.

The little Indian ladies may be beyond help in this generation, especially the ones who are over 50 and apparently have no family, and who are reduced to begging on the sidewalks. With Christmas, the number of people begging has increased exponentially. The solution to this problem is beyond what a government can do; and will involve a complete change in attitude on the part of all the citizens of Mexico, not just the indigenous population.

There has to be a change from the paternalistic, top-down, approach to social problems, that have always been pushed by the church and state (conservative or liberal), to one where people begin to believe they can change their lives, and then take responsibility for doing so. The problem is that the church and state have never done anything to help people believe they actually can do anything on their own to improve their lives and the lives of the next generation. The whole idea that the next generation will and should be better off than the current generation is restricted to a very small and educated portion of the middle class. The upper-class wants to keep things as they are, which they see as to their benefit, incorrectly in my view.

Probably 70% of the population believes and accepts that this is the way life is, the way it has always been and the way it will always be. In Mexico, religion is not much help and is truly the opiate of the people. Unfortunately, all parts of the political spectrum feel that more and more government is the answer; while in fact, the answer is for people to be able to do things on their own, including being effectively involved in the political process.

The other day there was a story in the paper about a group of clowns in Mexico City who were having a campaign to make people more tolerant while being caught in traffic jams. This sounds innocuous enough, but their signs said that since you cannot do anything to change the traffic, you may as well sit back and take it easy. Even the clowns did not think that there was anything people can do to effect change in government, and that people should just accept it and relax. It is this attitude, which permeates society here, that is the basic underlying problem and the reason Mexico has not, and probably will not, meet its potential economically and socially. ‘Nuf soap box.