Holy cow is Mexico a poor country!

[berettafan]

Just got back from a week in Mazatlan. Other than a few hours in Cozumel via cruise ship i have never been to Mexico (well, the Wal Mart just up the road in Delaware i guess is just like being in Mexico) and i am stunned at the poverty.

'Stores' are not well stocked at all and there is absolutely no middle class in the area (scenes from our own future with Obama at the helm). Saw mothers on motorcycles carrying infants. Saw people buying unrefrigerated rancid beef and chicken at the market (the smell was unbearable). SOME folks have doors and electricity, many do not.

I had a good time, the bass fishing at lake el salto and the dove hunting in particular were fantastic, but the memory that is most vivid is the standard of living. no wonder the little bastards are so happy to work for sub-standard wages and live in collapsing trailers in a strange country.

Didn't take too many pics but this one is a favorite. It is the children of the birdboys cleaning our ducks/dove after the hunt. we had just given each of the kids a couple dollars and the smiles/dancing were just amazing. They are picking birds i wouldn't dare eat to prepare for dinner (those birds had been dead in 90 degree heat for 3+hrs THEN) in front of their 'home' and found a way to smile. Brought a tear to my eye.


A 7.x lb bass (we cought a LOT of 5+) cought by my boat-mate on el salto....

[crustychief]

yup.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

The USA will look that way before too long.

[Rick Lee]

We consider people poor in the US who have a car, cable tv and air conditioning. Try visiting China, where you'll see legless beggars dragging themselves along the street just trying to make it through the day. People step over them like they're grass. In DC you can be a panhandler wearing Air Jordans and carrying a cell phone and make a pretty good tax-free living.

[billwagnon]

Obama's going to ruin everything!

[John Rogers]

Having been born in Delaware and living in San Diego since I left home in 1969 I have gotten used to Mexico. It always makes me happy when relatives or friends from back there come out to visit and we take a day trip to Tijuana or Tecate. The places near the border actually have a middle class and a bunch of really rich folks too! There are the squatters like you saw that live in small one or two room houses made from old wooden garage doors that are donated when we move up to the metal ones and after working a few years in a factory they sell and move into regular houses much like the really old ones in San Diego. Of course that can be greatl;y accelerated by getting into the drug trade but the longevity factor drops way off quickly.

[Rot 911]

Poverty is all relative. Those kids probably have no idea they are poor. To a child that has nothing, it takes very little to make them happy.

[slow&rusty]

Living or visiting a 3rd world country is something WE all should do. Not just stopping at a Sandals resort at that 3rd world country but actually experiencing life there.

It is a shaping tool and a humbling experience that makes us appreciative of some of life's luxaries and things we take for granted (medicine, hygiene, running water)...and makes us realize how shallow we are when we complain about stupid things.

Yasin

[Noah930]

Aren't kids the best?

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by slow&rusty

Living or visiting a 3rd world country is something WE all should do. Not just stopping at a Sandals resort at that 3rd world country but actually experiencing life there.

It is a shaping tool and a humbling experience that makes us appreciative of some of life's luxaries and things we take for granted (medicine, hygiene, running water)...and makes us realize how shallow we are when we complain about stupid things.

Yasin

Yes and yes. I have seen things that will remain with me as long as I breath and have absolutely shaped my world view.

Great post.

[Rick Lee]

I was too shy to take photos of the pitiful, horribly disfigured beggars I saw. But here's a lady doing laundry in the river. I took this one from a boat.



This is a dirt floor kitchen


Sure enjoyed using this bathroom for a few days.

[Jeff Higgins]

I've spent too much time in Mexico City away from the "tourist" areas. Like in the neighboods surrounding the airport, when we are down there working on airplanes. It's pretty sobering.

We stay downtown, typically at a Marriot or something, so it's always in a "good" part of town (the last one had a Bently dealer accross the street). Even there, you can walk two or three blocks the "wrong" way and see folks living in loosely stacked up cinder blocks with a piece of rusty corregated metal laying on top as a "roof". Unbelievable. Serious money right next to serious poverty - they can literally walk out into the middle of the street and see each other from their homes. The product of unfettered corruption in the form of a government meant to put money in the pockets of the rich and influential.

Another by-product of the corruption is the cartels. They actually treat the locals in the more remote areas far better than the government does. Loyalties lean towards those cartels as a result. From the outside looking in, the rest of the world sees (or pretends to see) the cartels as the problem. Many down there have a far different view, seeing them rather as the solution. The poverty is that bad. The government is that corrupt.

[Rick Lee]

BTW, the Mexican border towns are pretty rough too. I've been to Juarez and San Luis recently and they are just horrible, wretched places.

[911boost]

Puerto Rico isn't a walk in the park either. I just spent 5 days there for work, and by neccessity had to go to some not so nice places.

[JavaBrewer]

My parents did a Mexico road trip back in the '60s when I was a kid. I still remember the rotten meat covered in flies sold in market stores. Not much has changed since then. Other than the "rich gringo" trip to PV I have not crossed the Mex border for 15+ years. I was amazed how parts of Japan reminded me of Mex, Korea was no surprise.

[sammyg2]

I've made a couple of trips with my church to build small school houses on the outskirts of TJ.
A nice plain one room school with semi-plumbing is greatly appreciated there, here it would be considered a shanty.

BTW, I made one church trip to an apache reservation in Arizona to rebuild a schoolhouse that burned down.
The poverty level is very similar but for some reason is just seems so much more severe on the reservation.

[Zef]

Never went to Africa hey....?

[Fishman7]

Originally Posted by berettafan

Just got back from a week in Mazatlan. Other than a few hours in Cozumel via cruise ship i have never been to Mexico (well, the Wal Mart just up the road in Delaware i guess is just like being in Mexico) and i am stunned at the poverty.

'Stores' are not well stocked at all and there is absolutely no middle class in the area (scenes from our own future with Obama at the helm). Saw mothers on motorcycles carrying infants. Saw people buying unrefrigerated rancid beef and chicken at the market (the smell was unbearable). SOME folks have doors and electricity, many do not.

I had a good time, the bass fishing at lake el salto and the dove hunting in particular were fantastic, but the memory that is most vivid is the standard of living. no wonder the little bastards are so happy to work for sub-standard wages and live in collapsing trailers in a strange country.

Didn't take too many pics but this one is a favorite. It is the children of the birdboys cleaning our ducks/dove after the hunt. we had just given each of the kids a couple dollars and the smiles/dancing were just amazing. They are picking birds i wouldn't dare eat to prepare for dinner (those birds had been dead in 90 degree heat for 3+hrs THEN) in front of their 'home' and found a way to smile. Brought a tear to my eye.


A 7.x lb bass (we cought a LOT of 5+) cought by my boat-mate on el salto....

Maybe you should have given that bass to the poor people to eat since you have it by the gills an all, sorry couldn't resist.

[SLO-BOB]

And yet they can still afford all that ammo!

Seriously dangerous place especially lately. I've cancelled my planned moto travels there this winter. Guess Florida will get my tourism dollars.

On poverty, Mexico is like a lot of places and better than many as well. I was the DR recently. Very bad. Was told by "those in the know" that Haiti makes the DR look like Beverly Hills. I can't begin to imagine how bad that must be.

[HardDrive]

I'm was not sure how to respond to this post.

berettafan, how did you think people live? 1/5 of the worlds population has no access to safe drinking water, 40% don't have sanitation infrastructure (the toilets just empty into the rivers).

Try a week in India, it will make Mexico look like Club Med.