Monday, November 24, 2008

We interrupt this reverie...

....for a brief political rant.

But first... did you know that our butterflies sleep 14 hours each night! They bed down at about 7pm, and awaken around 9am, though some slug'abeds are still hanging to their vine close to 10am. And we hope to stop by the big Monarch Butterfly refuge to the north of us as we start the long drive home.... which hopefully begins sometime the first week of December.

Now... the rant. Our departure date is, oddly enough, being affected by.....

....the Japanese!

We want to finish our back porch floor before leaving, but our friend the Mayor, who will help us, is very involved in out of town meetings with the fishermen´s guild regarding the steel factory built by the Japanese....

Years ago the Japanese company bribed their way onto the Mexican coastline to the north of us... we can see their smog from our beach, just on the horizon. They delivered a free fiberglass fishing boat to every fisherman to the south of their factory... including our Little Salty Place. Our friend the Mayor had one of these boats until it wore out in the surf. Now he has a motor but no boat. He wades into the sea to fish with a hand'thrown net... but that´s another developing story.

Anyway, you may have noticed my comments scattered through this blog about the fishless sea. Of course there ARE fish, but a noticeable reduction. Even I can notice it. Just this morning I wandered among the low tide shallows and no longer see the brightly colored tiny tropical fish that I used to admire for hours. Just a green fuzz on the rocks.

The pollution from their steel factory has, of course, devastating effects on the oceanic environment. And the Japanese want to buy the silence of the fishermen with an offer of a cool $8000 to each and every fisherman. So that is why the fishermen are having these many and multi'day meetings.

And that is why our porch doesn´t get finished.... ironically, we are planning to pour a cement floor -- which is in its own way environmentally detrimental . Sigh.

Anyway. I have told Guillermo...the Mayor... that this issue does not belong in small secretive meetings between local fishermen and the Japanese factory owners. This issue belongs in front of the United Nations. The ocean belongs to all creatures of the world and ... etc etc etc. I actually intend to take up this issue, somehow, when I return to my own computer and phone line.

End of rant.

Yesterday, one of our butterflies flew onto our porch and mistook our porch wall, which is painted a remarkable sky-blue color, for the sky. He tried to fly right through it. No harm done. And he only tried that once.... unlike the bird later on, who tried quite a few times! ...to no harm done as well.

The day after Thanksgiving, our village folk are hosting a huge charity dinner on the beach, at Lourdes´restaurant, to garner donations for our local secondary school which doesn´t even have bathrooms. Our neighbor women will be cooking, and they are great cooks, and our village kids who are dear friends for lo these past six years, will both entertain us with song and dance, and serve the food to the crowd that we all hope shows up.

We will be there of course.... but other than for this event, I have quit going to Lourdes´place altogether. Guero´s hatred got to me.  I now enjoy tranquil and peaceful days all along the beach everywhere ELSE!  No problemo. Que es buena la vida.

and a point of trivia.... this Thanksgiving marks Robert´s and my 14th Anniversary of sharing a life together.

1 comment:

Papasan said...

Global politics is local politics. Or is the line that all politics are local? Interesting to hear how the little details of your own lives are affected by issues of international trade, environmental safeguards (or the lack thereof), and so on. Hmm.

And congrats on the anniversary!