The Texas Observer

As the economic crisis unfolds arts and cultural institutions are slashing expenses and struggling to remain alive. The story is no different in Mexico, though theater groups in Mexico City have come up with a novel way to survive. In the past year a movement has started where small theater groups perform in people’s apartments or homes. The amount of money saved by not having to rent a theater is making a huge difference for theater groups trying to make it through lean times, says Mariana Garcia Franco, director of the theater group “C”.

On a recent evening I was invited to see Garcia’s group perform in a friend’s apartment. Each person attending was asked to pay $80 pesos (about $6 bucks). There were two actresses: Alicia Martin and Maricela Penalosa who performed an hour-long untitled play.

There were 17 people in the audience and we all crammed into my friend’s apartment to watch the show. The play was very abstract and also visceral and athletic at times. Both of the characters were battling some type of mental anguish and at times it made me feel uncomfortable to be so close. The actresses were so good they embodied their two characters completely. They also did not appear to be nervous at all. (No small feat when you are performing in someone’s living room surrounded by your audience.) At some points the two characters would seem to be addressing us and they would sit amongst the audience. They were firmly locked inside the play though and it was a little like being a fly on the wall in a lunatic asylum. This might sound jarring or awful but it actually was a really good theater experience.

Garcia, the theater group’s director, says they are booked just about every week performing in someone’s home. “Usually someone from the audience will ask us to come to their home and perform,” she says. “And it spreads by word of mouth.” There are also several other theater groups in Mexico City performing on a weekly basis including a group called Teatro Instantaneo where the actors write the play as they go along with the help of the audience.

It’s heartening to see that theater groups in Mexico City are thriving instead of letting the economic crisis close them down.

It’s no secret that the 18-foot steel border wall is devastating the environment and disrupting wildlife corridors along our southern border. Environmentalists and landowners have filed lawsuits in federal court — to no avail — in order to compel the Department of Homeland Security to lessen the destructive impacts of the wall.

The Sierra Club commended 43 congressional members today for sending a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. The members ask DHS to work with other agencies to lessen the impacts of the wall, fund efforts to buy comparable land for wildlife and provide environmental training for their employees.

In the letter, the congressional members wrote the following to Napolitano:
“As you are aware, hundreds of miles of new border fences and patrol roads have been constructed by DHS along the US/Mexico border in the past several years. This massive federal project has had deleterious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has caused hardship for private land owners, whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods have been disrupted.”

Already $50 million has been allocated to borderlands mitigation, the congressional members note, but far more funding will be necessary to address the extent of the damage done, they wrote.

Besides the damage done there is also the cost of upkeep. We are now the owners of a 670-foot long steel wall which costs anywhere from $2 million to $11 million a mile. Besides the environmental degradation and the destruction of wildlife we will also being paying to keep it upright. The Congressional Research Service estimated it might cost up to $16,000 a mile just to  keep the wall intact.

A sign created by Mexico’s Secretary of Health on how to avoid the spread of influenza.

Just four months ago the streets of Mexico City were nearly desolate — no small feat in a city of 23 million. Schools, restaurants and other public areas were shuttered. The country was in a near panic over the spread of swine flu  (H1N1). It’s incredible what a difference four months can make. Upon arrival at the Mexico City airport I was asked to fill out a form detailing whether I had a fever or cough. Luckily, I had neither and turned my form into an extremely bored looking airport employee upon entering customs.

The only trace of the pandemic at the airport were signs created by the government advising people to wash their hands and not greet others with a kiss on the cheek as is custom in Mexico.  As I headed toward Mexico City’s massive and impressive zocalo– a huge plaza at the center of the city — I would see an occasional person wearing a disposable surgical mask. Millions of these masks  were given out during the height of the H1N1 scare. Inexplicably, I saw one man wearing the mask around his neck as if it were some kind of magic good-health talisman.

As I headed into Sanborns — a huge department store, I saw a European family wearing the disposable surgical masks and snapping photos. It was unsettling to see them walking around in masks, but after weeks of alarming news stories about the flu in Mexico it was understandable.    Of course,  in public health school I learned that these masks do little to prevent the influenza virus from infecting you — the virus is small enough to pass through the porous holes in the mask.  (I think the Mexican government was smart in passing out the masks, however, in order to quell some of the panic around the H1N1 virus.)

While the flu has disappeared from the minds of most Mexicans, there are still cases being confirmed by the government’s Secretary of Health. In the agency’s most current update — July 17th — there were 98 new cases — down from the peak of 391 in early May. To date there have been 14,861 cases confirmed and 138 deaths.  The United States has the highest number of confirmed flu cases at 40,617 and 263 deaths (24 of the deaths occurred in Texas.)

While public health officials monitor the H1N1 situation, Mexicans have more pressing concerns on their minds including escalating narco violence and the resurgence of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which ruled the country for 70 years. In the recent mid-term elections in early July, the PRI won a majority in Congress. Many Mexicans I’ve spoken with are despondent about the PRI’s resurgence. They blame the PRI for many of the country’s current economic and social problems.

A sign of this discord is growing in Tepoztlan, just south of Mexico City, where my husband’s family lives. In early July a candidate for the PRI, Gabino Rios Cedillo, won the mayor’s race after 9 years of the more liberal PRD serving in the mayor’s office. In Tepoztlan, political activists are working to join all of the losing parties together to overthrow the PRI candidate. Last Sunday cars with loud speakers circulated in the city enjoining residents to prevent Rios from taking office. There have been all kinds of accusations surrounding his win — including that he paid for the votes. Residents are hoping the political fracas doesn’t develop into something more bloody.

There is definitely an uneasy feeling these days in Mexico — no one can predict what will happen and there are so many challenges facing the country. Mexicans have lost what little hope they gained in their political system in 2000 when the PRI was toppled.

 A campaign to recycle plastic bottles in downtown Tepoztlan

Tepoztlan, Mexico — For decades Mexico’s beautiful rural countryside has been choked by plastic bottles and bags. Mexico has been slow to adopt municipal recycling programs because of the cost and lack of infrastructure. In one small town an hour south of Mexico City, however,  city leaders have started a recycling program to try and save money and help protect the environment.

The small town of Tepoztlan, population 33,000,  is fighting to keep it’s scenic mountains green and its waterways clear of plastic bottles and shopping bags.

Every weekend the population of the town nearly doubles with tourists visiting from nearby Mexico City. The trash generated by the growing city and its busy tourist trade brought the town’s landfill to the “brink of collapse in 2007″ said Efren Villamil Demesa, Tepoztlan’s mayor.

“We had to come up with a solution quickly because we were running out of room,” said Villamil. The town is nestled in a valley and surrounded by jagged mountains. “There wasn’t anywhere left to go,” he explained.

In 2007, the town started a recycling program. Villamil said the city has spent more than $4 million pesos (approximately $308,000 USD) from its treasury on the recycling program. They bought three trucks and designated a center for separating the trash to be recycled. The service is free, he said. The city has also invested at least $1 million pesos in educating the population about recycling.

“We’ve had people go door to door to show residents that they can recycle glass and plastic,” said the mayor. “The most difficult thing is convincing the older people to recycle because they are used to the old ways of just throwing the trash in a creek or river.”

Businesses that cater to tourists in Tepoztlan are also striving to be green. Norma Avedano, the manager of Cacao, a chocolate store, says her business only uses biodegradable to go containers. “The containers cost more but we are trying to make an effort to help the environment so it’s worth it,” she said. Avedano says her store also participates in the city’s recycling program.

Villamil said Tepoztlan and one other neighboring town are the only two cities in the entire state of Morelos that have recycling programs.  “So far we think it’s been a success,” he said. “We’ve reduced the amount of garbage going into the landfill by 40 percent.”

The millions of pesos generated by tourism are also on the line if Tepoztlan becomes another garbage strewn suburb of Mexico City. The world’s 3rd largest city of 23 million looms just on the other side of the scenic mountain peaks of Tepoztlan.

“We’re so close to Mexico City,” Villamil said. “So we are always reminded that we need to do all we can to protect the environment.”

Norma Avedano, manager of a Tepoztlan cafe, says her business pays extra for biodegradable containers to help the environment.

At long last, Alberto Gonzales has found a job. While there are some who believe he’s best suited for making license plates in a federal penitentiary, his new gig may not be much better: teaching undergrads in Lubbock, Texas.

Ever since his forced retirement back in September 2007, the former attorney general has busied himself with speaking engagements, op-eds, part-time legal help, and high-school commencement addresses.

Now, however, he seems to have found a more permanent home at the Harvard of the Panhandle. According to a Texas Tech press release, Gonzales will be a visiting professor teaching a junior-level class in “Contemporary Issues in the Executive Branch.”

No word yet on whether those “contemporary issues” will include topics such as the constitutionality of torture, proper grounds for firing U.S. attorneys and whether or not it’s appropriate to badger Cabinet secretaries recuperating from major surgery.

The release also states that Gonzales will “assist both Texas Tech University and Angelo State University with recruiting and retaining first generation and underrepresented students.”

(To find out more about where former Bush officials have ended up, you can read our Sept. 18, 2008, cover story here.)

I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the school that hired Bobby Knight as its basketball coach would be willing to offer employment to another controversial public figure.

What is surprising, however, is that a lawyer whose resume includes service as a Texas Supreme Court justice, White House counsel and U.S. attorney general isn’t teaching at Texas Tech’s law school — but rather in its undergrad school of political science.

Then again, maybe that says it all.