Prehispanic Mexico and Primitive Mexico

Prehispanic Mexico

We wandered around Oaxoca through galleries and museums. The museum of prehispanic art was my favourite. The ceramic figures all seem just a little bit comical to me. Many Mexican artists (including Rivera and Kahlo but many others as well) made a point of collecting prehispanic art. They are the ones who really saved a great deal of it for the people of Mexico. The figures are expressive and animated. Some were made for funerial puposes, some were made with domestic function in mind, and some celebrated the natural environment.
My personal favourite was a collection of really fat dogs. These dogs were an important source of food, so the fatter the better! So far intenstines, maguey worms and fried crickets have been eaten, and we do have plans that involve armadillo, but I don´t think I will go for dog just yet.

Primitive Mexico
Oaxaca is a relatively rich town because so many tourists come here but the poverty is just woeful. Many people are homeless, whole families sit on the street begging. Yesterday Tony and I saw a woman with a girl of about three begging. Finally the girl had enough and threw a tantrum. It was just too much. A young european backpacker couple were walking by with their dinner in take-out boxes and they just handed over the food. It was heartbreaking, the only problem is that just a few metres up the street was another woman with a child, and on goes the story.

Outside every church are piles of dirty rags, inside the piles of dirty rags are even dirtier people who seem to live on the church steps. Just a few doors from our hotel a whole family live in their car. Josh and Charles had a man expose his swollen, possibly gangenous, but definately blackened leg from ankle to knee in an effort to win a couple of pesos. Some are enterprising, and play a tune or try to sell peanuts, but the vast majority are beyond even that. The really old beggars try to get a spot at the church door because it seems they can hardly move. The markets are full of tiny wisened old women who do things like shell peas, or remove the spikes from cactii or peel fruit. I feel reluctant to take photographs, because it seems like an intrusion, but I think it is something everyone should see.

But Don't Stop Reading Now
Slim Carlos is the richest man in the world and he is Mexican! His company Telmex (built with tax-payers' money) controls 90% of the Mexican landline telephone market. His wealth is equal to roughly 8% of Mexico's GDP. Even Rockefeller never got above 2.5% of America's economic output. Slim makes an average of $27 million per day.
The Twist
While I type this, this very second, right now, Slim Carlos is making money from me. Mexicans pay 270% more for broadband than do Americans, and I am sitting in an internet cafe about to press ¨Publish¨ then go up to the girl at the counter, hand over my pesos and make Slim Carlos just a little bit richer.