Mexico Part 1

“Mexico Part 1”

The drive from Cancun to Merida was about three hours. In a jeep that was jarring. The highway was paved with jungle on both sides. I did notice something very odd. Every so often there would be very colorful ribbons tied on the trees. The ribbons, I found out later was for locals to find their paths to their homes. The jungle would grow so fast each family would have a different color ribbon to indicate where their home was.

The project was to build a pumping station and twenty two mile of pipe line. This was to get crude from the oil field to a loading station for tankers. The job was for PetroMex, the Mexican national oil company. The first two to three weeks we would be building a camp for our workers, in which we would be hiring locals.

This was the first time I ever experienced racism. In this part of Mexico we could hire Mexicans for $1.25 per hour. For local Indians, we were limited to $0.85 per hour. To keep in perspective the men we are bringing in would be be making $24.00 per hour. When questioned about this we were told that the government wanted to regulate the pay in order to keep the local economy from being over inflated for future work that the government wanted to do. I could only surmise that Cancun was being built under the same rules.

I grew up in an all white community, went to a all white schools through high school, and went to an engineering school that was predominantly all white. I was raised in the American philosophy that all men were created equal. Paying people differently went against my basic beliefs.

After two years of Spanish in high school and two years of Spanish in college, I would have made my high school teacher, Mrs. Teague very proud, while checking in to the best hotel in Meridan, I could understand maybe one word out of ten spoken to me.

At the front desk, they gave me a baseball bat. It took some doing but I finally understood what I was to do with the bat. Before I got into bed I was to hit the bed to get any snakes and tarantulas out. Once I hit the bed I was to get in and put down the mosquito netting. They could not get under the netting.

Needless to say I hit the hell out of that bed every night. I would wake up three or four time a night checking the mosquito netting or from slapping myself on the arms because I thought I felt something crawling over me. Actually I did bruise my arms from hitting them so much, waking up slapping an invisible spider. In the three weeks I stayed there, I never saw a snake or a tarantula, but that bed was thoroughly whacked by that bat. I actually slept better when we moved into camp, even though it was out in the open, in tents and on cots.

More on Mexico in future blogs