1000 Americans: Armando & Mariana, Mexico

Armando & Mariana live in a grand house near Manzanillo, Mexico. They had lived in the US for a long time before and was highly appreciated by his US boss, who wanted to keep him for the company by helping with the necessary papers. Just before his papers were ready, Armando had to return to Mexico to take care of his parents, so it took a while before he could come back to the States.

Now all is arranged and regularly they visit their friends and relatives in the US, but always return to their native grounds, Mexico, to enjoy their mango trees, the outside kitchen and the chilli pepper-eating parrot.

1000 Americans: Shopkeeper in Mexico

Mexico is filled with little ‘Abarrotes’: tiny shops, usually containing with food, water and all kinds or useful and less useful articles. Mostly the shops are connected to the house of the owner, so if there is nobody, just shout and somebody will come out to assist.

This friendly lady was a single mom, but with many plans, to extend and re-paint her shop, so she could keep her kids in school. She helped us with free water and we bought some great sweet bread and bananas to support the education of Mexico’s future.

1000 Americans: Orlando, 80-year old gasoline seller, Mexico

We got to chat with Orlando, an 80-year old Mexican that had great knowledge about geography and mountains all over the world. He was clearly very well educated, but now he just waited in the shade for his next customers: in exchange for free food and lodging, he sold gasoline for a local lady. Using his mouth and a hose he transferred the fuel into the expensive cars that stopped by, realizing that fuel stations were a rarity on this road.

We saw his eyes gleam when we told him about our trip, but our heart broke every time he spent minutes coughing and spitting after every filling-up of yet another car filled with rude people. It was a sad sight, especially with the wrongly spelled ‘Cevende Gasolina’ sign on the road behind him (‘Se vende Gasolina = Gas for sale).

1000 Americans: Mexican family, Pacific Coast route, Mexico

While father never escaped the attraction of the TV–screen in the living room and never even acknowledged our presence, Mother is showing that she is proud of her children who live with her in a small dusty town near the Pacific coast, but go to school and college inland.

1000 Americans: flower grower in Mexico

South of Mexico City, a lot of flowers are grown, many for export, this is one of the growers/farmers we met on the way.

1000 Americans: Coconut cutter in Mexico

Hiding under a tarp for protection against the strong sun, Deolinda slowly cut her way through the pile of thousands of brown coconuts in front of her using a big axe.

The juice was thrown away, as only the coconut oil in the meat is interesting for the cosmetics companies that ultimately are responsible for hiring and underpaying her.

1000 Americans: Michael & Deborah Gallagher, Good News

Michael & Deborah have traded their home for a trip around the world on a small boat, the Good News.

They will try to help out local communities where they can in an evangelistically way. Firm believers, they put their faith in their God to take them safe across the open seas, but they are practical enough to keep a close eye on the autopilot…

Their irregularly updated blog can be found here.

1000 Americans: Antonio & Sarah, Ciudad Constitucion

Antonio is one of Sarah’s 3 sons. he might not have to go to school next year as they re-registered him to late, so maybe he will end up helping the parents with the fruit trees.

Following is a part of our tripreport, about when we met them:

Only a few minutes outside the city limits I noticed a great garden. The house was deserted, but a little ahead were some people underneath a row of fruit trees. Sure, it was ok to camp and if we needed some sweet grapefruits? They were intrigued by our trip, or tent and our stove, but when Ivana started to cook our daily pasta meal, problems began.

Sarah, the mother of the bunch, looked at our meal and then at us and back at the spaghetti again.

‘Que es eso, sopa?’, ‘What is this, soup’?’

‘Pasta! We eat if every night, good energy and tasty!’

‘Hmm. But how are you going to eat it?’, she replied.

We looked at eachother. ‘Well, we have a very nice tomato sauce today!’

Sarah looked perplexed.

‘Y como lo va a comer?’, ‘How are you going to eat it?’ she repeated, this time a bit louder.

As my Spanish is not so good, I was not sure if I had understood her correctly, but Ivana’s face looked just as puzzled as I felt. Ivana tried a different answer.

‘Well, we have a fork and a spoon, Harry has a foldable plate and I eat from the pot, look.’ and she showed Sarah our limited but useful cutlery and cooking gear.

No, that was clearly not the right answer, either. Sarah called her son.

‘Antonio!!! Come here. Go to the tortilleria and get the gringos some tortillas!’.

A few minutes Antonio came back –on his bike!- with a full kilo of hot tortillas. Sarah handed them over and said that at least we now had something to eat our soup with. She also served us delicious fresh and sweet juice, but clearly was still shaken from the thought that somebody would even think about having dinner without tortillas…

1000 Americans: Roberta from Juncalito

Off the grid

Roberta lives in a small community together with other US citizens as well as locals.

There is no power or fixed telephone, they are ‘off the grid’. Power is generated by solar panel (and generator if really needed, but usually that is off) and much communication is done through radios.

She is a gifted painter and has not only made beautiful portraits of the people and places around her, but also painted her own house, above.

1000 Americans: Bill Enos, Mulege

“@#$%@&*!..”

Bill is a master in entering curses in his sentences whenever he talks about his life, his neighbours, his countrymen, both from the US as well as Mexico, his health or anything in particular. But behind all those words is a nice guy in his late sixties, who spends his time in a small oasis in the Mexican desert, trying to forget about his back pain and loving his 4 cats (‘You’re such a good cat!’), while supplying the other gringos with satellite TV.

He used to live closer to the sea, “but the ‘100-year’ storm was coming every few years and I woke up in the water, while being on the #$%@&*! second floor in the last big one!”. So he decided to move up to a bit higher ground, while waiting for the USA-Americans that keep on building brand new houses on his former land, to get soaked in the next big one…

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