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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Fishing with the sunset

I buy a dozen raw oysters on the shell ($40 pesos) and coconut ($20 pesos - I buy the biggest one!), both with tons of chili and lime, on the beach tonite, totally blowing my budget. Acapulco is so expensive but it is very hard to resist the scrumptious food that is walked by right under my toes!

My favorite part of the early evening - after the sunset of course - is watching the fishermen stand on the shore, as still and alert as the birds, watching for fish.

They are holding a net that appears to be at least 10 or 15 feet in diameter, over their shoulder gathered in folds. Sometimes they wade into the water up to their shorts; sometimes deeper.

Sometimes they give a shout, or they just rush and toss the net high in the air. It furls open and lands flat on the waves, sinking immediately.

They begin pulling the net, with a long rope that is attached to it and secured in a hand and sometimes between their teeth, towards the shore, tugging it in with the waves.

Soon the net appears, once again, folded in on itself - and full of shiney, shimmering fish! If their throw was lucky!

They shake the fish out of the net, pile them inside their waiting bucket, and return to stare at the ocean once again.

I peer and peer to try to see what they see. I ask them to show me. I look and look. And then, suddenly I see, the fish, scores of them, squirming on the top of the water, barely distinguishable from the waves, but definitely a swift, swirling, flopping run!

And the nets go up and over, and the fishermen are happy!

Their are no clouds tonight, so the sunset is pretty but not stunning. I go to scam Starbucks internet and electricity, while I wait for my solar to be fixed.

My first - and last - veggie oil!

The wonderful guys and two womyn who work at the little restaurant on the beach are the nicest, funniest, and most kind people in Acapulco!

Poncho and Pablo, several days ago, enthusiastically gave me my very first container of oil, diving into their garbage, pulling out the plastic liter bottle 3/4's full of used veggie oil, covered with chunks of left-over dinners, tomatoes, papaya seeds, and who knows what else!

And today, they give me my last huge, 20 liter container of veggie oil that I will collect in Acapulco! The whole male staff comes out to the street with the container, to ew and aw over my truck, and to laugh hilariously at Poncho who keeps making some kind of jokes that I didn't understand.

I can't tell if he is calling me a witch (bruja), asking for a cigar (puro), and calling himself a donkey (burro)! I ask and the guys roar even louder.

They want to see inside the truck, my casa-camion, which I show them and they are duly impressed, especially after I tell them Shazam & I built it out of mostly used things!

They have already seen the veggie tank when they put the container in the back and they seem happy and proud to have contributed to my journey! I know I am very happy and pleased!

When I give them my blog card so they can read this post, Pablo is very upset to see that my name is "Xan" and not Suzana, which is the name I am going by here in Mexico.

After telling him several times "Oigame", I have to smack him to get him to hear that "Xan" is my name in the u.s. but that people here have a hard time pronouncing "Xan" so I went back to my full name.

I have to show him my driver's license to prove to him my full name. And I have to make him try to say "Xan", which he cannot - nor can anyone else!

He pouts and says Suzana is not a u.s.a. name so I sing "Oh Suzana, oh don't you cry for me", which adds much to the hilarity.

Poncho and the rest of the guys head back to the restaurant and I head to my parking place and the beach!

Challenges: solar, money, and all that

The solar has NOT held its charge over the night - and that is without running a thing! So the batteries are fucked and it looks like it is going to be really costly to repair my solar system, at least here. And in all of Mexico, I have the best chance of fixing it here. Thank gawd for credit cards, eh?

Maybe I can convince my dear friend Shazam to come to Mexico with her tools and repair it! We'll see.

So living without electricity is not the worse thing in the world. Living without access to the internet is much worse!

But internet access has been pretty abundant all throughout Mexico, even the tiniest pueblos have internet cafes!

The road to Cuernavaca is strewn with toll charges - it would probably cost me over $100 dollars u.s. to travel the 4 plus hours there. The free roads add time and distance but I have a full tank of veggie oil, so distance doesn't matter. And I have time.

One of my brand new tires is 'chipping' off in chunks around the outer edge. Yes, I'm pissed. When I bought the tires, I had to return the next day because the truck was vibrating. I was told the tire wasn't balanced properly.

Okay, they balanced it and the truck felt better.

Then about a month into Mexico I saw a huge chunk missing and I couldn't imagine what I drove over to do that kind of damage. As I've been reporting, the roads in Mexico are 99% newly paved and smooth.

Now I see that more chunks have been liberated from the edge of the tire. So I'm torn - do I replace the tire now or get a few more miles out of it.

As I'm heading into the mountains, I think I better replace it now. Another zillion dollars! Maybe not.