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Letter from Mexico City
The writer worked in LASC before returning to Mexico after 10 years away. She
had lived there for 13 years previous to that.
Work has been a big shock to the system. Teaching isn't so bad, I've got
enough experience, so I don't have too much trouble, but I have to get up
at 5.30 almost every morning, and be lively by 7 a.m. I realise now that
slavery exists in Mexico. It's so strange to live somewhere that resembles
England in the 1850s. Things that I read about and couldn't imagine - now
I'm meeting the actors and I still can't imagine what life must be like for
them.
I arrived into the office of a Mexican-US medical insurance company at
7.30 a.m. That particular day I felt wrecked from all the early mornings
I'd had that week and also it's a bit far from my house and it's standing
room only on the metro. Anyway I arrived in and the only other person there
was the cleaner so I asked her "what time did you get in?" "Six o'clock"
she says. Then she volunteered that she has to work until nine every
night, although officially she's supposed to finish at 2 p.m. I forgot to
ask if she works a five day week or a six day week - whatever, that's
fifteen hours a day! Even if I was paid in gold I wouldn't want to do it,
especially when she couldn't possibly live nearby, and must travel an hour
or an hour and a half each way. She gets a miserly five hundred and
something pesos a week for that.
My student is an actuary (someone who calculates insurance I'm informed).
He's all for privatisation, and can't wait for them to privatise the
national health system (it's a health system for people who work in the
private sector) so that the insurance companies can take it over. Anyway,
he doesn't look poor but he has to work twelve hours a day every day. I
didn't even bother to ask him about his family when I heard that, because
they must be strangers to him.
Gabriel - my daughter's boyfriend - isn't any better off. He works in the
museum but isn't employed by them, but by a private company. The company
changed hands a few weeks ago, after having neglected to pay them their
full salaries for quite a long time. Now they've been informed that they
won't be paid what's owed to them.
But, as I say, it's not just the cleaners; everybody is working far more
hours than is good for their health, or their family life or their social
life. It was bad before but now it's much worse. I'd love to run back to
Ireland and forget that such a world exists.... But, how do you forget?
The university is on strike. That's a quarter of a million students. The
rector/government wants to raise the fees that have been merely symbolic
for many years. Opinion is divided on this issue but it's just another of
the IMF's rules being put into effect.
Tiny children on the metro, with an older child, begging for money...
I hadn't realised how good Mexico was before.....
As for invalids: in the metro they have lovely civilised signs indicating
that certain seats are for people with physical disabilities, but after a
while I realised that the only people with physical disabilities that I
ever saw on the Metro were walking or crawling up and down performing for
money. But there's always money for big advertising campaigns on
television telling us how well Mexico is doing.
There's a party going on in front of the flat at the moment. Even parties
have become rare. Other peoples' parties, when you're not invited, can be
depressing, because how come they're having such a good time and I'm here
on my own, but this one I'm happy about because I think it's the first I've
heard since I returned to Mexico, and there was a time when almost every
Saturday night one of the neighbours would have a party.