In Queretaro is now very common to see street performances of all kind, professional artist, clowns, hiphop dancing, brazilian capoeira, college groups (estudiantinas), and others today I made a tour downtownm, and took some photos.
In general I would say no, why the topic, well I have read a lot on the internet about the issues of Memin Pingüin and other things.
Why we are not really racist, well because of the mix of races, since the spanish arrive the mix started the first governor of New Spain (Mexico) Hernan Cortés married a native named Malitzin or Malinche, then the spanish bring black people form Africa, and they also started to mix, it was easier to gain their freedom, and after some years slavery was forbiden in New Spain (even before the US) and they started to mix, the spanish where racist, they even create a table of clasification of new races based on the mix.
After Independence that table was destroyed and the census decided to count people and no race, so there are no stats of race in Mexico, we don't know how many people is from every race, and because of that culture, which I love, we are not afraid to say "güerito" (blondie) to white people, or negrito (black) to dark skined people in order to be affective, as you can see in my photos I'm black! or really dark brown, whatever you want to. And in previous post you can see that my brother is actually white (he looks like east european or turkish) he lived in Spain for two years, and when he didn't talk people thought he was from spain, and we are blood related, why is that??. My grandmother (father side) is white, she has blond hair, and my grandfather was dark skin. so I have cousins completly blond and others really black and others that look like asian, and we are all family!!.
The real problem in Mexico is not racism is elitism, which means, if you look rich, you are special, if you look poor you are not, it depends of how you look, what car you have, which school do you assist, which I hate since sometimes you look awful because you where playing football (soccer) or something else and you look dirty and ugly.
I mus tell all black people that, since there is almost no black people in Mexico, when walking in the street people is going to be staring at you, not because they hate you, but because they are amazed and even some are going to ask you questions of all kind. In Queretaro the black people you see are tourist or basketball players from Cometas (Reggie Jordan plays here) and they are so tall and strong that they are even more amazing. By the way girls love black guys (Denzel Washington and Will Smith are really big studs here).
Of course there are racist people, but mainly against native people, don't know why, since all of us (really all of us) have native blood.
Today it is my brithday, I'm now 25 years old... back in 1982 in a wednesday my mom was eight months pregnat, and she fell in the street, as a consecuence I was born in a ER. I have a theory that my parents whant to save money in birthday parties and if I was born the very next day than my brother, they could made a single party for both of us... (just kidding, it wasn't planned my mom did fell)
So I'm having a surprise party, but my friends informed me, in order to make sure I wasn't having something planned, it is going to be in an "Antro" (nighclub) in the Nighlife district.
Finally I'm going to be there, is a place I don't know.
So tomorrow I'll tell you how it was.
As a joke I did this invitation... just to make fun.
Today is my Big Brother (not related to 1984) Bday, he is 3 years and one day older than me, he wsa born on February 7th 1979 (X gen) and I was born on February 8th 1982 (Y gen), three years and one day!
He is also taller than me, I'm 1.90m (6 ft 3 in) while my brother is 1.97m (6 ft 5.5in). I'm the short guy in the family, since my father is taller than me too.
Well my brother was celebrating his 28 bday, so HAPPY BDAY JP!!
It's been two years since the Alizée phenomenon started in all mexico, but, what is that??
Well tow years ago all the night clubs started to show a video from the internet of a french singer named "Alizée" but it was something weird, something never happend before, the moment a man watch that video he get's hooked, and it is almost imposible to stop looking, why, well I actually don't know.
As I tell to my friends, "she is not an angel, she is the devil because only the devil can be so tempting"
A friend from Guatemala visited us and didn't know about her, so I feel I have the obligation to spred the word... well video.
After the Uber successfull video the record stores start to import her CD's, she is very well known in Mexico, but she never came, we didn't even have videoclips on the music channels.
Today 5th of February is the celebration of the day of our beloved constitution, we celebrate it's 90 anniversary.
In 1917 the revolutionary leaders, political leaders and other people gather together in the capital of the country, which at that time it was my city, Santiago de Querétaro, the constitution is a socialist revolutionary constitution, it regulates everything and I consider it the best constitution ever, but we don't respected fully, many people think we have to change it, but the constitutions is not the problem, the problem is that nobody respect it.
Back in 1917 it was a really progressive constitution an example to follow actually, in the constitution field. I hope someday all the great ideas printed there will be true!.
The constitution was signed at the "Teatro Iturbide" a theater built by the emperor Iturbide, but later renamed because of the constitution to "Teatro de la República" which is Republic Theater, also because of that events one of the most important newspapers in the country was created "El Universal" with its first offices here in Queretaro too.
Here a photo of the theater, which is now the home of the Philarmonic Orchestra.
Let's be honest, I like the gallos, they are my team, and I'll support them no matter what, but the game first 45 minutes were extremly BORING, so boring indeed, I was falling sleep, and I wasn't the only one, even the crowd was quiet.
The second 45 minutes the team revive, and give a great second half, but it wasn't enough... Dear Gallos please fight with all you can from the begining to the end, I know it is hard, but it is worthy, so you stay in the premier league, and please do it now... the fans can get angry and stop going to the stadium.
Every 2nd of February we (mexicans) and probably other in the world, celebrate Candelaria's Day, the day when baby Jesus was presented to the church... well the tradition for those who are really religious is that, they take dolls of baby Jesus with brand new clothes and take him to the church and then eat tamales at home.
With my friends and I, we don't use the religious part, we only ate the tamales and be togheter, probably several of my friends don't know the real meaning of the day.
By the way the person or people who when magic kings day get a doll of baby Jesus they HAVE to buy the tamales and atole to everyone else.
Since it was really a mess to get tamales we ended eating the french version of tamales, well I want to believe that, because of no we break tradition, we ate crepes... it was good but not the best crepes ever, there are a lot of better crepes sites in the city, but my friend choose this one named Villemont, the only bad thing is that the crepes are extremly dry, no sauce no dressing, no extra nothing.
But in order to preserve tradition we are going to eat tamales other day in february, probably in "Day of Love and Friendship" we call that way St. Valentine's Day.
Well public transport is very important for the development of any city and country in the world, right!
Well, according to people older than me, my mom, in Queretaro the public transportation was almos non existant, it was a miracle to find a cab or a bus, and the buses and cabs where is such horrible conditions that it was a miracle to get off alive, the goverment decided to arrange this, so every single public tranport in Queretaro is private, the goverment gives licenses and regulates the prices and stablish some rules.
This improved the public transport very much, but also arise a new problem, there are too many bus companies, and too many routes to learn and too many bus stops, because every single bus company stablish their own route, with a different name, so in order to get to my house from "El Seguro" which is like the HUB of buses in the city I can take route 1, M, 38, and other I don't know, the rout 1 is for CTM buses, the M is for Sista Buses, and so on, which makes thing really complicated. Also some buses are not allow to enter the downtown (the buses are too big) and other buses are not allow to pass to other municipalities (the city is formed by four municipalities).
The good thing is that the buses are not old, like in other cities where public transportation is run by goverment but they compete to get passangers so they drive really bad.
Here photos of some of the bus companies in town, if you want to use the system make sure you buy the route book in any magazine booth in the street, you will see a book fill with all the routes for all the companies and time schedule (schedule is not respected).
Today I was driving home, and took a new way to get home, because there is a lot of working in the roads, fixing the to make them pretty!, I love that, but also hated, because you have all the traffic issues, well back to my story I saw an Oxxo which is the mexican version of 7Eleven, I was surprised because it is in located in the middle of nowhere, there's being a lot of openings of Oxxo's in the past year, but this is to have hope.
I think they Hope that there is going to be a great building next to be built, or at least some houses, because is in the middle of nowhere you can judge, just see the photo!. Probably they have a goal of open 100 more stores, and they where left with no other place to be built, so they choose this piece of land.
December 2009February 2010
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