And that was after paying them only about 15% of my labor cost in the USA.
So, today, my last survivor from the original crews, whom I had converted into a maintenance gardener, advised me he is heading north. His cousins have work for him in Canada.
Since I pay this person well (at least 20% above the going rate), pay his insurance, which is unusual in Mexico, provide him with dozens of opportunities to earn extra money, allow him benefits of free cement, paint, any fruit he can pick, firewood, etc, - pay him a 15 day year end bonus, plus holidays, sick days, vacations, etc, plus use of my property for baccanalias - I began to think I´m not just a patron (boss, in Spanish), but also perhaps a little patronizing.
So, this extraordinarily hardworking man, who now has a tiny concrete house with gorgeous wooden windows just meters away from Laguna Catemaco, and 2 lovely children, a very accomodating wife who daily delivered his lunches, 2 cows, several small pieces of terrain, and a bicycle I bought for him after I drove over his old one - he now heads for Canada.
The pollero (people smuggler) that will take him to Canada will collect 25,000 Mexican pesos, around US 2,200.
So I told him Canada does not require visas of Mexicans, just a passport, and some reasonable responses at the immigration point in Canada. And I told him, a Mexican passport is obtainable within a few days, if you have a Mexican birth certificate and voter registration card and costs as little as 700 pesos for 1 year´s validity.
And I told him, excursion round trip fares from Mexico City to Toronto are in the neighborhood of US 600 dollars. (He needs to show a roundtrip ticket to fool the immigration officer).
And I estimated he will have to work for 3-4 months to pay for his trip there and back before sending 50 centavos to his family.
I guess, that´s where the "patronizing" aspect comes in play again. He would prefer to go the pollero way. Incidentally, the pollero does not guarantee work, the cousins do.
At least he is not as dumb as the son of an American friend here in beautiful downtown Catemaco, who advised his dad he will cross the border illegally to make some some effort to support the woman he impregnated. Apparently my American friend never got the idea across to his Mexican son that he is entitled to a US passport.
I wish all of them well. Frankly, if I were a countryside youth in Mexico, I would go NORTH.
Unfortunately most of the ones who do, come back to Mexico, build a second story on their home, throw a giant party, and revert to their previous life.
