Jolly Catemaco

It is not the season to be jolly in beautiful downtown Catemaco. At least for considerably more than half the municipal employees.

As of January 1st, a new mayor is in town and every one of them is at the whim of politics to either continue to be employed or to join the unemployed.

There is no functional civil service in Mexico. And the consequences are as can be expected: generally inefficient, corrupt, unfriendly, brow beaten and kowtowing to their superiors.

Mexican municipal governments separate their workers into three classes, base, confianza and elected.

"Elected workers" are the elected officials. In Catemaco there are 5, the presidente municipal (mayor), 4 regidores (councilmen) and 1 sindico (comptroller+/-). Effectively only the mayor is of importance. All are significantly over paid in relation to the median wages of their electorate. On the municipal level they are elected for three years, and cannot be reelected until 3 more years have passed.

"Confianza" employees are generally all the bosses and sub-bosses of departments, technicians and specialty workers. Their pay schedule is considerably below that of elected workers but way above the "base" employees. They are appointed by the mayor. Well substantiated rumors claim that  many contribute a percentage of their salaries to their political bosses. Although the mayor appoints most, significant interference is exerted by superior level politicians.

"Base" employees are generally the peons of the system, mostly near minimum wage workers, doing mostly menial jobs. Unless temporarily contracted, after 6 months they have lifetime tenure, and are damn hard and very expensive, to get rid off. They are entitled to form one, and only one, union.

Obviously the temporary nature of elected and confianza workers is problematic. Their only hope for future employment is related to their political connections.

Elected workers only continued employment rests with the next level government, which is the state, in case of municipal employees.

Obviously the best interest of elected and confianza workers lies in themselves instead of their community. The results are obvious to anyone familiar with Mexico.

Casa de los Tesoros, Catemaco

The daughter of the former owner, fondly known as Fool on the Hill, of the best handicrafts store in southern Veracruz, La Casa de los Tesoros, reopened her parent´s dream after 20 years, below the basilica, in an upstairs locale with a grand view of the plaza.

The store now includes a limited bistro menu featuring bagels, novel omelettes, great wines, desserts and Japanese tea.

Despite monthly buying trips to Oaxaca, Guatemala and other trinket centers, she now has a hard time keeping her shelves full.

Meanwhile, because of the convivial atmosphere, most Catemaco newcomers and foreign tourists have made the "Casa Lost" their favorite home away from home.

Mexico 30

The Santa Claus lookalike who had been kidnapped seven months ago, apparently paid a 30 million dollar ransom. This kidnap has to be the Mexican joke of the year.

Pemex plans to spend 30 million pesos to compensate the up to 30 deads of the recent gasline explosion which supposedly resulted from an illegal tap which supposedly costs Pemex 3 and a half billion pesos per year.

Mexico just handed out its first life sentence to an 18 year old. Up to now the maximum was 30 years.

And of course there are more than 30 thousand drug war related deaths.

Chedraui is keeping Walmart on its toes. The Veracruz based chain plans 30 more stores next year in Mexico, plus some in the US.
 
And on the world wide scene: 30 died near Christmas Island.
 
Merry Christmas

Catemaco Fire

Just the day before yesterday I walked onto the dock and noticed its deteriorating condition with missing and loose planks. As usual I was accosted by one of the resident winos for a handout. Today at 2 in the morning, the son of my Popoluca came racing into the house grabbing my fire extinguisher and  yelling "the dock is burning".

In 2006, a local Belgian quiropractor and sailing enthusiast promoted the idea of a Yacht Club in Catemaco, assuring that 200 sail boats would arrive and make the Laguna a sailing center. He found some support in government circles, and  a Veracruz  government agency approved plans to solicit construction of a marina at the end of the Malecón of Laguna Catemaco. And then the project died.

Apparently the Belgian and some unknown associates then went ahead and constructed a dock and a palapa, a little north of the Koniapan hotel. Sometime later ownership apparently changed hands, and the dock is now supposedly owned the by the son of the owner of  Nanciyaga, who also manages the sewage running down Catemaco streets.

For about a year, the Belgian, who owns the only sail boat anchored in the Laguna, stationed his boat next to the dock until it sank from the side effects of a tropical storm passing over the lake.

Meanwhile the vaunted dock found absolutely no use and became a favorite hangout for the dozens of winos that congregate in the area and the occasional kids who used it as a dangerous playground and diving platform.

In 2007 the surrounding are was again heavily promoted as the site of a 30 million peso marina project. That also died.

Apparently the fire was caused by firecracker, common this time of year, and dangerous because Catemaco has no fire department. Now, I presume, for the next few years, Catemaco will just have another eyesore encumbering the beauty of Laguna Catemaco.

 

See more photos of the Dock

Catemaco is for the birds

181 species of them in 3 days. See Robert Straub's trip report here.

No more beautiful downtown Catemaco

Because of the recent self imposed disappearance of Catemaco News readership (change of internet address) and also because I am bored stiff  when it is cold and rainy here, I now plan to extend my comments beyond beautiful downtown Catemaco to include Veracruz and the rest of Mexico.

Aside from entertaining the occasional gringo reader it will also provide some foreign insight into Mexico to those locals who use the Spanish translation feature.

My primary English sources, aside from Google are:;
Latin American Herald,
El Economista column of Roberto Mena
Mexico Feeds by catemaco.info
For Mexican sources, I use:
Catemaco Diario Enlaces