Two Homies, Two Books

My friend Erin Siegal is in the midst of writing a book about illegal adoption. Through the lens of one specific case of adoption from Guatemala to the US, Finding Fernanda: A True Story of Crime, Corruption and Faith examines the pain on both sides of the equation, and the complex forces that drive this industry. (read a summary here)

Erin has done A TON of research, and continues on this track. Actually, when I met Erin, I was surfing. I would go out, she would be working. I would come back. Working. Go surfing again, come back. Working. Eat. Working. etc. Often she wouldn't even talk to me if i said hi, or would occasionally shoot a 'stop being idiots' glance at me and her partner in crime if we were laughing hysterically about nothing, much too close to her (fair enough). Dedicated to the cause is the point I am making.

As I know a lot of Esteyonage readers have interest in adoption, and email me about it here and there (keep it up!), I thought I would mention this: Erin's project is currently on kickstarter, a site that helps raise money for developing projects. One really cool thing is that if you give money to the project - even $ 10 - you get updates on the project, about what Erin is working on at the time, and other developments in the book. If you think that is rad, this is the link to the project. I guarantee any money will go directly into hard work.

On a side note, while making dinner for my roomies the other day, I listened to a This American Life episode called 'No Map', where the second half is about an unjust adoption from Samoa to the US.... it damn near choked me up. Love that show.



Another friend, Roberto Abadie, has just published a book on the unregulated world of drug testers. The Professional Guinea Pig: Big Pharma and the Risky World of Human Subjects reflects months of Roberto's work living within communities of people who often test drugs. More so, this book is the product of his obsession with this topic, and is a more "official" follow up to a multi-year study he did following anarchists who use money from drug testing as a means of survival (yes, I think it would be a pretty interesting addition to the G-by series).

Says Roberto in an article in the Chronicle,

"Throughout my life, I had been studying drug users and how they understand risk," he says. "That's what I thought I would do as a medical anthropologist...

...When I first found this topic, I was so engaged with it that I couldn't sleep."

I just heard yesterday that Time is doing something on this book, so look for that. Also, you can buy it directly from Duke Press, or, of course, from the bigger places.

Wyclef Jean for President (not joking)

I got this pic from here Props to 'le liz' for noting me to this.

Last night, I learned how to play Woody Guthrie's "Jesus Christ for President" on guitar. Today, I learned that Wyclef Jean (of Fugees fame) will be running for president of Haiti. Joking? nuh-uh

Naturally, I instantly morphed back to days of sharing walkman ear buds and ciggies outside my high school, listening to "the fugee-la."

I don't really feel much like commenting in general, so let's just bring it back to 'Clef, at the peak of his (and all Fugee members') game, in 1996, and just 'enjoy'.

"For me to get a chance, grab my pen and revamp
Do a cameo while everybody do the dance.
Quick now, cause you runnin' out of lucka
Playin' Mr. Big, I'm gonna get you sucka.
While you munchin at your luncheon, I'll be planning your assassination
Then hit you like the Dutchmen"

Mexico v Liberia: An Informal Comparison

If your wordplay is on point today, you will have caught that this is a post about the informal economies of Mexico and Liberia (my two latest places of residence), not just a sweeping comparison. This, because it applies to my blog series 'Gettin' By' that I started in Liberia, about how people make a living in the economy that exists outside of formal statistics; the informal economy. As I now live in Mexico, I plan to continue it here.

Ever since arriving in Liberia with the “knowledge” that 85% of its residents were unemployed, I have been suffering from a minor obsession about how people with little to no money make it from day to day, and how life works outside of statistics that make limited sense to me - a country can't survive if 15% of the population works. This interest cranked my knowledge of the informal economy – which keeps Liberia afloat - from 0-ish to “strong-ish” relatively rapidly, though I’m still learning tons.

It also led to the development of ‘ Gettin’ By’, the blog series that looks at how people making up this 85% make a living in the informal economy: makeshift jobs, temporary employment and the endless people selling goods and services along the streets of Liberia. Basically, people doing what the statistics say they don’t: working to make sure they have cash for their families.

Obviously, this is not unique to Liberia. (Some studies have estimated that the informal economy accounts for up to 60 - 70% of employment in the developing world). But in Liberia, the years of war took a heavy toll on the ability of businesses to even exist, let alone provide dependable jobs, so the problem is – temporarily, at least – more acute than most places, and a larger percentage of people need to devise their own means to create employment.

Mexico is a vastly different country than Liberia, no matter how you cut it, and I’m not about to play a “this, but not that game” with the two

One comment from surfers I know along the coast always struck me during my trips here over the years: “Mexico is a third world country” (usually said in some permutation of Mexican expletives). While I don’t particularly gel with “Third World” terminology in general, I also never really agreed that Mexico can be considered in the same demographic category as somewhere like Liberia.

Intense poverty exists in all regions of Mexico, and is particularly prominent in many regions, most generally, the south. But intense wealth, a manufacturing sector and a middle class that has some level of economic security and material possessions (surfers, eg) are also common throughout. A $ 13 500, GDP means its roughly 25 times that of Liberia, though Mexico also has the largest differential of what the rich earn vs the poor, which skews this statistic (so says the 2008 OECD report "Are we Growing Unequal?"). Death by preventable or treatable diseases exists with significantly less frequency than in West Africa, and infrastructure reaches all over the country: beautifully paved roads, electricity and running water exist in all cities, most towns and even some rural locations. Not that this reflects an exact definition of whether a country is developing or not, but Mexico, as a whole, has a lot of development currently lacking in Liberia.

Nonetheless, the “Third World” perspective has a point. Mexico still has somewhere in the range of 7 million living on $2/day or less – twice as many as live in all of Liberia. From goat farmers in the inhospitable deserts of Baja (thanks for saving our asses, guey!), to hand net fishermen on Oaxaca’s coast to coffee growers in the jungles of Chiapas, to street hawkers all over, there are a ton of Mexicans living with very little safety net, or guarantee of income. Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Quintana Roo show especially low demographics in health, education, infrastructure and economics, and (likely) do a lot to skew the overall demographics of Mexico as a whole.

Officially, the minimum wage sits around 50 pesos, or $ 4 and change (exchange rate is in the mid 12’s these days; $ 1 US = 12+ pesos.) This is not an overly encouraging wage, especially when this can theoretically involve long days in factories making goods to be shipped directly to the States, or you have a family of four to support. In reality, this wage does not really exist; few would agree to work for less than $ 100 pesos a day, especially in the cities. Why? Because one, you pretty much can't survive off that if you have dependents, and two, you can easily make that in the numerous means available within the informal sector.

Please see following post, Gettin’ By Mexico

Gettin’ By Mexico

Every night I was surfing off the end of this jetty, dude would reel in these massive cavalas with a frickin' hand reel off slippery rocks, and selling them in town. Last summer, I pulled up an eight inch bass with a hand reel on a calm lake, and let me tell you, it wasn't that easy...

[Note: this the second of a two-parter about switching 'gettin' by' - the series at how people make a living outside of formal employment - from Liberia to Mexico. Please see above post for more info.]

These differing realities mean Gettin’ By in the informal sector comes with very different dimensions in Mexico than how i started writing about Gettin' By. In some ways its completely different, but in others, its just the same: when lacking the ability for gainful employment, people find a niche in the grid. To me at least, Mexico offers a fascinating new dimension to the puzzle.

The biggest difference is that Mexico is incrementally more regulated than Liberia, on all levels. Way more formal employment exists (unemployment officially sits around 6%, though all major indicators suggest that 25 % underemployment accompanies this), and many seemingly informal jobs require permits, registration and a date with the looming giant that is Mexican bureaucracy. Also a much larger, and very organized, illegal economy exists, and provides a massive amount of money. I have found no reliable stats on this.

To unskilled workers, there's not a ton of gratifying options. Anyone you talk to will tell you this. Even university or college grads, tradesmen and other skilled labourers complain lack of options or room to move up in their professions. As the wage status quo means that a lot of these jobs do not come with salaries that don't fit the amount of work or needs of the workers, carving out your own niche can be a more effective means of making money. Cost of living is also substantially higher, so wages come with lesser buying power, and you need more to ‘get by.’

From a documentation perspective, the illegal economy complicates things greatly. In fact, it is not abundantly clear to me yet exactly where the traditional informal economy begins and the illegal economy ends is complicated. ('Informal economy’ is not meant to include the illegal economies such as drugs, prostitution or organized crime, even though such means of earning money do not get measured by traditional economic institution, and it is a very important means of Gettin' By that supports a ton of people worldwide: “black market”, for example, has a different connotation than a money-earning trade not counted in census data.)

Many normal, 'self-starter’ appearing street jobs are actually very controlled by, uh, other forces. Thus, the first people I approached about their seemingly informal jobs had no interest in talking to me beyond the superficial "how da body?" type stuff, and adamantly opposed the idea of photos. Lesson learned.

But everyone I have spoken to about this agrees: the informal economy is massive.

Despite the image of Mexico being constantly immersed in a drug war that prohibits people from leaving their houses, life thrives on the streets throughout most of the country. From the smallest pueblos to the endless colonias in the massive concrete jungle of Mexico City, markets rule. And there’s always something for sale at street level.

Busy intersections always have someone hawking something in the stopped traffic, and markets and street stands are everywhere. And what, you were walking home from work thinking 'where will I get a broom at such an hour?' Luckily the truck with brooms and the ever-present megaphone just drove by. And then you took a bus and were thought, "ooops, I forgot to buy pens:" guess who appears but the dude selling packs of pens for a special price (always with the special prices). And then you got off the bus, wishing you had brought a snack: bang! Tamales, pescadillos and bags of fruit, literally inches in front of your face, and, luckily, a sidewalk full of dubbed movies that you can take right home and watch after dinner (along with a million other things...)

Services also play a bigger role in Mexico’s informal sector. Taking advantage of the needs of the relatively large middle to upper classes, offering additional or temporary labour keeps millions of Mexicans able to pay bills.

I’m still feeling things out, but from what I see, this is the landscape of Gettin’ By in Mexico. Posts about individual people and what they are doing to accomplish this outside of more traditional forms of employment coming soon to an Esteyonage near you.

How are Things In Guatemala?

Hanging with two journo friends in March this year, they kept saying that Guatemala was headed down the tubes to the next failed state. Yes, they had both worked there recently, but I take such things with a grain of salt. But had been reading some pretty troubling stuff ever since.

There's a great article in Foreign Policy about how Mexican narco influence may be rendering my salt grains unwarranted.

"Just how bad is it?" asks writer Steven J. Dudley. "Last month, Guatemala's president, Alvaro Colom Caballeros, welcomed the courts' removal of the newly elected attorney general for his alleged ties to criminal groups that, among other nefarious activities, sold adopted babies on the black market. Days earlier, four severed heads were placed in strategic locations in Guatemala City with messages pinned to them warning of a similar fate for the minister of the interior and director of prisons. This was the drug gangs' way of firing back against a recent tightening of regulations in Guatemala's jails. And, in the midst of the chaos, the Constitutional Court approved the extradition to the United States of a former president accused of embezzling millions in public funds. Just another day in Guatemala."

(Read full article here.)

For posterity, I shot a quick email to a friend working there to inquire if it really is that bad.

The quick reply. "Yes it is"

What the monkey?

Though smuggling and Mexico seem relatively synonymous terms in any scan of today's news media, monkeys rarely appear as the noun being smuggled. And, while the illegal animal trade in Mexico thrives, if it is a monkey being smuggled, its certainly not 'on person.' And on the rare occasion it is, it is certainly not in bulk.

That's right. A man was caught trying to smuggle 18 monkeys strapped to himself. Not joking.

Roadside Assistance v TED

I spend a lot of my time as pictured above (way too much): on the side of some backwoods road, praying that someone will eventually stop, and that someone will know a little something about cars. Usually, this does not happen, and McGyver tactics are employed to reach the closest pueblo.

Though probably best not to go into all details, the latest escapades take the cake. A mix of anger, frustration, hopelessness and the feeling of life wasting away beyond your control, lost to the hands of mechanics somewhere on a mountain road, only to achieve nothing; the van got left behind, the story unfinished.

As this uselessness plodded its course, TED talks in all their eclectic shapes and sizes filled rooms in Oxford, wrapping up yesterday. (If by some chance you are not familiar with TED, please take the time to at least download some talks from their rad site, or through their itunes podcast).

After gaining interest from my homey Jenny Stefanotti's Twitter feed from the conference, I went looking for more info (she started blogging again, fyi).

Ethan Zuckerman won. Ethan, who runs an unbelievably informative blog (that, admittedly, often flies over my head on the technology side of things), took it upon himself to do what appears to be live summaries of most of the talks. They are currently the first 40 posts or so, and well worth the read.

From Tan Le's helmet that can allow brains to accomplish tasks without using the body, to Wikileaks - a site i can't believe I didn't know about - that publishes leaked documents at rates that make journos shake their heads, to encouraging accounting for human rights in the supply chain, and even making origami out of hate mail received after starting a campaign called 'From 52 to 48 with love' that encourages caring dialogue between regular Dem and Rep people and putting said origami on plants or cats. (see below)

If you're in the mood for stimulation, reading Ethan's summary notes will certainly teach you something you didn't already know.

Guaranteed cooler than being stuck in small towns with Mexican mechanics.

Sin Booze

At midnight last night, all bars, cantinas, clubs and tiendas of all kinds stopped hawking booze in Oaxaca. Not permanently, but because Mexican laws dictate no buying or selling of booze in the day of or before an election. Obviously this doesn't stop people from drinking, but certainly makes it tougher to realize sporadic urges.

The 'pre-midnight stockpile rush' - which seemed to still be going strong shortly after 1 am near my house - certainly lent a bit of weight to the idea that short-term prohibitions do little curb net amounts consumed. ´Wasted´ would be a good way to describe the somewhat large crowd slumped around the abarottes.

Mex is certainly not alone on this front. Ecuador has a three day, pre-election ban, as do many others across Latin America. Same deal with some US states. Its an interesting connundrum, trying to think about how much trouble this law actually averts, and pretty tough to calculate accurately. With the somewhat heated political race in Oaxaca and occasionally high tensions, it doesn't seem like the worse plan. Plus, no one seems to complain about it (except for the fact that today, with all bars closed, the Spain/Paraguay game was nowhere to be found, and I wasted a LOT of time seeking it).

As propaganda continues to hurl from all sids, perhaps it is good that a few less borachos wander the streets for a day or two.

Still Mad, RE; ghana

Not suprisingly, got some pretty scathing emails regarding Uruguay´s deliberate hand ball to block a goal at the end of extra time. Truly a disgrace on all accounts. (For what its worth, i thought FIFA rules said you can call an intentional hand ball that blocks a sure-fire goal an actual goal. I skimmed the rule book yesterday, but didn´t have the time or patience).

Definitely my favourite communique, from a normally very (com)passionate, non-sporty person, reminded me why I love sports on the international stage.

And I quote:

"i fucking hate uruguay. i am never ever ever going there, and i hope i never have to do any work that contributes to their development.

fuck"

Still laughing about this, though actually pissed about how that can't be called differently.