Safety

 No, this is not a post about crime.  This is a post about everyday life in Mexico.  

Mexico has democratically-elected governments at the municipal, state, and federal levels just like we do in Canada.  Those governments govern cities, build roads, pass laws, and draw up regulations.  I have no idea what those laws or regulations are like, or what enforcement exists, or how effective that enforcement is. But I do know that in Mexico, your safety is really your own responsibility -- or it might be entirely out of your hands.

I don't have a lot of great pictures to illustrate this, because after three weeks in Mexico I already take a lot of things for granted.  It can also feel pretty intrusive to take pictures sometimes.

But here are some examples of what I mean.

The Museum of Anthropology in Xalapa has a wonderful collection, housed in a stunning building. The artefacts are displayed in a long, low corridor that leads down a gentle hill, with exhibits both in the main corridor and in galleries off to the side.   Here's a photo taken looking uphill.  

You can't really tell from that picture, but there are many small levels, each separated from the next by a few steps.  

However, this is what the stairs and edge-of-level look like when you're looking directly down. There is virtually zero contrast.

It's lovely that the architect didn't have to compromise his artistic vision in the interests of public safety.  But as a visitor, you need to pay attention and watch your step. I sprained my ankle on level ground this past summer.  I'm sure I could break something unexpectedly falling two feet.

Speaking of falls, the photo below is of a pretty ordinary sidewalk. Anywhere that it's hilly, it's common for there to be unmarked drops of 1-2 meters from the sidewalk's edge to the street. You need to watch where you're walking and not get distracted.

But 1-2 meters is not the limit for unmarked drops. The photo below is of a public walkway on the top of the dam for the reservoir at Presa Piedra Azul near Teotitlan.  The pylons on the left behind Edgar mark the edge of the walkway.  No, there isn't a railing of any kind between the pylons. The drop to the left is maybe 15-20 m.

Of course, safety issues aren't limited to falls.

We took a collectivo to get to the town of Capulapam, which is about 2 hours from Oaxaca in the Sierra Norte Mountains.  Collectivos are shared taxis that run on predefined routes, but not on a predefined schedule.  They leave whenever the taxi is full.  

I  surreptitiously took this shot from inside on our drive. Harvey had a seatbelt in the front seat, but there were none in the back. 

Even a front seatbelt is not guaranteed, because it's common for the driver to place a cushion between the driver's seat and the front passenger seat to fit in an extra passenger.  You have to hope that the driver doesn't need to stop quickly, and of course keep your fingers crossed that there won't be an accident.

The young woman in the centre front kept falling asleep, with her head bobbing forward and back.  It looked really uncomfortable.  

Speaking of which, the road between Oaxaca City and Capulapam is paved, and in excellent condition.  But it's the kind of windy, two lane, no-shoulder highway that we don't build in Canada anymore. 

There's an unbroken yellow line the entire length of the highway, and there's rarely more of a view ahead than shown in this picture.  That doesn't stop drivers from driving on the wrong side of the road if the surface is better there, or from passing to get by big slow trucks.

But drivers help one another out by signalling with their lights or hands if it's clear for the person trying to pass, and our excellent (and safe) collectivo driver refrained from trying to pass on any truly blind corners.

Car seats? In a taxi or collectivo, kids are just held on their parent's laps.

On a completely different topic: food safety.   Less than one week into our trip I was already desperate for vegetables.  At home the majority of what I eat is fruit and vegetables, but vegetables don't show up very much in restaurant meals here. 

So I decided that we should try a place in Xalapa called Big Ramen.  Big Ramen sells exotic Korean import packaged ramen but also make their own noodles and serve soup. Xalapa's a university town and this place was inexpensive and had cheeky student-friendly memes on the walls.  It looked great.  Vegetables, noodles, tasty broth.  Yeah! 

Except my soup was barely lukewarm.  Ugh. This might have been where I picked up whatever knocked me out for 4 days or so.  Or maybe it was the alfalfa sprouts in the sandwich I had in the Denny's-equivalent at the Mall.  Or the delicious salad from the fancy Italian place. :-(

Buying your own food and preparing it yourself isn't necessarily the answer.  Or at least, becoming a vegetarian first would probably be wise. At the markets raw chicken is displayed in out in the open at room temperature, and while the stall proprietors make an attempt to keep the flies off, it's hard for them to be 100% successful.  I have less problem with the room temperature eggs -- those aren't going to go off quickly, and the fact that the eggs we've gotten are mostly fertilized just means that the eggs are from genuinely free-run chickens.

All of this being said, nothing really bad has happened to us in Mexico.  We feel safe on the streets and going about our everyday lives. We haven't seen any bad accidents happening to others either.  

Does that mean that we go a little overboard about safety in Canada?  How much difference do improved safety standards in Canada make anyway? 

Out of curiosity I just checked life expectancy. For a man, Mexican life expectancy is ~75 years. In Canada it's ~81 years.  Significant, but not THAT much different.  Or maybe I'm being a little blase about those 6 years. :-)

In general, when it comes to safety I fluctuate between being bemused about the standards here, feeling a certain devil-may-care pleasure in the freedom, and being just a bit uncomfortable.  :-)