Last Friday, Ojeda paid a fine of about $150 for hitting the policeman, and afterwards, she offered a public apology, beside her lawyer. Further charges have not been pressed. Yet. The plot thickened on Saturday, with the announcement that, in 2009, she had worked for 62 days in Mexico State as a "policía bancaria". These are armed guards outside banks. It appears that even though she stopped working two years ago, she is still earning 3000 pesos a month.
I couldn't have expressed this when I began to write about Mexico, but looking over the books I have published, I realize I have always felt that this is a misunderstood country. I wanted to write about the Mexico I saw, and illustrate how it differed from the standard misconceptions. Implicitly I have hoped that some of my work might stir readers to question their received ideas.
But, like I said, I am flummoxed by this story. What does it say about the supposedly frightening and feared police? About the, um, sensitive flower of Mexican womanhood? About the conduct of the clientele in swanky Polanco? Believe it or not this, has been a huge story here in the last week, appearing all over TV, radio and the newspapers. For example, Manuel Mondragón, the police chief of Mexico City, has appeared in any media that would invite him, denouncing the behavior of the ladies, and commending his troops for showing such remarkable restraint.
What I really wonder about is why this story caught fire. In the same week, an actual blaze set by thugs in a casino in Monterrey caused the deaths of 53 people, and it surfaced that, so far this year, 46 taxi drivers have been murdered in Acapulco. Is this kind of a story a (no pun intended) smokescreen for what is really happening in Mexico?
I would be most grateful to anyone -- lady or otherwise -- who thinks she can parse this for me.
Public rest rooms are almost impossible to find in Mexico City. But when you got to go, you got to go. The other day, at the Mercado Medellín in the Colonia Roma, I peed here, and paid four pesos for the privilege. This is the going rate in bus stations, Chapultepec Park, markets, and the few street facilities available. I can afford four pesos, but if you earn the minimum wage in Mexico City -- fifty pesos per day -- I imagine the charge would strike you as rather steep. Memo to Mayor Ebrard: Anything you can do about this before you quit your job to rev up your presidential campaign? Remember the free-of-charge pissoirs on the streets of Paris from when you were studying public administration at the ENA? You could still keep this lady and her friend on the payroll, as attendant and assistant attendant.
