Crime and Punichment Mexico Style

Wow, I was able to witness the Mexican Judicial system third hand today. The learning experience this year is amazing. A typical vacation to Mexico consist of beaches, swimming pools, good tacos and Diet Coke. This year it has been a steady flow of running to the paint store, negotiating maintenance contracts, shoveling gravel, tropical landscaping, and today I spent traveling with some friends as they worked out a deal for one of their close friends. I consider myself very lucky to just be an observer of the system and hope to never find myself on the other side of the corruption. It started off by picking up another man who according to others had quite a bit of power in this local area (not to mention he is about 6'6" and 260lbs mostly all muscle). This is not a guy you would want to have on your bad side, however I found him to be quite likable and he even tried to sell me his products for construction. Let's call him Hector (real names are omitted to protect identity and me). Hector took us to the local police station where Paco (my friend) handed Hector 3000 pesos (about $300 usd). After a brief wait outside and seeing some slimy looking attorneys hanging around out front out came Hector with a big smile. Once all in the car he proceeded to tell us that the officer wanted 45000 pesos (about $4500 usd). Apparently Hector was the right man for the job because when it was all said and done the $3000 pesos were just enough to cover it. The officer kindly wrote up a ticket for $2000 pesos and slipped the other $1000 in his pocket and that was that. To some this probably sounds pretty slick but the scary thing is if they know you have it they will just say whatever the mood is for the day. Also not everyone has $3000 pesos just lying around their house. Today I had a nice talk with one of my good friends. He and his family are trying desperately to buy a house. When I asked how much the house cost that they were interested in he told me it was $7500 usd and the banks don't really have mortgage loans. It makes you realize how much we take for granted at home and how much more we could be doing for others. Instead of buying a latte everyday for 6 years you could buy an entire family a home and this is in an expensive area of Mexico. Today's tour made me happy to just be a passenger. Hopefully no one I know ever gets into a mess like this.
After dealing with the Mexican systems I was treated to a stop at the Carpenters house (a carpenter is typically a furniture maker not houses). From now on my crews and subs are not allowed to complain about the work site, or the quality of tools. These guys are taking entire logs and milling them with ancient equipment outdoors in their backyard. The wood then goes onto the rooftop to dry. Once dry they use every last piece to make some of the most beautiful furniture you have ever seen. The spray room is just off in a corner and I did notice a touch of dust in the finish seeing as how a thickness planer from the 50's is going full bore with in 15' of the finish area. Other wise this is amazing pieces. Imagine what these 2 artist could do with flat conditions, newer tools, and pre dried lumber. Most of us wouldn't be able to even afford to go to the showroom. But here a Queen bed made out of this wood with 4 drawers is about $200usd. I will post pictures when it arrives.
A quick update to the last post about patience. That night I was a bit discouraged that the furniture was a no show. I had recently bought a Mexican cell phone just for dealings down here and to communicate with Allison. At 10:30 that night just as I was heading into dreamland my phone starts ringing like mad and yep you guessed it my furniture had arrived. In my broken spanish sounding like a 1 year old I told them I was at another house and I would be there in 5 min. I hurriedly put on some shorts and a shirt and headed out the door to every barking dog in Chacala. We quickly unloaded the furniture and I placed it where I though it would go and took a couple of quick pics to show Allison if she happened to wake up in all the commotion. When I returned home Allison wanted to see the pics and once she saw them she couldn't get back to sleep so we went to the house and rearranged furniture until 12:30am. We are very pleased with what we selected. So Monday night we stayed at the house with 3 mattresses on the floor all in the same bedroom. It is like a warm camping trip. The kids spend their day swinging in the hammocks and Allison and I work on the house and swim some laps at one of the pools. Allison is very excited to have her mom come for a visit next week while I return home for a brief few days of checking on work.

Adios
Los Millers