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August 26, 2002.
Are we all having a good summer?
I certainly hope so, because if you read the headlines
or watch the news on TV or surf the net, you could think
that the world was coming to an end… Everywhere
is another tale of disaster: floods and droughts (a.k.a.
weird, wild and wacky weather), smog over the Asian
continent that stings the eyes and chokes the lungs,
bad snake-headed fish -that eat everything in sight
and can even walk on land- and even badder mosquitoes
that carry diseases from the land of the pharaohs, icebergs
the size of Switzerland breaking off the polar ice caps
and giant Asian carp looking for a way to enter the
Great Lakes system to wreak environmental havoc that
would read like a sci-fi alien invasion.… What
are we doing to our planet?
We have no one to blame but ourselves.
North Americans (Canadians and Americans) only represent
5% of the planet's population, but we gobble up 25%
of the world's energy reserves - according to a UN report
released last week. In 1998, we spewed ¼ of the
world's carbon dioxide into the air, and strange weather
just may be the result. Now "climate change",
that's really scary. We Canadians have always boasted
about all our fresh water reserves, but those will continue
to disappear if things don't change and when water levels
drop, pollutants become more concentrated and so on
and so forth. Hydroelectric dams are left high and dry.
The future doesn't look all that great…
So people start thinking that maybe
they need a vacation from reality, maybe Europe. Well
the Old Continent hasn't been faring much better lately,
what with Prague underwater, along with parts of Russia,
Germany and Austria… Dark clouds of smoke hanging
over South America and the Mediterranean, not just Asia.
One day, these airborne toxins could very well join
forces in one massive veil of death. With another Earth
Summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg this
week, Canadians and Americans might wonder why their
governments haven't acted on the Kyoto agreement yet.
It's been five years.
On the subject of "pollution",
I had the opportunity (?) to witness some in person
recently. On Thursday afternoon, August 15th, I went
to "Once Upon A Time…" for a little air-conditioning
and some guanabana & Midori liqueur sherbet, but
as there was a large group of American tourists in the
shop, I decided to go sit at one of the little tables
outside and wait for them to be served. I watched the
buses come around the bend as if they were on the last
lap of the Grand Prix or the Indy 500, and I thought
of the survey Angela (my friend, the editor of The Times)
had done a few weeks ago. So I decided to do a mini-survey
of my own. I took out the little notepad I carry with
me everywhere (I read somewhere that all good "reporters"
have a notepad with them at all times) and I began to
mark down the buses as they came flying by. I'm sure
you already know what I'm about to tell you, but I'll
do so anyway, just for the sake of our readers who didn't
get the survey results the 1st week of August: 23 buses
flew by me between 4:50 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. that day.
None carried more than six passengers with the exception
of two "mini-buses", and most had no more
than one or two people aboard. If we average it out,
that's 138 buses per hour - on that street alone! (Angela
witnessed 156 on her corner.) And the drivers' union
says they needed to raise the fares to cover the high
maintenance costs… And people complain of noise
and air pollution? No wonder City Hall had no comment
to give Angela at the beginning of the month...
On August 17th, David García
published an article in the Tribuna de la Bahía
entitled "The Union demands that Sistecozome (the
company that operates the "mini-buses") respect
the agreement". According to the president of the
Union, preferential treatment is being given to that
company. The article goes on to say that the other bus
companies had complied with the agreement to reduce
the number of buses in the city center by 50% (???).
The president of the Union -who is also the owner of
the "blue" buses- added that his company had
done its share "in good faith for the benefit of
the town…" while the mini-bus company had
not. He was also quoted as saying that it was the mini-buses
that were causing the traffic jams and bottlenecks in
front of the seahorse statue… Then the sub-director
of the city's Transit Department conducted his own survey
on the number of mini-buses entering the city center,
and sure enough, it established that Sistecozome had
not fulfilled the conditions of the agreement. No mention
of the number of "blue" buses… Or of
green ones for that matter. It's too bad that the gentleman
wasn't with Angela or myself while we were making our
little tick marks in our little notebooks. What did
Shakespeare write? That "the lady doth protest
too much"? Except that in this case, we're not
dealing with a lady...
Is there an up side to all this?
Of course there is, there always is. Here's something
to make you smile: There's a bank in the States called
the Commerce Bank of California. It is owned by Banamex
- a Mexican bank. Back in 1986, the former institution
inaugurated a program called the "Programa Amistad"
whereby Americans living in Mexico would be offered
certain advantages such as being able to negotiate checks
drawn on American banks, etc. etc. A friend of mine
who has been living in Puerto Vallarta for some twenty
years now signed up under that program and asked for
a credit card at the same time. That was in 1986. Last
Tuesday, August 20th, 2002, she received her P.I.N.
number - by mail. The following day -Wednesday, August
21st, 2002- she received the card for which she had
applied 16 years ago - delivered by courier.
And here's one of those stories that
makes everyone feel good: Someone went to the newly
opened branch of "Pie in the Sky" on I. Vallarta
Street. He/she forgot their wallet there. When the wonderful
folks at Pie in the Sky found it, they looked to see
if they could find any I.D. in it so that they may return
the wallet to its owner. The only thing they found that
could help was a business card for the Property Shop.
Making contact with that real estate company, they got
in touch with the folks up north whose condo their customer
was renting here in PV, and thus they were able to return
the wallet to its rightful owner. Now that's what I
call going above and beyond the call of duty, something
worthy of a whole lot of bouquets !!!!!! In the meantime,
dear readers, you and I are here, in beautiful, sunny
Puerto Vallarta, the one and only, the friendliest city
in the world. Give thanks and enjoy yourselves. We are
blessed.
Hasta luego!
anna@pvmirror.com
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