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I Can't Make a Living Doing Only This
http://www.sdreader.com/php/cityshow.php?id=C080504B
August 5, 2004
By Ernie Grimm
A mile or two south of the border, two blocks east of Avenida Revoluci?n on Avenida Negrete, stands the main Tijuana post office. It's a windowless
concrete building unremarkable except for the flight of blue mosaic tile steps and the half dozen clipboard-carrying men standing on those steps. "We
are called escribientes," says Javier Mej?a Quezada, who is one of the six. The word translates to "writers."
On a sunny, breezy Friday in late June, the escribientes stand apart from each other on the blue steps. Mej?a has taken up his position to the right
side of the staircase on the bottom step. The 45-year-old father of three children -- 26, 22, and 15 -- wears pressed gray slacks and a brown knit
guayabera. He is dark-skinned with a thin mustache and goatee on his round face. His quick, smiling eyes dart about and give animation to his speech.
In his hand he carries a clipboard bearing an inch-thick stack of forms. "We fill out forms to send money," he explains. "We also fill out telegram
forms for people. We write personal letters. We fill out postal money orders. Any kind of documents they might need inside, I keep them on my board."
Though they are not post office employees, Mej?a and his cohorts do have first-hand knowledge of postal forms. "We're all former employees of the post
office," he explains. "All of us. But we all work independently now."
Mej?a's clients, he says, "are usually people who are migrating from Southern Mexico into Tijuana or the United States. And we get a lot of clients
from the maquiladoras."
The forms are available free of cost inside the post office, but his clients, Mej?a explains, pay him to fill them out because "Some don't know how to
read or write. Some just don't know how to use the forms. Most of them come from places where they've never had to do this sort of thing. These are
people who have worked on farms and in the fields. They've never sent money or even sent letters to anybody. So it's easier for them to use us. We
fill out the forms for them, and we tell them how much it's going to cost. They're normally people who come for three months and then go back or come
here for a season and then they go back."
As Mej?a speaks, two men, evidently painters -- judging by their white-splotched work clothes and boots -- walk around him and approach another
escribiente five or six steps above Mej?a. With a few quick questions, the escribiente ascertains which form the two painters need and, after a few
more questions, fills it out for them. No more than three minutes after they walked up, he hands them the filled-out form. They hand him a couple of
coins and head into the post office.
Asked how much he and the other escribientes charge for their services, Mej?a shakes his head. "No cobramos," he answers. "We don't charge. We work
for whatever they want to give us. Sometimes they give us a quarter, sometimes just two pesos. Whatever they want to give us. Sometimes it's nothing,
and that's fine. Other people give a little bit more, so it evens out."
Mej?a makes from 60 pesos (about $6) up to about 130 pesos (about $13). "I can't make a living doing only this," he says. "I have a small grocery
store as well."
Still, six days a week, Mej?a rises early in his home near the Rodr?guez dam -- 15 or so miles to the east -- in order to be on the blue steps,
clipboard in hand, by 7:30. "Wednesdays or Thursdays I take off," he raises his voice slightly to be heard over the roar of midday traffic rumbling
down Negrete. "Sundays and Mondays are the busiest. And the end of the month is always very busy because that's when people get paid, and they come
here to send money back home. Ninety-eight percent of the time," he explains, "they are sending money. Very rarely is somebody receiving money here.
"The best thing about this work," Mej?a responds when asked, "is the contact and conversations I have with a lot of very nice people. The worst part
is that sometimes I have to deal with people who are very tense. Sometimes the traffic has put them in a bad mood. Sometimes they have money problems.
Sometimes it's just the struggles of daily life. And very often they're sending money for very serious reasons. They might have a relative who is sick
or who just died, and that's why they're sending money. You see, most of them have left their families in the south, and they're working here and
sending money south to Oaxaca or Puebla. Sometimes people send money to churches back in their hometowns because the churches often coordinate
community projects, either fixing up the church itself, or paving a street, or making a basketball court, or just helping the poor. These people have
a very strong connection to where they came from. They never lose their roots."
Mej?a's bright eyes grow even brighter, and a smile flickers across his face as he recalls an anecdote. "There was a lady that came walking up with a
bucket. She said that she wanted to send 50,000. I thought, '50,000 pesos [$5000] is a lot of money for this old lady to be carrying around the city
in a bucket.' But it wasn't 50,000 pesos, it was 50,000 dollars. And this lady was more than 80 years old. She had sold her house, and she was
carrying around the money she had made on it in a bucket. I couldn't believe this old woman had traveled across town with $50,000 in a bucket."
At the request of the reporter he's speaking with, Mej?a turns and invites the other escribientes to come tell their stories. But all five shake their
heads and shrink into the shadows at the top of the blue stairs. Mej?a turns back and, with a big grin, shrugs his shoulders. And when I try to give
Mej?a a few dollars for a tip, he lifts his hands back above his shoulders, palms forward, and shakes his head.
"It's for the time you lost while speaking to me."
"No gracias," Mej?a responds. "Just shake my hand."
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Skeet/Loreto
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God has surely Blessed that Man!!
Skeet/Loreto
"In God I Trust'
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Smugla
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Registered: 8-23-2004
Location: Soler, Tijuana BCN
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Sobrador
In centro Tijuana at the large church off Juarez are a number of vendors and street merchants. Mixed in with this pack of purveyors of holy water and
blessed icons are a number of Sobradors.
The sobrador is a healing arts shaman or aztec version of the chiropractor. As their office they use a beat up van lined inside with carpet remnants
or many times you will see a sobrador with just a chair on the corner ready to do business.
For about 5 to 15 bucks they will determine what ails you and then go to work artfully massaging and manipulating areas of pain sometimes dispensing
herbal remedies as a follow up for your treatment.
The real challenge is finding one who knows what they are doing as this is not the most regulated of professions.
By the way I offer all this info second hand as I have not summoned the fortitude to visit El Sobrador even after the urging of my Mexican wife...she
swears by them....I also offer this post as follow up to previous article about the postal writer as an example of another occupation you wont find in
the states
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jrbaja
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And I'm entirely convinced
that they don't!!
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whodat54321
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Registered: 6-14-2004
Location: El Cajon, CA USA
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Mood: trying new stuf
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agreed jr.
one billion chineese can't be wrong!
I never think of the future - it comes soon enough. ? Albert Einstein
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