The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1941-09-18
The Cherry Tree
Where We Hdtched Out
The Truth
Q MEXICAN COSTS
Q ON RISE, TOO
Q MANY MEXiCOS
Q FOOD OF BEST

FOOD OF BEST
If you expect to have to grope for
few Spanish words with which to
find your way through a meal, make
a purchase, or fill your gas tank IN
Mexico, forget it. The chances are
you will take a quick look into your
phrase book, struggle bravely to make
your wants known in what you think
is Spanish, only to be answered in
good, or at least passable English.
A quarter of a million tourists in
less than a year can teach a lot of
English! Finally you come to wonder
if any MeXicans speak Spanish when
United States travellers and their dol
lars are around.
And there's something-those dol
lars. The exchange rate is 4.s5 for
one. When you exchange $40 for
pesos, even at 4.S0, which most busi-
ness houses give, you have SO pesos
a lot of pesos.
You are supposed to go a long way
on those pesos-but you don't go as
far as you expect to go.
Costs have risen. You pay a peso
for taxi fare. You probably will pay
$50 pesos for breakfast. On the other
hand I have had dinner, with a good
preceding cocktail and a fine steak
for about $1.1O U. S. in surroundings
that in the states would cost at least
$3.50. But by and large the exchange
rate doesn't get you the profit you
expect. Of course if you live in a
house, as at home, the cost of living
can be kept amazingly low.
However, costs are rising, as they
are at home and for some of the same
reasons. And the economic balance,
such as it is, is being thrown out of
gear.
This Mexico is a strange place.
There are many MeXicos. There is
Mexico City, one Of the most fasci-
mating cities of the world. There is
the Mexico of Tampico and it's oil.
There is the Mexico of the northern
desert and Of the northern plains
the Mexico of the hot and humid
south There is the suave and cul-
tural Mexico of the educated Spanish
descent population and the Mexico of
the illiterate Indian who will hide
from your camera. And in some sec
tions there is still the Mexico of
bandits.
Cardenas never did anything worse
than to arm the so-called agrarians.
But there is the music and there are
the flowers of a musical and romantic
MeXico-a gardenia corsage for
| thin American dime, or violets if you
prefer.
Mexican handicrafts are improving
in workmanship. The average tourist
| manages to collect a trunk full of
| junk that will not fit home surround
ings, but that need not be the case.
Beautiful and we'll made things may
| be had. Fine silver work abounds-
and the same is true of glass. A great
wood carving art is developing. Silver
is sold by weight, regardless of the
| hours of work the smith may have
done.
| A favorite question is about food.
1t is of the very best, either Amer
ican or Mexican. Those who are dis
appointed are those who do not know
how to find the right places. For the
careless, the Greasy Spoon exists
here, as in Chicago, or Des Moines or
New York City.
X X X
Those who like to theorize about
Mexico should remember that in the
country there still are thousands of
bare or sandalled feet and that here
in the capital it is by no means un-
common to see a huge piece of mer-
chandise being delivered on peon's
back partly supported by strap
across the forehead.
There just isn't Mexico. There
are scores of MeXicos. Today in the
national palace saw the ex-governor
of the State of Sonora-a full blood
Yaqui Indian, his hip bulging with a
gun without which he simply would
rot feel dressed. And in show Win
dows a block away diamonds and
iewelry and perfumes from some Of
the finest factories in the world
! CMW.