Teachers’ Strike, Digging Up the Dead, and a Drive-In Liquor Store

We spend the day with our host Meli, and through her we learn quite a bit about life in Mexico. For example, the country currently has a right-leaning government that is reducing public benefits while raising indirect taxes. Teachers across the country have been on strike for two months, protesting the government’s plan to offer them only one-year employment contracts.

Another interesting story Meli tells us concerns her hometown Campeche. In a small village nearby, every November 1st, the Day of the Dead, families actually dig up the bones of their relatives, clean them, and dress them in new clothes. This ritual is repeated every year.

In the evening we go out with Meli, Yami, Uri, and Olga—after all, it’s Friday night. This time we sit at an open-air restaurant, where a local band soon starts playing lively salsa-style music.

After I dance a couple of times with the girls, the lead singer of the band asks me where I’m from. For him Estonia is completely unknown, although at least someone in the audience has heard of it. Later he even sends greetings to Estonia several times during the performance.

At one point Uri goes up on stage and sings two songs instead of the lead singer, and does it very well. It turns out he sings in a choir back home, and a friend here spontaneously invited him to join the band.

Although alcohol sales are officially banned after 10 p.m., once we leave the restaurant we drive in Olga’s car to a special drive-in liquor store. The girls buy some beer, and afterwards we head to Olga’s townhouse, which she recently bought with a bank loan and is clearly very proud of.

The interior is tastefully decorated, everything perfectly organized. It suits Olga—she seems like something of a perfectionist.

We sit there chatting and drinking until the early hours of the morning.