The toughest guy on the street sells frilly pink socks for infant girls My neighbour doesn’t smoke weed anymore In the inky dawn a mariachi blows his trumpet across the sky It floats to the doorstep, where he now sniffs solvents, all night blank The same sad señora pushes her little pile of carnitas across […]
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I think that the image above shows several aspects of the beautiful, colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, one of the country’s poorest. The prevalence of the Mayan people and their culture is evident throughout the city. Here, a Mayan lady looks in her purse for […]
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The title I have given to this collection of three photos is straight forward. In the case of the first two, it simply describes their occupation in the informal economy of Mexico City; torta (Mexican sandwich) maker and sweet potato vendor. I’m not sure of the occupation of the third guy or whether he has […]
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I didn’t get to make small talk with these two to ask, or was too afraid to do so, but they have all the earmarks of being members or former members of Mara Salvatrucha aka MS-13, a criminal gang originating in Los Angeles and made up predominantly of Salvadorans. During one of the 400 pueblos […]
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The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) warns that due to low world economic growth, the end of the basic commodities super cycle, greater inflationary pressure and a reduction in the capacity to create employment, ¨poverty reduction in the region has stalled since 2012 and destitution shows signs of a […]
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It’s just after 1pm when I leave my sixth floor apartment in the Mexico City Historic Centre and walk a couple of blocks to Pulquería La Antigua Roma (Ancient Rome) on the corners of calles Allende and República de Perú. It’s an old school, no-nonsense place with plastic chairs in a square room with just four small […]
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I recently spent a few days in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second city, for the first time. Tapatío or Tapatía are the adjectival and noun forms used to describe people or things that originate from the city. I spent the few days doing a lot of wandering and watching, mainly in and around the historic centre of […]
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Hans Giébe is an artist, writer, painter and poet who hails from the city of Pachuca in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. He is quite prolific in his output and also writes at his site ‘The Seventh Verb.’ Take a look! I met Hans sometime last year at a poetry reading of the online […]
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I take a lot of photos on the streets of Mexico City and elsewhere, many of which just end up on my computer without ever really finding much of an audience. So I thought I would start publishing some of them here in batches of 5. Here is the first instalment. This first photo I […]
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Today is an election day in Mexico and there have been several deaths of candidates in the lead up to what has been described as Mexico’s dirtiest election in decades. So, amidst all the doom and gloom of news out of Mexico I present some bright rays of sunshine: Chicas Poblanas or in English Puebla Girls. The […]
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LATIN AMERICA FOCUS 