Hunger Strike in Toluca

Just before Christmas I pointed out the the city government in Toluca had "cleansed" the portales area of the centro of the "ambulantes" that sell their goods in that area. It seems that since last week these same merchants have established a sit in and hunger strike in front of the municipal palace. According to Sol de Toluca, they are calling on the Bishop of Toluca to shame the mayor into giving them their stalls in the portales back. Some of those "ambulantes" have been selling there for over twenty years.

Like most things, the heavy labor people are going to get all the press this week with their gas strike. The little pedllers - themselves taking a beating as they sell on the buses and at intersections to truckers, passangers, etc., are not going to get a glance on the national stage. Perhaps one of the most civilized things about Mexico is the human contact of the peddler to the home or the pedestrian. It simultaneously reminds you of the position of the hard working people in difficult economic conditions while tying you to them in a social exchange - unlike treating with the checker at Gigante. Somehow the attack on the peddlers of the portales seems like an assault on the civility of Mexico itself.

Feeling Porfirian in Toluca, or Holiday Greetings from The Man

I know it is a little industrial, but Toluca is one of my favorite Mexican cities. It just feels honest, you know, like Omaha or Fargo ... it just has the feel of a place that's not trying to be Cozumel or DF or something.


I was a little bummed to see in Sol de Toluca that the portales, the lovely shopping area in the center of town under went a Porfirio Diaz style cleansing of the semi-mobile merchants that fill the portales around the holidays (day of the dead there is great fun - no Oaxaca, but again, it ain't trying to be). Women, kids, handicapped - the police even used some teargas in the day-long expulsion of the vendors to get the place "cleansed" for Christmas Eve. Zounds.