Cactus is an All-the-Time Food, and other stories from Guanajuato, MX

Known here as Nopal, Cactus is a food for all seasons (and times of day). This prickly delight--once despined by your local green grocer, bless them!--was served to me at every meal this weekend, and in all manner of form! There´s pickled nopales, chopped and chilied nopales, boiled nopales, nopales as a sidedish, nopales in tortillas as a main course, bitesized nopales appetizers, nopale quesadillas.... it just goes on and on and on!

After a while, this bland and somewhat slimy addition to my diet has started growing on me. Indeed, after only one day away from Guanajuato I found myself with an antojo for the little buggers, a craving. But no worries, as a parting gift from our host, every person on this weekend´s research trip was graced with their own personal jar of pickled vegetables (with a particularly heavy does of whole nopal leaves). Cheers!


Indeed Cookie Monsters of the world, cookies may be a sometime food, but cactus is an all the time food! Caaaaactuuusssss!

Right, so as to my other adventures in Guanajuato...

This weekend was my first-ever visit to the Campo of Mexico. Eight of us headed out just before 6am on Thursday morning, and were interviewing our first Guanajuato residents by about 1pm. The five students, two adults, and one professor were there to investigate the impact of Migration to El Norte on the health of elderly returnees, that is, those who came back to their homes and families in their old age (over 50).

I was more an observer in the whole process, listening while my partner, Lilia Fernandez, did most of the talking. Of the four residents I was privy to help interview, all had crossed to stateside by less than kosher means, they had to. It takes time and connections to get a Visa to the US, and when youre a farmer during a drought with 13 mouths to feed, not including your own (as was the case with one fellow we spoke with), time and money are in short supply. It´s head north or watch your family starve. So they head north to work in fields, in construction, as house cleaners, nannies, and McDonald´s hamburger flippers--would you like diabetes with that?

I was more than lucky to hear the stories of these men and women who left everything and everyone to try their luck in my country of privilege and opportunity. It was...unsettling. More on these sentiments as I work them out...

Women cleaning corn husks, hojas. They get paid about 300pesos a week doing this full time. Divide by 13.5 to get the equivalent in dolars. I make more in one shift at work in Cambridge...

Local church about a block from my host in Santa Cruz de Gamboa, Guanajuato Mexico.

Ladies of the Grail (Left-right, ???, Rosaurora Espinosa--my benificent host, Ushu, and Lilia--my upstairs housemate and interview partner extraordinaire), playing back-up to the lead guitarist in our makeshift concert on Saturday night. (Note the inverted kitchen pot and nearly translucent water-bottle being "played" by the woman in white and Ushu, in beige.)