Finishing the roof

Saturday and Sunday were important days for our construction project. I had done all I could do without the help of a professional - uncle Ricardo - who makes his living as an albanil (brick mason). Saturday was spent installing the "tarimas" which would support the concrete of the roof. Tarimas are like heavy wooden boxes and one rents them along with the "puntales" (wooden posts) which support them.

Ricardo installing the tarimas that will support the concrete roof while the cement cures.

Mixing cement in the street.

On Sunday there were eight of us - Pacito's dad and two uncles, three neighbors and myself. We would need a lot of hands to install the "barrillas" (steel reinforcing bars) and mix three hundred buckets of cement, all of which would be transported by hand up to the rooftop to be poured into place.

The block and tackle for lifting the cement is not OSHA approved. But it worked flawlessly.

Each bucket was lifted with a block and tackle, hooked with a "gancho" (metal hook) tied to the end of the "soga" (rope) which ran through the block (I don't know the Spanish for this rig). I was the "chalan" whose muscle pulled the rope that hauled each bucket up to the roof. I figure it was 15,000 lbs of cement. My arms aren't sore today but I could barely close my hands this morning.

Paco and his brother Ricardo are installin the "magera" (plastic hose) for electric wiring for lights, all of which will be securely buried in the concrete roof. Supported by a gridwork of metal rebar.

The roof is partially filled with cement.

Recorded for posterity in the fresh cement - the names of all involved.

Relaxing after a long hard day's work.

Paco ready to go to his security gig Sunday evening. He works 6pm to 6am.

Liberty in the fog

I like this photo of Liberty. I took it one morning as I was rowing ashore. Spanish for fog is niebla.

My huaraches

I bought a pair of huaraches. You might call them sandals but they are the traditional footwear of campesinos and vaqueros, "country boys" they might be called in the U.S.


Huaraches are cheap (about $6.50 US) - made from a single long leather thong uniquely braided, and the soles are made from the rubber from an old tire - and comfortable. Manuel, who sits all day beside one of the sport fishing docks I pass each day told me "Huaraches nunca huele mal." Huaraches never smell bad.

My Mexican friends laugh when they see them. It must be extremely funny to see a gringo wearing huaraches.

Erik and Bill bound for the South Pacific

I've met many other solo sailors since I arrived in Mazatlan but two of them were here long enough to become good friends... Bill and Erik. Bill arrived the same day I did.

Eric on "Sidetrack"

Over the weeks we've been here we've spent many hours together walking the streets of El Centro, eating and "internetting" at the Molto Amore Cafe - a cruiser friendly coffee shop close to the anchorage - and just generally hanging out together.

Both of these guys departed Sunday, headed for the Marquesas, thirty days away in the South Pacific. It's the first stop on their way to Australia. They are on seperate boats but hope to stay in touch with one another along the way via SSB radio.

I took these photos just moments before their departure. Erik's anchor chain was encrusted with barnacles and as he raised it I was in my dinghy beating them off with an iron bar.

Bill on "Emily Pearl"

Bon Voyage guys. I may be right behind you... give or take a year or two.

Poverty is Relative

If I were to take you to Paco's father's barrio (neighborhood) you would undoubtedly, as an American, see it as impoverished - without the neatly trimmed green grass and well kept homes of even a middle-class residential area in the U.S.

If I were then to take you to Pacito's casita - where we are adding a second bedroom - you'd be correct in observing that it was an even poorer neighborhood.

But just a few blocks from Pacito's little house is true poverty by anyone's standards. They call it an "invasion". We'd call it's residents "squatters", and might call the barrio "Hooverville", a name that dates back to the Great Depression and it's beginnings under the administration of President Herbert Hoover.

Here are a few photos I took the other day as we drove past. The homes are made of whatever scraps of lumber and canvas or plastic can be scavanged. The photos don't begin to tell the tale. There are hundreds of homes and thousands of Mexican families living on this piece of land that belongs to someone other than they... but someone who doesn't seem to mind their presence.


Forty years ago Paco Senior's home was in an "invasion" and his home was made of plywood. In time the squatters were able to buy their little plot, usually 7 meters by 20 meters in size, although the sizes vary and it is obvious from the odd angles and varying widths of the houses that the final dimensions followed the original lines measured with paces and lines drawn in the dirt.

In time Paco's wooden shack was replaced with brick and cement and expanded the same way we're currently adding a room to Pacito's home. Though his casita is part of a planned subdivions and all the houses are tediously the same. That sameness is disappearing as individual homeowners are modifying their casitas, sometimes extending them to the sidewalk, adding storefronts (one neighbor has opened a tire store complete with service garage large enough for one customer).


In time this may become a neighborhood with brick and concrete homes and a paved street, if the future follows the form of the past. But for now it is a poverty stricken place served by one water well, and a single electric wire strung from a nearby home.

Progress on the Casita

Here are a few photos of the latest stages in the room addition at Paco's casita.

Blocks don't always come in the right size. Cutting them is a dirty job.

I'm beginning to get the hang of laying cement blocks... without beer.

Paco's brother Armando is pouring cement to strengthen the wall.

Armando and Gilberto... mis chalanes chingon!
(my helpers. Chingon doesn't translate literally, but it's slang for f'n good.)

Woman Trapped in Her Own House

Yesterday - Sunday morning - Paco (senior) and I were sitting in front of his house chatting when we heard a woman's screams for help. Two houses down, which in this crowded neighborhood means less than 50 feet, I found the source through the iron bars of her security door. Practically every home in Mazatlan has one. I also saw that she was holding her small son and he was unconscious, hanging limply from her arms. It took a few seconds to understand her dilemma, and the reason for her panicked screams - she was trapped inside her own home. The door was securely padlocked and as unbelievable as it may seem the keys to the lock had been misplaced. She was screaming "los llaves... los llaves" The keys... the keys. She was running back and forth, pleading with someone inside to find the keys and pleading through the bars for help.

I was the first on the scene and the first to understand the problem, but neighbors were gathering and the word was spreading quickly. Still no one could find a way to help. I grabbed a steel bar from the open car of Alberto, a neighbor who had just been ready to drive away and left his door open. It was one of those security bars used to lock a steering wheel. My thought was to use it to pry apart the lock, which was easy to reach just inside the bars of the door, but it was too fat to fit.

A neighbor told her to pass the baby through the bars, but halfway through it was obvious his head was too large to fit through the narrow bars.

Paco suggested passing the baby over the roof to his back patio. I ran through the house, up the concrete steps to the roof of Paco's house and shinnied across a narrow ledge to the roof two doors down. There was no patio. The house extended fully to the back of the lot. The woman and her unconscious baby were trapped in a concrete box and precious time was being lost. CPR was not being administered.

I ran back to the front door just as Alberto, the neighbor who lives across the street arrived with a claw hammer and a short crowbar. I held the lock while he applied the bar to the body of the lock and began to pound with all his might. The lock was resisting and didn't seem to be affected, but there were no other solutions at hand and Alberto was not going to stop until something gave. After a hundred blows the lock gave up its hold and was quickly released, the woman and her child stuffed into the car I had taken the security bar from and the baby rushed to a nearby clinic.

Everyone returned to what they had been doing just minutes earlier but there was the look of concern on everyone's face as they discussed what might be wrong with the child.

Paco and I returned to our chairs under the shade of the small ficus tree in front of his house. We were discussing the incident and Paco was telling me how stupid he thought it was not to hang the key to the lock where they could be found. But he pointed out these were not the brightest neighbors in the barrio.

Soon he pointed to a gray haired man just exiting the house directly across from the one we'd broken into and said "Abuelito del niño" - meaning he was the grandfather of the baby. The old man mounted his bicycle and headed for the clinic just a few blocks away.

The grandfather returned some time later and everyone in front of his house seemed relieved but it was not until Alberto returned that we learned the baby was suffering from a very high fever and an infection in his throat. I'm not sure what caused his unconsciousness but Alberto said he was under a doctor's care and expected to make a full recovery.

Bien Pedo

I laid block Saturday and was becoming very frustrated when I had to lay one block four times and YET couldn't get it plumb and level. I took a break and sent one of my two "chalanes" (helpers) to fetch us some beer. A glass of beer made all the difference. It took the edge off and the blocks began to lay plumb and level. We worked all day... laying a few block, then sitting in the shade long enough for another glass of ice cold beer.

Mis chalanes, Paco's dad and a neighbor, Gilberto, mix and fetch mortar for me and lend moral support... and entertainment. They called the beer "gasolina para el albanil" (al-ban-yeel which is Spanish for mason).

At 7PM when I got back to the marina I was pretty "bien pedo" (it means drunk... but literally translated is "good fart", which I think is hilarious) While getting into the dinghy I didn't shift my weight in time and the damn thing slipped out from under me like a banana peel.

Faster than you can see hoot damn widdle hoot damn (my grandson Will's early attempt at cussing) I was up to my neck in seawater... but not for long. As fast as a waterlogged cat (ever throw one in the water?) I was back in my dink, but not fast enough to save my cell phone. I didn't like that piece of crap phone anyway.. now I've got an excuse to buy another one. I laughed all the way as I rowed out to Liberty. It's like that when you're soaking wet and bien pedo.