April 2018

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

Albert Einstein

My restaurant, Café Juanita, in Marina Chahue, Huatulco, has a wonderful view of where the canal, which runs from the main highway through residential areas U2, Sectors J and M and Chahue, and the ocean meet. Every rainy season the first heavy rains bring currents of trash down the canal into the ocean. Plastic bags, plastic bottles, chip bags, Super Che bags, and other colorful debris float past the million dollar boats and out to the open water of the Pacific Ocean. Continue reading Editor’s Letter →

By Marcia Chaiken

My long blue and green high-density noodle is my daily companion in Mexico, the U.S. or wherever in the world I happen to be. Right now, I am living in Southern Israel and the noodle traveled in my checked luggage from Huatulco to Tel Aviv and then by car to Mashabei Sade, our kibbutz in the Negev desert. Almost every day my noodle and I trek up to the large pool at the highest point in the kibbutz for an hour of exercise. Continue reading My Pool Noodle →

By Leigh Morrow

A new wave of midlife women is cresting globally, and soon will comprise half of Canada’s female population. In the next ten years, 11 million Canadian women will be in midlife and beyond. The same shift is happening in the rest of North America, Asia, and Europe. Never before in history has the planet seen so many midlife women. Women have a new opportunity to be radical game-changers in the second half of their lives. Continue reading Wabi Women →

By Margarita Meyendorff

Every year, in January, my husband Miky and I look forward to the abundant events and adventures that inevitably happen during our five-week stay in southern Mexico. We love Mexico. The plants and the environment are exquisite and pleasing to the eye. The animal and the insect world, also beautiful, is more challenging to get used to, particularly for wimps like me. Continue reading Creatures →

By Carole Reedy

“Is it safe?” is the first thought that pops to mind when I hear the word ice, because every person who has visited me in Mexico over the past 21 years has asked that question. In 1997 I would have advised them to avoid it at all costs. Today I say that in most restaurants and bars ice is perfectly safe. Just look to be sure it’s in the form of the quadrangular cubes that come from large commercial bags. Ice from street vendors is probably not safe. Stick to bottled water for drinking. Continue reading What We Think of When We Hear the Word Ice in Mexico →

By Julie Etra

adapted from www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/animal-sounds-in-spanish/ Continue reading 15 Animal Sounds in Spanish →

By Kary Vannice

No doubt you’ve heard of the massive island of trash that ‘floats’ as a testament to modern man’s incredible propensity for unnecessary waste – The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Basically, it’s a floating mass of mostly plastic debris that is suspended in an area of the Pacific Ocean where currents, both oceanic and wind, converge into a whirling washing machine of waste. Some reports say it’s the size of Texas, but any honest scientist will tell you that, frankly, they have no idea how big it is. Continue reading The Great Pacific Garbage Patch →

By Alvin Starkman, M.A., J.D.

The statue of Mayahuel, the Mexican indigenous goddess of agave—the succulent used to make mezcal and pulque—sits regally. It is fashioned by hand out of clay, it is fully coloured and it is two-feet tall. There is a four-yard long blue and white cotton table runner which is handcrafted on a backstrap loom with the Stars of David sewn into the fabric. It is a custom design, and it is a very suitable gift when attending a Passover Seder or Hanukkah party. In Oaxaca talented craftspeople make to order virtually anything you want, made out of anything you want—cotton, clay, glass, hammered metal, wood, wool, iron or stone. We’ve had a myriad of custom work done while living in Oaxaca—and yes all affordable; here the stories of two of them, along with some tips for arranging your own. Continue reading Custom Work in Oaxaca’s Craft Villages →

By Julie Etra

In the form of crude petroleum, oil floats, at least for a while, depending on a number of variables and their interaction. Microbes can biodegrade up to 90% of some light crude oil, but the largest and most complex molecules––like the ones that make up road asphalt––are not significantly biodegradable. When refined petroleum products are spilled, their fate depends on their composition. Gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuel are so volatile and easily biodegradable that they rarely persist in marine environments, although they can remain longer if buried in sediment, soils, groundwater, or marshes where oxygen levels are very low. Heavy fuel oils contain a large proportion of heavy components that biodegrade very slowly. Continue reading Oil Spills →