#7 - Tacos and Tomatoes
This week, we learnt a lot, and we have many things to tell you. Tomatoes and Mexican culture have almost no secret for us!
Live a week in a family of a country you don’t know is quite a stunning experience. It takes time to notice the differences between the Old Europe and this country that is rapidly emerging: Mexico.
At first sight, indeed, the way of life here looks quite similar to ours. IPhone 6, American blockbusters and big malls where to meet your friends: at first, the life of an urban in Mexico is similar to the one in Europe or the United States.
Yet life and culture are not the same here. The relationship with the family is particularly interesting: for them, nothing is more important. Visiting the grandparents is not done once a week or once a month: it's almost every day that children visit them. Family meeting with cousins, aunts and uncles is not reserved for Christmas: it's every week that they all meet.
Even more interesting is how young people approach their future life. The desire for emancipation that many of us share once we get adult does not seem as prevalent here. Certainly, increasingly, young people consider their future by themselves, and study what they want.
But it definitely remains a kind of traditionalism, as it existed in France a few decades ago. For boys, the solution do the same job as their father remains predominant. As for girls, many of them cannot consider their future independently of that of their future husband.
But the most important point about Mexican culture is how welcoming and friendly they are towards others (and in this case towards strangers). We felt integrated and appreciated from the first second in this family, in which we knew only one member before arriving. We live with them with very naturally, and we get along beautifully. Carlos Sr. has even introduced us to his group of friends called "Los Gordos" (The Big Guys), which meets every day to enjoy a generous breakfast in one of the restaurants of Culiacan. They organize through their common chat that they nicely named "Beefsteak".
The "Gordos"
There is also a surprising common point with French culture that is not displeasing to us: the second degree. "Life is made for laughing," explains Carlos Sr, and they do not do it halfway. The atmosphere is jovial and ironic humor reminds us of what we are used to in France.
So, we had a great first week here in Culiacan. We left 43 days ago and we're both happy to have made the choice to leave and find out what we did not know.
Living the two of us together is a very rewarding experience. There is a point that particularly interesting: our mood differences. We both have the same goals on this trip, and it's exactly the same outside world that awaits us two every day. Yet it happens that one of us enjoys less his day, something disturbs him and prevents him from being happy, while the other one has a great moment.
In general, it is easy to blame outside circumstances to be responsible for his bad day. But here we understand that this is only a protective lie: the color we give to our day depends on what there is inside us, not outside. This is at least what we understand in the course of our readings and discussions.
To talk about agriculture, this week has been mostly under the sign of the tomato! As we told you last Sunday, Sinaloa is the most agricultural state of Mexico, and the tomato is the iconic production in the region.
You can see the pride of Sinaloanses on the cars' plates
By visiting several farms this week, we now have a complete view of everything that happens from the time when seeds are planted to the moment when the American consumer slips a tomato slice in his burger in front of the Super Bowl. And that's really impressive!
As we told you last Sunday we spent the beginning of the week in one of the 52 huge farms in the region. On the site we visited, 300 hectares are devoted to tomato mainly in greenhouses. We often has a bucolic vision of agriculture, but here, there is no daisies or quiet cows in the fiels. Huge monotonous alleys separate the various greenhouses, under which work migrant workers from poorer regions of Mexico (Veracruz and Guerrero mostly). At the beginning of each working season, and in case of shortage of labor, farmers send old American school buses in these areas to drive the volunteers to Culiacan. They commit to work six months in the exploitation, which is equipped with housing and a school for children too young to work.
To control the hundreds of workers, the farm is covered continuously by foremen circulating in 4X4 in the aisles, sheriff hat on the head and walkie-talkie on their belt.
Outside the casas sobras
Under the casas sombras
Tomatoes planted in September, can be harvested five months on. The technology deployed in these operations is impressive. Between greenhouses are stations preparing "nutrition solutions" (fertilizers) connected to the greenhouse by huge pipes. Planes also flew over the greenhouses when rain is forecast, to spread products preventing water from penetrating. In short, everything is at the service of productivity, but our interlocutors did not spontaneously evoke the consequences of all these products on the final consumer.
The ingenuity to maximize returns is also impressive. Each plot is divided into seven parts, so that they can harvest tomatoes every day of one subplot, without leaving a part not being harvested for more than a week. The tomatoes are picked green, and eventually mature in the time interval to the commercialization, a few days later.
The tomatoes are ready!
Each worker performs a task and only one, and gatherers work at an impressive speed. Paid depending on the weight they harvest, they run between the rows of tomato under a heat made stronger by the greenhouse. Their work is difficult, but they are those who are better paid: around € 2 per hour. Other workers inspect the quality of the collection and empty the buckets in crates that are directly stacked on trucks. Once one of these trucks is full, he is moved to a sorting platform located a few kilometers away from he greenhouses.
On Thursday we had the opportunity to work in one of these sorting and packing platforms, where come in tons of tomatoes, and get out boxes of sorted and shiny tomatoes, ready to go to the US market.
Every tomato that you eat has gone through this process !
Jesus Fernando, plant manager, quickly explained the different activities of the chain. Tomatoes are first cleaned and sorted by workers according to their quality.
Quality 1 tomatoes will be exported to the US, quality 2 tomatoes will be sold on the domestic market and quality 3 ones will be used to make sauces, or will serve as to feed the livestock.
As Jesus Fernando says, "the gringo is demanding". After a few hours working on detecting the slightest defect on hundreds of tomatoes on the chain, we understood what he meant. In less than a second you have to see if the color and size and consistency of tomato complies with US requirements.
Jules - grey shirt - working hard
Quality 1 tomatoes go directly in the truck to the United States and end up in a store or in an American restaurant within 2 to 3 days after picking, and in really impressive quantities.
We hope the next time you eat a tomato, you’ll be aware that it did not arrive there by magic, and it certainly comes from a long process from a remote country.
Have a great week, and we’ll be back next Sunday for new adventures !