Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Mexican Spanish Slang Words
Mexican Spanish Slang Words
Deviations in language are vast even within the same dialect in the same language. Word choice and usage are one of the main tell tale signs that show what segment of a given society a person comes from or associates themselves with. In Mexico, I found myself in a funny predicament: although I could understand the Spanish of mature adults or the professional classes, I could hardly understand much of anything the younger people that I would hang out with in the streets, bars, and trendy areas would say to me. They were speaking in a slang — subcultural code — that I was previously unfamiliar with. I found quickly that Mexican Spanish is rife with such slang vocabulary.
I keep a notebook on me at all times when traveling for learning new words of foreign languages
Below is a sample of the slang words that I picked up from six months of traveling through the south and west of Mexico from the Guatemalan border up to Mexico City. It is possible that there are errors in my transcription or interpretation, so if anyone knows these words better than I appear to, please offer corrections and other suggestions through the comment form below.
Mexican Spanish slang words
- Chido- This word seems to be spoken after every other word amongst the hipsters of Mexico. Listen to a group of teenagers or twenty somethings talk, and you will hear “Chido, Chido, Chido” spoken over and over. It simply means “cool.”
- Chale- This word seems to mean, “That’s f’cked up.”
- Tranquis- Chill
- No Manches- It is my impression that this literally means, “Don’t stain,” but is used to mean, “Don’t do that, Don’t be a dipshit.”
- Bien Manchados- Also a derivative of the verb manchar — to stain — but it means in this instance “They are f’cked.”
- No Mama- Don’t suck.
- Chingar- To f’ck or to screw someone over.
- Chingon- A badass.
- Chingalera- A piece of shit. Used for an object, not a person.
- Jodete- Go f’ck yourself.
- Es una chinga- It’s too much work.
- Un chingo- A shit load.
- Me da hueva- Literally meaning “Give me egg” but really means “I don’t want to” as in, “I don’t want to work.”
- Huevon- This word was described to me as follows: “Huevo is also used to mean balls [as in testicles, used like "do you have any balls?"], and to call someone a huevon is to say that they are lazy because their balls are so big that they can’t get up to do anything.”
- Flojon- Lazy
- Guey- Dude. This word is also used with vast frequency.
- Madrazo- To smack, as it a smack across the face from a mother.
- Putazo- Bitchslap.
- Mamada- F’cked up thing.
- La tira- The fuzz, the police. Literally meaning “the throw,” as in the people who throw you in jail.
- Bote- Jail.
- Chata- Police.
- Placa- Police.
- Nave- Literally meaning “space ship” but is used to mean a fast car.
- A la verga- Literally meaning “go to the cock (penis),” this is intended to mean “go away.”
- En la madre- Literally, “in the mother,” this slang term means, “F’cked him up.”
- Chaba- Girl.
- Mora- Vulgar word for girl. After hearing this word, I asked around about to confirm its meaning with other Mexicans, but was told they had never heard of it. But, then again, I happened to only asked women.
- Latiga- A whip, a girlfriend.
- Ruca- Another slang word for girlfriend.
- Chela- Beer.
- Un fria- A cold one, a beer.
- No jodas- Don’t f’ck with me.
- Chavala- Like a girl.
- Putin- Weak, wimpy.
- Marica- A wimp, fag, ladybug.
- Pedo- A fart or a word to mean “drunk.”
- Estoy pedo- Literally, “I am a fart,” meaning “I’m drunk.”
- Chupar- To suck, but in the context of drinking alcohol is used as a slang verb to mean drink a beer.
Learning the slang words of a country is a good way to get closer to the social center of various groups, but doing so also sheds light on the value systems of such groups. In the slang words outlined above there are certain patterns that rise to the surface, as many of the words represent a tough guy social system, fighting, girls, strength versus weakness, drinking alcohol, cars, the police, a negative reaction to work, and violence. These are the sentiments of Mexico’s cultural underbelly.
Slang is all too often a male’s occupation. In Mexico this fact seems to be intensified. I would rarely hear women using any of the words outlined above, as they seem to be reserved as a light form of male bonding, of outlining the social structure and struggles of a lower class man’s world. Then again, I learned my lessons inMexican slang solely from young men.
Perhaps more than anything else, slang words are a direct indicator of where a group of people stand, what they value, are involved in, their occupations, and the social ordering of certain segments of society who use this vocabulary.
Though, in Mexico, as elsewhere, slang vocabulary also tends to be appropriated and used by the younger generation en masse as a means of style and trend. In this light, the implications behind the words are not to be exaggerated. I do believe that there is an inner culture from which many of these slang words arose — perhaps you can call it the criminal class, the gangs, the tough guys, the working class — but the actual usage of this vocabulary is wide spread across various social tiers.
Read more http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travelogue/mexican-spanish-slang-words/
http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travelogue/mexican-spanish-slang-words/
Puerto escondido - Oaxaca
Uploaded by david310589 on Dec 29, 2011
Un pequeño tour por Puerto escondido Oaxaca.
Este video lo habia subido a mi cuenta anterior de YouTube, pero la borre. He decidido subir algunos de estos videos para que los disfruten.
No esta en alta definicion, aunque dice 1080p no son reales!. Mi editor no creaba un video de calidad con otros tamaños.
Este video lo habia subido a mi cuenta anterior de YouTube, pero la borre. He decidido subir algunos de estos videos para que los disfruten.
No esta en alta definicion, aunque dice 1080p no son reales!. Mi editor no creaba un video de calidad con otros tamaños.
Youth on the Front Lines of Protest Movement
MEXICOYouth on the Front Lines of Protest Movement
By Daniela Pastrana
MEXICO CITY, Dec 28, 2011 (IPS) - "We need to be the ones to provide the answers to the questions of our times, because we are the main victims of the voracious policies of capitalism," says Alexis Jiménez, a 23-year-old ethnologist who has spent the last two months camping out in front of the Mexico City Stock Exchange.
A native of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and an active participant in social struggles since 2006, Jiménez is now part of a pacifist movement headed up by poet Javier Sicilia, aimed at demanding a change in the military security strategy adopted by the government of conservative Mexican President Felipe Calderón.
On Oct. 15, he and a group of other young Mexicans joined the global Indignados/Occupy movement of protesters who are "indignant" over the effects of the economic policies that have led to the profound crisis affecting much of the world, and particularly the countries of the North.
"My family is ready to disown me because I didn’t go home for Christmas, but we need to be here," Jiménez told IPS during a long conversation, surrounded by mice, on a cold Mexico City night.
The camp, set up on the main avenue of the Mexican capital, has attracted young people aligned with a wide diversity of causes, including anarchists, environmentalists, pacifists and members of the Movement for National Regeneration, led by leftist former presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Most are university students, but there are also staff members from the Mexican Senate, located nearby, a reporter from a local newspaper whose employers have forbidden him from appearing in any protest-related photographs or interviews, and a chef from a major downtown hotel, who asked to take holiday leave in order to serve as the camp’s official cook.
But not everyone stays. Mexico City’s "indignant" movement is a floating population largely connected through online social networks, with its base in two protest camps.
One is the camp outside the Mexico City Stock Exchange, where activities have a decidedly political slant, and visitors have included renowned academics like philosopher Enrique Dussel and Edgardo Buscaglia, a United Nations adviser on security issues.
The other has been set up in the Coyoacán district of Mexico City, historically a neighbourhood of artists and intellectuals. Here the activities are more "playful" and creative, such as the development of a barter-based system.
"We are trying to build organisational alternatives where the power truly lies with the citizens," mechatronic engineer Miguel Barousse, 26, told IPS at the Coyoacán camp. "We don’t handle money, we only accept donations in kind, and we try to keep the camp clean and orderly."
In Mexico there are more than seven million young people who neither work nor study, and of these, 78 percent are women, according to figures from the ministries of education and labour.
Mexico has the third highest rate of unemployment among people aged 15 to 29, after Turkey and Brazil, among all the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – which groups the world’s industrialised nations - according to the OECD report Education at a Glance 2011, released in September.
But unemployment and a lack of educational opportunities are not the only problems faced by Mexican youth. They are also disproportionately affected by the wave of violence sweeping across Mexico.
Reports from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography reveal that the number of male homicide victims aged 15 to 29 increased 154 percent between 2007 and 2009, while the number of women murdered rose by 89 percent.
Although these figures do not capture the even higher number of violent deaths recorded in more recent years, they nevertheless rank homicide as the main cause of death for Mexicans in this age bracket, far ahead of motor vehicle accidents, the second leading cause.
It is realities like these that have led young Mexicans to begin to organise. Some have done so spontaneously, like Aldo García, a 24-year-old history student who got together with a group of friends to travel around to different city squares and collect proposals. Their method is simple: they set up a blackboard and ask people to write an idea or proposal, then take a photo of it and post it on social network sites.
"The idea is to collect as many pictures as we can and then display them in street exhibitions," García told IPS while passing through Mexico City, where he was photographing a group of young people gathered at the Monument to the Revolution.
The subjects of his photos were members of the México Toma la Calle (Occupy Mexico) collective, which was formed before Oct. 15 and organises activities such as public "hug days".
"We want people out on the streets to interact, not just to consume," explained a young woman from the collective’s media team, who asked to be identified, like the other members, as the character created for the media: "Tomás Calles" (Occupy Streets), a play on words based on the name of the group itself.
"There is massive indignation, which isn’t expressed through mobilisation, a time bomb that hasn’t exploded, in large part because the media have succeeded in getting into people’s heads and fragmenting efforts," said another group member.
As part of this movement, on Nov. 26 and 27 dozens of university students, campesino (peasant farmer) representatives, trade unionists and human rights activists gathered in Mexico City to define a strategy for joint actions.
The so-called Youth Camp on the National Disaster and Emergency issued a declaration which established two main priorities: the strengthening of social movements in all regions and the creation of their own media.
"It is up to us not to replicate the practices and means that have blocked social change," the declaration states.
"We recognise as a basic form of coordination and forging links with local populations the occupation of public spaces to draw the community into debates, using the tools of popular education and liberating art to generate active hope, as an engine of human happiness," it adds.
The murder of two students in the southern state of Guerrero at the hands of the police and the discovery of the bodies of four high school students reported missing in Jalisco were a dramatic illustration of the threats faced by young protesters in this country.
"It’s not easy. We’re used to following figureheads, so it’s hard to understand a horizontal movement without leaders, where all decisions are made by consensus. But this is a process, and one we hope will continue to grow and multiply," said Barousse at the camp in Coyoacán. (END)
By Daniela Pastrana
MEXICO CITY, Dec 28, 2011 (IPS) - "We need to be the ones to provide the answers to the questions of our times, because we are the main victims of the voracious policies of capitalism," says Alexis Jiménez, a 23-year-old ethnologist who has spent the last two months camping out in front of the Mexico City Stock Exchange.
A native of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and an active participant in social struggles since 2006, Jiménez is now part of a pacifist movement headed up by poet Javier Sicilia, aimed at demanding a change in the military security strategy adopted by the government of conservative Mexican President Felipe Calderón.
On Oct. 15, he and a group of other young Mexicans joined the global Indignados/Occupy movement of protesters who are "indignant" over the effects of the economic policies that have led to the profound crisis affecting much of the world, and particularly the countries of the North.
"My family is ready to disown me because I didn’t go home for Christmas, but we need to be here," Jiménez told IPS during a long conversation, surrounded by mice, on a cold Mexico City night.
The camp, set up on the main avenue of the Mexican capital, has attracted young people aligned with a wide diversity of causes, including anarchists, environmentalists, pacifists and members of the Movement for National Regeneration, led by leftist former presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Most are university students, but there are also staff members from the Mexican Senate, located nearby, a reporter from a local newspaper whose employers have forbidden him from appearing in any protest-related photographs or interviews, and a chef from a major downtown hotel, who asked to take holiday leave in order to serve as the camp’s official cook.
But not everyone stays. Mexico City’s "indignant" movement is a floating population largely connected through online social networks, with its base in two protest camps.
One is the camp outside the Mexico City Stock Exchange, where activities have a decidedly political slant, and visitors have included renowned academics like philosopher Enrique Dussel and Edgardo Buscaglia, a United Nations adviser on security issues.
The other has been set up in the Coyoacán district of Mexico City, historically a neighbourhood of artists and intellectuals. Here the activities are more "playful" and creative, such as the development of a barter-based system.
"We are trying to build organisational alternatives where the power truly lies with the citizens," mechatronic engineer Miguel Barousse, 26, told IPS at the Coyoacán camp. "We don’t handle money, we only accept donations in kind, and we try to keep the camp clean and orderly."
In Mexico there are more than seven million young people who neither work nor study, and of these, 78 percent are women, according to figures from the ministries of education and labour.
Mexico has the third highest rate of unemployment among people aged 15 to 29, after Turkey and Brazil, among all the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – which groups the world’s industrialised nations - according to the OECD report Education at a Glance 2011, released in September.
But unemployment and a lack of educational opportunities are not the only problems faced by Mexican youth. They are also disproportionately affected by the wave of violence sweeping across Mexico.
Reports from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography reveal that the number of male homicide victims aged 15 to 29 increased 154 percent between 2007 and 2009, while the number of women murdered rose by 89 percent.
Although these figures do not capture the even higher number of violent deaths recorded in more recent years, they nevertheless rank homicide as the main cause of death for Mexicans in this age bracket, far ahead of motor vehicle accidents, the second leading cause.
It is realities like these that have led young Mexicans to begin to organise. Some have done so spontaneously, like Aldo García, a 24-year-old history student who got together with a group of friends to travel around to different city squares and collect proposals. Their method is simple: they set up a blackboard and ask people to write an idea or proposal, then take a photo of it and post it on social network sites.
"The idea is to collect as many pictures as we can and then display them in street exhibitions," García told IPS while passing through Mexico City, where he was photographing a group of young people gathered at the Monument to the Revolution.
The subjects of his photos were members of the México Toma la Calle (Occupy Mexico) collective, which was formed before Oct. 15 and organises activities such as public "hug days".
"We want people out on the streets to interact, not just to consume," explained a young woman from the collective’s media team, who asked to be identified, like the other members, as the character created for the media: "Tomás Calles" (Occupy Streets), a play on words based on the name of the group itself.
"There is massive indignation, which isn’t expressed through mobilisation, a time bomb that hasn’t exploded, in large part because the media have succeeded in getting into people’s heads and fragmenting efforts," said another group member.
As part of this movement, on Nov. 26 and 27 dozens of university students, campesino (peasant farmer) representatives, trade unionists and human rights activists gathered in Mexico City to define a strategy for joint actions.
The so-called Youth Camp on the National Disaster and Emergency issued a declaration which established two main priorities: the strengthening of social movements in all regions and the creation of their own media.
"It is up to us not to replicate the practices and means that have blocked social change," the declaration states.
"We recognise as a basic form of coordination and forging links with local populations the occupation of public spaces to draw the community into debates, using the tools of popular education and liberating art to generate active hope, as an engine of human happiness," it adds.
The murder of two students in the southern state of Guerrero at the hands of the police and the discovery of the bodies of four high school students reported missing in Jalisco were a dramatic illustration of the threats faced by young protesters in this country.
"It’s not easy. We’re used to following figureheads, so it’s hard to understand a horizontal movement without leaders, where all decisions are made by consensus. But this is a process, and one we hope will continue to grow and multiply," said Barousse at the camp in Coyoacán. (END)
When It Rains It Pours
When It Rains It Pours
“When it rains it pours is often declared when bad things happen – but not this time. We have water. It is pouring and we are darn happy this Christmas morning!
Here is the happy story: Since the 15th of December our colonia (suburb) has not had running water. It seems the pump, and then the backup pump, went bad.
We assessed our storage volume a few days into the drought after being advised no running water may happen for a couple of weeks (which turned out to be true). Our two 1100 liter water storage tanks were half full – meaning we had 1100 liters or about 285 gallons.
We went on a major water conservation program. We started seeing water delivery trucks around the Hood. One neighbor who has a complex of housing was seen getting 20,000 liters and then another 10,000. Some of that water was graciously shared with neighbors. It is nice seeing people pull together.
Everyone in the Hood was pretty much looking like they needed a shower for days – we certainly did. Our Australian friend’s that operate El Lugar Restaurant on the beach road told us of a place on the Colotepec river just a couple miles away where we could bathe. It did not come to that for us – but that trip was scheduled for Christmas day.
We will not go into the details – let us just say those wash and wipe packets helped us sleep in the same bed.
Christmas Eve before sundown the water came on at nearly its scheduled time. We normally receive water via the colonia pipes on Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday for 3 to 5 hours.
The church bells rang out and we scrambled to the showers – hooray!
The church bells rang out and we scrambled to the showers – hooray!
And our colonia is in the news. It is touted as, “The Punta is probably Puerto’s fastest growing neighborhood and its most diverse.” The entire edition of the latest Viva Puerto is dedicated to La Punta, our area.
You may have read about Viva Puerto here last April. Barbara Schaffer is the editor and publisher of this informative magazine. Here around town it is free and quite prominently available. Viva Puerto is also available for reading right here on the Internet.
Schaffer’s La Punta issue has some informative history and some commentary regarding buying land and housing here. We highly recommend checking it out.
In the cause of fair and balanced reporting let us make a few comments regarding an article in Viva Puerto about buying property via an acta de posesion (an act of possession). “The acta is similar to a deed or title (escritura publica)….”; An acta may include the use of a prestanombre, placing the land in someone else’s name.
Last January we went into much detail about the process of purchasing property this way (see three-part story).
To add a couple of points because Schaffer’s comments are decidedly negative. It should be noted that she lives in an area of Puerto Escondido which has titles (escritura publica) that are registered with Mexico’s federal land office. This is certainly a more conventional purchasing method, but we have to differ with the article’s characterization regarding using a prestanombre to “…get around the law. (Think of the bum in front of a liquor store who will, for a few dollars, buy liquor for a teenager and you have a picture of the legal status of the prestanombre and his client).” Ouch!
The article continues, “For that reason a private (not registered) escritura is also not an option since it is unenforceable. (You can’t present a contract for an illegal transaction to a judge).” This is not entirely factual – rather frightening at that.
An act of possession issued by the communal board is legal and will secure your right to ownership. If you select an established communal community and if you carefully choose a person who is naturalized or a citizen of Mexico who has no intention or desire to bilk you out of your property then you will be OK. Honest people exist, in fact many more times than not – the odds are in your favor – again with careful selection. The kinds of problems alluded to in the Viva Puerto magazine are possible yet rare.
At closing your lawyer should have the person acting as a prestanombre sign a limited power of attorney allowing you, the actual buyer, to transact business in the prestanombre’s name. Short of the prestanombre dying the buyer has complete rights to sell the property or place it in another name. Hardly to be likened to soliciting a bum to buy alcohol for a minor.
There are literally thousands of Mexican properties owned via the prestanombre vehicle – most successfully.
There are literally thousands of Mexican properties owned via the prestanombre vehicle – most successfully.
Regarding the prestanombre being illegal – in the strictest sense of the word this is true. I personally have had several Mexican and U.S. lawyers tell me they have never heard of anyone being prosecuted for having a prestanombre. There are situations wherein a buyer will use an acta and prestanombre to avoid the more costly fideicomiso process – definitely skirting the law and not recommended. It is a fact those that try to litigate prestanombre issues will find the courts do not recognize that type of agreement.
Our lawyer also advised not spending money on an agreement between us and the person acting as a prestanombre – again because the courts will not recognize the process as legal and binding. Choosing the right person as a prestanombre is critical.
We did a lot of due diligence during the months leading up to closing our property purchase here in La Punta. I was told by our real estate agent, and I quote, “I´m glad you talked to [the attorney] and have them working for you. It´s all going to work out and your thoroughness will leave no stone unturned.” (Emphasis mine). This hardly reads as if we grabbed a bum off the street to do our transaction for us.
We whole heatedly agree with Schaffer’s advice at the end of the article which reads, “Your best guarantee of the legitimacy of an acta in Punta is to pay for the services of Vicki Cole of Zicatela Properties.” There are others with the skills to negotiate this process and Vicki Cole is a fine example. We also recommend not doing any of this without the services and advice of a Notario (Mexican lawyer).
We are very happy in La Punta, feeling as if it is a very special place. Stay Tuned!
Puerto Escondido's Market: How to Shop
Puerto Escondido's Market: How to Shop
(Dove Sussman is the owner of Lotus, the new Asian restaurant on Zicatela opening in February.)
Market entrance
I've had the privilege of having lived within an easy walk of some pretty amazing markets. Given the choice, I'll always prefer to buy my food at a local market – a place to take in the local sights and smells, a place where I can talk to and develop relationships with the wonderful people from whom i buy my food. Sure, I want to know where my produce is coming from, who is catching the fish and raising the meat that I will put in my body — but beyond that, it also makes me happy knowing that I'm supporting the local economy and engaging with people from all over the region. Not all communities have been blessed with such a place. Others have closed down, redeveloped or downsized their traditional markets, succumbing to the lure of the soulless mega-marts with their convenient one-stop shopping & sterile environments. Before I decided to make Puerto my home, I first was trying to determine whether this might be a nice place to come for a few months. Looking back, I have no qualms about telling you that one of the deciding factors was a YouTube video someone had posted of a walking tour around the Market. Sun! Sand! Ocean! AND a Market! I was sold.
Flowers
To the uninitiated, a first visit to a large outdoor market in a hot country with less economic wealth can be quite daunting and perhaps even overwhelming. Even for a seasoned traveler it can be rather perplexing. Those aforementioned local sights and smells will inevitably feel strange, surreal and wonderful all at the same time. There might be fruits and vegetables you've never seen before. Perhaps you're not so keen on heading down the aisle with the hanging meat or the strangely-colored, chicken parts. Another common cause for anxiety is the fact that there are no prices posted anywhere. If you want to know how much something costs, you need to ask. This is not a bad thing. What better way to break the ice than with the most basic of questions.
Let me dispel one myth right now, for I have it on good authority that many expats & tourists are of the belief that there are two sets of prices – there being a higher price for gringos/güeros/extranjeros or whatever or simply that the prices are made up on the spot. While there are some examples of this type of thing in other parts of the world, and while I have certainly experienced this phenomenon first hand when dealing with other trades and in doing business in Mexico generally, when it comes to the market, this couldn't be further from the truth. The price is the price and it's the same for everyone. That's not to say that there aren't bargains to be had. Pay attention to the scale when you are waiting to pay and pretty soon you'll know the best places to get all the various things you regularly buy and have your favorites for this or that.
Butcher
Unrefrigerated hanging meat not your thing? Not to worry, all the good cuts of meat are in the fridge or freezer in the back of the shops or very often ordered from the off site fridge via walkie-talkie. New York or rib eye steaks can be cut as thick as you like, you only need ask — or perhaps insist! Local tastes tend to favour very thin "Bistek". Don't settle for only what's on display!
La Costeña
Juana Martinez at La Costena is the grand dame of the fishmongers at the market. She and her family operate a number of the fish stands, getting fresh fish daily from the fishermen who work the ocean and the lagoon. La Costena supplies most of the better restaurants in town. There's a good chance that the fish you'll buy from her was swimming earlier that day, just a few kms away. They'll prepare it however you want with expert hands. Free of Charge.
Fruits
I, like many others have a few favourite fruit and vegetable vendors getting my herbs in one, and tomatoes in another etc. Whether arbitrary or through some instinct — who can say. Try a few and soon you'll have your favourites too.
TIP: While Wednesday and Saturday are touted as market days, with all the extra local vendors, Tuesdays and Fridays in the late afternoon are a great time to get the freshest produce as they set everything up for the following day.
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