Friday, November 05, 2010

1984 a little late for Patzcuaro

My wife was getting her hair done and I had a couple of hours to kill waiting around the centro. Walked through the mercado, then to the big plaza for a delicious 10 peso ( use to be 8 pesos last year) cup of chocolate ice cream, with great little bits of rich chocolate......

So anyway, got back to the truck which was parked on the east side of the plaza and low and behold I noticed something that caught my eye. I had never noticed it before, but there it was. Up in the sky, what was it? It was a remote controlled TV camera. Perched high above kitty corner from the Subway sandwich shop, all by itself....

I didn't take the time to look around on the other corners, but it didn't make any difference at this point, We are being watched.

Then I noticed another one, on the periferico at Ibarra on a high pole, then another one at the Glorietta Tangaxuan, that's all I have seen as yet....

I really didn't think it would happen so soon after 1984 to Patzcuaro. Knowing a little about how things work down here, it will probably work until the next big lightning storm, or perhaps the TV monitor has been blocked by a few boxes in the monitoring office.

Then a few days later I asked a friend of mine who is "In the Know" about town politics and workings, he advised me that it was a big Mexico City contractor that sold the idea to the town....
And better info yet, the cameras worked real good.....flawlessly for awhile.....
Now they are all inoperable, seems there is lack of money or motivation to have them fixed.....

That's just another reason I love living here!

I wonder how the contractor is enjoying his villa at the coast during the winter?

We'll see..... No They'll see............

6 comments:

Michael Dickson said...

This is a hoot. I could have told them what would happen, and they could have saved cash. Nobody will pay any attention to these things.

Reminds me of the night I spent long ago in the Orleans Parish Prison. There was a camera system eyeballing the cells. But it was not turned on.

Tancho said...

Kind of reminds me of one of my trips to Lazaro Cardenas. They had the metal directors which everyone was walking through, they beeped and howel, but people still kept walking through them. The guard never paid attention to the people, the sound was a minor annoyance.
Lots of STUFF is just not important.....

One Small Voz said...

Haha! I predicted the ending about halfway through. The only places here with functional surveillance are the narco's houses.

Calypso said...

Of course for many the mere existence of a camera is intimidating - however your community probably could have got a better deal on a few fake cameras - there are lots of them in the U.S.

JerryL said...

That's funny, almost every time I visit Mexico, you can count on something not working. Streetlights, stop signals, so why would monitoring cameras be any different. Mexico doesn't have the obsession of things having to be 99% operational all the time. What's the hurry to fix anything. Although I will say I was impressed with the quality of the highways and freeways there. They make US roads look pitiful.

Steve Cotton said...

Poetry in inertia.