Living La Vida Loca

Postcard from Cabo San Lucas

I apologize to readers that I haven’t filed in so long—I am just completing a week’s vacation in Cabo San Lucas, at the tip of Baja California, together with Tanya, her daughter Hannah, my brother Dan from Oakland, California and his daughter Twyla, a student at Barnard. We had a wonderful time amidst the cactus, beautiful beaches and superb Mexican restaurants, and lots of drinking of various strange concoctions, but also had a stressful adventure I wanted to share briefly. Rubyjewsday, readers, beware, if you travel to Mexico and decide to rent a car, ALWAYS pay for full coverage insurance and not just Liability. I did the latter, thinking I am a good driver and why pay the extra $15 a day, but in the middle of our trip, on a lonely road in the middle of the desert, our car was hit hard from behind by a local driver and sustained somewhere from $6000-$8000 in damages. Even though the accident was clearly not our fault, it turned out that the insurance of the other driver, who was a very nice guy, had expired, and the company said we were 100 percent liable for the damages. We decided to fight, and got some local lawyers, who were wonderful people and hardly wanted to take any money (I ended up paying them $300 for half a days work and taking them to dinner and they told it was way to much money). They took us to a Mexican consumer protection bureau called Profeco, which filed papers on our behalf and said they couldn’t force us to pay before leaving the country, but could only file charges against us and I warned the company that I am a journalist who would write nasty things about them, etc, etc. We called our credit card company and instructed them not to pay any large sums to a rent a car company, which was fortunate, because almost immediately thereafter they tried to collect and found the account closed. I also called the U.S. Consulate, and the official there reported that the company was considering calling the police (los federales) to prevent from leaving the country without paying. Our lawyers said, “Don’t worry, they can’t do that,” but I was VERY worried and considering caving in, but then, three days after the accident, the company called and said that the other driver had agreed to pay and we only owed for the week rental we had originally agreed too.

It was all very stressful, but also fascinating; a chance to get into the workings of Mexican society, instead of the usual lying on the beach and sipping pina colados. Overall, I was enchanted with the Mexicans, a warm, cultured, artistic and very intelligent, people, which is relevant to Russian Jewish community, because several weeks ago I was at a debate of the Russian leadership group of the American Jewish Committee, where there was a liberal-conservative debate on immigration (among other issues) and the conservative side was arguing that even though they themselves only arrived 10-15 years ago as refugees (and a few as illegal immigrants), the U.S. should now build a wall and keep out the swarthy Mexicans, who immediately go on welfare( as though untold thousands of Russian new arrivals had not done exactly the same) and thereby preserve America’s ‘European’ character. I had better not go into my feelings about the hypocrisy of this line of thinking here as I may write about the immigration debate in the Russian community for the Jewish Week, but I wish some of the people making those arguments had a chance to meet and experience the Mexico and Mexicans Tanya and I got to know in this wonderful restful and zestful week. They were nothing short of an inspiration and no less fully, resplendently human and equal to any Russian Jew I ever met.

As has happened many times before, I felt proud and happy to be a Jew who is part and parcel of the larger human family and mi hermanos and hermanas (brother and sisters) come in all colors and ethnicities (Mexicans, Africans, Chinese and Palestinians, as well as Europeans and Americans; Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Hindus. Only together, as one collective humanity, can we build a more peaceful and ecologically sustainable world. The alternative is collective destruction.

I will write on my return tonight responses to some of the posts I received concerning my “Putin is Right” piece.