Mérida is a lively city. The city is always bustling and el centro is packed with people in the plazas and el mercado. Mérida, like most places in the Yucatán, is flat. The buildings are almost all one story and are connected in el centro. Most of the stores do not have traditional doors; instead, they have the metal garage door-like roll up storefront. When the stores are open, they are completely exposed to the street and the weather and you can see everything in the store. The restaurants are more traditional and are everywhere in el centro. There are many cafés, eateries, ice cream and sweets shops, and full sit-down restaurants.
Rozca de Reyes, an event in the northern part of the city
Outside of el centro, there are two extremes. The northern part of the city is very developed with malls and supermarkets and other huge stores and hotels. There is a Hyatt, a Costco, a Sam’s Club, and a Walmart. There are also large Mexican supermarkets (Mega and Soriana Súper) and chain stores. If you are in the northern part of the city, you could be anywhere in the States (granted, most signs are in Spanish). The southern part of the city is a different story. If you head south from el centro, you know that you are not in the States. Instead, you could be in any underdeveloped country. The houses are falling apart, some do not have running water, and if the house has electricity it hasn’t been for long because many of the neighborhoods did not have access to electricity until the mid-2000s. There are dogs running around everywhere and the streets are poorly kept. Most of the houses do not have roofs and have open or semi-open doorways. There are no lawns or plants or trees, just block upon block of crumbling concrete. The people who live here mostly work in minimum wage jobs such as construction or service sector jobs. The minimum wage here is 57 pesos (about $4.50) per day. In the US, federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and in some places the local minimum wage is much higher.
Mérida is in one of the top states for the percentage of indigenous people in the state. In Mérida you can see many traditional Maya. The Maya are a short people compared to people from the US (which I love, as I’m on the tall side at not quite 5’2”) and are very dark skinned. The Maya women wear white shift-like dresses with colorful embroidery. Also in Mérida there are many indigenous women who have come from the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas. These women wear black wool skirts and dark blouses. Many of them sell hand-made wares on the streets for extremely low prices (50 pesos for a hand knit scarf). These women have come to Mérida because it offers them more hope than their hometowns. There are many reasons and causes for this, but one cause we have been studying in our group is NAFTA. The indigenous people of the southern states were mostly farmers of maize, but the structure of NAFTA at this time forces these farmers to compete with the heavily government-subsidized corn from the US. Because there is no competition, many of these people have lost their land. Some have gone into the tourist business, becoming maids in the hotels in Cancun or other service sector jobs, and many have come to places like Mérida to try and make a better life. Whether they are successful I could not say.
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