Mexico Road Trip: Oil, the Jungle and Laptops for Kids
Don’t worry, amigo, he laughs, the AFI won’t be waiting for us.
The AFI is the Agencia Federal de Investigaciones or the Mexican equivalent to the FBI. We stop at a small, dimly lit house and he honks the horn. He takes the box out of his pick up and walks to the front door. A young woman opens the door and he puts the box down in front of her.
Gracias, she says, clasping his hand, que Dios le bendiga. May God bless you.
We get back in his pick up and head back to town.
Actually God has very little to do with it, he laughs.
We stop at BK and it’s a brand new one. We order Whoppers and sit down for a chat.
There are a few things I do that are not above board, he admits, but that is true of anyone that does business here in Mexico. If I report everything and have paperwork for everything I don’t make any money and I can’t give computers to the poor kids. So I do what businessmen do here in Mexico to make it happen, no? It’s not something I’m proud of but then again, I’m not ashamed of it either…it’s just a fact of life and if you do business here, well it’s just part of the business process.
Several times a month I bring shipments of parts and peripherals and units down from the border…a type of smuggling as you would say, he laughs, and I do it for several reasons. Of course the quality is better and it’s cheaper but that’s only part of it…even in the big cities we can’t get certain memory boards and infrared parts…you know what I’m talking about. We do networks and systems but also supply distributors like Genaro and without computer geeks like us the hospitals wouldn’t work and the oil rigs would shut down…I’m serious. As you know in the modern technology world everything is driven by the chips and circuits and they have to be functioning for everything to work.
I nodded in agreement. When my cell says ‘no service’ or I’ve got no Internet access, I’m shut down too.
I’ve got all the licenses and paperwork and such, he continues, and fortunately I’m in a field almost no one understands…it’s not like I’m selling Chinese clothes, he laughs, the investigators don’t know a router from a modem. My permits and paperwork receipts are always in order but I’ve always got a box in the backroom with parts and drives and so forth…they won’t know what it is even if they find it, he laughs, and the only software I pirate is for close friends and the poor schools…all my clients are bigger companies that wouldn’t buy pirated stuff anyway.
The hamburgers are delicious and much better than any in the States – renewing my faith in BK Mexico.
Ok, you arrive in Campeche with no money and a wife and baby…what happened then? I ask.
We drive back into the night and he turns on the light to check his cell messages.
I had a brother that worked in the bank and he got me a job as a teller, he continues, actually I swept the floors for several months before the position opened. Our family was poor and lived in a rancheria outside of Orizaba. I only finished elementary school and two years of secondaria but I had a desire to work and succeed and had a little baby that I had to feed as well…it wasn’t important for me to eat regularly, but it was important that my family ate, he laughed, now you can see how things have changed, he added patting his stomach.
From being a teller, I worked myself up as fast as I could. Part of that job was seeing all the computers and systems in the bank…not only the big systems but all the PCs that the managers and accountants used as well. I was fascinated by the tech and what it could do…so I saved my pesos and took classes and even private instruction until I could do many things with computers, including fixing them. But there was a limit…I could only go so far in the bank with my education…or rather lack of it. I was as far up as I could go…
One day they said the bank changed hands and I was working for a new employer. They let some of the employees go but not me because I could get the computers back up when they crashed. But the new bank also gave us the chance to leave with severance pay and to their surprise, I took it. I was scared; maybe the most scared I have ever been with the possible exception of asking my wife to marry me, he laughs, it wasn’t much money but I knew it was an opportunity.
Maybe that’s it, I mused looking out into the pitch black jungle night.
What’s it? He asked.
Well, all through the trip I’ve talked to successful folks that had no better backgrounds or educational opportunities than many others around them…or brothers and sisters growing up in exactly the same conditions. Yet somehow they step up and do what others consider the impossible, such as my friend Armando in Vera Cruz. He not only had the ambition but also the guts to take a risk when he saw an opportunity…and as he rose up he was not content with the mediocrity of security living a gray twilight…
Ah amigo, laughed Cuatehmoc, you Gringos are a funny bunch. I have no idea what you are talking about…but I have seen poor kids in school that get interested in computers and technology and end up going to the University…somehow that doesn’t seem so mysterious to me. All they need is a chance because they are poor…
We drive on into the night talking about business, politics and such…all seemingly less important than his rags to riches story and his concern for the poor kids that have no chance to better themselves. We arrive back into the modern lights of Carmen and Angelica is still holding the baby.
Let me see your laptop, asks Cuatehmoc. I show it to him and he turns it on. One minute later he has me hooked wirelessly up to his T1 line.
Stay as long as you like, he laughs, my office is your office and my T1 is your T1.
I’ve only known the guy for a few hours and already like him…
Jack D. Deal
