Poco a poco

“Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.”

―Plutarch

My priorities need a reality check.

I'm feeling remorseful that while my neighbors are helping people get their boats off the rocks, and gathering food and clothes for the people left homeless by Jimena, and networking on ways to help out, here I've been frantically trying to re-establish communications with clients so I can go to press on time. Who really cares if an annual publication comes out the first week of November or the second week? Do I have the perfect excuse for a delay — a hurricane, for pity's sake — or what?
Conditions are improving poco a poco. In one of the most devastated small towns, San Jose, 700 food packages were handed out yesterday by volunteers. Families have been taken in and fed at local schools. Here and there people are beginning to get tapwater again (not us), Internet connections are mostly functional (except for ours) and electricity is back on everywhere. To drive out of town, you take a dirt road turnoff at the Alcoholics Anonymous building and go a couple of bumpy miles back to the main road; reportedly they're grading the detour regularly to keep it usable. So today I'm going to drive to Guaymas, use the ATM, pay the rent and look for a place to donate a trunkload of clothes and food. Reports are that the Red Cross hasn't been seen even in the hardest-hit areas, surprising since they are so much in evidence normally, collecting cash donations at topes (speed bumps).

While it's tempting for our stateside friends to load up a collection of goods and rush them down to this area, the border authorities are not keen on allowing private vehicles loaded with stuff to enter Mexico, and a daunting amount of paperwork can be involved. Depending on who's deciding, a would-be volunteer could be turned back, or her vehicle impounded. Money donations are easier, and groups such as Sonora is Safe is active in collecting online PayPal payments and directing those funds where they're needed, by logging on to PayPal, and sending hurricane relief money to Sonora is Safe.

My landlord says the number of displaced residents is more like 75,000 (I'd been told 40,000) and it's a bad time to expect much help from government in Sonora. Since the elections in July, the mayor and governor and their retinues are all lame ducks, leaving office in the next couple of months. One thing the state did was impose a Ley Seca (dry law) on sales of beer, which forbids the sale of alcoholic beverages "until further notice." The restriction has been lifted now. As in election time, there was concern people will make bad choices in crucial times while inebriated. The Mexican version of the Nanny State.

Here's the best video I've seen yet of Jimena in San Carlos, from my videographer/musician friend Steve Schmersh.

Our neighbor Dave has been busy the last few days helping assess the damage in sailboats that were torn from their moorings in the anchorage. Apparently a freak gust of 95mph winds hit during the storm and most of the smaller sailboats were knocked loose then. But even sadder are the uninsured fishing and shrimping boats in Guaymas that capsized at the docks. My own livelihood may have hit a glitch, but these people's work is stalled indefinitely.