El Maloso...blogger in Merida

wen · **Joined:** Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:52 pm **Posts:** 238

For those who like to visit Mexican blogs, came across, El Maloso, living in the Yucatan for 20 years, writing about it for 10 of them.

Jonna, you live near the Gran Plaza in Merida? Ralf, El Maloso, has a store there, and his wife, Maru has a store also, selling cookies from her bakery.

Una dieta balanceada es una galleta en cada mano!

http://maloso.blogspot.com/

Jonna · **Posted:** Sun Dec 07, 2008 11:22 pm

I've exchanged comments with him, he seems very interesting. I also went by his shop in Gran Plaza, it's just down the street from the RV park here. It's a great store with mainly t-shirts but everything printed with Mayan sayings, some risque and some just funny. There are some that are a play on words in Spanish. Since I know very little Yucatec Maya, I had to ask about the meaning from his shopgirl and she was not great at explaining some of them. Unfortunately, he wasn't there. I keep meaning to go back again and hope to meet him. I didn't know about his wife's store, I try and keep walking around the cookie stores.

His blog is caustic and very good, I like the way he writes.

wen · **Joined:** Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:52 pm **Posts:** 238

Jonna wrote:

I've exchanged comments with him, he seems very interesting. I also went by his shop in Gran Plaza, it's just down the street from the RV park here. It's a great store with mainly t-shirts but everything printed with Mayan sayings, some risque and some just funny. There are some that are a play on words in Spanish. Since I know very little Yucatec Maya, I had to ask about the meaning from his shopgirl and she was not great at explaining some of them. Unfortunately, he wasn't there. I keep meaning to go back again and hope to meet him. I didn't know about his wife's store, I try and keep walking around the cookie stores.

His blog is caustic and very good, I like the way he writes.

Mentioning El Maloso. He's has been 'writing' for ten years about his life in the Yucatan, pre-dating his blog, no? Wandering around his blog and business site, eventually came across his early writings on a geocity site. Remember GEOCITY?...kinda dates a person in internet time!

El Maloso wrote a dictionary of Spanish/Yucatec, words, idiomas etc. here:
http://www.geocities.com/elmaloso.geo/Dictionary.htm

Am finding the dictionary a hoot!
However, I learn better, when the subject matter intrigues and entertains. Who doesn't?

El Maloso candidly states, (somewhere)that he started writing on the advise of his Mexican therapist, as a way to deal with cultural 'dissonance'. And keep his sense of 'neurosis' under control as he's in the Yucatan, for the long haul.

Twenty years and counting. Being, an ex-pat Canuck, and raising his teen-age daughter with his wife Maru, who appears to be Yucatacan/Mexican. How the couple met and got together, is an interesting love-story in itself.

And since, Jonna and Mimi are staying at the RV park, near-by, perhaps, needing a Christmas cookie fix...

Heh! Watcha got to lose, drop by.
Deja una nota.

You'll see El Maloso has already linked to Jonna's blog.

(Such a meddler...fade away slowly to a scene from 'Fiddler on the Roof.'
"Match-maker, match-maker, make me a match!"

Jonna · **Posted:** Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:52 am

Great link Wen. I read that a couple years ago and just re-read it now and it is even funnier to me after more time in Mérida. He has a great writing style, he reminds me at times of our own Bubba but less colorful. Here are some of my favorite entries.

Quote:

Buscar (boo-SCAR) - This great verb, meaning 'to look for' (in Castilian spanish) and also 'to find' (in the Yucatan) has been an endless source of amusement for those that arrive in Merida from other parts of the country who have not been blessed with a Mayan cultural legacy. According to linguists and experts on the subject, the Mayas used one verb for 'to look for' and that was it. If they found it; well, they had finished looking for it. The usual conversation goes like this:

* Ya buscastes el martillo? - Have you found the hammer?
* No, todavia no lo busco - No I still haven't found it
* Si, ya lo busqué - Yeah, I've found it

the joke that all the outsiders like to laugh at is:

* Busco, busco y no lo busco - I look, I look and I can't find it

Another use of the word: if you are looking for someone like a new employee or something like your lost dog, you might start a poster with the words SE BUSCA which is roughly the same idea as 'lost' (in the case of the dog) or 'wanted' (in the case of the employee or a criminal).

Quote:

Gringo - (GREEN-go) - noun - Anyone obviously non-Mexican gets thrown into this category, although some neurotic Canadians try to make the distinction that they are not gringos, that the term applies only to those from the United States of America. There is a negative implication to being a gringo in many cases, although it can be used as a term of relative endearment. La gringuita is that American woman who bought the hacienda and is generally nice to everyone, although we know she's kind of naive and crazy. We like her and everything and every year she buys Christmas presents for the local village children, but we still 'borrow' stuff from the hacienda when she is not there and then forget to return it. But she is nice.

Quote:

Patio - (same as english) - noun - While in english this word evokes romantic images of an orderly little area somewhere in the garden, here it is a place where one goes to throw the garbage or perhaps, as is the case in rural areas of Yucatan, where you go to relieve yourself with some ripped up newspaper and a small amount of lime. Pigs and chickens often live in the patios too. There's a whole world back there; all kinds of things happening.

Quote:

Temporada - (tem-por-RA-da) - noun - The usual spanish meaning for this word is season and it is used that way in Merida as well as in:

* Es temporada de canicas/mangos/beisbol - It's marble/mango/baseball season.

But the most usual meaning of the word, when someone says La Temporada, he or she refers to the two month summer vacations when everyone and their offspring and those horrible relatives from Campeche (ni modo que les digamos que no vengam) go to the beach on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

Follow the link to his page on waches or huaches, it's great.

Quote:

Wach - (watch) - heavy noun - A person from the nations' capital, that being Mexico City. Also know in other parts of la republica as chilangos, a wach can be identified by his accent, his dress and never-ending struggle to climb that elusive social ladder. A derogative term, used in whispers at Yucatecan ladies coffee sessions, wach comes from the Mayan language. For more enlightenment on waches , check this link

Quote:

X - (EH-keess) - In Merida and all of the Yucatan, the X is pronounced SH; this is a Mayan thing. You can always tell when someone is a nasty wach when they say they took their relatives to the ruins of Ooksmal, when they really should be saying Ooshmal. Avoid this common faux pas and you won't be mistaken for a wach or ignorant foreigner.

Arrested Development - Ex-Pats Mexico

El Maloso...blogger in Merida

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