Home Delivery in Small Mexican Towns

Every day “it” begins at around 7:30AM with a truck’s pre-recorded sound system blasting away with “el gas, el gas” accompanied by an extremely loud and relentless bugled cavalry charge and normally ends around 9:30PM as a different truck’s sound system announces “pan dulce, donas, pay de queso, galletas, conchas...” In the small Western Central Mexican town that we live in and in thousands of other such communities throughout Mexico, the “it” is the long-established Mexican tradition of the selling of merchandise and services door-to-door and street-by-street. My town, Churintzio, Michoacan does not, thank goodness, have home beer deliveries like there have been in the northern regions of Mexico for many years now but most everything else, mas o menos, at one time or another, seems to be available for purchase at one’s doorstep. One week my wife, Maria, and I counted seventeen different types of deliveries and services that passed by our home.

The only 100% essential home delivery is for gas for cooking and hot water as there are no gas lines connected to any of the homes and electricity for such purposes is exorbitantly expensive. Two competing companies from nearby cities come seven days a week and charge identical prices. Or should I say allegedly identical prices as one company is totally honest while the other (which of course we discontinued using) has a tendency to short change on money and gas as sometimes their canisters are less than full.

Three times a week there is a bottled water delivery. Maria considers those five gallon plastic bottles a necessity for herself while I consider it a necessity not for myself as I drink boiled tap water but it’s a must for my 13 mascotas/pets. Service is totally honest and helpful but not reliable in terms of time of delivery, hence many times we have to leave home before they arrive and they pick up the empty bottle and drop off a filled one and we pay them the next time that they come. However, quality control is questionable as one time we received a bottle that had been used by some other “brilliant” customer for gasoline storage and upon its return was never washed out by the company- long story short the “quality control” person was fired.

Although Churintzio has numerous stores selling produce, throughout the year there are pick-up trucks selling seasonal fruits and vegetables, each normally specializing in no more than one or two products. So, yearly in season we see pass by our house of varying degrees of quality such items as mangos, watermelons, tangerines, strawberries, apples, papayas, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, and garbanzo beans still on the branches. The prices are normally pretty good but the major downside is that you can’t “pick them” yourself like you can do in the markets.

Even though the town has two panaderias/bakeries, two commercial bakery trucks from closeby cities sell their pastries and pan dulce/sweet breads well into the evening at least 5 days a week. One gentleman comes by public bus from a community about 12 miles away three times a week going door-to-door selling from a basket a regionally famous large round sweet bread; even if you last purchased from him months ago, he will never miss knocking on your door as he passes by as he shouts “pan de Numeran, pan de Numeran.” Also, on a daily basis there is a truck selling bulk whole milk (for which you supply the container and the gas for boiling as it is not pasteurized), local cheeses like panela, asadero, cotija, and cottage along with crema/sour cream and a regionally popular desert, chongos/sweetened milk curd enhanced with cinnamon. Moreover, daily an ice cream cart rolls by as well as does a few times a week a vendor pushing a cart selling a variety of tamales and atole.

Then there are the trucks selling mattresses or unfinished wooden furniture. Or the pick-up and deliver once a week dry cleaning service from the medium-sized city of La Piedad about 20 miles away. Or Churintzio’s version of the door-to-door Fuller brush salesman who plies such wares as large handled dusters, hangers, and even small rugs. Or the vendors who come to your door selling large yet inexpensive ceramic vases. Never tried by us are the "miracle cures/remedies," sold as liquids, powders, and ointments.

Not to be forgotten but never to be used again is the knife sharpener who butchers (as opposed to smoothly sharpening) your knives on a grinding wheel. Or the wood beam sellers for construction projects or the scrap metal truck that comes by seeking to purchase aluminum, brass, nickel, or copper. Or the truck that purchases used appliances like stoves, refrigerators, or washing machines. Or the vendor selling drapery and window blinds.

However, my favorite of all the home delivery services is Ramon. He is the gentleman that we purchase our produce and certain specialty items from the Monday tianguis/weekly open market near the downtown area from his pick-up truck. When he does not have something on hand that we would like such as fresh ginger, swiss chard, or dried shrimp he will pick them up in Zamora, a mid-sized city about 25 miles away, and bring them to us in a day or two. At the end of the work week he will also bring us free of charge any cilantro he has left over for which my rabbit truly is silently grateful for. Sure, he only lives across the street and two houses down from us but his services are really appreciated. I wonder if the next time Ramon is in Zamora would he get for me some take-out egg rolls, stir-fried shrimp with brocolli, noodles with assorted vegetables,and pan fried dumplings or have I just gotten too spoiled with all those other home deliveries and services that are available where we live.