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Thursday, September 28, 2006

AMLO gave me bronchitis

By Jeremy Schwartz | Thursday, September 28, 2006, 10:40 AM

I knew there would be trouble once the rain started falling on the Zocalo. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had convened hundreds of thousands of supporters for his “national democratic convention� to form a shadow government on Sept. 16, Mexico’s Independence Day.

At the time, the rain seemed a cruel joke on Lopez Obrador. A giant crane had just lifted a big screen TV into the air and Lopez Obrador and his team had just stepped on the stage when the torrential rainstorm struck. For the next hour, his loyal followers stooped under umbrellas, pieces of plastic and old newspapers as a cold and hard rain fell from the sky. I was huddled under a neighbor’s umbrella with another correspondent and we joked that Tlahuac, the Aztec rain god, was no Lopez Obrador fan. By the time the rain let up, we all looked as though we had jumped in a pool and I was convinced my laptop was fried.

While the laptop survived, the rain did temporarily fry the speaker system and the big screen, and it took another 45 minutes to get everything set back up. Surely, we figured, they would speed things up and abbreviate what everyone knew was a ceremonial event. But no, a good dozen speakers paraded up to the stage, speechifying until dark. By the time the convention was over, we had spent more than three hours soaked to the bone.

After I got home I didn’t think much of it except for the appearance of a nagging cough that didn’t go away for a week. I finally decided to see a doctor, and after a few missteps with the nurse (when I put the thermometer in my mouth she looked aghast and told me to stick it in my bare armpit), I got my diagnosis: bronchitis, verging on pneumonia.

My only consolation is that now that the election is over there won’t be any more mega-rallies in the Zocalo. Oops, check that. Lopez Obrador is staging his “swearing-in ceremony� there on Nov. 20. At least the rainy season will be over.

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