Hard past: Local adventure looks for pricey clay bricks but finds a ‘familiar’ drowned body
In 1992, planning to build a new bodega, Nacho Lara invited his cousin and me to survey those villages near the Lake where adobon – home-made bricks – were created. “Adobon” was the word once used to identify large local red clay bricks. They measured 36.6 centimeters long, 16.5 centimeters wide and 7.5 centimeters high. Made of clay and cow dung, low-fired in simple pyramid brick kilns, they cost 500,000 pesos a thousand. In 1973. adobon cost 1,000 pesos per thousand. That was a clear marker of Mexico’s uncontrolled inflation. The price was called “crazy” by most Mexicans, especially when talking to foreign associates, and especially by sane local albañiles (masons).