September

Much has happened. In the grand scheme of things they are trivial, but for us daily life is still full of surprises.
One night, with Jose and Estella for dinner, we mention that the gates to the parking area are sagging and hard to operate. Jose is the man who takes care of our house. ‘No problema, Hank’ he says and we nod wisely. We know all about ‘No problema’. The next morning Heremina and Don Jose come to the house for the weekly cleaning (what a luxury!) and we leave for a leisurely breakfast at the Plaza San Fernando nearby (They play Dave Brubeck in the serenity of an early morning). We return home and find two men messing around with our exterior fuse box. Instant panic: we remember the guys with wire cutters ready to disconnect us. However, these men are connecting their arc welder to a 220 Volt line. Three hours later the gates are back in operating position. New braces, new supports. No problema. The next morning!
A long-standing wish to replace the ugly plastic chairs on the patio took us on a bus trip to Dolores Hidalgo. We wanted ‘equipal’ (sticks and leather) chairs, only made in Guadalajara, and very, very hard to find around here. We arrived and asked around. Anna found a shoe store (where else?), and was given the address of the store where to buy them. We took a cab, found the place and were informed that perhaps mid-October a new shipment of chairs would arrive. But: ‘go back to the traffic light, turn right and 300 meters down the road you’ll find Arte Mexicano.’ It was a long walk at mid-day, but Arte Mexicano had stacks of the desired chairs. In no time we placed our order and asked about possible delivery to our house, more than an hour away. ‘No problema’’, we’ll be there today. At 8:30 that evening the owner and his wife showed up, their van loaded with seven chairs. Is there any place on earth where you get that kind of attention? We sit back in awe and count our fortune cookies.

September 16 was Independence Day in Mexico. The day when the ‘Grito’ is read all over Mexico. The ‘Grito’ (the ‘Shout’) is the call for Independence, issued in 1810 by Padre Hidalgo on the steps of his church in Dolores Hidalgo. The ‘conspiracy’ to overthrow by force the Spanish colonial regime was betrayed and Padre Hidalgo, one of the leaders, prematurely issued his call to rise up and defeat the Spanish. Ultimately the leaders were captured here in Guanajuato and beheaded. At 11 o’clock at night, allegedly the time of his grito, and every year since 1940, his words echo all over Mexico.


Our neighbors, part-time residents here, who, as a family of three sisters, own a beautiful hacienda above us, had invited us for the celebration. ‘What time shall we come?’ we asked. ‘Eight o’clock would be fine.’ We know about 'la hora Latina’ and arrived at nine. ‘We thought you wouldn’t come’, and were the first ones to arrive. The extended family, gathered here for the celebration, dribbled in during the next hour. Wine and tequila, and lots of good talk. Anna and I left them at 10:30 to go to witness the reading of the grito. Thousands and thousands of people were packed in the square, flags waving, a mariachi band blasting music, keeping spirits high. Babies on shoulders, people jostling for a better view. The wonderful (and seductive!) smell of greasy tortillas con carne filling the air.
The grito was read: at every call, at every exhortation thousands shouted ‘Viva!’, and when the Mayor had done the deed, we were covered by foam spray from pressure cans. Who knows where that tradition started? Fireworks erupted, and we pushed our way back through the crowd,
The neighbors had invited us back to their house afterwards, and served a four-course dinner at midnight. At one o’clock, tired and with too much to eat, we staggered home. Mexicans know a lot more about living than we do.

We walk and walk and get to know the street vendors; notice the small things of daily life. Where to get avocados and ripe figs. Where to buy a drill bit, where to find flower pots. Walking is not easy here. Mexicans have no sense of order, and will cut into any line as a matter of fact. Not using elbows, simply inserting their bodies into any open space. Hugging the wall on the corner, they find space between you and a stone wall. There is no such thing as walking on the right side of the sidewalk and holding a steady course: navigating your way people cross in front of you and force you to the left. Mexicans seek the opening, although their pace is slower than mine. They come to a sudden stop to chat with friends, and you almost crash into them. Meeting friends is so much more important than rushing down the street. A few days ago we were on a bus which stopped for no apparent reason. Anna and I were on our way to meet friends, and sort of in a hurry. ‘Go man, go’, I wished, but the driver had seen his girlfriend on the street and exchanged some warm and very hearty embraces with her. And, really, why not?
As a gringo in this country there is much to learn. Much to learn about the quality of life; about the pace which is slower than mine.
If I am slow to add to the blog it is a testament to life here. Mañana is not a word without meaning. But you have to live it to understand. More or less daily we read the NYT headlines online, and really, how much has changed since we left? So why spend a lot of time worrying?


We removed more garden fences and added flowerpots to improve both appearance and safety. The garden looks so much better! The geraniums are on steroids; the oleanders and bougainvilleas are in bloom. A long row of lavender plants is enjoying life and is spreading. The kitchen feeds on fresh herbs, with oranges (sort of sour) and limes for the picking. And just when we needed him the burro-man appeared . The man and his two burros, the man walking, the burros trudging. The burros laden with bags full of composted soil, 50 lbs each for 40 pesos. The mules were smiling in relief for we are impetuous buyers. Four days later he was back: more mules, more bags. Do we eat this stuff? He knew a good thing when he saw it.
He is convincing, and the thought of the long road back for him and his burros tugged at the heart strings. At this rate we’ll be selling dirt to our neighbors.

Next week we’ll rent a car and bite the bullet. The last car we rented here in February had a worn-out clutch. If you have seen, or can imagine, the steep slopes of the city, you’d know what that means. But a car will allow us to go to Leon, a serious shopping mecca. Guanajuato has no box stores: no Home Depot, Walmart, Sears nor Costco. It is a matter of civic pride to say: Oh! Those stores? They are in Leon! And people are right, they represent a manner of civil contamination. But Leon is an hour away.
I have a long, long list for Home Depot.
There is no such thing as “I want it now” when it comes to consumer goods. To want is to say: I can’t do without it, while the store is miles away and you can wait. The goodies (in the American sense) are available within a 50-mile radius, but never here. Guanajuato is the place where inventiveness and ‘no problema’ rule. It is one of the great attractions of the city. But sometimes you just lust for the Home Depot aisles: ready in a box with instructions not in Serbo-Croatian; no fuss, no drawings or designs of what you’re looking for. Ready in a box, what a concept. Who’d have thunk it?

Bureaucracy rules: the streets are full of people clutching manila folders. To not have a folder is to commit life without protection. Paperwork, adorned with seals and signatures to accomplish even the most mundane: to enroll your child in school; to obtain water service; to sell cactus leaves on the street. It’s all about documents. It’s all about standing in line, getting a number. It’s all about having a number and no place to go. On the other side of the counter a woman smiles at you and sends you home. One more piece of paper. Preparation does not help, for the rules change. (An American in the Immigration Office in San Miguel, waiting for his visa, said it well: “There is nothing more satisfying than to hear the sound of a rubber stamp coming down on your papers!”).
The system keeps a lot of people busy, and that, most likely, is what it is all about. Don’t disturb a way of life that has been afloat for centuries.
It is never about the papers in your hand, it is about the Kafka’esque process. And in that I fail. I wish to establish a process and run into Eskimos who are told to build igloos with bricks. It does not work that way. And, if you know the Mayor, well, of course, ‘no problema’. I don’t know the Mayor and for that reason we do not disconnect the TV, telephone or Internet when we leave. It was hard enough to get connected. Don’t mess with what works: it’s worth the extra pesos.

We are awaiting Louis’s arrival next week, and will attend as many events of the Cervantino festival as we can. A 3-day trip to Patzcuaro and Morelia is planned. Late October Anna’s old friend Valerie will visit us for a few days, and then we’ll have come close to the end of our stay here. How quickly the weeks go by!

MEAT

The butcher down the street is a nice man with a beautiful smile. He keeps on the somewhat-less-than-clean countertop enormous sheets of chicharrón (fried pork skin) which he offers with a napkin to his customers. Yesterday, I went for ground pork to make, I told him, chiles enogada. He was impressed at my tackling that complicated dish. We chatted about cooking while I took miniscule nibbles of my chicharrón and wondered how to get rid of it. After I had wrapped it in a napkin explaining that I wanted to save some for my husband, he ripped off another huge sheet for my esposo. We continued to chat about various Mexican dishes. I said I would like to make cochinito pibil one day and how do you say pork butt in Spanish. Well, he wasn’t sure that pork butt was what I wanted. He opened his refrigerated show case, brought out a hunk of meat and laid it on the still not-so-clean counter. This he said is the butt. Then out came another, laid next to it. These are the lower ribs. Next the upper ribs, the shoulder, a leg. “Look at this beautiful tenderloin. It comes from here.” Soon the entire pig was on the counter and I was treated to his idea of how to best cook each of these cuts. After about 45 minutes, I thanked him for the anatomy lesson, a kilo of chicken backs for soup, that he insisted was a “regalo,” and the chicharrón, my piece of which was starting to cause grease stains on my pants pocket where I had shoved it earlier.

Santa Rosa

On Friday we were going to Santa Rosa, half an hour from here, higher up, much higher up in the mountains. But then we didn’t because the plumber came. Not just a plumber to replace the kitchen sink, but a man armed with hammers and chisels, and an assortment of pipes, faucets and connector rings. It all started with Anna saying to Jose Gutierrez, our realtor and house manager, that she’d like a bigger sink. No problema, Anna, I have a big sink for you, deeper and with two basins. He just happened to have one, or thereabouts. He knew a plumber and, as we are fond of saying: Bob is your uncle. Days later we encounter dust on the second floor. The kitchen counter was constructed with German bunker blue prints as a guide: 3 inches of cement, braced with rebar. It took some hacking and sawing, but six hours later water flowed onto seamless stainless steel, no water dripped from the connections and we could not have been happier. One day, from conception to completion! Only in Mexico! It never fails to amaze us.

Before that we had more railings cut down in the garden, unfortunately also a small section that was the anchor for the alley-side wall.. Now we need a welder to put it back in again. Jose assures us that he can get us someone. ‘And don’t think about the small section of wall you want to build’. Words as sweet as honey.
Then we did go to Santa Rosa, on a dreary day, in the comfort of a long-distance Mercedes Benz bus, leaning back in our first-class airplane seats, climbing and climbing on a twisting mountain road, until we arrived at the Santa Rosa stop, shivering at near cloud-like altitude.
Santa Rosa is at first glance like all other small Mexican villages: a solitary dog on a deserted street, forlorn decorations from a past fiesta, half finished houses a testimony to dreams not realized.

But you walk around, avoiding rivulets of water after a heavy rain, and see the plants and flowers in gardens, patios, and on rooftops. You take in the sweetest smile of the young woman in the small restaurant, and smile in turn when someone says ‘hi’ to you in the street in response to our ‘buenos dias’. A small tienda, a cooperative of five women, with heavenly smells around. What smells so good? we ask, and are led to the working area of the store where walnuts are roasted with sugar. Two bags, for sure, you don’t want to run out. And a jar of that mango jelly.
We had heard of a pottery in town, and found it easily. Hundreds upon hundreds of plates, vases, cups and dishes, as far as the eye could see. Made for export; big cartons with markings that said ‘Canada’. Pretty ugly stuff though, if you ask me, but we did find a small dish we liked. What can you do? Here we are, two gringos, walking into this deserted store, stretching out over three levels, a young and hopeful woman hovering around, ready at the first suggestion of interest? You buy something, that’s what you do. The small square dish now sits on the living room table. Five years from now we will look at it and say: ’Remember that day we went to Santa Rosa?’
Santa Rosa stays with you. The cathedral rises above all, across from the garage and feed store. On our way we shared the ride with several old women, holding large bouquets of flowers. We found them again in the church yard, waiting for a funeral. We looked into the church (its doors were still closed), and saw inside the simplicity of a Shaker or Moravian church. Plain benches, a table with green cloth serving as altar. Old women who had come to pay their respects. This you can not ignore: the passage of time. Mexicans do it better than we do. In that, I think, lies the appeal of a village like Santa Rosa: the continuation.

Santa Rosa has power but no running water. Children and old people bring buckets to the street and fill them with water gurgling out of rubber hoses, mostly buried below the pavement. If no one is there to fill a bucket, a drum is placed to receive the water, which will serve as reserve supply until the next bucket. There is only one Pepsi Cola sign, and it is right behind the Elementary School. At the edge of town, where the pavement of rough stones is losing the battle against eroding rain waters, where old cars wear out their clutches on the steep incline, a young boy bursts forth from a small house to greet us. He had seen us from his garden.

We attempted to get money out of an ATM. All of that started with the desire to simplify our life. Jose had told us that we could pay our utility bills directly via our bank, a great idea, given that our power had almost been cut off two weeks before for non payment. It seemed like a good idea to put some pesos into our bank account, but our bank’s ATM was out of commission (or out of money). Next door, behind Alcatraz-like bars, we found another ATM. There are very few variations on our experiences with Mexican banks and offices, and we should not have been surprised. I enter the amount I want (need is another story), and nothing happens. Except that the receipt shows that the money was taken out of our account. We know how to grin and bear it. Eventually it all worked out, after meeting some very solicitous and unwaveringly polite managers.
Tomorrow, Monday, we’ll go to San Miguel de Allende for a few days. Our friends Gill and Jerry Schofer were more than generous in offering the use of their house while they were away, and we will put it to good use. We’ll go shopping for garden furniture, and spend endless hours in the Immigration Office, trying to figure out what papers (and how many copies) we will need to re-new my Mexican visa.
Meanwhile we wait for a delivery of garden plants from Julie and her architect husband Pepe, and we’ll wait until their VW bus is running again.
Pepe is a Gaudi, the wilder the better. In California he built a houseboat for himself and Julie, floating on Styrofoam. It rocked like crazy. An office he built in the top of concrete palm trees, and the birdcage in their nursery is constructed from a wheelbarrow, toaster lids, chicken wire and a carfender. A man of great and playful imagination, We hope they can fix their van and we'll have them over for drinks and dinner.