Mexico: The Old Woman, Old Man and Me

A cinnamon-complected old woman as short as a carrot enters La Bodega.  

Grinning, she hoists her woven carry-all onto the check-out counter.  

86 years of missed haircuts is pulled sharply from her face and the remaining grey cascades into a waist-length braid.

The abuela (grandmother)  is dressed in a sort of Goodwill combo of a 50‘s McCall’s pattern layered with a faded  floral apron.

Grandma’s booty is an empty bottle of Corona beer.  She produces it for the few peso refund and then totters to the bodega frig for a refill.

I’m as startled as the old woman is at the thunder.  We both look to the open doorway.  The torrent of rain looks like a flash flood.

“Abuela, where do you live”, I ask.  
“Not far, near the pizza place”, she responds in spanish.  True it’s near for someone younger -- only four blocks.

Outside the pea-sized bodega the sky is at war.   

We settle in, hoping the storm will subside. 

Then out of the dark appears a lanky teen wearing a soaked navy sweater and grey slacks. Folded under his left arm is wad of dark, green plastic.  When he shakes it out, I see a makeshift hood and an large tent-like skirt.  Wordlessly, he  places it over the old woman’s head and wraps up her body.  

Now waterproof, the boy leads her away.  The shop owner, who I know slightly, asks in spanish, “Where is your family?  Why do you not have a grandson to take care of you?”  His question sounds more like an accusation.

I throw my sweater over my head and go out into the street.  I ignore his personal questions.  He’s asked many before.

I try not to slip on the wet, bumpy cobblestones wishing that I did have a grandson.  And then I see him.

It is the old man of my Callejon (alley).  I think he’s dead.  And then, I realize, he’s managed -- although he is as crippled as any human being I’ve ever seen -- managed to lay down under the front bumper of a SUV to shield himself from the storm.

No more thoughts of missing family -- just thoughts of what can I do to help our old man who is mentally ill, and walks with a pick ax.  An old man who is always alone and smells.

I’ve never dared speak to him before because people say he can be dangerous.  But now I ask, “Sir, are you all right?”

He replies without the usual profanities that punctuate his walks through the neighborhood,  “There is too much water, too much water.”

I worry the car’s driver will return -- not see him -- and crush him.

But I don’t call for help, because in my world here there is no one to call.

I don’t reach down to pull my neighbor out, because there he is dry. 

I stop trying to fix Mexico and I go home.  

The next day is hot and bright.  The old man inches, once again, down the callejon using his pick ax as a cane.

Lessons from Living in Mexico

CARLA

There is a Yahoo message board attached to life in San Miguel de Allende.  It's called, simply, the San Miguel Civil list.  Nothing about it is civilized nor civil.  Posters to it for the most part are "not-from-here". Their "there" is often Texas or California.  A few have a "there" in NYC.

Under the guise of helpfulness they post about how much to pay your cleaning lady.  The advise given always leads to a keyboard argument.  In the politically incorrect camp we have the ex-pats who insist that paying too many pesos leads to their worker's inability to find more meaningful work.  In other words, pay the cleaning help as little as possible to encourage him or her to question their profession and seek to better himself or herself through education and therefore onto a better life.

One poster admonished not to "over-pay" because if one person over-pays, all employers would be then forced to overpay.  Interesting logic.

The flip side of this argument are the politically correct.  They point out and vehemently so that their opponents are ugly Americans, ugly Canadians, ugly people in general without heart.  That "they" enjoy a relaxed, even decadent lifestyle at the expense of the citizenry of their host county.  In this case that is, of course, Mexico.

The war between these two factions is never resolved.  Terms like bleeding heart liberal gets tossed into the fray of the one side while the other side responds with language like, "you are a monster".

Two weeks ago I called a local company here to come clean my apartment.  Weeks of quasi poor health left in its wake a confusion of un-picked up garbage, dirty tile floors, and dust that looked like something from Grapes of Wrath.

Two youngish women arrived, both beyond cheerful.  Suddenly I was "La Señora" and my wish was their command.  Without much instruction from me, whatsoever given my flagging Spanish language skills, they set to.  Five, yes five, hours later the apartment gleamed.  The cost to me?  $600 pesos.  That is $47 U.S. at today's exchange rate.

I gave them privately $250 pesos because I had an inkling that their employer was getting much of the other $600 pesos.

Allow me to break this down:

The employer is Mexican.

The two ladies are Mexican.

Each was being paid, I found out, 200 pesos to work like dray horses. That is $40 pesos an hour.

What is 40 pesos?  It is (today) $3.14 U.S.

No one can even survive on that.  Not for a day's work.  No one.  And San Miguel is not for the thrifty.  

So, what did I do nex? Well, I'll tell you.  I mentioned to Carla, one of the two ladies, that I needed ongoing help.  True, I do, but it is not in my little budget.  She asked how often.  I replied, 2 times a month. I didn't know how I'd pay her, and didn't tell her that.   She agreed to come.

Today she arrived exactly on time.  I asked her her rate and she said "$200 pesos until I am done".  I replied that I would pay her $250 until she was done.  Unless you are desperate, you don't agree to a pittance to work until your employer says you are done.

I made certain she was done in just over two hours.  How did I do that?  I worked alongside her.  Paula is tall and can reach things I cannot.  Carla is also younger and stronger than I am, so she helped me lift things that are beyond me now.  

Carla has 5 children.  3 are adults, two are young.  Her husband, who is a good man she says, works construction in Atlanta and sends money home.

Why is this Carla's life and why is this my life?  The only reason Carla is helping me with this apartment versus me helping Paula with her home is the luck of the draw.  We're both intelligent, we both have worked hard.  Paula even has a little old car.  I don't have a car.  Carla is willing to have her good husband work in another country to take care of the family.  I am sure she misses him.

Carla and I looked at the old tile floor in this apartment today and shook our heads.  The tiles are cracked.  One drop of spilled coffee is sucked into the floor like the floor was a sea sponge.  And after looking we both agreed that life is hard.  But neither of us have dirt floors.  For that we both are grateful.

Cala is a sunny soul.  I hope she will allow me to become her friend.  I asked her to please call me by my first name.  She asked me if I would like her to buy my produce for me.  She knows how to muscle her way into the throng of women up at La Tiaguis where there is a Tuesday market selling everything from pirated DVD's to broccoli.  I told her I would very much like to go with her.

When Carla left today, we hugged.  Carla is my meditation.  She is my reminder now and for as long as I live here that our compassion, or love for one another,  and our humanity is what matters.  Our kindness is what matters.  Our drop everything and help someone else part of us, is what matters.  

Silence in San Miguel de Allende

There is little silence in my life now.  I know the sounds of silence (with apology to Simon and Garfunkel).  It's ten blocks from the Pacific Ocean hearing water slap rocks, and nothing else.  It's a snow fall in rural Montana and hearing white.  Silence is even Manhattan where the city's energy comes to a gentle hum, after a time.

Silence is as foreign to central Mexico as I am ~ a  freedom not fully appreciated until it's gone.

Visitor tip:  It is politically incorrect to whine about noise.  First of all, I'm told the church bells bring allegria (happiness) to my Mexican neighbors and friends.  They must be ecstatic as the bells chime for weddings, for funerals, to signal the time of day, to celebrate the Saints,  God, and Christ (not listed in order of importance).

The Truck Bearing the Image of the Saint That Will Lead Today's Procession

Aztec Dancers in the Plaza of the Neighborhood Church
Bell Towers in the Distance

Bells in my neighborhood are, in part, automated.  I am certain of it because no one is up in those bell towers at 2, 3 or 4 a.m.  I've checked personally from my upstairs window.

Then there are the bells hand-swung and rung by young men, who by now must be deaf God bless them.  And then,  there are the fireworks ~ fireworks unscheduled.  Fireworks, as explained by 
El Presidente Municipal Mauricio Trejo of San Miguel, are tied to religious events and are sacrosanct.  I respect that.

No, you cannot predict and thereby check into a Motel 6 on the outskirts of San Miguel de Allende until the explosions and deafening bells stop.  You're asleep, finally, and the London Blitz arrives in your bedroom. The first time this happened I was certain that all the much advertised drug bad boys had come to my neighborhood and were shooting up the place with sub-machine guns.

No, this is the the Fun House ~ the huge plastic woman with the garisish lipstick and blond hair shrieking like she just saw Freddy Krueger in the hockey mask.  Think Santa Monica Pier in its heyday.  Wow,  that was one scary place.

Here we have lots of desfiles ~ festivals.  The makeup artist for every desfile is, I believe, flown in from   Manhattan, most recently employed to do the cast of CATS and here, secreted behind a screen so that we're to assume each perfectly painted cara (face) was hand-done by its owner.

Lovely young woman.  Ready for a Parade down Ancha de San Antonio in San Miguel de Allende

While I'm not getting a lot of sleep these days, it is a privilege to live in such a vibrant culture.  

Everything in life is a trade.  I traded UP coming here.

The Sandwich Family

Tips for crossing illegally from Mexico into the U.S. (as told to me by a middle-class Mexican businessman.)  

Arizona vs. Texas

Cross from Mexico into Arizona and you’re crossing into the desert.  You might die of dehydration in the debilitating heat and you’ll inevitably get lost.  But, if U.S. Immigration arrests you they’ll send you home fairly fast ~ just two months incarceration.  Arizona is only preferable to Texas because during the day, you can hide in the sand.

It's easier to survive crossing from Mexico into Texas, but it's tougher to hide.  If U.S. Immigration catches you in Texas, and if it's your first or second "offense" you are looking at six months behind bars before you're deported home.

I personally know 4 Mexican nationals who got into the U.S., worked there for years and then were deported only to then attempt to save up the $8K needed to pay the coyote and the cartel to make another run for the border.  The 5th Mexican National I know who crossed is my friend Jose.  This is his story and the story of his wife's family.

Jose and Deanna's Food Shop

Mornings at 8 a.m. I appear at my next-door-neighbor's "shop" for fresh squeezed orange juice and a ham/cheese/jalapeno Bimbo bread sandwich.  

$1.97 U.S. Breakfast

Deanna would make the sandwich, and her husband Jose squeezed the oranges.  (Neither are pictured for legal reasons.)

That was, until Jose went missing.  As the story goes, Jose left San Miguel de Allende for a multi-month stone mason job in California.  His reason?  His family needed the income.

Because Jose didn't have papers,  he paid a coyote to get him across the Mexican/American border.

For 2 months no one heard a word.

I was alone with my hand-ringing over his disappearance.  Jose's  in-laws weren't uselessly sniffling.  They immediately showed up at the "shop"

Rosa

David

to lift the day-to-day business operation from Deanna's shoulders so that she could stay home and take care of her young children.

Rosa, Jose's mother-in-law began making my daily sandwich.  David, Jose's father-in-law, squeezed my orange juice.

Israel's Clothing for Sale

The family aggressively ratcheted up their business model to include the sale of clothing.  Jose's brother-in-law Israel took charge of that.

In the background, during all this food prep and clothing sales played classical music off a beat box.  This didn't fit at all with my mental image of a poor family trying to make ends meet one sandwich at a time.  I offered to call immigration.  The family just smiled at me.  I offered the family use of my US Vonage landline.  When they refused, I thought they were pretending not to understand my spanish.

Set to Guanajuato Classical Music Station

Rosa

Every morning I asked for news of Jose.  I assumed that all were stoically preparing to learn that Jose either died in the Arizona desert or was in prison.

Far too slowly, I found myself challenging a lot of my preconceived notions about my neighbors.  (All of them were due to my ignorance of the spanish language.)

Pre-conception:  They are poor and uneducated. 

Pre-conception:  They will never climb from poverty one sandwich at a time.

Sandwich Prep Area

Pre-conception:  They need my help.

And then one early morning, I saw this:





On my street, set up next to a parked truck, Jose's other brother-in-law Martine was playing the violin.

Maestro Martine (seated)

Okay, street musician.  No big deal.  Right?

Wrong.  It was a big deal because Rosa, Martine's brother had told me HERSELF that her brother had brain damage.

And the only time I ever saw Martine was when he was riding around the neighborhood on his bicycle delivering house plants.

Israel

I went to Israel for answers and found out that in reality my "adopted" sandwich family are professionally trained, classical violinists.  Martine is a violin teacher.

Other members of the family that do not live here in San Miguel de Allende perform with the Mexico City Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic.  Israel has a college degree in marketing and is a professional drummer.  Rosa has been playing violin since she was five and she's a pastry chef.

As for Jose, he is a master stonemason who needed work and so he tried, unsuccessfully, to take a short-term job in the United States.

Jose was arrested and imprisoned in Arizona.  He was later released and is now back in San Miguel.  He is looking into becoming a cab driver for the time being.  He is banned from the U.S. for the next 5 years.

THE CAVE MAN OF SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE

CAVE MAN

I have never seen him in clothes other than these.  He is my neighbor and he lives in a cave hidden behind an ancient wood door.   Once in awhile he leaves the cave and goes shopping.  One San Miguel block takes a good hour.  

Stooped from the middle he cusses as he inches along.  His right hand “cane” is a pick ax. 
His second cane is a mop wrapped in  oily cloth. 

Last week he yelled at a passing child to bring him a soda.  The boy returned with a Coke and heaved it at the old man.  Few get too close.


Once I opened my iron gate and there he was.  I almost toppled him over.  He snarled.  “Pase, pase, pase!,”  Which means move, move, move.  
I did.

But, he has people.  I think they're family.  Who else would come.  During the rains, I walked to his cave door.  There I saw a rather ordinary middle-aged woman stacking his garbage inside and an ordinary man up on his makeshift tree branch roof laying broken red tiles

I've got to find out who he is, how he came to live like this in a hovel of rocks.