Guanajuato Day 11

7.31.06

I sit on our patio after the family’s first day at school, awaiting the impending thunderstorm that announces itself in the West like a roaring lion. The air is wonderful and I’ll have to move in shortly to avoid destroying my laptop, but these moments are lovely while they last. I understand a bit more these people who are attached to their Blackberries, IM’ing, wireless (inalambrico in Spanish, nice word) etc. One feels they are attached to the world and their loved ones via this ethernet umbilical cord, even when 1,000’s of miles away from home. Now that we’re all used to e-mail and daily check-ins, something feels off when one doesn’t have access. What are we missing in the world? Who out there needs us? Who are we missing? The postcard of yore: “Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.” has been replaced by travel blogs, cellphones with international calling cards, sending digital photos by internet, versus the postal system. One hardly has time to be out of touch, unless of course, your internet café goes black with a power outage or all the stations are busy. Now that I’m writing everyday it feels unnatural to not do so, and I feel the blog virus, deep in my vein when I can’t post daily for whatever reason. What would I do with only a pen and paper and a donkey “express” available for communicating? Hmm, think deep thoughts and hope they get transported on another plane. Or just learn how to wait. (muy un-Americano.)

The kids, reluctant to do this whole Spanish thing, seem to survive their lessons and I enjoy continuing my grammar and conversation classes. I wish I had a month or more here as there really is so much to learn and not enough time, never enough time. A new class, Legends, is a fascinating intro to some of Guanajuato’s history and lore. I forget how young the U.S. when I hear about indigenous peoples, building these cities from scratch, The story here is that Indians inhabited this city along the riverside, mining silver, gold and minerals from the mountains. When the Spanish came over and “introduced” themselves, they corraled the river into tunnels after seasons of flooding destroyed their outposts. As successive levels of homes got inundated, they built on top of them, hence the cascading levels of houses here. With years of drought the river has essentially dried up and the tunnels were converted into these subterranean vehicular passageways.

Today is the Festival de las Cuevas (Cave Festival) where in they celebrate the legend of a beautiful woman who was unfaithful to her husband and killed, turned into a serpent and buried in a cave. Lore has it that only a handsome man could rescue her spirit and for years many tried, but only a simple, plain man was able to reach the cave and sing to her. She was grateful to be rescued and told him she would be his if he would take her down the hill, with one stipulation. That he not ever look back at her.on the way down, no matter what sounds he heard. He agreed, and managed to get most of the way despite the birds calls, animals, grunts and warnings from people he passed that she was the serpent lady. He stood by his promise as long as he could but finally, gave in and saw that his beloved now had the head of a serpent. The two were turned to stone at that moment and the legend continues that another handsome man will have to go and rescue her again. The festival has been overlaid with the Feast of St. Ignacius de Loyola (no one seems to know what he did to earn sainthood) by the Catholic Church who I understand has taken many indigenous beliefs, stories, myths and imbued them with some Christian meaning. People camp out on one of the two mountains that are named after the ill fated couple, La Bufa y El Pastor.

I think of what these apocryphal tales mean, over time. How we must turn a philandering woman into a serpent whose only hope of rescue is another man, handsome at that. How the cries of the people can turn a man’s loving gaze, one that allows him to ignore his loved one’s imperfections, into eyes of clarity that now believe something they wouldn’t believe before. I guess the “thou shalt nots” are much more interesting when communicated in story form than in dry dictates from a stone tablet.

As we wait out the thudershowers, the kids make up their own stories in their rooms, having some adventure in their heads, on their beds. I note to myself that Noah has not missed his electronic gadjets so far, only his regular meal schedule. I like to think I could wean them of so many American habits, move to a simpler life, but some nurses hear tell me that the childhood obesity we see around us here, is due partly to the virtual video babysitter that is a part of this culture as well. I see parents feeding their toddlers Cokes, every nino has either a pan dulce or a helado in their hand and there are few fields, parks or play areas in sight. The nutritionist I worked with back home said that with NAFTA so much produce is now exported that people here are buying more of our imported junk and processed foods. Their OXXO, the 7-11 equivalent carries all the Mexican “junk food” you could want, plus our stuff as well. If all this processed food is the wave of the future, I’m buying stocks in Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil and Insulin.

The picture here is of the Mercado.