Guanauato Day 8

7.28.06

The last day of my solo shift as family prepares to join me. Last night a colleague and I had a bite and a beer at the Plaza Central which she hadn’t seen before. We watched the mime do his thing and the various tourists enjoy the show. I felt empty headed after another 6 hours of paying close attention to pronombres personales, listening to and trying to decipher the lyrics to a flamenco cante, peeling apart the metaphors in a few fabulas by Augusto Monterroso, my favorites being:

El Paraiso Imperfecto:

Es cierto – dijo melancolicamente el hombre, sin quitar la vista de la llamas que ardian en la chimenea aquella noche de inverno- ; en el Paraiso hay amigos, musica, algunos libros; lo unico malo de irse al Cielo es que alli el cielo no se ve.

El Burro y La Flauta:

Tirada en el campo estaba desde hacia tiempo una Flauta que ya nadie tocaba, hastaque un dia un Burro que paseaba por ahi resoplo fuerte sobre ella haciendola producir el sonido mas dulce de su vida, es decir, de la vida del Burro y de la Flauta.

Incapaces de comprender lo que habia pasado, pues la racionalidad no era su fuerte y ambos creian en la racionalidad, se separaraon presurosos, avergonzados de lo mejor que el uno y el otro habian hecho durante su triste existensia.

Also Las Lineas de la Mano by Julio Cortazar & La Historia de Pao Cheng por Jose Emilio Pachecho which I’ll post later.

I note how slowly people move when they cook, either in restaurants or at home or on the street; there is a lovely rhythm to their movements, unhurried by schedules to meet or fast food to fry.

Rain splots follow me down the hill from school and I head for the gym again where they are out of water and catch torrents of the thunderstorm in buckets for the toilets. Another good sweat wakes me up and I love the simplicity of simply using the amount of water one needs to chase the pee away. The city’s water depends on these rains and I’ve heard that when there’s a crisis it’s the hotels that get theirs first.

I have greatly enjoyed this first week, the challenges, the camaraderie afforded to strangers in a strange land figuring out how to navigate their way. I have enjoyed the solitude as well but was surprised today to find my answer to a conversation class question: what would you choose to have with you on a deserted island, a dog, a book, a knife or a mirror and I chose the dog. Which for me is odd as I’m not really a pet person, but I would miss having some dark eyes to look into, a warm body on a balmy, breezy night under a in impromptu palm frond shelter. Our school’s director Jorge Barosso said people’s lives change down here, which I’m sure many resort towns boast, but con ojos abiertos I think we can learn new things about ourselves, when we are removed from what we know or think we know.

post prandial observations: a street worker with smudged cheeks heading home, orange pants smeared with mud; girl laughing at the table next to me, her little umbrella resting on the chair; the clock striking 10pm; people applauding as a coche de boda with white carnations on the trunk and hood toots its horn in passsing, the incongruity of a Dominoes pizza moped; undestanding my mother, at this age, feeling the need to remove in order to find herself, yet awareness that I am not she, for I can find myself where ever I am.