Variations on the Theme of Tacos

Start with one corn tortilla, thick and the size of a small plate - or two small thin ones, doubled-up. Fill them with seasoned meats, shredded or diced - beef bistek or arrachera or barbacoa or lengua (tongue), or fried fish or shrimp, or pork cochinita pibil or pastor (my favorite, with a nick of pineapple). Top them with a combination of fresh cilantro, onions, red or green salsa, guacamole, and always a squeeze of limón. Fold them in half. Eat three, or four, or five. . . . ¡Provecho!

Teatro Juarez

¡Nos encontramos en la escalera de Teatro Juarez!
Let's meet on the steps of Teatro Juarez!

This grandiose building, fronted by a long set of steps, stately columns, and statues of the muses, sits at one end of Guanajuato's central plaza. Its steps provide a perfect meeting place. It was built at the beginning of the 1900s, in the latter part of Porfirio Diaz's thirty year reign as president of México, and it reflects his extravagance. Inside, the theater is lush with intricate copper railings, red carpets, gleaming wooden seats, and glowing lights.

On Saturday night, we attended a performance by the a capella group Voz en Punto. They sang traditional Mexican songs and jazz classics and the wonderful Bésame Mucho. I felt like I should be dressed in silk and pearls and perhaps a feathered boa.

More Reading Lists

Over the past 16 weeks, the students in my literature class at the Universidad de Guanajuato have read The Professor's House by Willa Cather, Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, The Chinchilla Farm by Judith Freeman, and Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams. They have also expanded my own reading list, as they have told me about the research they are doing for their licenciatura and maestría theses. Just a few of the recommended authors and works include:

Amadis de Gaula (14th century; unknown author, though partly attributed to Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo) - A story of chivalric romance in Spain. This work is not Mexican, but one of my students is studying the medieval literature of knights and chivalry, based, of course, in Spanish literature. This book precedes and is satirized in Don Quijote.

Gilberto Owen (1904-1952; Sinaloa, México) - poet (and diplomat!); part of the Mexican poetic school called "los contemporáneos." Poetry collections include Perseo vencido (1948).

Juan José Arreola (1918-2001; Jalisco, México) - a master of the short story, known for his experimental language and use of fantasy and magical realism. One prominent collection of his short stories is Confabulario (1952).

Inés Arredondo (1928-1989; Sinaloa, México) - perhaps the greatest Mexican woman short-story writer of the 20th century, and yet my student who is writing her thesis on this author cannot obtain her books - they are largely out of print - and so this student is working from photocopies. One short story collection is Río subteráneo (1979).

And right now I am reading El llano en llamas (The Field in Flames, 1953) by Juan Rulfo, which is considered one of the most important works in Mexican literature. The short stories are set in the dry, rugged, and lonely countryside of Jalisco, México, and they relate desperate tales of the campesinos at the time of the Mexican revolution and la Guerra Cristera. They are haunting stories, sometimes darkly humorous, that cast an unflinching eye on rural poverty and forgotten people.

You Never Know When You'll See a Burro. . .

The burros work hard in Guanajuato. We see them on the hillsides, highways, and narrow callejónes. They carry all kinds of burdens: bundles of sticks and piles of bags of soil. Their large brown eyes look patiently ahead.

A Mexican legend tells of two famous professors from México City at the turn of the century visiting a pueblo in order to conduct meteorological studies. They note that the town is populated by more burros than people, and that the animals are treated with great respect. They find this quaint - but then the professors discover that the burros can predict the weather more accurately than they can. For example, one burro enters the stable and neighs three times when it is going to rain, and he is always right. The story ends with the rhyme: "A, E, I, O, U / El burro sabe / más que tú" (the burro knows more than you).

La Ley de Herodes

It is 1949, and a very low-level, loyal, and innocuous political party member is promoted from his job as a janitor to a municipal mayor in a remote and dusty town (that he has never seen), where a series of mayors have met a brutal demise from their constituents. The new mayor arrives eager and innocent, with intentions to close the brothel and re-build the school. But power seduces him. . . . This Mexican political satire, a 1999 film, is comic and tragic, and it seems to resonate with people across socioeconomic strata - and it applies just as well to politics in other parts of the world. "Herod's Law" - loosely translated from the crass slang saying in Spanish - means that one way or another, you get screwed.

Embajadoras Esta Mañana

This morning, as we walked down the road into town to do our Sunday morning produce shopping, Mark commented that it had been a little while since we had encountered a wild surprise in the streets of Guanajuato - a parade of chain-mail wearing medieval knights juggling fire, for example, or a pilgrimage of men wearing purple robes, as we have seen during various celebrations and festivals here. The streets of Guanajuato always are lively, but sometimes they are exceptionally so.

Then we turned the corner to the Embajadoras market.

The street was blocked by a truck with a tiger in a cage, advertising a circus that had come to town. Beyond the truck, between the regular jumble of vendors selling beans, avocados, ice cream, and t-shirts, the street was lined with dozens of dancers in brilliantly-colored indigenous costumes and incredible headdresses. They danced in two lines to music of drums and rattles, but also infused with the melodies of flutes that were being played for an adjacent group of dancers: children wearing masks and re-enacting a bullfight. At the center of the plaza stood a magnificent floral altar topped with a pretty statue of the Virgencita, an homage to the Virgin Mary during this month that is devoted to her. The altar stood in front of a stage where a band played popular Mexican songs as well as "Ghost Riders in the Sky" on electric instruments plus a gourd. Inside the market, a brass band squeezed between cilantro, plátanos, mangos, and jitomates to play marching music.

All of this, within an area the size of a Costco. Hooray for Sunday shopping at Embajadoras!

Raices: Roots

On the other side of the mountains to the south and east of Guanajuato, the cuenca (watershed) drains into the Río Laja. As in the West of the U.S.A., water is scarce in the high desert lands of central México. It is a beautiful landscape of gnarled mezquite and huizache shrubs and stately cardón and nopal cactus. But the land also suffers from erosion and soil depletion from a long history of grazing.

Historically, much of the land in this area and throughout México was part of ejidos, communal indigenous properties. In an ejido, members of the community each own their own parcel of land, but they also share a large area in common, and they can all use this land for various purposes, including grazing and gathering nopal and other plants. Decisions about this land are made by a council of ejido members. In recent years, there has been a trend for young members of ejidos to sell their parcels, often to corporate businesses, to reap the financial rewards that offer a respite from dire economic conditions. They leave the ejido; some go to the U.S. to work. But they lose the inheritance of the land where they were born; if they want to return, they have nothing to return to. It is a tough proposition.

We learned about this dilemma during an encounter with Don Chava, a member of an ejido that we met today while exploring the Laja watershed around the town of San Miguel de Allende. It was amazing how much Don Chava's concerns echoed concerns we hear from ranchers in central Idaho - frustration about the prospects for the land he was born on; suspicion about the government's interest in conserving the land. He wanted to be heard.

We were privileged to learn about this landscape from two people who are doing amazing work to protect it, Agustín and Fernando of Salvemos al Río Laja, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health of the Río Laja watershed and the communities that depend on it. Their work ranges from planting trees in rural schoolyards (to provide shade for the children, stabilize the soil, and educate the children about the environment), to finding ways to regulate the extraction of gravel from streambeds, to working with members of ejidos to build troughs to catch rain and prevent erosion on depleted hillsides. Truly, their work is embedded in community. In a scientific sense, they are trying to hold the soil in place by building a network of roots through native plant restoration projects. In a human sense, they are working to help people maintain their deep cultural and familial roots in these rural communities by providing viable, sustainable economic development and education.

Don Quijote in Guanajuato

Guanajuato is famous for its Cervantino Festival - a three-week literary, musical, artistic extravaganza held each fall. And one of Guanajuato's finest museums is the Museo Iconográfico del Quijote. Why this obsession with Don Quijote, the protagonist of the renowned Spanish novel written by Miguel Cervantes in the early 1600s? How is Don Quijote - who chased windmills in Spain's countryside hundreds of years ago - connected to Guanajuato? Why would this character resonate in the Mexican landscape and culture?

In the 1930s, during the Spanish Civil War, the Mexican president Lazaro Cárdenas welcomed Spanish intellectuals who were fleeing their war-torn country with only libros y zapatos - books and shoes. First Spain conquered México, and then, a few hundred years later, México provided a refuge for many of Spain's most talented people. Many of these Spanish exiles played an important role in México's education reforms. One exile, Eulalio Ferrer Rodriguez, founded the Quijote museum, which today is filled with hundreds of paintings, murals, statues, and carvings of this lanky, dreamy literary figure and his short, round sidekick, Sancho. I imagine that Cervantes's story provided a powerful connection to their homeland for the Spanish refugees in México. And the tale itself is one of romantic optimism confronting loss and disillusionment, as Don Quijote is repeatedly deceived by his fellow countrymen as he seeks adventure in the land he loves and thinks he knows.

Vamos a Escuela

We went to school with our friend Jesús last week. Jesús teaches English to kindergarteners as part of a new educational initiative. The program aims to introduce students to English starting at the kindergarten level by providing hour-long English lessons three days a week.

We visited two public schools in Silao, an industrial town about fifteen minutes from Guanajuato: Jardín de Niños Solidaridad and Jardín de Niños Efrain Huerta. (Jardín de Niños schools are pre-elementary schools. In México, half-day school is mandatory starting at the preschool level for children 3-4 years of age. The Jardínes de Niños include preschool and kindergarten grades.) These schools in Silao are in poorer, rougher neighborhoods, but I was impressed with the classrooms and the quality of the educational materials. Students typically wear uniforms at public schools in México, but at one of these schools the students did not wear uniforms because of the expense for the families.

This day's English lesson focused on clothes. The students learned the words for "t-shirt," "pants," "dress," and "shoes." One student asked if the word "t-shirt" is the same as the word "teacher" - they sound almost the same, after all - a good question, I thought, from a five-year old. The children also sang the "Squeeze" song in English: "Squeeze, squeeze, stand up, please! Touch your head, touch your knees!" After singing the song, the students chanted, "Otra! Otra!" to sing it again.

We helped the students cut and paste pictures of shirts, pants, and shoes in their workbooks, and as they colored their pictures we asked them what colors they were using in English. They asked us questions, too: most importantly, they asked if we are gigantes - giants.

I have always loved to go to school - ever since I stopped crying after my first week of kindergarten. But this particular school day was a highlight.

Passing Time

I have been in a lot of classrooms in various schools here in Guanajuato now, and I am struck by the fact that there are no clocks. In the U.S., it seems that the giant round clock is the centerpiece of each classroom, positioned so that the students and the teachers can all watch the time passing. In general in the U.S., I feel that clocks are everywhere. Here, there is rarely a clock in a public place, and I have not seen one yet in a classroom. It seems somehow symbolic that my own wristwatch broke shortly before we arrived in México in January, and I have been watchless throughout our stay. People joke about the wide span of time that can be signified by the expression ahorita (right now). It is not that there is no schedule here; there is. But time is experienced differently.

No clocks. But plenty of time.

La Parroquia de Atotonilco

In the small pueblo of Atotonilco (a Náhuatl word for "place of hot waters"), a plain white church draws people who seek to be healed. The church was built in 1746 under the direction of the Jesuit priest Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro after he had a dream in which he witnessed Jesus carrying the cross. The outside of the church is largely unadorned, but inside, unlike any other church I have seen in México, the walls and ceilings are painted with verses of poetry and intricate frescoes depicting Biblical scenes. In 1810, the priest who led the Mexican Independence movement, Miguel Hidalgo, took the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe from this church's sanctuary and raised it as a standard before the insurgent troops to inspire their charge.

When I visited the parroquia, a boy in a wheelchair, a man with one arm, and many more people quietly gathered on the terrace of the church's entrance and walked through its doors to ask for a miracle. As I sat on a short wooden bench in the small sanctuary, a gentle chorus drifted in from the streets. A group of more than twenty elderly women entered the church singing call-and-response refrains in sweet, tremulous, mesmerizing voices. They proceeded in two lines, their gray hair in long braids down their backs, their dark and wrinkled faces soft and contemplative. As each woman reached the wooden floor of the sanctuary, she knelt and went the rest of the way to the altar on her aged knees.

By Bici, Bien!

We left in the morning from the old train station in Dolores Hidalgo - but we hopped on our bikes rather than a train - to head to the thermal pools near San Miguel de Allende, 23 miles away. The journey began with an odd proposition - a swim in hot water on a 90 degree day? So we were laughing at ourselves from the start, and I'm sure we provided an entertaining spectacle to the people we encountered along the way.

We rode through farmland on dirt roads and paths, asking for directions and backtracking frequently. Many of the fields are green and thick with young corn and alfalfa now. We passed a man who had just harvested a section of alfalfa with a scythe, and now he was carting it in a wagon pulled by a burro. We passed goats and chickens roaming freely and giant pigs tethered in the shade of trees.

While we cautiously rode our brakes down a gravelly hill, all of us sporting helmets and gloves, a boy on a too-small bike came ripping down the hill and flew by us - no helmet, no brakes - with a wild and rebellious smirk on his face. A moment later at an intersection, we asked directions from a man who had a load of six bricks balanced on each shoulder. He patiently stood there holding the bricks while we debated which way to go.

After riding for two hours and changing two flat tires (both Mark's), we flagged down a produce truck to buy some bananas and mangos and take a break in the shade.

But the pools, "Aguas Claras," did not disappoint. The natural springs are on a slight hill overlooking the wide valley, and some of the pools are cool, not hot. We floated in the refreshing water and looked out at the blue sky, then we enjoyed a barbecue of huge slabs of grilled carne de res (beef) and salchichas (sausage) with grilled onions, fresh avocado, and saltines - all with our bare hands since we had brought no utensils. We couldn't stop laughing.

The trip was superbien.

Como Ciudadanos. . .

"Como ciudadanos, como hombres y mujeres de ambas aldeas - la global y la local - nos corresponde desafiar prejuicios, extender nuestros propios límites, aumentar nuestra capacidad de dar y recibir así como nuestra inteligencia de lo que nos es extraño. . . . La lección de nuestra humanidad inacabada es que cuando excluimos nos empobrecemos y cuando incluimos nos enriquecemos. ¿Tendremos tiempo de descrubir, tocar, nombrar, el número de nuestros semejantes que nuestros brazos sean capaces de hacer nuestros? Porque ninguno de nosotros reconocerá su propria humanidad si no reconoce, primero, la de los otros." - Carlos Fuentes, contemporary Mexican writer

"As citizens, as men and women of both villages - the global and the local - we are responsible for challenging prejudices, stretching our own limits, increasing the capacity of our minds to give and receive even that which is foreign to us. The lesson of our limitless humanity is that when we exclude others, we impoverish ourselves, and when we include others, we enrich ourselves. Will we have the time to discover, touch, name, and count the fellow beings who our arms are capable of embracing? Because we cannot recognize our own humanity if we first do not recognize the humanity of others."

I am ashamed of the immigration law that recently has passed in Arizona, a law that promotes racial profiling and addresses the issue of immigration with a menacing and heavy hand. It is a law that will promote dangerous divisions rather than build constructive alliances. The law has been discussed extensively in the news here in México. It is difficult to be a guest in México, every day enjoying and depending on the kindness and patient acceptance of various people, and to have such a message of prejudicial rejection sent here from my home country.

We can do better. We can reach deeper, wider.

Cinco de Mayo

While restaurants and bars in the United States have seized upon Cinco de Mayo as a day of festivity, here in Guanajuato it is relatively un-marked. Monday was a holiday in honor of International Labor Day, but today was business as usual. Cinco de Mayo commemorates a battle that occurred near Puebla, México, on 5 May 1862, when the Mexican Army fought and defeated the invading French army. However, the war and the French intervention in Mexico would continue for several more years beyond this one battle. Therefore, the date warrants a couple of paragraphs in the school history books, but it is not a date of big national celebrations (except, I imagine, in Puebla).

Acordeón

The more I hear the accordion played - in mariachi and norteño music - the more I love it. It's like something between an organ and a bagpipe. To me, its notes always sound both lively and old, festive and nostalgic - like they are being pulled from the air of another time.

Here the accordion is played by a member of Azul Acero, our favorite Guanajuato norteño band. They often play in the evenings at the Jardín de la Unión. They stroll amongst the sidewalk dinner tables echando un lazo - smoothly roping in customers with their friendly demeanor for a song or two. They are fabulous.

Las Mañanitas

Last week several friends celebrated birthdays, and we had the fun of hearing "Las Mañanitas" sung for them. I love the Mexican birthday song, which traditionally is sung to the birthday person on the morning of her cumpleaños. Some of my favorite stanzas are (the whole song is bit more involved than "Happy Birthday to You"):

Despierta mi bien, despierta,
mira que ya amaneció,
y los pajarillos cantan,
la luna ya se metió.

Que linda esta la mañana
en que vengo a saludarte.
Venimos todos con gusto
y placer a felicitarte.

El día en que tú naciste,
nacieron todas las flores,
en la pila del bautizo,
cantaron los ruiseñores.

Wake up, my dear, wake up,
see it is already dawn
and the little birds are singing,
and the moon has gone.

How pretty is the morning
that comes to greet you today.
We also come joyful to greet you
and wish you a happy birthday.

The day that you were born,
so were all the flowers.
And at your baptismal font,
the nightingales sang for hours.