San Pancho Writers, Nayarit, Mexico

El Arco Norte

2011-10-28T12:06:00.003-04:00

Rejoice! There is now a Mexico City bypass. Until five months ago, we on the Pacific side of Mexico had to drive through the western hemisphere’s largest metropolitan area to get pretty much anywhere east or south of it. And it wasn’t easy.

We recently headed for Xalapa in the state of Veracruz. We checked online for the day the last digit of our license plate would forbid us to pass through Mexico City, slept in Toluca and mounted the assault the next morning. It was a good passage with only one stop to ask directions and was accomplished in about an hour. In fact, it was spectacularly good because, when we got gas on the far side at about 10:30, we learned about an additional rule: No out-of-state cars on the road until 11. The last time we made a mistake, it took 2000 pesos to get out of it.

While in Xalapa word came to us of the bypass, El Arco Norte, and we took it going home. Here’s how:

East-West. Past Puebla you exit the main highway at Texmelucan where it’s almost well marked. A warning sign says El Arco Norte; the actual turnoff says Hwy 57 to Querétaro. At an un-manned toll plaza you eventually figure out to push a button and take a plastic card. The route, through beautiful, sparsely populated countryside north of Mexico City, proceeds past a turnoff to Pachuca, past a turnoff to Querétaro, and on to the exit at Atlacomulco where you pay 340 pesos. Atlacomulco is located at the point where the highway from Guadalajara turns south toward Toluca.

West-East. The exit is not marked “El Arco Norte” but there’s an Atlacomulco exit sign and another that indicates it’s the road to Querétaro.

The route takes about an hour more than going through Toluca and Mexico City but I estimate that the relaxation will add about four days to your life expectancy.

Another San Pancho Writer Breaks Out

2011-09-11T10:22:00.004-04:00

One of our number, Ellen Greene, published a wonderful book called Remember the Sweet Things (William Morrow/HarperCollins) in 2009, and now I’ve followed her with The Lives of La Escondida (Lirio, 2011.) When we started our writers’ group several years ago, publishing was only a gleam in our eyes, though we were all serious about our “craft” and a couple of us had books in the works. I think both Ellen and I would say that our writing group was catalytic in our writing process.

Things are strange in the book world these days. Barry Eisler (writer of bestseller thrillers) turned down a $500,000 advance in favor of self-publishing on Amazon’s CreateSpace after a hard look at the bottom line. Considering that an advance is, by definition, to be paid back from royalties; that book royalties from publishing houses run in the 10-15% range, while you’ll get more like 40% if you self-publish—with the disparity even greater for the e-version—the math was clearly in favor of the Indie approach.

Of course, Eisler was already well known and has no need for the book tours and all the other publicity efforts of the established publishing houses. Oops, make that the book tours, etc. that used to be part of the package at the established houses. Now, times are tough, and HarperCollins belongs to Rupert Murdoch.

And those traditional houses accept manuscripts only through literary agents, and agents take a hefty percentage, too, if you can land one, which I hadn’t when I stopped trying. I stumbled upon a publisher that would accept author submissions. I submitted; I was accepted! But if something seems too good to be true… After nearly two years of dealing with rank amateurs—extending to their knowledge, or lack thereof, of grammar and punctuation, and a refusal to allow the book to appear in e-form—I extricated myself from my contract.

What’s more, the publisher was going to print my book using CreateSpace, and then give me 10%. Sure, he provided me an editor—whose work I couldn’t use—and a proof-reader—who wouldn’t consider even the Chicago Manual of Style (“We aren’t in Chicago.”) Those, if competent, are worth a lot. However, the publisher wasn’t paying these people—thus justifying his percentage. They were working for royalties, too, and their work was slow since these weren’t their day jobs, which they should never consider quitting.

So, like Barry Eisler, I published on CreateSpace, and I make about two dollars more per book than Kathryn Stockett gets for The Help. (It won’t be necessary for you to point out who is likely making more money.) For fees, CreateSpace will edit, proof, or design, but you may do it all yourself virtually free of charge. And, if there are tricky bits, there is also prompt and competent tech support. For ten dollars, one can have an ISBN attached to a publishing house of one’s own—mine is named Lirio, from Casa de los Lirios, my San Pancho home.

My book is a romance that violates some of the conventions, hopefully making my characters more lifelike, while still devastatingly appealing. I based it in New Mexico where I lived for thirty-seven years, and in Mexico, too. There, in the 1590s, the Inquisition drove suspected Jews north to New Mexico where they went underground and hang on until this day. The book is available on Amazon and in all e-reader forms, as described on my webpage: www.carolynkingson.com.

Tlacuaches Trumped

2011-09-01T15:50:00.004-04:00

Opossoms, (tlacuaches, in Spanish), find my San Pancho home agreeable, as I’ve complained in several posts. Yes, they can have some bad habits, such as chewing through the gas line to my stove and causing an explosion, but I’ve now achieved perspective. My daughter found baby-blues to be too much, my grandbaby beckoned, and I’ve moved to London for a time to be what help I can. And it is London that has opened my eyes.

And how has London, more precisely, Chiswick, done this? Chiswick with its meandering streets, some of which probably follow old cow paths; where dropped items hang on fences until reclaimed; dense with prams and nannies and lovingly tended gardens; home of Colin Firth, for crissakes—is infested with foxes. Walk home after dark, gaze out into the garden early in the morning, and you’re sure to see them starting out on the night’s business or heading back to the den, which is probably hidden under a garden buddleia, maybe yours. But don’t think they aren’t out in the day, too. These foxes look as though they have no need of “sly” or “wily;” those traits were apparently given up as unnecessary long ago. A better epithet would be “arrogant as a fox.” They don’t slink or skulk home in the grey-green morning light. These animals are alpha, top, apex predators. And I’m not overlooking humans.

I say without fear of contradiction that everyone in the UK knows that a fox entered an east London house, went upstairs, and mauled twin baby girls in their crib—one on the face. When the screams brought the parents running, they found the fox sitting as calmly as if it were the family dog. It was headline line news when the babies finally got out of the hospital. Tlacuaches would never do anything like that.

Another baby was attacked while sleeping beside its mother on the sofa. The woman whose house I’m staying in found one in her living room with her three-year-old. They regularly tear up my daughter’s garden. Everybody has a story. It’s been hot, but do you think you dare leave open a ground-floor window?

Foxes have a devoted following in England. Fox hunts—“…the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.” (Oscar Wilde)—were a target for animal rights advocates for decades and are now banned. One may be arrested for killing or trapping a fox—though, I presume you’d get off lightly if it could, definitively, be shown to have injured your baby. It’s hard to understand why some humane fox removal is not being attempted until you realize that there’s no place in England that isn’t already full of foxes. Given that, one wonders why the men aren’t out with torches and pitchforks at night.

And if it’s not enough that foxes threaten babies, they kill house cats. (In fairness, I note that The National Fox Welfare Society disputes this and says they only chase them away from their kits, or tease them. Italics, and scepticism, mine.) You’d think even a rumour of cat-killing would put the nail in the fox coffin, cats being nearly as essential to human happiness as babies. And while London wrestles with its dilemma, we hold our grandchildren close and think of the mild-mannered tlacuaches of San Pancho.

On the Road Again

2011-04-04T19:24:00.004-04:00

ruins recently excavated near San Miguel de Allende

I often lament to friends and family my not traveling as much as I say I would like. Well, I haven’t booked a flight to Buenos Aires yet, but I did take some baby steps in the past few weeks by driving around Central and Western Mexico with a friend. We stopped in Lagos de Moreno, Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende, Patzcuaro, and Morelia on the first leg, then Mascota, Talpa, and Tapalpa on the second.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” more than one person asked when they heard of my plan. Holdups and random acts of violence permeate the news from Mexico.

My experience, however, was as pleasant as it has always been here: friendly locals who smiled at us as we walked around their town snapping photos; well-mannered kids stepping off narrow sidewalks to give space to us elders; new arrivals at restaurants saying “Buen provecho” as they passed our table.

But the bad press must have left its mark somewhere in my subconscious because I felt apprehensive when I pulled off a back road in Michoacan to look at my map and a big-wheeled pickup with two men in it stopped behind me. One of them got out and approached my open window.

"Are you all right?” he asked in accent-free English. “Can I help you?” He then gave me what turned out to be perfect directions to the little town I was looking for, returned to his truck, and, along with his passenger, gave me a cheery wave as they went on their way.

Capula, the pueblo I was looking for, remains one of my favorites. Famous for its “brownware,” i.e. brown clay tableware, hand painted and glazed, Capula’s finest artisans are pointillists whose intricate fish and birds vibrate with color. Fabulous prices (around $20 USD for a plate beautiful enough to hang on a wall + matching salsa bowl) meant I could load up on gifts for friends as well as refresh my own stock at home in San Pancho.

It was fun to walk around Tzintzuntzan again, too. Pronounced “tseen-TSOON-tsan” it means Place of the Hummingbirds and is a pre-Hispanic town that specializes in straw goods. My husband Marsh bought a straw hat there years ago and always wore it to the Vallarta airport when picking up houseguests.

“I was angling for a comment on my hat,” he used to confess when someone commented on it, ”just so I could tell you where it comes from and say “tseen-TSOON-tsan.”

I always succumb to the charms of colonial beauties Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende, captured in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c0MIWRTHCE I thought, and still think, that I would have chosen Guanajuato as my new hometown if the pull of the ocean weren’t so strong. The University of Guanajuato is a big plus for me. Known for its arts programs, it attracts over 15,000 students and gives the city a youthful vitality and a rich cultural life that includes the fabled international Cervantino festival every October. I went one year and loved it.

Note to self: talk up the Cervantino festival among friends and go again this year. Return to Oaxaca for Day of the Dead, too. And to Mexico City to experience the renowned anthropology museum. And to Tulum to swim in the surreally turquoise water.

Get out there, as the old cruise line ad used to say.

Valentine's Day in El Tuito

2011-02-24T14:47:00.008-05:00

The B & B where we stayed on February 14 was perfect for a Valentine’s Day getaway. Located south of Puerto Vallarta in the quiet old town of El Tuito, El Jardin (The Garden) is run by a French couple whose taste runs to the romantic. “A Touch of Paris in Mexico” is the hotel’s motto. Draperies of raspberry-colored silk, diaphanous panels used as room dividers, fluffy pink towels, and candles, candles, candles made for a sensuous setting. Feather boas and bouquets of roses added to the lavish effect.

After settling in, we browsed around El Tuito and went for dinner at Valle Azul, a restaurant with a few sidewalk tables near the main plaza. As we waited for our coconut shrimp, we watched a vendor selling Valentine balloons and stuffed animals wrapped in pink and red. We were musing about what a special Valentine’s Day it had been, when a pickup truck loaded with a slaughtered cow pulled up and parked in front of our table. A skinless head, eyes intact and horns attached, and clear plastic bags of cow innards balanced on piles of bloody meat.

A large fellow wearing a black plastic apron hopped out of the truck, pulled up the metal door of the butcher shop next to our restaurant and backed up the truck smack against our table. I know what’s going to happen next, I thought, and I’m not going to let it bother me. Our coconut shrimp arrived.

The burly butcher slung a side of beef over his shoulder and carried it into his shop. He looked like a strong guy, but it wasn’t easy. Not going to bother me, not going to bother me, I repeated to myself. I thought of my vegetarian daughter, and though I miss her, I was glad she was not there at that moment. The butcher finished unloading the carcass just as we polished off the coconut shrimp.

We settled up with Valle Azul and I asked the butcher what he did with the horns. Unless they are especially big ones, he said, he throws them out. Seems a shame, I thought, but if there is something useful you could do with cow horns, a butcher would have thought of it by now.

In hopes of getting a photo memento of our special Valentine’s Day dinner, we stopped the next morning at the butcher shop. The sides of beef hung from hooks behind the counter, where the butcher stood, slicing fat from chunks of steak. “That was one big cow,” I observed as a conversation starter. “Very heavy, about 500 kilos--more than a thousand pounds,” he said. The butcher, whose name is Joaquin Gómez, seemed pleased when I asked if I could take a photo, and he wondered if it would be on the Internet. “I don’t have email myself,” he said, “but my sister in California does, and she can send me a copy.”

So here’s to you, El Jardin del Tuito and Joaquin Gómez. And thank you for making Valentine’s Day 2011 a memorable one.

The Big Chill

2011-02-08T14:55:00.002-05:00

I was raised in the Midwest and I know cold weather. Phrases like “wind-chill, sub-zero, single digits, and deep freeze,” don’t scare hardy folks from Chicago like me. Parkas, ear-muffs, leggings, long underwear, boots, scarves, gloves and wooly socks: clothing labels that say duo-fold, fleece-lined and down-filled are winter wardrobe basics. But when the morning temperature here in San Pancho is 50 degrees, it is bone-chilling; a cold that is impossible to escape in an unheated concrete block house with clay tile floors.

There is some comfort in knowing that I am not the only person piling on the layers. Hooded sweatshirts have appeared in the pueblo. Workers huddle in the rear of pickups wearing jackets that look alarmingly like parkas. Bundled against the cold, the children are hurried along, their small feet scuffling in oversized boots. Boots?

Still, I am reluctant to mention the weather to friends and family back in the States. I am not likely to get much sympathy when they haven’t had a ray of sunshine in six weeks and the high temperature for the day is 10 degrees. And it’s true, despite the record chill, afternoons here are in the 70s and balmy; we can go to the beach.

When friends were planning a visit recently I pondered how to suggest they bring one or two warmer items to wear.

“It is a little cool in the morning,” I wrote, “and again in the evening.”

Just as I expected they reminded me of their winter endurance skills. Fine I thought, we’ll see, and put the small electric heater in their room, just in case.

It wasn’t until they had been here a few days that they conceded it was a little “cooler” than they had remembered from last year.

“Dinner on the patio?” I asked, as I carried our plates toward the door.

“Maybe eating inside would be cozier,” our guests said.

In front of the oven?

Back in Business

2011-01-17T15:30:00.011-05:00

As I walked down San Pancho’s main street in mid-October, a sign in a shop window caught my eye: “20% OFF ON EVERYTHING UNTIL THE BRIDGE IS FIXED.” Now that sign is gone. People and vehicles can cross the river into San Pancho again, and the Avenida is bustling with commerce.

Torrential rains in early September caused flooding, mudslides and bridge collapses throughout the Bahia de Banderas area. “The most rain I can remember in 50 years,” one San Pancho old-timer said. On September 6 rushing water and fallen trees slammed into the San Pancho bridge. It collapsed, creating a crisis in both economic and human terms: The village was cut off from Highway 200 and the rest of the world; families who lived near the river banks became homeless overnight; houses were inundated with up to four feet of water.

The people of San Pancho rallied. They improvised a zipline across the river and then threw together a rickety wooden footbridge. Seventy people whose homes had been washed away lived and ate for two weeks in EntreAmigos, the town’s community center. The owners of La Patrona Polo Club donated things like baby diapers and food and sent a boatload of supplies to the San Pancho beach.

High-riding SUVs could ford the river not long after the washout, but regular cars couldn’t make it across. The water was just too high. To solve this problem a raised dirt embankment was built in late October. It is only one lane, and if you don’t have your wits about you, your car could slide into the water, but the embankment serves its purpose. Regular vehicle traffic in and out of San Pancho resumed.

Local people saw a business opportunity: all those hungry bridge workers; heavy traffic all day on the embankment. New taco stands sprang up, one of which also advertises low-cost haircuts and manicures. A portable hot dog stand parks at the site. An enterprising woman sells clothing, displayed on a clothesline like clean wash. Victoriano Mendez, the artist who used to set up his easels near the bridge, has returned, painting and selling his landscapes.

Construction is almost complete on the new bridge. San Pancho is back in business.

The Night Visitor

2011-01-12T16:32:00.007-05:00

Rustling sounds from the vacant lot behind our bedroom wall stir my sleep. Is it a gentle breeze moving among the wildly overgrown thicket of plants and weeds, a brief interlude in the night? Again, the soft swishing intrudes, scuffling footsteps, an iguana or a creature beyond imagining. I am not going to wake up, I vow, but open my eyes just enough to see the clock, 2:00 a.m. It is hardly a time for an investigation; it’s dark, too dark to see anything. I snuggle further beneath the comforter, burrowing, my head tucked inside like a tortoise.

No way, now I am awake. I strain to hear the noise again; did we lock the bedroom door I wonder? But now there is only the usual cacophony of our neighborhood: dogs, roosters, faint strains of music. I drift into an uneasy sleep.

Early morning light filters through the windows. I am groggy from a fitful night and ready for coffee. I see him as soon as I open the door to the patio beyond our bedroom. He stands perfectly still, a white horse, ghostly against the striated sky. He is tethered to a long rope which corrals him into a small area just meters away from our wall. He moves slowly among the brambles, grazing steadily. I watch him for a few minutes and make tentative horse-calling noises; he doesn’t look up.

With coffee in hand, I give him the once-over. I don’t recognize this horse as one who belongs to any of my neighbors. For one thing, he doesn’t look very healthy. I can see the outline of his ribs. And what’s more, he’s quiet, not one whinny for my benefit.

I watch him throughout the day and make an occasional attempt at communication. Head down, he ignores me. His movements track the sun as it journeys to the ocean, and he stays within its warmth. In the purple/pink haze of the sunset, he glows. In the morning, he is gone.

Tlaquache Terrorism

2011-01-03T13:39:00.002-05:00

I wrote a blog entry a couple of years ago about the possum problem in our house and garden; there are certain animal lovers who have not spoken to me since. Though the murder plot didn't come off, there was a lot of premeditation, and for possum offenses no worse than being ugly and waking us up nightly with hisses, rustlings and mating clicks. But now the situation has become worse by several orders of magnitude.
The other night I was minding my own business, heating up some leftovers for dinner on top of the stove. I had just stirred the pot and returned to the living room when the stove exploded. The Le Creuset pot flew up and over the island and landed upside down; the burner apparatus and grills likewise, the oven door blew open and wisps of insulation streamed from the joints. The neighbors came running to see if we were still alive.
Alive, yes, but considerably shaken and also dumbfounded. The oven hadn't been on; I had been cooking daily—now I vowed never to go near the stove again. It wouldn't have been pretty if I had stirred that pot a few moments later than I did. We shut off the gas, cleaned up the mess and went out to dinner. We planned to check out the stoves in the shop on the corner in the morning and when we did, we found a nice one that went better with my dishwasher anyway.
But first we really had to make an inspection. Jonathan pulled the stove out of its slot in the counter. There sat a slightly singed tlaquache in a nest of leaves showing its vicious little teeth—teeth which it had used, in its spare time, to chew through the metal mesh-clad gas line. As a parting insult, when Jonathan drove it out from under the stove, it ran and hid under the dishwasher and he had to disconnect and pull that out, too. The possum finally scurried off into the garden, where, animal lovers, it plots with impunity—for the time being.

Yakati Yak Jack

2010-12-18T16:27:00.002-05:00

Today Manuel brings us a gift. Unannounced, he lumbers down the steps that lead from the street to our garden retreat lugging a bulbous object with both hands. His knees are splayed wide to better support the weight of what he carries. Teenage sons Harry and Edgar bring up the rear.

"Yaka," says Manuel. He looks around for an appropriate perch in which to set it down. The wide edge of the pool will do. "Deliciosa, y para la salud, excelente."

"He says it tastes good. And it’s good for you." Harry translates although we easily get the drift of where the scenario is going. Edgar wrinkles his nose. We soon learn why.

My husband and I had seen the gigantic globes of yaka, or jackfruit, hanging from hooks at fruit stands alongside the highway between Las Varas and San Pancho. We had never given close inspection. I scrutinize this specimen with suspicion as to edibility. The greenish pimply rind looks like a porcupine with snubbed-off quills. Harry tells us he doesn’t particularly like the taste of the fruit, but it’s okay when blended with milk and banana for breakfast. "Good for virility," he adds.

Okay. I’m game.

Manuel requests a knife, cooking oil, a bowl, another bowl with water, discarded newspaper. The ceremony begins. Like a surgeon he makes a clean cut, severing the beastie in two. He douses both hands in vegetable oil and plunges inside the folds of the fruit. Up to his wrists he curls his fingers around two-inch-long brown pods nestled beneath slippery squares of pale orange flesh. Pods tossed on the newspaper, pulpy flesh plopped in the bowl of water. A strong scent, like cheap perfume from the five and dime.

About 30 minutes later Manuel’s midwifery yields dozens of pods and a bowl heaped with slimy-looking foodstuff. He dunks the fruit a bit, swirls it around the bowl, offers me first bite.
Tastes like over-ripe cantaloupe this side of floozy: a little too much scent and slick for my taste, but, hey, it is interesting. Samples all around. My husband, Win, looks askance. Harry passes. So does Edgar. Manuel takes a sizeable chomp, grins.

I thank Manuel for expanding my culinary experience. He thanks me for the work we provide his family, and for the referrals we are happy to give our friends.

"Le gusta armadillo?" he asks, as he prepares to leave. I look at Harry. I look at Edgar. I look at Win. "Did Manuel say armadillo?" I ask."

"Afraid so," says Win.

Julio, My Poetic Spanish Teacher

2010-10-31T22:56:00.008-04:00

I’ve had a lot of Spanish teachers, and Julio Delgadillo was one of the best. Julio is a Mexican architect who lives in San Pancho, and he and I first met in 2003. The architecture business was slow, and Julio was playing guitar and singing in a local café. Between songs he often recited a poem that drew the crowd’s rapt attention. His delivery was perfect: a deep baritone, flawless diction, just the right amount of dramatic emphasis. I asked him about the poem, which he said was La Casada Infiel (The Faithless Wife) by the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca.

I strained to understand the words Julio recited, but my Spanish wasn’t up to it, so I bought a dual-language anthology of Spanish poetry and read the poem in English. Sensual and mysterious, it was the story of a gypsy’s romantic encounter with a woman he had believed was unmarried.

Knowing I was a fan, Julio stopped to say hello when we saw each other around San Pancho. We chatted as best we could, given that neither of us knew much of the other’s language. Soon Julio was stopping for morning coffee on my porch, toting his English books. Eager to practice Spanish with a native speaker, I was ready with my Spanish dictionary and "501 Spanish Verbs".

Julio and I talked for hours about social customs in the U.S. and Mexico, music, politics, the best places to shop, Mexican art, Julio’s architecture projects, and his love life. We checked with each other regularly for new chisme (gossip) from the village. But our most interesting topic was poetry. Julio’s favorite poet was the Chilean Pablo Neruda. In the ‘90s I had seen the Italian film Il Postino, a story based on Neruda’s year in Capri, but I hadn’t read his poems. Now Neruda became a favorite of mine, too.

Though Julio came from humble circumstances, he is a person whom Mexicans might describe as educado. More than “educated,” the word connotes “well-mannered, polite.” He was born in 1959 to a poor family in a tiny village near Tepic, Nayarit. Julio’s parents had split up, and he was cared for by a grandmother and an aunt. As a young boy he tended the family’s cows and goats, and, although his father was a teacher, Julio’s schooling was not a priority. In 1973 he and his father moved to San Pancho, where his father found work.

By the time Julio was in secondary school, he showed talent for drawing and reciting poetry. His teachers picked him to do the customary poetry recitation at end-of-the-year ceremonies. At first he did it simply because he had to, but then he realized his recitations distinguished him from the other kids, and he began to enjoy them. Julio demonstrated for me how he had perfected his diction: He placed a pencil crosswise between his teeth, and then practiced the words to the poem. A teacher gave him a poetry book -- “Five Hundred Famous Poems” -- and the first poem he memorized was “The Faithless Wife.”

Danger

2010-09-03T16:56:00.002-04:00

This is my new response to the question, “Are you safe in Mexico?”

“As safe as I am in Evanston, Illinois” I say. Here’s why.

It is 5:00 pm on a hot and sunny Fourth of July. We are ready for a cook-out, a good old fashioned fourth; hamburgers and hotdogs, fresh corn on the cob and potato salad. Comfortably encamped on our deck with friends, we have iced drinks in hand.

Police cars, sirens screaming, screech to a halt outside. They block our street. If the sheer number of squad cars is any indication of a threat to our safety, we are in serious danger. We watch as police claim access to the back yards and alleys on foot, rifles at the ready. What is going on?

Murder, just blocks away. A twenty year old male was shot and killed while driving his car; a gang retaliation. Bloodied, dying, his car crossed two lanes of traffic and crashed onto the opposite sidewalk. On this bright sunlit day, miraculously no one was in his path. He died alone. Now, the search is on for his attacker.

A familiar tale told and retold in the media, both in Mexico and the U.S. Murders, the mayhem of drugs and violence, bodies strewn across the country. Mexico produces the drugs; the U.S. consumes them. Drug lords and gang members, locked in the world of suppliers and users kill each other on both sides of the border. There is no escaping the war that is being waged, not in Mexico or in our quiet suburb of Chicago. It’s the cost of doing business and we are all paying the price.

News reports the next day describe the victim alternately as a hoodlum with a long arrest record and as a misguided young man, mixed up with the wrong crowd. Outrage is expressed that the revelation of his crime-ridden past somehow dimishes the loss of his young life. Perhaps there was promise ahead, if only he had resisted the pull of gangs and drugs.

“If only…” we say, thinking of choices and risks. I know we won’t walk away from our rich full life in Mexico nor will we abandon Evanston, where we have spent half of our lives. We have made our choices; as for the risks, we’ll take them too.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

2010-08-13T13:10:00.006-04:00

My husband and I recently attended one of the Hay Festivals. In 2010-2011 they are being held in Wales, Cartagena, Beiruit, Kerala, Nairobi, the Maldives, Belfast, Segovia and Zacatecas—conveniently located about nine hours away from our summer home in San Sebastian. Writers, musicians, film makers, scientists, and social entrepreneurs talk, play, screen and inspire; Bill Clinton called it “the Woodstock of the mind.”

The festival was a brilliant experience and the romance of the city couldn’t be missed. A lecture might be held in the Antiguo Templo de San Augustin or in the partially ruined nave of the ex-convento which now houses the Museo Rafael Coronel with it’s collection of 1600 Mexican masks. The open-air concerts, and what perfect high altitude summer air it was, were held in a plaza created by a cluster of colonial jewels. Our hotel, formerly a bishop’s palace, had displayed Morelos’ severed head for two weeks on its tour of Mexico during the Revolution. Other historical sites, templos, museos and ex-conventos crowd the small Centro; we tried to see them all.

At the of the other Coronel brother, Pedro, one of Mexico’s most noted twentieth century artists, the visitor enters through a library. Once belonging to the ex-convento that houses the museum, the library is a grand room, perhaps seventy feet long with sixteen- or eighteen-foot ceilings and high windows set in the thick walls. The upper reaches of the shelves are lost in the dim light and are packed with leather-bound and gold-tooled volumes. We immediately began to see treasures—first editions of Bernal Diaz’s history of the conquest of Mexico and of Prescott’s conquest history in Spanish translation. As other museum goers passed through the library and on to the rest of the collection, we were riveted, exclaiming over and examining every shelf until the distinguished old librarian offered to let us see whatever book we wanted. He extracted whatever we asked for, bringing it to the lectern on the little desk beneath the window and turning the pages for us with his gloved hands.

Then he offered to show us the rest of the library. We passed through a black-curtained arch into another room, even larger, at a right angle to the first, taking up the entire side of the former convent. This room, the librarian explained, contained books from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Every one was bound in parchment, discolored and crinkled, with hand-scribed titles on the spines in red and black ink. Then a third room along the back of the convent. Here were books with balsa wood covers and brilliantly marbled end papers, dictionaries, atlases, a facsimile of the Mendocino Codex, one of the few Aztec codices to survive the Spanish bonfires.

All that was a dream experience, but then this: Write out a solicitud, a request, go to the pharmacy and buy a left-over swine flu mask and latex gloves and all this was mine for the examining. I did it. Just another couple of hours, I assured Jonathan, but it took an extra day in Zacatecas before I tore myself away. Ask me what items and how much of them Montezuma received in tribute each year and what a parchment-bound Vulgate Bible feels like, book worm trails and all. I saw a collection of photos (not prints of photos) of Mexican churches taken by Frida Khalo’s father, an engraved map of Mexico City and surrounds when it was in the middle of the lake and reached by causeways and fifteenth century stories of the missionaries who brought Christianity to Ethiopia. I could go on.

One isn’t trusted around rare books in the US. I once (barely) got into the stacks of the Yale University Library even though supervised by my daughter who had access as a student. And the really old and valuable stuff isn’t there anyway, it’s over in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library and you aren’t getting in there without a letter of introduction from your academic advisor. Zacatecas is a good place to be reminded of how pleasant a society Mexico can be.

A San Pancho Grande Dame

2010-06-08T15:53:00.006-04:00

In 1986, Gloria and Ken Hanson built the first home in the San Pancho jungle area called Costa Azul. After searches in Guatemala and the West Indies plus advice from friends in La Peñita, they visited Costa Azul.

Four bungalows owned by the Becerra brothers were all they found. In town, Chalupa’s was the only restaurant, and no shops had opened as yet. A perfect spot, they thought, for tranquil annual getaways from work and winter in home base Sioux Falls, South Dakota. For eighteen years they made the round trip trek in their van.

Ken, a native of Sioux Falls, had been a young U.S. Air Force and later Pan Am pilot when he met seventeen-year old Gloria, also a pilot as well as daughter of a Guatemalan politico. They fell in love and married, a marriage of 67 years that ended with Ken’s death in 2004.

Gloria continues on as the Grande Dame of Costa Azul, living in her striking home. She describes it as “old Mexican style,” referring to palapa-covered open-air porches filled with equipal furniture, parota(Mexican mahogany) woodwork, traditional talavera tiling, and white-walled rooms cooled by sea breezes blowing through doors left open to them. Gloria remembers the construction well and spoke with me about it as we sat on her front porch.

Gloria: “Little or nothing was available in town back then, and Adalberto Garcia, our builder, didn’t have his own vehicle at first. We took our van and went with him to buy bricks and cement in La Peñita. We had to buy everything in La Peñita and haul it back---rebar, lime, screws, string, you name it. And we had to drive to Guadalajara for tile. We made countless trips, as you can see from the kitchen and the bathrooms coated in talavera. ”

Ellen: “Supplies are still relatively limited or prohibitively expensive. What was available to you back then, for example, things like light fixtures, faucets, and doorknobs?”

Gloria: “We brought a lot of them down from South Dakota. We even packed in a refrigerator, a stove, and a couple of mattresses on one of our first trips. We didn’t have many furniture choices back then either, but Ken came up with the design for a rocking chair and made dozens of them himself in his workshop next to the house. You’re sitting in one right now.”

Ellen: “How about construction workers and household help? Were there townspeople for hire?

Gloria: “A few. Adalberto was good and could train his crew on the basics, but he had never built a house this big or complex before. So Ken had to be vigilant and do a lot of training and explaining.

As for household help, Güero has been my gardener and handyman since 1986. Alicia has cooked and cleaned here for 18 years. Her son, Luis, has been with me almost that long.“

Ellen: “That speaks to their loyalty and your fair treatment. I can speak to Alicia’s fabulous meals. It’s such a treat to be invited to your house for lunch. It’s comfortable and genteel at the same time, sitting at your elegantly set table, taking in the view of your garden and the sea beyond, being served by your staff.”

Gloria: “You’re always welcome here; you know that.“

Ellen: “I know that you have taught Alicia to make a lot of new dishes over the years to add to her repertoire of traditional Mexican favorites. Do you have a set menu?”

Gloria: “Yes, we have developed a menu we like. And everything is homemade, of course---even the ice cream. Saturday is and always has been pizza day. Other days Alicia makes chicken in white wine sauce, creole coconut shrimp, chiles rellenos, enchiladas, and her special mole. Along with rice, beans, and salad. For dessert, cappuccinos, espressos, and sundaes with fresh fruit. But we try new things, too, like the meatloaf we’ll be serving you today.”

Ellen: “Yet look at you, so chic and trim. You’re the fittest eighty-something woman I know. How do you manage, faced with such delicious daily fare?”

Gloria: “You know the answer. You used to join me for an hour of water aerobics in my pool. A couple of other women friends come over now. Plus I do Pilates every day, too.. And Robert still comes every Friday to give me a massage. That really helps me.

It’s not just the exercise, though. It’s the life style here---the peace, the lack of scheduling, the long reads in the afternoon, the good night’s sleep. It’s healthy. It’s the life style that attracted Ken and me to San Pancho in the first place and that hasn’t changed much over all these years here.”

(Author’s note: Gloria broke a hip recently and has undergone surgery. My sincerest best wishes to her for a speedy recovery.)

CASA HANSON MEATLOAF

2 lb. ground beef

1 c. bread crumbs

1 small onion, diced

2 eggs, beaten

¼ c. catsup

¼ c. milk

2 T. salsa verde

1 T. Worcestershire sauce

2 t. salt

1 t. black pepper

Combine all. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

Corazón de Agave

2010-06-02T12:45:00.003-04:00

The Pinot Noir my husband is making in San Sebastian needed time in an oak barrel for its finish. He ordered one from a cooper in Tequila and we combined the pick up with touring visitors around the sights. It is a beauty, the barrel, 200 liters, 50 gallons or so, bearing the name of our winery, Las Fincas. The oak comes from Kentucky. If it’s good enough for Mexican tequila it’s good enough for Mexican wine, we say. Besides, I heard they’re cutting down the forest of Fontainebleau outside of Paris for that precious French oak.

Visitors in tow, we toured the Herradura tequila factory. The cores of agave azul, called piñas for their resemblance to a pineapple, are roasted and pressed, the juice fermented and distilled. One always is treated to a taste of the roasted piña on such tours—delicious, smoky-sweet and very fibrous. You are reminded that alcohol comes from sugar. The agave has plenty.

Down the road we stopped by a little table where half a roasted piña was laid out for sale. We were offered the ends of the cut-off spears which were mahogany dark and roasted to caramel perfection. We separated the sweet stuff from the fibers with our teeth just as you’d get the meat off an artichoke leaf. We had already made out purchase when, seemingly as an after-thought, the seller offered us a sample from the piña’s center, its heart, its corazón. It was firmer than the heart of an artichoke but similarly smooth, no fibers. It was even more delicious than the spear ends. We were ravished. I bought a large wedge and began to brain-storm recipes.

First came pork loin cooked and sauced in corazón de agave. In my test kitchen, also known as my kitchen, I wrapped the pork in the fibrous spear-ends, encased it in foil and roasted it slowly. Fibers were strained out, sweetened juices reduced and mellowed with cream, cubes of corazón heated and served beside the meat. Oh, boy.

Then there was corazón de agave pecan pie. I heated two cups of corazón bits with a cup of orange juice and thickened it with flour. Some orange zest for that little edge. After the mixture cooled, I blended it with three beaten eggs and lightly-roasted pecans, poured it into a pie shell and baked it for an hour. Served with cream, it was better than mincemeat.

Now friends are in the act. Lorena made corazón de agave ice cream. Canela proposed mashing it and serving it instead of yams beside the Thanksgiving turkey. Imagine chunks in capirotada, Mexican bread pudding. Feel free.

Miguel and His Murals

2010-05-30T16:33:00.012-04:00

The hand painted sign at the entrance to Los Arcos restaurant caught my eye the first time I visited San Pancho: “Nice design,” I thought. “A detail that sets the place apart.” That sign was Miguel’s first project in San Pancho, and now his work is all over town: His mural at the beachfront plaza depicts San Pancho’s history; a huge hibiscus blossom embellishes a satellite dish; Art Deco beauties grace a restaurant wall. You don’t see work like his in every Mexican village.

Miguel Angel Vallajan Estrella was born in 1972 in San Juan de Abajo, about 20 miles from San Pancho. When he was six, his family moved to San Pancho because his parents found work here – his father as a gardener at the junior high school and his mother as a cook at the hospital. Miguel finished ninth grade in San Pancho, and then started high school in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, the location of the nearest high school at the time.

“I had to drop out when I was 14,” he told me. “I took the bus to La Cruz every day, and it was too expensive for my family. I needed to work, so an uncle in Puerto Vallarta helped me get a job varnishing furniture for hotels. I did that during the day, and at night I went to a taller (an artisan’s workshop) to learn how to paint letters and decorative designs. I didn’t get paid, and I had to buy the paints myself, but I loved what I was doing. I guess I showed ability, because the owner asked me to paint signs for a hotel when I was 15.”

At 18 Miguel opened his own taller in Puerto Vallarta . Business was good, and at one point he had three people working for him. They got big commissions—the Sheraton Hotel, the Collage nightclub— for signs, lettering, drawings and murals. During those years Miguel made frequent bus trips back to San Pancho to visit his family, and on one trip he met Julia, a young woman from the village. They became friends, and after three years they married. Miguel and Julia now have three daughters and a baby grandson.

About 10 years ago business in Puerto Vallarta began to slow down because graphic design had shifted to computer-based processes. Dar Peters, a San Pancho builder, told Miguel he could give him steady work, and persuaded Miguel to move back to the village. Since then Miguel and his helpers have done regular house painting, but his first love is still signs and graphic designs. Besides work in San Pancho Miguel does special projects for the county government, such as murals in village plazas throughout the Bahia de Banderas area.

Paint stores may have computerized color matching, but they can’t outdo Miguel’s infallible eye. Choosing paint colors with him is a pleasure. Should the color of a wall be taupe, mushroom, sand or beige? Miguel mixes up a sample on the spot, paints a swath, and we study the result. Not quite right? He mixes another sample, and we try again. With no sign of impatience Miguel spends as long as it takes to get the color right.

Boring expanses of stucco are transformed under his hand. In our house a 20-foot high wall towers at one side of the dining room, and we wanted to bring the huge mass down to human scale. Our idea: divide the wall in half lengthwise with two colors of paint and add a decorative border. Working from photos we took in a 19th century Mexican church, Miguel came up with a design that solved the problem perfectly. And he did everything freehand—no stencils or computer graphics.

Unfailingly polite, quiet, and a little shy, Miguel’s work gives him the right to brag, but he never does. He is a modest man. And one who has added touches of artistry to the face of San Pancho.

Barefoot in the Kitchen

2010-04-22T13:30:00.003-04:00

The first time a scorpion stung me, it was almost a relief. My being stung seemed all but inevitable, given the number of stories my jungle neighbors told about their encounters with the bug. I was anxious to get it over with, just so I’d know how my body would react.

I got my answer early one morning while walking barefoot into the kitchen. A piecing pain suddenly shot through the big toe on my right foot. I turned on a light, saw the scorpion on the floor, and bolted for the bathroom where I had stashed a bottle of antihistamines with this occasion in mind. After gulping a couple of the pills, I sat and waited for a reaction.

It was a short wait. In a matter of seconds, beginning with my now hot and throbbing big toe, the pain rolled up my right side like a wave and left nerves numb in its wake. I felt nauseous. My throat constricted but only slightly. Not enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. Besides, that might have meant missing our “girls’ weekend” in Guadalajara; a friend was picking me up in an hour.

I wobbled a bit the first day of that shopping trip. But three days religiously swilling liquids and I bounced back. Three months later, I regained feeling in the big toe.

Since then I’ve been stung twice more. The third time I acquiesced to my children who told me I looked green and drove me to the hospital, where seasoned staff put me on an antivenin IV drip.

“We do this routinely,” they said. “Don’t hesitate because you think your case isn’t serious. We rarely see a case that is. Just come in; you’ll appreciate the quick relief.”

Two hours and 250 pesos later, I walked out feeling fine. My kids were right; that’s the way to go, I now advise. That and don’t go barefoot, not even in the kitchen.

The Librarian: Lonely No More

2010-04-20T12:11:00.006-04:00

Was it only a year ago that I, the “lonely librarian,” sat on the floor in the library at entreamigos surrounded by boxes, tape and markers, packing books for storage? Last April the future of our small community organization seemed bleak. Staying in the building on the main street that entreamigos had occupied for three years was not an option. Its location near the beach was prime real estate; the landlord had other plans.

A large abandoned warehouse at the other end of town had been given to entreamigos but renovating it into useable space was overwhelming. First, it would take a massive effort to clear the building of years of debris and garbage. Then, even with the possibility of a $36,000 grant from The Three Swallows Foundation, the San Pancho community would have to raise twice that amount of money to begin construction.

Did the community care enough to make the effort? When larger cities, including my home town of Evanston, Illinois, are closing their neighborhood libraries, could a project of this size in our small town possibly succeed?

The answer is a resounding “yes.” Having a library and community center did matter. Today entreamigos has a brand-new home; in cash, more than $100,000 was raised. The dilapidated warehouse was restored inch by inch into a completely “green” space through hundreds of hours of volunteer labor and donations of supplies.

A few months ago I sat on the floor in the new library at entreamigos and unpacked all of the old boxes. The newly painted wooden shelves, recycled tires and crates, were ready to be filled. The large, airy space with brightly-painted tables and chairs and comfy pillows beckoned eager readers. It had been a labor of love for all of us, a commitment to libraries and to education that San Pancho was willing to make.

In Evanston, news of a $10 million deficit in the budget sounded the death knell for the neighborhood libraries. Closing the two branch libraries was not a new threat; in fact, it was almost an annual event at budget time. But this year was different, and the end of the neighborhood libraries seemed imminent.

There was one possibility. The Branch libraries received a six-month reprieve to raise $200,000. Could the Evanston community raise that amount to keep the Branches open?

To date, 1000 volunteers have raised $65,000 with more commitments of support daily. But a “For Rent” sign in the window of the South Branch library has added to the pressure.

Come on Evanston. If we can do it in San Pancho…

Our Mexican Medical Adventure

2010-04-20T10:32:00.002-04:00

“I thought he seemed pale.” That’s what our San Pancho friends said later. Probably out of politeness no one said anything at the time. I thought he looked pale, too, but we had just arrived from overcast Connecticut, and I chalked it up to lack of sun. We had no idea that a serious medical problem was brewing.

During the next ten days Skip felt tired, then lightheaded and dizzy. We called his internist in Connecticut. “Better get him evaluated,” the doctor advised. Though we didn’t know what was wrong, we suspected the problem might be more than the small hospital in San Pancho could handle. AmeriMed in Puerto Vallarta advertises that they provide “full medical services based upon U.S. standards of health care” and that their staff is bilingual, so off we went.

Lab work revealed that Skip’s blood count was dangerously low. He needed a transfusion immediately. The doctor ordered two units of blood and called in AmeriMed’s gastro-intestinal specialist to do an endoscopy, on the hunch that intestinal bleeding might be causing the blood loss. He discovered stomach ulcers we hadn’t known about and showed me the images on his monitor. He even gave us a DVD of the procedure.

Medicare doesn’t cover anything outside of the U.S., the out-of-pocket costs were mounting, and we wanted Skip to be treated by doctors who already knew him. So we decided to return to Connecticut. After lots of blood work, more transfusions, another endoscopy and other tests, the Connecticut specialist had no conclusive explanation. “I question whether those small ulcers could have caused so much bleeding,” he said. Nevertheless, after a month Skip was fine: no symptoms; blood count normal; no more pallor. The doctor cleared him to return to Mexico, and we booked the first available flight.

Health problems will inevitably arise for expats in Mexico, especially those of us who are of Medicare age. Sometimes the solution is clear. For minor problems we can go to the hospital in San Pancho or to one of the English-speaking doctors in the area. The time I nicked myself with garden shears I got a free tetanus booster in five minutes at our village hospital. If one of us had to be hospitalized for an emergency, we would use our MedJetAssist plan to cover air medical transport to a U.S. hospital.

However, there is a confusing middle ground, as in our situation. The problem isn’t minor, and yet it doesn’t require hospitalization. We have asked ourselves many times, "Did we do the right thing?" We wish we had noticed Skip’s symptoms sooner, but sometimes they take awhile to crystallize. Language becomes a factor. The doctors at AmeriMed spoke English, but the nurses and technicians typically didn’t. We muddled through, because a lot of medical words in Spanish are the same as their English versions, but pronounced in Spanish.

In the U.S. we are accustomed to a large university teaching hospital minutes from our home. In the midst of the crisis we were comparing AmeriMed to Yale New Haven Hospital—not a fair comparison. AmeriMed wasn’t world-class, but the staff was resourceful and they got the job done. The transfusion pump, for example, didn’t work and neither did the replacement. After a lot of tinkering, the nurse improvised a solution: He tied a blood pressure cuff around the bag of blood to prime the pump, blood began to flow, and the transfusion proceeded. When Skip had another transfusion in the U.S., the pump was the same type as AmeriMed’s, but in that high-tech, expensive hospital I noticed with some relief that a sign was attached: STOP! If pump fails for any reason: REMOVE from patient immediately; TAG unit as “out of order”; CALL Clinical Engineering Department.

Since this episode occurred, I examine Skip for signs of pallor, and I ask intrusive questions about bodily functions. But, except for noticing symptoms sooner, we would not have done anything differently.

Aldo's Ambition

2010-03-22T16:12:00.006-04:00

I see one of my former students driving a taxi around town, and it makes me sad. I’ll call him Aldo, not his real name. Such a bright kid; what a waste, I think but would never say. I know there’s nothing wrong with being a taxi driver. And staying close to home is O.K., too. I admire the extended families I see in town, maybe even envy their togetherness: three generations living under the same roof; gathering to chat, day after day, as they sit in front of their houses on white plastic chairs.

I also laugh at the old joke about ambition that features a Mexican fisherman. You know the one---about the Harvard MBA who chides the young Mexican for being content with his simple life by the sea, a life of fishing, making love to his wife, and taking his kids to the beach.

“You should buy more boats,” the MBA says, “increase your catch, expand your market. You could make a lot more money, then retire early to enjoy the good life--- fishing, making love to your wife, taking your kids to the beach.”

Still, I thought Aldo's future held more promise. Tall, handsome, quick, book-smart, hardworking, popular, he was a sponge when it came to languages and the best English speaker among the beginners at our high school. He said he wanted to study engineering at the state university in Tepic. He had a steady job in an upscale restaurant to help pay for higher education and a family willing to support him as well. I don’t know what derailed him; other than waving to each other from car windows on occasion, we lost touch after graduation.

Lack of motivation might be the culprit. For all the four-year colleges and universities in our area, the number of professional job opportunities is abysmal. The Bay of Banderas lives and dies on tourism. No major companies are based in Vallarta. Even large hotels and development firms that operate here are branches of larger corporations and, as such, hire advance-degreed locals as peons. Talk to some of the time-share hawkers and you’ll see how many are university graduates.

To get ahead here means to relocate, assuming you are one of the lucky, light-skinned, multilingual employees offered that chance. Your other option is to build your own business from the bottom up. So maybe being a taxi driver makes good sense to Aldo, even as it disappoints his old teacher who saw his potential for more.

Lime Drinks

2010-03-18T19:00:00.002-04:00

If the color green had a flavor, it would be that of cut Mexican limes. Their mouth-puckering tartness evokes Mexico for me like no other taste. I love their scent, too: fresh, tangy, clean.

Lime juice is used in every meal in Mexico : as a salad dressing, in salsas, as a marinade, or in drinks. Limones are readily available all year long, and they are inexpensive. At the supermarket nearest San Pancho, I pay the equivalent of 50 cents for a pound of limes. Compare that to 50 cents for a single lime at my grocery in the U.S.

Drinks based on lime juice, with or without alcohol, perk up a meal and add a Mexican flair. The limes that work best for drinks are sin semilla (without seeds). Select slightly soft limes with a hint of yellow in the skin. Store them on the countertop because they will last longer than in the refrigerator, and they will look pretty, too. Lime juice can be kept for two days in a glass container in the refrigerator. To extract the juice I use my citrus squeezer that is imprinted with Hecho en Mexico (Made in Mexico ). I think it makes the juice taste even better.

Here are three time-tested lime drink recipes: Nancy Brown’s Limonada; Ellen Greene’s Margaritas; and Channing Enders’s San Carlos Slush.

Limonada (one drink)
2 ounces fresh lime juice
2 ounces sugar syrup
Sugar syrup (jarabe natural) can be purchased at Mexican grocery/liquor stores, or you can make it by combining two parts sugar and one part water and boiling for five minutes. Cool and store in a glass jar in the refrigerator.
Seltzer water

Fill a sixteen ounce glass with ice cubes, add lime juice and sugar syrup, fill the glass with seltzer water and stir. Proportions of sugar syrup and lime juice can be adjusted to taste.

Margarita (six good-sized drinks)
one part fresh lime juice(1 cup)
one part Controy (1 cup)
one-half part fresh orange juice (1/2 cup)
one-half part confectioner's sugar (1/2 cup)
two parts Tequila (2 cups)

Stir and serve on the rocks.

San Carlos Slush
Note from Channing: This drink was invented/concocted by a beloved retired pastor who lived in San Carlos, Sonora for many years. He died last year but his recipe lives on, at least in my kitchen.

1 cup Tequila
1/3 cup Controy
1/3 cup fresh lime juice
6 tablespoons lime (or other flavor) Tang
2 1/2 cups water

Blend and freeze. Scoop out amount you like, re-blend, and serve.

Can You Hear Me Now?

2010-02-17T11:45:00.004-05:00

Gail:

4:30 AM. We are jolted from sleep by the ringing phone. It’s the cordless handset that alerts us to an incoming SKYPE internet call. Instantly awake, we rush to the computer. The number on the screen calms fears, brings annoyance. It’s not family, it’s a long-time customer with equipment problems calling Bill.

When we first came to San Pancho nearly ten years ago, there were only a handful of public telephones scattered around the pueblo. Armed with a stack of phone cards, I would walk from one to the other to find the shortest line. It took two phone cards and a long series of numbers to execute one call. Under pressure, I would inevitably misdial and have to start again. The polite coughs and shuffling feet behind me felt like signs of impatience and that did not make it easier.

Carolyn:

You had it easy, Gail. When we got her fifteen years ago there were two phones and a fax machine in a little hole-in-the-wall a block from the beach. One of the old families was running the business, and it was a life saver. There was a chalk board mounted on the outside wall where your name appeared when you had a fax. If you were awaiting important news you’d be down there every few minutes until your fax arrived.

My husband was trying to have it both ways, keep a software writing job and come to Mexico too. He would take his laptop to the little office and plug it into a phone to download his email. One day, the download went on until his bill was up to 200 pesos (when 200 pesos was real money) and he had to quit. The next, he drove into Vallarta in search of a faster download--no, internet cafes used phone lines there, too, and though they didn’t charge 10 pesos a minute as in San Pancho, the email was still taking too long to come through.

Gail:

Then you understand how excited we were in 2004 when we our house was completed and we could apply for a private line.
“We’re very sorry. No more phone lines are available in San Pancho,” Telmex said. They would put us on the wait list. But the number of people wanting phones had exploded and we ended up waiting two years. The good news was that, by then, we could get broadband, too.

Carolyn:

That was rough. We got our phone when the first twenty private lines were offered, but we were on dial up for a long time.

Gail:

Then SKYPE! We loved it! Then a cell phone tower! Ten year olds in the pueblo had cell phones. Soon we did, too.

Emails—we get lots of them. Many promise eternal happiness if we forward same to 50 of our closest friends and every on-line purchase results in special offers. But my sister gets in touch every morning and we can stay close to family and friends. We pay our bills and read the newspapers on-line, too.

SKYPE calls—we get a lot of them too. Bill’s customers want him to fix their problems. Our sons call with questions about air conditioners and water filtration systems, or when the keys are locked inside the car in a snowstorm. But they also call to check in, to share good news, and to ask Bill for his coconut shrimp recipe.

By the way, Carolyn, did you ever find out what was in that email?

Carolyn:

It turned out to be a video clip of a rhinoceros trying to copulate with a very attractive Volvo.

A Stitch in Time

2010-02-03T13:59:00.003-05:00

The sudden scream pierced my pleasant siesta. The sound was akin to an angry cat in the throes of comeuppance. I made my way from bedroom to laundry bodega, the apparent source of the high-pitch caterwaul. By the time I reached the washing machine sound had met fury: my fine, albeit rusted, Bosch thumped and shimmied a kind of tarantella across the brick bodega floor.

Load must be unbalanced, I thought. I stabbed the off button.

"What’s the problem?" The commotion had roused my husband, Win, from one of his fix-it projects.

"I’ll take care of it," I said. I stuck my hand in the belly of the Bosch, scrunched wet towels.

"I don’t think so. Smell it."

Burnt rubber. Uh-oh.

Win pulled the machine out of the bodega into the adjacent courtyard, removed its metal back plate.

"Bad news. It’s the belt. Snapped in two." He scrutinized the frayed ends. "Don’t know where we can find a belt to fit a Bosch."

"We’ll have to buy a new machine," I said. I ticked off the names of likely retailers: Costco, Wal-Mart, Tio Sam…"I can be ready to go in ten minutes…"

"Not so fast," said Win. He ran his finger over the tear, turned the busted belt this way and that.

"But we have company coming! We need to wash sheets, towels…we have four days before…"

"You can go to the river," said Win.

I think he was kidding.

During the next 48 hours Win focused on fixing the belt. First he knit the ends together with wire. But it snapped on the test spin. He then tried glue. Three tubes later, Win looked for another solution. The remedial attempts had truncated the belt; it was now too short to fit the machine. He looked around for material to elongate the belt as well as make it stronger. Here is what he applied with silicone: strands of webbing from a disintegrating lounge chair, a few inches of leather from the back of an equipal sofa, the strap from his rubber flip-flops.

Eureka! On a slow motion spin the belt held. But Win was worried. "It will break again. And when it does I don’t think I will be able to fix it."

We tried local hardware stores first. No belts. Perhaps one could be ordered?

I nearly wailed…no time…three days…laundry…guests...

The manager at Amutio, a major hardware store in Mezcales, did not have a belt either but intrigued with our problem flipped through a phone book for a likely retailer.

The shop he suggested was located on an unmarked street in nearby Bucerias. It did not carry a name either but the several washing machines in various states of deshabille stacked in the front yard were calling card enough. The woman behind the counter took a look at the old belt Win had stapled and glued then shook her head. She rooted around in the back of the shop, said she couldn’t find anything similar. She pointed to the layers of webbing and leather and rubber. Win laughed, explained his fix-it job. She returned to the back of the shop. The belt she eventually brought us was perfect. We took it home. It worked.

There is a moral to this small story. It touches on disposable societies up north and resourceful societies down south. While this gringa is still quick to toss the broken and buy the new, my husband has learned, by observation and osmosis, to do what our Mexican neighbors do: repair with materials at hand.

So we keep the patched up version of the Bosch belt. It could be useful for parts when and if the new belt breaks.

Chiles en Nogada

2010-01-22T16:16:00.008-05:00

Ana Ruiz, head chef at Café del Mar and my housekeeper/property manager, makes the best chiles rellenos I have ever eaten. She stuffs the poblano chiles with shrimp and cheese and covers them with a roasted tomato sauce that is as light-handed as it is flavorful. I pay Ana to make me dozens at a time, which I then freeze, individually wrapped, sauce on the side in zip lock bags. It’s my dinner of choice for guests’ first night at Quinta Elena and is a no-fail crowd pleaser.

Chiles can be stuffed with any number of things---panela or Chihuahua cheese, ground beef or pork, canned tuna or refried beans and onions. The king of chiles rellenos, however, is chiles en nogada---chiles stuffed with picadillo, a rich mix of meat, fruit, and spices, topped with a creamy walnut sauce, sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and parsley. Touted as Mexico’s most patriotic dish because its colors are the red, white, and green of the Mexican flag, this stuffed chile has an equally colorful back story. The favorite version tells of nuns in a convent in Puebla inventing the dish in 1821 for Emperor Agustin de Iturbide and the first dinner celebrating Mexico’s independence from Spain. Frida Kahlo featured this dish on her wedding table when she married Diego Rivera.

I feature it on my table when I feel like showing off. To call chiles en nogada labor-intensive is understatement. For an amateur like me, all the roasting, peeling, dicing, and frying take up most of two days. (my recipe even calls for peeling the walnuts; I’m willing to sacrifice some authenticity and skip this step.) Fans of Mexican food, especially those who cook, have been known to break into applause when I set their plate in front of them. Even without tasting the first forkful, they pay homage to the effort involved.

Every Mexican grandma probably has her own special recipe for chiles en nogada. And would be aghast at shortcuts taken by some restaurants, e.g. plain ground beef passed off as picadillo; dried cranberries as a substitute for out-of-season pomegranate seeds. Here is a version I like.

CHILES EN NOGADA

INGREDIENTS:

For the filling:

1/2 lb. ground beef

1/2 lb. ground pork

2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/2 medium onion, finely chopped

1 1/2 tablespoons lard or vegetable oil

1 medium apple, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes

1 medium pear, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes

2 plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped

2 ounces blanched almonds, slivered

2 ounces raisins, soaked until soft, then drained

1 stick cinnamon

salt and pepper to taste

  For the chiles:

8 large poblano chiles, prepared for stuffing (See Note)

4 eggs, separated, at room temperature

1/4 teaspoon salt

Oil for frying

For the sauce:

1 quart unsweetened heavy cream

4 ounces walnut meat, soaked in milk, drained, chopped

  For the garnish:

2 pomegranates, separated into seeds

parsley sprigs

PREPARATION:

After preparing chiles as described in the note below, pat them dry and set them aside while you make the filling. The batter will not adhere to them properly if the chiles are not dry.

Melt the lard or oil in a large skillet; saute beef, pork, garlic, onion, apple, pear, almonds, raisins and cinnamon stick until the meat has lost its pink color. Remove the cinnamon stick, add salt and pepper to taste and allow the filling to cool to room temperature. When cool, fill the chiles, dividing the mixture evenly.

You will have fluffier and more uniform coating if you make the egg batter and fry the chiles in two batches. Beat two of the egg whites until they stand up in peaks, stiff but not dry. Lightly beat two yolks and half the salt together; fold them gently into the beaten egg whites. Dip each of four filled chiles into the mixture, turning them gently to coat evenly. Place each one immediately into a large skillet with hot oil. Fry them until golden on the bottom side (lift gently with a spatula to check) then turn and fry on the other side. Repeat this process with the rest of the chiles and the other two eggs. Remove and drain on paper towels before placing on serving dish.

Put the cream and the walnuts in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Pour over the chiles, and decorate with pomegranate seeds and parsley.

NOTE: The chiles are prepared for stuffing by roasting over a gas flame or under a broiler until charred all over. They are then placed in a plastic bag for 10-15 minutes. Peel by rubbing them gently, using rubber gloves, under a stream of running water. (Stems are not removed, but can be trimmed beforehand if very long.) After the chiles have been roasted and cleaned, make a lengthwise slit up one side of each and carefully remove the seed sac and any loose seeds. Avoid over-handling the chiles.

Just Another Day in Paradise

2010-01-02T15:44:00.003-05:00

To-do list, December 15:

1. Bucerias: find Sammy the upholsterer, drop off cushions. At the orange building (or is it green?) turn left, and then turn right. Look for his shop behind El Famar Restaurant. “Tapiceria” is painted on the wall.

Sammy’s great. He takes our cushions, we give him the fabric, we chat about extra pillows, we agree on a price. His fisherman-friend comes by in his truck with his wife and daughter. Sammy suggests we buy some fish. We look at the fish. We all agree it is very good fish. But we can’t buy it now, we explain. I show him our list: we have a lot to do. Check!

2. Pemex gas station: fill tank. No self-service pumps here. An attendant fills the tank, cleans the windshield. We give him the customary tip and are good to go. Check.

Our attendant especially likes the windshield wipers on the headlights of our Volvo. We all agree they’re unusual. We don’t tell him we’ve had the car for eight years and we still don’t know how they work. Check!

3. Lloyds: change money. Mega: buy groceries. This is our own mini-mall: fast food, banks and cellular phone stores. If a Subway restaurant opened here, it would be perfect.

To-do list near completion, and we feel very efficient! Suddenly, as we’re driving, there is an ear-splitting noise in the car, as if something has exploded. And something has; the entire back window of the Volvo has shattered.

Wait, that’s not on the list.

We pull to the side of the road, leap out and stare in amazement at what is left of our back window. Tiny pieces of glass are everywhere. We search in vain for a rock or air-to-ground missile that has done so much damage. The cause of the exploding window mystifies us.

But we’re not easily defeated. Not here, not in Mexico, where automobiles suffer indignities never imagined in the US. On to the shopping mall. We take turns guarding the car. The car-wash tag team approaches. Don’t they notice we don’t have a back window? We have our groceries and our pesos, back to San Pancho.

With tedious precision Bill removes the remaining glass and creates a new fashion statement; a customized back window out of pink Styrofoam secured by bungee cords. It will be a long time before we can find a replacement. In the meantime, we join the legions of car owners who have patched, wired, glued and taped their cars together. Our neighbors laugh. “Your car is now Mexicanado,” they say. Check!

Ten Things I Learned in Ten Years

2009-12-30T18:36:00.002-05:00

2009 was the 10th anniversary of our marriage to San Pancho. In 1999 we bought a plot of land; in 2000 we began building a house; and in 2001 we spent our first winter here. We loved the place then, and we still do, but our love has matured. No longer are we starry-eyed newly-weds.

Because 2009 is a milestone year, and it is ending, I am prompted to take stock. I offer these observations, in no particular order, for anyone contemplating wedlock with San Pancho.

1.Being handy is helpful. Anything with moving parts will malfunction in this climate. Neither my husband nor I is a Do-It-Yourself genius, but we regularly repair blenders, toasters, printers, the kitchen range, the barbeque grill, the sewing machine, and the disposal. And we still need to call the electrician/plumber about once a week.
2.Traveling between the U.S. and San Pancho is time-consuming and expensive. Given that we live in Connecticut, spending winters in Florida would be simpler, but, in my opinion, boring. Every day here brings its own little adventure.
3.Owning a home in San Pancho costs more than we expected. True, there is no heating expense, and labor is cheaper. However, the mildew, termites and jungle vegetation must be kept at bay when we are not here, and we have to pay people to do that.
4. Learning to manage household help is, for me, an ongoing process. It is too easy to become preoccupied with what the “help” is doing or not doing.
5. Being able to speak Spanish, even if one is not fluent, makes life easier. The Spanish classes I took at the community college have proved invaluable. I can talk to the guy at the hardware store and to my Mexican neighbors.
6.Life in Mexico is not orderly. For instance, in Bucerias, a town near the line between Mountain and Central time zones, business owners arbitrarily choose which zone they prefer. This kind of unpredictability can be charming or infuriating.
7.One can learn to sleep in the midst of crowing roosters, blaring disco music, barking dogs and raucous partiers. I will never understand the Mexican cultural norm about noise. I have concluded that, since I am a guest in this country, I should accept its noisiness or go somewhere else.
8. Part of the fun of living here is doing things differently than we do in the U.S.. We don’t have cable television in San Pancho, so we read more. Instead of cooking our usual fare, we experiment with Mexican ingredients. We take time out to watch the sunset.
9. We have become more conscious of health and safety risks. We are older, and we have seen friends run into problems. Now we don’t drive at night, we carry a cell phone, and we buy medical evacuation coverage.
10. Maintaining friendships and activities in both the U.S. and Mexico--a book group, a class, a volunteer activity—is a challenge. The reward for my constant balancing act is that I have two hometowns, two places where I belong.

365 Days of Me Time

2009-12-22T10:39:00.004-05:00

Leaving Puerto Vallarta for the drive up the coast to San Pancho, the billboards and banners almost blot out the azure sky. Buy into this! Buy into that! The signs for Los Amores (The Lovers) show an impossibly beautiful couple, retirement age, smiling at each other as though the Viagra shipment has just come in. Another announces: You’ve Been Good—You Deserve It. An older man grins like the cat that got the cream. He deserves that infinity edge pool, those lounge chairs…possibly that swimsuited beauty, too. Life Built Around You. Life! The whole enchilada. Resorts, spas, beach clubs, residences, condominiums—Invest! All this is for people with Lifestyle Addiction. Could that be us? Those ripped bodies outlined by gauzy white cotton in the ocean breeze? We no longer care for the environment, the common good; we’re not our brother’s keepers—it’s 365 Days of Me Time, 24/7.

It was August when I wrote that; now it is December. The sky is an even deeper blue and the temperature has cooled to perfection, but The Crisis has come upon us. On the drive, I count 127 empty billboards. Only a few bother to plead Disponible (Available). About 40 others wait to be put out of their misery, so faded and tattered that their messages are no longer legible. Everybody said they were overbuilding condos…Now, no matter how good you’ve been, perhaps you don’t deserve a second or third home. In fact, you’d better hope you can live on love.

I'm a Bad Boss

2009-12-17T14:38:00.004-05:00

I’m no good at managing household help. Never had so much as a cleaning lady back in the States. Now Lady Got-Rocks has a maid, gardener, and pool man. If I had my druthers, everyone would just do their jobs with no instructions or feedback required from me. Sometimes I even plan my runs to Vallarta to coincide with their work hours so I don’t have to watch someone make my bed and wash up my breakfast dishes.

But every worker needs to feel appreciated, good performance noticed and commented on. So I force myself to remember with notes in my day planner: Compliment Ana for cleaning the ceiling fans; kibitz with Manuel about how healthy the plumbagos look. As if it were a chore for me to say something nice.

Nor do I deal well with poor performance. I limped along with Manuel for three years, watching as scores of plants and palms died from lack of water, weeds and dry leaves cluttered the grounds, irrigation and water filtration systems deteriorated for lack of maintenance. Manuel is a smart, talented guy who knew what needed doing. The two of us talked about corrective action but not much happened, especially when I was in California, as kindly neighbors recently pointed out. Neighbors who had rescued Manuel with small, no-interest loans almost as many times as his employer had.

“If you weren’t trying to sell part of your place, we probably wouldn’t even bring this up,” they said to me last week. “Manuel is a nice man, and we like him. But we see you’re trying to spruce up the garden with new plants that aren’t being taken care of.”

For the previous two months, in my absence, they had jotted down the number of hours Manuel came to work: My supposed Monday-through-Friday, 7 A.M.-to-noon caretaker showed up two days a week for all of an hour.

That did it. My hand was forced; I had to act. But to fire him without having clearly stated that his job was on the line seemed unfair and contradicted all my previous-life preaching as a human resources manager about progressive discipline. It also seemed unfair that I’d have to fork over a big severance (“finiquito”) amount if I fired him. Gringos rarely prevailed in fired-for-just-cause hearings; settlement amounts varied wildly and were often exorbitant.

So I did four things:

1. I talked to Manuel about his breach of trust, about the improvements I needed to see, about the fact that he could lose his job if the improvements didn’t happen.

2. I found someone to act as his supervisor and informed Manuel that he would now have a new boss. As expected, Manuel balked at this arrangement. "If you are so unhappy with my work, I might be forced to resign," he said.

3. I spoke with an accountant who figured out the much-reduced severance amount if Manuel were to resign(FYI: for a three-year, part-time employee, 10 days of vacation + 15 days of Christmas bonus [“aguinaldo”]) I told Manuel that I would pay him that amount plus five extra days to sweeten the deal.

4. I pleaded with the universe to please, oh please, let Manuel to see the wisdom of resigning.

The universe responded. Manuel took my offer and signed a letter of resignation. A new gardener starts next week. And I’ve learned my lesson. Like it or not, in person or in absentia, I need to step up to being a better boss. It’s only fair.

Waiting At The Bank

2009-12-06T13:51:00.002-05:00

Our mission: to retrieve records of our closed Bancomer checking account. The only person who could process that request, the teller told us, was the branch manager, so we signed our names in the designated notebook and took seats in the waiting area.

The bank was crowded that morning, and despite a long line to see the manager, the atmosphere was friendly and convivial. Decorations for a special offer on checking accounts added a festive touch; balloon arches framed the doorways and giant bows festooned teller stations. Pre-school children were everywhere. They crawled on and under the chairs, wandered in and out of executive offices, and watched cartoons on the television suspended from the ceiling. A Mexican lady sat down next to me, explained her banking problem, and asked about my family. A Canadian man and I speculated about why the teller had refused to cash his traveler’s checks.

I had assumed customers would be taken in order, but that wasn’t the case. Except for my husband and me, hapless Americans not accustomed to Mexican banks, no one paid attention to whose name was next in the sign-in book. An hour passed. Lunch time came and went.

For awhile I diverted myself by studying the promotional materials for the checking account offer. Posters of a lady flipping pancakes with a spatula explained: Open a new account or increase your balance by $6500 pesos and you will receive a boxed set of stainless steel kitchen utensils--two cooking spoons, a spatula, a soup ladle, a masher and a stand for hanging them on. At least 20 people picked up utensil sets. We were still waiting.

When at last we were seated in the manager’s office, another customer walked in and began to explain her problem. Still typing our data into her computer, the manager responded in the manner of a kindly social worker. A half hour later the manager had processed our request, and, finally, we were done. But, she told us, we would need to return in a week to pick up our records.

Waiting for a delivery, a repair person, the house painter, the bank manager-- we spend a lot of time waiting in Mexico. I’m still not used to it, and it tries my patience. We have to see that bank manager again, and I’m not sure what I will do. Barge into her office, and risk being regarded as an arrogant American? Sit politely while other customers jump the line? I am still pondering.

Remembering Doña Conchita

2009-11-23T10:00:00.003-05:00

On November 2, at the Day of the Dead celebration in San Sebastián, my husband and I gazed sadly at the ofrenda, the altar, dedicated to the memory of Doña Conchita Sanchez Encarnación who died four months ago. Under the portal on the plaza, at the Presidencia, the Pabellón, and El Fortin Restaurant, white draped altars, rising in tiers, honored her and other lost neighbors. There were loving arrangements of photos and candles, dresses or jackets, mirrors positioned to reflect the still-living, bowls of corn kernels, beans, crosses formed of sand, and golden flowers—not here the showy pom-pom marigold, but a modest, wild variety from roadsides and back gardens. And, to the right of each altar, a metal wash stand holding a simple white enamel bowl and pitcher, chipped and dented. Jews and Moslems wash before praying for the dead; symbolically, so does Catholic San Sebastián.

Doña Conchita had turned her front room into a museum. It was a popular stop for visitors who listened to her recitation of the “I’m My Own Grandpa” convolutions of three families who vowed to intermarry in order to preserve la purissima sangre, their Spanish bloodline. Her collection of studio wedding pictures, old furniture, chests, scrip from the mines, a silk and lace christening dress fit for royalty, and photos of generations of babies wearing it, was San Sebastián captured in its heyday.

A year or so ago, we visited Doña Conchita with an electronic recorder and asked her to tell us more stories about her life and the history of the town. We didn’t have to beg. She told how her family fled during the revolution, locked their valuables in a room, and went off with the key. They were quite indignant that the room, though still locked, was empty when they returned thirty years later. And she told us about a famous tragedy: A wedding party, everyone who was anyone in San Sebastián, went out on an excursion boat in Lake Chapala. As it pulled to shore, they rushed the side and overturned. The bridegroom (from Hacienda La Quinta) was drowned, among many others, when he tried to rescue a child. The bride was pulled from the water by a man who tried for the rest of their lives to get her to marry him. Her answer remained the same: “I am already promised.”

Biblioteca Publica Municipal

2009-11-07T14:50:00.012-05:00

En route from the U.S. to Nayarit, we were on the road for five days. We’d driven through the sparse, semi-deserts of Durango and Chihuahua and confronted snarling traffic and complicated construction detours through Zacatecas City. San Pancho was still eight hours away. As if a ball of yarn were slowly unraveling, the thread between our two homes lengthened with each mile.

Outside of Zacatecas City a sign announced the tiny town of Santa María de Los Angeles. We wound through the narrow cobblestone streets and bumped over the topes. At the zocalo, the town center, we stopped. The morning quiet of the plaza invited a pause in our journey.

In the square lush flowering plants surrounded concrete benches. At the center was a bandstand, a faded beauty with filigreed wrought-iron railings.

I crossed the park to the buildings on the opposite side. Their decorative facades, with cornices and columns and ornate lettering announced their official status: the Centro de Municipio, the Auditorio Municipal and the Biblioteca Publica, the public library!

Irresistible! The door to the library was open. I peered inside. In the small entry hall a brightly-colored bulletin board had an October display--a science theme with stories about Galileo and telescopes. Next to the Bienvenidos greeting, a sign-in log and suggestion box. a dispenser of hand-sanitizer. No eating or drinking, another sign cautioned in Spanish!

Five children looked up at me from the small, wooden tables where they sat, books spread open in front of them. I smiled, hesitated. As if on cue, their heads turned to look at the woman at the desk a few feet away. Aware of their attention, she put aside her papers, noted my presence.

“¿Puedo ayudarle, May I help you?” the librarian asked. “Quisiera echar una mirada alrededor, I would like to look around,” I responded.

“Por supuesto, of course,” she answered, smiling.

The central room, silent and hushed, was dimly lit, long and narrow with groups of tables in the center. Book shelves lined the walls. Drawings, displays, stories, maps and paintings filled every available space. I stopped first at the non-fiction, books, the Dewey Decimal numbers neatly written on their spines, then at the reference books—Mexican history, encyclopedias and a dictionary. Too big for the shelves they resided on a solid wooden cart. On the back wall, clearly alphabetized, was a smaller selection of adult fiction. Finally, on lower shelves, within easy reach of small hands, all of the children’s books. I almost missed the color- coded card catalog: search by title, author, and topic.

I breathed in the sense of order and calm, the familiar comfort of the library, and I thought about the small neighborhood library where I worked this summer. Our library had computers, printers and busy telephones, so the hushed reverence of this biblioteca was a thing of the past. Still, isn’t time spent in the company of books the same world-over?

I approached the librarian. “Thank you, I said, “You have a wonderful library.”

I wish my Spanish had been up to the task of telling her more. I wanted to tell her that those of us who work in libraries are very lucky. I wanted to say that nothing is as welcoming as a library’s open door. I wanted to explain how the ends of the thread are tied together for me now.

Good Kids

2009-10-29T16:54:00.003-04:00

Many of San Pancho’s teenagers attend the closest public high school in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, a village 10 miles away. No school bus picks them up; they wait along the highway for the same “Pacifico” buses everyone uses. I taught English for a few years at their school, CETMAR #6 (Centro de Estudios Tecnologicos del Mar). So when I spot kids in uniform, I feel as though I know them and offer them a lift.

My students were good kids. “Hasta nobles/almost noble,” said one of my co-workers about some of them. They had their issues, of course, but in my experience, disciplining themselves in the classroom was rarely a problem. A few reasons for this come to mind.

First, they knew each other really well. Coming from neighboring small towns around the Bay, they chose a major, e.g. marine mechanics, industrial fishing, accounting, were organized into co-ed groups of about 40, and were given a space to call their own (teachers were the rovers, moving from room to room). The group then stayed together for all their classes throughout the three years of high school.

(Shameless book plug alert!) As I described in Remember the Sweet Things, “the affection they felt for each other was palpable; the help they gave one another on assignments impressive. No one was ostracized; loners self-selected to remain aloof. In my three years at CETMAR, I never witnessed a deliberate unkind act in my classroom---these kids bore with or laughed off the loudmouth, the mentally challenged, the too-cool-for-school, the deaf-mute, the prima donna with the only cell phone who had permission to be excused every twenty minutes ‘to take a very important call.’ “

Second reason for strong classroom discipline: The group elected a leader every year and gave the position teeth. This was not a popularity contest---the group expected its leader to motivate performance and maintain order. So did the school administration. Usually a top student served as group leader. If teachers had a problem with a student, they could ask for help from the group leader who might also provide a more complete picture of what was happening in that kid’s life. Appropriate, I think, in this Mexican relationship-centered world, where who you are counts for as much as what you do.

Third reason: It cost something to stay in school, and you value what you pay for. CETMAR students paid for transportation, lunch, classroom supplies (jugs of water, chalk, enamel board markers, erasers). They even paid for their handouts and tests(50 centavos per sheet). So to fool around and waste this opportunity for an education was to also waste someone’s hard-won money. My students, predominantly working class kids, seemed wise enough to appreciate and act on this fact of their life.

Doors of San Pancho

2009-10-29T14:06:00.006-04:00

As I walk around San Pancho, I notice details I wouldn’t see if I drove the same route. The doors of houses especially catch my eye. A patchwork of designs, colors, styles and materials, they give a glimpse of the town’s past, its social strata and its distinctive character.

Scattered throughout San Pancho are homes the federal government built in the 1970s to replace the village’s palm frond huts, and all have the same door: sheet metal on the bottom, frosted glass covered by bars on the top. Near these modest places are recently built, architect-designed homes. Casa Palmera, for example, has a handsome colonial-style door made of wood and embellished with fancy architectural hardware. A little eye-level door-within-the-door allows the owner to peek out and see who is knocking.

On San Pancho’s main street is what I call the “Picasso door”: an abstract design of a brown cat on a background of electric blue. Cunning pink door knobs form the cat’s mouth. I speculate that one of the town’s many artists lives in that house.

Outside the village proper the doors, like the houses, tend to be more uniformly upscale. My favorite is at Casa Cielito. Made of aged wood weathered to bluish-gray, this door looks like it came from an old hacienda. Its rustic quality makes a perfect contrast to the clean, modern lines of the entry surrounding it.

The prize for ambitious building design goes to what is known locally as the “Taj Mahal,” a villa with adjoining rental units. Domes, finials, pointed arches, balconies and balustrades—the building does indeed resemble the Taj Mahal. Except for the doors. They are like the sheet metal ones used in San Pancho’s earliest houses. Maybe the builder ran out of money.

Morelia Supermarket

2009-10-16T10:42:00.005-04:00

Brightly colored flags criss-cross the parking lot snapping in the breezy sunlight. A huge canvas sign stretches across the front of the new store, just blocks from our Evanston, Il, home, "Bienvenidos a Morelia Supermarket, Welcome to Morelia Supermarket." Specal offers are plastered across the large front windows; chicken breast, rice, tomatoes, cheese. I can hear the ranchera music blaring from inside before I get to the front door.

Mothers with babies and toddlers in tow speak in Spanish to each other and to the clerk at the customer service desk where we hand over our reusable bags and recieve a raffle ticket in exchange. They include me with smiles, in their greetings.

Where should I start? I can't pass up the bakery! It's right there at the entrance with the familiar stacks of trays and tongs, bins with fresh bolillos, sheets of pan dulce and my favorite cookies with the sprinkles on top. (What makes those cookies so irresistible?) I fill a tray even though I only need to buy few things. I can come again, I have to remind myself, but I don't put anything back.

I'm tempted by everything; the towering pyramids of fruits and vegetables, chayotes, jicamas, key limes; a dairy case full of panela and cotija cheeses; bag after bag of dried chiles---pasilla, ancho, guajillo, and cascabel; fresh fish and meat, arrachera, pollo, camarones.

I follow the aroma of food cooking to the back of the store. A small crowd has gathered here and I can see why. Its only 8:00 a.m., but what better time for crisp chicharrones, carne asada and spicy salsa? From the men behind the counter, there comes a rapid stream of Spanish as they fill orders from the steaming pans of tamales and rice. They ladle spicy pork stew onto Styrofoam plates, pass heaping cloth-covered baskets of warm tortillas into waiting hands.

Browsing idly through the aisles my shopping list forgotten, my schedule suspended, I am immersed in the sounds I've missed all summer. I feel the familiar tug of my Mexican home where time seems endless, where even grocery shopping takes the whole day and that's just fine.

My colorful Mexican shopping bags are retrieved and filled as I tell the young woman how happy I am that this wonderful store has opened. She smiles and shows me the writing on the market's plastic rocery bags, "Autenticamente Mexico, Authentically Mexico," it says. And it is.

"...but is it safe?"

2009-10-08T08:08:00.002-04:00

At our annual condominium association cocktail party I meet a lot of people for the first time, and I have the same conversation with each of them. When I say I live in Mexico during the winter, the response is, “How interesting! We go to Florida. You said ‘Mexico,’ right?
Not New Mexico? Is it safe?”

I am asked that question often, and I know what my new acquaintances are thinking: swine flu, kidnappings and drug cartel shootouts. Mexico’s image is tarnished. I resist the urge to give a speech defending my second homeland, and respond with my short answer: “I feel safe. I avoid border towns right now because of drug-related violence. Last spring the swine flu risk was exaggerated. And I don’t drive at night in Mexico—livestock roam the road and drunk driving is not unusual. I stay out of harm’s way.”

If the person is interested, I say more about the safety question. “When I walk down the street in San Pancho, I recognize almost everyone. I never worry about purse snatchings or wayward bullets from teenage gunplay. I don’t need to avoid dangerous neighborhoods, because there are none. San Pancho feels safer to me than the city of New Haven.”

Yes, San Pancho is growing and changing, but the way the Mexicans describe it still applies: “Tranquilo.” Calm.

Laughs at the Dentist's Office

2009-10-01T17:33:00.003-04:00

Many Bay of Banderas gringos go to a dentist in Vallarta who runs a sophisticated practice. Gleaming treatment rooms, state-of-the-art gear, a slew of hygienists in matching white lab coats---it’s what we know and feel comfortable with. But still, after one visit there, I returned to my long-time Bucerias dentist, Adrian, and his one-room, one-dental chair office.

Adrian charges less, does a decent job, and most important, gives me terrific material for stories around the dinner table. Like the time he cleaned my teeth (he can’t afford a hygienist) while simultaneously eating a “torta Cubana” that his latest assistant had rushed in to him. He was forced to schedule back-to-back appointments with no time for lunch, he explained, now that his divorce had left him broke. “Sali de Guatemala y entre a Guatepeor/ I went from bad to worse,” he said, and we all laughed.

Or the time another patient, a Canadian who is also a personal friend of Adrian’s, pulled up a chair a few feet away from me while Adrian worked on one of my molars. He smoked a couple of cigarettes and told us all about the nine-foot sailfish he’d caught and released the day before.

Adrian’s assistants are good story material, too. They come and go, each one prettier and younger than the last. No lab coats hide the curves of these beauties; low-cut clinging tops and tight jeans are the uniform here. They banter with Adrian and gossip about the patients; he bosses them around affectionately, calling them “dearest,” “my love,” and “heart of my heart.”

In my favorite story, Adrian was preparing to bond one of my top front teeth. The light in the office was too dim to do a good color match, so he suggested we step outside into the sunlight. Passers-by walked around us on the narrow sidewalk as I positioned a hand mirror in front of my open mouth, Adrian held up color strips next to my teeth, and we decided on the best shade.

For the record, two years later, my persnickety dentist in California commented on the nice bonding job. “And the color is perfect,” he said.

Revolution!

2009-09-01T17:04:00.003-04:00

Revolution!

President Porfirio Diaz acknowledges the crowd, an imperious wave, his white-gloved hand tickles the air. His consort clutches the crook of his arm, eyes shy behind a pleated fan. Handsome in a shiny black suit, this Diaz is a picture of dignity. All three feet of him. The presidential couple leads the parade, steps proudly to music revved high for the occasion.

Pancho Villa, dressed in homespun and sombrero, a cartridge belt crisscrossing his pint-sized chest, scampers forward. Another Pancho Villa follows suit, and another and another. A half-dozen Emiliano Zapatas, mustachios painted across upper lips, join the moving tableau. Rifles, bayonets, other cardboard weaponry cut the air.

Tiny senoritas, colorful petticoats aswirl, pirouette in place, two-steps forward, two-steps back, repeat. Dainty braids laced with ribbons, cheeks and lips rosy with mama’s makeup. Some wear woven rebozos, baby dolls tucked inside.

Gymnasts form pyramids, elicit crowd approval; older women, royal crowns atop graying heads, kiss the air from their pick-up truck plastic chair perches; a color guard from San Pancho’s secondary school reflects the honor of the occasion.

Everywhere flags. Gripped in pudgy fists, draped from balconies, pasted in windows. Cars, trucks, their antennas aflutter in the red, white, and green, inch forward behind this grand procession.

Revolution Day! Tercer Mundo, San Pancho’s main street from the highway to the beach, packed with people. Tourists, expats charmed with local color; Mexican parents, proud, watchful eyes on young sons and daughters. Weeks of practice, preparation come to fruition. It’s November 20, the day Mexico celebrates the 1911 uprising against its longtime dictator, Porfirio Diaz. Two million lives lost during the country’s famous revolt against authority, but constitutional rights gained. Villa and Zapata proclaimed folk heroes. Diaz banished, any good he accomplished during his 35-year rule forgotten.

Except today. November 20 in San Pancho, Nayarait, and throughout Mexico, Diaz is resurrected, dusted off, given some due along with other larger-than-life characters who march down Main Street.

Finding a cocucha

2009-08-30T16:49:00.005-04:00

Skip and I are on the hunt for a cocucha, a clay pot handmade only in the remote village of Cocucho, Michoacán. We are driving down a country road toward Cocucho, closing in, when a fallen electrical pole blocks the route. “Another way to Cocucho?” we ask a group of school boys. They point toward a dirt track through a cornfield. “Feo,” they tell us. Ugly, nasty, awful. “No turning back now,” we agree. “Let’s do it.” After 15 minutes of bouncing through the muddy field, not a house in sight, we wonder, “Is this dangerous? Are we crazy?”

We arrive in Cocucho unscathed and take a break on a bench in the town plaza. A small indigenous woman, barefoot, approaches, introduces herself as Lupe, and asks if we are looking for cocuchas. She can guide us to Juana’s home, where we will find many pots.

Juana Alonzo Hernandez lives in a one-room house, so unfinished that in the U.S. we would call it a hut: a dirt floor, walls of raw wood, no furniture except for a table, two chairs and a bed. Juana is wrinkly, toothless, five feet tall at most, with long gray hair wound around her head. Like Lupe, she is barefoot and wears a voluminous, brightly colored skirt, an embroidered blouse, and a shawl. Juana and Lupe talk with each other in Purépecha, the language of the indigenous people in that area, but they speak Spanish with us. We explain that we are from the U.S, and that we live in Nayarit during the winter. We are looking for a cocucha about four-feet tall to fill a big empty space at the bottom of our stairwell.

Before we get down to business, Juana wants to talk about the U.S. Are we familiar with Seattle? Her son moved there three years ago for a landscaping job. She shows us a photo of a smiling young man. “He used to send money,” Juana says, “but I haven’t heard from him in a long time. Do you know how much an airline ticket costs? Do you think I could get a passport?” We admire the photo and respond as best we can.

Juana shows us the pots in her yard and explains how she forms them by hand from Cocucho clay. She uses no wheels or molds in the pot-building process. The pots are fired in a charcoal blaze on the ground, not in a kiln. We select a tall, tapered cocucha with fire marks on its mottled surface. It will be perfect in our empty space and it costs less than $100. Despite our protests, Juana and Lupe insist on carrying the giant cocucha to our car in slings improvised from their shawls. They pack it securely in the hatch. We drive back to San Pancho cautiously, protecting our prize from speed bumps and sudden stops.

Victory at Sea

2009-08-12T19:04:00.011-04:00

I forgot how dramatic the summer storms can be. "It’s like watching ‘Victory at Sea’," Marsh once said, as we sat on our front porch, mesmerized by the performance. Bolts of lightning attacked the distant horizon and hurtled through the sky over the Pacific. Thunder bombarded our ears and clapped so explosively we jumped in our chairs. As I witnessed the same spectacle last night I thought, Snow birds really don't know what they're missing.

Admittedly, the heat is tough to contend with. I don’t like it either, and will leave again in a few weeks. But it’s worth enduring in order to experience the tropics at their most intense. The greenest of green vegetation, washed clean by the torrential rains, shimmers and steams under a glaring sun. The jungle reclaims itself, shoots tree limbs over roads to form cooling canopies, overwhelms untended land with towering new growth. Even the ocean ratchets up, its color changing to vivid turquoises and emerald greens.

Faced with such intensity, mere mortals are forced to relax and give in. We move more slowly, take more naps, spend more time at home, as we adapt to the natural world that now has the upper hand.

I lived here year-round my first seven years in Nayarit. We who savored the storms, coped with the humidity, and knew how to slow life down to a crawl, thought of ourselves as the only true expats. “Welcome back,” we said smugly to returnees every fall, hoping they would pick up on the superiority we felt. My come-uppance is the slip in social status that I feel now, when locals say "welcome back" to me.

Par for the Course

2009-08-07T18:24:00.014-04:00

Ah, the allure of lush green fairways and a gently rolling landscape. Even the sand traps and water hazards beckon. Flags fluttering in the warm breeze entice you to holes you’ll never play. Each day, you peer longingly through the locked gate at the golf course; silent, pristine, empty.

From the beginning it seemed too good to be true. News of a golf course being developed right around the corner from our house sent my husband Bill, an avid golfer, into wild anticipation. How big a golf course? How much would it cost to play? Would it be a public course or could he buy a membership? He planned his daily golf game, relished the thought of how his golf buddies would envy his unlimited access.

As construction began, not the cacophonous parade of earth moving equipment past our house, nor the chorus of water-conservationists crying “foul,” could dampen Bill’s enthusiasm. Watching the course take shape became an obsession. His clubs polished, Bill was ready for opening day.

And then word got out.

There it was, on the San Pancho Message Board. The golf course was going to be “private,” for use only by its owner, his family and friends. Was it a joke? No, it wasn’t. But it was true.

Still, no parade of carts appeared, no golfers or caddies, just the staff who faithfully maintained the grounds; planting, pruning, mowing.

“If he’s going to have his own golf course, why doesn’t he play?” Bill muttered as we drove past. “Wouldn’t a little putting green in his backyard have been enough?”

Then, he packed up his clubs and went back to the little nine hole course near La Penita.

Recycling in San Pancho

2009-07-30T06:21:00.002-04:00

If you don’t have a lot of money, you have to make do with what’s at hand, so commonplace materials are used for multiple purposes in San Pancho. A big olive oil tin, cut down and with a stick for a handle, becomes a dustpan. Salt rubbed into a copper pot with a sliced lime does a nice job as a metal polish. If our painter needs a funnel, he inverts a plastic bottle and cuts off the bottom. The carpenter seals and stains wood with his old motor oil. These ingenious measures are good for San Pancho’s environment, but that is incidental. The motivation is to save a few pesos.

In addition to being economical, recycling can fulfill an artistic impulse. Guys who work in garages, for example, seem to be inspired by discarded car parts, though they probably aren’t thinking “reduce, reuse, recycle.” A man-sized Pink Panther sculpture constructed from mufflers and tailpipes stands at the entrance to a nearby mechanic’s shop. I’ve seen carburetors, bolts and oil filters transformed into sculptures of horses and female torsos.

A formal recycling program was started recently in San Pancho, and we needed it. EntreAmigos (entreamigos.org.mx), a non-profit that does good works in the village, and Alianza Jaguar, a conservation program, placed recycling canisters on the main street and set up a drop-off center for glass, aluminum and plastic. Then entreAmigos spearheaded the construction of Recicla Parque, a playground built entirely of plastic bottles, shopping carts, tires, fishing nets, drainage pipes and other debris. They operate Trabajarte, a program so women so can make and sell craft items out of recycled materials.

Now we are officially doing something “green” in San Pancho, but recycling is not a new idea here. A quote I like from Teddy Roosevelt -- “Do what you can with what you have where you are” -- comes to mind when I see people making good use of stuff that could have ended up in a landfill.

Goats Redux

2009-07-23T22:49:00.003-04:00

Life on our street teems like a telenovela, those popular soap operas to which many Mexicans are devoted. Birth, death, marriage, divorce, a couple of near-murders, the odd theft, we’ve seen it all. Layers of raucous laughter stratify the street, and song and greetings and the banter of children at play. A net of exuberance draws together family and friends and friends of friends.

We were happy spectators. Until the day the goats moved in.

The bawling drew me, high pitch, strung out, anxious. I looked through the cyclone fence that separates our back yard from our nearest neighbor. Two small goats bleating like newborns, twin noses pressed against chicken wire walls of a lean-to shed. Apparently unhappy with accommodations, the goats complained throughout that first day, night, first week, second week.

Then silence so loud I went to investigate. The shed was empty. Out on the street I saw my neighbor try to fold and stuff the goats into the back of her van. I asked where they were going. With a laugh she said, "Comer (to eat)," her fingers tapping her lips. While I hoped she meant the goats were going to visit a more fertile grazing ground, in my gut I knew they were going to grace a dinner table. Gone to their gustatory reward.

Then one day two new arrivals, trailing yellow leashes, walked through our open gate, clip-clopped down the stairs, circled the tile ledge surrounding the Jacuzzi pool, nosed up to me, brown eyes soft, curious. My husband and I each grabbed a leash and dragged the goats next door.

"Hola," we called. Twice, three times. No one responded. "Let’s just put them in their pen." As we made our way around the side of the house we passed an open air toilet, a pile of plastic kitchen ware worse for wear, mounds of debris, detritus, unidentifiable.

The goats tugged on their leashes, apparently anxious to reach the lop-sided lean-to at the back of the property. We let them go.

It was a shock to see how our neighbors lived. Adults, children, grandchildren always clean, neatly dressed, but their home was a hovel. A junk yard hovel from which we daily hear bursts of laughter, song, good-natured teasing. Hard contrast with the way we live: bookshelves dusted, picture frames T-square straight.

What are we missing here?

The Rains Come

2009-07-16T13:59:00.006-04:00

My husband and I came up to our mountain house at the beginning of June. Nearly all our San Pancho friends had left for their northern homes, and for excellent reason—it was way too hot on the coast. The ones who stayed were all found, upon close questioning, to have air-conditioned bedrooms. We do not, given that our bedroom only has one and a half walls. The day came when life was no fun at all and desultory plans to move up to the mountains shifted to let’s-get-out-of-here mode.

But when we arrived it was hot up here, too. A mile of altitude, intense sun, steep cobbled streets, and as yet no rain—a walk to the store and we dragged in overheated. However, our house was dim and cool and the nights required a quilt. It had been no mistake to make the move.

The garden was glorious. Rose, gardenia, agapanthus, plumbago, hydrangea, geranium, bougainvillea, impatiens, begonia, calla lily, zinnia, hibiscus, nasturtium, trumpet vine, and more, whose names I don’t know, were all blooming. Especially grand were the datura trees, as I call them, with their pendant flutes of exquisite fragrance. One is twenty feet high and greeted us with a good 300 blooms.

This beauty is accomplished by having a gardner, hose in hand, all winter. We are symbiots with our mozo Marcelino—our garden survives; his daughter gets a quinceañiera, the traditional fifteenth birthday celebration for those girls whose parents can afford it.

The rains arrived right on schedule and none too soon as I had begun thinking about those stories from India where people go crazy waiting for the monsoon and start hacking up their neighbors. Not Marcelino, of course. One night, mid June, there was spectacular downpour and it has rained every day since. The output ranges from thunder and lightning storms to the gentlest mist. The eaves and drainage channels may run floods of water or one’s hair may wear no more than a net of droplets after half an hour outside. There may be a sprinkle around five in the afternoon, or it may rain for several days running.

The heated ocean evaporates, the saturated air rolls in over land and, cooling, condenses into rain. Weather 101. San Sebastian sits in an amphitheater of mountains with the ocean as stage, and we don’t miss a drop. The rains come and a few hours later the miracles begin. Resurrection ferns emerge from every cranny of the stone walls. Moss goes from russet brown to electric green. Mountains erupt with purple flowering vines atop fresh-leaved trees. Tiny white and yellow orchids appear on branches. Pink crocus-like tempranillos cover hillsides. Orchid cacti sprout fleshy blooms from the nodes of their thick leaves. And the weather is perfectly cool.

Now the rains are doing the job of watering the garden, but they are not an unmixed blessing. Bougainvillea decide to take a blooming break, geraniums have to be put under cover. Double hibiscus fill with water and hang upside down, as do the grander floribundas. Zinnias are beaten over and have to grow J-shaped stalks to reach their preferred orientation. And some plants just rot and die no matter what you do.

The rains are a mixed blessing for the people, too. In our first year we lost access to the contents of our drawers when the wood swelled. Now we know to keep drawers slightly open but not how to keep mold from dusting leather chairs, cloth-bound books, carpets, canvas of paintings and wooden furniture. When the clouds descend to the level of the village, I must quickly close doors and windows so the white billows don’t roll inside and soak the beds and sofas. A frequent topic of conversation, in the warm candlelight of an evening, is how to deal with the incessant electrical outages. We never know when landslides will trap us up here for hours or even days.

But picture this: Our house, built in imitation of the local rustic colonial style with tile roof and approved slopes, does not leak. We curl up under our covers and couldn’t care less if it pours all night.

The Governor Comes To Town

2009-07-02T20:45:00.006-04:00

On the steps of the hospital, the nurses stand in two straight lines; their caps starched white, uniforms pressed, barely moving in the breeze. The VIPS assemble near the newly hung banner that reads “Inauguracion Ampliacion de Hospital General de San Francisco.” Freshly painted terra-cotta walls shine in the sunlight, neatly pruned flowers and plants border the walkways; not one wayward piece of litter is in sight. All is ready for Ney Gonzales, Governor of the state of Nayarit to dedicate the newly renovated hospital.

Security is in place. Earlier, police road blocks kept the area around the hospital cordoned off. Now an assortment of law enforcement vehicles and personnel maintain a watchful presence; the scratchy static of their radios adds background drama. Photographers, outfitted with large, serious cameras, multiple lights and bags stake out their places along the roadway. I see familiar faces; many of my neighbors are here and I recognize others from the restaurants and shops in town. We wave at each other across the growing surge of onlookers.

At the sound of the approaching helicopters, the crowd hums with excitement. The governor and his entourage are approaching; all smiles, they shake hands, pose for photos and pat the babies. Applause! Thin and more slightly built than the associates who accompany him, the governor is all energy, keeping a rapid pace and offering a constant stream of greetings and comments. He commands full attention. The crowd responds with enthusiasm and respect.

The speeches begin. There are introductions and acknowledgements. Everyone agrees that this is an important day, a very special event, for San Pancho and the State of Nayarit. The governor speaks.

We are all very fortunate, he says, to have such a fine hospital in San Pancho. He wants the families of Nayarit to have access to the best possible health care. But, he reminds us, that good health is an individual responsibility; that we have an obligation to ourselves and our children. He talks about diet and exercise, the dangers of smoking and alcohol, drugs. He reminds us that mental health is important, too, and he talks about the dangers of depression. His tone is serious, thoughtful.

Is this just politician talk? I look around at the crowd who are listening intently, many nodding in agreement. No, I decide. His message has hit its mark.

Ana Amid the Agaves

2009-06-28T15:47:00.009-04:00

Ana Ruiz, my housekeeper and property manager, worked for five years in the agave fields of tequila producer Jose Cuervo. Along with 25 other workers from her village, El Conde, an hour away from Guadalajara, she was picked up at 5:30 AM, Monday through Saturday, and packed into the back of a truck.

“We were dropped off at 6 AM and picked up at 5 PM,” Ana said.. “All of us were paid 150 pesos ($15) per day. I worked for Jose Cuervo from 1999 to 2004 and never got a raise. ” Sauza, owner of adjoining fields and the only other big local employer, paid its workers the same, she said. Like most of the others, she felt she had no choice but to stay. “I was 28 years old, my husband left me the year before, and I had two children to raise,” she said.

Every day, 5’2”Ana strapped on a 20-liter tank of chemicals and walked the rows of agaves, fumigating and fertilizing the plants. “Jose Cuervo’s rows look straight and tidy,” she said. “Not like the Sauza fields, so messy with weeds. That's because they don't use chemicals. And Jose Cuervo now uses a small plane for spraying. Less work for the field hands, but people worry about how much more they inhale.”(Note to self: Switch to Sauza brand tequila.)

During those years, Ana thought about cleaning houses in Phoenix. A friend had a crew and a van, and Ana had her standing offer of a job. But she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her kids in El Conde.“I wanted to do better by them, though,” she said. “ I dropped out of school at 15 and gave birth to Karina at 16, to Enrique at 18. It’s been hard physical work for me ever since. I want so much more for the two of them. "

So Ana left her kids with her parents in El Conde and moved to San Pancho, where her in-laws lived and she heard there was work. After a stint as a housekeeper at the local hotel, she found me by day and a restaurant by night. She washed dishes the first year at Café del Mar. The second, she washed dishes and trained as a sous-chef. The third, she prepared salads and vegetables at sister restaurant Mar Plata. And the fourth, 2009, she returned to Café del Mar, this time as head chef.

“I learned the menu fairly quickly,” Ana said. “Now I’m starting to innovate, which I really like a lot.” She feels proud of herself. “My kids say they feel proud of me, too,” she admitted.

I imagine my days as Ana’s boss are numbered---surely she won’t need a second job much longer. And oh how I’ll miss her. Nice, though, to have been part of this local-girl-makes-good story.

Azulejos

2009-06-28T11:58:00.008-04:00

I like the Spanish word for decorative tiles: azulejos. Could it be a fusion of azul and lejos, Spanish for “blue” and “far”? Blue far. The words evoke exotic places, like the Mediterranean or the Blue Mosque.

Azulejos are everywhere in Casa Skip y Nancy, our San Pancho house. Vibrant blue tiles on kitchen counters; intricate patterns of turquoise and navy on stair risers; geometric designs of blue and gold on the patio steps; a border of lily tiles around a bathroom mirror.

The house is one-of-a-kind and made of indigenous materials. Walls are stuccoed block, built by masons from the village and painted pink. A San Pancho carpenter crafted the windows and doors from parota, a local hardwood. And the decorative tiles, made of Nayarit clay, were hand-finished in Puerto Vallarta according to the traditional Talavera process. I revel in the individuality of Casa Skip y Nancy, and I appreciate its connection to its place.

Our Connecticut condo, where we spend the spring and summer, is pleasant enough and meets our needs. But it is identical to 149 other units in our condo complex. All the materials, including the tiles, look like they came from Home Depot. Exterior walls are stucco veneer embellished with fake half-timbers. Each unit is painted the same beige, per condo regulations. An attempt to look Tudor, I guess, but what’s Tudor got to do with southern Connecticut?

Two homes, two lives

2009-06-17T20:48:00.003-04:00

Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not complaining. But this teeter-totter life of mine takes its toll. I’m here when I’m not there. When I’m there I’m worried about here. I am fully aware how fortunate I am to own homes in two countries, to reap reward of two cultures, to enjoy friends in two disparate parts of the world. But this lifestyle can be strenuous.

Summers in the north are a whirligig of appointments and errands, dates with family, friends, and neighbors, sundry obligations. I dash in and out of a house that nips at my heels. Feeling her age, 63 years old, she demands big-time restoration. Payback for the view.

Perched eighty-five feet above a finger of Puget Sound, her bank of windows reflects a wide shimmer of blue gray water and water activity. Hand-hewn stairs crafted by my husband descend to a beach tousled with butter clam and oyster shells. A heron prances onto the dock, eagles swoop low, sea lions frolic, actually frolic, a few feet off shore. A family of Canada geese makes its rounds: straddle the pebbles and shells, dip in the frigid water, follow-the-leader swim. It’s rare I take time to watch them. Like the White Rabbit of Alice in Wonderland I am perennially late. Entrenched in a northern mentality.

Late October turns wet and gray. Time to button up and head south. These northern bones resist the move. I am homesick before we cross the Columbia River into Oregon. I worry about the house and the people left behind. Long days on the road, my husband, my cat good companions during the week-plus we take to reach the border.

A day or so north of San Pancho my wooly head clears. Anticipation builds to see my tiny house and blowsy garden. I open the gate with trepidation, nervous about what might have taken root during summer. The house smells of neglect: dust, must, trails of detritus from critters camped inside. I set to work: cupboards must be emptied, contents re-washed, floors swept and mopped. All is well, even when it’s not.

Casa Tango is a home without conveniences. I do not have a dishwasher or clothes dryer. I do not have television, telephone, or internet. Sometimes I do without water and electricity. Ah, but the joy of being here. I shrug off my northern coat, northern expectations. Here I give myself permission to sit in a garden filled with foliage that froths over low concrete walls painted orange, purple, blue, green; to watch an iguana climb the neighbor’s brick wall, follow a butterfly, blink and miss the hummingbird.

In spite of the challenge inherent with living in a culture foreign to one’s own, in spite of the inconveniences, I feel more peaceful here than in my home up north. Fewer obligations. Lower expectations.

Mexico lets me breathe.

It's Different Now

2009-05-30T16:36:00.002-04:00

It was easier for me to live in Mexico when George Bush was president. Especially after he won a second term. Who WERE these fellow citizens of mine that elected and re-elected this unworthy stooge? Who would want to live among them?

I kidded with my friend from Montreal. “You could sell fake Canadian passport covers and make a killing.” Somebody else did just that. I found them online. Only half-joking, I bought a few for myself and my kids, along with maple leaf stickers to slap on our bags.

Now it’s different. Granted, the past three years have been momentous for me. I lost a dear husband, published a first book, and found a whole new community of friends in California, in large part because I spend so much time there. But a new administration has made life different for me, too. To paraphrase Michelle Obama, I feel proud of my country again, for the first time in the new millennium. We saw the wisdom in her husband, came out in droves for him, and swept him into office on a wave of passion and pride. Our votes counted(and were counted!). Activism paid off. The world press loves us again.

And, like so many other tired feminists and community organizers, I have become energized. Tonight I’m off to a march in support of same-sex marriage. Tomorrow night to a meeting of the Unitarian social action committee. Thursday night, homework tutoring at the homeless shelter. It feels good to be back, to be involved again where it feels appropriate to me, within my own culture.

Do I want to live most of the year in Mexico anymore, if it means giving this up? After twelve years in the “Riviera Nayarit,” am I ready for a change?

Haggling

2009-05-26T15:43:00.009-04:00

Hoping to sound more emphatic the second time, I repeat what I just said to the beach vendor: “No, Señor, I don’t want to buy silver jewelry today. Thank you.”

“But, Señora, these earrings are from Taxco, best quality, nine-two-five, you see?” He dangles a pair of shiny silver hoops close to my face.

I take them in my hand and inspect for the tiny .925 engraving that signifies a piece is almost pure silver. Big mistake. I have shown interest.

“Señora, this is my last sale of the day. I’ll give you two-for-one. Two pairs, $500 pesos. You won’t find a better price.”

Minutes later I own two new pairs of silver hoop earrings. Don’t know if I got a good deal or not. But I caved. Again.

I’ve always been a pushover for roving beach vendors. If you sit in one of San Pancho’s beachfront restaurants, they will find you. Most often they are young men dressed in white, toting laptop-sized cases full of silver jewelry.

Here are some suggestions for dealing with vendors from a person who owns lots of silver jewelry, tacky wood carvings, acrylic shawls and goofy sun hats:

If you really have no interest, don’t make eye contact. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t inspect the merchandise. Just say, “No, gracias,” and go back to your book or conversation.

Start a transaction by asking, “What is your best price?” and have in mind an amount you’re willing to pay. You must be able to think rapidly in pesos and to say peso amounts in Spanish without hesitating. Practice this at home.

Expect to settle at 50-60% of the vendor’s opening price. He won’t sell the piece at a loss, but he does have to make a living. Do not allow thoughts like “He’s probably got kids who need food and school clothes” to enter your head.

Once the vendor agrees to your price, you are obliged by haggling tradition to accept the deal. To walk away or try to go another round would be bad form.

If you know you’re not good at haggling, you might ask a companion with the necessary skills to handle the transaction. My husband, who thinks negotiating with used car salesmen is great sport, is an expert, so I ask him to be the closer. Or just don’t haggle. Go to one of San Pancho’s shops and pay what it says on the price tag.

The Reluctant Farmer

2009-05-14T21:54:00.002-04:00

This is a story about the chicken and the eggs. The setting is a small patch of syngonium, philodendron, and fern by my entry door. One day last February during a routine weed-and-water session I discovered an egg.

Smaller than supermarket size, it was unblemished, light tan, and warm in my hand. I assumed it was laid by one of the neighbor’s chickens, although none were in sight. Was it progeny? Or was it the first ingredient in huevos rancheros. I turned it about in my palm, could not tell the difference. It was my first egg in the wild.

"You won’t believe this," I said to my husband, Win. "I found an egg in the garden."

"Just one?" Win raked aside foliage. "Maybe there are more."

No additional eggs that day but during the next three we found a single egg, same time, same place.

Perplexed, we pulled a stakeout. Day five we met the mom. She was a frumpy thing, flustered to find us hovering about but with enough aplomb to flounce and high-step around us to hop into the plants. We watched her jiggle her nether-side of cinnamon-colored feathers into the damp earth, settle in, head and neck tucked low. Hard black eyes, crenellated headdress neon red half submerged atop the fluff.

"Must belong to the neighbors," said Win, referring to the dozen or so chickens that free-range between our two properties. "Wonder why she left."

I don’t know what precipitated the break in community relations but by the second week we knew this chicken had run away from home. Apparently comfortable in her new digs she settled in for what would become a daily routine.

Each morning at 9:20 a.m., give or take, she leaves her nest, emits a three-note squawk, and strolls with a certain dignity down the brick stairs to the backyard. She flaps atop the cyclone fence separating the properties and retreats within the neighbor’s lean-to shed. She returns to us in about 30 minutes to hunker down until the next morning.

February passes, then March. April we button up our house for summer departure. Throughout the bustle of leave taking our chicken continues to rule her roost. We anticipate her welcome home squawk upon our return in the fall.

Tyson did not produce more than the four eggs we found her first week in residence. We did put those eggs to good use.

Four Egg Frittata
Whisk eggs, add seasonings, such as basil, marjoram, oregano, thyme. Heat tablespoon of butter or olive oil in small skillet. Tilt eggs into skillet. Layer atop eggs half cup thinly sliced onions and zucchini. Top with grated parmesan cheese. Once eggs are set put skillet on high oven rack. Broil about one minute, until frittata is puffed and lightly browned. Slide onto plate. Serves one as meal or two as appetizer.

On Not Going Back

2009-05-04T13:50:00.001-04:00

My fellow blog writers are dropping like flies. Two have gone back to the United States and the ones who are left have departure dates not far off. Their eyes are already focused far to the north. It’s the same for all the foreign community. There is a boiling down to just the year-round residents— those who can face being further boiled in the summer to come. We are among the ones who no longer go back.

Every year another person or couple joins the ranks of the year-round. The ties to Back There have been loosening. For several years membership on all those committees has been allowed to go into months of suspension but eventually they don’t want you any more and you don’t mind. The war will be stopped, the watershed saved, and strategies for world peace developed by others. Friends wonder how important they are to you. Events and crises have gone on fine without your participation. You can hardly bear to face the neglected northern home, the opportunity for spring planting passed. There remains the greatest draw—grandchildren, but there is a perfectly functioning international airport. If your children weren’t nearby, one airport is as good as another.

For us, time in Mexico had come to be the better part of the year and time spent here had gone from two weeks, to three months and on to six. The attachment to new friends had grown. New community interests had come along too but with a tiny fraction of the meetings. We eventually had broadband and NPR. Our new home was lovely and open and filled with soft breezes. The flowers were so easy to grow. More and more ties to Back There were either cut or stretched to reach into the tropics.

Now I admit that my husband and I will also leave San Pancho for the summer and fall. We will go two hours away to our cool mountain home in San Sebastian. Turns out we don’t want to be boiled either. Three other foreign resident San Pancho couples have adopted the same plan and perhaps more will follow. Over time, commitment to the new pueblo has grown with friendships becoming established and joint projects started. When we are on the coast we often think of the mountain town, and vice versa. We seem to have chosen the same bind, but with the not-insignificant difference of a two hour drive rather than four days or more. We can easily check in. No meetings there either, though we did recently join a protest to save an ancient tree. Here we go again.

Leaving for the season

2009-04-28T16:21:00.002-04:00

Leaving San Pancho to spend the spring and summer in Connecticut isn’t easy. We rent the house when we are not there, and Casa Skip y Nancy needs to be ship-shape. The countdown begins weeks before my early April departure. Each day I update lengthy to-do lists. Conversations with Skip begin, “Did you remember to (clean the grill, get extra keys…)?”

Our property manager and housekeeper, both capable people, take care of the house in our absence. Nevertheless, I try to anticipate any problem that could arise. A notebook I leave for renters contains exhaustive details: disposal clogged? Here’s where to find the Allen wrench. Dryer not working? Call Lorenzo-the-dryer-guy in Sayulita. I imagine renters thinking as they read the notebook, “An obsessive person wrote this.”

But the hardest part of leaving is saying goodbye to people I care about. I’ll miss my walking buddies, my writers’ group, friends who pop in unannounced. Being part of a community seems effortless in San Pancho. On a one-block walk to the store, I might run into three people who stop for a chat. I seldom have casual, spontaneous encounters in West Haven. Many of my friends are still working, and time with them is planned in advance.

Still, I yearn for my Connecticut life. I’ve got to see my children and grandchildren; if I don’t get back there, too much of their lives will pass me by. The recitals and birthday parties, Middlebrook Elementary’s spring fair, walks in the park with my new grandson – I love all that grandma stuff.

So I pack up and leave San Pancho. When I’m in one place, I miss someone who’s in the other place. And that's not a bad problem to have.

The Lonely Librarian

2009-04-25T19:26:00.004-04:00

The small two-story building near the beach on San Pancho’s main street, Tercer Mundo, was home to entreamigos for three years. Children gathered out front for art projects at tables under the grand mango tree in the center of the street. Traffic slowed to creep around it. Massive branches provided shade.

A small, hand-lettered sign led to the “Biblioteca, Library.” A narrow hallway with brightly painted murals. Uneven concrete stairs. Children’s voices. In the largest room, shelves filled with books in Spanish lined the walls; large, colorful picture books beckoned eager readers. A long bench with chairs provided desks for studying and homework help, and amidst tangled wires, computer stations brought the world of the internet.

The dimly lit smallest room in the library held the English collection for adults and children. Here books overflowed the shelves and leaned haphazardly at odd angles, stacked and propped; keeping order, my nemesis. As the volunteer librarian, I was uncompromising; fiction separate from non-fiction, non-fiction organized by topic. I vowed that someday the Dewey Decimal system would prevail.

But entreamigos’ lease had expired, and we had to move. We filled boxes and boxes with books. Carefully, at first, labeling “Libros, espanol, ninos, books, Spanish, children.” Then later, rushed, we simply wrote “libros.” We rolled up the colorful posters, gathered the toys, and took down the shelves.

The small, hand-lettered sign above the door now reads “Se renta, for rent.” The mango tree is gone, a casualty of the newly repaved Tercer Mundo. Entreamigos is a strong and committed organization, however, whose work in San Pancho will continue. We will have a new home in one of the old warehouses in town. In time there will be a new library, and I will be in it, trying to keep order once again.

http://www.entreamigos.org/

Love at First Sight

2009-04-20T16:46:00.002-04:00

First-timers to San Pancho are among my favorite house guests, and two more came in the other day. From the minute we turned into town on Avenida Tercer Mundo, they were smitten. It’s those first sights as we head toward the beach for a quick look, sights that make my daughter-the-regular shout, “And action!”

There’s the cowboy on horseback, broad-brimmed sombrero angled low on his brow. The weathered old woman in the ever-present apron, standing erect behind a small wooden table where she sells her bread pudding. A pickup, its bed loaded with laughing kids, bouncing them like beach balls each time it passes over a speed bump.

As happens often enough, these latest newcomers arrived just when I needed them. Bouts with mildew, warped woodwork, and water shortages necessitating cold “Navy showers” were wearing me down. “The re-entry blues,” I called it, coming home to issues after months out of the country. I needed the shot in the arm of people raving about San Pancho and the view from my porch. Who scoffed at my “happy problems” and reinforced my choice of this place on the planet with their sighs of approval as they stared out to sea.

Bird Watching

2009-04-02T14:01:00.001-04:00

From time to time a hush comes over the garden. My neighbors’ music players have simultaneously fallen silent. No trucks or busses are using engine brakes on the highway. The children are not playing soccer in the street. Shrimp trucks with loudspeakers are elsewhere. In this preternatural silence the anis fly into the garden. It is hard not to believe that they have some causal relationship to this lacuna in the noisy bustle of San Pancho—as though their unrelieved blackness is connected not only to absence of light, but sound as well.

The Grooved-Billed Ani is a cuckoo-related bird. In side view, nearly half the head is given over to a great, blunt beak. Yes, birds are dinosaurs, I think when I see that profile. Anis lay their eggs, not like cuckoos, in another species’ nest, but in a communal nest of four or five pairs. Their extended family of eight or ten glides in on wings silent as owl’s, and enters the deepest foliage where their blackness is hardly distinguishable from the shadows. There is only the slightest rustle and tremor in the leaves as they move through. The anis make no more sound than the occasional brushing feather. Insects and lizards are not forewarned.

The anis use my garden as their family table. I like intact leaves and healthy color, so our interests coincide. They eat the stink bugs which can suck the life out of hibiscus. It is so quiet I can hear the tiny crunch as the bugs are crushed and I get a whiff of their unmistakable odor. I hold still so the birds will be undisturbed. Even the breeze is careful. Too soon, in twos and threes, they glide silently away.

It's a bird...

2009-03-27T19:29:00.005-04:00

It’s a plane, parked on the beach just feet from the malecón, Pancho’s lovely ocean-front plaza. Fortunately it isn’t a Boeing 747! It’s an Ultralight, a small two-seater aircraft that my son Larry, a pilot, refers to as “conduit and bed sheets.”

An aura of adventure and mystery surround the unoccupied plane’s appearance. Did it taxi up to the bar at Las Palmas restaurant so that its thirsty pilot could order a quick beer, taking “para llevar (to go)” to new heights? Is it a marketing director’s dream, another innovative way of introducing San Pancho to prospective buyers?

The real story? Here in San Pancho we gather facts and opinions like pieces of a giant jig-saw puzzle. A little information here, a little hearsay there, and you know as much as you’re ever going to know.

It’s Saturday afternoon in tranquil San Pancho and the beach is crowded with families spread out along the sand, catching waves in the ocean. Further down the beach where the plane has landed, its pilot and passenger have decided that some refreshments are in order. How many refreshments they had is unclear, but let’s just say that observers later describe their takeoff as “shaky.”

Flying too low above the ocean, the wing of the plane is caught momentarily by a wave. Unable to right itself, (remember the bed sheets?) the plane tilts downward, the force of the water pulling it further off-balance and finally submerging it. Swimmers paddle furiously away from the sinking plane while others plunge into the waves to pull the plane and its occupants to safety. Unbelievably, no one is hurt.

The drama concludes with the arrest of the pilot and his passenger and the damaged plane planted on the beach. A few days later, the plane provides a comfy spot for a small child’s nap.

Call me nostalgic: I can’t help but recall the days, not so very long ago, when the only motorized vehicle on the beach was the old dune buggy that belongs to Turtle Frank, the venerable guardian of baby turtle nests.

Basura in Basura out

2009-03-22T15:08:00.005-04:00

The pile in the back yard was assuming amazing proportion: yard clippings, felled branches, fronds and nuts from a 30-foot-high coconut palm, broken brick, clumps of concrete from renovation projects.

And the bodega bulged with its own detritus: leftovers from the former owner of our home, small appliances rusted or broken, gadgets and gimcrackery brought from the states we discovered we did not need to enjoy life in San Pancho.

The thrice-weekly garbage service, tremendously improved since our arrival four years ago, has limitations. Although we oblige the expected Christmas tip (suggested $200 pesos), we can’t set out for pick up what we please. Items verboten include large sacks of yard waste, construction materials, debris of heft and girth. Once we tried to give the guys a rusted-out water heater. They tossed it in a neighbor’s vacant lot.

Periodically we’ve asked the location of a municipal dump. We have a truck. We are happy to cart our own stuff away. Response from the North Americans: My workers take care of it for me. Response from the Mexicans: It’s up the road, toward La Penita; colorful gesticulations signal the vague direction. We searched but all we ever found were unofficial garbage sites along the side of the highway. We considered following the municipal garbage truck to its final destination.

Last week we approached Manuel, bagging up brittle fronds from the palapa repair he completed for us.

"Where do you take that stuff," asked Win, my husband.

"To the dump," he said.

"Can we go there, too?"

"Not a problem. Open all the time."

Manuel drew a simple map. He and his workers left. Win and I executed a quick high-five, then began loading our truck.

Directions: from San Pancho head north. Just before reaching La Penita Pemex #8489, a tad past km 94, turn right. At this writing your landmark is a large pale yellow building. About two blocks, turn right when you see a store emblazoned with Coca-Cola advertising. Drive past a soccer field. Keep driving even though the road narrows to one lane. Keep driving past fields of agave, both sides of the street. Keep driving for approximately three kilometers. A guard shack stands left of the entrance.

The zopilotes will greet you, wicked-looking vultures that feed on what you would rather not think about. Park amidst the acres of garbage, the fish heads and dirty diapers and broken furniture and old clothing and deflated tires. Don’t be surprised if what you unload is quickly appropriated for a second life.

The municipal dump is open every day, around the clock. And it’s free.

Monarchs in Michoacán

2009-03-16T22:33:00.004-04:00

Millions of monarch butterflies migrate from the U.S. and Canada each fall to a mountaintop in central Mexico. They navigate to an evergreen grove they’ve never seen before: the same one that sheltered their ancestors. How do they do it? Scientists are researching this intriguing question, but they don’t have definite answers. (See http://www.monarchwatch.org/.)

A trip to Michoacán to see the monarchs has been on our places-to-go-in-Mexico list for years. This year we finally did it. An expedition to the preserve -- El Rosario Sanctuary in Ocampo -- has to be timed just right. Late February and early March are best because the butterflies come out of their semi-dormant state as the temperature rises. The weather on the day of the visit should be warm and sunny. If it’s too cold, the butterflies hang from the trees, wings folded, to conserve energy.

Hiking up the mountain to the butterflies’ grove was strenuous. I’m used to aerobic walks in San Pancho’s hills, but my husband Skip…. Let’s just say it wasn’t realistic to expect he’d be thrilled by a steep trek to 10,000 feet.

He and I agreed, though, that what we saw at the top of the mountain was worth our effort: orange and black monarchs wafting in the sunlight, clustering in rivulets of water, mating delicately, clinging to pine and fir trees. When I listened closely, I could hear a faint swishing sound: not wind in the pines, but the fluttering of butterfly wings.

The monarchs’ winter habitat is protected under Mexican law. However, experts say that local people are destroying the preserve by logging illegally and clearing land for crops. I’m not surprised. Three-year old children begged us for money as we climbed the trail to El Rosario’s entrance. If my kids were hungry, and I could get hundreds of dollars for a pine tree, I’d probably cut it down, too.

The Golf Cart

2009-03-16T17:11:00.004-04:00

When a neighbor in New Mexico offered an electric golf cart for sale at the bargain price of $275, my husband and I thought it would be perfect for running around San Pancho. It was the original Westinghouse battery-operated model, pushing 50. Along with solar panels to charge the batteries, we loaded it in the back of our old pickup and headed south. Getting it across the border was tricky—officials demanding non-existent VIN or registration—and that only the start of the trouble. In retrospect, it might have been better to have gone north, put it on an ice floe and pushed it out to sea.

Our golf cart is all steel, thick step plate bent in flat surfaces around the three wheels. Dents are not a problem. We’ve had it painted an electric green by the local body shop and had the shabby seat upholstered in oil cloth with orange sunflowers—you might call it an admission that it is a preposterous vehicle. It creaks loudly over the speed bumps, metal rubbing against metal, the broken right front spring causing it to list wildly and making the passenger hold on for dear life.

It wasn’t long before the old batteries had to be replaced, for $800, and the solar cells up-graded to the tune of $1300. The batteries charge strongly enough in a day to take us all the way out the jungle road and back, but an iffy cable, and then an intermittently faulty throttle switch have caused us to be dumped time and again, cart abandoned at the side of the road while passengers walk home. Only Green Pride keeps us careening around on it, that and getting to park right up front, and seeing the smiles on each face as we bounce by.

A friend recently moved down to Mexico and changed his name to Lorenzo for the ease of his Spanish-speaking neighbors. A vaguely bilingual worker he hired tried to explain to him that the name “Lorenzo” has some unfortunate connotations. “What does it mean?” the new Lorenzo asked. “Well, it’s like…it’s like…well, you know that guy who rides around on that green carrito? He’s Lorenzo.”

Porch-sitting

2009-03-13T14:20:00.008-04:00

This has been my longest time away from home in twelve years of living in Mexico. I’ve spent the last ten months in California, helping my daughter with childcare while she gets a home renovation business off the ground. It’s nice to be needed, and I’ve grown that much closer to granddaughters Lily, almost 10, and Anna, 8. But still, I miss my life, my friends, and my house in San Pancho.

People ask all the time, “What exactly do you DO in San Pancho?” and the short answer is “Not much.” So what is it that I miss?

That answer, “not much,” holds the key, I think. Life slows to a crawl there, and you adapt to a pace that keeps you calm. You go to bed early and sleep in late. Every other day you knock off a few items on a to-do list of relative inconsequentials, mostly involving a hardware store. You take time for long leisurely chats with friends you meet on the street. You resign yourself to phone and internet and satellite TV outages that can go on for days (plus come to realize that your being incommunicado has not made much of a difference to anyone but you). You make a big deal out of small events, milking them for every drop of enjoyment. In my case, that means cooking elaborate meals for friends and treating myself to hours of quiet prep time in my beautiful kitchen.

I look forward to re-adapting in April, when I’ll spend the month at home at Quinta Elena. I will sit on my porch, drinking cup after cup of café moka, listening to the palm fronds swishing in the Pacific breeze, taking in the solitary hawks and the flocks of wild parakeets that swoop across my field of vision as I stare out to sea. Doing nothing---it will be an excellent use of my time.

The Life of a Garden

2009-03-08T17:46:00.002-04:00

Before I came to live in tropical San Pancho, I made my home in the high desert of New Mexico. Our little farm town was in a river valley and our properties, lined up on either side of the river, were irrigated by an acequia system. An acequia (irrigation ditch) takes water from the river high upstream and brings it in decline, gentler than the river, to gates above the fields. When a gate is opened, water tumbles down on crops and gardens.

One never finished lowering this part of the land and raising that, making channels, trying to keep driveways dry, houses, too, getting water to new trees, giving up on hopeless corners. I lived there thirty-six years, and the irrigation work was never done. The winters were cold, and there was snow, but never quite enough melt to fill the river so that everyone in the valley could irrigate at will. The summers were hot and plants could wither in hours. Hail storms, late freezes, locusts…there was a lot of shaking fists at the heavens. It was only in my last years that I could look out on what had been a wasteland of cactus and burrs and see a lawn, large trees, flowers, vineyard, and orchard—a mature garden at last.

Things are different in San Pancho. Start with nurseries where a big day’s shopping might run you twelve dollars. Bananas can hit twenty-five feet in six months. Shade trees require no more than a couple of year’s patience. The birds-of-paradise fill in every empty spot. Philodendron grows leaves bigger than turkey platters. Bougainvillea reaches the roof and beyond. Bright birds come for the papayas. All is lush and the temperature drops fifteen degrees when you come in from the street. Your wrinkles are set back ten years and you could sit all day in contented viewing—a mature garden in time lapse.

Ah, but what comes after mature? Old. These days, philodendrons are choking the philodendrons. The bougainvillea is up on the roof throwing down the tiles. The birds-of-paradise don’t bloom under the shade of the trees. Plants which were intended to settle at different heights are all up there out of sight. Leaf mulch has raised the ground at least six inches. My house is disappearing into the vegetation like Angkor Wat.

To say that the garden needs “pruning” is to understate the problem. Daily, I, my husband, or my sometime gardener, cut, clip, chop and pull. Machete and chain saw. The pile grows in the parking area until the car won’t fit and we call on our neighbor to haul the stuff away in his pickup—for a handsome fee. By the next day the pile will be growing again. Twelve loads since December. Perhaps it is the excess of oxygen that keeps us happy anyway.

The Candelaria Party

2009-02-28T07:51:00.022-05:00

Chely, at the party

This year I gave a party to celebrate Candelaria, which falls on February 2. I had no idea of the religious or secular meaning of the day, and I’d never made a tamale, the essential menu item at Candelaria parties.

I said I’d host the party because I found the baby Jesus figurine in my piece of Rosca de Reyes, the special sweet bread served at my friend Lynn’s Three Kings’ Day party. According to Mexican tradition, the person who finds the plastic baby is supposed to invite all the same guests for Candelaria. I wanted to be a good sport; it was a way to learn about a Mexican tradition; and Lynn and Chely, one of Lynn’s Mexican guests, said they’d help.

The preparation of tamales sounded complex. Little loaves of masa, a corn-based dough, are formed around a filling of chicken, pork or cheese, tied up in a corn husk, and steamed in a deep pot. Not something I wanted to try for the first time when 20 people from Chely’s family were coming for dinner. I knew that Eva, proprietor of a popular taco stand, makes fine tamales, so I decided to contract out the job to her. Chely said she’d bring atole, a thick, warm drink that traditionally accompanies tamales, and refried beans. Lynn signed up for dessert.

The party food was four-star. Eva did a great job with tamales of chicken, pork rib, and strips of poblano chile with cheese. And even the people who don’t like atole liked Chely’s specialty, which was flavored with sweet, perfumey guayaba. Lynn’s made-from-scratch cupcakes were the perfect high-carb finish for the meal.

I did my best to make the Mexican family feel welcome. The women were interested in a house tour, and the kids occupied themselves with my grandchildren’s Lego blocks. I enjoyed myself, though it was hard for me to keep up with my guests’ fast-paced Spanish.

At the Three Kings’ Day party there had been a lot of talk about the kings’ names and which king brought which gift -- gold, frankincense and myrrh -- to the baby Jesus. But what was Candelaria about? No one mentioned it the night of my party. I checked on the web and found out that in English it’s called Candlemas, when Christ was presented at the temple 40 days after his birth, and when candles were blessed. It falls at the mid-point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox -- what I know as Groundhog Day. I’m glad I didn’t try to bridge the cultural gap by explaining Punxsutawney Phil to the Mexicans.

Hacienda San Angel

2009-02-21T17:33:00.004-05:00

Hacienda San Angel

There’s no need to drive to Vallarta for a great meal, given the number of first class restaurants right in San Pancho. (Café del Mar will always be my favorite, if only for sentimental reasons. Picture my 14-month old granddaughter, Anna, asleep on its stone steps, head on chubby arms. And now the head chef is another Ana, my house administrator, the talented whirlwind Ana Ruiz.)

But an evening at Hacienda San Angel is so special, you owe it to yourself to make the trip. A B&B in the heart of Vallarta’s Old Town and one of Mexico’s premier boutique hotels, it also is open to the public for dinner (reservation required; http://www.haciendasanangel.com/).

My house guests and I dress up for the occasion, which begins with complimentary cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, served in the main salon. It’s a stunning space: a long wall of niches filled with colonial antiques; another wall covered with indigo and cream talavera tiles from ceiling to floor. Throw in strumming musicians, flowing fountains, and scores of flickering squat candles, and the effect is magical. “I half expect to see Zorro swing down on the chandelier,” my son-in-law Eddie said one visit.

We are free to roam around and take a look at the indoor and outdoor swimming pools, the tropical garden, and my personal favorite, the colonial-style back kitchen I love to revisit. Then it’s upstairs for dinner in one of the open-air living rooms or outdoor terraces, overlooking the town and the crowned dome of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. The food and service are excellent, the ambience sophisticated but comfortable, the price comparable to San Pancho’s better spots. Some of my friends and family enjoy San Angel so much, they now make dinner there an annual event.

Chuy and the Empanadas

2009-02-17T12:16:00.005-05:00

Chuy, our housekeeper Irma’s son, wants a Play Station 3. We’ve known Chuy since he was five years old; he’s eleven now. When he was about eight he and my husband Bill used to go to the soccer field to “play golf.” Chuy doesn’t speak English, and Bill doesn’t speak Spanish, but off they’d go for hours, chatting as if they understood each other. They hit golf balls from one end of the field to the other and back again. Afterward they bought bags of treats to eat on the way home.

Chuy outgrew golf. He preferred surfing instead, surfing his favorite web sites on our computer, that is. He looked at hundreds of photos of the Lucha Libre (free wrestling) performers called luchadores. Famous for their high flying moves, colorful masks and costumes, luchadores are legendary characters celebrated by their fans all over Mexico. After serious consideration, Chuy selected three new performers to add to his collection. He showed us his choices naming each one, “Blue Panther, Atlantis, and Mistico.”

“Puedo imprimirlos? Can I print these?” he asked each time. We always said yes. He knew he could print three in full color each visit. Before going home, he put them neatly in his special folder.

But the time for childish things has passed. Chuy has a job. Determined to earn the money for the Play Station, he goes door to door in the pueblo selling empanadas, flaky sweet-filled turnovers, that Irma makes. Because we’re neighbors, our house is always his first stop.

Carrying a cloth-covered basket filled with fragrant warm-from-the-oven empanadas, Chuy appears at our door. He is ready for serious business.

“Cuestan cinco pesos, the cost is five pesos,” Chuy explains. “Estos son de vainilla, these are vanilla.”

He waits while I ponder how many to buy. I decide on ten, but then I always buy ten. Quietly counting to himself, Chuy selects each one and places it carefully on the plate for me. I, in turn, count out the correct amount of pesos for my purchase.

“Gracias, adios,” he says. No time for chit-chat now. Chuy has work to do.

Rules of the Road

2009-02-15T14:15:00.003-05:00

I slip the knife under my pillow, inches from my fist, settle myself for sleep. It is a table knife, too dull to do much damage, but does provide a bit of bravado. I fantasize an intruder would retreat in alarm rather than reckon with this knife-wielding gringa.

I am spending the night in Los Mochis, Sinoloa, at Pemex station #4715, and I am not taking any chances.

My predilection for the pillow knife was born from reading too many swash-buckling tales of bandidos pouncing upon travelers, demanding their money and their jewels. Or else. Mexican lore, circa 1870.

Zoom back to the big picture. My husband and I overnight at Pemex stations during our drive from the Mexican border to our winter home in San Pancho because we travel by fifth wheel (truck and trailer). We do this because our cat, Tango, prefers a queen-size bed and queen-size litter box. Stuff her into an airline carrier? Not a chance. Tango rules.

It is relatively easy to find an overnight spot in the states. While Wal-Mart and other "big box" stores are no longer amenable to RVers, we have options: campgrounds, casinos, deserted office parks. Not so simple once we cross the border.

Years past we could plot a campground course from Nogales to Guymas, first night; Los Mochis, second night; Mazatlan third night; long day’s drive to San Pancho and home. The last couple of years, however, RV parks along the route have either deteriorated, closed, or sold out to make way for other endeavors. It is possible to overnight at autopista toll areas, restaurant parking lots, with permission, sometimes city streets. But security is an issue. RVs attract attention.

A chance remark led us to investigate a reasonable alternative: the ubiquitous Pemex stations along major and secondary highways. According to "Mexican Camping," a traveler’s guide by Mike and Terri Church, many of the larger stations offer showers, internet, banking, other amenities. They also offer plenty of space. Good for us and good for the dozens of trucks that may, on any given night, care to join us.

We have devised a protocol for sleeping at a Pemex: position the trailer so the door is visible, preferably under a light; park as far as possible from the semi-dobles that spew diesel fumes; tip the man who says he is security, who says he will be all eyes and ears while we sleep.

And slip a table knife under the pillow.

Things Change

2009-02-05T15:22:00.004-05:00

Let’s say we are sailing up the west coast of Mexico in August of 1988. We are navigating with our Chart Guide, Third Edition. In the bay the chart shows Puerto Vallarta. Next is Nuevo Vallarta (that Johnny-come-lately); on to La Cruz, Punta de Mita, Sayulita, and then, in San Pancho’s location, “HUTS.”

Fast forward to last Saturday night at the polo club. The field is where the mango orchard used to be—when San Pancho had huts. Viewing is from multi-leveled terraces, some with sofas, some with tables, some with, well, beds. Queen-size, white leatherette, green suede bolsters and pillows. One expects grapes to be peeled. Twenty ponies are stabled on the opposite side of the field. Our players have nice white pants, high boots, knee guards and lovely posture. The sweet night comes on, the field is lit, and we sip wine and eat lobster as we watch the matches.

As you come up from Vallarta, just before the town where the big corn field used to be, you can’t miss the vast Cultural Center and its satellite condos. You can’t miss the fears of the townspeople about them either. Will the size and composition of the community shift San Pancho’s center of gravity? Can galleries with classy art, a 5000 square foot common room, restaurant, spa, and boutique hotels add anything of value to our happily balanced mix? There is, however, a movie theater.

Today, the seaside town of Kuta, in Bali, playground of Australians, resembles Vallarta with big hotels and hundreds of shops and restaurants. In 1970 my husband and I visited for the first time and shared a sunset on Kuta beach with a sarong-clad old guy, gone native. Just the three of us and a kid selling coconuts, the tiny thatched-roof village behind us. “You think Bali’s great now, you should have seen it in the Fifties,” he said. But then added, looking vaguely out to sea, “Of course, you had to put up with people saying, “You should have seen it in the Thirties.’ ”

Joaquina Avila, Painter

2009-01-29T18:37:00.005-05:00

Joaquina discovered how much she enjoys painting while she was working as our housekeeper. Breezes often slammed our house doors shut, so she searched the town riverbed for large, smooth rocks, embellished them with designs, and used them as doorstops.

Next she tried painting on table runners. When I returned from a summer in the U.S., the dining room table, the buffet and the entry hall table were adorned with runners. Though I liked the geometric, Aztec-looking designs she had painted on the runners, I didn’t want to cover up the handsome grain of the wood. Joaquina agreed with my suggestion that she salvage the designs and rework the fabric into pillow covers, which she whipped up on my sewing machine. That was a remarkable feat in itself, since she uses only her right hand. Her left hand is permanently contracted into a fist because of nerve damage many years ago.

After these utilitarian projects she began painting with oils on canvas. She told me about the first time she went to Puerto Vallarta to buy paints, brushes and canvas: “I didn’t know what to ask for, and I was afraid the clerks in the store would make fun of me, so I told them I was buying art supplies for a friend. I asked them to make a list of what my friend would need. Later I went back with the list and bought those things for myself.”

“I don’t know what inspired me to want to paint,” she writes in the bio she uses for art shows. “For many years I dreamed about painting, but I didn’t dare do it because of my ancestors’ taboos. My great grandmother believed being photographed or painted could steal a person’s soul. I didn’t think that was true, but it made me fearful.”

Joaquina has not had much formal education, and certainly no art education. “I was in school until I was 16,” she tells me, “but it was a one-room schoolhouse with four grades and I kept repeating grades. After I became deaf -- I was nine at the time, and I hit my head when I dove into a creek -- I couldn’t learn along with the other kids.”

She still works in oils, and she’s also doing acrylics and watercolors. Her subjects are varied: ceramic jugs, animals and flowers are among her favorites. “And I like instructive themes that carry a message,” she says. “I call one of my best paintings ‘Advice.’ It’s of a father walking with his arm around his son’s shoulders, and he’s leaning over to talk with the boy.” She has a strong opinion about the sculptures on the malecón in Puerto Vallarta: “Don’t like them,” she says. “Too surreal.”

Joaquina has two jobs: She’s postmaster for San Pancho, and she sells fruit from a bicycle-mounted stand. She doesn’t have a lot of time to paint, but she loves doing it, and she’s no longer timid about her work. For the last several years she has displayed paintings at San Pancho’s annual Christmas art exhibit, and she’s made some sales. Last Christmas a painting she titled “Face of Death with Flowers and Birds” was snapped up right away. “I could have sold that one six times,” she says. “Next year I’ll be ready.”

Embroidery and Gunpowder

2009-01-26T14:03:00.004-05:00

My husband and I took a trip this past Christmas into the state of Chiapas, down along the Guatemala border. Visiting Chiapas is like looking into Frida Kahlo’s closet. When you see her in self-portraits wearing those colorful costumes, you might think, Ah, those were the days…But those days are, amazingly, not gone. In village after village you can still see the women in the local huipil, a blouse with huge flowers, or banded in red and yellow, or covered in fanciful purple vegetation, all embroidered.

There’s more exotica, too. Handmade marimbas are played in churches where floors, empty of pews, are strewn with pine needles and the air is perfumed with copal incense. Photographs are not allowed of people or images of saints, their essences being at risk. In some churches, those saints are called cuaranderos/healers and the priest is replaced by the shaman.

We stayed in San Cristobal de las Casas for several days and then meandered up toward Palenque. Cresting a hill, we looked down on a village clustered around a particularly grand orange church. We pulled off the highway.

In the town we found the women wearing ponchos of white cotton with wide bands of color, either red, magenta, or purple, the colors looking as though they had just come out of the dye pot. The ponchos were embroidered around the neck and down the front with whatever contrasting color would pop the most. I’d seen them before. I think hippies used to come home with them. Frida wore one, too.

We found the street leading to the church and tried to park. But no. An official told us there was no parking on that street because of El Relámpago—The Lightning Bolt. We’d have to park on a side street. We did as told and strolled toward the church.

We passed people sweeping the middle of the street, ignoring the plastic trash on the sides. Following behind them, a man was pouring out a trail of gunpowder as another laid down, every 18 inches or so, an agave fiber-wrapped bundle like a small tamale which likely was packed with gunpowder, too. The Lightning Bolt. A sweeper said it would go off in about 20 minutes so we went on toward the village center.

A full carnival was set up in front of the church and most of the town was there. Children rode the carousel, going up and down with great glee, but in slow motion since the only power came from other children pushing it around. On the steps of the church, a crowd of dazzling poncho-clad ladies looked at us with some suspicion. Oh, for that picture. Inside three men on a marimba played bouncy religious music as worshipers sat on the floor with a thousand candles between them and the altar. It was the feast day of Santo Tomás.

When we went back out to see the Lightning Bolt, it stretched nearly a kilometer. It would be lit at the far end and head toward the church. We took a position on the street about half way, back against a house, and waited with a few other people.

Whoa! There it came! A fireball, big explosions about once a second, smoke and dust completely filling the street and billowing up over the tops of the houses. We all looked, we all ran. No analysis or assessment. Down the first side street, and then down still further as the explosions began to concuss our chests and eardrums. Everyone pressed fingers hard to ears. Still, those bombs were the loudest sounds I’ve ever heard. Too slowly and painfully, El Relámpago passed and went on to assault the center of town. When we finally could unstop our ears, we heard the echoes of the explosions bouncing crazily around the valley.

The trauma to hearing and brain was with us for the next couple of hours. The delight seems to be permanent.

Caution: Construction Ahead (Continued)

2009-01-18T16:52:00.009-05:00

Dear readers, you may remember the house next door to ours. It was under construction when we returned to the States in May last year. Our lot, set high into the hillside, provided a birds-eye view of the building activity. Below us the first floor had been completed. A second floor, with exterior staircases, was planned. There was talk of a palapa (thatched palm) roof. Speculation surrounded the final design. No one, including our neighbor who was building the house, seemed to know. We’d have to wait and be surprised.

And we were! When we arrived in October, the house remained at one story. There were even two tinacos (water tanks) on the roof, along with piles of scrap lumber and rebar. Surely that meant the construction was complete. Good news? Not so fast. Now the roof of the house was one step away from our garden. It gave new meaning to the quote “one small step for man.”

How would you get to the roof next door? It’s simple. The completed staircases, one front and one rear, lead directly to it. The roof was an invitation to come over and visit. And if we weren’t at home, well, better yet. Our security, gone; the front door, irrelevant. We were on lockdown; all the entry doors to the house, all the time. What else could we do?

Complaining didn’t help. I tried. As friends visited, they looked across at the roof and declared, “Build a wall!”More concrete? We couldn’t do it. We loved the openness of the garden, and our view of the pueblo and the mountains. Walled in, we’d feel isolated.

“Hierro, iron,” Irma, our housekeeper, suggested one morning as we stood eyeball to eyeball with our new neighbor while she hung her laundry. We smiled, exchanged greetings across the roof, and then made a rapid retreat to the kitchen. We needed a fence.

“Iron,” we agreed. Irma said Jose Flores Garcia had a very good herreria (iron shop) in La Penita. His work was excellent, she assured us, and he’d have the best price.

My husband Bill, labored over the design. If the fence were too high, it would resemble a jail; too low, it would be easy to step over. It should have sharp points at the top, and hooks; all manner of painful appendages. We wanted it to be stately and elegant, and, at the same time, to look impenetrable. Compulsive? You could say that.

But Jose understood our dilemma and added his suggestions to Bill’s drawings. He designed the perfect fence, a lovely addition to our garden. It’s not the eyesore we anticipated. It adds charm and security. Are there more surprises ahead? Will there be a second floor? Stay tuned.

Pushing PV

2009-01-15T20:42:00.005-05:00

Getting my house guests out of San Pancho and into Puerto Vallarta is a tough sell. The appeal of our little village is such that even hard core explorers turn parochial, reluctant to leave for a look at the world-class resort town an hour to the south.

“Take this,” I tell them, as I all but force a map with a walking tour into their hands. “Zigzag between the boardwalk and the hills above it. Vallarta has its charm. Go see.”

They go, but they don’t see. As a rule, after a stroll down the boardwalk, they say they feel besieged by hawkers and bus fumes. They rarely climb Vallarta’s steep back streets, lined with balconies above, the tiny spans overtaken by begonias, geraniums, “oreja de elefante” and “pata de leon,” color blazing from the rusted coffee cans that make do as pots. They don’t experience the renowned warmth of Vallartenses who give up the narrow sidewalks and offer a soft “Buen dia” as they pass. They miss peeking through the open front doors in Gringo Gulch that reward the nosy with sweeping views of the city and sea below. Instead my guests opt for an early out, after a run-of-the-mill lunch at a tourist trap, and return to San Pancho to declare PV a bust.

To each his own, I concede. Flattering, too, that San Pancho has captured their hearts and minds. Still, it seems a shame to forego such an array of sights, shops, cuisine, and busy beaches made for people-watching, all of it right down the road.

Another Police Story

2009-01-11T12:51:00.003-05:00

Guadalajara, late afternoon. Traffic heading west, toward Zapopan, a thick slow braid in which cars, trucks, buses weave in and out of three lanes.

Impatient drivers rev radio, punch horn.

The cacophony absorbs the wail of the police siren. Tired, focused on getting back to San Pancho after a two-day shopping trip, we are oblivious to the motorcycle cop until he materializes alongside our truck. He cuts in front then motorcade-style proceeds ahead of us, one block, two blocks. At the first intersection he beckons we should turn right and follow him. He parks. We park.

Leaning into the driver’s window, inches from my husband’s face, he props elbows on the sill, smiles hard and bright, his teeth a double row of chicles.

"Buenas tardes," says Win, my husband.

"Good afternoon," says the cop. A Cheshire grin implies he is pleased to bag a nice big truck, loaded with furniture, U.S. license plate. Must be ricos.

"Un problema?" asks Win.

"You are going too fast. Your license, please."

Win switches to English. "Traffic is slow. We are going the same speed as the others," he says while fishing inside his wallet.

"But we have photo proof!"

"I want to see it."

"The radar truck is over there." The cop waves his arm too fast to ascertain direction.

Win cranes for a look. No police truck visible.

Banter begins, guy talk about motorcycles, diesel trucks, the high price of tolls on the autopista, the high price of living in Mexico. As the men make small talk I mentally calculate how many pesos we have left, how we might offer a small bribe without causing more trouble. Bribes are illegal. Offer a mordida to the wrong official and you might see the inside of a Mexican jail. I can spare $200 pesos, about $20 U.S.

"Now, sir, I need the truck registration."

"And I need proof we were speeding."

"I must write an infraccion for $1,000 pesos." He pulls a pad from his pocket, begins to scribble.

"What! This is not justified!"
The cop checks us out. "Okay," he says. "Different infacccion." He points to the seatbelt hanging on a hook behind Win’s head. "You are not wearing a seat belt. Please pay me $400 pesos."

"But I’m wearing a seat belt," I say, tired of discussion. "So we should pay only $200 pesos."

"How much money you have?" he asks me.

"I need money for gas and tolls. I guess I can spare $200 pesos."

Passing a paperback through the window, he tells me to put the money inside. I make a show of smoothing bills, closing the book, returning it.

"You have trouble in Guadalajara again, you just say you know officer #91200. You will be okay." With a brilliant smile he zooms away.

"Right," my husband says, snapping his seat belt into place. "Number 91200 must be cop code. Probably means these gringos are good for $200."

Pests

2008-12-31T08:44:00.003-05:00

Each time I return to San Pancho from Connecticut, I feel a wave of affection toward the town as I drive down Avenida Tercer Mundo to our home. I still marvel, even after eight winters, at how lucky we were to find this little piece of heaven on earth, this tropical paradise. Our pink house looks prettier than I remembered, the landscaping more lush.

Then, after a couple of hours of re-entry euphoria, I begin to notice the pests. Microscopic ants scurry along the kitchen counter; a roach runs through the utensil drawer. And damn! That gecko who lives in the bedroom rafters has pooped on the clean bedspread again.

Reality has dawned. I must do something about the ants and the roaches and the gecko poop. The hotel will not send someone up to dispatch the pests, because I am not in a hotel. This is my home.

The distinction between vacationing in the tropics and actually living here has never quite sunk into my consciousness. Parrots that swoop across the patio, copa de oro that spills over my garden wall, picture-perfect sunsets -- all continue to delight me. It’s easy to feel that I’m on a long vacation.

But I can’t ignore the flip side of this tropical paradise. Living in San Pancho also means battling termites, ticks, scorpions, snakes, mosquitos, ants of several types, mold, mildew, fungus on my plants, and iguanas that dislodge the roof tiles. The jungle and its creatures want to claim my house, and I’m not going to let them. I will research them on the Internet, I will spray, I will fumigate, I will swat. I will not flag or fail in my campaign to conquer the pests.

Lola and the Pet Psychic

2008-12-20T14:53:00.004-05:00

Lola, my ten-year old golden Lab, has a sweet temperament, freckles on her nose and something akin to eyebrows that she uses to look gleeful or glum, all of which endear her to everyone. Friends and family even seem to feel the need to look out for her welfare. “You’re not leaving Lola behind again when you’re gone for the summer, are you?” they asked in May, as if I left her alone and tied to a stake, instead of with my son Michael in his Vallarta apartment.

But I did wonder if Lola cared. Just to be on the safe side, I decided to check in with the pet psychic visiting from California and staying with friends. “Barbara is amazing,” they had raved. “She can commune with dogs and cats and tell you what’s on their minds.” Money well spent, I thought, and invited her over.

A thirty-something dressed in jeans and sneakers, Barbara impressed me on meeting as warm and self-effacing. “I know a lot of people giggle at my gift,” she admitted, then shrugged, called to Lola, and sat down to get to work. For ten quiet minutes, they stared at each other, Lola lying at the feet of the pet psychic, the surf humming in the background. Good Lord, I thought as I watched them, who knew my dog had so much to say?

“Well,” said Barbara, turning to face me, “it’s mostly great news from Lola. She says she’s happy. She even adds, and I quote, ‘Nobody doesn’t like me.’ She says she’s fine with staying at Michael’s. But not with anyone else. Only ‘ special people’ are acceptable substitutes for you, but she wouldn’t say who qualifies. And she hopes you won’t be away as long as last year.” I felt relieved.

That was the good news. Now came the complaints. “Lola says she doesn’t like to eat alone,” said Barbara. “So please move her bowl out of the pantry and next to you at mealtime.” Fair enough, I thought.

“She also says she misses music. That since your husband died, you haven’t played music or turned on the porch speakers. She’d like to see some photos of the three of you together, too, down low where she can look at them. ” Whoa, I thought, Barbara probably had heard about Marsh’s death, but still. And how demandingly sweet of my good old girl.

There was more. More walks, please. More rides in the car. More belly rubs. No surprises there. But I’ve covered the highlights. So am I a believer, after hearing what I wanted to hear? No, but I’m not a scoffer, either. I received the reassurance I was after, an anecdote that never fails to amuse, plus the return of music to my porch. As for Lola, she now has breakfast in the kitchen, with her bowl close to me while I make morning coffee. And there’s a photo in the study that I took out of an album and framed. It’s of Marsh, Lola, and me in our cactus garden, and it makes me smile. Money well spent, I still say.

Bougainvillea Battles

2008-11-29T13:04:00.003-05:00

The wild tangle of color sold me on the San Pancho property before the real estate agent had parked the car. Masses of magenta, fuchsia, tangerine sprawled across the stucco entry walls, spilled over them, arched back in sweet coquette. Bougainvillea, paper-thin bracts of saturated color, teased me inside the gate to first view the gardens and three-room structure that would become my winter home.

Bougainvillea thrives half a world away from vegetation endemic to where I live in the States: fir, cedar, and rhododendron landscape the Pacific Northwest. Bougainvillea represents another, more exciting world for me. The tropics. Sloe-eyed, exotic. Crayola-colored sunshine stretching beyond summer to hug the winter months. I was mad for the exuberant shrub.

My first season here I nurtured my bougainvillea: daily inspected for plagas (garden pests), coaxed an errant branch, fertilized and watered when I deemed fit. They responded with affection: the plants thickened to a bower that necessitated ducking; bougainvillea inside the gates climbed walls, twined up posts, nested atop the dried palmera-frond palapas.

My husband, tall, reduced to stooping beneath the bower to reach the house, suggested we trim the bougainvillea back.

"The thorns are cutting me to ribbons," he said. "They attack me every time I come through the gate."

"No!"

"They are overgrown and probably doing damage to the other plants, not to mention the roof of the palapa. And…," his coup de grace, "they are very messy. We must constantly sweep the sidewalk."

I acquiesced to reducing the depth of the bower but stood my ground on bougainvillea inside the garden walls.

Such was our compromise come April and time to pack up and head north for the summer. With trepidation I talked to Anselmo, the man we hired to care for our garden.

"Take extra care with my bougainvillea," I said. "Watch for critters, fertilize with triple 17, don’t water too much…"

"I hate bougainvillea," he said, his English to the point. "Thorns worse than scorpion sting."

"Be more careful then. This is my favorite plant."

"I take care of everything," he said, with a wide sweep of his arm. "When you come back you won’t recognize this place."

Anselmo was true to his word. During the summer he ripped out every offending plant. We returned in the fall to find a stark entry and landscape inside the gate devoid of color. My riotous bougainvillea laid to rest.

When confronted with the misdemeanor, Anselmo beamed.
"I took care of it for you," he said. "No more ugly thorns. No more to sweep." His smile pulsed with pride of accomplishment.

I have tried to replicate the first whirl of color that beckoned me to buy this house four years ago. Starts of bougainvillea poke out of pots and peer up the walls. Summer gardeners post-Anselmo tend them at my request. But each fall I return to a heap of dung-colored bracts on the ground and thorny stems devoid of life. This year I may give up and plant rhododendrons.

Voting Via Democrats Abroad

2008-11-26T14:58:00.001-05:00

Last February my husband and I drove from San Pancho to the nearby town of Cruz de Huanacaxtle, located the polling place in the back of Philo´s Restaurant, and, with considerable delight, cast our vote in the first Global Democratic Primary. Thanks to the organization Democrats Abroad, we were choosing nine delegates to go to the convention, and we were able to vote at an actual site in the newly created Costa Banderas district. Yes, we could have voted online, but this was much more fun.

No polling place in Mexico would be available for the general election, however. Frequent emails from Democrats Abroad gave us instructions for casting a ballot outside the U.S. but we were dubious that it would actually be counted. We had tried in 2004 to cast an absentee ballot in New Mexico and, to make a long story short, had failed. Still, the Democrats Abroad process seemed our best option.

Though we have closed out our lives in the U.S. and have become residents of Mexico, we haven´t stopped caring intensely about what happens in el otro lado—the other side. In the last years we have wished we could stop caring, but that American mix of hope, disappointment, responsibility, that beautiful dream—it won´t let us go. We wanted to vote.

We followed our Democrats Abroad instructions, sent in our registration particulars for our old home state of New Mexico, and received official write-in ballots to print out. We filled them out in solemn ceremony at the kitchen counter and faxed them in. But two weeks before the election we each began getting emails from the Registrar of Voters in New Mexico asking if we wanted an absentee ballot faxed to us. She emailed again and again. Had we voted or had we not? Finally, Jonathan called her.

“Oh, Mr. Kingson! Yes, we have your write-in ballots right here. Certainly, we’ll count them! No problem.”

Wow! Way better than a touch screen. But it turns out we shouldn’t have worried. We learned today that in our entire county there were only five Republican votes.

Flan Is To Queen Latifa As Jericalla Is To Gwyneth Paltrow

2008-11-26T14:23:00.003-05:00

Yes, yes, you can get a great flan in San Pancho, and none better than Eme´s, as Ellen told us in her story last August. But flan, though delicious, mind you, is a little heavy. You can stand a spoon up in it. You can experience a certain “I can´t believe I ate the whole thing” moment when your plate is empty.

Consider the jericalla—a postre light as a butterfly, as delicate as a gardenia petal. An egg custard—milk, sugar, yolks—flavored with canela (cinnamon) and vanilla. The local cinnamon sticks are softer and more perfumed than the ones we use north of the border, though all are imported from the Spice Islands. However, the orchid which produces vanilla beans grows in Veracruz. The Aztecs introduced it to the Spanish and the Spanish to the world. I first heard that jericalla came from Guadalajara, but a dinner guest insisted it was from his home state of Michoacán. My housekeeper says it’s from the state of México. You could suspect it comes from France, since it is made just like a crème caramel or crème brûlée without the caramelized or “burnt” top, but those famous desserts couldn’t have contained vanilla until after the Conquest.

Recipe for Jericalla

Simmer 5 ½ cups of milk with a large stick of canela and a vanilla bean or ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract for 20 minutes. Add ½ cup of sugar and simmer 20 minutes more. Cool. Beat in 5 or 6 yolks, divide among 8 custard cups placed in a baño maria (or, as we say in English—well, we don’t say in English. We use the French bain marie.) Cook at 350° until set, about 30 to 50 minutes depending on the altitude. You could top it with a little grated canela but hold the fruits, slivered almonds, coconut or mint sprigs which often show up on the crème brûlées. It’s too perfect as is.

"If You've Got It, Flaunt It!"

2008-11-25T17:13:00.004-05:00

“So what was she wearing today?” I ask my husband Skip.

“She had on her blue Immigration Service blouse -- the top three buttons were undone -- skin-tight Capri pants, and high heels. She looked great.”

I knew Skip would notice her outfit when he went to see if his visa was ready. I had seen her myself. She’s a cute young woman who processes visa applications at the local immigration office, and she manages to make a dowdy uniform look sexy.

As an over-60 New Englander whose raciest clothing is from L.L. Bean, I am sometimes startled by the way Mexican women dress. In a bank or law firm I’m used to seeing conservative business attire, but here the women look like they’re ready for a hot date. At our Mexican lawyer’s office I was fascinated by the outfits on the female office assistants: see-through green blouses with lacy black bras underneath. We’re not in WASP-y Connecticut anymore!

The women in San Pancho often wear clothes that expose a lot of skin. Yes, it’s hot on Mexico’s Pacific coast, but all that cleavage isn’t about keeping cool. I think the style of dress reflects an attitude about femininity: I like what I’ve got and I’m not afraid to show it off. Flirtation is fun.
I recall watching one of my Spanish teachers dance at a San Pancho music fiesta. While swaying and turning to a flamenco rhythm, she was breastfeeding her infant son. Nothing immodest about it. “How does she manage all that?” I wondered. “She takes womanliness to a new level!”

Maybe the comfort women here have with femininity is a counterpart to the traditional machismo of the culture. I haven’t figured it out, but I kind of envy their confident, uninhibited style.

Skip will go back to the immigration office again this week. Five trips so far, and still no visa. But I haven’t heard a word of complaint.

Obama Salad

2008-11-16T14:11:00.004-05:00

The unpacking could wait. It was our first day back in San Pancho and Irma, our housekeeper, wanted to talk politics. Dispensing with chit-chat, she asked, “Who do you think will be the next President of the United States?”

“Obama, I hope.”

“What about your family and friends?” she asked, “Are they going to vote for him?”

“They are,” I said. “There’s a lot of support for him in our community.”

But then I laughed, thinking about my ninety-five year old mother who refused to disclose her decision right up to the day I left.

“I’m undecided, “she said slyly. "

Undecided? My mother was the only undecided voter I knew. But how could she, a lifelong Democrat, desert us now? I tell Irma about my mother but also about my friend at the library who spent every weekend in Iowa with the Obama campaign, going door to door to register voters.

“It’s complicated and certainly not a sure thing,” I added. “What do you think, Irma?”

“I would vote for him.” she said, firmly. “I really want him to win. He’s the best person and he’ll be good for Mexico and the United States.”

Election fever was alive and well on the Mexico side of the border. When we visited friends, election news dominated every conversation. And with only days to go, we unapologetically stayed tuned to CNN. We hung on the polls, the blather of the commentators, the red and blue projections. My email overflowed with links to serious op-ed pieces and YouTube. Worried emails, panicked emails, hopeful emails crowded my inbox; passions spilled across the screen.

Not all our fellow Obama supporters had TV and we couldn’t face election night alone. We called, we invited, we offered a ham and potato salad dinner, and, as people said “yes,” the group grew from five to ten to fifteen. It seemed there was a mutual need to spend this evening together.

And so we gathered, collecting in small groups. Platters of food heaped the table; Nancy’s “Obama salad,” as she called it, Jim’s salsa, Faby’s apple torte. Some of us stayed glued to the television as if seeing would be believing. Others ate for comfort the table, just within sight and earshot. Out of view, some others, too nervous, found the patio their place of choice. Bad news would not dare to reach them there.

It was early, too early; many states had not yet reported, we were cautioned. Wolf Blitzer didn’t dare call it yet, but we knew. We could do the math. Scenes from Grant Park in Chicago, our home town, made us cheer. Illuminating the night sky, the mammoth screen said it all, Barack Obama, President-elect.

Faces from around the globe gave us even greater joy – people in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East – all of us witnessing a historic moment, all of us celebrating. That night we were as perfect as Nancy’s Obama salad...a bright colorful mix, a medley of flavors, together in San Pancho.

On the Road to San Pancho

2008-10-31T13:52:00.006-04:00

The woman’s voice from the dashboard announces, “In three point five kilometers, turn right onto I 80 toward Qptlantapque.”

“What did she say? What is she talking about?” I ask. I’m driving, peering at the array of green signs ahead which look vaguely familiar. Not one comes close to matching any destination our audible guide has pronounced with such an unusual number of consonants.

Bill consults the Mexico map book spread across his lap. “Ignore her,” he says and takes the GPS from its special perch to enter new information.

“That’s not the route we want,” he says with authority. “It will take us out of our way. Keep going straight.”

I keep going straight, but I’m not sure how the GPS feels about being snubbed.

“Recalculating, “she says. Do I detect a little sarcasm? A new route has been established. She would be wise to agree with Bill, the navigator.

I’ll explain. We’re driving back to San Pancho from Chicago, being guided in part by the voice of our new GPS, Global Positioning System. Regardless of the number of times we’ve made this trip, we seem to find new and complicated ways to get lost each time. The GPS is our last, great hope. With our destination firmly set, from point A, Evanston, Illinois, to point B, San Francisco, Nayarit, we have only to set the cruise control and be guided across two countries.

Bill is in geographic love. I don’t trust her. We don’t share unconditional faith in all things electronic.

We manage to get through the U.S. and across the border with a minimum of contradictory information. It’s only when we’re in Mexico that doubts begin to surface. Bill checks the road map against the screen and continually points out the highways, tollways and towns that are missing from view. Where are the motels, restaurants and scenic points of interest? This does little to inspire confidence.

Our four day trip has little diversion; we drive ten to twelve hours a day listening to radio programs in Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas, more Texas, still Texas, digging out books on CD when our minds are numb from local color.

This year Bill is entertained by his new traveling companion. Second-guessing her keeps him busy whenever he isn’t at the wheel. I, on the other hand, find her less entertaining. Miss GPS needs too much attention. She’s like a petulant girlfriend whom Bill admonishes, while she stubbornly disputes his every word. And besides, she clearly has no soul and cares nothing for our wellbeing on the road.

As opposed to Mexican road signs, I am by struck by how often they worry about us.

The signs caution. “No maneje fatigado,” don’t drive when you’re fatigued or “no maneje cansado,” don’t drive when you’re tired. I like this caring attitude.

“Si toma, no maneje,” If you drink don’t drive. Obvious, maybe. But this message must need repeating and so it is, many times. “Cuando tomas, no maneje, “When you drink, don’t drive. This sounds like a more realistic approach.

We’re reminded to slow down, watch our speed, respect the speed limit, obey the signs, respect the signs, and keep the highway clean. All good suggestions, and we appreciate the reminders.

Most of all, we’re reminded, “Maneje con precaucion, su familia lo espera,” Drive carefully, your family waits for you.

No GPS will tell you that.

"Alberca Hoy? Swimming Pool Today?"

2008-10-24T11:44:00.006-04:00

Refreshed after a mid-day swim, Skip and I were enjoying lunch on our pool deck. Abram, our six-year-old neighbor, was peering at us through the Cyclone fence between his backyard and ours. His little face squeezed between the links, he asked in Spanish, “Please, can I go swimming?” Who could resist? “Yes, Abram,” we told him, “you can swim, but only if you bring your mom with you.” Five minutes later he was back with his mom Teresa and four buddies.

Word got around fast that Abram and his friends had been swimming, and kids began stopping us in the street. “Alberca hoy? Swimming pool today?” they’d ask. Skip and I conferred. “It’s hot. We’ve got this nice pool. We miss being around kids. Why not? As long as they bring an adult to watch them.” So we said “yes.” Kids began to show up at all times of the day, but no adults were with them. Now what? Someone had to supervise, so we designated one hour, two afternoons a week, as kid time in the pool. Skip and I would supervise.

On swim days we hang a sign in Spanish on the front gate, “Children: Swimming Today, 4:30.” Kids with plastic water toys, towels, and goggles begin to gather outside the gate in mid-afternoon. At 4:30 on the dot, we open the gate, and Skip and I take our places in plastic chairs on the pool deck.

An explosion of energy ensues. Splashing, cannonballing, racing, teasing, diving, shouting – kids doing what they do everywhere in pools. As we watch them, personalities begin to emerge. Juan practices his cannonball for a solid hour. Kelly and Carla tend to the younger kids. Alonzo picks fights. Pablo is a natural leader. Erika always complains when someone takes her water toys.

Lifeguard duty appeals to Skip. He wears a whistle on a lanyard, and he doesn’t hesitate to enforce the rules: no running, no food or gum, no fighting, no peeing in the pool. At 5:25, he blasts the whistle and shouts, “Cinco minutos más!” (“Five minutes more!”). At 5:30 the kids collect flip-flops, towels, and toys and file out, saying “Gracias” as they go.

A lot of the Americans in San Pancho live on the outskirts of town, where it’s quieter and more private, but we like being in the middle of the action. Chances to be involved with Mexicans, like the pool kids, pop up, and that helps us feel we’re part of the community. We’re not just on a long vacation here. San Pancho is our second hometown.

It Was Just Like That

2008-10-17T15:29:00.004-04:00

My husband’s mother was named Romance and her mother was named BonBon. They were easily colorful enough to deserve these names, beautiful and brilliant, alcoholic. It was inherited color—BonBon´s father was one of the Ringling Brothers, the circus entrepreneurs, but by some dark twist the only one not posed in the photos, the only one not rich and successful. BonBon never got over it.

I knew my mother-in-law well. I met her before her decline and I helped to care for her after the drinking and a benign tumor which compressed her brain had taken almost all her senses and faculties.

I knew BonBon, too. True, she was dead by the time I met her grandson, but her daughter Rome, as she was always called, made her live for me. Each Christmas for fifteen years or so Rome had written a story about her family’s adventures with BonBon, the queen of the house, all prerogative and no responsibility, or about tiny Baraboo, Wisconsin, where Ringling sisters-in-law lived in mutual distrust while the brothers took the circus on the road. Rome gave these stories as gifts to her children, her sisters and their children. When I joined the family these gifts were waiting for me.

What a fine writer Rome was. She made her living at it—screenplays, books—but these stories, ten or twelve pages each, were especially brilliant gems. She did have great material. BonBon was a colossal eccentric, as charming and difficult a human being as ever lived. And, of course, the circus. You can’t make this stuff up, as they say, and Rome embellished it with love and humor, originality and punch.

Years later, when we had put Rome in a nursing home, Jonathan and I visited her, explained who we were again and again, brought her ice cream and fed it to her, and searched for topics of conversation suitable for her tiny bit of consciousness. Then I hit upon the idea of reading her stories to her. One a visit and then start over. She was transformed. She came alive, laughing, shaking her head in wonderment, her eyes suddenly alert.

“How did they know?” she´d say every time. “It was just like that.”

What do you think, friends, San Pancho Writers? Shall we tuck away our Mexico stories in a folder labeled: Open in Case of Dementia? For a day when we no longer know we wrote them but perhaps can still marvel:

“Yes! It was just like that.”

Dia de los Muertos and Halloween: A Peaceful Co-existence

2008-10-16T21:39:00.006-04:00

My granddaughter, Anna, 7, has announced her big decision --- she will be a ladybug for Halloween. Her sister, Lily, 9, can’t make up her mind as yet but does have it narrowed down to a polar bear or a pirate. Their mother the costume-maker says, “I’m pulling for the pirate.”

Mexican kids in San Pancho might not invest as much in what they’re going to be, but they sure have caught on to trick or treating. With or without costumes, they run from shop to shop in search of free candy, shouting, “Ah-lo-een!” and holding open plastic grocery bags or simply their own cupped hands. American adults in town try to crank up the fun. They decorate their houses, hand out fistfuls of miniature chocolate bars, and ooh and ah over the little princesses and cowboys who come to their door.

Some lament this intrusion of Americana. They fear it might overtake Mexicans’ traditional Day of the Dead. An unjustified fear, I think, if you go by the spreading popularity of the day’s traditional altars and artesania on both sides of the border now. Last year, my family alone, with no Mexican members, went to Dia de los Muertos gatherings and brought along photos of dead loved ones for altars in New York, Pittsburgh, Austin, and San Jose. My Mexican friend, Mini, born and raised in Cuernavaca, told me, “We city people used to see Dia de los Muertos rituals as superstitions practiced by ‘la gente indigena’ out in the pueblos. But now that it’s cool, we’re into it, too.”

Last year I also built an altar and, according to custom, filled it with bouquets of marigolds, photos of my deceased husband Marsh, candles, his beloved celestial navigation tools. Late in the evening on November 1st, I lit the candles and placed some of his favorite foods on the altar, the fragrances and light meant to guide his spirit home. I played some of the CDs he liked best and read aloud from a piece I had written about us. I felt sheepish, though, and kept it all a secret from my family and friends. No one could have been more surprised than I, however, by the joy it gave me to commemorate Marsh in this way. So this year my daughter and granddaughters will join me, and our altar will be bigger, better, and more inclusive.

The stuffed mussels, oatmeal raisin cookies, and old brass sextant will still be there, but we’ll also remember my parents and grandparents by adding their photos and mementos. We’ll nibble on Wisconsin cheddar cheese which always numbered among my mother’s Christmas gifts from home, and popcorn made from scratch, the way my father made it most Sunday nights. We’ll add more background music---Irish “diddly-ay” and German polkas would suit--- as the four of us share stories about these people we loved.

Listen to the Music; Learn Spanish

2008-09-16T16:12:00.004-04:00

Beto Gonzalez and Carlos Gonzalez

Beto, Sandra’s husband, and Carlos, their 20-something son, were playing their guitars and singing as husband Skip and I savored a Sandra’s Restaurant specialty, spicy shrimp with rice and plantains. “Pregúntale,” Beto crooned during each chorus of one melancholy song. With the tune and the phrase still replaying in my head the next day, I consulted my copy of “501 Spanish Verbs.” “Pregúntale” means “ask him.”

“Ask him what?” I wondered. So next time we ate at Sandra’s I requested the song, and tried to grasp a few more Spanish words. “…porque me ha robado todo.” Another look at the “501”: “Ask him why he has robbed me of everything.”

Gratified by my interest in their music, Beto and Carlos picked up their guitars and plugged in the microphone each time Skip and I ate at Sandra’s. Sometimes we were the only patrons, so there was time to chat about the songs. They knew a little English, I knew a little Spanish, we all liked the music -- it worked. They had learned many songs from CD’s, so if I really liked a song, I bought the CD and tried to translate the lyrics into English.

As someone who thinks it’s fun to read a Spanish-English dictionary, this process seemed like a game to me. Translating is easier, I discovered, if I can see the lyrics in writing, so now I buy CD’s accompanied by the little booklets with lyrics. Romance, lost love, nostalgia for a favorite horse or the old hometown -- I learn a lot of new words and enjoy Mexican music for its own sake.

Our five-day car trips between San Pancho and Connecticut have provided long stretches of time for song translation. Since I am always the passenger (Skip insists on doing the driving), I am free to browse through my “501” and my Spanish-English dictionary, always handy in the side pocket of the car door. On one trip I translated “Ojalá Que Te Vaya Bonito” (“I Hope It Goes Well For You”), a ranchera tune popularized by the legendary Vicente Fernández. “An excellent selection for practicing the subjunctive,” my Spanish-speaking, musical son, Ian, tells me.

Vicente Fernández is probably the favorite ranchera singer of most Mexicans, and he’s my favorite too. If there’s a Mexican equivalent of Hank Williams and Frank Sinatra, rolled into one, he’s the man. So when he performed at Madison Square Garden in New York City, I had to go. Singing along with several thousand Mexicans, basking in Mexican culture, I had an unforgettable evening. When I got back to San Pancho, I couldn’t wait to tell Beto and Carlos all about it.

It's Only Paint

2008-09-14T21:17:00.006-04:00

I was already pretty brave when it came to color. “It’s only paint,” I would always say. But moving to Mexico has made me fearless. Because here, under our relentless tropical sun, anything goes. Susan painted the exterior of her house morning glory purple. Silvino painted his cerulean blue. A neighbor on the beach picked persimmon red.

So I felt free to paint a kitchen in banana-leaf green and a dining room in cobalt blue. Windows and doors I trimmed in fuchsia, as vivid as the bougainvillea that line the driveway and coat it with falling blossoms during afternoon sea breezes.

I call it banana-leaf green because that was the model used by the guy at the Comex paint store. It was friend Carolyn’s idea. “Cut a leaf and pick a shade within it for him to mix.”

Talavera tiles, in patterns centuries old, also model colors I like to imitate---terra cotta orange, egg yolk yellow, turquoise blue. My daughter Nen, a fine arts major-cum-home renovator in northern California, laughs about her clients who ask for a vibrant “Tuscan” or “Mediterranean” look. “That’s code for Mexican,” she says.

Dos Mundos/Two Worlds

2008-09-12T09:41:00.007-04:00

The flickering light on my bike illuminates the pavement ahead as I ride toward sunrise on the lakefront. The mornings are dark now, the days shorter, there is a chill in the air. The pale pink ribbons of color streaking across the horizon greet me, the soft sound of the waves barely break the silence of the deserted beach.

There are no lush palms or pounding surf. This is not San Pancho. But it is the place here in Evanston that comforts me and sets my day into motion.

“Where has the summer gone?” I join the chorus around me asking the same question. Winter looms! Even though autumn in the Midwest is spectacular, its brief appearance barely quells the anxiety of the enduring cold that lies ahead.

I fall silent as people around me recount their survival stories from just last winter. I wasn’t here and, I will be leaving again in a few weeks.

So why do I succumb to the sadness of summer days that have passed? I have committed to returning to Evanston from May to October. I will miss the dark, frozen days that approach. I have the best of both worlds…don’t I?

Sharing the responsibility with my sister for our frail ninety-five year old mother brings me back to Evanston each year. The time with her is fragile too. But this is also where I have the richness of family and old friends. I rejoin my faithful work-out group at the health club where my return “means spring is just around the corner,” according to one of them.

My days are full with working part-time at the public library and volunteering at Gilda’s Club. I take a Spanish conversation class. I keep a schedule on my calendar each week. A schedule! A calendar! Life in San Pancho seems like a dream that slips from my grasp as I wake each morning. Where are those roosters? I’m beginning to long for my simpler life.

I feel liked an addled adolescent. I love being in Evanston, I love being in San Pancho. I’m busy and feel useful one minute and, weary of expectations the next.

“You must be anxious to get back to Mexico,” a friend said the other day. “Yes,” I answered, “but it’s been a great summer here.” And suddenly, calmer thoughts prevailed. That is the truth of it. I do love both places.
It’s okay to be anxious to get back and sad to leave.

Today, I think I’ll consult my list of must-have items for Mexico. Let’s see, a trip to Trader Joe’s and Target, to the second-hand stores for bargain paperback books and maybe Marshalls, to check out the clearance racks for shorts and sandals. Soon there will be piles around the house marked “San Pancho.” Mentally, I begin to pack the car.

I Brake For Folk Art

2008-09-08T15:08:00.005-04:00

I am addicted to collecting folk art. I try to fight it. Whenever a new home or room comes within my purview, I do try to preserve some zen-like simplicity. Then I think, "Just one special piece, one spot of color and all the rest taupe or oatmeal or white." But soon it’s, "If one ceramic devil in a car looks good, perhaps six devils in vans, helicopters, and buses would be even better." Mexico doesn’t do zen and neither do I.

Ah, the siren call of the great art towns and villages—Tonala, Tzintzuntzan, Ocumicho, Teotihuacan del Valle, Capula… I get the itch at least once a year to make the rounds of my favorites and look for new villages where, one has heard, trees of life, embroidered blouses, ceramic pineapples or corn husk flowers can be found. My folk art collection is packed on every flat surface, and clusters on the verticals as well. Nor can I resist duplicating the wild colors on walls, columns, cushions and painted furniture.
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Now I have a new house to decorate. San Pancho, on the coast, is hot in the summer, but very close by, the mountains beckon. My husband and I are finishing a house in mile-high San Sebastian where summers sometimes involve a fire in the fireplace. The house has a colonial look and the riotous color of the coast won’t do. The living room is plastered with adobe—a Ralph Laurenesque grey-brown. It has dark wood bookshelves and shutters and the ceiling has wooden beams. This time would be different, I told myself. Folk art, of course, but subdued. A darkish painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe with a bemused smile and a copper shrine with heavy patina filled with dried brown roses. I ordered sofas in “moleskin.” The sample looked almost identical to the walls. They would be ready in six weeks and I went looking for my accent pieces. Just a touch of red.

I found an old wedding chest from Guerrero painted a dull cherry, and embroidered pillows for the sofas in reds, oranges and greens. I considered a rug with lots of red from Oaxaca, from the weaving village that sent rugs as tribute to the Aztec emperors, but I held off. This time I wasn’t getting carried away, remember?

Six weeks passed and passed again, and the sofas were not ready. Guests came and went, and there were no sofas to sit on. Finally the call came just before we were to leave on a trip. Two quick runs from Puerto Vallarta to San Sebastian were needed to transport the furniture on top of our car. Fortunately the pieces were well wrapped and protected and we left them that way to keep them clean.

When we returned three weeks later, I tore the first hole in the wrapping. The fabric was bright cranberry red. Oh, I knew it. Consider that the sales slip had said: Modela Sala Rojo—Color Moleskin. Yes, we’d worried but had been breezily assured several times that Rojo(Red) was just the model name. I called the store to complain.
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“Moleskin? Isn’t that a reddish color?” the sales girl said.

I contemplated how much longer I’d have to live without sofas to get the color right. Eventually, I unwrapped them and brought out the pillows. The combination was intense. It was Mexican. Might as well go with that Oaxacan rug. Maybe a devil in a red truck, too.

I live in a restaurant

2008-08-28T16:52:00.003-04:00

I live in a restaurant. Although my husband and I purchased a popular San Pancho eatery in 2005 to remodel for our winter getaway, its previous life lingers. New paint, fresh plaster, has not obliterated the first life of our Mexican home. The walls still hum with the memory of the meals. Sandra’s Restaurant was seasoned to perfection.

The telephone-pole advertising is tattered or missing now. The tables dressed in colorful linens are gone. The iconic photographs of Frida Kahlo that decorated the outdoor dining room grace bedroom walls instead. The wine and Margarita glasses that shimmered over the bar now stack behind cupboard doors. The dozens of votive candles burned to nubbins. The restaurant’s palapa-covered dining rooms, rich with tropical ambience, breathe new life as a potting shed, a studio, and a living room al fresco.

It took us a year to sort out our lot. When she sold her restaurant, Sandra left behind cartons of culinary accoutrements. Some of the pots and pans and dishes we kept, most we gave away. And Sandra left behind a behemoth of a stove. An oversize forged iron gas contraption on coaster wheels we call Black Beauty. She’s a cumbersome thing, not easily arranged within the kitchen work area. So we designed the space to suit her needs rather than ours. Black Beauty dominates the interior of the small three-room house.

Sandra sold the restaurant, she tells us, because customer demand grew stressful. Although it was a family affair with Beto, Carlos, Gaby and others tending bar, making music, taking orders, it was Sandra in the kitchen night after night, broiling and baking, stewing and stirring and arranging upon terra cotta plates her signature dishes.

She needed a break. But it wasn’t a long one. Cooking her passion, in short order she opened a catering business. Next door to us, next door to the former restaurant that established her reputation. We know her business thrives because most afternoons we whiff the sweet smell of her success wafting beyond her open kitchen walls: garlic sautéed in butter, cumin toasted golden, rosemary crisped in olive oil. She talks of opening another restaurant. Perhaps next season. A scaled-down version of the one we call home.

I have come to realize life in a restaurant has its advantages. When customers clabber down our concrete stairs in search of an excellent meal we have an opportunity to practice Spanish. And when people in San Pancho ask where we live, we say Sandra’s Restaurant. No address required.

Dog Tales

2008-08-25T09:10:00.009-04:00

Our housekeeper Irma’s dog, Lincoln, trots behind her as she arrives at our house. He is a fluffy Maltese whose hair is always tinged with road dust. He settles into our garden in the shade of a palm tree to wait for Irma to finish work. If he dares to poke his nose inside the house he will quickly receive a harsh reprimand from Irma.

Arm outstretched, finger pointed, Irma commands “Vete!” “Get out!” And Lincoln will slink back to safety.

“Dogs don’t belong in the house, “she reminds me as if I had invited Lincoln inside.

She knows me. Or, she knows us Americans. We treat our dogs like members of the family; they’re mascotas, pets, and we spoil them. Not so in most Mexican households. Irma and her family love Lincoln, but he lives outside, at times in their yard, but usually in the neighborhood streets.

But Cuchin, who repaired and painted our garden wall last winter, sees things differently from other Mexicans. Most days, he brought his “baby, as he called his dog, with him to work. Cuchin’s “baby,” a tiny Chihuahua, was never far from his father’s loving and watchful eyes. Cuchin was quick to condemn neglectful dog owners. His dogs, he assured us, never left the house without him. Oh - and his other “baby” was a pit bull! Fortunately, Cuchin left him at home.

Dogs hang out all over San Pancho. The majority are thin, their coats dull and matted. Some have injuries from unfriendly encounters with other animals. Most are sadly neglected. Stretched out and snoozing, they are blissfully unaware of traffic or pedestrians detouring around them. Others are in mad pursuit of moving objects, frantically barking, chasing cars, bicycles, horses, and other dogs. Running in a pack, they are formidable, though harmless.

One stray, Suzy, often accompanied Nancy, Ellen and me, uninvited, on our daily hike. She was known about town and survived on the kindness of strangers. But on our hike, Suzy only created chaos. She bounded ahead of us and then stopped right in front of us. She challenged other strays we met along the way to the point of teeth baring conflict. She ran into the path of oncoming trucks. Screeching brakes and our frantic shouts shattered any illusion of a healthy hike. When she disappeared for a few days, we were relieved.

Ellen’s dog, Lola, on the other hand, is Miss Congeniality. Everyone loves her! So when she began to accompany us on our hikes, we welcomed her. Nancy even brought a special doggie water bottle back from the States to keep her well-hydrated. Lola enjoyed our walks at first, waiting impatiently for Ellen in the morning. But soon Lola began to question the wisdom of trekking up and down countless hills. Besides, she missed being the center of attention. We barely noticed her, focusing instead on covering a lot of ground conversationally.

One day as we approached the first hill of the trail, Lola simply sat down and refused to go any further. No more foolish hiking for her. Our cajoling, demanding, or threatening moved her. Unlike Suzy, Lola knew when enough was enough.

Living With Tlaquaches

2008-08-17T15:59:00.009-04:00

My husband and I hadn't been in San Pancho long when we came upon an opossum clinging to a tree on our property. It had very scruffy grey-brown fur, a naked tail, cruel beady eyes and a mouthful of little teeth which it showed with a grin and a hiss. This animal had no charm whatsoever. Our Mexican neighbor was with us when we made the discovery.

“Tlaquache,” he said, and before we knew what was happening he had rushed home and returned with a worn .22 caliber rifle which looked as if it had seen the revolution. Mexicans, I believe, cannot legally own firearms, but it appears real men have them hidden away somewhere. Point blank he shot it. The animal made no sound or protest; it simply dropped. He hauled it up by the tail.

“Do you want it?” he politely inquired. We graciously permitted him to take it home to his stew pot.

That wasn’t the end of the tlaquaches. A couple of times after our seasonal absences, I have found nests built under bedside tables. Now and again one saunters across the patio, but they are shy and careful. Apparently they don't like the looks of us either.

One year we returned from our summer sojourn in New Mexico to find our bathroom full of flies and a smell which we took to be a sewer issue. Investigation revealed the flies to be coming from under the bathtub which had an opening in the tiled surround in case the plumbing should go wrong. What had gone wrong was that a tlaquache had gone in there and died. Jonathan pulled out the remains with a hooked piece of rebar. Actually it's not entirely unfair that men rule the world.

Another year, another tlaquache. Night after night we awoke as it scrabbled across our bedroom; there was no door to prevent its entry since our bedroom is a thatched pavilion. We reluctantly listened as it climbed and shook the lime tree and proceeded to click, yes, click, about once a second. A mating call, I’ve since learned. Jonathan would locate the tlaquache with the flashlight and it would freeze. Awake, annoyed and finding nothing erotic in the clicks, he began to fantasize its demise. His plan was to immobilize it with the flashlight and do it in with a length of pipe which he procured and put under the bed. We were never to know if he would actually go through with this mayhem because, though an opportunity soon presented itself, a certain caution required that first he put on his pants. While he was hopping into his pants legs, trying to keep the flashlight steady and get a hold of the pipe, the tlaquache unfroze and disappeared. In fact, Jonathan’s terrifying display scared it away for the rest of the year.

Last month I came running when I heard Jonathan roar from the bathroom. A tlaquache had walked in while he was showering. He said it looked like it had a full pouch. I can only hope it is the one which learned last year that Jonathan is not to be trifled with.

A Little Night Music

2008-08-10T10:21:00.004-04:00

For centuries Mexico was a land in deep depression. It was no help that early religions were all too interested in human sacrifice or that the conquering Spanish enslaved the population, introduced diseases that killed millions, and brought over the Inquisition for good measure. The mood was not lifted by factional wars which raged around the country for well over a hundred years, or by the humiliating loss of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to the northern neighbor. Nevertheless, I suspect that the root cause of the depression was that amplified sound had not yet been invented. Gracias á Dios, this boon to Mexican happiness has now penetrated into every pueblo, and happy little San Pancho has an extra measure.

Our first Christmas here (and very nearly our last) was marked by a powerful demonstration of this gift of Very Loud Sound. On the stroke of midnight, at the moment of the Santo Niño’s birth, there rang out over San Pancho the ear-splitting and sleep-shattering sounds of music from speakers hauled up to our highest hill. This might have been moving if it had been the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” or “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” but, no, it was the same Ricky Martin tape that was the run away favorite that year. And it played over and over for a full twelve hours. Mr. and Mrs. Grinch lay aghast with pillows over our heads and in the morning went out to see what the neighbors thought. They loved it.

“En México somos libres,” our friend Hillaria likes to say. In Mexico we are free. Free from interference from those gringos who might have peculiar ideas about sound pollution, that’s for sure. And we know our status. Guests don’t complain—except to the other guests. It seems we never tire of trying to convince each other that we each live in the noisiest part of town.

It has taken my husband and me some years to adjust to what is one of the great cultural differences between the two sides of the border, especially when that difference expresses itself at night. Years—and earplugs close to hand.

Our neighbor over the back wall went through a rough patch a few years back. Every Friday and Saturday for four or five months he went out and drank until the 2 AM closing at the local cantina, came home, comforted himself with boom box at full volume, and passed out. Certainly that was the scene when, driven to desperation, my husband finally went over to ask him to damp it just a bit.

“Wow, he was cooperative,” I said as my husband crawled back into bed, a lovely silence all around.

“The door was open and all the lights blazing. I just went in and turned it off. He never moved,” he said wearily.

This gave us an idea. We knew his electric line led to a somewhat informal connection beside that of our next door neighbor and that the breaker was just over our wall. When the music jolted us awake, we would give him a couple of minutes and then go and flick the breaker. The electricity was only briefly interrupted but the tape player shut off. He never once turned it back on. We knew this was violating his freedom to have music whenever and however he wanted and we felt very guilty about it right up until we floated back to sleep. Please don’t tell.

To Each Her Own San Pancho

2008-08-07T12:24:00.004-04:00

Seven years ago, when we first had houseguests in San Pancho, I wanted them to enjoy the same things I do about the town. I hoped they’d share my enthusiasm for ranchera music, sidewalk taco stands, and walks in the jungle. I wanted them to be interested in Mexican folk art and history, and to think it was fun to learn Spanish. Not surprisingly, it hasn’t always worked out like that. Our guests have appreciated San Pancho in their own unique ways.

When my 74-year old aunt Nancy visited us she was having problems with memory loss. She was aware of the loss, and it frustrated her. Earlier in her life she had lived in foreign countries and traveled widely, but now a new setting confused her. Our housekeeper’s name, the location of our street -- she struggled to remember, but she just couldn’t. Skip and I tried to make her visit interesting -- we didn’t think with much success -- until the morning we decided to make hot chocolate the old-fashioned Mexican way.

These days hot chocolate is usually made in a blender so it still has the essential foamy topping. But the traditional way is with a molinillo, a hand-carved wooden utensil that looks to me like a child’s top. We had a molinillo on hand, and we wanted to be authentically Mexican, but we had no idea how to use the thing.

Joaquina, our long-time housekeeper, stepped in and gave us a lesson. She and Nancy dissolved disks of Abuelita chocolate -- they look like hockey pucks -- in heated milk. Then Joaquina demonstrated how to rotate the molinillo between the palms of her hands to make the froth on top, the finishing touch. An accomplished cook, Nancy jumped right in and stirred up a batch of hot chocolate. “Molinillos and Abuelita will be the perfect gifts to take home to my kids,” she said. “We’ve got to go shopping.” Language barriers, Joaquina’s deafness, Nancy’s discomfort in a strange place--a lot of things could have gotten in the way that morning, but they didn’t.

Having had a lot of houseguests, I’ve figured out that some people like what I like, and some don’t. Some immerse themselves in the life of the town. Others want to bask in the pool, drink a few margaritas, and catch up on naps. And sometimes guests open my eyes to the small joys -- like making hot chocolate with a molinillo -- of living in Mexico.

Eme's Flan

2008-08-03T18:00:00.004-04:00

Emerita Garcia Cervantes makes the best flan in San Pancho, we all say. “Eme” owns and runs Los Delfines Restaurant, a block up from the beach on the town’s main drag and open for supper. When she has a fresh batch of flan for sale, she props a Styrofoam plate against a small potted cactus that sits on a counter. “Hay flan,” the plate reads (There is flan.). Passers-by spread the word.

Eme turns out flan de coco (coconut), de queso(cheese), de café(coffee), and de vainilla(vanilla). Flan de coco seems to be the favorite, given the number of mentions it gets. All of the flans are rich and dense, the batter poured into cunning little tin pans called “flaneras” (yours for $8 in Mexican supermarkets and housewares stores), then steamed in a pressure cooker for an hour.

Eme’s pozole is also renowned. She only offers it on Saturday and Sunday nights, when it’s sometimes SRO at Los Delfines, a.k.a. Eme’s front porch, filled with plastic tables and chairs. Her chicken enchiladas are worth a wait, too; some say they’re the best they’ve ever had. My friend Helen, a New Yorker by way of London, editor at a major women’s magazine, and accomplished cook, visited San Pancho this year and declared Los Delfines her restaurant of choice after sampling meals all over town.

“It’s charming,” she said. “Plus the food is honest, flavorful, and preposterously economical.”

High praise well-earned for Eme, one of the hardest working women in town, whose day job is janitor at the local middle school. She’s a widow who raised two daughters alone, one of whom is just finishing up a university degree program.

Eme is generous, too. She’d be happy to share her flan recipe, she said, when approached by two of my house guests. She suggested we come watch her make it one Saturday morning. Afterward, we paid for her time without her asking. She could offer Mexican cooking classes, one of us enthused. She smiled but didn’t answer. Sure thing, I thought, what with all that extra time you've got.

Eme’s Coconut Flan

-½ cup white sugar

-1 can of condensed milk

-1 can of evaporated milk

-1 cup of whole milk

-5 eggs

-1 generous handful of sweetened coconut

1. Melt the sugar in the flanera, stirring as it liquefies. Coat the sides and bottom of the flanera.
2. Blend the condensed milk, evaporated milk, eggs, and coconut in a blender.
3. Pour the blender mix + the whole milk into the flanera simultaneously (don’t stir together).
4. Seal the flanera with foil; snap on its lid; place in a pressure cooker, and add water to reach half way up the side of the flanera.
5. Put the lid on the pressure cooker; over low flame, cook for 1 hour; remove from the cooker.
6. Cool at room temperature; refrigerate for a day before serving.

Caution: Construction Ahead

2008-07-31T10:02:00.004-04:00

When we bought our property in 2001 the lot next door to us was vacant. During the next three years, we built our house and the lot next door to us was still vacant. The owner, a cousin to our housekeeper’s husband and a San Pancho resident, offered to sell it to us every year.

Seven years ago, it was $30,000 USD; then $50,000; then $80,000... We would make an offer, he’d up the price, we would make another offer, and the price would go up again. Eventually we gave up.

Property values are a topic near and dear to the hearts of people in San Pancho. Real estate offices line Avenida Tercer Mundo, the main street in town. Rivera Nayarit, the State of Nayarit’s ambitious resort development plan, is full speed ahead. A bright pink “Cultural Center” (read, sales office) compliments of Lemmus Corporation squats squarely on the new malecon, our ocean-front plaza. Oh, and the new malecon? It was a gift to the town, in part, by another development group!

So, we weren’t completely surprised to hear that we’d be getting our own development right next door. The owner decided not to sell his lot after all, but to build instead. And that’s when the information stream got muddy.

At various times we heard he was building a two- story house with a palapa (thatched palm) roof. We heard he was planning rental units; two units, then four, then six. As is typical in our neighborhood, everyone knew something, and no one really knew anything.

We watched with trepidation as the construction began and the building began to take shape just inches from our garden wall. Every day we’d assess the progress and second guess the design. We could greet the workers each morning by simply stepping out of our kitchen door.

The building’s setback from the street suggested a parking area in the front. That’s good, we thought and we were encouraged. An attractive, well- thought- out apartment building might be just fine.

But then, activity began at the rear of the lot next to our kitchen window. A beautiful shade tree disappeared.

“More building, another apartment?” we asked.

“Yes,” our housekeeper said.

“No,” her husband said, “a laundry room.”

“Which is it?” we asked again. Shoulders shrugged.

When the roof for the first floor was poured we watched in awe as a modern-day concrete truck mixed the concrete and a huge chute completed the pouring in less than three hours.

We waited and waited. Weeks went by. Surely the concrete must be set by now. Work on the second story could begin anytime. But it didn’t. And then we left San Pancho for our trip back to the States.

“What’s happening next door to us?” we incessantly asked in emails to friends.

“Nothing,” they said. “It looks the same as when you left.”

A sense of relief, albeit temporary, prevails. Maybe there won’t be a second floor after all, or a palapa top. Or it won’t be rental units. Who knows? The only given in our burgeoning real estate/construction environment is surprise.

Guess who's coming to dinner

2008-07-21T19:33:00.004-04:00

The two-hour conversation, we hoped, was ready to wrap. Anselmo was a charming raconteur but the get-acquainted meeting had grown out of proportion. Yes, he would be happy to take care of the garden. Yes, he would be happy to begin immediately. Yes, he would be responsible for watering and maintenance during our summer sojourn in the States.

One hundred minutes and several cervezas later Anselmo had shared his life story. My husband and I tried to follow the twists and turns of the anecdotes but Anselmo’s dialect transcended classroom Spanish. My niggling headache inched toward meltdown.

Anselmo made a motion to stand. We popped up in encouragement.
"It would be an honor to invite you to dinner," he said, using sign language to facilitate our understanding. "My wife makes excellent ceviche. She will cook for you." Anselmo kissed his fingers in appreciation of her cuisine.

"Thank you," I said. "We would be happy to meet her. Where do you…"
"We will come here, to your house. We will bring everything. Tomorrow, five o’clock."

Anselmo and Maya arrived on the dot dressed in crisp cotton pressed for a party. Glossy black hair pulled into a tight chignon, lipstick impossibly red, Maya was lovely in her middle years. She nodded hello, almost smiled. Plump arms embraced an assortment of bowls, sacks, the accoutrements of a confident cook. Dark eyes darted beyond me, assessing the kitchen. She bustled to the island counter. Anselmo followed toting a six pack of beer and bottle of tequila.

"The water was shut-off early today," I said. "We still have water in the tinaco (cistern). Will you be able…"
Maya shrugged. "No problema," she said.

My husband and I took seats at the counter. Anselmo passed us each a beer.
"It is the freshest fish," he said, his English broken but confident. "Huachinango, cooking all day in the lime." He proceeded to describe how Maya had cleaned, cubed the red snapper, submerged the chunks in a lime and water concoction that cooks without heat. As Maya pulled from sacks the rest of the ingredients, a vocabulary lesson ensued.

"Apio," she said, pointing to the long limbs of celery. "Cebolla…aguacate…ajo," she continued, spreading out on the counter onion, avocado, garlic. "Chipotle…cilantro…"

"I know cilantro," I said, pleased with myself. "I like cilantro."
Maya nodded. "Jugo," she said, pulling out cans of V8 juice.

Cutting board requested and produced, Maya set to work, the chop of her blade performance art. My husband and I pulled back a bit as we watched the speed and swipe of a pro.

Dinner was delicious. The ceviche tender, almost sweet, served atop corn tortillas crisped in salted oil. Sliced avocados on the side. Cold beer, tequila shots to cement a new friendship.

I wanted to repay Maya and Anselmo for the excellent dinner. I would prepare for them a specialty of my own: shrimp empananda, black beans, bananas baked in honey and cream.

We found Anselmo at his home, extended our invitation.
"What day is best with you and Maya?"
"Martes. Tuesday, next Tuesday," he said. Spanish chased by English to make sure we understood. "Six o’clock."

The following Monday I drove to Puerto Vallarta, 45 minutes south, to shop at a supermarket replete with food stuffs not always available in San Pancho’s small sidewalk stores. Shrimp, large and fresh, cream cheese, Parmesan, black beans, epazote and oregano. An assortment of olives, marinated crudites, imported wafers to whet the appetite.

I began preparation early Tuesday morning. Devein shrimp, saute with garlic, nestle on tortillas slathered in cream cheese, dust with Parmesan, fold in half, refrigerate until time to bake; cook black beans, mash, refry in olive oil, oregano, epazote; whip the sauce to top bananas.

At five-thirty I was ahead of my game. Food kept warm, tapas arranged on the coffee table, wine and beer chilled. My husband suggested I was trying too hard. Maya and Anselmo would be happy with whatever I could throw together, he said. I ignored him, rummaged in the cupboard for colorful cotton napkins.

Six o’clock and we were in position. Six-thirty came and went.
"Thirty minutes is not necessarily late in this culture," my husband said, checking his watch against the clock on the bar.
But seven o’clock is more than fashionably late, I decided. We nibbled around the edges of the crudite platter.

Eight o’clock, eight-thirty, nine o’clock. We decided there must have been a misunderstanding. I began to reheat dinner then opened the wine. We selected a DVD with plans to settle in for the evening.

Five minutes later Anselmo bounded down the stairs that led from the street to our garden living room. "I have the head of a camaron!" he said. He thumped the side of his head to demonstrate its physical similarity to an oversize shrimp.

Not waiting for an invitation to "Pase," he plopped down on the couch, spread his knees to accommodate belly girth, thumped his head again for good measure. Maya followed him down the stairs.

Their explanation was delivered with a flurry of gestures. They had gone to dinner at a friend’s restaurant. After a couple of beers and hefty blue-plate specials, Maya suddenly remembered our dinner invitation. So here they were.

"Uh," I began, "would you like something to eat?"
"Gracias," said Anselmo. "But we are stuffed to here!"
Cervezas, however, would be appreciated. Maya and Anselmo settled in for long conversation. Too polite to eat in front of them, we kept our dinner on the back burner.

The incident discombobulated me. But since then I’ve learned a thing or two about living here: sometimes people lose sense of time; sometimes people accept invitations just to be polite; and sometimes people hesitate to socialize with those who hire them.

My learning curve continues its ascent.