The Big Chill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.