Good morning from sunny Mexico!
– okay, not quite yet. I’m up early and it’s pitch black out. The sun is several hours off, but here at Valle de Bravo, the lakeside week-end retreat of the Gottfried family, at least we are assured of sunshine eventually—unlike Mexico City where everyone lives in an eternal bluish haze of smog.
A cup of Twinings English Breakfast tea is at hand, the lights of the small village across the lake twinkle in the early pre-dawn darkness, and not even the maid is up yet. I had to fix my own tea, which around here is considered an immense feat. No maid to call to bring the sugar, no maid to call to bring the spoon to stir it, no maid to call to toast my bread or butter it or put jam on it (of course she is told what kind of jam) and bring it to me on a plate. The life of the well-to-do in a country where there is a servant class is truly jaw-dropping!
I arrived in Mexico City without – wait, I started to say without incident, but is travel ever without incident? I think United has bitten off more than they can chew when they bought out Continental. They now have so many flights going out of Houston Intercontinental early in the morning that the check-in line extended for miles. At least this time I did have two whole hours to wait in line and needed every bit of it. The lines looked like one of Disney’s most popular rides, only with angry and disgruntled passengers snaking back and forth like cattle going to the slaughter.
Security, of course, was even worse because we were all stripping down to our skivvies, or practically so, even the most elegantly attired gentleman ahead of me- first class means nothing, HA! You know the drill—belts, wallets, watches, shoes, jackets, necklaces, earrings, computers, cell phones, then being motioned forward to stand like prisoners in the scanning machines. And heaven forfend you have a metal hip or knee. There is no respect for anyone here, although I was surprised to see that if you were born before 1937, they will finally allow you through without stripping, scanning, probing, or swiping. I can complain now, but just don’t even look angry there or you will spend time in the slammer. I truly think the terrorists have beaten us.
I was particularly amazed at the luggage they were planning to carry on the planes. Not one of the suitcases, backpacks or boxes I saw would have fit in those little measuring boxes they have at the entrance to security. It’s no wonder that the flight attendants just get nuts trying to squeeze all those boxes and bags into the overhead compartments and why they fill up so fast. I was tempted to check to see if my carry-on suitcase would fit in the measuring box, but I was afraid it wouldn’t and someone would notice! So I just trudged through the line without comment.
An hour and a half later, after emerging from Security and redressing, I stopped to change money and then stopped at Starbucks to buy breakfast (which was a really good thing since United now SELLS food on their flights, not even a bag of chips for free). That took more time than expected, of course, so I knew I was a little late. But I figured I was one of the last groups to load so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. When I finally reached the gate, SURPRISE! It was no longer at E-24, but had been moved about three miles down to concourse C-17. Along with several other late arrivals, we ran for the new gate. Who ever said you don’t get any exercise when you are flying? Arriving winded and sweating, we had the pleasure of cooling our heels, and wiping away the sweat, while we waited for another plane to be brought from San Antonio an hour later!
Mexico City now has competing taxi cab companies at the airport. They don’t post their rates, so I have no idea if I got a good deal at $250 pesos for a ride to Coyoacan, in the southern part of the city. Having been used to Euros where cab fare was 5 Euros, the amount sounded astronomical. The peso is trading at about 12 pesos to the dollar so, you figure about $25 for a cab ride is probably about right for any big city. And Mexico is definitely big.
We emerged into the thunderous roar of traffic and the blue haze of smog. Lanes mean nothing, stop lights not much more, and yield signs have no force whatsoever. Whoever gets their nose out ahead of the other guy gets to go, if he has the guts. Horns blare constantly as if the traffic jams could actually be moved by the sound. Even the high-speed four-lane highways get backed up and –as in all big cities—traffic slows to a snail’s pace. Fortunately, the traffic was not bad and we made it out to Coyoacan in less than an hour,
The Gottfrieds, with whom I am staying, are an amazing lot. Mario and Martha Gottfried were my parents’ best friends and we still consider each other part of the family, using the terms aunt and uncle, even if we aren’t. Uncle Mario passed away several years ago, and Tia Martha has become the matriarch of a clan that consists of four children, 20 grand children, and dozens of great-grand children. She maintains an open house and a standing invitation for lunch during the week. Anyone can and does show up completely unexpectedly and is welcomed with open arms. Me, too!
They lived in a smaller two story house built by a German family back in the 1940s on about four acres of land on Calle Canada, just off Division del Norte. Today, one of the grandsons and his beautiful Brazilian model wife and their 2 year-old daughter, Isabella, are living in the house. Back then it was the distant suburbs, so my mother and Tia Martha became best friends, both of then Americans married to Mexicans, both of them members of the Junior League, the Garden Club, the Art Club, Bridge Club, and both raising matching families, of course cared for by Nanas, or maids while they were busy clubbing or painting or partying with other American ladies of leisure.
After Uncle Mario became wealthy from selling electric motors all over the world, Tia Martha designed a home in Mexican style with a central patio and stone fountain. Giant pots of flowers and cut leaf philodendron and ferns fill the corners, small tables and chairs provide a cozy place for breakfast beside the burbling fountain with its bright orange and yellow goldfish. In a totally untypical modern style, Uncle Mario installed a huge sliding glass roof to cover the patio with an electric motor that rolls it open or closed.
Everything in the design of the house was based on lucky finds of architectural pieces from all over the country. Tia Martha collected materials from everywhere. Around the patio are stone columns bought from an old church that was being demolished, and in the dining room a large antique chandelier. The ceiling beams are decorated with gold leaf, and the dining room table will seat 24. On one wall is one of Tia Martha’s giant landscapes of the valley of Mexico (fifteen feet by eight feet) for which she has become justly famous here in the city. On the other wall hangs a large portrait of a relative from Uncle Mario’s mother, the Mexican General Albino Zertuche. I am here partly to help Tita, Martha’s youngest daughter, to find information on him.
In the living room, the fireplace is flanked by two carved wood columns from another demolished historic building. A grand piano, not often used anymore, except by two of the grandsons who are composers, sits at one end of the living room. Two large windows look out on a large and immaculately manicured lawn, smoother than a putting green, with beds of flowers and greenery and towering old trees throughout the gardens. The gardener, still young and inexperienced, sweeps the lawn free of fallen leaves with a broom made of twigs. Tia Martha goes out daily to tell him what to do and is frustrated at having lost her old gardener who knew what to do without being told. She used to go to Xochimilco for new plants and flowers to plant, although not so much anymore since the garden is well established. The new kid just asked permission to go buy more twigs at the market since his broom was wearing out. Many of the street-sweepers use the same kind of broom.
In the entry halls and passageways, more painted frescoes of flowers and vines cover the ceilings, and large ancient dark oak tables and benches line the walls. In the entryway is a nearly life-size carved wooden carousel horse on a pole that Tia Martha found at some antique shop. It looks as if it were ready to start circling at the first sound of music, with its mane and tail flying. Instead of being painted it is decorated with inlays of different colored woods. Everywhere groupings of comfortable chairs and tables provide places to sit and have coffee or wine or highballs of an evening. No TVs anywhere except the bedrooms. Every shelf and bookcase holds antique and priceless sculptural heads and figures gathered on their travels. The walls are hung with more of Tia Martha’s landscapes and paintings by other famous artists she has known. The bedrooms are separated from the living room for privacy and quiet by a wooden door and long hall.
Right now the whole house is undergoing renovation since it has been damaged by the construction of a huge apartment complex on the lot next door. Since most of Mexico is riddled with underground rivers and soft mud which provides poor foundation, the weight of the adjacent building caused this house to shift and crack. Tia Martha has had to stabilize the building. She is now putting in oak wood floors and, break her heart, I’m sure, will have to get some antique Persian rugs to brighten the rooms!
Since all the bedrooms are being redone, I am sleeping on a fold-away couch out in her art studio at the other end of the garden. The studio, some 40 feet by 20 feet, has a high ceiling and two big skylights, one right over my bed. Very effective for waking me up at daylight and making afternoon siestas a challenge with sunlight pouring in. There is a full bathroom down at the far end, and a large fireplace right next to my bed. No wardrobe or chest of drawers but I don’t mind, since I have gotten very used to living out of an open suitcase. Tia Martha still teaches a few art students, mostly old friends, just to keep her hand in although she has given up painting.
Tia Martha is in her 80s, has had two heart attacks, and has been undergoing dialysis twice a week for the last three years. I read to her during her last four hour session, and it is not an easy process. The veins and arteries where they have to insert the needles are bruised and bulging, her skin is paper thin and almost raw from the bandages they use to hold the needles in place, and although the actual blood exchange is painless, the needles are not. She has to lie perfectly still for the whole four hours, napping or watching TV or talking to anyone who will sit with her. She does it willingly since, as she says, she wants to enjoy her grand children as long as she can.
The Gottfrieds had four kids, while my parents did too, so we all grew up together in the wonderful old suburb of Coyoacan back in the 1950s and 60s. We could still ride our horses down the bridle paths in the middle of Taxqueña- today Miguel Angel Quevedo, and our bikes back and forth to each other’s houses without worrying about traffic. Not so today!
I went walking into Coyoacan the first morning, over cobble-stoned streets and past brightly painted fenced and gated houses. The streets are narrow, most one-way, and the traffic is of necessity light. I had forgotten what a lovely old historic neighborhood it is. The plaza of Coyoacan has, as its center piece, the big 1560s Church of San Juan Bautista. It copies the Spanish churches I saw in Madrid and Sevilla, with every bit as much gold and ornate decorations and fourteen side altars, each different and more ornate than the last. Inside, there were three flutists practicing, I suppose, for Sunday morning mass. I settled into one of the old wooden pews and reveled in the high ceilings, the light falling on the golden dome of the central altar from two windows high up in the wall, and the lovely music soaring up.
Back outside, I walked across the three big plazas with their towering ancient cypress and oak trees. That seemed to be what has changed the most – the growth of the trees. The plazas are paved in square blocks of black volcanic rock and are criss-crossed by streets where officious policemen whistle to stop traffic and motion those of us trying to cross. There are gardens with flowers and bushes neatly clipped and planted in curving designs. A gardener hauls a giant hose around to water the plants, since Mexico, like Texas, has been suffering a drought.
Across the plaza is the old government palace that was built, if you can believe it, for Hernan Cortez the conqueror of the Aztecs in 1521. The Spanish had not been able to maintain the dikes and dams established by the natives, so when the city of Tenochtitlan flooded, Cortez and his men were forced out of the city. They chose to settle on the edges of the lake at Coyoacan. His palace is a long, low, white-washed one-story building with arched entryways into the central patios where fountains from the 1800s still spout water.
I did walk past our old home which had been abandoned after we sold it to the son of one of the presidents, Diaz Ordaz I think. Our old square adobe house (each of 9 rooms forming a perfect square 20 feet by 20 feet by 20 feet with 18 inch thick walls) built during the 1890s, had been torn down and the four acre tract used for storing construction equipment. Today, a group of young developers, including Architect Ruiz, is building nine condominium houses on the property. Each is three stories high. The bottom floor has space for three cars, a laundry room, the maid’s room, a cistern and a storage room. The living room, dining room and kitchen are on the middle floor and the three bedrooms are on the top floor. Fortunately, the architect is concerned about including “green space” and saved a number of the old trees, including two of the beautiful hundred year-old Jacarandas at the front of the property, both still dripping with light blue-violet flowers. The same trees had been everywhere in Sevilla. The Maestro de Obra, Mr. Matias, gave me a tour of the one house that is almost done—very modern and very carefully and neatly built. They will have them for sale by November – probably about a million dollars each!
Enough for today. The sun is up, the lake is glittering, the bright white sailboats reflecting in the water, Tita (Tia Martha’s youngest) and her husband Arturo are up, the maid is fixing breakfast, and one of the grandsons, Mario Enrique, and his girlfriend are headed up into the mountains for hiking. Tita and I will probably go into Valle to the bookstore once Tia Martha is fed and ready to go. Hugs!
Epistle 2
Good morning again from Valle de Bravo –
It’s Sunday morning and the sun has just lit the distant shore of the lake, highlighting the homes and villages on the far shore as it came up over the mountains behind us. The lake is calm and placid since the government in Mexico City has forbidden power boats on the lake, accusing them of polluting the water and creating algae. The lake water is used by Mexico City so the government can claim to have a right to control activity on the lake. This is nearly destroying the local economy which depends on the tourist trade and boat tours of the lake. For now, however, from our terrace looking down on the lake it is pleasant not to hear any noisy boat engines. The maid has just placed a tray at my elbow with a plate of cut-up mango and papaya, a plate of toasted bagette, a bowl of butter, a small cup of marmalade, and my cup of tea with sugar. Dang, this is a rough life!
Tita and Arturo left to return to Mexico early so Tia Martha and I will go back when the chofer (chauffeur) gets here from the city. Then it will be back to the grind and hopefully I won’t strike out like I did last week. Thursday last week Tita and I went to the Department of Defense archives, not in the metro or the buses or even by taxi. Tia Martha, thanks to her son Carlos, has her own car and chauffeur, and since Tita had loaned her car to her 30 year-old son Arturo, we took the car and driver to get to the Archive. Thanks to Tita’s begging of the gate guards, the chofer was able to park the car inside the facility, right in front of the Archive. He will sit and wait for us while we are inside. What a life!
I thought my fancy letter on Sam Houston letterhead paper that I had laboriously acquired three months in advance was necessary to get us into the archives. Carmen, my Spanish lit PhD. friend from Austin wrote it in very flowery,ornate, elegant Spanish after I had made a pathetic attempt with –as Carmen called it—my Archaic Spanish from the kitchen. Knowing it would take months to get permission, I had sent the letter to Tita well in advance.
Turns out Tita had e-mailed them for permission, attaching my letter, and they had promptly responded putting her name on the permission and leaving mine completely off--evidently never having opened the attachment or reviewed the “documentation” I had provided! Without checking our bags or even asking for our credentials (last time I came, I had to leave two credentials –at the front gate, and at the entrance to the Archives), we were let into the reading room, a small comfortable room with high windows and good over-head lighting, and four big round wooden tables with wooden chairs. Once we were settled, a young female soldier brought three great big thick piles of documentation on Albino Zertuche, Tita’s great-grandfather.
I, however, had struck out. They didn’t have any of the names of my Texas presidial captains that I had asked for and I couldn’t understand why not. Of course they didn’t—and I’m an idiot! The records at the Secretaria de la Defensa only go back to 1810 and the beginning of the Mexican government. I was asking for information on SPANISH officers from the 1700s! That would be like hoping to find British military records in Washington D.C. Ain’t happening! However, one of my colleagues from Sam had asked me to look for information on a Mexican general named Carbo. We hadn’t included him on our list of requests.
Going off book (as they say in the movie industry) suddenly triggered problems. A very uppity Captain came in and started giving us a hard time about – who was I? why hadn’t we asked for permission? Why wasn’t my name on the letter of “permiso”? Tita, being adept at handling bureaucrats as most Mexicans are, sweet-talked the Captain into not only letting me stay—I did, after all, have the original of my very fancy letterhead letter—which he didn’t even glance at, and then convincing them to bring me the Carbo material. I just kept my mouth shut and played the poor dumb gringa as if I hadn’t known the rules. Since I was the one that had come many years back, I certainly did know the rules. Not my fault they had never looked at my laboriously crafted letter!
Again, three giant, bound, legal-sized legajos of 250 pages each landed in front of me on the table. Since we had arrived at 11 (getting started early for the well-to-do around here is not 8 am but more like 10 am) and they closed at 1 pm, I didn’t have time to go through it all, but typed in what I could and took pictures of the rest. Tita also took pictures, so it turned out to be a relatively useful morning. At least it wasn’t totally wasted. We emerged to find the chofer still calmly waiting for us and we drove back through the chaos of the city traffic to Tia Martha’s for lunch. Of course several of the grand children (all now with children of their own) arrived for lunch. One in particular will be of interest.
Jessica, daughter of Mario, the eldest of Tia Martha’s children, is a anthropologist, dancer and guitar (Jarana) player who has moved from Mexico City to Veracruz. She knows an elderly man named Miguel Antonio Bello whose father was a real honest-to-goodness muleteer. Bello has written books about muleteering and would, she feels sure, welcome a visit. She says he would be more than willing to share his information. Since Rodrigo, my hero in the novel, is a muleteer, and plays the guitar, and I want Analisa, the heroine, to learn to dance Fandango while she is at the Bar in New Orleans. This will all make wonderful research for the book. And beside, the bus ride down to the little town where Bello lives will give me some description of the mountains farther north out of Monterrey, which everyone says are much too dangerous to traverse today. So, next weekend- I will be off to Veracruz on the bus! What excitement!
Friday morning, rather than wait for the maid who doesn’t get into the kitchen until 7:30 (she lives in one of the maid’s rooms on the far side of the garden), I left the house at 7 (the security guards unlocked the door for me). I went walking up the big main thoroughfare where we used to ride our horses, with the buses and taxis and traffic beginning to build. I found a VIPS, sort of like IHOP, where I stopped for a delicious breakfast of orange juice, Huevos Rancheros (fried eggs on tortillas with red sauce) and a cup of Mexican hot chocolate with “pan dulce” sweet bread. I reviewed my list of books that I bought in Spain and wrote out the names of the books all the books Carmen had recommended plus went over the questions I need to answer.
The archive Tita had recommended – Condumex or the Centro de Estudios de Historia de Mexico (Center for the Study of the History of Mexico) – is somewhere in the neighborhood of Chimalistac , behind the big Aurrera—now Wal-mart—down at the end of heavily trafficked Quevedo where it runs into Insurgentes. So, rather than challenge the increasing crowds on the buses, I took a cab down to Aurrera. From there I just wandered into the neighborhood of Chimalistac. After asking several security people guarding big houses—none of whom knew anything, I lucked onto a very professorial looking gentleman walking out of the Plaza of San Sebastian with its tiny little church. I asked him where Condumex was and he pointed right across the plaza! He is Jean Pierre Bastiane, a French professor teaching at the Colegio de Mexico and studying the 1800s who has used Condumex extensively. We chatted like old friends and he offered several suggestions of where to go and who to see.
The people at Condumex were most gracious and helpful, even though the letter of introduction I had wasn’t for them but for the National Archive. Their facility is in a beautiful old Spanish building with high ceilings, thick walls and several young workers to handle the materials. To my unbounded pleasure, I learned that their collections have mostly been scanned and put on the internet so I can go through them at my leisure at home. I went through their card files and found that most of the printed material is religious, but they do have the document that Jose de Galvez brought from Spain to try to control the tobacco sales. Charles III, sharp money-maker that he was, had decided to control all tobacco and tax it for the benefit of the crown. I’m sure Jose de Galvez did not have an easy time of it trying to impose the new rules nor did he have a happy time trying to run all the Jesuits out in 1767 either. But that will all be wonderful information for the pre-quel when I deal with Rodrigo in his early years as a muleteer.
Leaving Condumex, I walked back toward Quevedo and, to my unbounded pleasure, came out directly behind Ghandi – the big, well-stocked, modern bookstore. Since it was still early, the young men who assist buyers were available to help me find a very few books on the 1700s. They use a computer to do a general search, which is always a hit and miss operation, and the books are divided by publishers so it is hard to just browse. Unlike the bookstores in Spain, there is no specific shelf for the time period, nor is there an owner who knows his books so well he can pull them for you. I only found three, but that will help.
Since Tia Martha was planning to leave for Valle de Bravo, their week-end retreat by 11, I caught a cab back to the house, packed and was ready to go when the chofer arrived with the car. He will take us way up to the north end of the city where we will drive down to Valle de Bravo with Tita and Arturo in their big suburban. The plan is to come back on Sunday with the chofer.
Their week-end home is in Valle de Bravo (Valley of the Brave). The small town has become a week-end getaway for people from Mexico City since it is just two hours north of the city and now connected by four different highways. The property, which the Gottfrieds bought about fifty years ago, is actually three houses plus the caretaker’s house that have been added over the years. It consists of six or seven acres, all just a few blocks from the center of town, and sits on a slope overlooking the lake with the high mountains behind. The L-shaped main house that has the best view of the lake, has a large deck with tables and dozens of comfy chairs and a small pool. This is where everyone spends most of the time, watching sunsets or regattas on the lake, eating and drinking 2 pm wine, 4 pm wine and 6 pm high balls. There are enough accommodations for all of the family, and various children and grand-children show up as the mood strikes. Mario Jr and his girlfriend are here now, eating out on the deck—having cooked their own breakfast, --OMG—without benefit of the maid. Tia Martha, who loves the place, comes down two or three week-ends a month, usually with her son Carlos, who now runs his father’s company, or Tita and her husband, since she can no longer come alone.
Tita and I wandered through the town, up and down narrow cobble-stone streets, 18th century porches hanging over the street, peeking into stores that run the gamut from tiny tienditas (small stores) selling snacks and cokes, to high-priced boutiques offering fancy jewelry, hand-woven authentic clothing, beautiful wood furniture, expensive sculptures and elegant art pieces. Tita found an ornate gold necklace made of 50 peso coin replicas joined by delicate filigree work for only $2,500 pesos. She wanted her mother to have it, so we dragged poor Tia Martha down here and of course she bought it, then promptly gave it to Tita. Hmmm! Tia Martha only gets out to lunch once a month with her lady friends so she said she had nowhere to wear it, and heaven forbid you wear good jewelry in Mexico City.
With Tita’s husband driving the smaller car they keep here – the Suburban is too big to fit down the streets, we had dinner out Saturday evening at a Swiss restaurant where they know Tia Martha. They are careful to protect her and avoid salt. She can get a Filet Mignon and potato pancake without salt and they have a vast selection of fine wines. I had lemonade and a not very good lamb cutlet but it was a pleasant outing. The weekend is spent sitting around on the patio talking and drinking, so the only time I have to write is early in the morning.
Tia Martha is up, Mario Jr and the girl-friend have finished breakfast, the maid is washing dishes, and everything is packed to go back with the chofer when he shows up. Time to go! Hugs!
Epistle 3
Good morning from the road,
Its Sunday afternoon, a whole week later, rolling along on the first-class bus headed for Mexico City from Veracruz, and no drug lords, no hold-ups, no thefts, not even anyone rude or impolite. Get out in the country and people seem to be even kinder, more hospitable and more polite. Besides, if anyone was likely to get robbed, it would be the young man who sells tickets for the buses alongside the road. He’s got to be loaded—with as many people as are catching buses.
So going back to last week, we got back from Valle without any problems except that when we got home, the maid was NOT THERE! Houston, we have a problem! It seems that Consuelo had gone home to her family for the three days we were gone. But – she didn’t make it back by noon on Sunday. She was panicked when she arrived at 3 and we were already home. Fortunately for Consuelo, Tia Martha was worn out by the drive and was sound asleep. I told Consuelo not to worry.
After asking about Consuelo’s weekend, which seemed to be a surprise—no one ever asks—it turns out she has a boyfriend and he’s proposed. Well, not with the bent knee and diamond ring. He said she was going to have to decide between him and working every weekend. He was upset that she had not gotten last weekend off when Tia Martha did not go to Valle since they were waiting for me. He expects Consuelo to be free to be with him during the week-end! You mean working fifteen days in a row, from 7:30 in the morning until 10 at night is NOT okay? Consuelo, admittedly, does not get in at 6 am, but if Tia Martha got up earlier, or if I asked it of her, she would have to, and since there is no second maid, she has to be there whenever she is needed.
On the plus side, (wait, plus for who?) she does feel part of the family, and definitely feels needed. The maids get paid a modest salary of about 100 pesos a day ($12 dollars, I think, but I’ll have to double check that) then they also get room and board, pay no electric, water or gas, nor do they have to pay for daily transportation, which, if they live in the country- side can take two or more hours and cost 200 to 300 pesos.
On the negative side (or is it?), they give their life for their “patrones”(patrons) – literally. They become part of the family, and consider it their duty to be totally devoted and willing to sacrifice whatever it takes for their adopted family. Once Consuelo takes Tia Martha’s breakfast tray to her in bed—freshly cut-up fruit, toasted biscuits, dollop of jelly, four pats of butter, fresh coffee, newspaper on the side, and all her pills, then she can sit in the kitchen, on her wooden stool (with no back rest) and eat her breakfast. She does have a TV to watch and doesn’t have to start laundry or ironing or house-cleaning until Tia Martha has finished her breakfast. Then Tia Martha will give her the orders for the day – what will be fixed for lunch, who is coming, how many to set the table for, whether the chofer should be sent to the super market or whether the maid needs to run down to the corner store for bread or fruit. Afternoons are easy because everyone, except the maid, has a siesta, and then for the evening it is wines and high balls before a light supper at 9 and Consuelo is finally done about 10. So what’s the big deal? They accept it, right?
The big deal is that families in Mexico, at least the upper-class ones, MUST have maids, preferably two since otherwise, the family is left without a maid on weekends. One of the Gottfried daughters-in-law had been “given” her mother’s carefully trained maid when her mother died. For the next twenty years, this maid—Josefina—literally ran the house. She put things away where she thought they should go, found a place for everything, cleaned, neatened, straightened, bought the groceries, the household supplies, always had wine and liquor on hand for parties, could put a party together at a moment’s notice when told to do so by the Senora. She also –probably most importantly—handled the finances, paid the workers, the gardener, the chofer and provided accounts to the Senora. She was much more than a maid.
When the maid retired a year and a half ago, the d-i-l went into a tail spin. Now, her house is a wreck. She doesn’t know how to keep her own house, knows where nothing is, hasn’t a clue as to finances, or food or the costs of anything. She has been through three maids so far, none lasting more than a few months, and blames all the problems on the maid’s lack of training. Never mind that she should know what to do or that she should be capable of training her own maid. No one ever taught her! And who’s fault is that?
The problem is that the city girls have gotten used to 8 to 5 jobs with evenings and weekends off. They get paid better at business jobs, and they have the freedom to do as they please after work, but they have to pay for their own housing and food and transportation. It’s a trade-off. So, the only ones willing to work as maids are usually girls from the country who have no skills, other than essentials like housekeeping and basic cooking (and being kind and polite) but who want to live in the big city.
All the matrons, in particular the American wives who come to Mexico, are darned near willing to kill for a good, TRAINED, maid and the price can go sky high for a good cook! However, there are rules. Nobody EVER EVER EVER hires a trained maid away from someone else with bribery for more money. That’s a quick way to get black-balled in the American community and have yourself and even your husband ostracized! The only way a prized maid becomes available is when a family is transferred back to the United States or elsewhere and the maid is left jobless. Then it is usually a battle-royal over who gets her. Often it is the maid who chooses. They have an underground network of who are the best families to work for.
I found another problem this weekend. The newer generation, aware of the injustices (or maybe inadequacies?) of the system, have tried to be more open with their maids and allow them more freedom and require less subservience. So, this weekend when I was coming to visit, Jessica’s maid had been “busy” and had not showed up. The house was a wreck, no food in the refrig, and the baby’s partly washed clothing still floating in the bathtub . Why? Because the maid—who evidently does not see herself as a maid—had gotten insulted when Jessica reprimanded her for failing to wipe the day-old cream of wheat off the baby’s food tray on the high chair. Sounds like a pretty egregious failure to me! When I asked Jessica why she didn’t find another maid, she had a whole string of reasons. The woman had a key. The baby knew her. She was trustworthy about not leaving the house open. She usually cleaned well. And so on. So, the maid will stay and continue to be “sassy” and come when she feels like it. And you thought the book “The Help” was about the South in the 1950s???? Nope, alive and well in Mexico.
On Monday, I girded up my courage and went off to face the Archive of the Nation. The chofer had offered to take me since he said the walk from the Metro station to the Archive is, according to him, through a bad part of town. I remember that it was dangerous, from last time I was here, but Tia Martha needed him so I was on my own. I used a good map guide to find the Archive and figured out the metros—it takes two to get there. The area, since twenty years ago, was built up and not at all frightening. I wouldn’t want to try it at night, but during the daylight the neighborhood was plenty busy and relatively safe. It is also a good long hike from the Gottfrieds to the General Anaya stop, and then from the other end at San Lazaro to the Archive. I am definitely getting my walking in!
I was welcomed at the archive, figured out where to leave my bag with my lunch, got registered and found the indexes. The beautifully computerized searches made it easy to find what I needed. I wrote up my cards and walked across the great, echoing cavern of the central dome to Gallery 4, the Colonial files that are housed in the long, two-story cell block. Two dozen long tables, many of them supplied with computers, had marked stations and relatively comfortable plastic chairs. Most were taken up by several new young scholars, as well as several of the more well known historians.
To my unbounded surprise, I recognized one of the professors from University of Texas, Susan Deans-Smith and her husband (she had served on my dissertation committee). She finally remembered me after I smiled at said Good Morning and she asked at the desk. I don’t think she remembered that she had disapproved of some of my arguments in my dissertation. If she knew I was writing a OMG NOVEL, I fear she would be absolutely horrified. After all, I am here researching, as a proper historian should, so obviously I must be writing proper Non-fiction history.
I also met the famous Linda Arnold. She had been at Virginia Tech and has just retired. For the last 35 years, she has been coming to Mexico every summer working on indexing the archives. When I told her I was working on the Bourbon Reforms, she offered me dozens of indexes, lists, digital copies, and anything she thought might be relevant material. When I brought my computer in the next day, she happily down-loaded it all onto my computer. Once I get a chance to go through it, I know it will save me months of work here, since some of it is even digitized. I need to get a much larger memory for my baby Mini HP. I’m not sure if all those files are what has slowed down my computer but it certainly is loggy!
Blessed archives! It took me a day to get my eyes accustomed to reading the writing and staying awake. Thanks to Five Hour Energy (I tried some God Awful caffeine stuff that made me nauseous and sick as a dog, so much that I had to leave in the middle of the day) , I have read through several HUNDRED pages of reports from La Bahia Presidial Captain Tovar. He felt he had to include every detail of the daily life of the fort at La Bahia (hmmm! Sounds a little like me!). The details will help with the day-to-day problems faced by the soldiers in my book.
I also got to read the 1772 report shutting down the four North Texas missions and ordering all the settlers from the Texas capital of Los Adaes back to San Antonio. You KNOW that had to have been a horrific shock! I think I’ll make my hero Rodrigo the bearer of the bad news! Good story line! Got a lot done but more to get done next week. Of course there isn’t enough time to do it all. The benefit of writing a novel, I can read other people’s books and let them do the archival work.
And then there is the Metro. The automotive and bus traffic in Mexico, especially during rush hour, is nightmarish. Many people—at least those without chauffeurs or their own cars—turn to the Metro as an efficient and useable means of transportation. So did I. The cross-section of people is amazing, maybe a little like going to Walmart in the States, only the range of economic levels is much greater and the poverty worse.
There are definitely no well-to-do, none of whom would not be caught dead on a metro, but they are lighter-skinned which is an important part of making it up the ladder in Mexico. The level starts at the middle-classes, some in business suits, neatly dressed, combed and some of the young girls applying make-up as we rode. They are often reading everything from Jane Eyre to Shakespeare or mystery novels. Most have ear-buds firmly in place attached to I-pods and cell phones. Very much the up-and-coming next generation of business people, lawyers, accountants, and bureaucrats. They haven’t made it enough to own cars yet, and are saving by riding the metro.
The next level down are the waiters, carpenters, store clerks, and those who were unable to pass the increasingly rigid exams to get into the university. It is possible to work hard and make it out of the lower classes but it does take university training and they appreciate it. They are dressed in grubbier clothing, the young men with slicked back hair, and often cast-off American T-shirts and torn jeans. One brawny, dark skinned, young man was wearing a black, sleeveless Tank top that said “Jeremy’s Bar Mitzvah, June 2010.” I would bet big bucks he had never met Jeremy or even knew what a Bar Mitzvah was! The girls are often overly made-up, dyed blonde hair, trying to copy American styles—usually the very worst styles like the Kevorkian Sisters (oh, wait that’s the suicide guy), and wear very tight clothes and very high heels.
The bottom rung is the country people, who come in to buy or sell their goods which they carry in great big bundles or plastic bags. The young women often hold a babe wrapped in her rebozo, and dragging two more toddlers behind her. The old folks, whose faces look like wrinkled tea bags, are dressed in ragged clothes, the women in aprons and torn sweaters or rebozos, the men in stained and worn straw hats with mended cotton pants and wearing criss-crossed leather huaraches, their feet showing the grime of the farms from which they have come.
The Metro is cheap, efficient, fast, and –okay—crowded. I hiked down to the second station from our end (we live in the southern part of town, where the Metro ends), and found that the train was not as crowded as I expected. There are rarely seats, but when they are, the elderly women are usually given first choice—I have been offered seats on occasion, probably because I am a blonde gringa, certainly not because I look elderly, right?
We also get rather unusual entertainment, which, if I am correct, doesn’t usually happen on metros in other cities because it is against the law elsewhere. Here, anyone can do anything to make a buck. A blind musician got on with his boom-box in his backpack and a microphone for singing popular Mexican songs. Since his voice was rather pathetic, he didn’t garner much change from his audience. Next, an elderly man with a guitar serenaded us, then a young kid played ranch music with an accordion, and an almost constant procession of boom-boxes in back-packs powered by CD players whose owners switched from one track to the next in hopes of selling pirated CD’s from Queen, the Platters, and even classical music.
Then there were the sales people. They each had a sing-song melody to offer lighters, chiclets, sewing kits, nail clippers, wallets, plastic tape, folders, combs and brushes, raincoats (just as it started raining outside), and honey bee venom with eucalyptus and rattlesnake salve to cure all your ills (and I thought those were gone with the Wild West!) all for a very reasonable five or ten pesos. The books were particularly interesting. Scandalous exposes on one or another of the presidential candidates in the up-coming election (they vote July 1 and it really is completely undecided at this point). Also books on math, that the young man selling it had to read the lengthy description off the cheat-sheet on the back of the book since he obviously did not know what he was selling, another on Meditation and Yoga, and so on. There appears to be an honor code among them. If one entrepreneurial individual gets on the car at one end, the others go to the next car. Only one singing salesman per car.
The only really crowded part is where there are intersecting lines and then the crowds get horrible. It has gotten so bad that women are given a separate part of the platform where the young men cannot shove them onto the train—and sometimes “get a feel”! Luckily, I don’t have to get on or off at those points. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have a few problems.
Coming home one evening, I had gotten a seat and taken on the “thousand-yard stare” that people in big cities always adopt. You never look anyone in the eye, and you certainly don’t say Good Morning or smile at anyone. It was fairly crowded when I realized that a lower class, middle-aged man with a ball-cap, back-pack and particularly scruffy beige-yellow knubby weave corduroy sweat pants (which I got to see close up) was standing right in front of me. I tried to look elsewhere, but it was difficult since he was probably ten or twelve inches from my nose. To my horror he began “adjusting” himself, not completely obviously rubbing, but close enough. I did my best to ignore it. My bad luck, the seat next to me opened up and he sat down next to me. Fortunately we were close to my stop and I leaped up to get off. He followed me off the train and out onto the street. One thing good about growing up in Mexico City, we learn early what to do in emergencies. The big Novartis offices were next to the metro station and I immediately stopped and asked the guard at their gate if I could stay with him until the guy left. Graciously and heroically, the guard let me stay inside until the man was gone. Got home without further problem to the safety of the high brick walls and the security guard waiting for me inside.
Perhaps even more horrifying was watching one of the packed Metros stall and die, having lost power, no lights, no air conditioning, and the doors sealed shut. Surprisingly enough, no one panicked. Just groaned and waited. Sure enough the power was restored after a few minutes and off they went. Ah, the joys of big cities!
I’ll send more news tomorrow, now that I am back at the Archivo and can use their internet hook-up in the cafeteria, Hugs until tomorrow, C
Epistle 4
Wakey, wakey! Another epistle!
There is always some excitement and some fear in heading out into the boonies. I had prepared myself as best I could. I’d bought a Guia Roji book, which is the best road map on the market, located the town of Teziutlan where I was to change buses and the even smaller hamlet of Hueytamalco where Don Miguel Angel Bello lives. I had found out which bus line goes there, Atah. I knew how much the tickets were, 132 pesos, and that the buses left every hour on the hour. The maid had put together a sandwich for me and some crackers and I meant to buy some water before getting on the bus. Add some nail biting, some courage and some anticipation in equal proportions, and by nine in the morning I was off!
Hiked the mile or so to the Metro stop, then fought the crowds on the Metro out to the San Lorenzo bus station. I guess all Metros are crowded in any big city. Tia Martha and I saw a TV program on Djakarta where the trains are so crowded, that some of the more agile—and desperate—men and boys climb on TOP of the metro, in spite of barbed wire barriers to keep them from doing it. I didn’t face any barbed wire and made it, without hurrying , with three minutes to spare. Not enough time to buy a bottle of water which meant seven long dry hours on the bus. Lots of stops along the road to pick up and drop off passengers since this is the local bus (second class), and lots of sales people getting on the bus to sell tacos, sandwiches, snacks, chili peanuts, and pork rinds, but no drinks!
The country side, as we headed into the mountains that separate Mexico City from the east coast, is mostly corn fields with small, scattered hamlets each with its little church, plaza, and small homes, sometimes unfinished, concrete block buildings, no longer adobe, and brightly colored walls in pinks and blues and yellows. Maybe concrete is the one offering of the 19th and 20th centuries that has made the most impact on the world, especially in Mexico. Of course, we stopped for every Tom, Dick and Harriette (okay, Tomás, José, and Chucha) along the road, on and off, on and off, every ten or fifteen minutes, extending the drive by hours, I’m sure. Out here in the country, the people are obviously much more countrified—lots of rebozos, very Indian looking, rickety old ladies and ancient farmers, but some families with half-a-dozen kids in US styled T-shirts and jeans, and fairly well-dressed young people, neatly combed and made-up, going to work in nearby towns.
These buses are the lifelines of the people. They haul boxes and bags of produce aboard to carry to town, poles of sparkling toys and trinkets to sell in the cities, supermarket bags of groceries to carry home, but I did not see any squealing pigs or squawking chickens. My mother used to recount stories of pigs tied on top and the driver having to stop periodically so the owners could throw buckets of water on the pigs to keep them cool. You can imagine the filth that washed off the roof and down the (hopefully closed) windows! We are much more modern now—no pigs, no chickens! How do they move them now? Truck?
Started raining just as we got into Teziutlan high in the mountains. I was supposed to change to the smaller minibus at the proper bus station in town to get down to Hueytamalco down in the distant valley. Our big bus wasn’t allowed into the city of Teziutlan because they were fixing the roads—which need it desperately--so they offered to pay the way into town by taxi for anyone going into Teziutlan. I said I was going farther down the highway to Hueytamalco, and luckily, they were going that way too. Actually the bus was headed all the way to the coast at San Rafael on the Gulf of Mexico, which I would travel also but not until tomorrow. They saved themselves money, and me time, by dropping me off at the intersection on the main highway of the crossroad down into Huetamalco, another fifteen miles eastward up into the sierras.
Deep in the mountainous semi-tropical forests, with the rain coming down in buckets, the big bus pulled up at a small collection of two tiny restaurants, one on each side of the road, and four or five houses clinging to the side of a very steep mountain. I jumped out in the pouring rain, into water running down the steep hill four inches deep. Fortunately, I had bought one of those made-in-China raincoats from the sales lady on the Metro, and had struggled into it—about as thick as wearing cheap plastic wrap. Through the rain, the bus driver yelled at me that the minibus stopped ahead of him was going into Huey, so I ran through the gushing torrents of water and leaped on, without a ticket or seat. I found out later I could have easily have bought a ticket from the curb-side ticket vendor and waited fifteen minutes for the next mini going down the hill, but not knowing, I just barged ahead and got on. Accepting the inevitable of having a large Gringa grabbed hold of the bar at the front (the bus was so crowded that one other man was also standing), I paid the driver 5 pesos and the over-loaded fifteen passenger mini-bus headed down the mountain, with me flopping back and forth at every turn, my head close to the ceiling of the bus, trapped in the fumes and heat, ineffectually trying to brace myself against the curves.
We were definitely in the tropics. Tropical bright orange frangipani trees lined the road (they are also called Royal Poinciana in Florida), along with acres of banana trees with blue plastic bags already wrapping the growing banana stalks and spreading coffee plantations. If I hadn’t been getting seasick from the swinging back and forth snaking down the steep hills, I probably would have enjoyed it more. Evidently I wasn’t the only one having trouble with a hot, swaying, un-airconditioned, over-crowded bus. When the woman in the front seat started to vomit, I was sure the whole busload was going to follow suit, me included. At least she had a plastic bag. All I had was my raincoat. Just as she got going good, thankfully we pulled into the tiny plaza of Hueytamalco and I bailed off.
The rain had stopped and the plaza of Huetamalco was a beehive of activity. On one side was a bright white small church, a circular grandstand in the middle, and arches fronting the two-story colonial buildings ringing the other three sides, all brightly painted in pinks and peach. Small stands selling lunch (it was, after all, late afternoon) of tacos, meats, fruits, and chilis lined the edges of the covered porches in front of each of the buildings where dozens of dark-skinned locals shopped and ate and chatted. The local official must be running for office since there were dozens of workmen redoing the barrel tile roof on the grandstand and building more arches along the front of the government building. They even had one big front-end loaders and digging equipment. Most of it was the old-fashioned Mexican way, by pick and shovel and buckets of concrete carried on their shoulders. The current office holder is obviously desperate to get reelected and this is a good way to get reelected, no doubt!
When I asked for Miguel Angel Bello, I was immediately directed across the street. He owns the Ferreteria (Hardware) store on the plaza and has owned it for close to forty years, having inherited from his uncle. He is very well known. Don Miguel is a broad-shouldered, well set-up gentleman of medium height in his eighties with a full head of curly gray hair, a lined but cheerful face and still in obviously good shape from his years muleteering. (He had me feel his arm to prove it!) He was very pleased to have someone come all the way from Texas to meet him, and was more than willing to talk. With no hesitation, he launched into tale after tale of the history of the area. After some time chatting, he autographed one of his books for me while we discussed muleteering. From his answers I realized I needed to read his book before we went any farther, so I asked if I could meet him in the morning at 8 am, when he opened the store. He graciously agreed. In proper hospitable fashion, he then sent me off to the hotel with HIS chofer in a ramshackle 1970s pick-up truck which he proudly informed me was from Texas.
One of two hotels in town, the Don Manuel is a small, family-owned place of a dozen or so rooms, painted in brilliant golden yellow with rich royal blue around the windows and doors, bright red floor tiles and pots of pink and red geraniums along the second floor railings where my room was located. The colors in all these little towns are tremendously rich. Of course it has the requisite central patio but no fountain. There were places to eat down the street still serving food although most of the locals had already eaten. Numerous small store-front, mom-and-pop eateries (I wouldn’t go so far as to call them restaurants, although they proudly proclaimed they were on their canvas awnings over the street) lined the narrow cobble-stoned street. Food was “Comida Corrida” or the plate of the day. I finally chose one from the rich smells of cooking meat. First a tall bottle of lemonade, since I was parched. Unlike the people coming in to buy the standard fare (a tiny 3” tortilla with meat and sauce), I had tortillas (which the girl had to run around the corner to buy for me) with rice and beans, avocados (she had some left over from lunch) and meat cut off the tall standing stack of pork turning in front of gas flames.
The owner, an older, graying, slender gentleman was very curious about this gringa invader. When I asked, he was but was more than willing to tell me about his years running the restaurant. He seemed to think himself a would-be Romeo, but his large, portly wife, sitting at the front table watching her tele-novelas—was keeping a close eye on him. Evening was coming on so I strolled back up the hill to my room and spent the rest of the evening piled up in the cozy bed reading Don Miguel’s book Los Arrieros - The Muleteers. This is a small establishment, so there was no fancy bed-side lamp, no clock radio, no telephone, but there was a television with a remote. I received the remote with one towel at the front desk when I checked in. Only one light on the far wall, but sufficient to read by. My sleepy eyes didn’t last long.
Since Don Miguel, his father, his grandfather and many of his old friends were muleteers, my hero Rodrigo will have excellent inspiration for his heroic deeds and his amorous adventures. As Don Miguel said, muleteers treated their women like they treated their mules! Someone else said they treat their mules better than they treat their women. That sounded a little ominous, until he explained that each muleteer, when he adds a mule to his string, spends days feeding the mule treats of sugar cubes and fruit, and caressing and rubbing the animal until it becomes accustomed to him. Over the years, they become beloved companions. Don Miguel said men cried over losing a mule in a river or having to sell one or put it down. After all the loving and caressing, eventually, no one but the muleteer can get near the mule without getting kicked. Okay, Analisa will be in good hands with Rodrigo!
The next morning after waking up at 6 and reading until I finished his book at 8:20, I hiked back up into town to meet with Don Miguel. I forgot to mention that the town is set on a very steep hillside which I had not noticed when I was being chauffeured down the mountain in the pick-up truck. I certainly noticed it on the way up! I was panting and gasping by the time I got up the second long rise to the plaza. Very much like Costa Rica, the locals walk slowly and stolidly, pacing themselves for the climb. I had forgotten but I remembered quickly when my quivering knees gave out! Back at the Hardware store, Mr. Bello was already at work at 8 am and he wondered where I had been! Please! How American of him! This is Mexico, for heaven’s sake!
He invited me up to one of his two offices where the walls are covered with hundreds of dusty diplomas and awards. He started muleteering when he was nine and his father died when he was 12, so schooling was out of the question. He was sent to his grandfather’s where he continued muleteering then went to work with an uncle in his hardware store in here in Hueytamalco. Under the hardware store, which has been in existence for probably 100 years, there is still space (now used for storing supplies) for stabling up to 40 mules when they used to bring goods in that way. In proper country fashion, the store still carries everything from machetes and horse-shoes to batteries and cell phones. Don Miguel, who is very entrepreneurial and hard working, also owns a small ranch where he grows coffee (he gave me a bag of it) and lemon and lime trees whose produce he ships out of town to Puebla.
By the time he was in his fifties he determined to get an education. He finished his primary school when he was 55, a diploma which he proudly displays. Don Miguel went on to finish his schooling, through high school, college and up to a Master’s degree in Puebla, also diplomas which appear on the walls. Since his entire life was lived among the people and mountains of the area, he began collecting stories of the many small towns nearby. He determined to put them together, and with the help of others interested in the region including the governor of the state of Puebla (another certificate hanging on the wall covered in old, wrinkled, curling gold seals from the government), he published his first book in his sixties. Two others have followed and he is working on a fourth. He also admits to wishing he could add more to the muleteers book.
Because of his work saving the local folklore, Don Miguel has been named the Cronista – or Historian—for the town of Hueytamalco. He couldn’t stay to talk to me because he had a meeting of the local historians at 11 am. He is also a proud— and invited—member of the Cronistas of Puebla and Veracruz and even of Mexico. A well-deserved honor, without doubt. And he also writes well, simply and clearly and understandably! My kind of guy!
By nine thirty I had to hike back down to the hotel and pack to catch the 11 am VW minibus out of town. Now that I know the drill (as they say in Spanish “le agarré la onda”-I caught the wave) I got back up to the crossroads on the small minibus without incident. Thank goodness it was too early to be hot and stuffy and the tiny bus wasn’t crowded. Once up at the crossing, I asked the young man selling tickets—he runs back and forth across the road to accommodate the riders on both sides—when the TRV bus would be through. He assured me it would be through in fifteen minutes. An hour and a half later, it wasn’t.
I had found refuge inside a small derelict two-sided concrete structure, about ten feet by ten feet, having only two half walls and a roof (the waiting room), and found a seat on a half log propped at a slant on some chunks of rocks (the seating area). The two log “seats” were worn so smooth from years of wear they might as well have been polished oak. They were only about five feet long and wobbly from the unstable stack of rocks at either end. I shared my bench with a young woman with a baby in a rebozo (no problem covering up to breast feed) and a while later with an elderly farming couple, and still later with a family of chattering kids. They got on the frequent buses coming by, but for me, no bus.
It seems the country is divided up into zones and different bus companies handle different areas. ADO handles the East Coast but not Veracruz, TRV handles from Puebla south to Veracruz overlapping with ADO at Martinez de la Torre, a town farther north, to transfer passengers. So, I could either go back to Jalapa transferring in Teziutlan, or continue on the ADO and go north. Since the buses weren’t going into the city, I had no choice but to head north, away from Veracruz. Finally, after following our progress on my book of maps (most of the passengers looked at as if it were some kind of strange magical tome), we reached Martinez de la Torre and a proper bus station with a real waiting room and seats! I had just enough time to get a ticket on the TRV for Veracruz and jump aboard. For breakfast I had bought yogurt, a banana, some crackers, and I made sure I had a bottle of water. I had bought enough to repeat the meal for lunch, but –of course—in the hurry of changing buses, I left my goody bag on the bus and was without water again! Ah, but the blessings of the milk run, a young girl got on selling packaged sandwiches (good until July, as my seat-mate noted), and a can of Delaware Punch. Sustenance, anyway.
We reached the coast and turned south to Veracruz. Out of the mountains, we were driving across plains covered with banana plantations and lemon groves, and more magnificent bright orange frangipani. What a stunning show it would be if frangipani would grow in the same places the beautiful blue-violet jacaranda grow. They both bloom at the same time in May and June, brilliant orange and lovely blue, but one grows in the highlands, like Mexico City, and the other in the tropics like here. At least we did get to enjoy glimpsed vistas of the ocean and beach-side resorts with thatched-hut cabanas on the beach. Okay, maybe the term cabana is a little grandiose for the rickety five-foot tall palm trunk buried upright in the sand, and used for the central support for old, brown, worn-out palm fronds tied onto a wooden frame of about ten feet across. Still it looked tempting after six more hours on the bus.
By this time I was chatting with my seat companions since the bus was plenty crowded and I had to share my seat. One was a farmer who told me about his fields of lime trees and his crops of corn. Another was an oil field operator who had worked on the oil rigs in the area. He had retired and was living on a small farm he had bought. We discussed politics, only he wouldn’t say who he was going to vote for. For the first time in generations, there may actually be a nail-biter of a race. No one knows who is going to steal the election this time.
Much of the money is on the PRI because of their wealth, but it is a wide-open field. There is “El Guapo” –the good-looking Peña Nieto who represents the PRI. That party, more right-wing and dictatorial, held power for sixty years up until the last two presidents, and now plays up its affiliation with the Green Party and down-plays its legacy of corruption and crime-bosses. Then there is “El Viejo” the old guy – AMLO – Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for the PRD or left-wing party. He served as governor of the State of Mexico, all around Mexico City, and can claim to have cleaned up the corruption—to some extent anyway. Then there is “La Dama” or Josefina something-or-other—she doesn’t use her last name much at all—who represents the militant right-wing PAN party, the party currently in power. For the last twelve years (they serve 6 year terms, and cannot be reelected), the last two presidential elections, this party was able to strip the presidency and the power from the PRI. Unfortunately, they have done little better than the PRI, except for giving their own party people a chance to profit from government jobs. The vote is July 1st and everyone is shrugging their shoulders, knowing that whoever wins, their lives won’t be much better. Mexico is nothing if not acquiescent.
Once at Veracruz, I used my new Mexican Nokia cell phone that I bought at the Metro (20 bucks), to call Jessica, Tia Martha’s grand-daughter. Jessica is a beautiful, cheerful, very amenable young woman of about 32 or 34. She picked me up at the bus station and took me to their delightful, modest little two-story house in a near-by subdivision. She has danced all her life has turned her passion into a successful Master’s Thesis in Ethnomusicology. She writes about the Fandangos of the areas of Veracruz and plays a Jarana guitar which she actually built herself! I had seen a painting called The Fandango by a German Theodor Gentilz who came to San Antonio, Texas in the 1830s or 1840s which I don’t think was actually a Fandango.
The Fandango of Veracruz and a number of other areas (Jessica actually went to Brazil and found a similar dance), is actually a “zapateado” or a dance done only with the feet, much like the Irish do, and not like the arm-waving, body-stressing Flamenco. The feet carry the rhythm while guitars – like her Jarana—and violins carry the melody. Using a wooden floor to provide the percussion sounds, usually only one couple dances at a time, or sometimes a group of women start the dance. They follow a strictly ordered regimen based on age, place in the community, and part in the particular ceremony, whether marriage, baptism, etc. Like the Irish folk dancing, it is car
Jessica has finally found a very nice marriage partner in Mario Toto, also an academic. He is a Sociologist who has done his dissertation at a university in Paris, some eight years ago. His topic was a study of Identity among Mexican Americans in the United States (a Mexican, in Paris?). He spent three years interviewing young Hispanics in Los Angeles, Chicago and some other U.S. city and looked at how they have adjusted or adapted to their position in the U.S. After years of work, he has completed a 1000 page dissertation in French that his professor wants him to cut to 400 pages—an agonizing effort he is dreading. So he is stuck in the ABD stage. He hasn’t published anything in English, although I hope he will soon. The French universities don’t permit the publication of any articles until the dissertation is completed. Mario, a dedicated idealist, is now teaching reading and writing to about 100 native students scattered around the country in three small Indian towns out in the boonies to which he drives each week. He also teaches one class at school here in Veracruz, so he is a busy boy! Of course, no time for the rewriting the diss.
Mario and Jessica have just been blessed with a baby boy, Mateo. They are the happiest of parents. He is sweet, happy, and rarely cries, thank goodness. Jessica hopes for a second baby soon and then plans to go on for a doctorate. She will make an excellent university professor some day, I’m sure, but she is worried about not getting it done now. I told her to take it easy! She can wait until the kids are in school and then her age and position in the world of Ethnomusicology will get a lot more prestige, respect and deference, which she says she doesn’t get now since she isn’t from Mexico City’s huge UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico). She has already published one book, and by then should have several more in print. As academics in Mexico, they can pretty well expect to live in straightened circumstances for the rest of their lives. Some things never change, here or there.
Since both of them are idealists, they are struggling with the concept of subservient servants. I mentioned the maid getting sassy with Jessica and instead of firing her, Jessica has put up with her. Since there was no maid, we had to make do for breakfast. Nothing in the fridge but coffee, and fortunately for me, tea. Someone had given them an entire “racimo” (the entire stalk) of bananas so when the huge bunch of bananas moved quickly toward rotting, they mixed them all up into banana nut bread which they froze in muffin tins. That is what we had for breakfast until Mario went out for quesadillas – folded fried tortillas with cheese.
Living in Mexico requires a certain sense of class and acceptance of status and position within the society which is difficult for idealists to adopt. Jessica has sort of found a solution by inviting a young dance/Fandango student to come stay with her and help take care of the baby. The girl is NOT a maid although she does baby-sit in exchange for room and board, so now there are three people who don’t clean house and sit at the table expecting to be fed. Fortunately, Mario lived on his own in Paris and the US long enough to know how to fix food in the kitchen. Jessica’s mother Wendy, who is wealthy, thank goodness, has recently paid to have the kitchen renovated into a really lovely, modern kitchen. Now they just need to learn to clean house and use the kitchen. The joys of the idealist in the modern world!
There was a direct (thank you Lord!) bus to Mexico City at 3:30pm, so in the meantime, they drove me around Veracruz. It is very touristed, and the port itself is the busiest in Mexico with ships coming in from China and the whole world. Got to see the ancient stone fort of San Juan de Ulua or Ulloa where Americans were kept after the Texas Revolution. It looks small from across the bay but only from a distance although it would have been fun to tour it. Someday. Long trip back to Mexico, rain and fog and mist in the mountains, seven jammed up toll plazas, where entrepreneurial salesmen took advantage of stalled traffic to sell us the local snacks of some kind of seed pod—maybe almonds? I took advantage of the time typing away, and the computer lasted for six whole hours before finally dying a sudden and –thank goodness—expected death. It was dark coming into the city and we had to stand in a long, long line to buy tickets for the secure taxi, and then the even longer line waiting for the taxis to return. Got in at 11 at night, dark, but still no dangers. Security guard inside the gates of the house! Ugh, do I have to go to the Archive tomorrow? Hugs.
Epistle 5 And it’s done!
Back from the hinterlands, and one last chance at the Archives, one last chance to visit the book stores downtown, one last chance to be mauled, harassed, abused and pushed around on the Metro, one last chance at finding sources for my novel.
The Archive is such a delightful place, with so much wonderful material, but it would be easy to spend years here, as Linda Arnold has done. There are volumes and volumes about La Bahia and the Interior Provinces. One of the last documents I got to see was the Regulations of 1772, shutting down four of the Texas missions and relocating the capital to San Antonio from far East Texas at Los Adaes. You know those people had to be cussing a blue streak at being forced to give up their lands, homes, town and livelihood. At San Antonio they were not welcomed and there was little good land available for them. Not surprising they moved back as soon as they could, even without government permission.
Kissed the Archive goodbye—until next time—and went off to Calle Donceles, the street where most of the book sellers are. It was a Spanish, and Aztec custom as well, to keep all of the producers of any one particular good in the same area. So, booksellers are mostly here near the Center of town, and then another group of them have cropped up down on Quevedo, near Tia Martha’s.
I was amazed, as I asked for books on the 18th century and José de Gálvez, that very few of these people had ever heard of Gálvez. As King Charles III’s Visitor General, he inspected all, and I mean ALL of the presidios, missions and towns throughout New Spain. In a time when there were few passable roads and almost no coach roads, and certainly not in Texas, he traveled from Mexico City clear to Louisiana, and then across the deserts of the north all the way to California and back down. It was his suggestions that resulted in closing down the missions in Texas, moving the capital, and irritating everyone on the northern frontier.
He must have been an amazing man. Without troops or regiments to back him up, he removed all of the local-born Criollos from government offices, and replaced them with trustworthy Spaniards brought from Spain (hence my novel uses Luis Cazorla as one of those), maintaining that they were more loyal to their local area than they were to the King. He restructured the governments of the northern states, creating Interior Provinces and placing his own people in control. He also closed down tobacco sales, and set up government stores where the King could sell the tobacco and keep the revenue for the crown. Anyone who had sold tobacco was out of luck.
In addition, he booted out the Jesuits, literally over night. Can you imagine the chaos of having all the schools closed down—most schools were taught by Jesuits—and losing friends and relatives as they were forced to pack up and leave and return to Italy within one week? I definitely need to read more on that. I even found a letter in which Gálvez is asked to settle a dispute between two government officials and make them behave. And the bookstore people had nothing on him and knew very little other than his name. I think my first novel should focus on the 1760s and the changes instituted by Gálvez, as Rodrigo, my muleteer, maybe, carries goods for Gálvez in his travels.
I scoured the bookstores and came home with about a dozen books, many on the Jesuits, but none on tobacco, or Gálvez himself. Each bookstore has a completely different selection. The ones on Donceles are used books, while the bookstores on Quevedo are usually from one press or another. Since I am going to be reading over 100 books in Spanish, I invested in the best Spanish dictionary available, which gives all the background of each word. I already have a good Spanish-English dictionary. I finally staggered home under the load and knew I would have to mail these books home as I did those from Spain.
I don’t want the postal workers to get upset so I got six small boxes from the box store. I packed up the books and wrapped them in good tough paper, and covered them in tape. That wasn’t enough. The post office insisted on adding string to tie them up so the books will not fall out if the paper or cardboard gives way. Sixty-two books are bundled, boxed and wrapped, and on their way back to Texas. These six boxes didn’t cost me quite as much as the books themselves did, or shipping the books from Spain, but it was an investment. I am coming close to having one of the best collections of works on 18th century in Mexico or Texas. I’ll have to donate them to the University of Texas Benson Latin American collection when I get done.
I am sad to leave. Tia Martha and I enjoyed each others company, chatting during lunch and siestas when I wasn’t at the Archive, sipping wines and highballs of an evening, and sharing suppers of a bowl of fruit. Maybe I will be able to make it back down soon. I think I have the courage now to fly down to Monterrey and take the bus to Burgos and Cruillas. That is the route I had planned for Rodrigo and Analisa and their mule train to the coast to send her off to Spain. Also Rodrigo’s family ranch is in Burgos, so I need to go see one. If I don’t go see the area, I won’t know if what I write about it is accurate. It can’t be much more dangerous than going to Teziutlán and Hueytamalco. I’m experienced now!
The chofer is taking me to the airport. We stopped at Sanborn’s for a nice breakfast. After I recounted my adventures on the road, he told me of his mother’s grandfather who had also been a farmer during the Revolution of 1910. He had seventeen women/wives and their children, all at pretty much the same time. He gave them each land he had acquired during the revolution, made sure each had a Caporal or Mayordomo to care for their ranches, and visited each periodically. No one had known about the various families until his funeral at 105 when everyone, all 17 women and more than 100 offspring, showed up with bands and flowers to honor their father!
The chofer worked for seventeen years for a Vice President of the Bank of Mexico driving his car. He had to carry a gun, and they had two other armed escorts in the car with the boss, plus a car that followed them with more armed escorts. The car was one of the armor plated Suburbans that was so heavy that they had to buy new tires every five or six months, and bought gas on a daily basis. He said he was approached by some of the Narc mobsters offering him millions to tell them where his boss was going to be so they could kidnap him. He said he felt like a “gato espantado” a scared cat with its hair standing on end all the time. When he married, he moved his family way, way out in the country to keep them safe, and finally decided to find an easier job. The one with Tia Martha consists of bringing her doctor to the house, getting the oxygen bottles filled and hauling Tita and Tia Martha around when they need it. Cushy job, and he gets to stay home evening and weekends with his family. For some of the “staff” life isn’t so bad after all.
Time to go. The rain has cleaned the air and, if it were not for low hanging clouds, we could actually see the magnificent snow-capped volcanoes of Popo and Ixta as we leave the city.
Hugs, Abrazos and Adios from sunny Mexico.
