Mexican Rain

Flooding in San Miguel

Originally uploaded by Pat and Amy’s pics

We’ve experienced incredibly good weather in San Miguel, but the last few days were an exception. Four nights ago it started raining so hard and so suddenly that Amy thought someone was moving heavy furniture upstairs. The rain hasn’t been quite that heavy since, but it’s been steady, and the rainfall statistics are kind of amazing. There have been reports of 3.4 inches of rain in one location, and even 8.5 inches of rain in a different neighborhood, in just the last few days. The huge variations, according to one source, are due to the location of San Miguel near some mountains and hills, which creates some unique and sometimes unpredictable weather patterns, but the whole area is getting drenched. This amount of rain is all the more remarkable when you consider that the average rainfall in San Miguel de Allende for January is .38 inches, February is .18 inches, and the annual precipitation is 21.4 inches. These statistics are taken from a variety of sources, and they may not all be completely accurate, but this gives a sense of how odd this rainfall is. People who have lived here for many years say this is more rain than they’ve ever seen, even during the rainy season.

The rainy season comes during summer here, so for this time of year, even a couple of days of rain is said to be unusual. It’s nearly impossible to stay dry right now, at least for anyone like us without a car. A couple of days ago we went out for lunch and while our Columbia jackets kept our top halves dry, our pants were soaked by the time we got back. It’s bad enough to have the rain fall directly on us, but there are no downspouts in San Miguel so all the water is shunted away from the roofs of the buildings by these pipes that stick out about two feet from the walls. If it’s a strong rain, the water shoots out into the street, but anything less and the water just drops right into the middle of the narrow sidewalk. There is about one spout every ten feet, so you can imagine how hard it is to avoid getting dripped on even when on the sidewalk. Also, almost all of San Miguel has cobblestone streets and stone sidewalks, and some of it becomes very slick when it’s wet. Without a car, and with these horrible conditions, we’ve had to stay indoors almost all day, every day.

So this bad weather had made us feel pretty sorry for ourselves, trapped here, out of the rain and wind, with a heater blowing nice hot air on us, because the rain made it difficult for us to get out and enjoy the restaurants or go to a drawing session. Then we went to breakfast with a few people this morning, and we heard about what the poor people out in the rancho (or small community) of San Miguel Viejo are dealing with. If they’re lucky, they have the most basic of housing; we know of one family with six children that had nothing until some people towed an old van out to give the family at least some shelter a couple of weeks ago. The floors in most of the houses are dirt, so in this weather, they become mud, and because many of the villagers heat their homes just by starting a fire on the floor, they can’t even do that in these conditions. If they’re fortunate enough, they may have a stove, but even if they do most people still can’t start a fire because they gather wood in the area and it’s all completely saturated. The few clothes they own are now soaked, and they have no way to dry them without a stove, nor can they cook.

So, if you have a home, or heat, or dry clothes, or something to eat, be thankful for what you have. I read a letter in an advice column a few weeks ago. In it, the writer explained that when she had something unpleasant that she HAD to do, she would try to change her thinking. She would tell herself, “I GET to clean the toilet, because I have plumbing, and running water. I GET to wash the dishes, because I have food to eat.” Reminding herself of what she had made the chores a bit easier to get through. It’s not a bad approach to looking at things.

 

Déjà vu all over again

We’ve already talked a little about how often we run into people we know here in San Miguel, but I have to write just a bit more about this phenomena.  We’ve been back two weeks, and we just keep running into people we know, and the pace of these random meetings is just getting faster and faster.  There are three people I met for the first time Wednesday but have run into three times since.  That’s right, including Wednesday I’ve seen these people four out of the last five days, and none of them were planned meetings.

It began on Wednesday when Amy and I went for the first time out to San Miguel Viejo, a small rancho (community) on the outskirts of town.  We were there to volunteer for Elsmarie, a lovely woman who moved out there and has begun an afterschool arts program for kids.  The program, called Ojalá (God willing), attracts as many as 70 kids each week.  We weren’t the only new volunteers that day, and we met more than a dozen people that day, including our three new friends.

Yesterday we bumped into them at an annual chili cookoff, which was a great event, and between visits to the chilli booths we talked with nine people we’d met before – there were at least 8 of us from this last Wednesday at Ojalá alone.  We also were introduced to or chatted with three new people, and saw but didn’t have a chance to talk to several other people we knew by name.

It’s actually an odd event now to go out and not run into someone we know.

 

American Paranoia

We got back to San Miguel on Monday and called home to tell our families we had arrived safely, although I’m not sure that safe is the word they’d use.  It’s clear to us that there are many, many people back in the United States who think of Mexico as simply a place to get swine flu or be murdered by a drug cartel.  In Spanish class today, our teacher mentioned that in the many months he’s been here he’s had one visitor from the United States, his mother.  Most of the class had had no one visit them, despite having been in Mexico for many months or even years.  A classmate who has lived here for 13 years said everyone in the U.S. thinks we’re all crazy for being down here, and the whole class agreed – not with the idea that we’re crazy but with the certainty that Americans back home think we are.

Americans have a strong streak of paranoia, and we couldn’t help but notice it when we were back home.  Amy and I were relaxing at the coast, watching TV, when a Brinks Security commercial came on showing a man breaking into a home, prompting the woman and young daughter to hit an alarm and call the security company.  Next came a commercial showing the risks of identity theft and the difficulty of protecting yourself without buying an expensive service.  Finally, there was a commercial describing the dangers pets face from ticks and other bugs.  Our lives, identities, and even our dogs are in peril!

We haven’t watched that much television in other countries but we did see enough to know this kind of “Oh my God, we’re in terrible danger” paranoia seems strongest in the U.S.  Unfortunately, this attitude spills over into public policy, so now America can’t possibly extend American legal rights to those arrested as terrorists (even when the government admits some have no ties to terrorism), or even keep them in a prison on American soil but must house them overseas and torture them to try to get information.

It used to be that Americans would have opposed such measures but our fear has trumped our commitment to American civil liberties.  Some columnists on both the left and the right have recently pointed out how un-American our current attitude toward security versus freedoms is.  The columnists point out the Founding Fathers adopted a Bill of Rights that protected citizens against unlawful search and seizure, for example, knowing full well this was a choice of freedom over security.  But they did it anyway.

I suggest to other Americans that the world isn’t as scary as it’s made out to be and it’s a fun place to see.  You should try it some time.

 

Culture Shock

Change is hard.  On the American Airlines plane from Mexico City, I heard the flight attendant speaking English in what was clearly an American accent, but I couldn’t help but speak to her in Spanish at first.  We transferred planes in Dallas, and as I approached the clerk at one of the convenience stores I started to think about what I needed to say, again, in Spanish.   When I went into the restroom I saw a man rinsing his mouth with tap water.  I had a little panic attack for the man before I remembered it was safe to do that there.

We also find ourselves looking for opportunities to break larger bills (twenties) and wanting to hoard small bills and change.  This is because in San Miguel, like many other places we’ve been, money is given out by the banks in bills too large to use at most businesses we frequent.  When we do go to a larger business or a nicer restaurant, we are thrilled at the opportunity to break a 100 peso (about $8) or 200 peso bill (about $16) and get smaller change.  It took a couple of purchases here in the States for it to sink in that we could break a twenty almost anywhere, and we could use the small bills whenever we wanted.

Amy experienced moments of transition on our trip up and during these first few days, too, but the biggest shift in thinking for her has been in the car.  In San Miguel, we’re in a motorized vehicle only about every 5 days, and usually that’s a bus, so Amy is still in the mode of thinking we should be on the left side of the road from her days driving in Ireland (she hasn’t driven since we left there months ago).  A couple of times while I’ve been driving here in Oregon, Amy has commented, “I really should not drive here – I keep thinking you should turn in to the left lane.”  Since I almost never drove in Ireland, my brain wasn’t rewired quite so much, but I do admit to being much more aware and cautious as I drive, since I’m afraid I’m going to mess up, having driven only a handful of times over the last two years.

The biggest surprise for us, though, is how we’re NOT reacting to being home.  Person after person told us before we left Mexico that we were in for a real culture shock when we got home, and more than one person has warned us that the sheer variety in the stores can be overwhelming to see.  Our friend Ivy told of returning to America after a year away and walking into a big store for the first time.  She began speaking to the jars of spaghetti sauce:  “There are so many of you.  Why are you all here?”  She couldn’t even buy anything on that first trip to the store.

So, when Amy and I went to the Fred Meyer, I told her I was going to go commune with the spaghetti sauce, but I didn’t start speaking to it.  Everything here has seemed so normal, so natural, that we haven’t experienced the culture shock at all, at least not yet.  We have a theory or two on why that is.  First, so many people warned us about it that we really thought a lot about what it would feel like to come back home.  Second, we’ve been to around 20 countries in the last two years, so we have gotten used to experiencing new cultures.

 

Thoughts on the Re-Entry into America

On 17 December 2007, Pat and I boarded a plane and flew to Ireland. Prior to this my international travel experience consisted of 3 days in Canada and a week in Cancun. This Monday, 14 December 2009, will mark the first time Pat and I have been back home since then. I’ve been thinking (maybe perseverating?) lately on what I am looking forward to and what I am going to miss. Some of them are pretty obvious, and some would never have occurred to me two years ago.

Looking forward to:

Seeing family and friends

Sitting on a comfortable couch while watching television

1% Milk

Listening to NPR while in the car

French Vanilla creamer in my coffee

A long HOT shower.  They have been rather infrequent for the past two months.

Drinking a Mike’s Hard Lime while playing Boggle/Scrabble/Quiddler with Pat and my sister-in-law Nora

Buying new clothes and binning the nasty stinky hiking boots I’ve been wearing since June

Artery clogging buttered popcorn at the cinema

Going for a hike in McDonald Forest

Going to miss:

Crossing the street regardless of what the crosswalk signal says

Mom and Pop stores on every corner

Colorful houses

Tiny cars

Driving on the left side of the road.  I finally retrained my brain for driving in Ireland, and now I will have to reprogram it . . . while driving someone else’s car.  Hmmmmm, is this wise?

Street food and agua fresca

Opportunities to speak Spanish

Swearing.  Ireland taught me well.  I really must try to clean up my language before I see my nieces and nephews.

The pleasure of meeting other travellers and sharing common experiences

The overwhelming friendliness and kindness we have encountered in San Miguel.  It is like no other place in the world in that regard.

 

Small Business

Ice Cream vendor in San Miguel de Allende

Originally uploaded by Pat and Amy’s pics

Many Americans tend to think of the U.S. as the place for small business people, but I suspect there are more small business people per capita in many of the countries we’ve visited than back home. Amy and I recently walked around our neighbourhood counting small family stores (think of a 7-11, but about 1/3 to ½ the size) selling pop, chips, and a few other things. Within a three block radius we counted 19 of these businesses. We may have missed one or two, and we weren’t counting all the other small businesses, like papelerias (paper and school supply stores), auto shops, small clothing stores, and many others. And this is a residential neighbourhood, as much as that means anything in a country where there isn’t any zoning, as far as I can tell.

There is the Mercado de Artesanias (three blocks long) where artisans sell jewellery, small crafts, tinwork, and so on. The shops vary in size, from about 8 foot square, to maybe twice that size. There are quite a few more carts on the streets here, too, selling ice cream, tacos, chips, you name it. Vendors may walk through neighbourhoods pushing a bike with a grinder on it for sharpening knives or carrying foods like jicama, corn, or tortillas to sell. They call out what they’re selling or, depending on their craft, they may have a particular whistle, horn, or recorded jingle that announces their presence.

People often don’t have many employment options even in places like San Miguel, which is fairly prosperous. In a city like Corvallis there are still large employers like Oregon State University and Hewlett-Packard, a few mid-size employers, and lots of small businesses that employ at least a few people. Most people in the States will never work for themselves or start a business, although with the recession I know more Americans have had to get creative in finding ways to support themselves and their families. Because the costs of starting and running a business are so much greater in America, though, a person normally has to really want to be an entrepreneur; here a person needs to be an entrepreneur just to survive.

 

Thanksgiving in Mexico

Thanksgiving in Mexico

Originally uploaded by Pat and Amy’s pics

Yesterday marked the first time we’ve had to worry about getting typhoid from our Thanksgiving dinner, but with any luck, it won’t be the last.

We had been invited to Thanksgiving dinner by a lovely retired artist, but sadly her mother’s health has declined so she had to cancel. We found out Monday, and there was plenty of time to make other plans. Because of the huge number of Americans living in San Miguel de Allende, many restaurants were offering a full Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and the works, so we knew we had options. Unfortunately, we didn’t make a decision on Tuesday and only started considering the possibilities on Wednesday, when it turned out to be too late to make reservations at some of the restaurants.

No worries, we decided we would just fix our own Thanksgiving dinner. I love to cook, and our very first Thanksgiving together was spent by ourselves, cooking our own meal, so this would just be like old times. Besides, we’re used to spending holidays on our own, having spent last Christmas in Egypt. I scouted the stores, trying to decide on an appropriate menu that could be prepared in our somewhat limited kitchen. We decided on a menu of beer-butt chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade dressing, fresh baked bread from a local bakery, carrots, corn, apple sauce, fruit salad and dessert. We felt like this was a pretty good approximation of a Thanksgiving meal, considering what was on offer in town. The closest we could get to dill pickles, for example, was dill relish, so we would have to make do.

At ten o’clock Thanksgiving morning our power went out. We assumed it would be back on shortly but hour after hour passed with no change. I didn’t want to buy a chicken that may have been sitting out with no refrigeration for hours (this is done regularly at some places already even when there is power) which made me nervous the longer the power outage lasted. It turned out the power outage was limited to our neighbourhood, so we knew we could find properly cooled chicken when the time came. The apartment has a gas oven, so we could cook, but if we didn’t have lights we’d never be able to finish cooking once the sun went down.

It was a waiting game, and we lost. Because the power wasn’t back on until around six, we had no chicken, and no time to buy, prepare, and cook one. So, off we went to our favourite taqueria (in this case, a street vendor selling tacos) and feasted on gringas de pastor, which is like a quesadilla. I don’t really think there’s a risk of getting typhoid from places like this, but one of Amy’s friends said we were chancing it if we ate street food in Mexico. We’ve eaten at taquerias a dozen times with no ill effects, but I have to admit they don’t quite follow procedures that would stand up to the scrutiny of a county health inspector.

So, while it wasn’t exactly traditional, it was great food in a great city, and for that we were thankful. Besides, we simply pushed back making the full meal until tonight, and we did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself.

 

Life in San Miguel de Allende II

Pat and I have been talking about how much we are enjoying our time in San Miguel de Allende, but rather than just continuing to talk about the place I thought I would show you what one of our days is like.  Below is a photo essay on how we spent Pat’s 40th birthday.

We are house-sitting for a friend here in San Miguel and looking after her dogs, Mario and Jake.

Pat went out this morning to get a bottle of coke, and encountered a fiesta down at the end of our street at the nearby catholic church.  There seemed to be a battle of the bands going on.  In front of the church, young men and women dressed in native Indian costumes were dancing to a pounding drum beat…

…while at the same time, directly across the street about 20 feet away a band with trombones, french horns, clarinets , a tuba and drums played Mexican music.  Both groups seemed to be intentionally playing as loudly as they could in friendly competition.

While we were watching the festivities, our friends Eli and Joseph called and invited us to a birthday breakfast for Pat at Posada Corazon.

Pat's 40th birthday

We walked back home through the Jardín, where a Mexican Artisan Market is happening until 29^th November.  They are selling tapestries, hand painted wall-hangings, and mirrors like this one.

Things really picked up at the fiesta this evening with a live band, people dancing in the streets, and a small carnival with rides for the little kiddies.

Crowds at the fiesta

Carnival rides

This may seem like a unique and special day (and it was because it was Pat’s birthday), but we have stumbled across several parades and fiestas, and we bump into new friends and go to social events several times weekly.  This is just the way things are here in San Miguel.

 

Life in San Miguel de Allende

San Miguel de Allende

Originally uploaded by Pat and Amy’s pics

It’s been harder to keep up writing blog postings because things are so busy for us right now. We left Guadalajara to come to San Miguel de Allende, where we are spending fall term, and we’ve never been more active. San Miguel has about 70,000 residents, of which about 12,000 are ex-pats, mostly Americans, and the ex-pat community is really a community. We’ve been here less than three weeks and I think I know more people by name here than I did after living in Cork for 18 months. There’s always something happening, and we often run into people we know as we walk about town. Just this afternoon, Amy ran into Chip and Deborah, a couple from Texas we met shortly after we arrived, and today marked the fourth time she’s seen them since (I’ve seen them three times).

Let me use this week as an example of just how busy it gets here. The local paper has an insert with a calendar of events for the week, and after looking at this week’s issue, which came out Friday, Amy commented that there wasn’t much to do. So, Saturday Amy went to Zumba (an exercise/dance class) in Parque Juarez. Sunday we went for drinks at a retired artist’s house. Today I graded papers in the morning and afternoon, while Amy went to her photography class. We met to go to a movie made here in San Miguel, and tonight we are seeing an photography exhibit from the teachers for the Sante Fe Workshop, which runs classes here.

Tomorrow and the rest of the week, I’ll grade papers while Amy will continue to take her photography lessons. Tomorrow we have a dance lesson (which we bought at a silent-auction fundraiser a week ago) and tomorrow night I’ll go to a life-drawing session while Amy will attend a language exchange program at the library. Wednesday we have salsa lessons in the evening, and Thursday we’ll both go to the language exchange. Friday we have our Spanish lessons. And this will have been a slow week.

Really, we promise to do better and write more, if we can just find the time.

 

We Bid Goodbye to Europe

Agua Azul vendor

Originally uploaded by Pat and Amy’s pics

We bid goodbye to Europe (for now) and headed to Mexico. That we’re in Mexico might come as a surprise to some, since we had been talking for a year about returning to southern Spain to live in the village of Ojen for fall term. Unfortunately, in July, we heard about the Schengen Agreement. The treaty covers most of Europe and requires all signatories to drop their border restrictions within the treaty area, but beef up their border checks with any countries not in the Schengen area. It means that you can get on a train in one country and travel through several others without once showing your passport. But instead of having 90 days in each country (this seems to be the most common time limit for travel without a work or student visa) travellers have 90 days (out of any six month period) in the whole area.

We had spent too much time in the Schengen zone to stay there this fall, so we considered our possibilities. Should we head to Africa? Maybe the Balkans, which isn’t yet in the Schengen zone? Do we take the Siberian Express to Asia and spend a term in Thailand? In the end, Mexico seemed like a good choice because it would let us continue to work on our Spanish while seeing someplace new, and we’d just be that much closer to the States when we head home for the holidays.

We wanted to end up in Guanajuato, so we checked flights to Mexico City (about 4 hours away by bus) and on to Leon/Guanajuato airport but there was always a problem with the arrival time, the layover, the price, or something. We then noticed Guadalajara was just as close to Guanajuato as Mexico City, the prices were just a little better, and the arrival times not too bad. So, after about 20 minutes consideration we bought ticket to Guadalajara, Mexico.

We knew almost nothing about Guadalajara until we got there. It has a population of over a million people, and it turned out to be a great city. We planned to spend three days there, then extended that by four days, and probably would have stayed even longer had we found a good, inexpensive private room somewhere (the only downside of Guadalajara for us was accommodation).

What’s so great about Guadalajara? The food there was outstanding. We’ve since moved on from Guadalajara, and when we mention the food there, people always say it has the reputation for having the best food in Mexico. That’s easy to believe. At Karne Garibaldi, for example, I found myself making yummy noises every second bite. Seriously, I couldn’t stop doing it. If I described the food at most of the restaurants, it would sound pretty much like the Mexican food people are used to in the U.S. because it’s primarily a meat, some beans, and a salsa or pico de gallo, all wrapped in a tortilla (which is almost always a corn tortilla down here, unlike in America where flour is much more common). But it’s just different, trust me. And unlike places in America which always have the same large selection of tacos, burritos, enchiladas, tostadas, etc., some places here only serve one or two things. This is why Karne Garibaldi has the world record (something like 13 seconds) for getting a meal on the table after it’s ordered (the order pretty much consisting of the size plate you want).

It really seems Guadalajara is a very forward-thinking city, too. For several hours on Sundays, many of the main streets are shut down to automobile traffic so people can walk or ride bikes all over town. Because cars are still allowed on the cross-streets, every intersection has one or two people there to hold traffic until there is a break in the pedestrian and bike traffic. I don’t know if the traffic controllers were volunteers or paid, but either way it’s a massive undertaking. The parks department even has free bikes for people to check out if they need them. Many people headed toward the center of the city, which was also shut down to cars, and people filled the streets and shopped at the stalls of hundreds of vendors.

Actually, I could list so many other wonderful qualities about Guadalajara that this posting would fill a couple of pages. For a choice made entirely for its convenience, Guadalajara couldn’t have been a better jumping off point for our time in Mexico. We’ve already discussed that when we come back to Mexico (and we will) we’ll be sure to check on flights to Guadalajara first.