Mexicowoods—An Expatriate Life

Barbara Kingsolver Visits San Miguel

The Fifth Annual San Miguel International Writers' Conference started yesterday. The keynote speaker: Barbara Kingsolver, author of thirteen books of which I have read three: The Poisonwood Bible, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and her most recent novel, The Lacuna. She is as brilliant a speaker as she is a writer.

Norteameriacnos living in San Miguel de Allende need walk a mere twenty minutes in any direction from El Centro to be in real, unalloyed Mexico. People don't have to hang out in gringo ghettos unless they choose to.

But what makes our town unique is that it attracts famous figures like Barbara Kingsolver. Ten thousand expats, many of them well-known artists, musicians and writers comprise a world class creative community. Residents and visitors come together for Jazz, Chamber Music, Dance, Drama, Photography, Creative Writing, Painting, Film, Sculpture—some of it extremely fine. It's all accessible and much less expensive and crowded than similar offerings in San Francisco or New York.

Plus, you can stroll from your house to all of it.

¡Sponch!

A snack food has arrived in San Miguel de Allende—one that is new to me. ¡Sponch! What a great name!

I can't tell exactly what ¡Sponch! is, but it's colorful and you can bet that it's sssweeet: loaded with high fructose corn syrup, guar gum, tragacanth and of course those tasty di- and triglicerides. Any resemblance to actual food is coincidental.

Mexico will not be outdone by the United States in the race to obesity and diabetes. Already the world's biggest per-capita consumers of soft drinks, Mexicans have fielded a new secret weapon in the sugar consumption wars.

¡Sponch! Just looking at the picture puts me into a sugar coma.

Shoeshine Bonanza

This shoeshine man operates on the northwest corner of the Jardín. He has his morning's work cut out for him.

What a good idea. Get 'em all done at once. The only disadvantage: you have to wear each pair while they're being polished. If I were ever to do this, I'd want to bring a good book.

I'm not sure about having all my shoes arrayed for everyone to view. People might make judgments, make me want to say, "My good shoes are at home."

Hauling all my shoes down to the Jardín sounds too much like work anyway: efficient, yes, but at the price of one of life's small pleasures. I'd miss that unplanned ten-minute pause while my shine—and my spirit—gets renewed.

Fixing Pila Seca

Potholed streets are getting new surfaces. I see construction crews all over San Miguel de Allende. Everyone has to endure inconvenient street closings and the snarled traffic that ensues. Apparently some federal money came in, so workers are tearing up the roads, filling potholes, re-setting cobblestones.

As late as last year, masons set paving stones in dirt just like in the Seventeenth Century. What little concrete they used they mixed by hand. They filled spaces between stones with a runny plaster slurry—painstakingly poured from cut-off plastic Coke bottles.

Today they use ready-mix from the Cemex plant out on the periferico—a sudden leap into modern times.

Construction methods quickly revert to the Nineteenth Century though. Laborers fill wheelbarrows from the cement truck and dump the concrete onto the street where its needed, a few square feet at a time.

Masons spread the mix and set cobblestones one at a time. Apparently the ancient art of cobblestone paving can't be mechanized.

Just before opening to traffic, Pila Seca looks pristine. Gone are the lumps, the loose stones, the potholes.

Built to newer construction standards, the street looks smoother than I've ever seen it.

Cobblestone streets don't last long. Unlike concrete or macadam roads, they need re-paving every few years. But they form an important part of the character of the Centro Historico, so we all put up with the vibration and jolts that prematurely degrade the suspensions of our vehicles, the stumbles and falls when our feet catch on uneven stones.

Despite the expense, the inconvenience, the hazards of cobblestone streets, we love their look, and we'd vigorously oppose any movement to modernize them.

Bailing Wire Fix

Even in this time of economic crisis, plenty of colonial houses undergo renovation. Where does the money come from?

The other day I walked past scaffolding built to support workers replacing a cantera window. It looks unsafe.

Two posts rest on the sidewalk, steadied by buckets full of rocks. Holes pounded into the wall receive two beams wedged in place with scraps of wood. Tying the beams to the posts: bailing wire.

The whole lash-up illustrates 1) attitudes about worker safety, and 2) problem-solving ingenuity. On the whole, I admire the builder's minimalist approach. But up north, he'd be cited for a rig like this.