Mexicowoods—An Expatriate Life

Real Estate Troubles

Licenciado Luis Miguel Serrano places a sign on his property: This lot is NOT for SALE. Why go to all that effort?

I suspect that sometime in the past, some rascal "sold" this lot to a gullible buyer, leaving Luis Miguel to fight off a bogus claim. Either that, or as an attorney he's seen enough such shenanigans that he prudently protects himself against phony real estate agents by posting his land.

 

A confluence of unsophisticated buyers and murky titles provides opportunities for fraud. The safeguards I relied on in the USA—title insurance, escrow accounts, licensed realtors—are unavailable here. Resolving problems via the justice system is sluggish and uncertain. Posting warning signs appears to be far more effective in warding off trouble.

What is going on with the yellow house? Apparently two parties claim ownership. Perhaps one of them is attempting to sell it. In response, the other claimant posts signs to scare away prospective buyers, going so far as to cite the case number in which any seller would be named as a litigant.

Problems purchasing real estate are far more common than any buyer newly arrived from the United States would care to know about:

• A high-end housing development on the edge of town remains stalled because of a title dispute.

• A well-known realtor leaves town, taking his clients' deposit money with him.

• A friend is repeatedly sued over the purchase of his home. His house was seized twice and transferred to another buyer once, his possessions were thrown out onto the street, and a warrant for his arrest was issued—all fraudulently. Every setback was reversed on appeal. Even so, after three years of litigation, he still does not have clear title.

Most people don't encounter problems like these. But buying property is definitely riskier here than up north.

Egret-Breeding

Egrets breed this time of year. Many of them choose Parqué Juárez for nesting. They seem to like the tall trees there. Neighbors and park users wish they didn't. Egrets are smelly. They deposit thick coats of white droppings on streets, benches, and decorative plants.

Years of efforts to discourage the birds failed. Finally, the city went to the nuclear option: They lopped the tops off all the centuries-old trees in the park. Ugly, but effective. Today, a small grove alongside the cultural center is all that remains suitable for building nests.

 

Fewer trees means overcrowding. The remaining grove is an egret ghetto. Droppings are more concentrated. The elegant neighborhood near the Cultural Center reeks. Baby egrets falling prematurely out of their nests flop on grounds patrolled by neighborhood cats.

Parent egrets feed their chicks with fish they catch in the presa, the reservoir west of town. Not all of the fish make it into the youngsters' beaks. Some drop on the ground, adding to the noisome litter.

The other day a friend walked past the nesting site when a fish fell to the ground in front of her. She almost stepped on it. It's the last thing anyone would expect from our benign Mexican climate: fish falling from the sky.

Barrio de la Palmita Celebrates Santa Cruz

A burst of explosions woke us up yesterday morning at 4:30 AM. Hundreds of heavy bangs came from the field across the street from our house They couldn't have been closer without scorching us. Immediately following, a parade marched by (In the dark!) led by a shrill banda. It was so outrageous, all I could do was laugh.

We were treated to hundreds more explosions lasting until 7:30. Somehow we managed to doze on and off through it all, having become acclimated over the years to the noises that accompany fiestas.

The occasion was the celebration of Santa Cruz, a time of thanksgiving and prayers for a bountiful future. Our neighborhood, Barrio de la Palmita and the adjacent Valle de Maiz, are noted for noisy celebrations during May.

People celebrated all weekend long, but last Sunday was the big day. At noon our friends assembled into a parade, shutting down the Salida a Querétaro as they marched through the city.

Mostly working-class people live in La Palmita, most of them descended from Otomí or Chichimeca forebears. A consequence of their heritage is that the Santa Cruz celebration is a mixture of Catholic and indigenous rituals. Everyone here seems comfortable with the messy confluence of the two traditions. I imagine though that if the Vatican were fully aware of what was going on, it would drive them nuts.

The red-shirted banda that awakened us provided marching music. It has a wonderful sound. Paired clarinets, harmonizing in sour thirds and delightfully out of tune, play a sprightly melody. When they complete a cadenza, the whole band lurches into a repeat: blaring trumpets, booming tuba, and loud, loud drums. Somehow, the effect is thrilling. You gotta hear it to get it.

In counterpoint to the banda music, huge public address systems mounted on trucks play recorded music mixed with the voice of an announcer whipping up enthusiasm among participants and spectators. Stock batteries and alternators in these trucks are unable to supply more than a fraction of the power demanded by these sound systems. Gensets clatter away, generating the needed kilowatts.

Note the household fan mounted on the bumper of the red truck. Powered by the PA system genset, it provides needed additional cooling. It's 94º today, and that old engine probably can't idle for long without boiling over.

Later tonight a play will be enacted in the forecourt of La Palmita's modest church. The actors parade in their costumes. There seem to be more than three wise men...

...and there are at least two devils. Satan's regulation costume appears to be black-painted skin, a cow skull, and greenery from a pepper tree.

Next it's the locos; people dancing down the street in an incredible variety of goofy costumes. The woman to the left of the photo, the one in pinafore and baseball hat, appears to have been out shopping when she got caught in all the madness.

Among the locos, a popeyed mojiganga (outsize papier-mache creature) marches down the hill. Aunt Jemima appears as well, as she often does at these festivals. Mexican people are not as sensitive as Norteamericanos to caricatures and stereotyping. I, for example, am sometimes referred to as pelón—baldy.

The loco dressed as Death is handing out candy to little children.

Danzantes whirl to the beat of an enormous drum. They wear vague approximations of pre-Hispanic dress.

We followed the parade downtown and ate lunch in a restaurant just behind the Parroquoia while La Palmita rocked the Jardín, showing the town their chops.

Our barrio is modest. It puts on an enthusiastic if somewhat small-scale show. Next weekend Valle de Maiz will wheel out the big guns. The noises they are going to make will send dogs shaking under beds and set Gringo teeth on edge. No one within the city limits will escape the din. From Thursday on, sleep will be impossible.

Inured to Mexican celebrations we may well be, but we're sensible, too. Later this week Laura and I are going to head out for the peace and tranquility of Mexico City.

Monster Truck

We occasionally visit Querétaro to shop the big box stores (Costco, Sam's Club) or to see medical specialists. A narrow highway takes us east from San Miguel de Allende. Lately the trip has become arduous. Construction crews have torn up the road, widening it in anticipation of the crush of visitors expected to arrive later this year for the Mexican Independence bicentennial celebration. Along the way traffic gets shunted onto rutted, narrow dirt detours barely capable of handling passenger cars much less busses or large trucks.

As I headed out of San Miguel one morning, I saw a huge truck and trailer parked beside the highway. I thought, "No way is this thing going to make it through the construction zone." Four hours later, on my way back from Querétaro, I came upon the selfsame truck, now some ten miles farther down the highway. I joined a line of traffic that had been stopped to wait for the passing of the gigantic rig.

The massive load required two big Kenworth diesel tractors to get up the grades in our mountainous part of the world. The traction provided by sixteen drive wheels had to be increased by the weight of large concrete blocks chained to the rear of each tractor. A draw bar on the front of the lead tractor left open the option of attaching a third tractor if needed.

I just love this stuff.

I couldn't tell the load was, but clearly it was exceedingly heavy. Wider than a single highway lane, it required a trailer 48-wheel trailer—the biggest I've ever seen. The load was secured to the trailer with many chains and cables. To my eye, they didn't appear substantial enough to survive a serious tilt.

One thing for sure: no mishap would be caused by excessive speed. The rig rumbled down the road at two miles per hour. Crew members hopped on and off at will, checking clearances on corners, eying iffy sections of pavement, and directing traffic around the thing.

What was it? Where did it come from? Where was it going?

Whatever it was, it passed unidentified through the states of Guanajuato and Querétaro, demonstrating if nothing else that Mexican industry is capable of building and moving some really big machines.

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.

Balloons over San Miguel

On early morning rides down the Oakville Grade from my ranch in the Mayacamas Mountains (between the Sonoma and Napa Valleys) I'd often look down on a scattering of hot air balloons hanging in the still air. By the start of the new millennium, their numbers had increased: to see a dozen or more at one time was not unusual.

These days, balloon sightings are becoming more frequent in San Miguel de Allende too.

 

Even a single balloon transforms the view, redefining the sky into something more than mere backdrop.

Ballooning is for tourists. Where you see balloons in the sky, you know the locale attracts visitors who appreciate beautiful views slowly unfolding as their aircraft drifts over the landscape.

Over the years the California's Wine Country transformed itself from unpretentious farms into boutique wineries visited by throngs of oenophiles. Increasing numbers of hot air balloons in the Napa skies betokened a loss of rural innocence as sophisticates displaced country folk.

Disillusioned, I moved to Mexico, attracted by its authentic culture. Today it seems that $200 balloon rides have followed me here. San Miguel feels more like Sonoma or St. Helena every day. I didn't come here for this.

Still, I feel a sense of wonder every time I see one of those great nylon gasbags hanging silently in the sky.