September 27, 2017, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico:
Every morning, Mya eats breakfast at Martin's, a restaurant in a courtyard hidden off of Calle Relox. She always has the Express Breakfast, which consists of eggs and coffee and costs 55 pesos. Her friend James, who has tried every fad diet known to man, always has Jugo Verde, a blend of liquefied vegetables in a glass. James irritates Mya to no end. She says he has "latched onto her." Over time, she has somehow managed to imply through subtle hints that he is not welcome to follow her everywhere she goes. Still, she can't bring herself to tell him breakfast is off.
Shengjo and I drink coffee while they finish eating, then, leaving James with his Green smoothie, we walk to Calle Insurgentes, where we catch the Route 9 bus to the Tuesday Market. The bus is full and it bounces and bangs through the narrow, winding streets, nearly scraping its side view mirrors off on every passing motorcycle and courtyard wall. That song that goes, "Won't you take me to funkytown..." blares over an unusually good speaker system while LED strip lights flash in the forward corners of the bus. One side of the windshield is half-obscured by a quilted tapestry of Jesus. A hand-carved and painted crucifix hangs from the center of the window. It must be a foot and a half tall, and red blood drips from Jesus's protuberant ribs in rhythm with the music.
Shengjo and I laugh out loud at the absurd juxtaposition: disco, the ultimate musical frivolity, jangling the emaciated skeleton of crucified Jesus, western religion's most sacred symbol. No one else on the bus is fazed by it.
Bus nine stops at a vendor village that probably spans three city blocks. Comprised of tarps, tents and the occasional cement booth, this massive makeshift Mercado is situated directly across the road from a cluster of big box stores, at which I adamantly refuse to shop.
Underneath their sagging, faded, multi-colored rooftops, people sell everything imaginable and none of it is organized into departments. Next to vast spreads of shoes, a man sells used tools. In between a fruit and vegetable stand and a table of raw chicken carcasses, stand cages full of parakeets and rabbits. One man sells herbs and spices in bulk. His table is crowded with plastic bags, each containing gallons of dried oregano, cilantro, and other things I can't identify without the luxury of labels. On one side of the market there is a huge labyrinth of long plastic tables heaped with used clothing which, judging by the brand names on the tags, was trucked in from the states. People swarm around them, digging, pulling and flinging, creating avalanches of jeans and t-shirts. Meanwhile, a trio of musicians play live pop.
In the midst of all this, people fry platanos, make pizzas and chop cabbage, carrots and beets for salads that are layered into plastic cups. Armies of voracious red ants storm intently over the ruts in the mud lanes between tents, searching for fallen crumbs.
After our foray into the Tuesday market, Mya, Shengjo and I return to Martin's for coffee. At a table nearby, a loud woman in pressed slacks and a button-down shirt cons a bunch of ignorant foreigners into buying what essentially amounts to funeral insurance. In an aggressive yet reassuring English accent, she tells a half dozen handicapped and terrified American retirees all about the ways they can suddenly injure or kill themselves in San Miguel...
"These sidewalks are dangerously narrow," she warns, "and the stones are incredibly slippery in the rain. If you watch the locals, you will see that they walk right in the street! Right next to passing buses!"
This is true, of course. If you tried to walk only on the sidewalk, you would get absolutely nowhere. They say the streets here were designed not for cars but for donkeys. All made of cobblestone, brick, or just plain rutted dirt, they twist and meander around the buildings-- no two of which are the same size, color or shape-- creating a network of veins like those in the back of your hand.
Through every brightly painted doorway, there is a papeleria, a tortialleria, a panaderia, or some other kind of shop. They are all mixed together, sometimes hidden behind or within one another so that, if you had no one to show you, you'd never know they existed. People step in an out of these shops and blend seamlessly into the pulsing flow of cars, buses, and motorcycles, which flows around buildings like a creek around rocks. People and vehicles move and pause at just the right moments without the aid of traffic signals or even stop signs. You find an opening and take it, or you wait patiently while a crew of guys unloads 7 mattresses from a truck that blocks the entire street. Walking here is more like dancing, you step up and down curbs, twisting your waist and shifting your hips to skirt little girls in school uniforms, old men rattling tin cups, young couples making out, or bone thin abuelitas hunched on stoops with their hands cupped and their eyes on the ground. There are no rules to regulate all this movement. It just happens the way blood just flows. If you can't walk without a manual and 6 weeks worth of classes to teach you how, this is not the place for you. As the fearmongering Englishwoman points out...
"I know a woman who slipped right off that sidewalk and broke her hip, and she had no money to get back to the states to seek proper medical care..."
"Proper medical care!" Mya scoffs. "If Mexicans knew how the medical system works in the United States, none of them would want to go there!"
The woman explains that, if any such horrible accident occurs and you happen to die, you can get your body airlifted by helicopter back to the US for only $4,000.
"Shengjo," I say, "Since Kiarga isn't here, you are responsible for peeling off my tattoos, drying them, framing them, and mailing them back to my parents if I should die."
"I'll write a heartfelt letter to go with them," he reassures me.
"These people aren't even really here," Mya sneers. "They all want things to be just like they were in the states. "
When the coffee is gone, she hops a bus back to Santa Julia barrio with an armfull of pillows she bought at the Tuesday market. As Shengjo and I dance toward the library, he points out the mild hipocrasy of Mya's criticisms. She only hangs out with other gringos and she makes no concerted effort to learn Spanish. She, along with other members of the local Unitarian Church, make winter hats for the poor campesino children on the outskirts of town and cook food at the safe house for people trying to get across the border. They help Mexicans as much as possible. But that's just it. They view Mexicans as the "other", the poor underprivileged locals who need help from expatriate gringos. She means well. She is always talking about how she views herself as a guest in someone else's space. But today, when the repairman fixed her clogged shower and handed her the bill, she made sure to call the landlord and say, "I already paid him. Don't let him charge you twice. I know he has a wife and kids, and you've known him since you were a little, but he tried to charge $20 an hour once, and no Mexican makes that much..."
But maybe they should. He could easily make that much in the states for the kind of work he does.
Shengjo and I sit in the courtyard at the biblioteca for a few hours, studying Spanish. At 5:00pm a group of gringos and locals magically forms around the long wooden table where we sit. We've been waiting for this. We can't afford classes at a real school, so we've been planning to attend the group that meets Tuesdays and Thursdays to converse in Spanish and English. There's the nice old guy who makes sure to engage the two young Mexican sisters in the conversation; there's the over-eager Canadian who demands detailed explanations of every grammatical concept just to prove he knows more than everyone else; there's the incredibly hip 20-something programmer from Silicon Valley who looks like a sunglasses model and definitely can afford classes at a real Spanish school; and there are a Mexican guy and girl in their 20's who patiently explain every question the others ask while trying to get some English practice in. There are so many conversations going on that I can't hear, much less understand, a single word anyone is saying, and at our end of the table, everyone is talking in English about Spanish. This annoys and disappoints me. I don't want to discuss Spanish with other gringos, I want to speak Spanish with Mexicans.
Shengjo is neither disappointed nor annoyed. He is so utterly beside himself with nerves that he can barely function. He is even more self-conscious than me about talking to people, even in his first language. Watching him try to answer questions posed in basic Spanish is excruciating. Each inquiry hits him like a blow to the chest. His mouth opens and closes silently, choking on air like a fish out of water, and all the words he knows rush down into his stomach and bury themselves. Unearthing just one or two is an archeological exploit of epic proportions. Being socially anxious myself, I know exactly how he feels. I also know how badly he wants to learn. But the fact that I can relate only makes it that much more painful to observe.
Thankfully, about 20 minutes in, a woman from Mexico City sits down next to me. She moved to San Miguel twelve years ago, has a son and daughter, both in their twenties, and she wants to learn English so she can get paid more to work. We talk for about 45 minutes and she is careful to speak slowly enough that I can understand. There are a few awkward pauses, during which we both must search carefully for subjects that will fit into our limited vocabularies, but all in all, it goes well. She invites me to a Salsa class that happens every Tuesday and Thursday at the Hacienda de Guadalupe. I'd heard about the class and wanted to go, and it's heartening to learn that it won't be populated entirely with retired gringos.
As we walk up the hill, back to Santa Julia, Shengjo breathes deeply, eyes wide, muttering to himself about ego, willing himself to let go of his tendency to compare himself to everyone and over-analyze every interaction. I don't know how he would fare on his own. Not being able to speak the local language has enhanced his social anxiety tenfold and pushed it right to the forefront. Watching him makes me realize just how much travel, over the years, has improved my own self-confidence and my ability to socialize. I certainly wouldn't say I am good at it though. Trying to have a conversation in Spanish took a ton of energy out of me. Once home, I cook enough food for 3 people on my single burner and eat it all myself.
Even though I stand out and can't speak the language, I don't feel like a foreigner. I never felt at home in the country where I was born. I identify with the United States less and less with every Trump tweet and every white power rally I hear about. I think perhaps being foreign and having a home balance one another the way happiness and sadness do-- you have to have a home to feel foreign. I guess I have come to terms with my feeling that I am a foreigner everywhere, and in doing so, I have erased the concept of foreignness from my life. Wherever I go, I will be strange. Being nervous or uncomfortable about it would suck up a lifetime's reserve of energy, and I have better things to spend mine on.
I suddenly realize that I am no longer attached to the states at all. For the first time in my life, I am where I am. Completely. I don't know how on earth it happened, but I have finally managed to leap the hurdle that is foreignness and shed the self-consciousness of a split existence. This is not a vacation. It is not traveling. It is my normal, everyday existence. I live in San Miguel de Allende just like I once lived in Gresham, Oregon, and Catalina, Arizona.
There is only one thing in that country that I still think about, and he will soon be here. And who knows where we will live in a few months. Who cares? When foreignness dissolves, borders dissolve, and you just live in the world.