Like so many other tiny Mexican villages, San Isabel is hurting right now. Proud people here so it is hard to see it in their eyes just yet. Poverty
is a very sticky glue, a great equalizer. While it binds it also snares, punishes. Sometimes the culture does nothing but aggravate the situation.
Margarita was home yesterday when I dropped by to get a haircut. I’m her only gringo client – she has no license, if you are properly presented and
cordial she will cut your hair for 60 pesos. I try to remember to be at her house when she is not away working as a maid at the resort. Her husband, a
fisherman, is out of work and the family is struggling.
The single floor fan in the house was pressed right up against the back of her husband’s head as he talked on the phone; she showed me to the usual
chair on her patio and I knew, without the fan, we were going to be in for a few minutes of sweat-dripping torture.
This day the heat and humidity meant nothing to me because I found her at home and ready at the same time and I knew I would soon look more like a man
and less like an old bum for almost a month because of her deft and knowing treatment to my scraggly locks. Even with the sweat dripping from my every
pore I was relaxed – her sweet, fat fingers seemed to caress rather than pull my hair so the scissors could take off just that silly millimeter that
she knows will do the job.
I talked about the village, she talked about the heat, her family. Her speech was punctuated with so many telling sighs I knew she needed to get some
things off her chest. Without spelling it out she told me how her eldest daughter, Delia, now 16 years old, was voted the queen of the village.
“Muchas problems. Muchas.” She uttered over and over as she described how the quinceanera last year, when Delia was 15 and now the run for village
queen this year, drained the extended family to their last centavo in a time in their lives they were most financially burdened by the lack of tourism
and the economy.
It is a very small town. She doesn’t know that I know the rest of the story. That her oldest boy, Javier, now 19, about the time of the birthday
fiesta, decided he had enough of life without money. He took off with some friends from La Paz, drifted to Insurgentes and San Carlos and joined a
gang. Since that time he has called the family a few times and visited twice. The first visit was at 5:30 in the morning. He walked right into the
kitchen and turned on a light, went into the fridge for some milk.
The whole family came awake and the visit was a mixture of hugs from the kids and screams and shoves from his father. He tried to leave some money but
they would not take it. I have been told that about a month later he came back at 1 in the morning and tried again to leave some money in the house.
His mother and father chased him from the house and threw the big wad of pesos, it is thought to be 50 or 60 thousand pesos, at the little black car
as it sped away. Javier’s little brother, Dani, snuck out and brought the money back into the house. The money is in a jar in a dark place in the back
of the bodega.
When I got back to the house, looked in the mirror, I was thinking “Pretty good, considering. I know all those sighs and mentions of problems were not
just about Delia and the family who is cursed with the prettiest girl in the village. The glue is melting from the heat and there is not an hour that
goes by that each member of the family does not think about the drug money in the jar.”
[Edited on 9-13-2010 by Osprey]dtbushpilot - 9-12-2010 at 10:34 AM
Great story Jorge, thanks...
btw, you still look like an old bum even with the haircut.....dtOsprey - 9-12-2010 at 11:09 AM
Dave, I'm not in the story. It's pure fiction. It's just that sometimes, in weaving a tale, I try to get close to the action, show just how good it
feels to run your fingers through your .... oh Dave, sorry, where's the edit button thing when I need it. How insensitive of me, I'm soo sorry...
where's that button. Damn.dtbushpilot - 9-12-2010 at 11:17 AM
I can always run them under my arms.....dtKen Bondy - 9-12-2010 at 11:39 AM
Another wonderful, poignant story Jorge.BajaBlanca - 9-12-2010 at 11:53 AM
that is a wonderful tale.Iflyfish - 9-12-2010 at 01:40 PM
You are able to grab the essence of it. Thanks.
IflyfishBarbareno - 9-12-2010 at 01:50 PM
It may not be a true story but it reads like one. And one we can all relate to. A somber moment.luckyman - 9-13-2010 at 05:50 AM
you have a gift when it comes to writing, and i always enjoy your posts.Tbone - 9-13-2010 at 12:01 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by dtbushpilot
I can always run them under my arms.....dt
.....dt