Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
Member Is Offline
|
|
Loreto visit
Hangin' with Flaco
A tall, thin gringo on a bicycle came zipping down the malecon, jumped the little curb in front of the restaurant, parked the bike in front and walked
toward Cam's table.
"Hey, it's the bone digger. How's it going?" asked the skinny, bearded one as he pulled out a chair, sat down at the table.
"The Guitar man. From the restaurant. I'm sorry, I forgot your name."
"Zane, Zane Potter. Everybody around here calls me Flaco, skinny in Spanish. Did you find a guide? Find anything good up in the mountains?"
"I found a guide. He poisoned me, stole all my gas and my beer. Left me alone to die in an old ranch south of San Javier."
"Wow. Wow. That's right out of the movies, man. You Okay now? You look fine." Flaco sums up.
"I may have stumbled on to something but I need to check it on the 'net with a friend of mine back in Southern Cal. Do they have a Cyber office
here, where I could send and receive EMail?"
The biker can help. "There is one up by the police station but it's hardly ever open. You can use my computer."
Cam followed Flaco home to his one-room house north of town. While the student glanced around the thin man's Spartan digs, Flaco booted up the
ancient Mac and got online. Cam sat down, began to type his message:
radbrad30@hotmail. com. Brad, Mexico is all you said it would be and more -- trainwrecks and treasures all in the same mix. Need a favor. I'm
barking up all the trees around here so bear with me. Get on the 'net (as only you can) and see if you can find out anything about WARCLUBS. See if
the Paleo Filipinos or Micronesians used them like the Hawaiians -- start about AD 1500 and go back to around 2000 BC. If you can confirm they used
them and specimens still exist PLEASE, PLEASE send me some at this address ASAP. I’ve got my laptop with me but cyberstores are few and far between
down here. I’m using one on a ranch here in Loreto. Cam
The student paid 50 pesos to Flaco and asked "I left a message for my pal to get back to me. Is that Okay? I don't know how long it will take.
He's trying to find something for me on the 'net that I just don't know how to research. Also he has access to University Archive Sites and The
Smithsonian."
"Sure, no problema. Where will you be? Where're you staying?"
"La Pinta"
Flaco pressed on "You alone? If you are, you could save some dough, stay here with me. Ten bucks a night sure beats La Pinta's rates. I don't have
air but I got the machine, the phone, a head, shower, two extra beds."
The deal was struck. Cam got his gear from La Pinta, returned to the house on the hill. The place was on a little rise about 300 yards from the
beach and just on the north end of town. It was undoubtedly the last power meter, the last phone line on the north side of Loreto. The house was all
that was left of a very old ranch. Ancient Indian laurels drew a great circle of cooling shade over half an acre of ground. Goats had cleared the
whole top of the little hill, pushed back the desert scrub as if they had been hired for the job. City water lines stopped short of this northern
outpost -- the old well was still running clean and clear after centuries. A rock cistern behind the house leaked a small stream of water that, over
time, gave rise to a thicket of bamboo, weeds and trees that Cam guessed to be fruit trees. This jumble of lush growth provided the place with an
equal share of bugs and fruit. At the rear were two huge towers, trees with thick trunks, straight and peaked like flagpoles. The ever-present
chickens and Guinea fowl pecked and squabbled noisily around the base of the big trees. A small black Spaniel hung around Cam's ankles to be petted.
The host said. "That's Huesos, Bones. He's a walk-on. Just showed up one day. He was at death's door. All skin and bones. His name is doubly
apt because I gave him all my scraps but mostly he got bones. It fattened him right up and he's made the place his home. This old place belongs to
Dulce's family. Her parents are dead but her brothers let me stay here. They don't blame me for her runnin' off. They know I treated her good, they
know her habits better than me. They're both cops, one here, one in Mulege. They have their own places. I just sort of look after this place for
them. They think Dulce will be back when she gets tired of the guy with the big boats, gets her fill of the smell of San Carlos."
"I get a little disability check every month, I fish now and then with a Mexican compadre of mine, make a few bucks on that and I make some tips at
the bar at Playa Blanca and Perico Verde. It all adds up to just enough for beer money most of the time. If I had more I wouldn't be charging you to
stay here." Flaco apologizes.
Cam left almost all of his stuff in the Jeep; no windows in the old house, no lock on the door. With his butt almost dragging the ground beneath a
palm rope hammock strung under the shade of the big trees the young man had a cold beer, took the time to check out the view. A big hill cut off most
of the view to the north but from there south the view was a travel postcard. A clear panorama: the southern tip of Coronado island, the big bay,
Carmen island melting into the peninsula to the south as though it were a crooked finger pointing north.
Flaco washed some shorts and T-Shirts by hand in an old metal basin outside, rinsed the things in the outdoor shower, hung them on a nearby cactus to
dry. He puttered around the house, picked up trash in a big plastic bag, turned on two old garden hoses that each gave up a small trickle of water
that nurtured both a small banana grove and a garden of sorts. It was hard to tell which plants were weeds, which were vegetables. Cam could see
some melons deep beneath the overgrown greenery of this garden-gone-to-seed. The guitar-man noticed Cam's attention was on the garden.
"I'm still watering her herbs. She might come back. She has all kinds of medicine plants in there. I can't tell em' from the weeds so we'll just
have to see how it goes. Hope I don't get real sick before she comes back. I'll be taking dandelions instead of damiana for my gout. Some nights
are so quiet here I can hear the liebres, the jackrabbits, chewing on this stuff. I can run then off with my slingshot without even getting out of
bed. I use marbles; they're much better than rocks. You'll see my marbles on the ground all around this place. When the bag gets empty I go out,
pick em all up. I'd like to get some of those steel pellets but they want an arm and leg for them in La Paz."
Flaco got a beer from the fridge, came back outside, sat on a root that looked like a python slipping silently from the tree to the ground below..
"Is this your first trip to Mexico?"
"Yeah. Yeah, it is."
"Well, I've been down here 12 years now and I might be able to give you a leg up on how the place works. It might help you in your search, give you
a place to start from."
Cam is eager to learn. "I'll take all the help I can get."
"Well, first and foremost, latch on to this: learn it, embrace it, never give it up. It is a single sentence that defines both the country and the
culture. In Mexico, nothing is what it appears to be."
"The second thing is about Mexicans, not Mexico. If I leave out the Inuits, some Laplanders and a tribe or two in Borneo, Mexicans are the most
courteous people on the planet. Their courtesy is so extreme it could kill you, lead you to lots of places you don't want to go. Ask a Mexican
walking down the highway {which way to Santa Rosalia?}. He'll show you a smile, point and give directions with all the enthusiasm of a paid tour
guide. He does not know the way to Santa Rosalia -- he does not want to disappoint you, leave you wondering, leave you without an answer. I do not
know one single person in this village of 12,000 souls who would not share a meal with you, give you water, medical attention if it came down to a
one-on-one situation, you coming to their home, sick or helpless, weak, innocent, showing no malice."
"The third, and final piece of this tropical puzzle is understanding Ni modo. Literally Ni modo means "no way". Gringos, upon hearing that from
some Mexican whose car just broke down, whose horse went lame, whose well pump just burned up, think it means something like "Oops or O chit". What
it means is There's no way this could have been avoided -- it was BOUND TO HAPPEN, SOONER OR LATER. Fatalism came to them in large doses, first
passed down to them from the Maya, the Olmecs, strengthened later by the Franciscans. The early gods were all-powerful, ruled the lives of the
people. The new Catholic God added the balm of exculpation, salvation, forgiveness. It's the reason they are portrayed as being lazy, lackadaisical,
backward, aimless.
While the rest of the world is driving itself nutso, over-maintaining all their cars, trucks, lavishing the horse's limbs with nature's best muscle
balm, letting bids for the purchase and installation of bigger, better, longer lasting well pumps, these poor people are simply smiling, arms out,
palms up saying "Ni modo".
"The differences are not subtle, they are profound. Philosophers are split on who might be better adjusted to live in a world not perfectly set up
to please everyone. I don't have the answer. I can only make an educated guess. The gringo agonizes twice. Once when he tries so hard to perfect
his world, make it stable, predictably safe, a second time when the system breaks down -- when the gremlins get him. Then he blames himself for
taking all the wrong precautions, not the ones that would have been effective. The Mexican walks away blameless. He feels no guilt for his lack of
work or worry concerning preventive maintenance. What's more he does not think he has been singled out for this misfortune -- to him, nothing could
be less personal than this sudden misadventure. He gets over it, goes on about the business of living."
Cam had his own angle on Mexico, Mexicans. "I hope I get to experience the good side you're talking about. So far they messed with me at the
border, nailed me for speeding in Tijuana when I was just creeping along with the traffic. They broke into my jeep in Guerrero Negro, stole lots of
my stuff, stuff I needed for camping, the trip. I had to pay for a mixup at the office at La Pinta -- I was looking for a guide for the mountains,
they sent me a taxi driver. When I finally found a guide, he tried to kill me. When do I get to meet these courteous Mexicans you describe?"
"The Scale, my man. The scale of life. It'll tip your way soon. Just hang in there, give the place another chance, the benefit of the doubt.
Besides, they weren't the Mexicans I was talking about. The guy at the border is supposed to hassle gringos, take their money, that’s his job. The
burglars were probably from Mexico, Sinaloense, not the Baja California Mexicans, the Cholleros I spoke of. The guide is undoubtedly an Indian, not a
Mexican and the cab driver -- cab drivers, anywhere, are supposed to be rude and ruthless -- that's the job description. If you were mugged, robbed
by some deranged Pakistani in a small town in Tennessee would you blame the people of Jack Daniels Country for your misfortune? I think not. I say
you're bound to meet my people around here and probably very soon." The bearded one dropped another dram of the elixir of wisdom, took another swig
of beer.
Flaco pulled some things from the garden, put them in a plastic bag, took the bag into the kitchen. He caught a chicken in the bamboo thicket,
killed it, plucked and cleaned it right there, rinsed it once in the little stream, again in the sink. Cam watched him cut it up, make a simple
marinade. Some cooking oil, lemon juice, herbs would moistened the bird for the next few hours in the fridge. The landlord put some driftwood
splinters in the wood stove, got them going, opened a couple more beers.
"This is a dinner for two. Some red wine would be a welcome complement if you feel like running up to Puppo's after awhile." Cam hoisted his beer
bottle, smiled and nodded his assent. Flaco got his guitar from the house, sat down, began to strum some chords the younger man recognized as more
Cuban than Mexican.
"Buena Vista?" asked the student.
"Good ear, my man. Cuban blues have a sound all their own. If blues are complaints, Vista blues lead to a terminal heartbreak, almost a dirge. I
love it. Never made it to Cuba. Still got some time. Maybe un dia, one day."
Flaco pulled out a little fold-up table, set it up for their dinner. Lights from the windows were enough to illuminate the little metal square not
far from the front door.. As the lights began to blink on in Loreto, the ranch fare was served. A bowl of linguini with fresh pesto, fresh basil
from the almost garden. Barbequed chicken with lemon butter sauce, fresh oregano, from the same wild field of greens. Young scallions and green
tomatoes with vinegar for a salad/garnish.
The bearded one sat down, poured them both some wine. "Like I said, nothing is what it appears to be. The weeds around here include basil, oregano,
tomatoes, lots of other good stuff. All you need is a little water, marbles for the slingshot and time." with a grin he drank a sip of wine, held
the glass up in a small flourish -- a gesture Dulce could never appreciate.
|
|
|
gringette
Junior Nomad
Posts: 60
Registered: 6-16-2005
Location: san pedro ca
Member Is Offline
Mood: happy!
|
|
"The gringo agonizes twice. Once when he tries so hard to perfect his world, make it stable, predictably safe, a second time when the system breaks
down -- when the gremlins get him."
brilliant! keep em coming - i may never return to barnes and noble again! 
setting sun deals bands of gold; there\'s velvet in eyes in mexico.
|
|
|
Iflyfish
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3747
Registered: 10-17-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
You have captured what for most of us perplexes and enamores us with Mexico......it really is a magical place.......now I have to get going and do
some preventative maintenance to prevent the Ne Modo! Man oh man are we creatures of our culture.
Thanks for sharing this.
Iflyfish
|
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
