After we had lived in Guanajuato for about two years,
we noticed something so strange, so unnerving, so inexplicable that it
took another two years before we arrived at a reasonable explanation
for a mystery that, frankly, was a little mind-boggling. This
apparently is a no-brainer for some of my readers. They've written to
me and expressed, how I shall I put this, their "consternation" that I
would even "waste their time" in mentioning it. But it is noteworthy in
Guanajuato and is something we've yet to see in the other cities we've
visited in this country.
We actually set out on a whirlwind
journey to see if the rest of the country of Mexico was like
Guanajuato. We did this for many reasons. One is that Mexicans we knew,
who originally hailed from different cities and states within Mexico,
expressed an amazing observation that "The rest of Mexico is not like
it is here." I mean, really. I find that an incredible statement.
In
one sense I find it credible in that we do the same in American when we
talk about parts of the country that are radically different from the
region in which we are from. Kansas City is nothing like New York City.
Nor are its citizens like one another. While we are all Americans, we
use different dialects, we have different local customs, and we think
differently about life in general—we have different worldviews.
Apparently the same is true in Mexico and I wanted to know why.
I
find it incredible in that those who expressed to us that the rest of
Mexico is not like Guanajuato did so in hushed tones, glancing from
side to side as though they were about to reveal a secret of national
security import, and then saying it with clenched teeth and acting like
they wanted to spit in disgust after being forced to talk about
Guanajuatenses.
I wanted to know why, why, and then why again
someone from Chihuahua City would speak so disdainfully about the
people of Guanajuato. We had just walked into a shop manned by a woman
from Chihuahua right after my wife got shoved off the sidewalk and into
the street. Fortunately, she wasn't hurt. But, what happened to my wife
is the sort of thing I have been reporting for the past four years in
my column and print venues. It is the sort of thing, I have to mention,
that does not surprise the Mexicans with whom we share it. However,
when we share it with some of the Gringos, they don't believe us at
all. (Go figure!)
Knowing this lady because we had often shopped
in her store, she noticed we were a little upset and asked why. When we
told her, she went into a "Pancho Villa Mexican Rage" routine that one
rarely sees as part of a Mexican's behavior. After she uttered words in
Spanish that we didn't know you could use that way or even existed, she
told us her stories of living in Guanajuato, Mexico, with people she
called cold, unfriendly, and clannish. Amazing!
If you are a
gringo in the city of Guanajuato who lives in the Expatriate trenches,
you will see this behavior all the time. A true Expatriate, one who is
not a Fakepatriate, is one who lives in Mexican neighborhoods, walks
almost everywhere, bothers with the monumental effort to learn Spanish,
understands that Linguistic fluency is the first step toward Cultural
fluency, and integrates into the local cultural background.
Fakepats
live in protected gringo enclaves. Because they are totally dependent
on local bilingual Mexicans to hold their hands in everything in this
city, they never, ever, develop linguistic or cultural fluency. Instead
of walking, they drive their huge, gas-guzzling SUV's everywhere.
When
an Expat walks the streets of Guanajuato, and especially during the
busiest hours of the day, he will see Mexicans who virtually run up and
down the sidewalks at a rate that makes one stop and wonder: "Why are
they in such a hurry when it is an inviolable and irrevocable fact that
a Guanajuatense will never arrive anywhere on time, ever!"
You
may think this is a silly thing to talk about in an essay on Mexican
Culture. However, it isn't silly and has everything to do with Mexican
Culture. Also, it is very important to the potential expat to this city
who wants to take the course of a true Expat and live in Mexican
neighborhoods and walk everywhere. One last thing that drives home the
importance of this little cultural bump in the road of Expat life is
that these speedy walkers, which is almost all of them, will often
times see you as a mere obstacle that needs pushed out of the way. If
you land in the street, then tough luck you crybaby gringo.
Furthermore, I cannot see a normal red-blooded American (especially a
redneck male) taking in stride getting shoved off the sidewalk and very
possibly getting "clipped" by a 20-ton city bus.
Americans often shoot each other for lesser offenses.
Let
me go one record saying that I do not for one minute believe that the
good people of Guanajuato are all plotting the gringos' demise. I do
not believe they are getting up in the mornings and thinking to
themselves,
"I wonder which gringo I can kill today by pushing them under a passing bus and make it look like an accident?"
Maybe
a few do. I can think of one girl particularly who serves ice cream and
acts like she would love to kill me if she had half a chance. But, hey,
that's just one Mexicana and hey, I'm just one gringo.
Yet, the
fact remains that the locals, the Guanajuatenses, will walk like they
are terminally late (Oh, what am I saying? They are!!) and yet they
will never arrive for an appointment, class, your funeral, or whatever
on time. On time for a Guanajuatense means something
different than the rest of the planet. However, if something is in the
way, say, like a person, then he will go around you, over you, through
you, and will not stop when you begin screaming in pain from being run
over by that bus he didn't mean to push you in front of.
I met a
gringo, visiting from Irapuato, when I was hit by a bus and was flung
into him. We both were slammed through the front door of a house
(fortunately, the door was open!) and onto the entry floor. We got to
know each other by exchanging phone numbers and Guanajuato walking
tips. I still have his business card.
These Wild Sidewalk Walkers
that slam into you are almost always women between the ages of 20 and
30 and they are almost always alone. They aren't in a group and are all
but speed walking doing whatever they have to in order to get around
you, under you, over you, or through you and knocking you for a loop in
the process. Then, inexplicably, almost miraculously, you catch up with
them down the road and find them now in a group and walking like they
are a bunch of old ladies on the way to the bingo hall.
In fact,
you will encounter groups of them who are not walking casually but like
they are a bunch of cripples. Sometimes, they will stop suddenly, open
up a bag of something, and have a small picnic right there on a
sidewalk (and I am not making this up) that is less than two feet wide.
They will stand there laughing, talking about how much they hate their
boyfriends but can't live without them, and having a bite to eat.
Once
again, you are left with having to face the dangers of the street. In
this variation of the Sidewalk Nightmare, they aren't trying to speed
past you and knock you into the path of an oncoming tank-of-a-bus but
you have to voluntarily step into the street to get around them, only
to get smacked by a cab. Otherwise, you have to stand there until they
finish and hope they would pass you a sandwich and a few pork rinds
(which is a staple in this country, it would seem) to stave off your
hunger (since you were on the way to lunch).
During the months of
March and April of 2007, we went to several cities in Mexico, some in
the central regions and some in the eastern parts of the country, to
see if their folks walked down a sidewalk in such a frenetic hurry,
shoving people into the streets along the way. We saw none of this at all.
In fact, we saw little to none of the same behaviors in other cities in
Mexico that we see so often here. We went to small stores to see if
their locals queued in a line. There they were, like the rest of the
world, standing in line instead of the mob-group mentality of
provincial Guanajuato.
I just have to ask, what is the deal? What
is going on in this city that makes it so different from the rest of
Mexico? What causes Mexicans who hail from other regions to exclaim
when referring to Guanajuato:
"The rest of Mexico is not like this?"
I've
been reading several books by Cultural Analysts specializing in Mexican
Culture. One fellow mentioned a situation in Mexico City in which they
drive like bats-out-of-hell like there's no tomorrow (and for some
there isn't). They are in such a hurry to get somewhere they speed
around you. Yet, when they get outside the city, they drive slower than
seven-year itches in the midst of a small caravan horde of cars. On the
back roads, they drive as though they have fallen asleep and the car is
driving itself.
When I read of that little piece of news, the
light bulb came on! There were my Guanajuato sidewalk walkers. When
alone, a single woman (or man) will not walk with any semblance of
casualness but when she sees you—THE OBSTACLE—she will speed up in
order to pass you. She will get around you in any way she can, and will
keep tooling along at an Olympic Racer's clip until she catches up with
someone she knows. Then, she will slow down like she suddenly aged 100
years and is in need of double hip and knee replacements.
Why? Why? Why do they do this?
There are two issues here that have everything to do with Mexican Culture.
1.
Why are they racing on the sidewalk knocking not only gringos out of
their way but also other Mexicans? We've had to pick up a few older
Mexican men and women who have been knocked around by Mexican youth
racing past them too. Then, why if they see a group they know, do they
slow down so much that you still have to walk in the street and risk
being hit by an automobile?
2. Why don't they get to appointments
on time? When you tell them to meet you at your house to paint the
living room at 9:00 a.m., why do they show up at 11:00 a.m., expect you
to feed them, and not start work until 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon?
If they are running so fast, back and forth, on the sidewalks of Guanajuato why can't they show up on time to work?
Each
time you run into a Cultural Bugaboo in Mexico, and especially in a
provincial town like Guanajuato that is stubbornly resistant to
changing with the times, there are three criteria with which you should
judge these events to help you understand what's going on.
1. The Mexican's understanding of space.
2. The Mexican's understanding of time.
3.The Mexican Group-Oriented Life.
The
Mexican worldview is totally different than ours and, therefore, we
Americans have to interpret everything we see and experience in this
culture through the Mexican worldview and not through our own.
Whereas we Americans think of space
as "me, myself, and I", the Mexican thinks of space as "we, us, all of
us." There is no "I" but "we in the mindset of the Mexican. The
American draws a circle around himself and asks, "Am I doing ok?" The
Mexican draws a circle around the group and asks, "Are we doing ok?"
Americans are so individual-oriented that we draw a line around
ourselves as individuals and all but have panic attacks when our
personal space is called into question.
This is one of the
reasons why Americans are so notorious for acting out the Ugly American
Syndrome in every country on the earth. They come to Mexico, for
example, and for reasons only known to them, expect everything to be
Americanized. Even in resort areas of Mexico, where the Mexicans do try
with all their Latino might to cater to the spoiled and pampered,
Americans all but blow a gasket when they are forced to come in contact
with the Mexican worldview. If you ask me, Mexicans are the most
astoundingly strong and humble people to put with the likes of
Americans (I can just see the emails flooding my inbox for that
statement).
Whereas Americans regard time as a straight
line along which we have to run to catch up, with the segments of our
life notched along that line, requiring us to have to pay heed to it,
the Mexican does not. We perceive time as clicks on a clock. The
Mexican regards time as a flowing current along which they
ride on the raft of life. They float along, going with the flow, and
getting to the destination sooner or later. Space and time in Mexico
are filtered through the group dynamic—always!
The second issue
mentioned above is by far the easiest to figure out. To arrive to an
appointment on time for the Mexican always happens. In the mind of the
Mexican, they always get to where they need to go on time—On Mexican Time. Once they get to the appointment is when they are on time. It
does not matter if they make it by some deadline. The time set for the
appointment, the deadline, is the suggested time. And because time is a
flowing current, many things could have happened while riding that
current. Sometimes the ride on that flowing and very liquid current of
time goes quickly and sometimes it goes slowly.
Besides, it does
not matter why the Mexican did not make it "on time" as long as he
showed up. The important thing is that he is there now. It does not
matter why he didn't make it right at ten on the dot. He got there and
that's what counts. For the gringo to go into a fit of apocalyptic
proportion will do no earthly good at all. It just will not! It won't
change a thing so you might as will get your life's raft on the Mexican
time current and start going with that flow!
The issue
of why they race down the sidewalks knocking people out of their way is
not so easy and may be a combination of the criteria I mentioned above.
This is Mexico so why can't this explanation be a little convoluted?
Convolution seems to be a way of life here.
When I am strolling
down the sidewalks between the Embajadoras park and downtown
Guanajuato, I stroll at a leisurely pace. What I've perceived is when a
single Mexican woman (and they all seem to be women) comes walking up
behind me, it is very much like driving down the highways in central
Mexico when a truck zooms up and tries to attach itself to your rear
bumper. It is as though they simply cannot stand that there is
something in their way. It isn't as through they really care that I
might make them late for anything since lateness isn't a consideration
in the mind of a Mexican. It is that there I am an obstacle in the
current of time they are riding and I need to be dealt with. She wants
to go faster than me. When my presence suddenly dawns on her, she sees
me as an obstacle to get past. Once around me, I am forgotten.
If
she sees someone she knows further along the sidewalk, then the Mexican
Group Orientation thing comes into play and she slows down because now
she is ready to employ the group mentality. If there's no one to "group
with," then she might continue on at that speed and course she just
used to knock me down. Who knows? On Mexican Time anything can happen,
as it often does.
The more provincial the town, the more you will
see all of this dynamic come into play. I heard a business woman who
was originally from Monterrey complain how her Guanajuato employees
would constantly show up for work "late." Her traditional concept of
time and lateness had been so altered from living so close to America
that she was no longer provincial in her thinking. I've heard this over
and over again from Mexicans whose personal Mexican worldview has been
changing and coming more into alignment with the rest of the business
world's view of time and punctuality.
A school in Leon, Guanajuato, that offers Spanish to Gringos has to offer a come-on-time-to-class
bonus to the Mexican teachers they've hired to teach Spanish. At the
University of Guanajuato, some of the students have told us that
sometimes professors don't show up to teach a class with no explanation
offered. Remember, if you confronted him on his tardiness or absence,
the Mexican would say, "The why isn't important. What's important is
that I am here now."
Just this evening we sat with a lady whose
deceased husband was responsible for building many of the modern hotels
in this city as well as some of the newer tunnels. He was an architect
and the family is very well connected. I asked her about the
differences in the Mexican people from region to region. She confirmed
what I have been writing about over the past four years.
She said
that the further north you go in Mexico, you will find the locals have
a much more accommodating attitude towards Gringos. They are "nicer"
and "sweeter," according to doña Carmen, and not as "cold" as in
Guanajuato.
Here is a 72-year-old woman who had lived in
Guanajuato all her life. She was born here and she is making this
comparison about the different regions of the country and her hometown
of Guanajuato.
