Michoacan: Ten Truths

My brief journey to Michoacan, Mexico is almost done. Here are ten ideas I take home with me.

1.   Mexican children, like children all over the world, can be completely delightful or totally annoying. But they are more often delightful than annoying.

2.   Dogs in town centers always look hungry.

3.   The people don't look hungry. Like Americans, most of them seem far from hungry.

4.   The exception to number 3 is certain wizened, ancient women, who trawl outside tables at restaurants, hoping to scrounge coins. (I hope that America never abandons social security. Otherwise, some of our wizened ancients will have to live on scrounged coins.)

5.   You see more on foot than from a bus. You see more from a bus than from a taxi.

6.   It's good to tip, but it's bad to tip too much. I tip the standard American 15% at restaurants. I believe this is extravegant by Mexican standards. I returned to a restaurant where I had eaten before, and the young waiter's new attitude, in some indefinable way, made me uncomfortable. After the meal, I paid with a 200 peso note. The young waiter gave me change as if I had paid with a 100 peso note. I had to "remind" him that I had paid with a 200 peso note. Maybe I'm paranoid.

7.   Knowing some Spanish is highly useful in Mexico, as it is in most Hispanic countries that I've visited. Nobody at the (relatively) upscale hotel I'm staying in speaks any English, and I've found that often to be the case. But people surprise you, like a small-town taxi driver, or a bread vendor on a bicycle, who speak (some) English.

8.  Newspapers and other news media made me uneasy about traveling to Mexico, and Michoacan, with reports of violence, kidnappings, and beheadings. I have had no problems and have never felt in danger here.

9.   For me, it's harder to adjust to the time change than to the fact that communication is labored. The language tangle is a challenge and an adventure.

10.   The artisan-copper trade in Santa Clara del Cobre is ailing. Compared to a few years ago, I saw almost no foreign tourists this time. The manufacturer and shop that I traded with before - a substantial business - is gone. And after I showed interest in a piece at one shop or another, and decided not to buy, the sales person looked downcast, almost desperate. When I finally bought a piece, that purchase brought visible joy to my vendor. Times are hard here.

Patzcuaro: Not a Food Fright; an Adventure.

In the city center of Patzcuaro, Mexico, women in the evening sell chicken that they fry in free-standing pans. The pieces of chicken for sale, partly pre-cooked, sit on the edge of the frying pan, and potatoes cook in the center of the pan.

I asked a woman how much the meal cost. She told me that the chicken came with potatoes and five tortillas, and it cost 55 pesos. I said that was fine.

The vendor was a handsome elderly woman with her white hair pulled back in a pony tail. She wore a full white apron over her beige knit shirt and black skirt.

She asked me if I wanted breast meat or leg meat. When she asked, she put her ungloved finger directly on the piece that she was talking about. To my American eye, this looked wrong. But I was not in America; this was Mexico. I chose the breast. And after all, I thought, the chicken was going into the middle of the pan before I ate it.

The concave frying pan sits on a brazier that sits on a skeleton of thin, black, metal bars. The brazier has an open vent next to the fuel. While the chicken cooked, the vendor constantly and vigorously fanned the fuel with a woven fan.

Like the chicken and the potatoes, the tortillas went into the middle of the pan. She counted out five of them and, in two batches - four and one - she hand dipped them in a red sauce. As she pulled the tortillas from the sauce, her fingers were red with it. They remained so as she finished cooking the meal.

When the chicken was fully cooked, she pulled it off the pan with her fingers.

I hope I do not sound condescending. American government sometimes is hyperactive, and maybe our food regulations reflect that. I have heard that Peking duck is not served in Chinatown in Los Angeles. Apparently, its method of preparation does not meet local health standards. That is a shame. I have eaten and enjoyed that dish in China, and I never was sick from it.

A nice finish to this piece would be a rave report of the deliciousness of the meal.

Well, the potatoes and the tortillas were very good. Parts of the chicken were somewhat dry. But it was late, and maybe the meat had waited too long on the edge of the pan before I chose it. But the flavor was fine.

Everywhere I have traveled, I have tried to eat the street food. Eating like a local adds to the adventure of travel. And often, people who make their homes where I travel seem to like my effort to eat as they do.

Making the Best of Bad Spanish

The poverty of my Spanish is matched by my boldness in using it here in the state of Michoacan, Mexico.

But it works, kind of.

In fact, it works like the game Jeopardy. Remember, Jeopardy is the game where the contestants try to guess a phrase from a few letters on a board.

So, here in Michoacan, I ask a question, in Spanish, like "Where can I find the bus to Santa Clara del Cobre?" Then my courteous would-be explainer answers in Spanish. But he answers too fast and with too many strange words for me to understand. But usually, I can spear a few words. So, just like a contestant on Jeopardy, I try to assemble those parts into a coherent answer.

So I asked a man in a minibus who was ferrying passengers that very question: where was there a bus to Santa Clara del Cobre? From his soup of words, I heard "take" and "Santa Clara del Cobre". He gestured me into the van. "Ah," I thought, "what luck. It must be on his way." I asked how much it cost, and he answered six pesos. That was more luck: the guidebook said it cost seven pesos to travel from Patzcuaro to Santa Clara del Cobre. Which seems cheap for a half-hour journey. (One peso is nine cents.)

We traveled for about five minutes. Then he pulled over and gestured behind the minibus. There, there was another minibus with the words on the windshield, "Santa Clara del Cobre." So he charged me, to get to the right bus, almost as much as I expected to pay to make the whole journey. The fink.

A young man stood outside the Santa Clara del Cobre bus. I told him where I was going, and he handed me a perforated ticket and gestured me onto the minibus. I climbed in and waited to depart, sitting on a bench along one side of the minibus, examining the other passengers.

Eventually, I looked toward the front of the minibus. The driver was looking at me. It seemed as if he had been doing that for a while. He pointed at the young man who had handed me the perforated ticket, who was in the minibus and also looking at me. I handed the young man the minibus fare. He thanked me and stepped out of the minibus, and we were on our way.

I thought it was odd that the minibus driver should just look at me to get my attention, instead of saying something. I do not speak Spanish well, but I am not deaf.

After a time, I asked the driver if Santa Clara del Cobre was near. From his facial expression, he looked like he was mentally wrestling with how to answer, and then he gestured forward ahead of the bus. I took this to mean that we were close.

He might have simply said "Si", and I would have understood. But apparently he believed that Americans speak no Spanish. And he was unwilling or unable to alter his understanding of the linguistic universe based on the demonstration of my poor Spanish.

We arrived at Santa Clara del Cobre. The driver stopped the minibus next to the copper bust of the founding patron of the copper industry of this locale: Bishop Quiroga. Then, the driver pronounce his only word to me: "Ticket!" I handed him the perforated ticket, which he tore and returned my half.

So here I am in Santa Clara del Cobre, practicing my Spanish, depending upon the patience and good will of the local populace to tolerate its simplicity.

And loving it.