READERS’ FORUM
You know you have been in San Miguel too long when…
By Jim Blakley

This article first appeared in Atención, April 27, 2007.

After an overwhelmingly positive response to my previous article, “You Know You Are in San Miguel When…” (Atención, April 6), I have penned a follow-up (that is, if you define an overwhelming response as your three kids saying “way to go Dad”).

I love Mexico and San Miguel so much. But still, there are a few little odd things that strike me as funny or interesting. So, here are a few thoughts about “you know you have been in San Miguel too long when ….”

The “Happy Hour” (Hora de Feliz, dos por uno) at one San Miguel bar from 1pm to 10pm seems perfectly normal. You wonder why Harry’s only has a pitifully brief three hours of “two for one” booze from 5pm to 8pm. You have started using the plural Horas de Feliz, because the term Happy Hour (singular) seems unnecessarily restrictive.

The thought of being away from Oaxaca cheese, fresh corn tortillas and other Mexican delicacies causes you to hesitate planning a trip up north to see friends and family. You think, “Well, they can (37 friends and relatives) come and visit me.” Or, you go online and see if US Customs will allow you to bring in 25 pounds of Oaxaca cheese. “No officer, it is not fresh food, it breaks apart like thread and then I use it for weaving. Let me demonstrate.”

Eggs and chicken sitting around for hours at room temperature in a chicken shop seem perfectly normal.

There are a thousand packages of many types of pasta at the supermarket, but only one type is whole wheat and it is labeled as “diet,” there are only three of those packages left and they cost four times more than the others.

You are no longer surprised to be frisked before getting on a first class bus in Terminal Norte in Mexico City. In fact, you seem to be enjoying it from some of the younger and cuter female security officers.

In your entire life (before now) you have never met a woman in a bar and talked to her. Now you do it frequently (having three late-middle-aged women for every man doesn’t hurt). She finds you interesting, funny and good-looking—a shocking reversal of your previous experience over the past 56 years.

You read recently that 1.2 billion tortillas are consumed in Mexico each day. That is 11.43 tortillas per person per day. You are aware that this statistic from 2005 is even higher now that you are living in Mexico.

Passing other walkers by stepping off the sidewalk onto narrow streets with buses and cars going by precariously close seems perfectly normal.

On a narrow sidewalk you are approaching a couple walking side by side. They show no sign of moving into single file so you can pass. At the very last instant (just when you believe a full body collision is imminent and you are bracing, but you have decided that it is not fair that you always have to step into the street to let others pass—see item just above), the woman moves just slightly closer to her male companion and turns her shoulder back (the “San Miguel Tango”). You intuitively turn your shoulder back as well at the absolute last instant and the three of you pass without any contact or catastrophe. If only now while you are reading this do you realize it is true, you have definitely been in San Miguel too long.

You give a good tip to a taxi driver who gives you the local price, but no tip at all if the driver only offers the gringo price.

The black tea available here starts to taste good. (There are English-speaking physicians in town, so please don’t hesitate to contact them about this potentially life-threatening health issue.)

A four-liter can of pickled jalapeno peppers seems appropriate—anything smaller is hardly worth picking up. And buying less than a kilogram of fresh tortillas seems like a wasted trip to the tortilleria.

You have stopped noticing that some of the Mexican male waiters seem to give the same kind of service that a 14-year-old boy would give back home (a bit awkward, somewhat uncaring, and with no warmth or friendliness as he tosses your food or silverware at you). You recognize this style because you were once a 14-year-old busboy yourself. Back then, when someone asked for a “doggy bag,” you actually assumed it was for their dog and you gathered random pieces of leftover meat from the kitchen garbage and put them in a bag for the customer. Only in recent years have you realized the cause of a rash of deaths related to food poisoning in your home community when you were 14. The deaths suddenly stopped when you got another job as a store clerk.

The only things that scare you in San Miguel are the holes and rough spots in the sidewalks and the cobblestones on the streets. Other than that, it feels as safe as a small Midwest town in 1957. Night is only dangerous because the “gringo traps” on the sidewalk are hidden under the cloak of darkness.

You feel that the level of nighttime street lighting in San Miguel is adequate.

For the first time in your life you feel tall because suddenly most people are shorter than you are. You have started calling yourself “Gigante.”

You stop wondering how most young Mexican kids can be so incredibly well-behaved (especially when you compare them to the kids that you raised when they were the same age).

The thought of going back home to el Norte and having to wash, dry and fold your own laundry is scary.

You wonder why American football commentators don’t scream out Touch-downnnnnnnnnnnnnnn (lasting a full 30 seconds, all without taking a breath) when one team scores. The US announcers’ performance seems calm, bland and boring.

Your friends back home are shocked when you suddenly hug and kiss them when greeting and you cry out “what a miracle.” They are already worried about your sanity, but this is the last straw.

At 3pm your hands are shaking, you feel a bit dizzy and your mouth is watering. You suddenly realize that it is time for your daily paleta bar. You had promised yourself that you wouldn’t have your first one until 4pm, but you rationalize that it must be 4pm somewhere. You realize that an agua de fresa (strawberries in water) is much healthier than the coconut in milk that seems to draw you like the “Force” in Star Wars. “Luke, I am Coconut and I am your father!!!” You get the picture.

Even though you can cook a perfectly delicious lunch for about seven pesos, you have somehow rationalized that going to Los Burritos on Mesones and having the 20-peso Burricharo meal (rice, salad, beans and a huge burrito with your choice of two different fillings from among 10 on offer along with salsa and pickled onions and peppers) will be cheaper. You think things like “maybe I won’t be as hungry at dinner if I eat a big lunch.” You ascribe the fact that all of the staff at Los Burritos know you by your first name to them just being overly friendly. You start wondering what time Los Burritos opens in the morning.

You feel uncomfortable getting on a bus where the driver does not have at least one Virgen de Guadalupe and one large crucifix, even if they are obstructing his view of the road. Three or four other religious items in front of the driver increases your comfort level as well as a cracked windshield. It just seems right.


You are no longer surprised that major development announcements are not made two years before things actually happen. In San Miguel the first time you hear about a major development is only after construction has already started.

You no longer think of Mexican long-distance charges as too high.

You are shocked to see a cloudy day and apologize profusely to your visitors. “Well, it’s never like this. I’m sure tomorrow will be sunny.” Of course, by the afternoon it is already sunny.

You visit the Jardín at least three times per day.

You see a newcomer in town and mutter under your breath, “silly gringo, go back home where you belong” in response to something that they have done or said.

You realize that you haven’t seen a parade in over two weeks and you wonder what is wrong. You must have missed one.

Que Pasa from Atención is taped to your kitchen wall and you have circled several items. Lately you have started using the Spanish version.

You go to The Café on Correo (about half a block east of the corner with Recreo) every morning for a Grande Cappuccino for what appears to you to be not only the finest coffee in San Miguel, but in the world!!!! Could you possibly have lost your perspective? You think that a coffee shop named “The Café” has a good name and you wonder why Starbucks didn’t think of it first. However, you are very upset El Café is closed on Sundays. Who do they think they are? The recent closure on the Saturday before Easter was a crushing blow. You have considered retaining a lawyer to get an injunction to force them to open on Sundays.

You frantically run from the Jardín (where they have sold out of the Atención) to another vendor, fearing a week without the paper. You would sell a month’s worth of the Miami Herald (or your soul, for that matter) for this week’s Atención. When you go back north you read as much of the paper as you can online, but still feel unsatisfied. It’s like sex with your clothes on.

You have more fun circling things to do from Que Pasa on Friday and planning your week than you actually do when you go to the events.

Your daughter has visited recently and said that San Miguel is like the first month of first year university, only there are no classes and you are all 35 or 40 years older. “My dorm room is cool, how is yours? Do you want to meet in the Quad?” You don’t find this comparison at all funny.

You have stopped feeling guilty when you have a glass of wine at an art opening, even though the probability of your buying a US$6,000 painting is completely dependant on your chances of winning a major lottery (preferably one in US dollars, or maybe Canada because they don’t tax lottery winnings in Canada). You think to yourself, “Well, my presence here will increase the chances of someone else buying a painting. They may take a look at me and think, ‘I better buy it before that guy does,’ even though you dress in a decidedly shabby manner and you have been cutting your own hair for the past two years that you have lived in San Miguel. The average age of the items of clothing that you are wearing is greater than the age of the artist. Retro clothing is so in these days.

You are suddenly a popular person and your friends and children want to visit you in Mexico.

Eating a large chunk of pork skin fried in pork fat seems to be an appropriate and logical thing to do (yes, you have definitely been in San Miguel way too long).

You have thought about entering a George Bush Judas doll for the exploding Judas’s next year on Easter Day, even though you are a Canadian. You have already started construction and are wondering how many firecrackers you should put inside for the final blast. You have decided to just fill the entire body cavity with firecrackers, making your Judas the most memorable for next year.

You have developed the idea that each day in San Miguel provides all four seasons. The cool morning is the spring, the warm afternoon is summer, early evening is fall and later evening is winter. The delusion that a San Miguel evening (even in January) is real winter is, well, a delusion. But, you continue to believe it and tell others about your discovery.

During the Night of the Seven on the Thursday before Good Friday, you have gone to eight churches instead of seven with your visiting daughter just to make sure that it would be a good year.

Even though your friends and family think that you have absolutely no sense of humor (and have even created the term “Jim-jokes” to mean a supposed joke that is not even remotely funny, and I am not kidding here), in San Miguel you suddenly feel funny, like an ex-pat Dave Barry. Yes, it definitely must be time to go home to Canada for the summer. Take care and I’ll see you in the fall.

Jim Blakley lives half of the year in San Miguel and the other in beautiful Canada, except in Canada he is just not that funny.

How to build a house without losing your mind
By Edward Swift

The following article first appeared in Atención, May 11, 2007.

When I announced I was going to build a house, I was given advice from all fronts, and I took none of it. Everyone I spoke to seemed to have a horror story they were too eager to share—fights with architects, contractors, new neighbors, etc.

“Building a house will drive you crazy,” said a cousin living in Texas, “but that’s part of the process.” Part of the process? Whose process? Not mine. Some people naturally want to suffer, but I’m not one of them. “I’ll choose the right architect,” I replied.

“And how will you recognize the right architect?” my cousin wanted to know. I have never enjoyed the way my family emphasizes the word “you” when referring to my likes, dislikes and abilities.

“After writing all these difficult novels about difficult members of our family, I’m a pretty good judge of character and talent.” That was my answer and you can imagine how it went over. 

One day at the gym, I told one of my Mexican friends that I had purchased land in Montes de Loreto and I was going to build a house. “Then you better talk to Jesús Zárate,” he said. “He’s an architect. His father is an engineer. They work together. Both are very responsible. They have a reputation for finishing on time.” He pointed to a young man doing bench presses. I’d seen him around, but I’d never spoken to him because he seemed to be in a space all his own. Since I am not the kind of person who will interrupt someone who’s reading or who appears to be in deep thought, I had never spoken to Mr. Zárate. But when I was told that he was an architect, I barged into his space unannounced—“Excuse me, are you an architect?”

He jumped up from the bench press and said “Yes,” with bountiful energy. He was immediately alert as if someone had flipped his switch. My God, I thought, this man’s plugged into something. I later came to learn that architecture naturally turns him on. It’s his passion. I told him I wanted to talk to him about designing a house. He said he and his father would do everything, including getting the permits and supervising the construction. That sounded good to me. I told him I was a visual artist and a writer, and he said, “Then you need plenty of light. Come visit my office when you’re ready.”

Not long after, I visited his office on Zacateros which he shares with his father who is also named Jesús. I arrived with the book, Casa Mexicana, in my bag. A chapter of the book is devoted to the work of Luis Barragán, one of my favorite architects. When Barragán won the Pritzker Architecture Prize for having devoted his life to architecture as a “sublime act of poetic imagination,” he delivered a magnificent acceptance speech in which he said, “It is alarming that publications devoted to architecture have banished from their pages the words beauty, inspiration, magic, spellbound, enchantment, as well as the concepts of serenity, silence, intimacy and amazement.”

After reading Barragán’s speech, and after having endured the cold of a San Miguel winter in a colonial house with no heat, small windows and little sunlight, I knew exactly what I wanted—a modern Mexican casita. An amazing house, bewitched and spellbinding, imaginative and serene—a house that makes a statement, a work of art, not a job for just any architect.

When I mentioned my admiration for Barragán, Jesús Zárate said, “He’s a God at my school.” (UVM) He pulled a book of photographs from his bookshelf, and I pulled Casa Mexicana from my bag. Flipping through the books, we made comments about the way Barragán combined styles: ancient, colonial and modern; his use of strong Mexican colors, the off-center placement of paintings, windows in surprising places and the overall feeling of living in a sanctuary or a chapel. I soon learned that Jesús Zárate is a continuation of this architectural tradition but with his own bold style and astonishing sense of color. When given the freedom, his style is distinctively modern, serene and sculptural.

During my first visit to the Zárate office, I began thinking, this is the man I want to design my house. I suspected he was expensive, but I was determined to afford him one way or another. I have traveled through this life with a large personality and a small bank account, and neither has held me back. So I plunged forward by showing the architect a bank statement indicating the exact amount I had budgeted and set aside. He said he could probably build a very small house with my limited funds, but he would need to see the land before giving me a firm answer. At my land he stomped around the lot and said that the foundation would be easy because the ground was hard and level. “A house five meters by six meters will give you a garden of one and a half meters on two sides and a garden of nine meters in front. You can have windows on three sides.”

A few days later he called me to his office to see the design. On paper, the house looked exactly like me, tall, thin and noticeable. Two windows extended over five meters from floor to ceiling. A staircase spiraled through vaulted space to a sleeping mezzanine and continued on to the terraza. “Your studio is here,” he said. “Your sunken kitchen is here. Your sala is here. Do you want changes?”

“No.”

“Do you want a copy of this plan?”

“No, it’s already in my head.”

It seemed to me that this young man, who hardly knew me then, had stepped inside my head and designed a house that I would have designed myself if I’d had the ability. On the plan I pointed to three small windows in a row that were very high up. Those three windows somehow define the character of the house, like three eyes that see everything without judgment.

“Of course you’re going to supervise the construction,” said more than a few expatriates who seemed worried about my approach. “Certainly not!” I answered. “I have neither the time nor the ability to supervise.” When I paid the bill all at once and returned to my art studio leaving Mr. Zárate to deal with the construction problems, a lot of people said I had lost my mind. They failed to understand that I operate from a different point of view. I, too, am an artist. I wish to be left alone to create without interference, and I’m secure enough to give the same freedom to a person of my choice. Sometimes my choices are wrong, but with Jesús Zárate I was right on target. From the beginning I knew that I could trust him and depend on him. I knew that he was enormously gifted and responsible, that he would not run off with my money and he would not bother me with stupid questions.

My house was finished in five months, and it is everything that I wanted and more. Not only does the house make a bold statement, it is cool during the hot months and warm during the cold months. This was achieved by the size and placement of windows and by Mr. Zárate’s understanding of things beyond my grasp. Not once during the construction did I have a bout of nerves or an argument with anyone other than my advice-givers. Now I would like to be the one giving the advice. And here it is: After carefully choosing the right person to create something for you, please have the good grace to pay the bill and stay out of the way. You’re hiring someone to do something beyond your ability; therefore you’re not supposed to involve yourself with the process. You must go on with your life while your house is being constructed or your portrait painted. Otherwise you will suffer miserably through the whole thing and that should never be “part of the process.”

Edward Swift was born in Texas. He spent 40 years in New York City where he worked at Scribner Bookstore, Reuters America and American Ballet Theatre.