Déjàlà: Echoes, Hums, Music or Sounds

Eyes are useless when the mind is blind.

Unknown

At a crypt under the Templo de Belén – a sweet kiss for a departed loved one

A sparkling gray car with a large flower bouquet delicately resting on the hood, accompanied by four smaller ones on the door handles, quietly drives by. A wedding party headed to a church. People cheer but there is no reply from the safety of the car-cocoon. The windows are tinted, I cannot see the people inside but can imagine everyone alone with their expectations, curiosity, fear, and hope. An air of eagerness surrounding them.

They, very slowly, pass by a gaunt tormented Jesus on the cross in a city folded on itself in the tight hills that used to be filled with silver and gold but now mostly irregular rocks and dirty dusty pits. While cooing, resourceful pigeons are making nests in abandoned lamp posts lining the road. A long mournful whistle floats in the air, the knife sharpener’s signal that he is here for business.

Street sweepers barely take the time to look at the small procession before returning to their mechanical never-ending daily routine of cleaning sidewalks, streets, and gathering places with palm fronds or plastic brooms swishing left-right, left right. Some are given food from the nearby restaurants, a small bribe enticing them to keeping their business frontage even cleaner. Many disemboweled piñatas from the holidays are resting near garbage cans, the party well over.

Wrapping and selling lemongrass

A petite blind woman sings near the entrance to the presidential house. She has a beautiful voice that carries over the small plaza across the way. Few people notice her, but it doesn’t stop her from performing sweet melodies. Her son, never far away, will help bring her home when she is done.

Wearing the famous rebozo (shawl with fringes)

A few steps away a mother carefully feeds four very small sobbing kids from one solitary bowl of ramen noodles. The smallest, a boy, is bare-bum despite the cold. Poverty makes you tough, poverty makes you resilient.

A gesticulating babbling clown is walking around with a shabby black hair fake dog at the end of a stiff wire. The phony dog looks like it walks, jumps, treads on your feet, sniffs, gets ready to piddle, etc. It makes some people react and finally gaze away from their cellphones or cameras. With small yelps, many look over their shoulder to see if anyone noticed their jumpiness. It is getting harder and harder to be noticed in this world, harder and harder to get reactions.

Lola near a small chapel up a steep alley

A farmer with a burro delivers raw milk door to door. I meet the burro first; her name is Lola. She is tied next to a small chapel, with neither water nor food in sight. I scratch her ebony head and although she accepts my touch, she is not used to gentleness, it is not the usual way working animals are treated here so she is unsure how to react. Her owner finally shows up. He is proud to say that she is only six years old and that they live to be 25, such a young one! After introducing her, he quickly disappears once more to deliver another jug of milk, saying aloud – ‘Farm fresh milk for sale!’

It is Sunday and after church, older ladies sell their special desserts to help raise money for the congregation. Cheesecakes, fruitcakes, flans, cookies – all homemade and delicious. Some drivers don’t even get out of their vehicles to buy some, stopping the traffic in the process but no one seems to care. People mingle and talk on the steps after mass like we used to do when I was a kid in the 1960’s. New 2019 religious calendars are for sale – that time of the year.

Bell ringers compete for how many times or how loud they ring ‘their’ bells. The loud distorted chimes seem to reply to one another. Pulled ropes loosening the notes of each bell. There is no lack of eagerness so you may count 42 rings for the 10am mass.

The handrail around the church patio is covered with anti-abortion posters:

Women! Don’t make a cemetery out of your belly.
Abortion is not a medical act, it is a criminal act.
Abortion law is the Herod (the guy who wanted to murder Jesus) of today.

It is said that in Mexico nothing dies because nothing is ever condemned to death. I try to understand that concept. I am not certain I am successful even though I fully understand that death is part of life.

Boys dressed in clean baseball gear are playing cards on the sidewalk, hitting the cards hard on the ground when winning, slap! and laughing. There is no room for kids to bike or run around, very few parks. The city is made of small streets, alleys, stairways, no backyards and a few plazas. I see many bored kids forlornly looking out house windows when not in school.

I walk uphill to get a better view of town. Sounds rise-up and mingle into one fading cacophony. From up here in the thin clean air of the high mesa, I can see in the distance the uninviting urine color smog of Leon, the largest city in the state, a city of manufacturing. I follow a dirt path hardpacked, scarred and trodden by thousands of hooves or feet. I am finally alone with a dry nature – the rainy season not for another 4-5 months. I wish I could get lost a little farther but there are no more paths. It is time for a slow return. Dry leaves rustle at any touch, a clue as to their fragility.

I am constantly reminded that I get more out of anecdotes than landmarks and that borders are not good at keeping people out, only at dividing them. I am only a witness, not a judge.

Overhanging homes near arched tunnel - always humming with traffic

Selling items to make nativity scene – moss, stables, figurines, pine cones, etc.

Also, small piñatas and poinsettias

From the local newspaper – count down to a new year – light show above downtown

Even though Christmas and New Year have gone, Guanajuato is constantly abuzz. Vehicles in echoing tunnels, above-head fireworks, barking roof dogs, singing troubadours, mariachi bands, street vendors, river running through town, wind in the trees. It feels good to be around so much life.

Teatro Juarez - House of Sounds