Day 3-4
May 23-24
Yesterday we moved, for at least the first time, here in the city. We left our sweet room – the hostel’s very best (and $25/night) – for the confines of a smaller, more Spartan place that only sets us back $80 a month. It’s really not bad, either. It’s like an efficiency apartment, just a bed, a couch, a few drawers, and a little bathroom – all in one room! So, what it lacks in space and privacy it gains in price and location. Tana and I can both walk to work and school in 5 minutes; and the city center is about that too. We still have a great view of La Bufa (the large rock outcrop overlooking the city), and the city spreads out before us on our rooftop perch like some kind of Mediterranean painting.
Zacatecas is a beautiful city. The people are genuinely friendly; I found this out today as I bounced from tiny store to tiny store in search of a few key items to improve our “quality of life.” I felt like I was in some kind of scavenger hunt featured on some obscure reality-TV show, where people get dropped in foreign cities knowing only fragments of the local language, and have to procure things like a copy of a house-key (una copia de una llave), a plastic chair (una silla de plastico), masking tape (cinta adhesiva), and a pair of pillows (las almohadas). I couldn’t find a cheap pair of shower shoes (sandalias), though I didn’t look very hard for those for some reason. No worries, the shoe stores are ubiquitous. I found only one seller of posters for our vanilla-white “dorm” room, but they were all either slightly pornographic or just random soccer teams. So no luck there. In search of my posters – I had something like Van Gogh artwork or perhaps photographs from Mexico in mind – one kind person walked a city block with me to show me where they were available. The conversation may have left a lot to be desired (on my end), but it was a sign of the hospitable nature of los zacatecanos. We also decided to get some colorful cloth or fabric for our room to put over our little table, and I found two huge fabric stores but thought we would be much better off if Tana chose the fabric. So that will wait until another day.
This was my two-hour adventure after Tana left for work today. In the middle of my shopping, a political rally/parade came cascading through the streets, as hundreds of people representing (so I gathered) several different regions and interests came shouting, singing, chanting, walking through the steep city streets. Apparently, not everyone loves American-style neo-liberalism.
I also managed to make my way over to the school for the first time: Fenix Language Institute. I talked with Arturo Durado, Sr. and, over the course of about 10 minutes of small-talk, let him know that I am here in Zacatecas and ready to start my classes on Monday. I’ll be coming by on Saturday at 11am for my “entrance-exam”, which is really just a quiz to give them an idea of where I’m coming from. It is definitely challenging to know so little of the language. When I walk the streets alone I just hope that no one has anything too important to bring to my attention. I try to look like I know where I’m going, although all indicators are that it is really very safe here. As far as I can tell, Tana and I don’t get any special attention walking around the city. There are lots of young people and also a fair number of tourist types, from the U.S., Europe, but also mostly from Mexico. I’m sure the city has some rough places, but we haven’t seen them yet. It is a relief for me not to have to worry about Tana walking to work and home, or around the city center alone. And it also puts me at ease, though as I said before I am definitely ready to know more of what I’m talking about.
I had an interesting exchange with the old woman at the corner store half a block from our “apartment.” I wanted to get a 5-gallon (approx. 20 liter) plastic jug of drinking water (the water here has “heavy metals” in it, not even the locals drink it; imagine a whole city that had to import all of its drinking water in plastic bottles!). The price is clearly marked at 21 pesos – the currency conversion is easy right now, just move the decimal one place to the left for American dollars, so the water was about $2.10 – but when I go to pay her she says that it will cost 70 pesos! Thinking she’s trying to take advantage of the stupid American, and not very subtly at that, I point adamantly to the sign and repeat, solamente veinte-uno pesos. She repeats, 70 pesos por favor. Then she whips out a calculator and proceeds to type in, 21 + 49 = 70. What’s the 49 for? The fee for not speaking the language? Then she starts pointing to a sign on the wall, that after studying for about 30 seconds, reveals to me that – of course – the water is 21 pesos and the 5-gallon bottle is 49! But the woman is clearly not trying to take advantage of anyone, because she explains in relatively easy-to-understand Spanish that if I bring in a bottle, I can exchange it and then only pay for the water. Brilliant! I tell her – I think – that I would return in a few minutes with a bottle. I grabbed the empty bottle outside our room, provided by our landlord, and headed back. But, of course, the bottle is different, so she cannot accept it! Back to square one on the water front. Then, not twenty minutes later, the landlord asks if I want new water, and the water delivery man comes up the stairs. 20 pesos and an impromptu, if slightly embarrassing, Spanish lesson later, I’m sipping water in our room; problem solved.
I hope we sleep better tonight than last. Last night was one of those when you are so uncomfortable that you literally cannot sleep. I slept more than Tana, but neither of us were rested when the gas companies started singing their ritual morning hymns.
Oh yeah, the gas companies. So, there’s no infrastructure for natural gas, which is the primary source of home energy, here in Zacatecas. That means that every home must purchase large canisters of natural gas from one of the four gas companies whenever they run out. On our rooftop, there are probably about 5 canisters in use by other tenants, and a few more empty ones strewn about. I don’t know much about the flammability of these canisters, and I hope to never find out. If one of these caught fire, I think the whole city would explode in a giant, stinky mushroom cloud. Back to the wake-up call. Because there are four companies competing here in the city, they take their marketing very seriously. A little too seriously. At 7:30 every morning, they start blasting their 10-second jingles from their delivery trucks, presumably hoping to induce some groggy zacatecano to buy more gas. One of the jingles literally plays three notes, then the recording sings, “Gas, gas, gas!” The whole city awakes to this racket, as the competing jingles representing competing gas companies wind and weave their way along the city streets. Imagine my surprise when I learned that one can simply call one of the gas companies to have them come and replace a canister. Sort of makes the whole 7:30am wake-up call unnecessary, if you ask me.
