Monday July 18th (This is my first entry. Trying to get back into the writing habit)
Mexico City is a sensory feast. It’s just layers upon layers. Every cranny is filled with someone trying to eek out a living. Something is always going on: a tortilla being flipped, a shmata being sold, music, organ grinders, scam artists selling medicinal herbs, 3-card monte(didn’t think anyone in the world still fell for that one) more and more the more you look and understand.
This weekend, we took the subway to see an Annie Leibovitz exhibit. The line was too long so we decided to walk the mile or so to our lunch date at a Lebanese restaurant (Al Andalus). This walk took us right through the Centro Historico, past the Government buildings, past the park where the teachers have set up camp like Occupy Wall Street to protest the killing of several protesters at an event a month or two ago. There they have erected a large village of tarps and tents held up by an elaborate web of ropes tied to the trees and anchored by big water jugs filled with run-off. An entire marketplace has moved in to supply the protestors and to benefit from the short-term economic opportunity that the shanty town represents. Some of this is just the Mexican protest business and some is genuine outrage fueled by a system that is rife with corruption. It is probably impossible to tell one from the other and I don’t think it particularly matters. Everyone is either pushing an agenda, trying not to be exploited, or a combination of both.
Beyond the protest park, we headed down the Calle de Messones, where a seasonal bazaar has popped up selling all sorts of school supplies for the coming school year. It didn’t occur to me until just now that the timing of this sale is weird by U.S. standards. It turns out that the Mexican school system roughly follows our own, so I guess everybody likes to get the off-season deals. Anyway, the sidewalks are completely filled with little booths, forming a kind of shanty town of their own for blocks and blocks along the sidewalks.
As we walked along the sky darkened suddenly and it started to pour. All around us, the shop owners sprang into action, throwing up extra tarps and sheets of plastic to protect the merchandise. There was so much cover that Sara and I were able to continue on our way despite the heavy downpour. We just darted from one covered stand to the next like active little cockroaches, hiding from the worst of the deluge, then skipping out across the streets when the rain ebbed a bit. The poor market folk were getting soaked all around us as the rain pooled in huge bowls formed by the tarps, and then crashed to the sidewalk, pushed by a broomstick, or simply overflowing the edges. It even hailed grape-nuts sized stones for a few seconds. All the while we were racing through, we could smell elote grilling on little charcoal burners, the incessant calls of the shop keepers, the non-stop hawking of cheap Chinese merchandise.
Sara pointed out that these goods used to be produced in Mexico, but even they can’t compete with foreign prices. As a side note, she has urged me not to buy U.S. products, like clothes, in Mexico. I asked why, since much of those products are manufactured in Mexico. She said that in many cases, they are shipped from Mexico to the U.S. and then sold back to Mexico for re-sale. The analogy is that of buying an Apple computer in China. It would first be shipped to the U.S. and then after the purchase, shipped again to China. I wonder about all of this foolishness.
We got to the restaurant around 5:30, which to me is a very early dinner, but to Sara and her friends, is just a really late lunch. As a result, the restaurant closed to prepare for dinner right after we ordered. There are too many conventions about serving the customer for them to ask us to leave, so they gave us food and we got to eat our delicious Lebanese feast alone at the far end of a beautiful empty room as rain poured down outside.
After that, we went over to Jose Carlos’s(One of Sara’s best friends and, along with Germain, the brains behind their restaurant, Cassius) house. We arrived unannounced, and joined another friend Rigo and his wife Patty, who were already there hanging out. So the crowd was Sara, me, Germain, his wife Alejandra, their infant, Rigo, Patty, their 2-year old son, Jose Carlos, his wife Cynthia, and their infant as well. The two babies were in the back sleeping, Rigo and Patty’s son was wolfing down chocolate cake, the music was on, and all the adults were snacking and having cocktails. Someone mentioned to Rigo that maybe the kid shouldn’t be eating so much sugar, which he acknowledged, but sadly added that it was too late. Half an hour later, Santiago(the son) was sprinting laps around the kitchen island and alternately doing somersaults across the sofa, destroying the pillow forts he had previously created like a mad mini Godzilla.
Obviously, parenting in Mexico is a bit different than it is in Brooklyn. This is not to say worse. The scene above is fairly exceptional. What isn’t exceptional is that parents do not put their lives on hold to raise kids. They bring them along. Even/especially infants. Children simply learn to sleep through the hubbub, get used to being held by many friendly adults, and on special occasions, eat inappropriate things and stay up WAY too late. By and large, though, everything is kid friendly and no one thinks it odd if you bring your child to a social function. On the contrary, they don’t understand why you would leave your child at home, unless they were being watched by a relative or the occasional babysitter. Here it is a strange concept to keep parenting separate from socializing, as if the baby were somehow separate from the rest of your life.
I’m sure that keeping a schedule is important for a growing child. I’m sure that establishing routines helps development AND helps the parents get a better night’s sleep. I am equally sure that the many kids I have seen at social gathering have taken just as many naps as they would have if they were home. They get used to being around others. They learn and adjust and the parents don’t fear the consequences of these decisions, perhaps because they have established their own routines that seem to work well for both parents and children alike.
Sara and I often worry about what it will be like for us as parents. It’s a longer discussion for another time. One thing I’m certain of is that the Mexican approach to parenting (the small slice that I have been privy to) is far less daunting than the privileged U.S. version I’m used to.
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