The housekeeper has it in for me. She complains about which cup I use for what (it’s the small, orange, plastic one for brushing teeth). She won’t let me use purified water for tea or tooth-brushing (so I sneak downstairs at night and get it when she’s asleep). And the other day she told Magdalena that I’m floja. She thought I didn’t know what it means, but I do: “lazy.” Loca, I could accept, but if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s floja.
She was concerned about how I maintain my room: a wrinkle in the bed covers, teaching materials stacked on my bureau, grooming products lined up next to them. When La Maestra is away, she gets particularly out-of-hand, interrupting my work to try to get me to do hers. My tiniest actions are scrutinized and it’s making me increasingly claustrophobic. Being continually polite and helpful in someone else’s house is hard enough; I don’t need Reyna’s beady little rat eyes on me. She beats the dog, Karlotta, who is terrified of her. She doesn’t talk; she screeches in Spanish that I don’t understand but the intent is clear enough.
I know what’s happening, I think. She’s a woman without tremendous brain wattage. She has nothing of her own except her place in this house. She’s worked for Magda for 35 years. She leaves just on weekends when she goes to visit her only family: a godmother. She’s illiterate and I’d be surprised if she’s traveled beyond the greater Pachuca area. So I think she’s a guard dog, jealous of her turf, or an older sibling resenting the arrival of the newcomer. She loves to tell on me. I feel bad for her, yet I also want to pummel her as she does poor Karlotta. I wish I had another place to do work, where I’d be safe from her evil ways.
I’d like to stop complaining but I can’t until I tell you about Mexican drivers in the rain. Earlier this week it rained without cease for five consecutive days: hard rain, too, that hurts when it hits you. On one of these days I went to Spanish class, walking a quarter mile to the bus. Within a block my bluejeans and shoes were drenched. Then I noticed something about pachuqueí±os [Pachucans]: when the streets are full of water and a pedestrian is nearby, they like to speed up and veer toward the deepest water, initiating a liquid curtain. At first I thought I was thinking bad thoughts about innocent people. I wasn’t. Evidence mounted, and my theory was later confirmed by Magdalena. I also told her about the guy who tried to hit me with his SUV (I’m not exaggerating; if I hadn’t jumped, I’d not be intact now). “Yes. They like to do that here,” she said. [By the way, my teacher never showed up for class.]
It’s been a Very Bad Couple of Days. But now I’ll stop complaining and get back to where I left off in my travelogue.
Last weekend after exploring all the other stuff I told you about, we went to a spot downstream, to a place called Santa Maria Reglas. They say it’s haunted and I think they’re right. It’s the ruins of a large silver mine and processing plant that was built at the start of the 1800s by the then-richest man in the world. His workers were ordered to construct a labyrinth of tunnels under the mountain, leading to the rich guy’s various other mines. When the trabajadores finished their job, they were killed. That way, the rich man posited, it would be difficult for them to reveal details of the secret underground routes. Other laborers were confined on the premises by the thirty-foot rock walls, so they couldn’t sneak out with a bit of silver in their pockets. Among their tasks was to tromp barefooted on the chunks of silver ore that was mixed with a dash of mercury. After about three months, these men generally followed the tunnel-builders to the grave. The owner named this mine after his sweet little daughter.
Here’s what the place looked like. (Page through full-size versions of the pictures by clicking that little arrow-y box on the bottom-right.)
I’m more than a week behind on this blog so what you’re reading is old news. But so you won’t feel left behind, here are headlines from today’s Pachuca newspaper:
- Lluvias Mortales: Last week’s unseasonal rains killed several in Mexico City and elsewhere in the país.
- La Creciente Inseguridad Ha Provocado Gran Indignación en los Pachuqueí±os: Drug related murder in Pachuca last night has parents worried. (But it’s far worse in Ciudad Juí¡rez.)
- Suicidios Van a la Alza en Hidalgo: more depression and suicide here than ever. Practice your Spanish on a suicide note from a teenager to his brother: “Tienes que ser el fuerte. Deja el maldito alcohol que tanto hace sufrir a los que te queremos. Te quiero, Rigo, cuida a mi mamí¡…”
Uh, I’m gonna stop reading the paper now, ‘kay?