As I made made my way downtown to see a dance performance Thursday night, I saw a pair of tourists in front of me whip out their cameras to photograph something across the street. There, in the shade of a few small trees, were tetheres four or five donkeys, all with sacks full of something tied to their backs. A short old man in a cowboy hat was going from door to door, unloading whatever it was his donkeys were carrying. Slowly, theymade their way down the street, the donkeys dusty and sweet in the evening light, and infinitely preferable to a FedEx truck as a way to make deliveries.
The dance performance I was on my way to see was that of an amateur contamporary group called Genesis. It's an art form that seems to just now be catching on in this part of the world. I, along with a few other students from my school, were some of about 20 or 30 people in the audience. The dancing itself was pretty good as well, for it being an amateur group. There was one woman, who might actually have been the choreographer/director, who was very good, seemingly entirely wrought of muscle, captivating to watch for the amount of control she had over her movements. The theather, El Teatro Principal was fun to be in. It's one of the old theaters in Gto, with and impressive facade, and a very comfortable interior--much more comfortable than the Lensic, I must say.
Thursday is apparently the day when most students go out in Gto, and a few of the girls I was with wanted to see what was happening at a bar called Zilch, run by an American couple and going out of business (that's what happens when you name your business Zilch, I suppose). The bar was dark, lit only by a few tall saint candles and rope lights, and entirely devoid of furniture. At the rear of the room sat a most curious amalgam of musicians. Seated on folding metal chairs were several men playing African drums. Behind them, on the floor, and almost invisible for the dark of the place were: a black kid with a guitar, a small woman with an accordion, a man with a clarinet, another wooman with some sort of instrument I couldn't really make out in her lap, and a bald white man with a trumpet (at left you can almost make out some of the musicians). Their music was entirely improvised, and sounded somehow snake charmer-ish. A mixture of young, hip locals and older ex-pat types danced, or mostly just observed, in the flickering light of the candles. We sat for a while on the floor, mesmerized by the beat of a bass drum. After a while, the time came for the owners to make speeches, thanking their employees, the people of the town, and promising that the endeavor to spread art and music would certainly go on. They were greeted my loud applause and the flashing of cameras. With that, the duena was hoisted in the air on a couch, one of the few furnishings in the bar, people took up the candles, and the entire group paraded throgh the streets of downtown Gto, on their way, of course, to another bar.
Yesterday I went to Leon with the director of the school, Jorge, and another American woman named Katelynn who is here helping the school update their webpage. They had some business to do there, and for some reason had asked me to accompany them, which I was glad to do--see something different, etc. Leon, a hot, industrial city, and the fifth largest in Mexico, is about 45 minutes from here. The drive was windy, as the car we were in had no air conditioning. The first stop was a restaurant that Jorge said was one of the best in Gto. state called El Rincon Gaucho. Their spaecialty was Argentinian-style slabs of meat... steaks, that is. And as far as that goes, I suppose it was quite good. I'm not big into slabs of meat, honestly, but it was well done, it was tasty.
From, we went to, of all places, Wal-Mart, bizarrely enough. Jorge needed to find an inflatable matress for his mother.Now, I don't think I've been to a Wal-Mart in the US in probably six years. I'm not a huge fan, really. Regardless, it was interesting to see a Wal-Mart in another country, to observe the diferences and similarities, see what types of food they have in the grocery section, what sort of shampoos they sell. At any rate, it was not nearly so much of a madhouse as the ones at home usually are. From there, for some reason, we stopped at a mall, a centro commercial. (Jorge had needed to get some panes of glass cut as well, but the place was closed.) Jorge for some reason thought it would be interesting for us to see, which it was, I suppose, despite the fact that I really don't like malls at all, really, something I had the good sense to refrain from saying. Again, though, it was interesting to see the similarities and differences (mostly the former, though) between that mall and American malls. Same fast foo joints, same kind of clothing shops, lots of shoe stores. The little carts in the middle of the aisles were mostly the same kinds of things: Candy, sunglasses, cell phone, Kama Sutra books--What?! No, no, you definitely don't see Kama Sutra stalls in malls in the US, or at least none that I've ever been in. This being Mexico, it was a family run sort of thing--there was a two-year-old girl sitting on the counter, hair in pigtails, flowered dress on...
We sat for a short while in the mall. Katelynn had suggested I try a mango-chile popsicle from Paleteria La Michoacana, one of the more common popsicle places in this area. It was bizarre, and very good. I can't honestly recall the last time I had had a popsicle. Not for years and years, I know. "We will have to mark this day, June 1st, as a celebration, the day when Maclovia was reintroduced to the popsicle!" said Jorge. Then, the dusty drive back to Gto, and the school, where very quickly I fell into a long slumber, despite the sounds of dogs and diesel buses that mark a Friday night.
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