Diary of a Reluctant Güera_archives

Their Royal Highnesses Karla (right) and Carolina, accompanied by their exhausted-looking mother.

Sunday I went to Princess Party in honor of my students, Karla, 4, and Caroline, 5, who also happen to be the children of my boss.

Now, for those of you who may not have not spent much time in the company of two to six-year-old girls, let me tell you that princesses are VERY important, they are right up there with Mom, Dad and Spongebob Squarepants in the preschool echelon of influence.

Every little girls KNOWS that she is a princess, until Disney and Seventeen Magazine come along to delude her otherwise.

The most famous Oaxacan princess was Donají, the daughter of the Zapotec King Cosijoeza, who was taken hostage by the feared Mixtecs. During her imprisonment she got wind of new plans to attack her people, and succeeded in smuggling a warning to her father. When the Mixtecs discovered her espionage, they beheaded her and buried her on the banks of the Atoyac River. Legend has it, that a violet iris sprouted from her blood, its roots wrapped around her head, which showed no signs of decomposition.

Donají's sacrifice is honored by an annual dance performance, an image of the princess on the state seal, and a popular local cocktail made with mescal and grapefruit juice.

But if you ask Karla or Caroline about the Princess Donají, you will be met with blank, disdainful stares. EVERYBODY knows who the real princesses are: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora (from Sleeping Beauty), Belle (from Beauty and the Beast) and, on afterthought, Pocohontos.

"I'm Cinderella," Karla informed me the first time I met her. "And Caroline is Aurora and Caty (her baby sister) is Snow White." She looked me up and down appraisingly. "You can be Pocohontos."

This year, to celebrate Karla and Caroline's birthdays (which are a month apart) their mother, Tania planned a royal ball to honor her pint-sized princesses. For the two months leading up to the party, our tiny language academy was transformed into Walt Disney's workshop, as Tania put together every detail of the party. As she sat at the reception desk, she glued princess decals onto pencils for party favors (snatching them away from Caty before she could stick them in her mouth), or surfed the internet in search of a castle-shaped piñata that fit her daughters' demanding specifications. The staff room was taken over by the dismembered papier mache body parts of the piñatas she was making.

As the big day approached, the circles deepened under Tania's eyes. The princess piñatas were done but she could not find the right cartoon eyes to complete them! Having scoured the internet in vain, she and I set about drawing eyes free-hand on blank flashcards. And she still had to pick up the princess costumes from the seamstress and make 80 princes out of marshmallows and toothpicks!

Does my boss's wife have an obssesive compulsive problem? Is she the Mexican Martha Stewart? Hardly, she's only trying to keep up with the other upper-middle class mothers, who compete to make the cutest table settings, invitations and party favors.

Children's birthday parties, like most thing in Mexico (including our language academy, as you may have now gathered) are family affairs. Not only was Tania expecting the 50 members of Karla and Caroline's respective kindergarten classes, but their parents, brothers and sisters and random extended family members, not to mention their own extended family network (including employees/baby-sitters like myself) and her husband's business partners. Guests at a Mexican children's parties naturally expect food, drink (including alcohol), music, clowns, games with prizes, multiple piñatas and hand crafted party favors (for everyone, not only the children).

I arrived, in true Mexican style, two hours later than the time printed on the invitation. Tania had rented a pavilion, or "salon de fiestas," for the event. Karla and Caroline held court at a childsized banquet table, their puffy pink and blue sateen skirts billowing around them. But it was two year old Caty who drew the oohs and ahhs. She looked every bit the part of Snow White with her blue and gold dress, black bobbed hair and oversized baby eyes.

Tania had attended to every miniscule detail, from the three dolls, sporting the same princess costumes as her daughters, perched on the cake, to the baseball bat for the piñata, which was disguised as a flaming sword. The buffet table was ladden with mini croisant sandwhiches filled with black mole (Oaxacan noveau cuisine?) and hotdogs on skewers.

Fifty some children ran amok, while Tania and her numerous female relatives bustled here and there, replenishing the buffet, stuffing piñatas, and breaking up fights. Her husband lurked in the background with the camcorder. Some things don't change from culture to culture.

Posted by Anna at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Exhibit A: Ramón the Dance Teacher

This “Ramón” was my salsa teacher, although strictly speaking, he wasn’t much of a dancer or a teacher. Dance teachers in this country are hardly ignorant of the Dirty Dancing- mythology, they are only too eager to help you discover the sensual power of dance to transcend cultural barriers. This is usually what attracted them to the profession in first place (unless they are gay). In the case of “Ramón” it certainly wasn’t his dancing. After a month of lessons I realized that his surplus of style (creative gyrations which inevitably brought him into cozy proximity to your chest) masked a lack of any real talent. The gay director of the Academy obviously employed him because he brings in foreign clients, with his stilted English, which apparently make lines like “Yew like the sun, I am in yew orbit,” more convincing. The problem is he says the exact same things in his native tongue, without the charming grammatical errors.

“Ramón the Dance Teacher” was in an especially good position for admiring his students’ cleavage because he was about five feet tall. I don’t like to be superficial, but I’m generally not attracted to men who make me feel like a giantess. But obviously I’m in the minority, because according to friends in the expat artist community (where “Ramón” is a familiar hanger on) until recently he was never seen accept in the company tall, willowy blonds, big enough to be his bodyguards. But like everyone in Oaxaca, the political crisis of 2006 touched “Ramón the Dance Teacher” in a very personal way. Countries like the US, Canada and Australia issued travel warnings about Oaxaca, stopping the flow of fair-skinned tourists and Spanish students. The language school where the dance academy offers its services suspended its programs, drying up “Ramón’s” main source of prey. After nearly six months of drought, he fell upon the last remaining gringa in town like a cat on a mouse (or more like a mouse on cat, considering his size). Unfortunately, I was that gringa.

After class he would invite me out dancing, for coffee, even up to my own apartment, to “continue the class in private, ”
“I’m sorry,” I would reply. “I have to work early tomorrow.”
The mark of a true Ramón is that he cannot, or will not, pick up on the subtle cultural code phrases women use when we are too nice to say, “I will never ever in a million years sleep with you.” “Ramón the Dance Teacher” was certainly undaunted. He even turned my excuses back on me, saying, “You are such a serious girl. Why can’t you lighten up?”

One night I found myself stranded at a table with “Ramón the Dance Teacher,” at the Tentacíon nightclub (known simply as “La Tenta”). We had been “stood up,” probably by design, by some mutual friends from the dance academy.
“What? Are you afraid to be alone with me?” said Ramón suggestively as I examined my watch for the third time.
“Petrified.”
“La Tenta” is Ramón’s natural habitat. There are Ramón’s of all shapes, sizes and hair altitude. The non-existent cover charge for women lures unsuspecting foreigners into the Ramón’s den, where he pounces upon her with stilted English phrases.
As Ramón’s hand migrated subtly across the tabletop I watched as if it were a cockroach creeping toward me. When I withdrew my hand this was interpreted as playing hard to get and minutes later a skinny arm descended upon my defenseless shoulders. The third time I shrugged it off, Ramón looked betrayed.
“I don’t understand. All the American girls I’ve ever known where up for anything.”
“All American girls are not the same,” I said. This profound insight into the obvious seemed to shake Ramón to the core of his being. The rest of the night he sat staring blindly at the dance floor like a man who had lost his religion.

Posted by Anna at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"This isn't over yet," Jesus whispers. "We're having a mega march on Saturday, are you coming?" The gleam in his eyes, which I once took for revolutionary zeal, is looking more and more maniacal.

"So what time are we meeting to go to the march?" he insists. I stammer something about having to work that day.

"Have you been to Monte Albán? Mitla? Hierve el Agua? Ocotlán, San Pablo Gelatao?" He names off all the tourist attractions and to his dismay I've been to every one.

"Remember," I say. "I've been here for over two years."

"Then I'll invite you to my rancho, there's trees, some waterfalls." I nod noncommitedly and give him a fake phone number.

When I first met him four months ago and he was living under a tarp on the terrace of the Marques del Valle Hotel (where tourists now dine under black canvas umbrellas) his bloodshot, wild-eyed look seemed appropriate, even admirable. But today, among the tinkling fountains and immaculate rows of poinsettas in the "resurrected" Zócalo, he's revealed as just another shady local character, seeking to befriend naive foreigners. He's cleaned up his image (presumably to allude capture by the police) with short hair, a clean guayabera and black pants, but his red eyes, embedded in wrinkles, give him away.

Sure enough, that weekend, the Zocalo reverted to a fortress again, if only for a few hours. But this time it was the State Police who erected the barricades.

Posted by Anna at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)