The Things We Love-Hate about Guanajuato

No matter where one ends up living, New York or Guanajuato, Mexico, there's bound to be things about that city that is passionately loved and things you'd wish didn't exist.

We have a love-hate relationship with Guanajuato. Sometimes, when I sit in the El Centro in the early morning hours experiencing the peace and beholding the beauty of the Colonial surroundings I can't believe my good fortune. Then by noontime I am ready to live somewhere else all together.

Love

If you can try to imagine a giant banana split bowl and then have it twisted into an “S” shape, then you have some idea what Guanajuato looks like. The bottom of the “bowl” is extremely narrow with the town being built up the sides of the bowl. And on top of that the whole thing is a twisting and winding “S” that was the original route of the Guanajuato River.

The houses seem to be built one on top of another. The reason is that they are indeed built in this manner. A new house begins where another one ends. The feat it took to come up with all of this boggles the mind and is very thrilling to see. I personally never grow tired of it.

Rage Free—What you will not see here is the public demonstration of rage. The Raging Syndrome, so prevalent in the American public does not exist here. No fighting on the street, no yelling in the stores, it is peaceful and quiet with people who seem to know how to behave in public (Except when they are driving in cars!).

Frozen in Time—A reader of my column who is Mexican and from Monterrey told me that Guanajuato is as a place frozen in time and history. One of the many things that drew my wife and I here was the fact that it seemed to embrace the same values as we do. It is a provincial town. It is ultra-conservative. You are just as liable to see people riding a horse through town as a mode of transportation as you would someone driving a car. The traditional Mexican concept of time is very much applicable here in Guanajuato. Nothing begins on time, ever, and I do not believe this will every change. At least I hope not. They are not tied to the clock. Time is not their master. They regard time as something beneath them and under their control.

Pedestrian Town—It is possible to live in this town very comfortably without having to own a car. Consequently, you see a higher proportion of fit people here than you do in the States. Though there are cars, and too many of them, the vast majority still walk. One of the reasons the majority do not own cars is that there really is no place to put a car so the majority do not own them. This is changing however to the detriment of the health of the locals and expatriates. It is still largely a pedestrian town where you can walk to the store, doctor, church, or entertainment.

History—If you love history then Guanajuato is the town for you. Everything here exudes history and is key to the understanding of where the modern Mexican came from. Not only are the very old Baroque buildings still standing as a testimony to Mexico’s past, they are still being used today attesting to Guanajuato’s presence. The state of Guanajuato is the birthplace of Mexican Independence.

Downtown or El Centro—I love that the down town area is not full of silly and vain boutiques with Mexican façade fronts. This is what has happened in gentrified Mexican towns all over Mexico. They turn “downtown” into a “historic center” with the fronts or façades that look Mexican to give the illusion of what this area used to represent. Life doesn’t really go on in the downtown area any more. They fill what use to be thriving and used buildings with that which houses cheesy boutiques and crappy souvenirs.

Downtown Guanajuato is full of history. It is also a place full of life where current history is made on a daily basis. There is a movement to change this which saddens us to no end. I pray it never changes.

Eternal Springtime—The weather here is normally dry and nice year round. This area is often said to have eternal springtime but isn’t entirely true. In the year 2006-2007, it was the wettest year we had ever experienced. Also, we had to breakout the infrequently used space heater to keep ourselves from freezing to death. This is highly unusual. You can run around in shorts and t-shirts up until January and most of the gringos do. You always know when someone is a gringo tourist by the fact they are in shorts when the weather is in the low 60’s. Those of us who live here are shaking cold when the weather is at those temps. We’ve acclimated and shiver with the locals.

Convenience—The main attraction here is really that which expatriates enjoy the most. However, long-term vacationers can also enjoy the fact that stores, small Mom and Pop shops are often so plentiful that you can walk a few minutes and get everything you need. Unfortunately, with the advent of massive car ownership and the building of “superstores” this all might become a thing of the past.

Safety—It used to be that Guanajuato was known as a safe city in which women could walk the streets alone and not be bothered. This should be tempered with the phrase, “relative safety”. My wife was attacked sexually during daylight hours. More and more foreign women are getting “groped” in the city. So, safety concerns are here and you should exercise caution.

Medical Care—This is another big draw. The care is good to excellent and cheap. You can see a doctor, in some clinics, for less than $2.50 for an office call. They have generic drug stores with cheap but effective medications.

Restaurants—We eat out—a lot! It is a cheap form of entertainment. Some places are of course better than others but you can find good food at good prices with wonderful services. We’ve take couple out to dinner and paid less than $20.00 for four people for a hearty meal. What do you think of that?

Hate

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AMERICANIZATION - What is currently (2008) happening in the city of Guanajuato with the huge influx of new "expats" is what took place in the city of San Miguel de Allende a little more than a decade ago. Americans are flocking to Guanajuato and buying up the real estate.

What Americans typically do when moving to another country, whether it's Mexico or whatever, is go about transforming the city into something more suitable to American Tastes. What this translates into, if past historical practices are indicative of present and future practices, is that they will NEVER learn the language. Spanish, the rich and magnificent linguistic portal to the culture, will never be attempted. And, let me just say that this is the first step they take in turning the city into what Mexicans call, Gringolandia. The primary characteristic of Gringolandia is that the city, including the local Mexicans, speak English. Why is this significant? Why is this a bad thing? Read this:

"Cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting, distinguishing, separating, or artificially injecting the culture or language of one nation into another. It is usually the case that the former is a large, economically or militarily powerful nation and the latter is a smaller, less important one. Cultural imperialism can take the form of an active, formal policy or a general attitude. The term is usually used in a pejorative sense, usually in conjunction with a call to reject foreign influence." (Cultural imperialism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Already in the five years we've lived in Guanajuato we are seeing the effect of Cultural Imperialism. We hate this passionately.

Pollution—Because Guanajuato is built into the heart of a narrow valley or giant ravine, there is no place for the pollution from car exhaust to go. Therefore, it goes into the lungs of those inhabitants of Guanajuato. As a tourist, you will see this. More locals are beginning to wear masks in order to breathe. Children are suffering from respiratory diseases as the result. The reason for all of this takes me to the next point.

Car Ownership—In the short, few years we’ve lived here we’ve seen a dramatic increase in car ownership. To verify this we surveyed my wife’s ESL adult students who verified that car ownership is a relatively new thing here. As incomes improved, the locals scrambled to buy cars. The results are devastating. Pollution from the car exhaust is impacting the health of the locals and especially the kids, as I mentioned above. Plus, there is no where to put them. This town was not constructed with the thought of the convenience of car ownership. As a tourist just behold the amount of traffic on the streets belching their billowing black clouds of engine fumes into the atmosphere. In Mexico City, once called the most polluted city in the world, is largely due to the car ownership. The same problem is happening in Guanajuato.

Congestion—The streets are crowed. Between the amount of pedestrian and auto traffic it is enough to send one into a panic attack. Around noon each day, when the locals finally get up and get going on their day, it so incredibly crowded. The strategy for walking in this town is to either get up and going around eight in the morning or, be sure to become a wall-hugger. Mexicans walk so rapidly on the sidewalks that if you do not stick as close to the buildings as possible they are liable to sweep you off the sidewalks (or push you) . Congested streets, car ownership, and the pollution all work in tandem making it miserable if you are an asthma sufferer.

Noise—I am convinced that the folks of Guanajuato have a supernatural ability to tolerate a level of noise that no normal person can survive. It must be genetic. They must have the “noise toleration” gene in their Mexican genotype. From music, to parties, to the cars and buses on the street it is so incredibly noisy that one can only shake ones head in amazement and wonderment that not all Guanajuatenses are deaf!

Teenage Pregnancy—Many of the parents of Guanajuato have fallen into the ideology that if they enact boundaries and enforce them their children won’t be their friends. Oh, please!

The consequence of this moral relativism is that Guanajuato has the shameful distinction of having the highest teen-single mother rate in the nation.

All one has to do to see why this is happening is the go to the parks after school lets out and watch the young bunnies going through their teenaged mating rituals with absolutely no adult supervision whatsoever. And I am not talking about simple smootchies. I am talking full-blown foreplay to baby-making later.

The Grand Mystery—This is something often keeps us up at night and the topic of frequent conversation. Though Mexicans in general are known for hospitality to strangers, when you get to known them better a different picture emerges. A few tourists we’ve interviewed have picked up on this, most have not. Most simply do not have the time to see that Mexicans often mask their feelings and what they really think of you. They may take your money in a business transaction and treat you with the utmost respect in the process but you never know what they are “really” thinking.

As an expat we see daily the things that would certainly shock tourists. In stores you get shoved out of the way at a store’s counter, mostly by older women, who act as though they don’t see you. It is almost like all you are to them is a stick of furniture to be moved forcefully out of the way.

Those Mexicans we’ve asked have about this Grand Mystery have told us that either the people are massively uneducated or ill raised, or that they simply don’t why this behavior is practiced.

Another aspect of the Grand Mystery is that you never know when a Mexican tells you something whether it is the truth or not or whether they are serious. I have been told that in the more modern cities, the less provincial ones, this custom has or is in the process of changing.

You can never count on what you are told when seeking answers as being the truth. Never! It makes me wonder just how they’ve managed to survive all these centuries in this area of Mexico. But, they have.

***The idea of something being POSITIVE or NEGATIVE is entirely contingent upon perception. What you, the reader, might perceive as Positive, Negative, or Neutral, someone else might have a different spin on it all together. It is our individual personality and character "filters" through which we run information to make a judgment on the Negativity or Positivity of something. Keep that in mind!***

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