San Miguel de Allende Human Connections

I was on a bench in the Jardin Principal on a Wednesday morning with a bag of corn, thinking I was being kind to the pigeons. A woman on the next bench told me, quite firmly, that I was doing it wrong, and showed me how. We argued about pigeons for an hour. She was right about most of it. We now meet every Wednesday to disagree about something else. Last week it was tomatoes. She is also right about tomatoes. The pigeons have taken sides.

The first sound I heard in San Miguel de Allende was not a bell. It was a rocket. It went off before sunrise somewhere near the Jardin Principal. I sat up. Nothing was wrong. It was a fiesta. There are many. Altitude: about 1,900 meters. I slept badly at first. Streets: steep cobblestones. Wear shoes with grip. Fireworks: normal, and they come in daylight too. I now sleep through most of it. The bells I still hear.

I have lived here three years and I still travel mostly on foot, which the cobblestones make an honest choice. The camiones, which is what residents call the local buses, remain a mystery to me. I see them pass near Parque Juarez with hand written signs in the windscreen that I cannot decode. Do residents learn the routes by memory, or is there a simpler way to know which camion goes where?

You were leading a donkey carrying firewood down a cobblestone street in Centro one morning, and a tour group stopped to take pictures. The donkey ignored them. You ignored them. A tourist asked how old the donkey was and you said, older than you, with total calm. I was across the street laughing so hard I had to lean on a wall. The donkey looked at me with something close to pity. It was a fair look. I had been in the same shirt for three days.

A language exchange near Parque Juarez gave me a Spanish partner who corrected my verbs for two hours, then took me for tacos around the corner. We have met every Thursday for ten months. My Spanish is barely better. I know all about his grandmother's recipe for mole. It has twenty three ingredients and one of them is a secret. I have not asked which. I think that was the real lesson all along. I think the lesson is a cooking class.

I had come out to El Charco del Ingenio in a thin jacket, and the bench was cold at that hour. An older couple on the next bench opened a thick wool blanket, spread it over the three of us without a word, and we watched the sun come over the canyon in silence. It took about forty minutes. The couple had a thermos. They did not offer the thermos. They did not need to. I have never been tucked in by strangers before. I think about it when I wear that jacket.

I had far too many bags for the cobblestone hill up to Guadalupe on Thursday evening. A man coming down turned around, took two of them without asking, and climbed with me, breathing exactly as hard as I was. At the top he handed them back, said, buen provecho, and went down again. I do not know why he said buen provecho. I had no food. I have carried a lighter bag since, in case I meet him, and I would like to give him something with food in it.

You were sitting on the bench across from me in the Jardin Principal on Tuesday morning doing a crossword in pen, and every time a bell rang from the Parroquia you looked up like you were being asked a question. I was the one with a coffee going cold. I wanted to give you a word. I had none. At the third bell you filled in a square and nodded, as if the bell had said it. I do not know the word. I hope the crossword went well. I hope the bell got credit.