Anyone that has ever traveled to México knows that silence is golden: Welcome to México – Silence is Prohibited.
You get loud peseros (small buses) with their glass pipe mufflers, a loud bell for the trash pick up, a whistle from the man that sharpens knives, a guy selling rico tamales oaxacaños and then the loud speaker sitting on top of a car or truck selling or making announcements.
The other day, here in San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato, a small town of 49,000 people, we happened to get behind a blazer that had a couple of those big loud speakers making an announcement; this announcement was different from those I often hear – it wasn’t an announcement for a store opening or a politician wanting to get out the vote – this was an announcement for: Ms. San Luis de la Paz 2011 – a drag show.
Gringos often hear how dangerous it is to be openly gay in México. But here in a small town, not a big city like México City, was a carload of drag queens making public announcements for their annual Nuestra Belleza Gay 2011 pageant. As the blazer approached people on the streets the drag queens would get out of their car and pass out flyers to their event. No one was afraid.
click photo above to see pics of the event Nuestra Belleza Gay 2011 – San Luis de la Paz, GTO
This is the fifth year the gay community has put on the pageant. All six contestants and their supporters will meet at this small town’s main bus station and caravan to Bar One, where the pageant will be held.
Love it: these guys are OUT, PROUD and SCREAMING.
I wrote a column about my visit to San Luis. The article, Small-town gay life, was published in the Dallas Voice.
Life in México City has been an adventure and enjoyable. I have been having so much fun, I hadn’t blogged since my first full day. So I will be trying to catch up.
So here goes: I have most enjoyed the positive changes in Col. Santa Maria la Ribera; the park, Alameda Santa Maria la Ribera, has been remodeled, there are a couple of more coffee cafés: and glad to see some old institutions still there, like the Russian restaurant Kolobok, Café Alameda and the cantina Salon Paris. I have enjoyed Santa Maria so much that I will be taking an apartment in the area once the apartment is finished being remodeled – commuting between Dallas and México City.
Currently I am staying with a friend in Santa Maria and I found Fonda Le Bon Gout – Comida Haitiana during a recent walk. Yep, a Haitian restaurant that is three months open and one block away from the park Alameda Santa Maria la Ribera.
Fonda Le Bon Gout – Comida Haitiana (Le Bon Gout = The Good Taste)
As I was taking a walk, exploring my old neighborhood, I ran across a new fonda that was full of Black people. Blacks, African citizens, are not a common sight for México, so when I saw a place that was full of Black people, I took notice. I stopped and read the sign: Fonda Le Bon Gout – Comida Haitiana (Le Bon Gout = The Good Taste). As I stopped and looked, one of the ladies invited me in to eat. I thought, why not? The food is affordable.
I ordered the Plat Creole with chicken; they have it with beef and pork. As I waited for my order, I enjoyed sitting there admiring all the Black ladies and their children of five or six years of age speaking French. In fact when they spoke to me, it was in Spanish but with a French accent. I learned the place does not have one owner, but is family owned. There were only a couple of family members living in México City for awhile, but after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, other family members came to México City – and then the restaurant was opened.
Plat Creole with chicken
My food arrived, and there was lots of it: rice and beans, fried banana, fried chicken, red sauce, with Haitian potato salad and what appeared to be coleslaw. The coleslaw is HOT, spicy HOT, but good. Though I am calling the food coleslaw and potato salad, they do have proper names; though I don’t remember how to pronounce much less spell their names. It was all-good – home cooking: Haitian Style.
Fonda Le Bon Gout – Comida Haitiana Manuel Carpio # 99 Local 1C (though the address is Manual Carpio: find them on Dr. Alt side of the building near Manuel Carpio Dr. Atl @ Manuel Carpio) Col. Santa Maria la Ribera FRIDAY – WEDNESDAY: 1:00 PM – 6:00 PM CLOSED ON THURSDAY México City, MÉXICO.
After breakfast with Mary my host, I ventured out. I took the Metro Bus to the Buenavista stop, just had to see how my old neighborhood, Col. Santa Maria la Ribera, had changed, if at all.
I just had to see what I had been missing for the last nine months that I have been in Dallas. As I walked up Dr. Atl to Salvador Diaz Mirón I could see water shooting high from the fountains at the park — they never worked the whole time I lived there. The park was now clean and the trees trimmed so one could see the centerpiece of the park, the Moorish Kiosk, Kiosco Morisco as it is known. As I walked toward the park, I walked in front of the Russian restaurant, Kolobok, one of my favorite places I used to eat. It was wonderful to hear kitchen help ladies holler at me: Que Milagro, What a Miracle: a miracle to see me because to them I had just disappeared. We chatted a while, told them I had moved and was only visiting and that I would return to eat. I cut my conversation short because I just had to see, walk and sit at the park – like I used to do.
click photo above for slideshow
When I left Col. Santa Maria la Ribera in September 2010 the park and the Kiosk were a mess because of remodeling. Now the park looked so fresh and inviting. The Kiosk, built like in 1884, was now clean and had freshly painted. The old marble floor in the middle of the Kiosk was gone, replaced with a wooden floor that looked great with the pattern design. The park has four fountains at each corner of the park and they were all spewing water high into the air – beautiful. The benches that had been removed from around the park, because they had built concert-sitting areas, had returned too. It made my day, it was all lovely. After enjoying the park, I walked the neighborhood and saw my old barber and the ladies that did my sewing. It was great seeing old faces. I never ventured to my apartment that continues to sit empty: Not going back.
After visiting Santa Maria, I went to La Zone Rosa where I bought a spiral notebook to write my thoughts: I had so many things I just had to write down. As I was sitting at a sidewalk café this 80-year old lady had some straw donkeys she wanted to sell. She held them for me to see and told me the donkeys were for feast day of Corpus Christi. What? She tried to explain what the ritual was about, but I was just not getting it so she gave up: LOL. Well, the lady was so cute, I bought two. I love my treasures, folk art, I bought from that lady, but what I never did find out what donkeys had to do with the feast day.
