The Baden-Powell Institute is located in a deceptively
small-looking building a block from my hotel in a middle-class neighborhood.
Registration fees are 180 USD for twenty hours of small-group instruction in
grammar, vocabulary, and conversation. Included with this program is a nightly
English/Spanish chat on the rooftop patio of a pleasant neighborhood café. The
classes are extremely helpful, with immediate improvement in verb tenses,
prepositions, and vocabulary. There is only one other Spanish student, a gringa in her sixties, winter resident.
Listening to her precise and awkward enunciation is painful, but my command of
polite Spanish needed just as much work as hers. I would ask the meaning of
every unfamiliar word or idiom, jotting word and meaning down in my notebook.
After nearly two weeks of lazy wandering, the mental work was refreshing; I
determined to quit smoking weed for the duration of classes to keep that sharp
edge.
Later that evening, I joined the conversation club at the
café. One other gringo was present, a
redhead from Idaho who had flown in on a whim. The other dozen participants
were young Morelians, intelligent, curious, and eager to exercise their new
command of English. They especially enjoyed asking me about my perceptions of
Mexico and my experiences in the US.
By 7 pm, the group wrapped up and we all went our separate
ways. As I was walking back to my hotel, a girl from the group seemingly
appeared by my side. Her name as Maria. She was very tall--5’10’’ in flats—very
slender, dressed conservatively, straight black hair, a plain and open face. We
made small talk about American habits she found strange, my first impressions
of Morelia. A couple blocks later, we parted ways. In my self-centered
obtuseness, the obvious did not register right away.
The rest of the week passed by much like Monday. I rented a
roof-top apartment from a güero for
200 MXN (11 USD) a day. To access it, I had to unlock five locks, keyholes on
both sides. The heavy steel front door and multiple locks felt like accessing a
bank vault. The other rooftop apartment was occupied by a local student. The
flats were furnished with a twin bed, hot shower, microwave, dresser, and
little else. Sunbathing on the rooftop’s lounge chairs took up part of the
afternoon, as did Spanish homework. Lunch was a delicious bowl of rich birria de res with a stack of corn
tortillas. Life fell into a pleasant routine, though one with an expiration
date; three hundred dollars a week would drain my funds too rapidly.
Friday afternoon, my last visit to the conversation club. We
talk about mota, plenty of laughing
about the nonchalance with which I discuss a topic taboo in polite Mexican
society. Maria stays demurely quiet during the discussion. As I left the group,
lingering outside the café, she came out and we began walking downtown
together. I was bitter about losing 2000 MXN (115 USD) from my sock the day
before, making it necessary to amputate a leg of my trip. As she walked beside me,
I tried to make small talk, but ugly feelings interfered: inadequacy, icy
coldness, a defensive withdrawal. We strolled across the plaza and stopped in
an Oxxo for me to buy a couple beers. Clearly, this was going nowhere. Her sad
eyes met mine when I told her I was moving on. If you ever decide to come back
to Morelia, come see me, she says. Steps toward me and gives me a tight hug, a
kiss on the corner of my mouth. Then she turns around and walks off without a
look back.
Immediately I regret my failure, but I cannot call her back.
She turns a corner and leaves my life.
The next day, sitting in the sun on the roof, I roll a fat
joint and stare at it as I puff until it seems to occupy my entire world, the
meaningless letters of the guidebook paper blackening and turning to white ash,
blowing across the rooftop. This is as far as I will be getting on this trip, I
decide. Tomorrow I turn north, back into the dry and hostile country where my
dry and hostile heart can feel at home.