Sunday, January 26, 2014

Ch-ch-ch-changes


Yelapa students see these values on the face of each low riser as they go up the steps to their school: Love, Respect, Honesty, Equality... Amor, Respeto, Honestidad, Igualidad...

La amistad, el tesoro mas valioso”, or ”Friendship, the most valuable treasure” is inscribed along the base of the pedestal above which the school’s flagpole rises. This value is affirmed and reflected with the many “Hola, amigos” that greet me on village rambles.

Similarly inclusive values are promoted in the words of Benito Juarez that adorn the ledge at a scenic viewpoint above the playa-- ”Respecting the rights of all people leads to peace.” 

I’m sure these same values were reinforced 50 years ago when Ronco and Ana Rosa were attending school, but mostly by family and peers, for they each only had two years in the classroom--first and second grade. 

Not to get all sociological, but we’ve noticed perhaps a consequence of this minimal education among the older residents of the pueblo--verbal distinctions (the hoary “contrast and compare” of my former classroom) leading to strategies of classification are not much practiced. We see a whale on the horizon, point it out, ask “Qué tipo de ballena?”, and are met with a shrug and “Una ballena.”

A tree
The same goes when I ask about a type of tree, certain birds, or even less common fish. 

According to Ana Rosa, who has some feelings about this, higher education, according to her padre, was only for the boys in the family, and then only if they had the wherewithal to send the young man to Puerto Vallarta. Her father probably had the connections to arrange for schooling, and did for her male sibling, but with Ana Rosa was not so inclined.

At our dinner conversation she went on the reflect that the padres in those days a half century ago were generally hard and unsmiling, reflecting the difficulty of their life. That characterization, she and Ronco agreed, does not hold true today. Life is mucho más fácil with technological and sociological advancement, and an uneasy embrace of tourism.

Back in the day, though, if you wanted to schmooze with una amiga, you had to walk the up and down path, skipping over rocks. Today: cell phone. The consequence, of course, of this change in habit as well as diet, is that few are flaco (slender) as everyone was then, and that diabetes is now not at all uncommon. Same old sad song--you see it on Indian reservations back in the States.  Hell, you see it everywhere. 

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