In Arteaga there is a canal that runs down an island in the center of the main boulevard. It resembles more an irrigation ditch,, yet a human recreational ecosystem has evolved along it. The water rushes between the thick knarled roots of aged cottonwoods. Families come to dip their feet and their little ones into the rushing water. The aroma of barbacue from various braziers rides upon the air. People sit, half hidden by the leaning trunk of a cottonwood and kiss. Kids climb perpendicular trunks and perch as if they were on their mother or father's laps. Feet stick out from the branches here and there like fruit.
If you follow this boulevard down eventually you will arrive at the zocalo. The faces are different in the north as if one had traveled from Boston, where the celtic physiognomy is stippled by freckles,, to the German Fest in Milwaukee where big boned rosy complexioned Teutons slap dance in drndl dresses and lederhosen. In Saltillo and Arteaga there are more whites and "ruddys" than I am used to, but still plenty of indigenous shapes and colors, only rounder, not like the almond headed natives of Tenancingo. I am sure they see us as differently as we see them.
As we slowly wound through the thick slow moving sunday crowd I saw lots of visible tattoos on backs and arms. This generation and this place, so close to the border, seem to have divested themselves of subtlety. People, however are friendly. They will offer to help without being asked. We followed the perimeter of the zocalo lined with puestos ambling in and out of the shade. There seemed to be little or no local crafts. Perhaps that is due to the fact that 90 % of the original natives,, the Huauchichiles, Coahuiltecos, Tobosos, Irritilas and Rayados, were erased by European diseases.
My wife bought a "cure from the desert" pomade made of peyote and marijuana for her mother who suffers joint pain from diabetes. It was good they didn't show the ingredients on the jar or my mother-in-law would refuse to try the grease on her knuckles feeling like a drug addict. (By the way it worked).
When we had completed our tour, we sat down to taste the "pancita" at a puesto that Tia recommended. The shade was soothing because Arteaga is hot this time of the year. The pancita was delicious. It brought back memories of my youth even though the preparation of the dish that we enjoyed under a blue tarp in Arteaga was different. My grandmother, a great cook, would occaisionally become animated and prepare tripe, a dish that can take from 2-2 1/2 hours to prepare. She would scrub and cut the tough tripe into pieces, then cook it in a deep pot until tender. This could take an hour and a half. Meanwhile she made a fresh tomato sauce with onions, garlic, and herbs. When the tripe was tender she added the tomato sauce, and black olives cooking it a while longer until it was well seasoned, when the tripe and the sauce had shared fluids like a couple making love. Pecorino Cheese was grated on a bowl of the concoction. Pancita estilo mexicana first elaborates a beef broth with water, the tripe, and beef bones until the stomach is tender. Meanwhile a sauce is made from chilaca chiles, onions, garlic, and herbs to arrive at a very different flavored darker slightly bitter red sauce. A bowl is not complete without oregano, fresh chopped onions, and lemon. It's delicious. I have made it several times but because I am a clumsy chef, I cannot maintain consistency. We were enjoying the pancita but Tia thought the cook shorted us on the meat. She charmed the owner into heaping on a more tripe. No problems, no arguments,, everyone was smiling. I think she could charm the skin off a rattlesnake.
During the meal music floated our way coming from an open space alongside the zocalo. Vera Cruzano style bailerinas were dancing their shoes clacking like a hundred nailers in unison. I relish the eye contact and smiles exchanged by the partners in folkloric dancing even if they barely know one another. There is an erotic element,,, socially accepted flirting. I was reminded of "bundling" that odd courting practice in the land of the puritans,, and of contra dancing in the Northeast where your partner, that means whomever you might wind up in the rotation, connects to you with not only with their body, but especially with their eyes, as if for the duration of the dance there are no rules and for these few moments you are not New England puritans but fleeting effervescent lovers spinning and concentrated,, outside the realm of sin,,, just two people creating a fantasy,,, all because it is accepted by all.
The women's dresses in Arteaga were wine colored with white trim, a large white flower planted in their dark hair. They held the dresses open, splayed like fans. The men were usually hidden by one half of the skirt decked out in their vercruzian hat, red panuelo, and white shirts. They had a simpler look. In the world of birds the male is vibrant and flashy and in the world of humans the peacock is a woman. Everyone in the troop looked ahead out over the gathered crowd when not looking at each other. Their posture is rigid and formal but their feet are animated. This is a foot fest,,feet slapping the stage floor sounding out an urgency in a rigorous frenzied tattoo.
Saltillo
I had mixed feelings about Saltillo from the minute we left highway 57. One is greeted by elevated highways, and fields of malls planted with rows of chain stores. One cannot help but feel they are in the U.S..
Facts about Saltillo and Coahuila:
Saltillo was founded in 1577 and soon after its founding Indigenous people from Tlaxcala were installed by the spanish as part of the settlement process. Tlaxcalans have always been considered traitors by other Mexicans because of the alliance they made with Cortes against the Aztecs.
Saltillo used to be the capitol of Texas before the Texas War of Independence when Coahuila and Texas were one.
About 95% of Mexico's coal reserves are found in Coahuila, which is the country's top mining state.The city is the world's largest silver producer and Mexico's largest gold producer.
Lala, a dairy products company, which produces 40% of Mexico's milk consumption is located in Coahuila.
The town of Piedras Negras is where Chef Ignacio Nacho Anaya served the first-ever plate of nacho, when some some Military wives visited "The Victory Club" restaurant in 1943. The restaurant was closed but the chef Ignacio let them in and concocted something to eat from what was available. According to Anaya, there were four ladies, and they’d been drinking when they asked him for a snack. When they commented on how tasty it was, they also asked, “what do you call them?” Anaya (Nacho) took responsibility for his creation and replied, “Nacho’s especial” (Nacho’s Special). The popular appetizer of tortilla chips and melted cheese has become a Tex-Mex cuisine classic. In honor of this delectable invention, the town hosts an annual nacho competition during the second week of October.
In the Cretaceous period, which lasted from 145 ago to 65 million years the number of dinosaurs reached their greatest diversity and large carnivores dominated all others. The best example of these is the Tyrannosaurus rex known by all, 'the king of the terrible lizards', who lived in the northern part of America. This last period, especially its final part, the Late Cretaceous, is the one that is particularly important in Coahuila, as the biggest and best fossil record of Mexico come from this state. Go see The Desert Museum in Coahuila.
Saltillo is well positioned along the banks of a great river of enterprise that touches the rest of Mexico to the south and the United States just to the north.
One cannot underestimate the influence of Coahuila in the Mexican Revolution. Coahuila was the home of Francisco Madero and Venustiano Carranza.The former, a bookish upper middleclass guy, who wrote the mexican version of "Common Sense" (The Presidential Succession in 1910), was naive and idealistic. He had a small stature and a high-pitched voice. Madero was a devout vegetarian and teetotaler, he followed homeopathy and spiritualism,, not that any of those characteristics should exclude you from Mexican politics,,, but being honest and decent certainly does. Francisco could not master the politics of plutocracy that had ruled Mexico since the War of Independence with the drastic changes of land reform and democracy. Madero was assasinated in 1913, two years after he became president by conspiritors led by Victoriano Huerta and the US ambassador Henry Lane Wilson.
Carranza, born in Parras, Coahuila came from an upper class family, was a tall imposing figure much shrewder and more calculating than Madero. He was not a military man, he relied on his cleverness. Carranza positioned himself well enough in his early career to rise up in the political ranks and become along with Zapata, Villa and Obregón one of the four most important leaders during the Mexican civil war.
Carranza, who had been ruling provisionally he was known by followers as "the First Chief", officially became president on March 11, 1917, in an election in which he won 797,305 votes against the 11,615 garnered by his closest rival. A month before, on February 5, the Constitution of 1917 was adopted. Although the 1917 Constitution also contained provisions to improve the lot of workers and peasant farmers, these were ignored by the Carranza government. Corruption was endemic and strikes were mercilessly broken.
Carranza opposed the sweeping changes called for during the revolution like land reform. Unlike Madero, he frowned on social justice. This alienated him from Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. In fact it has been suggested that he ordered the execution of Zapata in order to eliminate the last of the revolutionary idealists. He was intelligent in a crafty kind of way, stubborn, saw himself as the savior of Mexico, but unlike his counterparts he was a charismatic dud. His stubborness led to a power struggle among the big players which proved his downfall and the beginning of a the "succession",, The cycle of ruthless corrupt leaders who have plagued Mexico ever since.
Stairway in the Tech
That night I slept deeply even in the heat of Saltillo. Just one hour from Los Lirios, San Antonio, Escobedo, Monte Real and so different. In the morning I sat in the kitchen alone writing, enjoying a cup of coffee and listening to Tia's gardener, Ramon's methodic clipping. He might just be older than I. I am quiet. I think I understand the attraction of the ideology of communism,, for just a second,,, where all is equal and we share. I pause and catch myself wallowing in the fallacy of ideologies. What a joke,, sharing,, until the first person organizes a gang of followers and declares himself Secretary General Of Affairs Of State,,, because he wants to avoid the shovel.
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