Bottom of the Country April 30, 2022
“San Cris has a very strong energy, it chooses you or not, either everything flows or you are expelled.”
Gerardo, Libros de Madero y Dugelay
I put my fleece coat on for the first time in 2 months and immediately start sneezing. Mold spores, dammit. I need to beat the thing soundly into submission before I dare wear it around town, lest I walk into a cafe and trigger a group sneezing fit.
Stomach illnesses abound in San Cristóbal de las Casas. The dry season seems to make things worse, leading us to avoid outdoor dining in general and street food in particular. As my anonymous source reminds me, “Na’ Mas Te”—nothing but tea—even as the piquant vender summons me, piercingly, “Tacos de Canasta!” His cilantro condiment may not look toxic, but situations can change fluidly over a 24-hour incubation period. Thank you, señor, but I believe I prefer your tacos boiled and autoclaved.
Other grim stories abound as well, none of which I can substantiate, including the one about subterranean chambers where a multitude of nuns had their secret babies; or, the stolen artwork from the Cathedral, or the story of a bishop from the early 20th-century who was poisoned by the female elite, apparently over his sanction against cacao ceremonies; or, the story that places human skulls in the foundation of the modest white bridge on Calle Mazariegos. So many tales describe lives of darkness, of abuse and theft and duplicity. None of them describe the most likely cause of death in this place, which is, by my estimation, dysentery.
“Chiapas es el Culo del Pais,” the asshole of the country, at least according to my anonymous source. This would certainly explain the diverse and abundant culture of coliform illness. One neighbor believes that the principal vectors for this spread of fecal parasites are the barefoot hippies that scamper about the Andadores, even though this problem precedes the 1960’s by centuries. Better to blame them than the ubiquitous street dogs.
Beyond physical ailments, there is an enduring sociopathy in Chiapas, and it is concentrated in San Cristobal. Dispossessed Maya people from throughout the countryside come to the city because they already have lost so much outside of it. Often their first stop is the women’s hospital near my house, where families camp on the sidewalk awaiting treatment. What the newcomers find here are appalling disparities—e.g., extravagant outdoor dining on the picturesque Real de Guadalupe, while young mothers in shaggy fur skirts carry their textiles from table to table, in hopes that some foreigner will pay to relieve them of their burden.
Ricardo is just 6-years-old, so his mother keeps an eye on him among the crowd at Viña de Bacco; but, have no doubt, he is working, selling woven bracelets for 10 pesos to support the family. He still wears his backpack from school, but once the bell rings at 1 pm he begins his shift on Guadalupe. Sales are better if his mother stays out of sight, and young Ricardo proves a charming and effective salesman. He immediately recognizes me as a friend of Eugenio, and, by proxy, a friend to the street children, so the little boy takes a seat at my empty table, eating my popcorn with filthy hands, all while showing me his inventory.
At one point, he magnanimously passes the bowl of palomitas over to me, but I say I am not hungry—“No Tengo Hambre.” Not until the autoclave arrives.