The Guadalajara Reporter

When work isn’t labor

Eleno Diaz was boldly, if shakily, perched at the peak of my teja-and-carrizo roof, and in a satirical voice reviewing the local chismes from his pueblo. (Non-Spanish speakers: chisme means gossip.

But today when Mexicans greet one another with an early “Buenos dias,” asking, “Hay chismes hoy?”, it’s assumed they’re inquiring if there is news about some outage straight from a police blotter of earlier times — deaths occasioned by breaking and entering, robberies, kidnappings, and the night’s unadorned mindless killings, etc.) However, “Leno” was speaking with rural cynicism of purely political behavior, often so outrageous as to appear clownish — and maybe dangerous — to campesinos.

Though his cousin had recently helped me repair a wind-struck corner of the roof, the fact that Leno had heard that a tormenta hit Zacatecas Sunday-Monday, plus two overcast days here, prompted him to show up determined that I commence preparing my roof for the coming rainy season. Leno is a good friend, but once he gets his mind set on something it takes more than gringo reasoning (usually flawed, he believes) to change his course. He’d seen the remains of tlacuache (opossum) the dogs had caught last night. Tlacuaches are easy targets for any dog that hasn’t had his hunting instincts bred or petted out of him. And oddly tlacuaches are amazingly clumsy, especially for noctambulating creatures. They’re always falling off of walls they try to sneakily traverse. (In the United States, opossum has been a favorite food of country folks in the South, particularly swamp-area folks.) Holding up the much-gnawed-on opossum carcass by its naked tail, Leno said my dogs were too finicky, or they would have eaten it all, including the bones. He thinks foreigners he’s seen are excessively finicky, too.