The Morenos, pt. 2

I decided to visit the Morenos after I was settled in Guanajuato. In the weeks pending my visit, I read about Bernal and daydreamed about seeing Araceli’s children again. I realized that the baby boy who kicked in her belly while we worked at Lakewinds would be three.

There is not much on the internet or in travel books about Bernal: it is tiny. The town has received some attention in the past few years, though, because Mexico’s new age-ers have identified the volcanic rock in the town as having healing energy. (see: http://www.mexico-with-heart.com/2003/the-magic-of-bernal/) When I did read about the town, words like “magical” and “healing” came up.

I suppose this is all to say that I had no idea what to expect from Bernal.

I took a bus from Guanajuato to Queretaro and then another bus to a town outside of Queretaro and then asked a taxi driver to bring me to Bernal, which I expected to be a few miles away. Forty minutes later I arrived at the state prison. The taxi driver had heard penal instead of Bernal.

After paying the driver a sum unheard of as far as rural Mexican taxi drivers go and winding through the desert for another hour, I arrived in Bernal.

The taxi let me out in the center square, and I stood and looked around, tired and confused and not sure how to carry my recording equipment, backpack and the flowers I had picked up to give Manuel’s mother.

Manuel’s only instructions had been to arrive in Bernal and ask for his mother, Sabina Jiminez.

I asked the first person who walked by where Sabina Jiminez lived. The person whom I asked (who I’d later be formally introduced to) told me that Sabina was her cousin and brought me to the gates of the Jiminez home. I rang the doorbell but no one answered. I sat on the curb outside of the door and prepared myself for a wait.

A few minutes later, an old man opened the door. I asked “Sabina Jiminez?” and he smiled and waved me inside. Manuel had never told me that I’d be visiting his father too.

I’ve since found out that Sr. Moreno was absent for much of the family’s upbringing – he drank too much and rode a mule an hour a day to get to the family’s farm outside of town, where he sometimes slept. A few years ago he had a stroke, and he hasn’t been able to speak clearly since.

He showed me inside. I asked him what his name was and he pointed to the crucifix on the wall.

“Jesus?”

He crossed his opposing index fingers and muttered.

Cruz. Cruz Moreno.

He looked like Manuel. He dressed the way elderly men sometimes do in the states, wearing a cardigan and slippers, only he also wore a cowboy hat. He sat down and pointed me to the garden, the horse, the kitchen and the bedrooms. The house consists of several rooms that the Morenos have spent the past fifty years building from wood and concrete, there are no hallways, and a tropical garden is in the center of the compound. I had chosen the wrong gift: the carnations I brought were pale compared to the orchids.

I didn’t know what to say to a man I had never met who could not speak. I smiled, we sat together waiting for Sabina.

Sabina arrived with dinner and half of the town in tow. I was not petted or admired. I was not chased around or stared at. None of the things that happen to the Hollywood movie white girl when she lands at an unknown third world location happened to me. The Morenos and their cousins and friends just asked me a lot of questions and then carried on with their conversation, they offered me food and I helped to cook. I felt, almost instantly, at ease.