Yesterday, July 3, my lady love and I took a hike after lunch down to Lake Chapala, in Jalisco, Mexico, where we are vacationing this month, to admire Ajijic’s new malecon, a wide stone walkway stretching perhaps three-quarters of a mile west of the fishing pier.
When we had strolled two-thirds of the way down the malecon, admiring the stonework and a mini-Dionysian theater in the half round, we encountered in the road that goes down to the lake and separates the two parts of the walk, a group of three beer guzzlers, two men and a young woman, talking to an unshaven vendor who was dragging around a cardboard box tied with twine.
When we approached to resume our walk on the other side of the malecon, the vendor left and we joked a bit with the drinkers, saying it was early for happy hour (must’ve been about 3 pm). We hopped onto the malecon again, then, a more recreational space now with basketball courts and fountains, and encountered just a couple of minutes later the vendor once again or, I should say, he accosted us.
He was skinny, leathery, a bit of dried skin or spittle flecking his lower lip. He talked excitedly, in country dialect, and gesticulated wildly. Yes, he was selling us the goods — to be precise, the contents of his cardboard box, which he advertised as he untied the twine as an elixir past all others. It would cure gastrointestinal distress, backache, and, of course, cancer. It was country-fresh and country-raw, the ingredients a country secret. But for a mere 10 pesos, less than a buck, it would do all this for us and more.
But he also loved the campo, the countryside, near his home, and described in extravagant pantomime and country patois the fruits (and vegetables) of his labors: the peaches (dur-ASH-nos), pears (PAY-ras), blackberries (shar-sha-MO-rash), and mushrooms (ON-gas) that he tended and plucked and ate.
He was such a character and a charade, this Rosario (Ro-SHAR-e-yo), from the hamlet across the lake called La Manzanilla de la Paz (the little apple of peace, nay, of happiness, of delirium –- Man-sha-NEE-ya) that we could not withhold our smiles and our coins. We gave him 20 pesos for his pains – and he permitted us in turn a few photos. No need for your elixir, sir, we protested, after a sniff of the evil stuff. Your face, that open book (reading delusion, desperation, enterprise, cracked joy), is payment beyond compare. And Ro-shar-e-yo, thanking us profusely many times, declared us, even as we trotted off, “Muy amables, muy amables” (very friendly indeed).
