First Person: Pueblo living has its pleasures

Life in a pueblo has its charms

Itraveled from my home in Fort Worth, Texas, to a dusty pueblo near Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, in 1967. I was 15. The youth counselor from our church drove four other teenagers and me to the border for a good cause. We would join the adults in this small town to finally finish the construction of a schoolhouse for the children of the community.

I don’t remember the name of the town, but I can’t forget the limited access to water, food, and electricity. Housing was basic. The low wages and disregard for their rights made it difficult for the workers to stay in these jobs, but they had nowhere else to go.

During our four-day stay, we carried concrete blocks and buckets of water, small mixed batches of concrete, and did anything we could do. The adults fed us from their simple, private kitchens and we slept in their homes on makeshift beds. Their children taught us games. Everyone showed pride in their accomplishment and gratitude for our help when the school building was finally finished. We did it together, enduring the hottest sun I have ever experienced.

That trip made me realize what “culture” means and how privilege works. I returned to my middle-class life with a new respect for those workers and the children I met, in awe of their stamina and goodwill toward us.

I learned Spanish in high school and college and traveled to Mexico as much as I could for more than 20 years. I escaped to Oaxaca in 2005 to deal with the trainwreck of a life I’d built for myself. It was the right thing to do. Living in an environment where nobody knew me, enjoying the art, the cuisine, strolling in the zocalo, and visiting the Cathedral helped me get back on my feet. I knew then that I would live in Mexico.

By early 2013, retirement became my goal. I wanted a quiet life, a space dedicated to writing, and a chance to go a little crazy on gardening. When a friend offered me the chance to build a home on his property in Izamal, I didn’t waste any time. Settling into Izamal was never a decision between city or pueblo for me. It was a free fall into a quieter

CARLOS ROSADO VAN DER GRACHT / YUCATÁN MAGAZINE

and slower lifestyle that I needed, one that I could financially sustain. I’m an amateur gardener. Yucatán has blessed me with new plants without cursing my ignorance. My large Izamal property thrives because I have a jardinero to help me, and I exchange plants with my neighbors. I’m a writer. The stacked stone walls around my home keep things quiet. I have frequent conversations with my neighbors, in Spanish, I argue with CFE, and distribute mangos and mamey in season. I have almost learned to like the music that roars out of my neighbor’s house at night. The mercado has bounced back from the pandemic, new restaurants have arrived. We have an art gallery! After nine years of residency, no robbery, no property damage from neighbors. I’m set to live here, happily, as long as I want to.

I miss the cultural experience a city offers, but it doesn’t move me to leave the pueblo. Maybe the longing for a big city is about scratching that itch. It seems to me that those of us who choose to live in pueblos have a different itch.

That’s the case for Deborah Kawabata and her husband, Hidetaro. They met in Japan, married, and raised two children there. The third was born in Canada, Deborah’s homeland. They sojourned in Bali, where they spent their honeymoon, for six months after their children left home. Deborah researched Mérida during their stay. She was drawn to Mérida’s proximity to the

beach, the safety, the language, and culture of the Yucatán. They settled first in Mérida September 2019, in García Ginerés. “The neighborhood was beautiful, but I kept feeling that I needed to see more than nice swimming pools and tall walls. I can’t stand having the walls!” When they left García Ginerés and rented a small house in Chelem for two months, they soon discovered “I miss the that the beach life wasn’t for cultural experience them, either. They had not counted on how much energy it takes to deal with the sand and a city realized that the heat and sand, offers, but it doesn’t together, had already started to damage furniture. Soon, they began looking for move me an undeveloped property that to leave the they could shape for themselves. Izamal offered wide open spaces pueblo.” that they could develop as they please, a complex culture, and opportunities to learn new languages (Spanish and Mayan) and customs. Deborah has the freedom to choose what she sees every day. They found what they were looking for. “I’m not done living, and I’m not done learning,” Deborah insists. I couldn’t agree more!  Raised in Texas, Chris Strickling lives Izamal in a house she designed and built in 2013. Chris is most at home when she’s riding her bike in the early morning, cooking dinner for friends, or writing the next short story that beckons her.