MORNING BLOCK PARTY

Mornings are magical in San Miguel. As the peaks of La Sierra Madre Oriente catch fire, the downtown streets come alive. By 6:30 church bells are summoning worshippers for early mass. The city's trademark bright sunlight and blue skies never disappoint.

Finches and hummingbirds stop by to take a drink at our fountain.  Herons, egrets, and sometimes white-billed pelicans make their early forays from El Atascadero across the canyon to the marshlands bordering la presa. Likewise, children in their dark blue-and-white uniforms, guided by dutiful parents, start the morning trek to schools.

The sweet shops are already packed, and the cafes are just opening their doors as a cavalcade of delivery trucks start their morning runs. Stoops and sidewalks get their daily soaping. Pedestrians carefully pick their way beneath extended stone roof drains that discharge sparkling arcs of water into gutters and streets.

The Nahuatl women along Insurgentes have set up their tents and coal-fired burners and are already making fresh flautas, churros, tortas, and tortillas for the early crowd. There's an arresting sweet fragrance in the wind. Down on the Jardin, the street sweepers appear in their dark jump suits. Smartly dressed office workers check their watches and decide to get their Starbucks order to go.

Meanwhile, at the top of Calle Hospicio, the sound of a loud, clanging bell announces the arrival of the morning trash truck. I can set my watch by our daily pickup: 9:10 on the dot.

That's when everyone in our neighborhood comes pouring out of doorways, hauling their household garbage. Laugh if you want, it's sure to be one of the highlights of your day.

Trash collection is a social occasion in our colonial town. It provides one of the best opportunities to meet the neighbors, people from every social class imaginable.

Wiry youngsters clamor atop the garbage truck like sailors on a storm-tossed dinghy. At street level, a line of residents quickly forms behind the truck's tailgate, ready with their daily offering of bagged garbage.  Morning traffic begins backing up as some vehicles try to nip past the sudden bottleneck.There's always a lot of whistling and good-natured cat-calling.  A car honks impatiently. The men help the women, the young help the old. The operation has so many ritualistic aspects, it elevates the spirits like an ancient ceremony. Somebody's always late and comes running up with a black plastic bag just in the nick of time.

It's a hands-on operation: Your trash passes from your hands to the hands of the garbageman who stands high up at the open rear gate of the truck. "Buenos dias," is repeated so often, the greeting begins to sound like a chant.

It's a good time to meet the neighbors and discuss the weather or find out why the water supply was cut off last Wednesday. Some residents have their maids or housekeepers do the trash hauling for them, and these domestics have so much work ahead that they usually don't linger long. But for many of us it's a good time to listen and learn and maybe even startle others with our gringo-accented Spanish.

In our town recycling is encouraged but not enforced so few locals do it. (I have just heard of a private company that is offering recycling services for homes, but it's only now getting off the ground.) Instead, all the recycling takes place right on the rear bed of the garbage truck itself, as it trundles up and down the narrow, cobbled streets.

Here's how it works: Immediately after the one guy takes your garbage bag from you, he passes it off to another fellow, balanced right behind him on the truck, who painstakingly goes through your contribution, separating plastic, glass, metal, and paper from food wastes. Anything that might be repaired or rejuvenated--a burnt-out blender, busted baby carriage, cracked radio, as well as cast-off shoes, jumpers, kid's toys, and so on--is set in a special corner. Trash compaction is done manually by foot.

Then, with a symphony of clanging, shouting, and whistling, the lumbering trash truck moves down the street. In its wake, some residents of Hospicio linger on sidewalks or in nearby callejon Chiquitos, still joking and laughing and sharing stories of little global significance but of considerable personal import. It's a brief but sparkling highlight to the day.

Now, this is a block party, San Miguel-style.




© 2014 Tony DeCrosta
Contact me at adecrosta@gmail.com