Paseos and Politics

The best way to know a place to is walk it.  The view from a car is sterile and superficial.  On foot, you can't ignore the smells and sounds, the feel and taste of a place.  No matter where we live or travel, my wife and I walk as much as possible.  It's at a pleasant pace, a time to talk and notice and enjoy.  Even in familiar places, it is a time to get lost, so we can find something unexpected.  

This morning we are in the Yucatan, where it has not rained in almost a week, so the usual humidity is a few notches below cloying.  We have set out on a morning walk.  An hour or two later and I would be sticky with sweat before we navigate the first 500 meters, but it is still comfortable enough  on our paseo.

That's a word we picked up in Madrid many years ago.  The summer temperatures in Spain can be brutally hot.  During the heat of the day, everyone from shopkeepers to school children to civil servants takes a break to spend time at home, enjoying a cool lunch and a nap.  The time to move around is at night.  And so the streets and parks of Madrid are filled with young and old, families and lovers, walking in the evening air.  Paseo.

My Spanish at the time we were there was minimal and so I couldn't understand the conversations and laughter, but it was pleasantly everywhere around us as we walked one night with our purposeful American determination to find somewhere to eat at 9:00 p.m., the start of the Madrileño dinner hour.  The first restaurant we tried was still prepping food for the evening's menu, the chef not scheduled to arrive for an hour.  As we walked on (our hungry teenage kids were with us) the meandering crowds around us forced us to slow down.  Paseo.  Stroll.  Take your time.  Enjoy the evening and each other.

It was a lesson we resisted at the time, but eventually learned over the course of several weeks in Europe.  Walking at an easy pace connects you to people and places.  Even better if you have no particular place to go.

This morning, we are on the aptly named Paseo Xamen-Ha, which meanders in front of a string of Riviera Maya resorts south of Playa del Carmen.  As we left our friend's beach house we saw our resident agouti making his rounds, weaving in and out of the shrubbery in the vacant lot behind our rented vacation property.  Lizards seem to be out in great numbers today, scurrying down walls and around palm trunks.  An iguana heads into a drainpipe at our approach.  A jogger overtakes us, a middle-aged American dedicated to keeping his beach figure alluring.  Judging from his labored breathing, sweat-soaked t-shirt, and sunburnt legs, he is still learning the value of slowing down.

To get to the Paseo we have tramped through a patch of jungle, past a few backyards, and into the Playacar II neighborhood.  We're not really set on doing anything, just a little people watching, maybe a stop at a crafts market or taco stand for a cool drink.  We've made this circuit many times before, but there are always surprises afoot.

The unexpected pleasure of the walk this morning presents itself in the tiny mall of craft and souvenir shops across from the resorts.  I had forgotten that this is election day in Mexico.  The country is voting for a new president, since that office is now limited to a single term.  We have been here before during local and national elections, and on those occasions the main thoroughfare, Benito Juarez Avenida, was teeming with vans and pick-up trucks hauling stadium-sized speakers in the back, blaring salsa music and political slogans.   For some reason, we have heard none of this raucous campaigning in the five days we have been here.

In a small plaza area in front of the mall, local residents are lined up waiting for the official opening of the polling booths, which are set up behind a collapsable table where election judges sit.  The pronouncement on the privacy covers of each booth in large block letters spells out the significance of this and all free elections:  El voto es libre y secreto.  This presidential election will have its detractors, just as we have our conspiracy hawks and discontents in the U.S.  Tomorrow the losing candidate, Obrador, will accuse Peña Nieto and the PRI party of vote buying and other fraud once ballots are counted.  But, even those complaints arise from a belief in and hope for a system that fairly enfranchises every person of voting age.

A large sample ballot is posted on the wall of a shop to the left.  Voters all seem to know one another.  They are well-dressed, the women in light strapless shifts or summer frocks, the men in jeans or chinos and polo shirts.  A couple of shorter older voters look to have more of the Indio blood in their mestizo DNA.  Two men with clipboards appear to be monitoring the process.  We find two young policemen back in the shade of the shop lanes, biding their time until the balloting starts.  The process seems peaceful and ordinary -- a reassuring sight for citizens and foreign visitors alike.

I am hesitant to talk with people standing in line, afraid of violating some regulation about talking politics too near the ballot box.  But seeing the voting booths and ballots makes me curious to know what this election means to the people of Playa del Carmen and to Mexico as a whole.  With so much in the news about grisly crimes committed by drug cartels, I suspect that the narcotraficantes are on everyone's mind.  But, I also know that just like in Europe and the U. S., unemployment and fair wages are issues in Mexico, which has been affected by worldwide economic instability.  I resolve to ask some of the waiters and shopkeepers, taxi drivers and strolling locals in town tomorrow what they hope for with their newly elected government.

The temperature is rising.  We both are sweating a bit now, so we head back "home."  The election day lines and voting booths we observed on our stroll felt familiar, as it appeared to feel to the voters in line.  That's a reassuring vote of confidence in Mexico.