Male workers, Female home owners
We live a fairly circumscribed life here. Monday through Saturday, the workers arrive at 8:00 a.m., when we normally close our door to our one-room sanctuary, for privacy and protection from dust and noise. They work here til 5:00 (except Saturdays until 1:00), at which time we re-open the door, and--like kids left at home when the parents are away--whee! We’re free again! We have to be out of the bathroom by 8:00, because the workers use the bathroom to change from their street clothes to their work clothes, which they leave here overnight. We can’t use the room that will be our future kitchen during the day, because they’re working on it.
The last couple of days they’ve been dismantling part of the roof, a messy business, chipping away at plaster and tiles with hammers and chisels. Barry and I were worried about their use of a ladder to get onto the roof. They climb onto the scaffolding outside the kitchen window to reach the neighbor’s roof, then up a steep ladder from her roof to ours. At different times, we each urged them to use the steps next to our room, which are also steep, but safer than the alternative. We assured them it was fine to go through our room to reach the steps. Each time they said, “OK. Sure,” but they never did. At least this time they ignored both of us, not just me.
A few days ago, the rubble that had collected downstairs was scheduled to be removed the next day. Coincidentally, piles of pavement stones line the street, because our callejon (alley), like many others in Guanajuato’s central historical district, is being replumbed and repaved with the help of a UNESCO grant. Destruction within and without! I suggested to the maestro that maybe the workers on the callejon would be willing to remove our rubble while removing the street rubble, at a lower cost than if we went the traditional route by hiring an independent contractor to transport the rubble. Geraldo nodded respectfully. “I will ask the street supervisor, Señora,” he said. I went away thinking, what a good idea, worth a try. Heard nothing else about it, until the next day—when the contracted worker arrived to carry the rubble away--and I realized the maestro had had no intention of asking the supervisor. But you never hear “no” in Mexico.
Realizing your suggestions are being ignored or dismissed, often because you are a woman, is, for me, a new and humbling experience. I’m not used to feeling so powerless. But it’s a reality here, and there’s not much I can do about it. A friend of ours who remodeled her home and acted as her own maestro (foreman), frequently, when giving her workers directions, would find them balking. As a woman, her opinions were irrelevant—even if she was the owner! (Just a detail.) Her solution was to tell the workers she would call her vet husband back in California (“el doctor”) and ask his opinion. Then she’d get on the phone and feign calling him and asking his opinion. After the “conversation,” she’d come back to them, nod emphatically, and say, “Yes, the doctor says this is what we must do.” And they’d get to work.
“Asi es Mexico.” Such is Mexico.
The last couple of days they’ve been dismantling part of the roof, a messy business, chipping away at plaster and tiles with hammers and chisels. Barry and I were worried about their use of a ladder to get onto the roof. They climb onto the scaffolding outside the kitchen window to reach the neighbor’s roof, then up a steep ladder from her roof to ours. At different times, we each urged them to use the steps next to our room, which are also steep, but safer than the alternative. We assured them it was fine to go through our room to reach the steps. Each time they said, “OK. Sure,” but they never did. At least this time they ignored both of us, not just me.
A few days ago, the rubble that had collected downstairs was scheduled to be removed the next day. Coincidentally, piles of pavement stones line the street, because our callejon (alley), like many others in Guanajuato’s central historical district, is being replumbed and repaved with the help of a UNESCO grant. Destruction within and without! I suggested to the maestro that maybe the workers on the callejon would be willing to remove our rubble while removing the street rubble, at a lower cost than if we went the traditional route by hiring an independent contractor to transport the rubble. Geraldo nodded respectfully. “I will ask the street supervisor, Señora,” he said. I went away thinking, what a good idea, worth a try. Heard nothing else about it, until the next day—when the contracted worker arrived to carry the rubble away--and I realized the maestro had had no intention of asking the supervisor. But you never hear “no” in Mexico.
Realizing your suggestions are being ignored or dismissed, often because you are a woman, is, for me, a new and humbling experience. I’m not used to feeling so powerless. But it’s a reality here, and there’s not much I can do about it. A friend of ours who remodeled her home and acted as her own maestro (foreman), frequently, when giving her workers directions, would find them balking. As a woman, her opinions were irrelevant—even if she was the owner! (Just a detail.) Her solution was to tell the workers she would call her vet husband back in California (“el doctor”) and ask his opinion. Then she’d get on the phone and feign calling him and asking his opinion. After the “conversation,” she’d come back to them, nod emphatically, and say, “Yes, the doctor says this is what we must do.” And they’d get to work.
“Asi es Mexico.” Such is Mexico.
posted by Louisa at 6:28 AM
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