The Bicyclist

A couple of days ago, I climbed La Serena, one of the hills around town. When I reached the cross at the top (there's always a cross on top!), I saw a lone figure perched in front of the cross, legs dangling off the painted white tabletop structure the cross sits on, mountain bike parked nearby.

I was racing against the last few seconds to touch the cross before my personal midnight hour. "I won!" I crowed in Spanish. He looked at me curiously. "I'm competing with myself to see if I can reach my goal before the deadline I assigned myself," I explained.

He laughed. I climbed up onto the platform and before long we were talking about his route up, my route up, my timing, his timing, where he got his bike, and how much bikes cost in Mexico ($1,000 for the high-tech mountain bikes you need on these rough, steep dirt tracks).

He--Diego--was born in the home in Guanajuato where his parents still live. Even in 1977, the year of his birth, babies were still born at home, though he told me most babies nowadays are born in the hospital. His grandmother was the midwife. I told him my birth story about being born in a car.

Now, he is embarking on his second Licensiada (B.A.) in English. (Studying for a second B.A. seems to happen often here. I think it's a way of avoiding the job market, which is notoriously discouraging). He told me he had an 11-year-old daughter, an ex-wife who worked at the University of Guanajuato, and a mother-in-law who also did.

"Is it awkward running into them?" I asked. No, he said, he got along with all of them. The next day, a Sunday, he would pick up his daughter from his ex's and take her to the park.

I told him I understood that single Mexican fathers often lost touch with their children. "Yes, it's true," he said. "It's a bad situation, and the children pay for it. The courts should automatically deduct child support because fathers won't pay it voluntarily."

"Was your daughter planned?"

"No," he said ruefully. "I was 19, my ex was 18. We were so young."

"It is hard for me to understand, even though it happens in my country too, when young people don't use birth control. It's so sad. Their choices are so limited, especially the woman's."

"Yes," he agreed. "It's the influence of the church, the family, the government. We are changing, but very slowly."

It was getting dark and I had some steep sections to negotiate, so I said goodbye, thinking as I hopped across a few rocks how I have often have this kind of conversation with women in Mexico--but rarely with an intelligent, friendly young man. Looking back up, I saw him climbing onto his bike, and gave him a wave.