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In honor of Mexican Independence Day, the students at the Colegio Americano de Puerto Vallarta (the American School of Puerto Vallarta) offered a short theatrical program for parents and faculty. This took place on the school's outdoor stage after the first bell, and before the day's real sweating was scheduled to begin.
The show had all the hallmarks of an episode of "Fame II: In the City." Let's just say they couldn't have won a Tony if David Hasselhoff had the lead and it opened in Germany. (If you're German and that remark offends you, please insert "Jerry Lewis" for "David Hasselhoff" and "France" for "Germany." If you're French, well, you owe everyone an apology.)
But then these are just kids, right? They're not professional entertainers. It was just a little school performance to mark the holiday and give the teachers a chance to nurse their hangovers in semi anonymity. And who doesn't just love kids dressed up to look like adults, right down to haphazardly drawn Sharpie mustaches and chops?
The program began with a somewhat high-pitched interpretation of the Mexican national anthem. As my Spanish ends with "andale" (see Speedy Gonzales, circa 1953) and "rico suave" (see Gerardo, circa 1991), it all sounded like scat singing to me anyway.
I should confess that because of my language incompetence much of the morning's offerings were lost on me. So, like some enthusiastic cult member, I just aped the behavior of others -- clapping when others clapped, standing when others stood. This proved a sound approach until I shouted "Viva!" one too many times during the "El Grito," a traditional Mexican call and response, and drew the withering glare of the 13-year-old girl playing José Morelos.
As the chorus of singers left the risers and there was a brief interlude between acts, Janet, a new friend of ours, introduced us around to some of the other parents. One, an American woman named Valerie, wore a jaunty beret that read: "Mexico Olé!" and a mini-skirt so short I initially mistook it for a birthmark.
We chatted briefly, but she had all of the conversational skills of a coke addict. When she enthusiastically informed us that her daughter was her best friend, I had to fake a coughing fit to bring the conversation to a close. "I [cough] think I [cough] swallowed a [cough] fly [cough] ."
I was on my best behavior though. This was my first Mexican holiday and I wanted to be culturally sensitive. I wore deodorant and a button-up shirt. I shaved the night before, promising myself that I would do everything I could to preserve the illusion that we were actually private school people. Earlier that morning, I'd even practiced the other parents' looks of wealth-weary ennui in the bathroom mirror, and to good effect, I thought.
What followed the national anthem was an hour of choreographed campesino dances, more high-pitched songs, and a few of what I took to be historical re-enactments of key moments in Mexico's fight for independence. The latter were brought to life by a group of motley underage actors who delivered their lines with all the emotion of people reading an eye chart.
Then, just like that, the show was over. A teacher made a few announcements in Spanish, one of which, I realized too late, was an invitation to sample the coffee and cookies that had, unbeknownst to me, been arranged on a table behind me. The blasted Spanish speakers got the jump on me again! If for free sweets alone, I had to start studying my español.
The show over, we milled about with the other collected parents, me glancing now and then to the cookie table. Janet, an American with 20 years in Mexico and more connections than O'Hare International Airport, hurried over to us leading a small empanada-shaped Mexican woman and beside her, an even smaller, white-haired grandmother clutching a pocketbook.
"You guys have to meet Carolyn and her mother, Irma!" exclaimed Janet. "I've known Carolyn for, what, 15 years? Si? She was one of the first people I met when I came here."
We shook hands and nodded and smiled. Janet explained in Spanish that we had moved to Vallarta for the year and pointed out our daughter amongst the students, who were now very slowly and rather dejectedly making their way back to class.
"Carolyn's son played Hidalgo," Janet said, identifying a portly youth of 13 or 14 wearing a cassock and a fake bald head, complete with a comb-over.
"He was very excited," Carolyn offered in halting English. "He has always liked to act out and make noise."
We all agreed he had done a spectacular job. He really seemed to have gotten inside his character, I said. You couldn't help but watch him when he was on stage. We didn't let on that this was because of his size, which was equal to both Morelos and Guerrero.
Carolyn is a very good person to know," said Janet. "She works in the consulate's office. So stay on her good side."
I took the last remark as a joke and gave a half laugh, all the while preparing the fake cough just in case.
"Yes," she said, "if you need something, or have troubles, please come see me." She wore a wide smile unfortunately marred by some poorly applied lipstick.
For her part, Irma, the diminutive and stooped mother, merely stood by smiling as if at a bunch of pretty balloons.
Just then our daughter and Janet's called from the far side of the basketball courts. Both mothers excused themselves, leaving me with Carolyn and Irma. Never one to thrive in such situations, I simply smiled more broadly, which, coupled with some audible sighing and foot shuffling, I've also thought the equivalent to actual talking.
I tried to think of something funny to say. Finally, settled on a line ("If I get a tapeworm, they won't consider that an export and tax me on it when I leave the country, will they?"). But before I could get it out, Carolyn's son called to her. All the kids were collecting to have their picture taken and he needed his rubbery bald pate back.
And just like that I was left alone with 80-year-old Mexican Irma. At once, I felt that panic one feels in a dream when you find yourself in front of your World History class but watched "Walker, Texas Ranger" all night instead of preparing your presentation on, say, the Bolshevik Revolution and are so are left to just stare blankly out at your comrades and receive an F.
The point is I was dead. I looked down at her and tried an even bigger smile and more pronounced sigh. But she had me. The mother of the woman of a consular agent! Instill a bad impression in her, which I knew I was well on my way to doing, and who knows, we could find truncheon-wielding customs gendarmes at our door before I could learn how to say "I swear I don't know how that got there."
For what seemed hours, we stood there staring forward dumbly like the heads on Easter Island. The only thing I knew how to say in Spanish was hello and how much? Crap, how to say "What I wouldn't give for a cold can of Ensure right now. ."? Or "That Caesar Romero was one handsome man."
Silence. More silence. Pressure. More pressure. Greg and an old Mexican woman. Silence. Pressure. I even wished for Valerie to come back. We watched Irma's grandson fixing his bald head back on over his own mop of bushy dark hair, and then it came to me!
"Hidalgo," I blurted, pointing at her grandson, and feeling quite proud of myself.
"Si," she said in her cracking old-lady voice, smiling, "Hidalgo."
I nodded. She nodded her white-haired head and pointed her crooked hook of a finger his way. Then I satisfactorily crossed my arms and sighed. What was I thinking -- I didn't need any Spanish classes. I was doing muy fine. |
