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Paradise Is A Lot Like Home

Living in paradise would be a lot more idyllic (and a lot less interesting) if it wasn't for the people I have to share it with. Like Carl Franz says in the People's Guide, "Wherever you go ... there you are", and paradise is no exception to the rule.

Oaxaca, where I live, is a city of some half million souls, mas ó menos (more or less), and includes, depending on the season of the year, up to 500 foreigners who claim some sort of residency or another (see this column, Do You Live Here?). Every one of us brings with us, along with our dollars, atm cards, travellers checks and computers, a full complement of neuroses, prejudices, expectations (justified or not) and desires (spoken or otherwise). Along with the snorkel mask and the suntan oil, we pack our worries, our troubles, and our ties to all the things and people that for better or worse constituted our lives "back home".

Someone once said that becoming an expatriate gives you an opportunity to reinvent yourself; to be anyone you want to be. Doubtless, some of my compatriots have done that, some from necessity (to avoid the law, a vengeful ex-partner-in-crime, an irate spouse, or whatever) and some to fulfill a fantasy (a retired convenience store clerk dropping hints of a career in the CIA). In almost all cases, we are whom we say we are, and generally we are a disparate lot of ordinary folk. In any case, we tend to take each other at face value, and as long as we behave well while we are here, folks don't much ask embarrassing questions. After all, some of us are probably a lot more interesting than we used to be, and where's the harm?

What is amazing to me is how much -- with a certain kind of exotic twist supplied by the atmosphere of Oaxaca -- life here resembles life back there. We build our nests, declare and give value to our uniqueness ("writer", "teacher", "oldest", "expert on x"), seek out the more interesting (for whatever interest we may have), avoid the bores, embrace our friends, and smile at people we don't much care for just because the community is so small.

We find our niches of usefulness. Some bake bread, some raise vegetables, some throw great and frequent cocktail parties, some assist others with their computers, and some volunteer in various needy organizations.

We trade stories and rumors: this one's lover, that one's operation, the other one's emigration status; where to get the cheapest avocados, who has the freshest fish, who has an extra jar of horseradish to sell; whether this or that restaurant has gone up or down hill.

We are, after all, just folks, trying to get what we need in a place that we chose to come to. What seems exotic to the casual observer seems familiar to us as we go about the business of day-to-day living. That's not to say we ever take this place for granted. It is not where we came from. But it is to say that while the language may be different, and while some customs seem obtuse or downright rude, we learn to cope, we develop routines -- and, caught up in the day-to-day procession of our lives, we forget, for a time, the wonder and the magic of where we are.

Fortunately, we are reminded often. We glance out the bathroom window, and see the magnificent white bougainvillea blossoms; we sit in shorts and a t-shirt in the zocalo sipping a cold dark beer and watch the lovers strolling by hand in hand as the marimba band plays in the bandshell; we plunge into the market to buy a head of lettuce and get lost among the sacks and stacks of exotic chiles; we turn a corner on the way to see a movie and there is a portable stage, and on it the State of Jalisco dance troupe, performing folk dances; we take the train to a nearby market town, and two women get on selling tamales that were made in heaven. Paradise is also a lot like Paradise.

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