Guanajuato, Mexico: Dark Side - 1

Someone in a forum once said that without having skills in Spanish you can never begin to understand the Darker Side of Mexican Culture. And, very dark can that side be, sometimes.

I recalled this while I sat in my living room today listening to Carlos and his wife pour out their hearts to us concerning the tragedy of losing their foster children (really their sobrinas--nieces)to Carlos' shiftlessly worthless brother.

Carlos and his wife took in Carlos' brother's two daughters (two of ten sired between three women) six years ago when the girls were all but babies. Carlos and his wife have cared for and raised these girls as their own daughters. Already with three children of their own, they did not hesitate in taking in the children when circumstances dictated it.

Carlos' brother, and his brother's floozies, are inescapably criminals. Carlos would not divulge what kind of criminality into which these worshipers of darkness practice but it doesn't matter. His children by these "ladies" are often seen in the streets of Guanajuato begging for money. This is the only motive that can be divined as to why, after more than six years, he shows up at Carlos' house and takes these two precious girls, ripping them from the only loving care they've known, to end up in God only knows what sort of vile and nefarious enslavement. A life of slavery.

None of this monster's children are being schooled and the two ripped from their loving womb were taken out of school.

Multiple women with hordes of kids is not an isolated sort of incident here in Provincial Mexico. In fact, where Carlos is from, Mexico City, this heinous Provincial practice of having more than one family, not supporting any of them well, seems to be dying out in favor of more "civilized" behavior. This was the exact word Carlos used: "A more civilized region of Mexico..."

"Provincial and uncivilized" are the words Carlos used in describing the reason for this bigamy at the cost of children's lives is so widely practiced in the Central Mexican Highlands.

This is not the first time I've written or heard about this. The last time I wrote of it I received threats from Gringos, not the Mexicans, but from terminally monolinguistic Gringos who could not string enough Spanish together to order dinner much less have two grief-stricken Mexicans tell you their plight in your home.

When Carlos and his beloved left I wasn't mad that I learned of this dark side of Provincial Mexican Culture. I learned of this sort years ago. I was mad at the thought of Gringos believing they are so in touch with this culture that they would recoil at the thought of my reporting this sort of thing.

Have you ever wondered why so much of the screed written on Life in Mexico is so Ivory Tower that you can't read it for the blinding brilliance? And why are Americans here so gullible they fail to see the culture’s defects. Everything, no matter how objectionable, is "a beautiful native custom" and all Mexicans "are a beautiful people"...

I have.