¿Mentirosos?

There’s a little something about the culture here that’s been frustrating me. I know that I should accept it, that I’m the foreigner that therefore I should be the one to make the adjustment. That’s all good and well. Fine. I’ll say that I have adjusted to it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still be frustrated by it. I’ve overcome exasperation, at least, and am settled at annoyed acceptance.

Here it is: in my book, Mexicans lie. Only the don’t think they’re lying. They would likely be extremely offended if I called them on it. Lying, you see, is deliberately and maliciously obscuring the truth. They aren’t doing that. It’s the opposite of malicious. I’ve gathered that they believe they’re making sure I’m happy by telling me what they think I want to hear. They are going out of their way to make sure I don’t get upset by telling me something unpleasant. In a way, it’s very considerate of them.

When I moved to Mexico for the first time in 2003, I learned early on that keeping things pleasant and making sure everyone is happy is an overarching cultural value here. I think this is part of why it can take so long to get some things done here; you can’t proceed until you’re sure that everyone involved is not only on the same page, but happy about it. I’ve observed repeatedly that meetings, conversations, classes, dinner—anything, really—stops and hovers at smoothing over upset feelings, and we can’t move on until we’re satisfied that no one in the room is upset. Reflecting on it now I think I’ve unconsciously picked up on that in my teaching, because I find myself repeating “¿todo bien?” and looking around the room for consternation. If people don’t grasp it, I give additional examples, alternate explanations, memory tricks, whatever works, until the confusion passes. I don’t need them to be happy about it, though. They can loathe the subjunctive with their whole souls for all I care, as long as they can conjugate and know when to use it.

This happens frequently when I’m trying to get my hands on something that I need, and the store is out of it, or the person I need to talk to isn’t in. For example, I go to the grocery store, actually several of them, only to find that everyone is out of tomatillos. Yes, we are in Mexico and there are no tomatillos. In the wasteland of Sonora where nothing will grow, everything has to be trucked in (it gets pricey, hence the outrageous cost of living here) and the trucks aren’t always reliable. They get held up at state and international borders, military checkpoints, tollpoints, and other nonsense that hinders efficiency. I digress—back to the tomatillos. So, I ask the produce guy if they have more in the back. No. When will there be more? This afternoon, he says. Naïvely satisfied with his answer, I come back in the afternoon. No tomatillos. This goes on for three days, every day someone telling me that the truck will be here later in the day. Finally I find some at a fruitstand. They are sad looking but acceptable, and I take them home and roast them and turn them into the salsa that I have been madly craving for four days (by the way, convenience foods haven’t made inroads here, so I have to make most things from scratch. That’s right, I can’t buy fresh salsa at the deli. What deli?) Even if they don’t carry what I’m looking for, never have and likely never will, they smile at me, shrug, and say “tal vez mañana”. Mentiras. Which leads to another important lesson for living in Mexico: “Mañana” doesn’t necessarily mean tomorrow. It means, “not today”.

There is an exception: at the bank, they are straightforward with the truth. Of course, you can’t fudge telling someone that the wire transfer number is correct when the transfer won’t go through, and you can’t tell someone that their debit card has arrived when the mail from Mexico City hasn’t shown up for over a week and a half. So, they tell me what I don’t want to hear, and yes, the truth is frustrating. I can take it in stride, though. It helps that they deliver the disappointing news with the sweetest voice they can muster.

And that’s my culture clash. I am still the foreigner (and how). No matter how Latina I may be, I grew up in mainstream culture in the United States. It’s difficult to reconcile my black-and-white, Puritan North American ideals of truth and lies to the gentler Mexican concern for avoiding the unpleasant, even if the solution is short-lived. I hate to admit this, but despite speaking the language, trying to understand and adapt to the culture, blah, blah, blah, I am still an Ugly American. True, I don’t go in for loud public drunkenness and insisting that everything be done in English and US dollars, but I accepted some time ago that I will never go native in Mexico, especially not rural northern Mexico. My first instinct is still to say what’s on my mind, and to share what information I have when someone asks for it, even if the truth isn’t happy-making, because I assume that when someone asks a direct question they want a direct answer. If I don’t know, I say so. So, my automatic reaction is to think that Mexicans lie. I’m sure they think I am rude and blunt (with some justification). So, I try to bite my tongue and resign myself to repeated petitions for goods and services I might require, for people who dodge my questions with a pleasant voice and a big smile.

So, um, thanks? Gracias, México, por preocuparse tanto por mi bienestar. Sé que solo quieren que lo pase bien.