J. D. Salinger,  American writer of the novel The Catcher in the Rye, a classic story of adolescent rebellion wrote:

“He kept saying they were too new and bourgeois. That was his favorite goddam word. He read it somewhere or heard it somewhere.  Every thing I had was bourgeois as hell. Even my fountain pen was bourgeois. He borrowed it off me all the time, but it was bourgeois anyway.”
The Catcher in the Rye

I love words and bourgeois is one of them.  The simplest definition of the word is being of the property-owning class and exploitive of the working class (according to Marxist thought).  I like the way the word rolls off your tongue. Like exophagy , callipygian, sciolism, lamia  etc.  The meaning of the word isn’t as important as being able to throw them into a sentence. Knowing their meaning is somewhat helpful and should bear at least a wispy relevance to the topic at hand.  I liken it to being able to holler them out while in the throws of passionate conversation.  The title of this blog, bourgeois, is such because I felt compelled to use the word and will now try to weave it into life here in Ajijic.

[Quick definition of words above;

Exophagy - the practice, amongst cannibals, of not eating one's relatives or members of one's tribe (yuk!) 

Callipygian - having beautiful or elegantly shaped buttocks  

Sciolism - pretentious superficial knowledge

Lamia - female enchantress or demon] 

Tony Shalhoub (a native of Wisconsin) plays Adrian Monk on the TV series “Monk”.  He plays a detective with OCD and, quite honestly, does a pretty good job of being on point with his interpretation of someone with that disorder.  The opening number to the series has a line in it that goes something like “It’s a jungle out there.  I may be wrong…but I don’t think so…it’s a jungle out there.”

Heck, it is a jungle out there possibly more so because of the financial devastation of the past couple of years.  And then there’s Mexico.

When we started looking into moving to Mexico we heard, mostly, about the drug wars.  While there certainly are areas of Mexico where there is turmoil, we haven’t seen it here in the Lake Chapala region.  We have seen some gang graffiti – very little, mostly “wanna be” scribbles on walls.

I’m pretty open minded and also somewhat dense when it comes to noticing anything other then the beauty and warmth of not only the climate but of the nationals we’ve met here. Some say I am still in the “honeymoon” phase of life in Ajijic.  Trust me, I’ll take honeymoon over reality any day of the week.

Okay, where am I going with this?  Naïveté is a mainstay for me.  Like so many others who are children of the 60’s I am pretty open to the “live and let live”, “flower power” philosophy. 

We were marching for everything back in the 60’s.  There was so much going on, so many exhilaratingly fascinating subjects to speak out about, get down about, drop out about, turn on about.  Handcuffing yourself to various objects was the norm.  We even had a person handcuff themself to the Xerox machine in our office for I can’t remember what cause.

Picture someone innocently entering the copy room to make humongous copies of some document or the other and finding this highly agitated person attached to the machine.  Opps, pardon me, I wonder if you might move a smidgeon so that I could punch 10 copies and hit the “start” button.  I’m down with what your doing…though. Heavy man.  Most ace!

Most things were totally bourgeois.  We were not going to be slaves to the man.  None of our freedoms were going to be given up.  Working nine to five wasn’t an option.  We were free spirits.  We felt the “system” was bourgeois.  No matter what walk of life we came from…we were the have nots and proud of it.  We could live off the land – even if most of us had our own bedrooms and three square meals a day and had never met a cow in our respective lifetimes – we were still put upon.  I’m not saying all of us felt this way…really…but it was sure fun to protest.

For gosh sake, if you are looking for a place to move where each day is a new day.  Each day offers up opportunities to explore.  Each day brings you in contact with the people of this region who, as I mentioned so often before, celebrate a life that revolves around family and the church.  If you want to meet people from the US, Canada, Europe, who are of like mind and adventurous spirit, this is the place to be.

It may be a somewhat bourgeois society.  There is poverty here.  However, there is hope, there is laughter, activities, parades, fireworks…up the ying yang (heaven only knows why or what they are celebrating at 4:00 a.m. in the morning but we’ve become used to it), church bells ringing, bonfires going in the evenings where everyone simply sits on the curb and chats, laughs, drinks a brew and enjoys life.

The people in our small village still return to homes that are adobe structures with many small rooms composing the whole.  They sweep their steps every morning.  Walk almost everywhere they want or need to go, operate small shops out of the front of their homes, set up food stands right outside their front door where people can buy all sorts of delicacies.  The local butcher shop has half a cow hanging from its hooks.  Vegetables, coffee (fresh from the fields), raspberries and strawberries on each corner, etc.

That proletariat exist is true, even here.  It is also beautiful, pristine, ancient and welcoming.

Below are photographs David has taken recently and enhanced with his new software.  Enjoy, think and consider.