“Gente importante”

 

After we had returned home from dinner with our friends Lupita and Eliseo, our son Chris received a message from Eliseo thanking us for inviting them to dinner, especially since the restaurant is a place where “important people” (gente importante) go.

 

You may recall from a blog item about two years ago that we last met Lupita and Eliseo for dinner with their teenage son Carlitos, who had both legs amputated because of cancer. Alas, Carlitos died of his cancer shortly before our visit to Puerto Vallarta last year. While we were visiting, Chris, his then boss Arturo and Eliseo spent a day at a local hospital offering to give blood to replace some of the blood given to Carlitos.

 

Both Eliseo and Lupita are blind. As they entered the restaurant with Chris “en tren” (“in train”) Lupita with her hand on Chris’s shoulder, Eliseo’s on her waist, they surprised their surviving son Eliseo who is a waiter at Campomar where we ate. Eliseo Jr.’s other given name, we learned is Charbel, after Charbel Makhlouf, a Lebanese saint known for uniting Christians, Muslims and Druze, and known as the Miracle Monk of Lebanon.

 

Some of you may recall that Eliseo has been blind from birth (he has no eyes) and Lupita from a later stage of life. Eliseo continues working as a physiotherapist at Pasitos de Luz, the children’s charity where Chris worked until recently. Lupita teaches braille at a government agency called DIF (Desarrollo Integral de la Familia; Integral Family Development). Lately, she has devoted more of her time to providing social interaction for elderly people who are losing their sight and who lack the skills and confidence to leave their homes. She organizes gatherings to enjoy music and dancing.

 

Both Lupita and Eliseo are involved in a theatrical event, a production about a famous figure in Mexican history, La Malinche. Malinche was an indigenous noblewoman from south-eastern Mexico who had learned Spanish from a shipwrecked Spanish sailor. She played an important role in the Spanish invasion of Mexico as an interpreter who enabled Cortés to negotiate alliances with enemies of the Aztecs. She also became his lover and mother of his son Martín Cortés, and has an ambiguous role in Mexican history as a capable indigenous woman. But many Mexicans consider her a traitor who betrayed their motherland. The play is to be performed entirely by blind actors. The director is a professor who is losing his sight. The audience will wear blindfolds so that, as Eliseo put it, they will experience the sounds and smells of the production.

 

When we meet Lupita and Eliseo we are acutely aware of the importance of their non-visual senses. For example, Lupita commented to Jan that she sensed that the restaurant was very busy, although of course she could not see the customers, nor distinguish between the talk of staff and customers. Then there were the screens showing American football games and their associated commentary, and the clatter of knives and forks on plates. As for smells, the food provided plenty to assail the senses.

 

I reflected on Eliseo’s comment that our fellow diners were important people. In the sense that they had the money to arrive in nice cars, have someone park it for them, and order food that was beyond the means of our guests, they are no doubt important. But in the Bahía de Banderas area there are really only two ways to make money, tourism (hotels, restaurants, and tours/events) and real estate. Success in these businesses can require permits to build perhaps where permission should not be given, or building on a scale that should not be allowed; ignoring ecological damage to flora and fauna (turtle nesting on the beaches, for example, are vulnerable to development); and so on.

 

I think I much prefer the company of Lupita and Eliseo to the “important people” of Campomar.