In 1823, an American hotel received a stack of bibles to be distributed to each their rooms. Nearly two centuries later, about 450,000 bibles are distributed each year, most courtesy of the Gideon Society. The result: a bible in every room.
So when I open the drawer in my hotel room in San Miguel de Allende, a city known as ‘the heart’ of one of the most Catholic countries in the world, I am slightly taken aback. Yup, Gideon hasn’t reached San Miguel. Not that I needed a Bible, but the lack was emblematic. My comfortable and tastefully appointed room was strangely bare. Aside from two bottled waters, there was nothing in the place. Nothing in the drawers, nothing in the cabinets, nothing in the bathroom. Most distressingly for me, and for the Mexican family I was about to meet for the first time, there was no soap in the shower.
(I had arrived in San Miguel the night before. With the help of a friendly cab driver, I took a bumpy, weaving journey through the cobble-stoned streets of San Miguel to find an ATM—I was broke; then a hostel—full; then a hotel—expensive, but at 3 a.m., after almost 24 hours of travel, any price was acceptable.)
After a long, hot, soap-less shower, I head out to find my new home. I ask the clerk at the front desk for directions and she says something. For all I know, she gives me exact directions, but to me it sounds, bizarrely, like “go to the market.” I guess my Spanish isn’t getting any better. She does give me a map, with my house’s location marked. I walk down the hotel’s narrow private drive to the street, glance at the map and take a left. Two blocks later, as the heat and my overweight bag start to wear on me, I realize I turned the wrong way. Half an hour after starting, I find my street about three blocks from the hotel. According to the map, I need to turn right. Looking left, I see the market. Ah. She said “Go through the market.”
My new house sits on a steep hill overlooking the city. It is unremarkable from the outside: a dull red metal gate emblazoned with one of the city’s ubiquitous no parking signs rises to meet a small balcony decorated with a few plants and a Mexican flag. I knock and, after a moment, my mother for the next month answers the door. She is of medium height, with dark hair and a round nose in a warm face. I say what I’ve been practicing in my head all the way up the hill: ‘Buenos días’.
Though she wasn’t expecting me for about three more hours, Lourdes Montes is very sweet. Nine years of hosting students is apparent: she speaks slowly, she gestures constantly and, though she doesn’t speak English, she knows the words for the basics. We’re hundreds of miles from the U.S. border, but the Montes living room sits on cultural middle ground. Christmas teddy bears sit along the top of the overstuffed sofa and faux wreaths sit atop the red and green plaid tablecloth of the dining table. Yet over the sofa is a shrine to the Virgin Mary and on the walls hang a Diego Rivera reproduction and a surrealistic Don Quixote portrait.
Lourdes leads me up a white tiled staircase and opens the door onto an expansive balcony. It is enclosed on three sides by walls—respectively vivid green, burnt orange and brick—and above by a yellow roof along which runs exposed white beams. Plants crowd the walls, leaving room only for four doors, one of which leads to my room. A white plastic table and matching chairs sits centrally under the roof, and a second glass-and metal table and chair set sits under the sun in a smaller, exposed subsection of the balcony. I walk out to this area and look down, through power lines, to the city below. I can see the spiky pink shape of the Parroquia, the city’s most well-known church; the skinny stone tower of the Our Lady of Health church; the giant salmon dome of the city’s largest church; and the spires of half a dozen smaller churches. The door to my room is about a dozen feet away. Wow.
My room is equally spacious and nearly as colorful. From the bed spread to the curtains to the two red tablecloths, flower patterns dominate. The blinds are closed, but the room is bright with yellows: a deep ocher post stands off center in the room joined with beams at the ceiling, the walls are a mild lemon and under my feet are tiles with marbleized pattern in daffodil. By contrast, the toilet and most of the rest of my private bathroom is blue, with the themes meeting in the painted sink, where two blue fish swim in a yellow background. Parting the curtains, I see a view that nearly matches the one that took my breath away outside. The room is supplied with both a television and an enormous built-in bookcase. I ignore the first and scan the spines. I spot civil engineering textbooks, Reader’s Digest collections and Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. I also see two bibles: one English, one Spanish. No visit from Gideon needed here.
(Information about the curious history of drawer-based proselytizing drawn from www.straightdope.com)
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