I’ve been in Manzanillo for several months and haven’t spent much time in the commercial and industrial areas. I’ve always thought that if you want to lift the skirt of a city and see what makes it tick, this is where you should go.
There are exceptions; if you want to see how a capital town like Washington, DC works, you’d probably just have a realtor drive you around and point out the multi-million dollar homes owned by lobbyists. But I’m in a working city and glad of it.
Today I took a cab most of the way down Blvd San Miguel from Santiago, past a Nissan dealership, toward Torre Puerto. I did not have to go far before I was in the thick of the action.
I opened the cab door and stepped out into a front row seat at a symphony for the celebration of industry and commerce. There were jake brakes hammering…air brakes blasting…pneumatic wrenches chattering… men in hard hats yelling commands from loading docks…trucks with trailers backing and beeping… a fabrication shop bustling and sparks flying off a massive steel tank while five men worked at grinding welds.
Darting about from site to site took care and speed. These working men and women did not want to be slowed by having to mind an old Gringo. I crossed the street to a steel plant. There was a crane loading rebar on a trailer; not number 4 stuff you’d see in a California house foundation, but number 18, massive steel for bridge building and causeways.
On the other side of this space was a yard doing alignment work on buses and semi-tractors, and further along a wholesale electrical supply business and plumbing vendor.
The last thing I expected to see here was another white man, but much to my surprise, there he was. He walked out from behind the workshop at the bus repair yard with a young boy in tow. I wasn’t quick enough at avoiding eye contact, so I found myself in a conversation that I did not want.
This guy’s story is that he walked away from a tenured professor gig at UCLA three years ago and has been traveling with his twelve-year-old son throughout Central and South America. The bus repair company lets him park his car and teardrop trailer on their lot. I’m thinking if this guy drove up from Argentina, that’s a lot of border crossings and permit fees. And then the ferryboat costs to get around the Darien Gap.
There was no mention of a wife or mother, and I didn’t ask. It could be he pulled a ‘Sterling Hayden’ and extended a weekend child visitation by a few years. Guessing the guy was on the lam, I avoided taking pictures.
I’m working my way backwards in a slow retreat while he goes on about “no longer being able to teach to corporate needs.” And goes on some more about how, “We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and ‘success,’ defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. The populace has forgotten that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers.”
I was not in the mood for a gratuitous lecture on the US education system. Right or wrong, it had evolved from a die-cast long ago. I looked at this chap and said, “As much as I’d love to hear more, I have an appointment on the other side of town.” I hailed the next mototaxi and ‘skedaddled.’
It was a great day, and I loved seeing Manzanillo in full production. My impression is that this is a very healthy city, and again, I suggest lacing on some high tops and start walking around town. You never know what you’ll see or whom you’ll meet. Someone once said, “The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.”
