TEACAPAN, Sinaloa, Mexico — For inore than 10 years we puzzled about the mystery of cur friend Guadelupe. So did many others, including her own family. Paul Si. Pierre PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES Lupe lives in a village as smali and poor as this one. Her hus- band, Jesus, is on the bottom rung of Mexico's economic lad- der, a laborer, uneducated and unskilled. He is one of those called under-employed, which means that he escapes being on Mexico’s unemployment list because he can find some kind of work to do some of the time. Their house is a hut of wattle sticks, daubed with mud. The roof is thatch, the floor mud and Lupe cooks outdoors using coconut husks to make slow, sullen fires. They have reared three children, all of whom are now married and have themselves graduated into the under-employed adult class. They are not sad people, neither have they become bad people because of their circumstances. Contrary to what gringo sociologists say, it is possible to be gracious, courteous, cheerful and witty while impoverished. Howev- er it’s no fun, As the old father says to Jehovah in Fiddler on the Roof, “It’s no disgrace to be poor, but it’s no great honor either.”” Poverty exacts a high price. In her 40s, Lupe looked like a woman in her 50s. When she crossed the line of the 50s she was bent, stooped, hesitant in her walk, like a 70-year-old. Poverty hurts in other ways. The constant worry about where tomorrow’s meals will come from makes tempers short and suspi- cions long. In that family suspicion arose from mystery. Lupe got 100 American dollars every month. She and Jesus were caretakers for a gringo couple’s house. One hundred American wasn't wealth, even in a village, but it was a comfortable bundle of pesos more than the neighbors were get- ting. The mystery was, where did it go? Lupe charged most of the food she bought and was notoriously slow to pay. She always wore the same, shapeless old dress. She never left the village. Her simple round was the gr- ingo house, an in-law’s, her own hut and garden, the store and church. Clearly, she didn’t spend it on herself. Often money evaporates in the fumes of alcohol. But Jesus was a man who, when he got drunk, wanted the whole world to know about it. So the number of times a year when he could get his hands on enough pesos for a good drunkup was known to everybody. There were few times. There is marijuana and LSD in the village. There is in every village. But the sons weren't ad- dicted, because that would have been known also. In a village almost everything is known about almost everybody. Except, in this case, what Lupe did with gringo doliars. One day when we visited her village a daughter-in-law told us that she had taken care of the gr- ingo estate for a month and had expected to get the 100 American dollar payment in peso equivalents. There were far fewer pesos than she had expected. **Lupe says the exchange rate is bad this week.”" That same day | had exchanged American dollars and 1 knew that Lupe had short-changed her son’s wife by 25%. 1 was going to say so, but my guardian angel, who happened to be on duty that day, tapped my shoulder and whispered, ‘‘You are within a hand’s breath of injecting yourself into the private affairs of a Mexican family. Is that really what you want to do?" I thanked my angel 2nd shut my mouth. Only this year was Lupe’s secret revealed. There have been many troubles. The gringo payments have stopped. PON ON Be BS SELECTED WINTER COLLECTIONS SALE BEGINS DECEMBER 26th Hours: Mon — Thurs. & Sat: : 9:30 - 6:00 Fridays: : 9:30 - 9:00 WATERFRGNT CENTRE CONCOURSE LEVEL Lupe looks very old and is not well. She lives part of the time in the tiny houses of her sons’ wives. There are doctors’ bills. She has used up just about all her hidden cache of money. Only now is it revealed that for all those years, she was squirrell- ing away money with which to build a family home of brick and stone. But she was contiuousty tobbed by inflation. Reg. Hrs: 12-6 Closed Mondays Friday, December 27, 1991 - North Shore News - & | Guadelupe, the prisoner of hope Debasement of the currency is the way both Canadian and American governments rob old people on fixed incomes, but in the north it’s been gradual and the old folk are about ready to die by the time they spot the trick. In Lupe’s case, government banditry was far more advanced. When she made a 20-dollar sav- ing ina month, it didn't take tong to shrink to two dollars. A penny “5 saved was almost a whole penny lost. Lupe hoarded fairy gold and it always turned to dust in daylight. Today, Guadelupe lives by the words of Ecclesiastes: ‘*Rerurn to the refuge, ye prisoners of hape.’’ She has returned to the refuge, the family, which, in Mexico, en- dures when all else in a cruel world fails. 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