MEXICAN HOUSES, OLD AND NEW
@1995, by Kathy Green
Imagine a nation where the past and present existed side by side. Suppose you could visit a country where the ancient houses of the pre-colonial years, the "imported" houses of the colonial era, and the houses of modern times existed in the same times and cities.
Well, guess what? There really is such a nation. What's more, it lies just below the United States. Can you guess what it is?
Mexico!
Mexico's history consists of three phases: its Indian era, its Spanish colonial era, and the era of Mexican independence, which continues into modern times. In each era, a different style of house was designed. Today, the Mexicans live in houses of different styles. Many reflect the eras in which they were first introduced.
For example, in old Indian villages, descendants of the Aztec Indians live in adobe (sun-dried) brick huts. The average hut has one or two rooms, a hard-packed dirt floor, and few or no windows. The huts are patterned after the old Aztec huts, fashioned long before the Spaniards even heard of America. However, there are some important differences between the huts of the ancient Aztec Indians and the modern huts of their descendants.
For instance, the ancient huts had straw thatch roofs, and everyone slept and sat on straw mats. Furniture, as we know it, didn't exist. In many huts, fire pits, made of stones encircling sticks of wood, lay in one corner of the room. The smoke drifted through the doorway and/or the window. The mothers cooked the families' meals over the fires built in those pits, and the fires lit the fires and kept the families warm.
Today, the roofs are made of wood shingles or curved pieces of red clay tiles. The children continue to sit and sleep on straw mats, and the adults sit on low chairs and sleep in beds. Fire pits are arranged in the corner of the floor in many beds. Fire pits are arranged in the corner of the floor in many huts, just as they were in the old days, and the mothers cook the daily meals over them. There's still no electricity or running water, so the Indian families use candles and kerosene lamps for lights.
In towns and cities, many middle-class families live in Spanish-style houses. The Spanish conquistadores, or conquerors, imported the style of such homes during the colonial era. In such houses, the rooms surround a patio, or courtyard. The patio is usually floored with cobblestones and bedecked with flowers; some also have stone fountains. The families usually gather in the patio for its activities.
Such houses also have red clay tile roofs. Thick stone or adobe walls provide their owners protection from extremes in hot and cold weather. Nowadays, the houses also have heaters, air conditioners, indoor plumbing, and such modern appliances as refrigerators, gas stoves, radios, and TV sets.
The cities, of course, have three kinds of homes that have developed in our modern era. One is the apartment. Many apartment buildings are built by the government for poor people, the same as some of our lost-cost housing; their apartments may consist of two or three rooms. Others are built by private companies for people with higher incomes.
Another type of house is the modern-day house. Such houses have the same kind of styles and furnishings as our modern American homes. Both types of houses have the same modern comforts that are now supplied in the older-style Spanish homes--electricity, indoor plumbing, modern furniture, etc. Both kinds of houses--the Spanish-style house and the modern house--are built by private companies for profit.
A third kind of modern-day home is the slum shack. Whole communities of slums exist on the edges of such cities as Mexico City and Guadalajara. They consist of tiny tents and shacks which are built and occupied by Indian families, who have left the villages in recent decades to seek better lives in the cities.
A typical shack consists of one room, wood or plastic walls, a concrete floor, and little or no furniture. The family has to make do without a refrigerator, running water, modern appliances such as heaters and air conditioners, and a bathroom. Most slum dwellers have no street addresses. Many get their electricity by tapping into electric poles illegally, and get their water supply by illegally tapping into fire hydrants with garden hoses. Some get their water from faucets in the streets.
A fourth kind of home is the mansion. Mexico has many old country mansions, all built during the colonial era as haciendas, or estates. (Most were burned to the ground during the Mexican Revolution of 1910; some have since been rebuilt as resorts, hotels, and privates homes.) There are others which were built in the cities during that same era. Many newer mansions were built during Mexico's oil boom in the 1970s.
Some mansions, owned by wealthy families whose ancestors came to Mexico generations or even centuries ago, are designed in the old Spanish style. They're built of thick stone or adobe walls; they have red clay tile roofs; and they surround spacious, cobblestone-floored patios bedecked with flowers, trees, and marble fountain. Other mansions, built by newly-rich families during the 1970s, look more like the mansions of New York City and Philadelphia. Both kinds of mansions are located in the country and in elegant residential neighborhoods in the cities, such as the ones located in western and southern Mexico City.
The two styles of mansions have the sorts of comforts enjoyed by the wealthy: antique furniture, marble floors, silver and gold teapots, expensive limousines, etc. A typical mansion has many rooms filled with lovely furnishings, paintings, and statues. Many have satellites which permit their owners to watch TV programs that are made in the United States.
If you wish to see the history of Mexico face-to-face, go to Mexico and look at its homes. In the styles of the Mexicans' houses, you will see the sweep of their nation's past. If a picture's worth a thousand words, then a look at its houses is truly worth reading a dozen Mexican history books.
THE END
@1995, by Kathy Green