The streets in my neighborhood look like they were laid out by a drunk urban planner on a bad hangover day.. There is no perceptible order here and although they are organized around a somewhat wider street that we could consider as the main, no one would think of calling her, for the good, “avenida”. The poor thing doesn't have, nor do I think I have ever aspired to achieve, such recognition. ¿Avenida? Yes!, well yes, what a laugh.
My neighborhood doesn't have a subway. If you want to take one you must move, at least, twenty minutes walking distance from where you live (to another neighborhood) or take a bus, thing that, by the way, It's not going to save you too much time either.. And it is that, as a rule, the buses in my neighborhood are always late. O, at least, They take much longer than prudent to get to their stop, which forces you to plan your outings to other areas of the city well in advance. Furthermore, the lines that we have assigned do not reach everywhere. (in fact, they are getting shorter), People prefer to take their own car to go anywhere.. Oh, by you too, for a simple carelessness, you see the bus you wanted to take start just when you arrive at the stop. Half an hour of waiting, no one can take it away from you until the next one arrives..
In my neighborhood there are two kinds of businesses: bars and hairdressers. Bueno, there are also supermarkets, some bakeries, pharmacies, a hardware store (last year there were two), a couple of car workshops, some fruit shop, several bank branches, a couple of betting businesses, some florist, a stationery store, two or three kiosks, a tobacconist and, we are so original, that we have a couple of places where shoes are still repaired, profession that was already in disuse, but here we have recovered and it seems that it is not going bad. But, although the count of these other businesses may give the impression that we are not missing anything here, it is a misleading impression, since these establishments are very scattered, which, if we look at their number in relation to the population density, They give bars and hairdressers an outstanding position above the rest. It wasn't like that before. Bueno, In fact, it was always like this, but before, businesses that were not bars or hair salons had a much greater presence in my neighborhood. Or that's how I remember it. Today most of the commercial basements (a safe investment in another time), They are closed and offered for rent. And, starting from this landscape, we would make a portrait of how our country's economy has evolved in recent decades, the balance would not be too encouraging.
In my neighborhood there are some parks. few and, in general, small. And once they decided to build one slightly larger than average, in the end, due to disputes between the different neighborhood associations, They planted an immense soccer field on the same land (what was needed, they tell me, but it could have been put somewhere else) and an area dedicated to urban gardens that, like the football field, It is also fenced, with which the common space, the one that became available to everyone, ended up occupying the narrowest portion of the plot. As, besides, the few trees they have planted, they haven't grown enough yet, that park is used mainly in winter and now, during the brief spring we have, because in summer it is unbearably hot and not even the children, who are more unconscious and, therefore, more tolerant of these things, They approach him during the harshest hours of the day.
My neighborhood is a neighborhood that was previously known as a working class neighborhood.. And like all neighborhoods of this type, has its customs adapted to this condition or identity. Here people get up in the morning and, midweek, he leaves, obviously, to his job that, as everyone imagines, It is not the CEO of any large company. Here people work in modest jobs as bar managers., of course, from a hair salon or any other small business that I have already talked about, maestros, small officials, construction employees, post office, electricians, and some other profession of not very high remuneration. The neighborhood's liveliest moments occur on Saturday mornings, when this working class goes to the supermarket to do their weekly shopping. So, The neighborhood is filled with people going from one place to another, such, or stop on the terraces of the bars to have a beer after the long week of work. Saturday afternoons, the neighborhood is turned off, to relive Sundays tomorrow, when people return to occupy the bars and terraces, and fall back into still silence after mealtime.
There are no cinemas in my neighborhood, there are no theaters, no leisure spaces, nor are there great monuments to visit. Here, cultural life is conspicuous exactly by its absence. There are no tourists either. (why would they come here?) Not even bookstores. There was a. long ago. It was carried by the priest of one of the two churches that were then in the area and that later merged into one when he died.. in that bookstore, I remember buying school and high school reading books and, then, others that I would buy later at my own risk. I visited that bookstore for years until the day it closed. A few decades have passed since this. It was a small place, narrow, but nice, that that man carried with exemplary care and neatness and that he endured more by the force of his will than by the benefit he obtained from it. Still today, If I think about buying a book, I immediately remember this bookstore in my neighborhood, I don't know why. I remember passing by the sidewalk, way to anywhere else, and stare at your window full of books (new books, no balance), promises of later hours of stories in the privacy of some comfortable corner of my house. Since then, nothing else similar has been opened here, I suppose due to the logical lack of clientele that would sustain the business.. Hoy, in the same basement where that old woman used to be (for the time that has passed, not because of its appearance, which always seemed very modern to me) bookshop, there is a dry cleaner where you can take your coat to have it washed.
Here, in my neighborhood, the streets are not paved, as in some areas of the historic center of the city, and the gray color of the asphalt dominates our landscape. The buildings have an average of seven heights, although now, at the end of that main street I talked about, lined up along a boulevard that is open behind us, They are building other taller buildings that grow day by day like menacing giants and that will soon dominate the skyline of this part of the city.. The streets in my neighborhood are moderately clean.. Before they were even cleaner, but, for a while until now, The cleaning service has declined a bit and, if you listen carefully, You will understand that people are not very happy about it. Of course, on the other hand, The people who complain so much don't help much either and sometimes you see garbage where it shouldn't be or you appreciate customs that are not very respectful of the environment., like letting dogs do their thing wherever they want or throwing papers on the floor. It's like this. people are people.
In my neighborhood we know that there are elections when they paint the streets, which is a custom that the city's politicians have taken all their lives. It seems that, if they clean them up a little, people will forget the promises that were made to them and that were not fulfilled during the legislature. Although here, it's also true, politicians come rarely. It's not that we lack anything, I have already said it, But there are many things that could be improved if someone wanted to do it.. We have a sports center, a soccer field (I have also mentioned that), There is an institute and a couple of schools that, as far as i know, They can't cope with so much childishness. Bueno, and they have promised us a new health center, but no one here has much confidence that it will be built in too short a time frame.
My neighborhood is a modest neighborhood, little. A neighborhood where nothing ever happens that doesn't happen to us, those of us who live here. And one might think that this is very little if you compare it with those great events that they tell us about on TV and that mean the social and political life of the country or, si me apuran, from the whole world. But, for us, these things that happen to us, some good, others less good, They are our things. Maybe my neighborhood is a neighborhood like yours. It may not look like anything, I don't know. in my neighborhood, at eight in the afternoon, people come out to the balconies and start applauding. There are those who insist on pointing out that they are applauding because of the virus, but it seems to me that we don't do it just for that reason. Here, people applaud, rather, for herself, as if saying, is there anyone out there? Doesn't anyone listen to me? Amidst the applause, the sound of a whistle enlivens the atmosphere. The trains keep coming, punctual, to the city. GERADO LEON
