The Countess 'speaks English'

Mr. Félix recounts, while masterfully slicing a mango in three movements, that two years ago not a soul was seen on this street.

That he then thought that what the Countess lacked was a pandemic.

Because the day that the giant with feet of clay that is Mexico City rocked on the 17th, Félix was dragging his fruit cart through Mexico Park.

And that how he moved himself.

How those privileged buildings with views of the trees were cracking and fear also cracked his people, who left, little by little, with what they were wearing.

Some sold, the offices disappeared, others stopped paying, and the most mischievous divided a four-bedroom house into eight or nine.

Everything was ready, he says, so that when the pandemic was over, hundreds of foreigners would arrive willing to repopulate its streets.

And he is happy.

so what if

;

what if

;

and what if

.

These new inhabitants bring green bills, which at Mexican exchange are many blue, purple and yellow bills.

And that for a tray of mango with granola and honey you don't even need one of those.

They don't speak Spanish, nor do they need to.

That there are people from all over here, that it is a very cosmopolitan neighborhood, he says.

And that seems very good.

Above all because, especially the

—well, not all the new settlers are the same— they leave you five or ten pesos too much.

That for many like him the controversy of skyrocketing rents is far from him, specifically, in Ecatepec.

Foreigners exercise at Parque México de Condesa in Mexico City on February 25, 2022. CLAUDIA ARÉCHIGA

It turns out that he has not heard about the fight and that he has been pushing a cart with fruit for 25 years through these streets, that for anger the price of lemon or mango, which complicates his life every day.

Because how is he going to charge them more than 30 pesos for a glass of fruit.

Although the new inhabitants bring a lot of

, for a chilango there are things that are sacred.

And chilaquiles cakes for 60 pesos are still an insult.

This is not Tulum.

Very far from there, specifically on Twitter, a girl from Austin (Texas) thought of sending a message to her countrymen a few days ago: "Do yourselves a favor and telecommute from Mexico City, it's really magical."

The English text was accompanied by travel magazine-style photos showing a passageway with wooden windows, a pristine translucent roof, and healthy plants.

Some images that could be from the capital, as well as from any other city in the world.

And the net came down on him.

That if because of you and your family you can't live here, that rents are impossible, that everything is more expensive, that if with your dollars you can live in the Countess or in Rome, that if when we go there we don't we are more than cheap handiwork.

And the girl ended up asking for forgiveness and closing her account.

In a hairdressing salon in Roma, a neighborhood attached to the Countess, a stylist no more than 25 years old welcomes the new client.

"Do you speak English?".

The awkward smile behind the mask was perfectly perceptible.

“Could I have made a mistake and I'm in Arizona?” the lady had to think, and she remained silent for an eternal minute.

The dye expert at the fashionable hairdresser in Rome did not speak a word of Spanish and her clientele thought that not only seemed normal, but exclusive,

.

Just as they predicted on Twitter: imagine if something like this happened the other way around, a Mexican without knowing any English in the best beauty salon in New York.

Foreign residents have breakfast in a restaurant in the Condesa neighborhood.

CLAUDIA ARECHIGA

What used to be a neighborhood on Córdoba Street is now called

.

The original consisted of an apartment building generally with an interior patio —remember

Ocho— that favored irremediable interaction with the neighbors.

A neighborhood was a neighborhood, a sign of belonging, not a status symbol at all.

The new version offers rooms for 12,000 pesos (about $600) a month.

In Mexico, the minimum wage is not even enough to pay for a piece of the patio of that house.

A private security guard guarding the entrance to the neighborhood cannot explain how so many people get out of there.

A modest building in the Roma neighborhood that the new owners have drilled holes to make more rooms and, therefore, extremely profitable.

For a three-room apartment, with a shared living room-kitchen and balcony, of no more than 100 square meters, they earn him almost $2,000 in total.

European or American prices that few Mexicans can afford.

And spaces like this have multiplied, the rental pages warn of the butterfly effect: it is already almost impossible to rent something decent for less than 1,500 dollars in this area.

It was already known that La Condesa or La Roma were expensive neighborhoods (in general), gentrified by Europeans and Mexicans with money.

Few inhabitants of the Mexico destroyed by another tremor, that of 1985, expected it to be repopulated with the same fierceness after the tragedy turned it into a cemetery.

But as with the earthquake of 2017, it was raised by force of concrete and windows.

And now pushed by the teleworking of thousands of foreigners and the lack of restrictions due to the pandemic: here you can walk without masks, eat, dine and party as if the covid were just a bad memory, a distant nightmare.

Its privileged location, 15 minutes from downtown, 10 minutes from the financial heart or four steps from

, its immense parks and tropical boulevards, in addition to the infinite assortment of restaurants, cafes, bars and exclusive shops, have converted it again after each tragedy in the area most desired by some and inaccessible to the majority.

The pandemic and the suffocation of large cities in the United States and Europe due to curfews and business closures have triggered its appeal.

A resident reads in the Rio De Janeiro square in the Roma neighborhood.

CLAUDIA ARECHIGA

And on the terraces run the very expensive cheese boards, identical and many insipid —confirms the reporter from La Mancha who writes— in the shade of centuries-old ash trees, jacarandas, oilcloths.

And little warm yellow lights, which have unified the color of the night in the neighborhood to that of any other fashionable city,

.

The rations of cheeses with grapes and not of tacos and sauces fly, along with glasses of red wine and laughter, and summer clothes and sunglasses, no matter if it is still winter or already at night.

And in this corner of the world without masks, they swirl in the heat of the tannins —later it will be with the Negronis— as in an offering to Bacchus.

But even in this corner, Mexico resists.

The party is interrupted from time to time by the breath of the underworld of sweet potatoes at 20 pesos.

For the bell of the garbage truck that announces to the neighbors that: either they put their bags down, or they stay there.

cheese

, but never containers.

And the smell of coffee and sweet bread from the man on the bicycle, who waits for one of these new inhabitants to fancy a dessert on the way home.

And sure, a hundred poor Mexicans who parade past their tables to sell anything and survive: lamps, gardenias, masks, books, blankets, "I clean your car," "I sell you cigarettes."

And, if things are animated, why not?

A leather whip.

Mr. Félix leaves for the leafy Parque España pushing his fruit cart.

At Le Parisien hairdressing salon they have learned to greet in English, after 50 years trimming beards and fixing sideburns to office workers who crossed the street in their free time and became the most loyal customers.

After they left and not a soul was seen in the streets, the neighborhood has changed its face.

.

And what for some has meant exile to cheaper, quieter neighborhoods, has saved the business for others.

A couple walks through Parque México in the Condesa neighborhood. CLAUDIA ARÉCHIGA

subscribe here

to the

of EL PAÍS México and receive all the informative keys of the current affairs of this country