It is written in I donno which book that if a girl or a woman for that matter, passes in front of boys, or men if you like, she has to be catcalled.
But who said so? Why are some people so barbaric and archaic sometimes?
So I am busy walking down this particular street minding my own business and thinking about tacos and side frijoles as always. Then there is a group of very idle boys seated at this particular corner that I have to negotiate (do people negotiate corners when walking or only when driving? I donno). By the look, I guessed they were either schools boys or just some random nincompoops. One thing about me is that I don’t know how to assume gestures directed to me or rather directed to my direction. I find it rude ignoring people. Also, I don’t know how not to take catcalls seriously.
You know, being in a foreign country can be trick sometimes. I know when a man in my country is just being obtuse or trying to seriously hit on me, but he is helplessly shy. When I’m sure he is for real, that’s when I just decide to give him a hard time and pretend not to hear. That’s how we do it in Kenya. Ha-ha. If it’s just another barbaric and archaic good for nothing human being, I respond very quickly. In Mexico I really don’t know how things work to be honest. Nevertheless, I take catcalls very seriously and when someone catcalls me, I just walk towards them and start a very serious conversation about why exactly they whistled at me or made a comment. So these boys here probably thought that catcalling me was going to be a walk in the park. May be they thought I was going to just walk away feeling shame on me and intimidated or something? Probably it’s a habit because they were openly calling me and making some Spanish comments that I wished I understood.
So the first nincompoop calls out: Señorita! Señorita! A donde vas? (Miss! Miss! Where are you going?) I am soo tempted to walk away and just ignore but my inner self is already worked up and whispering, “go give them a piece of your mind” My inner self can be very stubborn by the way. I try to ignore her but she is not the type that you can easily ignore. So I just make one big and unexpected U-turn. The kind of U-turn you make when you find out that they packed your tacos without the side frijoles. I start walking towards them and they all look shocked. The, we-were-just-kidding kind of shock. I get closer and one of them actually takes off. The other four just sit there in complete silence as if they weren’t the ones calling me Señorita a few minutes ago.
Thanks to my scanty Spanish that comes in handy in situations like these ones. I confidently ask them, Que pasa? Por que me llamaste? (What’s up? Why were you calling me?) They look even more shocked because I can tell they thought I didn’t not speak Spanish. They start protesting and an endless blame game ensues, in Spanish of course. Most of it I just float and look at them silently and I can feel my inner self smiling and doing a happy dance. Finally one of them shouts, “queríamos que nos enseñaras inglés por favor” (we wanted you to teach us English please)
This was a catcalling gone wrong obviously. I just give them one more stare without a word which leaves them frozen and startled. Then I shake my head and walk away. They together, in a chorus finally manage to say, “NO MANCHES!”, a Mexican way of expressing disbelief. I turn back and this time around they all flee like they’ve just seen a real ghost.
Thou shall never catcall me!