<\/p>\n
Noelia is a woman I have known all my life. As a child I played with her daughter who became my good friend in adulthood. I vividly remember walking down the street to her DVD rental store and picking out Mars Attack to watch with my dad. You can now find her at her store (which is also a laundromat) folding clothing in the back, or cooking a meal for her family. I interviewed her there while she spoke to customers, served rice for her nephew, and did laundry. Music was playing in the background as well as the steady hum of the washing machines. As she spoke my own memories came alive and I could taste and smell our Sayulita once again.<\/em> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n My name is Noelia Mendoza Flores. I was born in the state of Guerrero, which is a very beautiful state in the south. Our food there is very good, a typical dish there is mole with chicken and rice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I came here with my parents when I was 18, in 1982. I was a teenager and I remember being so in awe with how beautiful it was here. My father decided to bring us here because he had a friend who lived in the area, and at first we lived in La Pe\u00f1ita. At that time La Pe\u00f1ita was also a very small town. We went on an errand one day to San Pancho and fell in love with how beautiful it was. We couldn’t believe that such a beautiful place existed. At that time the entire town worked in a factory that produced marmalade, canned chilies and jalapenos, and packaged milk. That’s how the townspeople in San Pancho made a living. In Sayulita they had a factory as well where they made wooden boxes, like the ones you see at a fruteria<\/em>. That’s how people lived back then.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n So my parents and I realized that there was a way to live in San Pancho. My family had always had their own businesses, so we arrived in San Pancho and settled there with that idea in mind. At that time, the San Pancho hospital was a well-known hospital, very clean and beautiful. It was famous in the area and people would line up from 5 am to get in, arriving all the way from Tomatl\u00e1n. There were very good doctors and the place was very nice. People would come to our house to ask for water or a glass of milk because there was no food in the place, and that’s when my mother came up with her new business: selling food in front of the hospital.<\/p>\n We were the first people to have food for sale in front of the hospital. After that, more people joined in to sell, but we were the first. My mother also sold clothes to the girls who worked at the factory. She would let them pay the clothes in installments.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Guerrero, my entire family was dedicated to having paleter\u00edas<\/em>. Here in Sayulita, we set up the first paleteria<\/em>, which was right in the plaza. After that I got married and my mom couldn’t have it, so my mom sold it to the famous Michoacana paleteria.<\/em> When I got married, my husband and I went to the United States to work. There I had my first two daughters of the three that I have.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n When I returned I saw that Sayulita had changed, but just a little. It was still a magical town. It looked so beautiful to me that I didn’t want to go back. I had asked for permission from work to come for three months, but Sayulita was so beautiful that I didn’t want to return. My daughters here had so much freedom, this was a small pueblo,<\/em> we all knew each other. They were free in the street. My daughter Karolina would run over to her grandmother on the corner where there was an almond tree. The neighbors would yell \u201cHere is Karo!\u201d and I didn’t have to worry. I went to the beach with them, right here on the main beach. There was an area we called \u201cLas Pilitas\u201d. A natural pool was formed there where the girls could play. If I saw someone on the beach, I would ask them to take care of my daughters and leave them playing there. They were free. I thought, I don’t want to return to the United States.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I liked freedom here so much. You could smell the sea everywhere. If the lady on the corner was frying fish, you could smell it from the house. There were only smells of the pueblo<\/em>. I don’t know how to explain it, maybe those smells are diluted by everything that is here now. But before this town smelled of the sea. The sand in front of us was white sand full of shells, snails. Now you only find cigarettes or garbage. The stream was so clean that you could drink that water. There the women of the town cleaned their clothes. The water was transparent, crystal clear, clean. With that rover water we cooked, cleaned the dishes, did everything. It is something so nice to remember and at the same time so sad. I wonder how we can have the town so dirty, let the river get dirty to such a degree, so many buildings and hotels without parking, no public bathrooms. There is no longer the neighbor who says \u201cGood night!\u201d when you pass the corner with the almond tree. They are pushing us out of town little by little. But I think Sayulita is going to revive. We are in a difficult time, but I see a beautiful future for Sayulita. I hope with these memories we remember why we love Sayulita: for its nature and irreplaceable beauty, its local people who keep the essence of Sayulita alive. We have to take care of it as much as we can.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n