Verne’s mother, Lulú, is from Peñasco but has been living in La Paz some time before he was born; while his younger sister (Amet Aída), his father (Tito), his aunt (Vernna), his grandmother (Mirna), and me, his grandfather (Gilberto), we are from La Paz. Therefore, he comes from both paceños[1] and sonorenses[2].

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From the moment Verne was born, he lived in the House of Chayito and Raúl, which is about 50 m away from the Malecón, five blocks and a half away from the old Muelle Fiscal (the main pier of the port). His great-grand-parents, Raúl and Chayito, were paceños; Filemón C. Piñeda Contreras and Victoria Chacón Meza, Raúl’s parents, were from La Paz as well; while Chayito’s mother, María Antonia Isais Marcq, was paceña, and his father José Ignacio Bañuelos Cabezud, was from Jalisco.

The House of Chayito and Raúl is on Rosales Street, which used to be the culmination of a creek —and in a way it still is, but paved with concrete—, right next to the Hotel Los Arcos —which is still closed even if the laborers won strike, due to the inconclusive labor lawsuit.

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Five years ago, when Verne said his first words, he started calling me Yeyé (probably saw it in one of those animated cartoons he used to see when he was a baby). At first, I thought it was a reference to the name given to those who were born during the 60s (the Yeyé[3] girls and boys), but I found out it was the word for “grandpa” in Chinese. So, from now on, I’m no longer Tito… I’m Yeyé.

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Last year, when Verne began the second year of elementary school at Captain Rosendo Robles, he asked me for a couple of old photographies —ever since he knew I worked with those kind of photographies at the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur, because he was given an assignment on the history of the city of La Paz as it used to be.

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A few months after that, Antonieta, my old teacher of elementary school friend of mine, called me asking me for a special tour around the Historic Center for her kids in first and second year of elementary school, since she had heard of the historical and cultural tours we do from the Urban Historical Documentation Centre (CEDOHU UABCS) on Sundays —so that people get to know the city, for which I’m responsible; these usually last about three hours, beginning at 7 am at the old Muelle Fiscal (the main pier of the port), and proceeding from there on foot around the Historic Center of La Paz. I explained to her that these were designed for more mature audiences, not exactly for children, and its adaptation would take a while for several reasons: the main ones are the language, given that the one required for younger audiences is substantially different from that of teenagers and adults; the duration and the schedule of the tour would have to be readjusted; and lastly, the criteria of the design of the tour would have to correspond to the age of the kids.

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Unfortunately, I didn’t consider myself capable of doing such task, to design in the short term this tour for kids, given that I had no previous pedagogical experience with younger individuals; for that reason, I had to decline her request. However, I couldn’t let it go just like that, and that’s when I remembered Verne’s homework, and the fact that he would be using the book edited by SEP “Baja California Sur: the federal entity where I live”on third grade —I knew this thanks to some seminars I gave 3 or 4 years ago for the students of History at the Escuela Normal Superior and a few meetings at the Escuela Normal Urbana. So I told Verne about it, and day after day, before dropping him to school, we rapidly developed this project. The first six photographs we took was what made it all real after the first photo shoot; then a second one came, in which we took 10 shots —where we had the opportunity to have Verne’s younger first cousin (Tito Livio) with us, along with the elementary school’s principal and her assistant, who had already accompanied us on the past photo shoot.

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The idea here was to create a Visual Tour around the city to tell its history by showing the changes it has gone through over the years to the children in this school project, who will be directly participating.

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What impact would this project have on Verne’s school project?

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It would reinforce the general objective of the book “Baja California Sur: the federal entity where I live”, given that in the beginning is written “…[this book] was created so that you would get to know your federative entity in a fun way, when reading on scientific subjects and historical passages, observing images of different times and places” and “locating different elements on maps…”; moreover, it would reinforce the meaning of the book’s title, since the federative entity where they live would be the main subject of our Visual Tour; it would be the perfect opportunity for understanding the transformations that the city of La Paz has undergone since its foundation through old photographies, which we  will be calling for the project the BEFORE, while the new ones will be the NOW —Verne came up with this idea during one of our several morning talks: “so as to find the DIFFERENCES and the SIMILARITIES between these two photos”, just like the good old children’s game “Find the differences”.

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If everything goes as planned, our purposes will be met, and the project will gain more relevance thanks to the Subject 4. Landscapes and daily life that speak of our past found in Unit I of the 3rd grade book, where there are two questions that are supposed to be answered by the students at the end of the project: Do you know any family member who would be able to tell you about your grandparents or great-grandparents daily routines? How was your city or town where you live in?

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Then, something extraordinary happened to Verne and Yeyé: the opportunity to present the school project on the Technical Meeting of May 29, before the teaching staff of the elementary school Captain Rosendo Robles, an invitation from the principal herself. The first part of the presentation was the display of 16 photographs —taken on April 16 and March 19— previously glued on a mural made by Verne, while the second part was explained by Yeyé, with several interventions of Verne through it all. This presentation was full of moving and memorable anecdotes.

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The work previous to the presentation consisted of several parts: Verne took new photos from the exact point where old ones, previously selected by Yeyé, had been taken in the past. Given that the main objective of this part is to capture the scenes from the past in our time, the presentation of the Visual Tour begins at the Malecón and ends in the Muelle Fiscal, the starting point being the House of Chayito and Raúl, the place where the whole photo shoot usually starts —Verne hopes that his classmates become part of this project in the future, because he is planning on taking other 60 photographs, about 10 more photo shoots in the following months. And this is how Verne presented 16 old photographs from the Pablo L. Martínez Historical Archive, along with those he had taken with a small Sony camera, before the teachers of Captain Rosendo Robles elementary school.

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The Visual Tour around the Malecón was result of the following photo shoot taken on March 19: first, we had a photographs of the Old Hotel Los Arcos taken by R.A.M. about 76 years ago from the Malecón, in which we can see the terrace of the hotel with its 4 iconic semicircular arcs, and an old house right next to it. Then, we have another taken 66 years ago from the middle of the street, in which we can see many coconut palms in both sidewalks, and in the foreground to the left, we find the old Small Cuauhtémoc Park, with its tubular steel tower —the structure where Raúl fell from, Verne’s great-grandfather when he was young; and behind it, there is a tower that seems to have had a clock once; and even further, there is a boat berthed at the pier.

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Stepping on the sand of the beach, we have two similar photographs: one of them was taken 76 years ago, while the other was taken about 116 years ago. We can see in both of them the inlet of La Paz, on the back of it there are many boats berthed at the pier; the difference is that while in the oldest one there are big and small sailing boats standing out, on the relatively most recent, what stands out to the right is the row of coconut palms along the Malecón —whereas, in the oldest one, the Malecón itself didn’t exist yet. We continued walking along the bay, after Bravo Street, and then we find the spot of the 56 years old photo where we can see the building of the former Ford dealership, with its Ficus benjamina or medium height in front of it. Crossing the street, nearly reaching the pier, there is another photograph taken 86 years ago, where we can see two Ford T model vehicles running down the street, a single person walking on the Malecón —which already had its cement benches—, two wooden canoes anchored close to the shore, and on the background we have again the pier but this time with no boats berthed.

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Crossing the street again, and we have another spot of an old photograph taken about 66 years ago, this time it’s a twilight with the silhouette of a short coconut palm on the Malecón, and on the background we have the sunshine caressing the inlet and the silhouette of the pier with various berthed boats. Finally, we go back to the beach and from the pier, we find a panoramic photograph of the inlet and the Malecón, the Southern Beach of the city; on the sand and on the inlet we have several boats and  wooden canoes; on the left side, we have the Malecón with its cement benches and a long row of coconut palms, and at the end of the Malecón we can barely see the small wooden pier, close to Bravo Street, and behind it the iconic arcs of the Hotel Los Arcos, and beyond, there is a big white building after Legaspi Street.

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The Visual Tour on the PIER and its surroundings was the result of the following photo shoot taken on April 16: we began with the oldest photograph we could find, taken 126 years ago from the Northern Beach, which was part of the main street since there was no Malecón; here we observe a lot of mouvement, of both people and animal-drawn carts. While on the background, there was the entrance of the pier, where the squared-base Watchtower was, and on the corner of the other sidewalk, there was a lodging called Hotel Palacio, and behind it all, there was the Rocholl and Ruffo Tannery, a two-story construction.

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On the opposite sidewalk, there is the spot where an 86-year-old photograph was taken, looking at the same sidewalk as the one before, but in this one we see a row of Ficus benjamina and a mule that must have been pulling a cart. On the other sidewalk, we see the Malecón with its emblematic cement benches and coconut palms, the same Watchtower at the entrance of the pier, and in the center of the street, there is some kind of a traffic island lined with double-rounded streetlights mounted on cement poles; while on the background, we see a Ford T or A model vehicle. Getting closer to the pier, we have a photograph taken about  98 years ago, in at the entrance of the pier, where we see the imposing Watchtower affected by the recent cyclone —we can notice the destruction on the rails for the wagons that were on the pier at that time.

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Walking past the dock to the pier of wooden thick planks with no handrail, we have a photo taken about 76 years ago. It shows a view of the city: on the foreground, there are some people working and the rails for the wagons that went from the pier to the dock, after the square-base Watchtower. On the background, we have a building on Muelle Street that appears to be a big storehouse; behind it there is the impressive building of La Perla de La Paz, and beyond it, we can barely notice the bell towers of the parish of Our Lady del Pilar de La Paz and the hills behind it all. Another more recent photograph —about 56 years old—, taken more to the South than the other, displays the Watchtower no longer having a squared base, but rather a circular one; in the front we have wooden boats that could be accessed to climbing down ladders from the pier; and on the background of the photograph, we see a great number of Ficus benjamina. 

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Next, we climb the Watchtower, and from the heights we recreate three photographs: the first one is vey old, 106 years old, and it’s a panoramic of the Southern Beach, interesting due to the fact that there is a stone wall separating the beach from the street —there’s still no Malecón—; on the street, there is a row of coconut palms lining the wall, while on the opposite sidewalk, there is a great number of Ficus benjamina, and we can see the upper floor of Rocholl and Ruffo Tannery building, with two old houses on one side. It’s interesting that the inlet of La Paz ended on the Walls of soil that bordered the former Comercio Street (Mutualismo Street); therefore, the triangular block of the small Cuauhtémoc Square did not exist yet, it was part of the beach.

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The next two photographs are similar: one was taken about 96 years ago, while the other is 50 years old. In the first one there is a Massive disembarkation of people that mingle with the ones who went there to receive them —this was a very big steamboat—, while on the background one can notice the mangroves of El Mogote. The main differences in the second one are the size of the boat —which is smaller, loading bales of cotton brought from San Domingo, that were moved around the pier with a crane; and that at the forefront, there is a frigate of the Marines and a small merchant boat.

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This is how Verne’s Tour finished. And at the end of that last photo shoot, we went for an ice cream to later go play with Tito Livio on the play area beside the Muelle Fiscal; after that, we went back home, to the House of Chayito and Raúl to organize the photographs Verne had taken on the computer… and finally, enjoy watching cartoons  while eating popcorns.

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(*) Published on the Page of Opinion of the journal El Sudcaliforniano, Sunday, May 8, 2016.

[1] paceños: denomyn given to the residents of La Paz, Baja California Sur.

[2] sonorenses: denomyn given to the residents of Sonora, Mexico.

[3] Yeyé: a style of pop music from the 1960s generation, which started in several European countries and then expanded to the rest of the world.

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