City fathers have plenty of experience cleaning house for the visits of international leaders. If Guadalajara hadn’t hosted the Latin American and Caribbean Summit in 2004, the gloriously colorful plants that line the central meridian of the highway leading to the city airport might never have seen the light of day.
Have Barack Obama and Steven Harper ever been exposed to graffiti? Guadalajara Mayor Alfonso Petersen certainly isn’t taking any chances. He dispatched clean-up teams this week to paint over tags, dirty curbs and fading street markings. Masons were sent out to search for crumbling stonework on civic buildings and apply corrective touches. Even the Municipal Palace got a quick face-lift in case organizers of the North American Leaders Summit chose to include it in the program.
Unruffled, Petersen denied that the cost of the makeover would come out of taxpayers’ pockets. It had already been budgeted for, he confirmed, without giving details.
Less happy were shoe shiners awaiting clients under the heat of the blazing sun in Plaza de la Liberacion. They seemed slightly irritated about the impending arrival of the most powerful man in the world.
“They said we’ll be kicked out of here on Sunday and Monday,” says Miguel Corral. “I think it’s a good event for the city but I’m going to lose around 500 pesos and no one is going to give me anything to help.”
International summits always tend to bring out the worst kind of presumptuousness in local authorities. But when someone with the stature of Barack Obama comes to town – the first ever visit to Guadalajara by an incumbent U.S. president – information is even more at a premium.
“You know which streets will be closed this weekend?” a woman at the tourist information booth asks her boss on a walkie-talkie. “What do you think?” comes the response. “Nobody has told us anything.”
Tourists who planned to visit Guadalajara this weekend will be in for a shock as the majority of the downtown area and sites of interest are likely to be off limits.
Authorities have hinted they might close 400 business and all the main plazas in the city center on Sunday and Monday as Obama, Felipe Calderon and Steven Harper confer with their aides at the Cabañas Institute and, probably, visit other local sites of interest, including the Jalisco Government Palace.
The popular San Juan de Dios market borders the Cabañas Institute and may be forced to close, although stall holders say they’ve heard nothing.
Notices plastered on stalls all over the biggest enclosed market in Latin America state: “We haven’t received any official news from the government that indicates anything different.” Vendors at the market say they plan to turn up for work on Sunday as normal.
Staff in the administrative office at the Guadalajara Cathedral were equally mystified. “I don’t really know what’s happening, I assume it will be open and mass will take place as normal on Sunday,” said one assistant.
An older gentleman sitting outside the cathedral, Eugenio Villanueva, was more upbeat about the leaders’ visit. “It shows Guadalajara is an important city and that we can hold important events. I think most people like Obama and will welcome him here.”
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