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Scribes Still Pecking For A Living

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The Washington Post

Published: June 27, 2008

MEXICO CITY - The day was going badly for Alberto Jimenez Ramirez. Very badly.

The handyman had done his job. He had hammered and patched and scraped.

But the paymaster at the Health Ministry was demanding half a dozen originals of each of Jimenez's two bills, and he did not have them. The figures he had scrawled on a scrap of paper weren't going to do it. The paymaster was clear: no typed originals, no money, no arguing.

Jimenez doesn't have a secretary. He doesn't have a computer. And that's why he found himself in Plaza Santo Domingo when the bells tolled noon one recent afternoon.

Plaza Santo Domingo smells musty and old. The wood beams that shade its arcade drip. The old counting house on the square - built in 1682 - sags. Mexicans love this place.

Jimenez picked his way through the crowded arcade, past the men hawking printed baptismal announcements and prayer cards, past the beggars and the taco vendors, past the scruffy, loose dogs. He stopped in front of a grinning man with a big belly named Enrique Jaimes.
Jaimes is an "evangelita." The word usually means little evangelist, or little nun. But here, it refers to the professional scribes who type love letters, job applications and almost anything imaginable for Mexicans illiterate and poor, for busy shop clerks and harried small-business people. In the past, scribe work was done by educated nuns, known as evangelitas. The name stuck even as the nuns gave way to laypeople longer ago than anyone can remember.
Jaimes took the crumpled bill from his new client and dragged a small, plastic stool up to his desk. "This is going to work out fine," he said.

Twenty minutes later, Jaimes rose from his stool and waved over his son, Servando, 23. Son replaced father at the desk seamlessly, pecking at an old electric IBM typewriter as Jimenez slowly read numbers and job descriptions aloud.

Longtime Tradition Continues

The scribes of Plaza Santo Domingo once used manual typewriters. Their arcade was alive with clackety-clack clatter. But modernity comes even to the most ancient of professions, and they began switching to electric machines 10 or 15 years ago - Jaimes can't remember exactly when. But he does remember the place becoming quieter.

Jaimes, 51, has been at this for 40 years, typing his first letters when he was just a boy; his father, who died a few years ago, typed here for half a century. Jaimes got manual typewriters as birthday presents when he was a child - hulking Olivettis, Underwoods and Remingtons - but he never learned to type with more than two fingers. He and his family never got rich, but they made a decent living.

"Dad couldn't afford to send us to school," Jaimes said to a friend who had stopped by to chat.

At 12:35 p.m., Servando was still typing. Jimenez was still reading numbers. Jaimes' attention wandered. He sized up each person who passed by, measuring them quickly, processing the pace of their gait, where their eyes settled, whether they were smiling or frowning. He was hunting for customers, but after all these years, he knew not to bother hawking just anybody.

"See this one coming?" he said. "He's looking around. His head isn't down. He might need something."
Jaimes straightened up.

"Hello, hello," he said as the man paused. "What can I offer you? We can do binding. I can write legal papers. Do you want to file a complaint against anyone?"

The man smiled, but shook his head, moving on. Jaimes just shrugged and slumped back against the wall.

Love Letter To Legal Documents

Like many of the scribes, he has had to diversify to survive. Now, he binds documents at a small workshop behind the square and draws up legal papers, giving advice on matters of jurisprudence to clients who cannot afford lawyers.

At 1:15, Servando stood and gave way to his father after typing bills for Jimenez that totaled the equivalent of $1,700. Servando has learned a lot, but his dad is still the boss. And in this enterprise, the boss calculates the bill.
Jaimes settled onto the stool, wriggling to get comfortable. He sighed and extended his right finger, pausing above the keyboard as if for dramatic effect. Then he stabbed downward. One swift stroke and that was it.

"Let's see," he said. "That's 24 pages, so that'll be 90 pesos."

Jimenez handed over the equivalent of about $9. He zipped his documents into a blue, plastic folder and faded back into the crowd at 1:17.

One hour and 17 minutes had passed. The Jaimes family had taken care of one client and made $9, doubling what they had made in the previous four hours. Today, Jaimes said, they would have a nice lunch.

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