Today is the last day of Spanish class. It´s been a challenging four weeks, let me tell ya. My head is so crammed full of jumbled information I can hardly remember my own name. But I really have learned a whole lot in this short amount of time. We covered several hundred nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the first 3 weeks alone. And I did pretty well remembering them, even conjugating the verbs correctly for their respective pronouns most of the time.
During the past week I´ve been whipping Spanish out like Bat Masterson with a 6-shooter whenever a situation arises that suits my newly minted vocabulary. I was even feeling a bit cocky. That is, I was feeling pretty cocky until yesterday...
For our final exam, Socorro, the instructor, went around the room asking us to answer some pretty difficult questions to test our mastery of the course. What! When did we cover future and past tense? Was I in the bathroom for those 4 minutes? I prayed she would not notice me slumped down in my chair in the back row. Every time she passed me over, I felt like Moses´jews who escaped the plague of death under the lamb´s blood. Whew! OK to breathe again. But my luck did eventually run out. Bummer. She saw me. I held my breath and silently begged for an easy one. Please, please, please God, please let her ask me something I know. Unfortunately, God´s line was busy and I got voicemail. ¨Tracy, explain to the class, in Espanol por favor, what is a grandparent?¨ CRAP! I would have a hard time doing that in English. How can I explain my grandfather's third wife Hazel who used to scrub me and my sisters with a sandpaper washcloth until we were pink and squeeling for mercy like little piglets. Not an easy task. After several moments suspended in time while I scoured my brain for the appropriate words, the answer came out something like ¨A grandparent is the breast and the potato of your father.¨ Ha, ha. Very funny. Socorro had a marvelous time acting out this latest blunder like it was the final episode of Seinfeld. She looked like she desperately needed a fresh Depends when she and the rest of my classmates (thanks a lot guys) finally stopped laughing. Later, still smarting from the humiliation experienced in class, I told Marina, our housemother, about my friend's baby that was both happy and very, very ugly. Ha ha. I meant ¨very very healthy.¨ And then, just in case I thought I could get by without Chatty Cathy Rena, my apple-polishing friend, I asked a shopkeeper for some drunken paintbrushes instead of a more expensive brand. She looked at me like I was retarded. I fell back on the old standby whenever someone doesn't understand me in a foreign tongue - I said it again, only louder. After she assesed the situation, she turned and asked Rena to please explain what the idiot needed. How everyone can tell that Rena knows more Spanish than I do just by looking at her is a mystery to me.
So, in the end, Spanish beat me 3-0. Oh well. I´ll have another go at it next year. On the bright side, I can say avocado in Spanish with no problem. Avocado! Ha. Take that, Mexico! You have plenty of words that I can whip out with one hand tied behind my back. I like tacos and enchiladas and guacamole and I can live on them for the next 3 weeks if I must. And as for the rest of this impossible language, at least I can still grunt, point, and smile to get my point across. Bueno. Y adios mis amigos.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Dog is God Spelled Backwards
Yesterday was the strangest day. It started with the prologue to a book I was reading. In it was a poem about the Alaskan Inuits that said...in the beginning of time, when there was no language, people could become animals and animals could become people whenever they wished. Words can bring anything into being, even if those words are just thoughts. Be mindful. Words are powerful and sacred. It hit home. I have been living with very few words for the last few weeks and, in a sense, I do feel reduced to the level of an animal dependent on others to help me get by in this foreign land. Lately, I have wished for words to bring new things into being and have become more aware that they can be both destructive and, ultimately, healing.
A short time after reading that poem, I set off with my friend on a hike for the artisans market across town. A young stray dog started to follow us when we walked through the crowded mercado. Not wanting to encourage her away from home, I didn't acknowledge her but she stayed in my shadow anyway. We walked for a long time, taking a new direction with vague maps, and it wasn't long before the road we were on became an alley which then became a narrow stone path that twisted and branched between buildings. And through all of this, "our dog" remained with us. Truthfully, by that time I was glad for her company. It felt a little safer with a nice big dog at my heels walking those strange, scary footpaths through the barrios.
We had been hiking for more than an hour when what we were walking on wasn't even a path anymore. It had morphed into a series of strategically placed stones leading straight up for a couple of city blocks. Knowing the main road was up there and realizing we could never find our way through the labrynth we had just passed through, we pressed on up the hill. Even the dog climbed with us, pulling herself up stone by stone where it got too steep. When I was three-quarters of the way up, the dog had already made it to the top and disappeared over the ridge. We were panting and exhausted at that point, so my friend and I sat on the stones to rest awhile. Several minutes passed and I remarked to my friend that the dog was finally gone. And just after saying that, I looked up and saw her peek down over the edge. She barked a couple of times and slowly began to make her way back down to us. When she got to where we were sitting, she softly took my wrist in her mouth and began tugging me up toward the top! How strange that was; in this country where I feel so lost and unable to communicate here comes a dog who can guide me to where I need to be without a word at all.
Once we found the main highway, we rewarded our dog (now "Daisy) with water (which she would only drink straight from the bottle) and a bag of Cheetos from the convenience store (which she wolfed down in one huge gulp). She stayed with us all the way to the artisans market, dutifully shopped alongside us in the market, and slept at the door of the cafe where we had lunch. After about 3 hours, we finally found familiar roads we knew led back to where we live and, without even a wag of her tail, Daisy disappeared back into a crowd of people when we crossed a busy street.
Today I am left wondering, who was that playful, loving, and caring spirit that came to guide us yesterday? Maybe someday, when I no longer look through the glass darkly, I will meet her again. And when I do, I won't be surprised if I find out that she wasn't even a dog at all but a shape-shifter sent straight from heaven to bring us home.
A short time after reading that poem, I set off with my friend on a hike for the artisans market across town. A young stray dog started to follow us when we walked through the crowded mercado. Not wanting to encourage her away from home, I didn't acknowledge her but she stayed in my shadow anyway. We walked for a long time, taking a new direction with vague maps, and it wasn't long before the road we were on became an alley which then became a narrow stone path that twisted and branched between buildings. And through all of this, "our dog" remained with us. Truthfully, by that time I was glad for her company. It felt a little safer with a nice big dog at my heels walking those strange, scary footpaths through the barrios.
We had been hiking for more than an hour when what we were walking on wasn't even a path anymore. It had morphed into a series of strategically placed stones leading straight up for a couple of city blocks. Knowing the main road was up there and realizing we could never find our way through the labrynth we had just passed through, we pressed on up the hill. Even the dog climbed with us, pulling herself up stone by stone where it got too steep. When I was three-quarters of the way up, the dog had already made it to the top and disappeared over the ridge. We were panting and exhausted at that point, so my friend and I sat on the stones to rest awhile. Several minutes passed and I remarked to my friend that the dog was finally gone. And just after saying that, I looked up and saw her peek down over the edge. She barked a couple of times and slowly began to make her way back down to us. When she got to where we were sitting, she softly took my wrist in her mouth and began tugging me up toward the top! How strange that was; in this country where I feel so lost and unable to communicate here comes a dog who can guide me to where I need to be without a word at all.
Once we found the main highway, we rewarded our dog (now "Daisy) with water (which she would only drink straight from the bottle) and a bag of Cheetos from the convenience store (which she wolfed down in one huge gulp). She stayed with us all the way to the artisans market, dutifully shopped alongside us in the market, and slept at the door of the cafe where we had lunch. After about 3 hours, we finally found familiar roads we knew led back to where we live and, without even a wag of her tail, Daisy disappeared back into a crowd of people when we crossed a busy street.
Today I am left wondering, who was that playful, loving, and caring spirit that came to guide us yesterday? Maybe someday, when I no longer look through the glass darkly, I will meet her again. And when I do, I won't be surprised if I find out that she wasn't even a dog at all but a shape-shifter sent straight from heaven to bring us home.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Finding Yourself: Some Assembly Required
When I set out on this rumspringa journey to "find myself", I now realize that I had some very different expectations for what that would mean. Did I expect to "find myself" whole, ready and waiting to be reclaimed like a lost puppy? I am embarassed to admit that the answer is yes. I guess I just thought I would be wandering down the street one day, spot the real ME, and launch a joyous reunion. The actual experience is more like stumbling upon an old, abandoned Harley Davidson hard-tail, stripped down for parts, laying forgotten, rusting, and in a thousand pieces behind an old barn.
The realization that I am finding myself, little by little, in bits and pieces, is somewhat discouraging. I like things neat, tidy, and completed on schedule. This development means there will be some assembly required. (How I loathe that phrase, some assembly required! There is always a wing nut or essential plastic sleeve that turns up missing when you are almost done.)
If there is a saving grace in all this, it came in the form of a lovely gift from my friend Val who set me up to meet her friend Bob Waters here in San Miguel. Bob is a pony-tailed retired professor of English and Journalism who wears soft pink cashmere sweaters, goes by the screen name BabaWaWa, gathers armfuls of poppies for dinner parties, and tells great stories from his life as 60s protester, Key West beach bum, and wise sage to young and old. I knew we were destined to be fast friends when almost the first thing he said after introducing himself was, "Have you read Proust?"
At dinner last night, Bob asked a key question essential to finding the rest of the missing me parts. He looked at me dead square in the eye and asked, "Where's your bliss?" It was such a simple and innocent question but one I had not asked myself in awhile. The answers were right at the tip of my tongue and I immediately realized that, of the 3 things I love most, 2 of them I never take time for and the other is just an occasional pasttime. Later in bed that night, I asked myself where my bliss is not and was surprised to learn that the 3 things I spend the most time on are on the Not-Bliss list. Thank you Bob for that epiphany!
So it is a relief to know that I will not have to resort to putting my picture on milk cartons to find myself here. Besides, even if I wanted to I wouldn't have known whose picture to post on the carton. It surely would not be any of those taken in the last 30 years. I have a vague sense of the missing me in the fuzzy memory of a 12-year-old who borrowed a neighbor farmer's draft horse for an early spring ride, got caught in freezing rain that turned to snow, and steadily made her way back with the horse even though both of us were dripping wet, slipping on the ice, and freezing. I do not remember ever feeling more courageous, alive, or blissfully happy. But sadly, there are no pictures that captured that moment.
To those of you who have already found yourselves and are living in peaceful harmony, you have my respect and admiration. Please share what you know with the rest of us and help us on the journey like good old Bob Waters has done for me.
The realization that I am finding myself, little by little, in bits and pieces, is somewhat discouraging. I like things neat, tidy, and completed on schedule. This development means there will be some assembly required. (How I loathe that phrase, some assembly required! There is always a wing nut or essential plastic sleeve that turns up missing when you are almost done.)
If there is a saving grace in all this, it came in the form of a lovely gift from my friend Val who set me up to meet her friend Bob Waters here in San Miguel. Bob is a pony-tailed retired professor of English and Journalism who wears soft pink cashmere sweaters, goes by the screen name BabaWaWa, gathers armfuls of poppies for dinner parties, and tells great stories from his life as 60s protester, Key West beach bum, and wise sage to young and old. I knew we were destined to be fast friends when almost the first thing he said after introducing himself was, "Have you read Proust?"
At dinner last night, Bob asked a key question essential to finding the rest of the missing me parts. He looked at me dead square in the eye and asked, "Where's your bliss?" It was such a simple and innocent question but one I had not asked myself in awhile. The answers were right at the tip of my tongue and I immediately realized that, of the 3 things I love most, 2 of them I never take time for and the other is just an occasional pasttime. Later in bed that night, I asked myself where my bliss is not and was surprised to learn that the 3 things I spend the most time on are on the Not-Bliss list. Thank you Bob for that epiphany!
So it is a relief to know that I will not have to resort to putting my picture on milk cartons to find myself here. Besides, even if I wanted to I wouldn't have known whose picture to post on the carton. It surely would not be any of those taken in the last 30 years. I have a vague sense of the missing me in the fuzzy memory of a 12-year-old who borrowed a neighbor farmer's draft horse for an early spring ride, got caught in freezing rain that turned to snow, and steadily made her way back with the horse even though both of us were dripping wet, slipping on the ice, and freezing. I do not remember ever feeling more courageous, alive, or blissfully happy. But sadly, there are no pictures that captured that moment.
To those of you who have already found yourselves and are living in peaceful harmony, you have my respect and admiration. Please share what you know with the rest of us and help us on the journey like good old Bob Waters has done for me.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Learning the Language of Love
OK, I admit to being a bit slow to catch on to things sometimes. Someone once told me that "naive" was no longer in the dictionary and I started turning to the N section before my amigo started to bust a gut. Here´s what I have finally figured out: some of the other students are here to learn a little more than I am. Along with the Spanish, some of my classmates are becoming fluent in the language of love (or amor) in San Miguel. Wow! Spanish immersion school is a cover for a hook up service! Who knew?
It´s perfect really. The other students here are mostly either divorced or single and over 35. Spending a month or more in a high-stress immersion environment throws people together like mashed avocados. It`s a fun, cheap way to get to know someone really well. You get to go home when it`s over, no questions asked if you want to.
However, there are a few of us who innocently and naively (there´s that word again) signed up to learn Spanish and we are all getting on merrily regardless of the reason we came here. It´s shocking how much Spanish a person can learn in two weeks even if you could not understand a single thing the instructor was saying on Day 1. I, for example, find I am already able to communicate in a crude but effective fashion. And I can read and comprehend much, much more than that. Amazing.
The other students aren´t impoverished vagabonds, as you might imagine. Pat, a Denver attorney, took a sabbatical to learn Spanish to help him defend his caseload of Latino clients. Sandy and her husband John are retired from the military and they travel all over the world this way; staying with families and immersing themselves in the local culture for months at a time. Neal just sold his company and liquidated his assets in the UK and is staying here for 6 months to recover from a divorce. Camile is a French Canadian company director who decided to master a third language. He has done the immersion school business before and enjoys seeing Latin America this way. Susanna is an artist who decided to live in San Miguel after the pace in New York got too hectic. Now she bakes cookies and sells them in local restaurants. Those are just a few of the profiles of the people in our class. To a person, it´s a great group of people and a fun way to take a productive break from "real life."
In terms of how cheap the living is here, let me give you some stats. My own comfortably appointed room and 3 wonderful meals a day cost $620 a month. Or you can live cheaply on your own as some of my classmates do. Furnished apartment rental is $350 a month. Spanish school, 5 days a week, $420 a month. Charlene´s 5-day hospital stay with IV and ambulance ride: $86.00. So it´s easy now to understand why so many people from the U.S. are here in San Miguel. Some of the expats we´ve met in town tell us they are living on a total of $1000 a month, and living well.
*(Special note to La: there are a lot of Jesus look-alikes here in San Miguel. They are available in every shape and size I´ve ever imagined Jesus might be packaged. Come on down. It wouldn´t hurt to learn a little Spanish either.)
It´s perfect really. The other students here are mostly either divorced or single and over 35. Spending a month or more in a high-stress immersion environment throws people together like mashed avocados. It`s a fun, cheap way to get to know someone really well. You get to go home when it`s over, no questions asked if you want to.
However, there are a few of us who innocently and naively (there´s that word again) signed up to learn Spanish and we are all getting on merrily regardless of the reason we came here. It´s shocking how much Spanish a person can learn in two weeks even if you could not understand a single thing the instructor was saying on Day 1. I, for example, find I am already able to communicate in a crude but effective fashion. And I can read and comprehend much, much more than that. Amazing.
The other students aren´t impoverished vagabonds, as you might imagine. Pat, a Denver attorney, took a sabbatical to learn Spanish to help him defend his caseload of Latino clients. Sandy and her husband John are retired from the military and they travel all over the world this way; staying with families and immersing themselves in the local culture for months at a time. Neal just sold his company and liquidated his assets in the UK and is staying here for 6 months to recover from a divorce. Camile is a French Canadian company director who decided to master a third language. He has done the immersion school business before and enjoys seeing Latin America this way. Susanna is an artist who decided to live in San Miguel after the pace in New York got too hectic. Now she bakes cookies and sells them in local restaurants. Those are just a few of the profiles of the people in our class. To a person, it´s a great group of people and a fun way to take a productive break from "real life."
In terms of how cheap the living is here, let me give you some stats. My own comfortably appointed room and 3 wonderful meals a day cost $620 a month. Or you can live cheaply on your own as some of my classmates do. Furnished apartment rental is $350 a month. Spanish school, 5 days a week, $420 a month. Charlene´s 5-day hospital stay with IV and ambulance ride: $86.00. So it´s easy now to understand why so many people from the U.S. are here in San Miguel. Some of the expats we´ve met in town tell us they are living on a total of $1000 a month, and living well.
*(Special note to La: there are a lot of Jesus look-alikes here in San Miguel. They are available in every shape and size I´ve ever imagined Jesus might be packaged. Come on down. It wouldn´t hurt to learn a little Spanish either.)
Sunday, October 5, 2008
The Battle of San Miguel
I couldn't end my blogging today without telling you how the Battle of San Miguel turned out.
The big hooha occurred on Friday night when the rockets started firing at 2 am. This is to sound the alarm and wake up the townspeople so that we will all get dressed and come to the square for the battle. I joined the festivities at 2:30 am dressed in flannel pajamas, jean jacket, neck scarf, and combat boots, drinking a 7Up, minding my business and looking for all the world like a gringo ripe from the avocado fields. Frankly, not much was going on other than the battle of the mariachi bands which was quickly resolved when the only band with a tuba arrived to drown out all the others. It was kind of a bore.
Boy, did that change in a hurry.
At 3 am St. Michael started hitting the Devil with at least as much firepower as was used in the opening night of the U.S. vs. Iraq war. The poor Devil brigade was entrenched at the church but they were returning fire with what sounded like 5 or 6 Daisy pump action rifles, cap guns and sparklers. (I think they took cues from Saddam Hussein when they went shopping for weapons.) But I had to hand it to those Devils. Those boys kept up a valiant fight that would make even Davy Crockett doff a coonskin cap. For 2 solid earsplitting hours concussions rocked these ancient buildings. The ground shook. (Did I say this went on for 2 hours? Yes, I did. Good. You need to know that.) By 6 am, the devil was out of ammo. The deal was done. A huge outline of Jesus on a stick was lit up with some kind of sparkler explosives and everyone was amazed and overjoyed. (There was a glitch though. Someone holding the Jesus on a stick made a bad move and dropped Jesus on the iron security fence and impaled him. But maybe that was supposed to happen. Impalement is part of the Jesus Easter story and it's possible that these guys took some literary license.) We went back to bed. Well, most of us. There were a lot of drunk guys by 6 a.m. I got asked out by a Mexican kid named Bryan. People get pretty desperate at closing time, don't they.
The final finale last night was pretty cool and pretty terrifying. At least it was for me. I hate loud dangerous explosives and I really hate them when they are in close proximity to my hair or exposed areas of skin. So I carefully scoped out what I thought was the safest place on the square from anything explosive or flamable and it happened to be really close to where a Spanish classmate from Australia named Peter was standing. Peter and I were standing next to this 50 ft. tall tower that I thought was a cell phone tower, just chatting away, when he casually mentioned that this tower was about to blow up like a really cool giant roman candle. I screamed and frantically tried to thread my way through the crushing crowd of 5,000 when it started up. With no way out, I cowered for safety behind Peter who laughed the whole time like the tasmanian devil that he is. (I now suspect that he was behind that Jesus impalement.) He was nicer for the 2nd and 3rd exploding tower spectacles though and didn't make us get closer than 100 ft. away. Anyway, I got out unscathed this time. Whew. (Never again, Peter, never again!)
So this story has a happy ending. St. Michael won. The world is safe for another year despite what Wall Street and the White House are doing. You can sleep soundly tonight.
The big hooha occurred on Friday night when the rockets started firing at 2 am. This is to sound the alarm and wake up the townspeople so that we will all get dressed and come to the square for the battle. I joined the festivities at 2:30 am dressed in flannel pajamas, jean jacket, neck scarf, and combat boots, drinking a 7Up, minding my business and looking for all the world like a gringo ripe from the avocado fields. Frankly, not much was going on other than the battle of the mariachi bands which was quickly resolved when the only band with a tuba arrived to drown out all the others. It was kind of a bore.
Boy, did that change in a hurry.
At 3 am St. Michael started hitting the Devil with at least as much firepower as was used in the opening night of the U.S. vs. Iraq war. The poor Devil brigade was entrenched at the church but they were returning fire with what sounded like 5 or 6 Daisy pump action rifles, cap guns and sparklers. (I think they took cues from Saddam Hussein when they went shopping for weapons.) But I had to hand it to those Devils. Those boys kept up a valiant fight that would make even Davy Crockett doff a coonskin cap. For 2 solid earsplitting hours concussions rocked these ancient buildings. The ground shook. (Did I say this went on for 2 hours? Yes, I did. Good. You need to know that.) By 6 am, the devil was out of ammo. The deal was done. A huge outline of Jesus on a stick was lit up with some kind of sparkler explosives and everyone was amazed and overjoyed. (There was a glitch though. Someone holding the Jesus on a stick made a bad move and dropped Jesus on the iron security fence and impaled him. But maybe that was supposed to happen. Impalement is part of the Jesus Easter story and it's possible that these guys took some literary license.) We went back to bed. Well, most of us. There were a lot of drunk guys by 6 a.m. I got asked out by a Mexican kid named Bryan. People get pretty desperate at closing time, don't they.
The final finale last night was pretty cool and pretty terrifying. At least it was for me. I hate loud dangerous explosives and I really hate them when they are in close proximity to my hair or exposed areas of skin. So I carefully scoped out what I thought was the safest place on the square from anything explosive or flamable and it happened to be really close to where a Spanish classmate from Australia named Peter was standing. Peter and I were standing next to this 50 ft. tall tower that I thought was a cell phone tower, just chatting away, when he casually mentioned that this tower was about to blow up like a really cool giant roman candle. I screamed and frantically tried to thread my way through the crushing crowd of 5,000 when it started up. With no way out, I cowered for safety behind Peter who laughed the whole time like the tasmanian devil that he is. (I now suspect that he was behind that Jesus impalement.) He was nicer for the 2nd and 3rd exploding tower spectacles though and didn't make us get closer than 100 ft. away. Anyway, I got out unscathed this time. Whew. (Never again, Peter, never again!)
So this story has a happy ending. St. Michael won. The world is safe for another year despite what Wall Street and the White House are doing. You can sleep soundly tonight.
Fiesta week in San Miguel
It's fiesta month in San Miguel and you can't swing a cat around here without hitting a guy in mariachi pants.
There are fireworks every night that require no crowd control, fire department or safety measures. Mothers simply give their kids pieces of cardboard to protect their precious heads and let them play in the rocket fire. I am told that this is an ancient custom and by the looks of it, it must date at least as far back as when the Chinese started shipping explosives and selling them at Walmart.
And boy is it colorful! Bands of native Meximericans don their ancient costumes (modified with hidden cell phone pockets), dust of the war drums and hatchets, perfect the war paint and take to the street. Every night this week they've paraded in front of my house with deafening war cries just after I have managed to drift off to sleep. It's so weird to be coming up out of a deep sleep and just for a minute think you are about to be beheaded by an Apache. If fun can be violent, the Mexicans have perfected this ideal.
And those 20ft tall puppets in the parade last week were nothing compared to the spectacle of EXPLODING effigy puppets. It seems that if Maria Guadalupe, or Maria Estaban, or Maria Martinez steals your husband and you are so pissed off that you are homicidal, you don't need a hit man or a lawsuit around here. There's a way to get even. All you have to do is wait for the feast of San Miguel. You create a detailed puppet effigy of the evil Maria (and possibly also the cheating Don or Juan because, let's face it, it does take two to tango), mount it on a 10-ft pole with some explosives and take it to the fiesta. On Saturday afternoon, all of the effigy puppets are exploded on the square in front of the church and the entire surrounding population. If a public humiliation like that doesn't say "Maria, I really hate you." (or something like that), nothing does.
Then yesterday, we were treated to a mass of horses. No, really. It was a Mass of horses. Every cowboy with horse for 50 miles around rides into town for a mounted service in front of the square and the priest comes out and throws holy water on every single one of them after the mass is done. The cowboys are as macho as John Wayne. No one smiles. Horses rear up and kick and none of the cowboys fell off or apologized to the other horses, riders or bystanders who were hurt in the process. It's pretty darn cool. I really liked that part.
These people know how to P.A.R.T.Y!
There are fireworks every night that require no crowd control, fire department or safety measures. Mothers simply give their kids pieces of cardboard to protect their precious heads and let them play in the rocket fire. I am told that this is an ancient custom and by the looks of it, it must date at least as far back as when the Chinese started shipping explosives and selling them at Walmart.
And boy is it colorful! Bands of native Meximericans don their ancient costumes (modified with hidden cell phone pockets), dust of the war drums and hatchets, perfect the war paint and take to the street. Every night this week they've paraded in front of my house with deafening war cries just after I have managed to drift off to sleep. It's so weird to be coming up out of a deep sleep and just for a minute think you are about to be beheaded by an Apache. If fun can be violent, the Mexicans have perfected this ideal.
And those 20ft tall puppets in the parade last week were nothing compared to the spectacle of EXPLODING effigy puppets. It seems that if Maria Guadalupe, or Maria Estaban, or Maria Martinez steals your husband and you are so pissed off that you are homicidal, you don't need a hit man or a lawsuit around here. There's a way to get even. All you have to do is wait for the feast of San Miguel. You create a detailed puppet effigy of the evil Maria (and possibly also the cheating Don or Juan because, let's face it, it does take two to tango), mount it on a 10-ft pole with some explosives and take it to the fiesta. On Saturday afternoon, all of the effigy puppets are exploded on the square in front of the church and the entire surrounding population. If a public humiliation like that doesn't say "Maria, I really hate you." (or something like that), nothing does.
Then yesterday, we were treated to a mass of horses. No, really. It was a Mass of horses. Every cowboy with horse for 50 miles around rides into town for a mounted service in front of the square and the priest comes out and throws holy water on every single one of them after the mass is done. The cowboys are as macho as John Wayne. No one smiles. Horses rear up and kick and none of the cowboys fell off or apologized to the other horses, riders or bystanders who were hurt in the process. It's pretty darn cool. I really liked that part.
These people know how to P.A.R.T.Y!
The Mexican Diet
Hola friends! I have been planning all week to include a little blog about the Mexican diet. Initially, I was going to tell you about the wonderful foods found in this little region of Mexico. Delictable dishes like sopa con avocado, enchiladas, moles, and churros.
However, in the midst of some indepth field research into the Mexican diet, I made a great discovery! Move over Mr. Atkins. Prepare to be displaced, South Beach. Expect to see this on the cover of the next issue of Cosmo: The Mexican Diet!
The details are not for the squimish so I'll skip most of them and just tell you that 2 hours after my last blog entry I started feeling crummy and by 7 p.m. had shivers so extreme that Rena covered me with 3 quilts and laid on top of me for warmth to stop them. By midnight they stopped and she gave me a sleeping pill to knock me out until morning. That didn't work though; about 3 a.m. I woke up with back pain so severe it put me back in touch with what labor feels like. It was a very looooong night and following day but by Wednesday I could keep crackers and flat 7up down and was on the mend.
I was ultimately the lucky one. Charlene, a retired therapist from LA and the third student living in our house, drew the short straw. Tuesday night while Rena was upstairs getting me up on tea and crackers, Maria, our housemother, was frantic because Charlene didn't show up for dinner at 7 pm and hadn't shared plans to be absent, as we are supposed to do. We were getting ready for bed at 10 when Maria ran upstairs yelling for Rena to help her. She found Charlene slumped over and unconscious in the bathroom. They took Charlene to the hospital by ambulance and she was just released this morning (Sunday). It seems that she got something bacterial that nearly dehydrated her in the course of a few short hours. Anyway, I think I know what caused all of this. Both Charlene and I were served the same thing for lunch on Monday that had ham in it while everyone else was given spinach. I don't eat ham, there was no more spinach, and no one would trade so I scraped the ham off mine and ate the remainder. Charlene ate all of the ham infused entree. Can't prove it but I really hate ham more than ever. Ham is evil.
On the bright side, forget those expensive colon cleanse kits and visits to Ashanti yoga spas! I am skinnier than I ever get working out like a fiend or drinking buckets of cabbage soup. Charlene looks like she just walked out of Auschwitz. She would make Angelina Jolie look like a porker if you weighed them both today. It's a tough regimen but there is irrefutable proof that The Mexican Diet delivers!
However, in the midst of some indepth field research into the Mexican diet, I made a great discovery! Move over Mr. Atkins. Prepare to be displaced, South Beach. Expect to see this on the cover of the next issue of Cosmo: The Mexican Diet!
The details are not for the squimish so I'll skip most of them and just tell you that 2 hours after my last blog entry I started feeling crummy and by 7 p.m. had shivers so extreme that Rena covered me with 3 quilts and laid on top of me for warmth to stop them. By midnight they stopped and she gave me a sleeping pill to knock me out until morning. That didn't work though; about 3 a.m. I woke up with back pain so severe it put me back in touch with what labor feels like. It was a very looooong night and following day but by Wednesday I could keep crackers and flat 7up down and was on the mend.
I was ultimately the lucky one. Charlene, a retired therapist from LA and the third student living in our house, drew the short straw. Tuesday night while Rena was upstairs getting me up on tea and crackers, Maria, our housemother, was frantic because Charlene didn't show up for dinner at 7 pm and hadn't shared plans to be absent, as we are supposed to do. We were getting ready for bed at 10 when Maria ran upstairs yelling for Rena to help her. She found Charlene slumped over and unconscious in the bathroom. They took Charlene to the hospital by ambulance and she was just released this morning (Sunday). It seems that she got something bacterial that nearly dehydrated her in the course of a few short hours. Anyway, I think I know what caused all of this. Both Charlene and I were served the same thing for lunch on Monday that had ham in it while everyone else was given spinach. I don't eat ham, there was no more spinach, and no one would trade so I scraped the ham off mine and ate the remainder. Charlene ate all of the ham infused entree. Can't prove it but I really hate ham more than ever. Ham is evil.
On the bright side, forget those expensive colon cleanse kits and visits to Ashanti yoga spas! I am skinnier than I ever get working out like a fiend or drinking buckets of cabbage soup. Charlene looks like she just walked out of Auschwitz. She would make Angelina Jolie look like a porker if you weighed them both today. It's a tough regimen but there is irrefutable proof that The Mexican Diet delivers!
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