But to return to my narrative.
Brigit and I took a bus on Dec 24 to Moroleon, a town about half an hour
north of Cuitzeo with a major clothing manufacturing base. Brigit wanted
to buy an outfit for each of the little girls for Christmas. In Mexico,
the primary tradition for Christmas is more religious, as I described earlier,
and the gift from Santa is fairly minor. I learned to shop by strolling
by the many shops/street stalls that carry your item and asking the price at
each. They see you coming, and the price is a little lower at each one,
until you reach the bottom and they start quoting the same price. Then
you pick out what you want at the lowest price. I bought three sets of
all cotton double bed sheets, including a fitted, flat and two pillow cases,
for $8.55 US each. Clothes were really cheap, too, but at this point I
was a little overwhelmed by street after street overflowing with piles of merchandise,
and couldn't handle buying more stuff.
By the time we returned to the hotel, I had a severe sore throat and
a fever. Everyone rested in the afternoon, except Brigit, who was cooking
a feast of this soup with pork, some special kind of corn, chilis, tomatoes
and who knows what else - apparently it is the traditional late night meal for
Christmas Eve. The Mexicans stay up until after midnight on Christmas
Eve. We ate around 10:00 p.m., drinking "vino" (translation brandy) and
pepsi. (Ick!) About 11:15, we all went out on the roof. We
had lots of 2 1/2 foot long sparklers for the kids, and two pinatas full of
candy. Juan's mother (Lupe) and his sister (Martina) were also there,
and everyone joined in the pinata banging. Juan had a rope attached to
it, and it was hung on a wire clothesline that crossed the roof. The hitter
was blindfolded, and swung wildly while Juan leaped around dragging the pinata
in and out of range. It occasioned quite a bit of laughter and excitement
before we even got to the candy diving part! Then Juan lit a bonfire right
on the roof, and we had hard cider at midnight, and finally retired around 2:00
a.m. Poor Santa! (This Santa's helper stayed propped up on Tylenol
for that night, and about three days thereafter before kicking the flu.)
We moved into our
new house on Christmas Day, after opening our presents to each other.
We've had a wonderful time setting the place up. Every day for a week
or so we went out shopping to get all the little household necessities - what
a pleasure! Everything is so cheap, and also so Mexican. You have
to search around in little store fronts and street markets for everything you
buy, and I have yet to discover any logic to where you might find something.
We have two rooms, and a bathroom, and a big courtyard. The sun shines
every day here, so we live much of the time outside. Plants are really
cheap at the Wed & Sun markets, so twice a week we buy more flowering plants.
Steve built a rough table for dish washing outside, and another for food storage
and counter space in the little kitchen area of our room. We
had a hot water heater installed, and have hot shower in the bathroom.
It's looking pretty good!
On Dec 29, Isaac,
Steve and I took a bus to Mexico City to collect sons Cam and Jamie, Jamie's
girlfriend Pam, nephew Connor and my mother at the airport. We took the
luxury class bus into the city - very comfy, with bathroom in the back and two
movies. However, it took a rather long roundabout route so the trip took
6 1/2 hours instead of the 3 1/2 promised by the ticket agent! This ate
up our entire cushion of time, and meant that we arrived at the airport after
their plane landed. No problem, though, as by the time they cleared customs,
we were there waiting for them. What a happy reunion! We got a cab
to the bus station, then took an all night bus back to Cuitzeo, arriving at
4:30 a.m. We all crashed immediately, bodies in sleeping bags completely
covering our little floors. All in all, it took about the same amount
of time for my family to travel from Boston to Mexico City as it did for us
to travel there from Cuitzeo.
We have so enjoyed
sharing the pace, color and rhythm of life here in Mexico with our family!
And we create quite a stir wandering around this little town - a pack of tall,
white, red-headed gringos among a primarily short Indian/Mexican population.
(Well, Pam fits in pretty well height-wise, but definitely not color-wise!)
We created our own
fiesta at the hotel with Juan, Brigit and family for New Year's Eve. Brigit,
Lupe and Martina cooked all day. When we turned up at 5:00 p.m., they
had a huge copper kettle boiling a corn mush mixture, and a huge clay dish bubbling
away with meat and chilies etc on the stove. We all helped them make about
250 tamales - these people don't mess around! I brought stuff to make
margaritas, which were as popular with the Mexicans as with the Americanos.
We also brought a pinata to fill with candy and some bottle rockets, and
again we had a bonfire on the roof. (Cement houses have there benefits!)
We saw fireworks all over town, and the local police kept shooting off guns
as they celebrated. The tamales we ate just before midnight, thinking
of all our friends and family in the U.S., feasting on something more like turkey!
(Did you have one, JC, in the Patch tradition?) We actually ate tamales
every time we set foot in the hotel for the next two days, and were they delicious,
especially those with a bit of chicken in them!
The next day we went
out to Villa Morelos again, to visit Juan's cousin and his family. They
live in a tiny house - walls of ancient round stones piled up, one side of
house pretty open, and a wood & tar paper roof. Two small rooms.
They cook over wood, though they do have a two burner gas campstove.
Out front they have a huge stone, 3' x 2', hollowed out in a curve for washing
dishes and clothes. Asked how it was made, they had no idea - probably
been in the family for 200 years. This is one historic place, not far
removed from cave living in some ways, and people as generous and fun as you
could wish. They have a burro, a couple of horses and cows, some chickens.
No money at all, but seem so happy with their lives. Fed us some truly
fabulous tacos, and we bought some beer, and we all had a good time.
There was a fair down in the village, which we visited that evening.
It was like the Tunbridge Fair collapsed into a tiny plaza, with barely room
to walk between rides. The noise was truly daunting, but we went on
some rides and walked around taking in the scene anyway. There was this
one booth where you could shoot BBs at little discs - when you hit one, it
activated some entertainment: An adult sized King Kong and two other
monsters sprayed 'pee' into the crowd while singing loudly, or one of 8 marionette
bands started playing and dancing. What a hoot - look closely at those
photos!
More Mexico Photos, Villa Morelos:
Other highlights
of our time with the whole gang:
- shopping trip to
Moroleon, where we all bought clothes, Mexican blankets, etc.
- an afternoon at the
hot springs at Huandacoreo, where the natural hot water is piped through a
whole series of swimming pools and slides - we really impressed the Mexican
crowd with Cam, Connor and Pam's flips and dives of the diving board!
- Buying piles of
fresh fruit, avacados, tomatoes, chilis, etc, and then eating them.
- Trip to Guanajuato
for shopping, seeing this very colorful colonial city, and touring the Museum
of the Mummies, which is truly grotesque. Connor and Isaac loved it!
(The mummies, by the way, are by and large naked - no Egyptian wrappings here!)
We are back in Cuitzeo for a couple of days now, and then
we are all going to the shore at Zihuataneo for a couple of days. Then
to see the monarch butterflies congregating, and that's it for the family.
We'll send them off except for Cam, who has decided to stay another three weeks.
Hope you all had a lovely holiday, and are enjoying a period
of relative peace curled up by your woodstoves and skiing!
Love,
Sarah, Steve, Isaac and the whole Gringo gang
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