goodbyes

Friday we excitedly made the trek to Mercado Hidalgo for the perfect Mexico soccer jersey. We swung by Tío and Caro’s and walked into town with them for a while. We stopped at a pottery gallery and I waited outside with the kids. We were on a little plaza and when Tío and Caro came out, Zeiva was spinning around a small tree trunk. I announced that we were heading to the bank about a block and a half away (though with no streets to cross) and assumed everyone was on board. I lead the way with Lucas, and thought Zeiva had come along with Tío and Caro. Several minutes later, we got to the bank and started heading in to the ATM machines. Caro asked me, “where’s Zeiva?” I said, “she was with you!” Caro said, “no, I thought she was up front with you!” She was nowhere to be seen. I absolutely freaked – adrenaline causing all those crazy things…feeling about to vomit, instantly sweating, heart in my throat, stone in my stomach. I started running as fast as I could back to the plaza. There were people on the sidewalk, so I just ran in the street alongside the oncoming traffic. Perhaps about five minutes had elapsed, and it probably took me a minute or two to get back. The layout was such that I could see the first half of the plaza as I neared, where the tree was that she’d be spinning around. She wasn’t there. Adrenaline a notch higher, my mind racing with how I would even begin to search for her if she was gone. As I hit the plaza itself and got the full few around the corner, I saw her standing there looking down the other main road that leads away from the plaza (and familiar to her, towards the Natural History Museum where she’d taken a class the week earlier). She was all alone, her eyes and face red and wet with tears and she was yelling, “Mama, mama” and looking around in desperation. I about cried when I scooped her up, but I was so relieved that I just squeezed her and apologized over and over. Definitely my worst scare ever because I have never accidentally left her behind. She’s wandered off a gazillion times, and for some reason that’s never felt quite as scary because it seemed like she had to be somewhere in the vicinity. And it never felt anywhere near as awful because it was her that wandered off, so whenever I’ve found her again she hadn’t the slightest idea that I was worried and had been searching for her. But she obviously felt very scared and deserted. Waah. What a horrible feeling. Once we’d calmed down, we talked about how she made such a good choice staying where she was. We’ve actually never proactively talked about that, so I feel extremely lucky that she chose to stay put and that it was all quick enough that she didn’t change her mind about going looking for us. Lucas came up with the idea that she could have talked to a police officer while she was waiting. We talked about when and how that would also be a good idea, but several times over the course of the day when she would remind me that I left her and that she was scared, she would also say, “and I didn’t see any police officers at all so I couldn’t ask them for help.” We also never let go of each other’s hands for the rest of our trip in town and every time we stopped she’d come close and whisper to me, “voy a quedarme muy, muy cerca a ti” (I’m going to stay very, very close to you).

We finally made it to Mercado Hidalgo for the jersey and, not surprisingly, they didn’t have it. Bummer. The shop owner and his wife go pick up the jerseys in Leon and they hadn’t had a chance to go. Things were especially busy with school starting. His wife was embroidering dozens of jackets, he had loads of orders that he was working to put together. The soonest he would make it to Leon was next Wednesday…not a chance for us. Too bad – glad I wasn’t counting on it anyway. Seemed to good to be true! We had seen another shop on the way there on Plaza del Baratillo – jerseys were a little pricier but still not bad, although Lucas didn’t want to have anything to do with them because they had no numbers on the back. I told him we struck out with the jersey at the market, and he asked if we could somehow put a number on the back of one of the blank ones at the other shop. Good idea! Not sure if we can, but maybe something iron on? He said, “Just ask Nani”, because in our family she is the magic conjurer and fixer of all things clothing (among many other things).

On the way out of the market, Lucas also surprised me by asking for tacos for lunch. A couple of days to go and he finally gave in to their deliciousness – hurray! Not only that but starting that evening, Lucas AND Zeiva requested to have their chicken put into tacos for dinner. They’ve had tacos the last three night! I can’t believe it took this long. But I’m glad – and now I’m going have to figure out how to find yummy fresh corn tortillas in Seattle, or they might not keep eating them.

bistek tacos...

...and, of course, television - maybe that's why lucas wanted tacos

It had gotten a little late and I’d promised we’d go swimming at the hotel pool close to the casita, so we decided to grab a bus home. We thought we’d been on crowded buses before, but this was truly extraordinary. Our bus pulled up to the super-busy major bus stop near Mercado Hidalgo, and it was already completely full, as in all seats taken and people standing the entire length of the bus. There were about 20 people hoping to get on. I thought there wasn’t even a remote chance, so we hung back. But they just kept squishing and squishing, and finally, when it was just us on the sidewalk, they yelled, “suben, suben, ya pueden!” (get on, get on, you can!) so I shoved the kids into the stairwell and just barely squeezed on. The driver couldn’t leave without shutting the door, so the one other guy in the stairwell with me yelled that he was about to push, and then we were suddenly extra squished (Zeiva screaming, “mama, no puedo ver, no puedo ver! – I can’t see, I can’t see!). But only momentarily, and then the door was shut and we were back to regular squished! The two guys who were sandwiching us kept talking about us as “guerita (zeiva), guero (lucas) and guera (me). This is a term referring to light complexioned people, and I’d read that we would hear it a lot, but I’ve probably only heard it once or twice while here. But these two guys just went on and on – where are you from, guera? Hold on to the rail, guerita. Look at the camera, guero (one of them took the photo below). When hordes of people got off later down the line and we went to find seats, they said, “vamos con la guerita” and sat with us and kept chatting. Supposedly, it’s not derogatory at all, more a term of endearment, and is also used for any Latinos who are also fair-skinned. But who knows. It was all very entertaining and Zeiva talked about how many people were on the bus for hours.

super-smahed on the bus! i am down in the
stairwell, just one person away from the door

As soon as we got home, we grabbed our suits and raced to the hotel. We stopped briefly to say goodbye to the other butcher and then hit the ice-cold water of the pool while it was still sunny. We arrived at 3 pm and I thought it would be no problem to play in the water until 5-ish so that we could eat dinner in the hotel restaurant at 5:30 pm. But by 3:45 pm they were shivering and wanting to get out. I wondered what we were going to do for nearly two hours, especially since there was a chance that Tío and Carolina were going to join us, so we couldn’t just eat early and leave (and we had to spend 200 pesos in the restaurant as our pool admission fee). Amazingly, Lucas and Zeiva starting playing games pretending they were jaguars in the jungle. I was Mama, Lucas was brother and Zeiva was baby (surprise!). So they brought me lizards and mice and gazelles to eat, and they basked on the rocks (which were trees in the jungle) and took jaguar naps. Once they were warm and dry, they started hopping in and out of the pool. They never really “swam” again per se, but they were in and out, splashing around,playing jaguar and having such a great time, that when they clouds rolled in and it was really coming to an end, I couldn’t believe it was already 5 pm.

llasmany, the other butcher in the shop we frequent

getting used to the very cold water in the pool at hotel paseo de la presa

or maybe not getting so used to it!

jaguars basking in the trees

Tío and Caro couldn’t make it, we ended up being the only diners in the restaurant, and we ate a pretty good meal while it absolutely poured outside. Thunder, lightning…the hotel even lost power for a little while. We weren’t sure how we were going to get home, but there was a little break in the storm and we sprinted to the casita. I so wanted to get pictures of cars parked in 6 inches of water, and big lion-head sculptures on someone’s exterior wall spewing a giant fountain of water out its mouth. But I didn’t want to lose sight of the kids, or get caught in the next round of downpour. We made it home only slightly damp and hit the sack.

dinner in the hotel restaurant

sheets of raining pouring off the hotel roof

Saturday we continued the quest for the jersey. We went back to the other shop on Plaza del Baratillo, and it ended up taking about an hour and a half to get the jersey because there was a woman in there dealing with what sounded like some order mix-up of uniforms for a team or a school or something. Then Lucas got caught up in a pick-up game of soccer, so I couldn’t get him to come in to check the jerseys or their sizes. Once I got his attention, the one and only woman in the shop had gone across the plaza for some snacks and a soda. Once she was back, Lucas was in the game again…etc, etc. But, we did finally leave with a jersey!

plaza del baratillo

pick-up soccer

zieva even got in the game!

when she wasn't watching these guys serenading the street vendors

what is this picture doing here? i don't know, i just think these shoes are crazy looking. i got in trouble for taking the photo, apparently they are shy shoes and their vendors do not want you to know about them.

Saturday evening we took the bus up to Valenciana, where we’d visited the mines earlier, to see a puppet show. The theatre is called Casa Simurgh and the founder and her husband are an elderly German couple. It was a funky little space with a beautiful view looking down on the ruins of the mine and Guanajuato, and the kids enjoyed the performance of Hansel and Gretel. Zeiva had to come to the back a few times to sit on my lap when the witch was being particularly nasty, but in general they were mesmerized. Despite the fact that someone next to me filmed almost the entire event on his little digital camera, I felt uncomfortable trying to take pictures. No one was taking any. And even with the flash off, the shutter noise would have been obvious. But the puppets were gorgeous works of art and the narrator was a talented storyteller.

heading into the puppet show

The show got out at 6 pm, we hadn’t had dinner and the kids were tired. I couldn’t decide whether to splurge for a taxi as we were finishing the 10-minute walk back to the main road where the buses and taxis run. You can guess what the kids wanted to do. But as we were rounding the bend to the main road the bus came by. It stopped alongside a building such that the driver couldn’t see us but we could see its back end. It was just far enough away that I figured we wouldn’t make it, and then the kids would be intolerable unless we caught a taxi. But Lucas bolted in a full-on sprint, caught the bus before everyone had boarded, and asked him to wait for Zeiva and me. Perfect timing, if you’ve got Lucas running for you! I guess Django’s luck rubbed off on him a bit, because when we got into town and walked the three blocks to our next bus stop, the bus was sitting right there. Lucas got around the corner, immediately recognized it (despite the fact that it was half hidden behind another bus) and took off on sprint number two, again catching it right as it was closing its doors. We caught up and boarded – amazingly, it wasn’t even full and we were able to sit for once. Phew…we made it home in record time.

Sunday, our last full day. I have been wanting to climb the huge rocks behind the casita since we got here. We went to the base of them for the Festival de la Cueva, but I was torn about trying to hike up with the kids. I’d been told it was no problem, even with the kids; I’d been told not to go, there were snakes and scorpions; I’d been told there was a wide, easy road to the top; I’d been told that it was easy to get to the cave half-way up, but that the scramble to the actual top was dangerous. And, every one gave me different directions for how to find the road and/or trail. So I’d had a little trouble motivating! But this was our last chance and it just seemed wrong to have looked at this majestic view every day for the last two months and not gone to check it out up close. So we went. I won’t say it was fantastic – there was a fair amount of whining, complaining and bad attitudes (occasionally on my part as well). But, we figured it out and made it to the cave, which I consider a huge accomplishment. It was a solid half-hour walk along the paved road to the nearby clinic where the bus route ends and then beyond to the power plant, and then a few minutes along a dirt road to a Y. Left continued along as a road, but in the opposite direction of the cave, and right petered out into a steep, crumbly trail. We decided to give the trail a try. We survived. There were some moments where the kids were scared because they couldn’t get a grip on the slope, but no one fell. I had pretty solid footing and could push or pull them up when they were stuck. But I was already worrying about how to get down. When we were about three quarters of the way up, a group of people was coming down. I asked them how far out of the way the road went and they said it would only add about 10 minutes on our way down. I had no idea what that really meant, but I knew there was no way to get down with the kids that same way (even alone I couldn’t have done it without falling I don’t think) so we were going to have to take the road no matter how long it was. We made it to the top of the trail, which met the road, and walked the road the rest of the way to the cave. That bit was another solid 45 minutes, so the kids were tired and hungry by the time we got there. We rested, snacked, rehydrated and there was no discussion – we were headed back. Which was fine by me. Zeiva’s calf was swollen from a mosquito bite and I believed her that she didn’t want to go for a walk in the first place because it hurt. Lucas was grouchy off and on because he wasn’t all that interested in the cave. Oh well. In the end, I think they enjoyed the sense of accomplishment from having made it up there, and the views were great.

the view from part way up la bufa

the road to the cueva

that's a little statue of san ignacio de loyola, who they celebrate during the festival de la cueva

prickly pear cactus, from which nopales are made,
with red and green fruit (tunas) - guanajuato in the background

Walking the road back probably added about 20 minutes to the trek down and then we waited about 20 minutes for a bus. We were very excited when it arrived, but after everyone got off, José, the driver, made a little gesture to us to wait. He pulled into the clinic parking lot away from the bus stop, and, no joke, for the next 15 minutes made out with a woman who had stayed on the bus. Fortunately, the kids couldn’t see. I thought José was smiley after Lucas had asked him his name the other day, but boy was he smiley the entire drive down into town!

We got off down at el Jardín de la Union. We’d told Tío and Caro that we’d try to find them around their place several hours later, so I had no expectations of seeing them anytime soon. But three seconds after we emerged from the underground tunnel, Lucas found them wandering around looking at some of the art out on the plaza – I couldn’t believe it! Lucky for me, because one of my few remaining missions was to get mole paste to bring home. I asked if the kids could stay with them for a few minutes while I ran down to the little hole-in-the-wall mole shop that Django spotted while here. I can’t believe I didn’t think to take a picture of it, but it is down these little steps off the street, you almost have to duck in. It is just a doorway, a counter, and the space behind the counter. There are one or two people behind the counter, and all they have is 5-gallon buckets of three different kinds of paste (red mole, green mole, and pipian), giant spoons, plastic bags and a scale. The paste Django and I got and cooked up while he was here was phenomenal. So I wanted to bring some back. I walked in and there was a couple in front of me being attended to. Not two seconds later, another woman walked in behind me. We all exchanged greetings and the woman behind me asked, “is there green mole?” She said that her niece had called her specifically asking that she come get green mole from that shop. The woman behind the counter peeked into the bottom of bucket and said, “mmmm, there’s just a little left, maybe a half kilo.” I cringed and very apologetically said that I was also there for some green mole. I explained that I would have gladly let her have it and come back another time but I was getting on a plane the very next day. She was very gracious about it, laughed about how in demand they were and said no problem, and we all got talking about how good the paste was. The couple in front joined the conversation and revealed that they come once a year from four hours away to buy 10 kilos at a time! And indeed, they were just finishing bagging up their 10^th kilo. No wonder there was no green mole left! Anyway, I got a few bags of all three pastes, as well as some tips from everyone in the shop on how they cook with it, what to add, etc. And I was sooo glad that I made it there right when I did!

When I got back to the plaza, the kids were goofing around with Tío and Caro and they wandered yet again into the ice-cream shop. They had just eaten “BonIce” popsicles, basically otter pops, which are sold by vendors wandering around with carts, but they always go in to the ice-cream shop to say hi anyway. They got talking to Erica and Ricardo who work there and told them we were leaving the next day. Ricardo asked them to dance again and turned up the music to get them going. Lucas obliged and Caro got some of it on video – we’ll see if we can get it uploaded at some point. They also gave the kids free popsicles – double treat!

erica y enrique with the kids

As we left the plaza, we passed by the tortilleria where we often buy tortillas. The previous day when we passed by (even though we weren’t buying any), the woman gave Lucas and Zeiva each a warm tortilla. This time we were across the street, so all they did was wave. Even though she didn’t know, for them it was goodbye. We passed the bakery and the kids ran in for a quick look. The woman in there always jokes for us to come back soon – the kids always ask what everything is called, and she says it makes her normally boring day a lot more fun. The ice-cream shop, the tortilleria, the bakery – it all made me realize how many people Lucas and Zeiva have developed some kind of relationship with here over the past two months. It’s pretty incredible – they’ve touched a lot of people, made a lot of folks smile. I’m not sure they realize any of it, they’re just going about their day, being outgoing and happy. But hopefully if we keep talking about it, they will remember at least a few of them, if only from some of the photos.

lunch on our very last day at carla and benjamin's
(belatedly discovered) taqueria down the street

lucas ate two tacos and three quesadillas!

cheesy

goodbye to leti and martin at the fruteria - they are siblings. emilio, the butcher next door, is leti's husband. llasmany, the other butcher, is martin's son. both shops are the family business.

goodbye to martin, the gardener/nightwatchman

goodbye to harry, maya and chocolate - the family next door (in the gorgeous house!)

goodbye to concha, the maid and kid-sitter (for harry and maya)

The five of us hiked up to El Pípila, since Tío and Caro still hadn’t been (other than passing by on the bus to our casita). The kids talked them into going up into the sweatbox at the top. I declined, thank you very much. Once they got back down, I was looking for a last item or two from the shops lining the statue. Tío was looking for postcards. The kids were around, but we realized that we didn’t have to worry about keeping track of them. Leave it to Lucas to find not just a television, but one with a soccer game on. And get this, they were watching a world cup game from the 1970’s! Go figure…but it made for easy shopping.

another view of gto from the hike up to el pipila

one of the nicer gardens on the hike up to el pipla

tio, caro, lucas and zeiva up at the top of el pipla

lucas making himself comfortable inside one of the shops across
from el pipila - he's watching a 1970's world cup soccer game on tv

Our last day in Guanajuato – hard to believe. I’ve lost a lot of sleep the last two nights because I’ve had to start using the calendar again. Can’t believe how busy next week is already, and I won’t even be fully back at work. Alongside our online calendar I keep several to-do list and it is also haunting me already. Preschool open house, soccer practice, school pictures, dentist appointment. Reality check on all the house projects still waiting to be finished. How does everyone do it all and stay sane and happy? I haven’t figured it out yet, but I am certainly grateful for the break I had this summer. We rarely did more than one activity a day, and we gave the tasks of daily living their due. Food shopping, laundry, cooking – they each took up a morning or afternoon on a regular basis. At home, these feel like things that are just supposed to happen behind-the-scenes, effortlessly, snuck in between all the “real” things going on. That said, I am grateful for and look forward to all the busy-ness of being surrounded by everyone we love and engaging in everything we love doing. The kids are eager to bike, swim and see their family and friends. And those things take time, just like dancing in the ice-cream shop or spending long enough on the bus that you have a favorite driver.

On our hike up La Bufa, I was asking the kids what they will miss here and what they are most looking forward to at home. No particularly insightful answers, but when I reminded Zeiva that it was our last full day in Mexico, she said, “no quiero ir!” (I don’t want to go!). I was rather surprised, she’s been moaning about wanting to go home to see Papá and Maya for quite a while. Ever since we officially started the count down a week or so ago, she’s been whining, “It’s taking a looooong time!” But I think she’s right, all three of us want to be in both places at the same time. All in all, it was fun down here and so it’s sad to be leaving. And from the language perspective, I personally would love to put the kids in school down here even for a couple of months. Given their progress, by the end of the calendar year, they would easily be truly fluent. But not even an option unless Papá were somehow able to be here, too. And there is no doubt about it, we are itching to get home to family and friends.

My primary goal was to get the kids speaking Spanish. Carolina was asking the kids the other day about whether they dream in Spanish, because that was a sign that their brain was really thinking in Spanish. Neither of them could remember (they don’t often seem to be aware of their dreams, if they are having any). But I did mention how Zeiva has occasionally spoken Spanish in the middle of the night while obviously still asleep. Coincidentally, that very night – the evening Lucas had his last soccer practice – Lucas turned over in his sleep and said, “una pelota! dame la pelota!” (a ball! give me the ball!). Tío, Caro and I have also noticed that they will occasionally say something awkward in English, because they are translating from the Spanish (e.g., I have hungry, instead of I am hungry). Again, a little signal that part of their brain is thinking in Spanish. So, I think we not only survived, but we achieved a little something, which is exciting for me, given I like to get things done. ;)

Tío and Caro have lots of wonderful pictures, so I’ll probably put up one more post of just photos once they send them to me. And that way I don’t have to think up some poetic way to wrap up the story of our summer!

adios casita!

lazy days

Well, the past few days have been free-form and feeling kind of lazy. In some ways it’s great, especially for the kids to have some down time and not have much of a schedule. On the other hand, it is problematic (at least for me) with a 4- and 6-year-old to not have much of a schedule!

We did have a couple of missions at least. Despite my encouragement on a regular basis, the kids have not wanted to write letters or postcards to anyone back home. I thought it was be an easy activity that would garner much enthusiasm – they love mailing stuff when we’re in Seattle. But there was no interest. However, while we were all strolling around town, Tío and Caro of course picked up several postcards to send to family and friends. The kids were suddenly all about postcards! I knew it wouldn’t last long, so we only got them one each. But they had a good time writing them and then we had a nice task in town. Go to the post office, buy some stamps and mail our postcards. The neat thing was that Zeiva bought a postcard of a really nice view of el centro, and so we were able to figure out the various landmarks that we knew and find the post office in the photo. When we got down there, we were able to match up the photo with the different buildings and their colors. So it made the trip even more fun. On top of that, that woman in the post office was wonderful with the kids. She let them run the stamps over the sponge, showed them where to stick the stamps, came around the counter to show them the slot where they needed to drop the cards, and helped them count out the coins to pay for the stamps. So it was a great little excursion.

Not exactly quite as successful was our attempt to get the kids’ drawings to their other favorite bus. On Tuesday, we walked all the way to the far end of el centro where the route ends for the bus that runs the second half of our trip out to Marfil,  where the kids had taken the summer course. It’s a bit of a trek and through a much busier, grittier, hotter part of town (larger streets with no shade, no trees, etc). We got there and found a little shady spot on some steps and waited, probably about 20 minutes until bus 111 pulled up. Hurray! We climbed on and immediately noticed that the fare-taker wasn’t there. We explained that the kids had drawings for both of them because it was their favorite bus out to Marfil. The driver was all smiles, but said that the fare-taker had to take care of paperwork that morning and wouldn’t be back until the afternoon. We left the driver Lucas’ drawing and said we’d try again later. We also talked about how it might be kind of fun to see where the Marfil bus went after dropping us off, so we decided we might take it depending on what time it was and what else was going on. We didn’t get back that way until Wednesday afternoon, and as we were sitting watching for buses, we saw bus number 113 pull up. Lucas keeps track of the numbers, but we didn’t really take much notice because it wasn’t “our” bus. Then, suddenly, “our” fare-taker jumped off of 113! Lucas leaped up and the fare-taker waved to the kids with a big smile. We ran over and asked why he was on 113. He said he’d switched buses. We very quickly gave him Zeiva’s drawing, asked for a photo, and asked his name – Pepe. By this point, his bus was driving away again, so he went jogging down the sidewalk to catch it. We watched them go, and when the bus was about 30 feet away and Pepe was climbing on, Lucas said, “I want to ride the bus!” Oh no! I hadn’t remembered, or for some reason hadn’t thought we were going to ride that bus, because it wasn’t the bus we were looking for. I guess I was caught off guard and didn’t do a good job thinking on my feet. Lucas went running after the bus, but it was too late and we couldn’t catch it. He returned sullen and angry that I hadn’t had us all get on the bus when it was in front of us. :( Another bus that we hardly new pulled up and Lucas demanded to get on. I tried to talk him out of it (not sure why), but finally asked the fare-taker how long the entire route took (he said, “one hour and twelve minutes” – precise!) and if we could just ride the bus all the way back to the same stop. He shrugged and said sure. For the first ten minutes, I battled the rush of disappointment that we weren’t riding the previous bus, seeing where it actually went, having ample time to explain in a relaxed manner to the fare-taker about the kids drawings’, that he was their favorite fare-taker, etc. I’d blown it. And we probably weren’t going to search for 111 again, so we wouldn’t know the name of the driver since we didn’t ask the first time. I tried really hard to let go, which wasn’t coming easy. Fortunately, at about the 15-minute mark, both kids slumped over and I spent the rest of the ride holding both their heads up so they wouldn’t hurt themselves. Zeiva was on my lap and Lucas next to me – I wished so badly that there had been someone else there to take a picture of us, the kids completely zonked out with me holding their foreheads in a grip from around the back, awkward, uncomfortable and so hilarious that I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself the rest of the trip. And, of huge surprise to me, this bus went way the heck out into nowhere. We cruised through Marfil, then took a freeway to another ugly, commercial strip part of town, and then just kept going. It felt like we were halfway out to San Miguel de Allende – cornfields, the occasional huge mansion or cluster of shacks, the random mini-market. And then we took an abrupt right on a street that soon turned into a dirt road, and here was this huge urban bus picking its way along a very bumpy, narrow dirt road through what appeared to be a very poor neighborhood. Lot of farm animals wandering around, most of the simple brick buildings had no windows or doors. The road just got worse and worse, until it simply ended. The last couple of women with toddlers got off, the driver and fare-taker turned around to look at me and smiled, and then they turned the bus around and we went all the way back. The kids woke up about 10 minutes before getting back to the original stop. All in all, it was pretty darn funny and the humor in it finally allowed me to quit worrying about the less-than-perfect outcome!

Pepe, the fare-taker on the kids' favorite bus out to Marfil (the summer camp).

It’s also been nice to not necessarily be going somewhere on a timeline. Yes, we need to get to the post office or find the bus, but it’s not like we have to be somewhere at a particular time, so it’s easy to explore and just come across things that we haven’t seen before.

stopping for lunch at plaza de alhondiga we discovered
what must have been a nearby school's PE class

lucas and zeiva at the top of the university steps

plaza de san fernando 

lucas and zeiva down in a tunnel waving at
passing cars (there is a generous side walk down there!)

the narrowest alley we've come across

our tamale dealer - hook me up!

someone tipped us off to a free entry day to the don quixote museum, so we did a quick tour. mostly lots of paintings/interpretations of don quixote by a zillion different artists. lucas and one of the quixote sculptures.

zeiva and another scultpure

an enormous don quixote tapestry -
this covers the wall of a two-story stairwell

zeiva hitching a ride on ol' don at the museum entrance

more dogs on rooftops

a "saltamonte" that sprang across the alley right as lucas was walking past

after we had closely inspected it, it did some crazy
ricocheting moves and landed on lucas for a free ride
(upper left of his head)

Tuesday we also spent some time playing at el Jardín de la Union, which turned out not so well. While Django was here, we’d thought we’d lost Lucas’ water bottle on our trip to San Miguel de Allende. It was disappointing given we’d had it for so long, but we got over it pretty quickly. Then, Monday night, when I pulled Lucas’ soccer bag out for his class, I found it! We were so thrilled. Django had put it in there two weeks earlier for soccer and we hadn’t seen it since. Phew! But the very next day, while at el Jardín, Lucas asked me for water and Zeiva took him the bottle where he was playing. Normally, they come for water, drink some, and the bottle goes right back in the side pocket of the backpack. I was letting them just do their own thing, playing in the central gazebo, searching for bugs in the trees and they wandered all around the plaza while I just sat in place. I completely lost track of the fact that Lucas had the bottle with him and who knows where he set it down. I didn’t even think of it later when we left the plaza. We walked for a few minutes to yet another plaza where we were meeting the NY family to go to a playground together, and Lucas said, “agua, por favor.” I reached for the bottle and it wasn’t there. :( I immediately told Lucas that I didn’t have it, that it was wherever he left it at el Jardín. He looked at me wide-eyed and said, “I’ll go look! I’ll go by myself!” And he tore of down the street without looking back. We caught up to him later, but he’d combed the plaza and couldn’t find it. I also did a sweep, but he didn’t even know where he’d set it down and I’m sure someone nabbed it as soon as it looked unclaimed. Such a bummer, and it felt all the more of a loss after having “lost” it before and found it again.

The double whammy at el Jardín was that I’d been watching the kids interact with a group of gardeners who were out working on the plantings. The kids walk up to just about anyone and ask what they are doing, which I love. I was far enough away to see them talking and smiling, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I even took a couple of photos because it looked cute.

watching the maintenance guys pull tools
out through the trap door in the gazebo during lunch

the conversation i thought was so cute...

But later Lucas said, “I don’t want to hang out with Mexicans anymore. I want to go home.” It turns out that much like some kids and teachers at the summer course, and some kids and coaches at his soccer class, the gardeners were telling him that only girls are supposed to wear fingernail polish and asking him if he was a girl. Bummer. So we talked about how some people don’t like things that they aren’t used to, so they sometimes say unkind things. And that other people find it really interesting when they encounter things they aren’t used to, and they are often kinder about those different things. I told him I was sorry that he kept running into people here who were close-minded about things that seemed different to them, but that he could work on trying to not let it bother him. He asked if we could take the polish off before his Wednesday soccer class. I told him of course, but we talked about how he was taking it off because he was tired of the comments, not because he felt like it was wrong for him to wear nail polish. He seemed to understand, and said he wanted to put some more on as soon as we got home.

We did end up connecting with the NY family and went to the sports complex with the unbelievable Olympic swimming and diving facility that I’d visited the first week when searching for summer courses. It has a decent playground, certainly much more than anything in Guanajuato proper. So the four kids played on and off, unfortunately sometimes in the rain. The NY mom had heard there was going to be a free basketball class at 4:30 pm, which sounded great. As usual, the women at the entrance booth seemed baffled when we mentioned it. And then, at about 5 pm, one of them came and found us to let us know that there was in fact a class, at 6 pm! That was way too late for us. Meanwhile, a couple of kids were shooting baskets and Lucas wandered over and asked to play. He joined in, and then within about 15 minutes, a whole group of young adults was playing. And most of the folks were in their late teens, maybe early 20’s. There were only a couple of young kids, Lucas by far the youngest and smallest, but the older kids were great with them. They’d carefully pass them the ball, let them take shots. It was really, really sweet. And Lucas was having the time of his life. I asked him later if he’d ever played an actual game, as opposed to the “HORSE”-type shooting games that I see him playing in the street or at school, and he said no. So it was a pretty fast-paced, fun, exciting game for him to be a part of, especially for his first time ever. Unfortunately, our American schedule that we’ve stuck to just doesn’t mesh well with the Mexican routine, so just as things were picking up and the class was going to start up, we really needed to head home for dinner and bed. But in the end it was well worth the trip and nice to go someplace new.

Another one of our outings included walking to the carniceria to take pictures of the butchers and finally find out their names. Of course – as seems to be our luck – one of them was there but the other happened to have the day off. But we took a photo with Emilio and promised to be back another day.

the kids with emilio, the butcher

As we were leaving, Zeiva said, “hey, why can’t we draw them a picture, too?” I said of course we could. And then the kids discussed between them the fact that it would be much easier to deliver drawings to the butchers (as compared to the buses), because the carniceria was always in the same spot, that we could go there anytime and the shop and the butchers would be there! Eureka! So we may be taking on more than I’d anticipated with this drawing-delivery thing. Especially since Zeiva has developed this idea that she can’t draw very well, so she wants me to “help” her with everything, i.e., draw everything for her. Silly little stick figures and other malformed objects are really cute coming from a 4-year-old. Unfortunately, I can’t draw much better than her, and my efforts just don’t come off as cute because despite not looking very good, they are clearly the attempt of an adult. So now we’re struggling with the fact that she wants me to draw the butcher shop, the fruit shop next door, the street, the butcher, etc, but then the drawing isn’t from her. “Here’s a drawing from me that my mom drew!” It just doesn’t seem to work. We’ll see what kind of compromise we end up with before the next drawing delivery!

After the butcher, we kept heading along the road at the top of our ridge. We walked by a taco place that I had never seen before – it smelled good. We chatted with the woman at the griddle, Carla, for a while and promised to come back sometime for a meal. Not sure we’ll make it, but it made me wish we’d gotten down that was more during our stay. Our final destination was a big hotel at the end of the ridge road. I read in a guidebook that it had a pool, and I wanted to know if we could swim there without being a guest. The told me yes, that for the three of us, I would have to spend 200 pesos (about $20) in the restaurant in order to swim. $20 is definitely a spendy pool fee, extraordinarily so for here, but given we had to spend it on food and it wasn’t just to hop in the water, I figured we could go enjoy an afternoon and make a full meal of it sometime before we leave. We went to look at the menu, and the kids told the restaurant host and a waitress at the door that they wanted to swim. They both laughed lightly and said, “El auga está fríííííía!” (The water is cold!) We wandered down to the pool level and asked the teenagers playing how the water was. They said it was freezing! We all tested the waters and I’ll admit it was chilly, though I’m not sure I’d call it freezing. Refreshing, perhaps? The kids of course said it was perfect and that they couldn’t wait to come back and swim. We’ll see….maybe we’ll just be taking a quick dip and going out to dinner at a hotel restaurant! :)

Soccer Wednesday evening was an absolute blast. About 10 minutes into practice, a thunderstorm rolled through and it absolutely poured. The little kids came into the dugouts alongside the field first, but Lucas immediately told the coach that he really wanted to play in the rain. The older kids were still out there, so the coach said go ahead. Lucas went out there and was like a puppy with the zooms. He was zipping all around in front of one of the goals, by himself, taking shots, doing little dodge moves like he was trying to get past defenders, trying tricks he’d seen the older kids doing. When some major thunderclaps hit along with some lighting, all the older kids came running in. Lucas kept shooting. The coach had to run out onto the field and yell for Lucas to finally come in as well. We all huddled in the dugouts for about 15 minutes until the storm passed. As soon as it had settled to a drizzle, the entire group of kids (at least 50 of them) stormed the field and kept at it.

waiting out the storm at soccer practice

just a little damp!

They ended practice about 10 minutes early, which was great by me because I’d noticed a bus last time come by at about 7:50 pm. So I grabbed Lucas and said, “Let’s run, maybe we can catch that bus!” Just as we started running through the fencing around the field, we heard the bus coming up the hill. It roared past, stopped at the stop we were trying to get to (we were on a side street and it couldn’t see us) and took off. We’d missed it by maybe 30 seconds. It was our favorite driver, who definitely would have waited if he’d seen us. I was resigned to take a taxi if one came by, but we had no luck. We danced around and stomped our feet under the darkening sky to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes, which were swarmed around us, and at 8:25 pm the next bus finally came. To my surprise, it was PACKED. There was just enough room in the stairwell for us to get on! So we squished in there through the next 3 stops, where almost everyone got off. Phew! We sat down, and a few stops later we got up to disembark ourselves. Lucas asked the bus driver his name. He leaned in close to Lucas and with a very warm smile, said, “José.” We know this driver. He always charges for Zeiva even though none of the other drivers do. And he never smiles. So it was really nice to see Lucas break through his shell with a simple question.

When we got off the bus, it was late, nearly dark and Lucas was soaking wet. Tío and Caro had spent the evening with Zeiva and were waiting for us to return. So we ran, holding hands, through the night air. The fresh smell after the rain, straining to see where to run up the last hill and then down along our dirt road. Noticing for the first time areas that were lit with street lamps and those that were not. For some reason it was an exciting couple of minutes and we both burst through the door on an adrenaline high.

Once we were settled, Lucas said, “He’s not our favorite because he makes us pay more for Zeiva, right?” I said, “He charges us more for Zeiva because he thinks she should pay, and that’s ok. That doesn’t mean we don’t like him. He can be another favorite if you want.” He was silent after that, running that idea through the cogs in his little brain. Not sure what he decided, but we may have more drawings to deliver.

Thursday was mostly a chill day. It’s been tough because all activities here are in the evenings, right when we head home for dinner and bedtime. So we’ve slowly been spending more time here in the mornings, sometime even eating lunch here, and then heading out mid-afternoon for an adventure of some sort, even if just walking around a bit with Tío and Caro. It’s almost the opposite of the past 7 weeks – up early, out the door to several hours of camp or class or something, then back usually by 4 pm at the latest. It’s a little challenging, especially trying to sort out dinner, but I think we’ll last for a few more days. So Thursday the kids played in the yard, drew a few more drawings and played a LOT of Legos next door. At about 4:30 pm we headed into town for a kids’ “workshop” at one of the museums on “traditional Mexican games played with traditional Mexican toys”. It sounded interesting, at least something different than all the arts and crafts classes they’ve been to. Ha ha – we got there and it turns out the workshop had been running since May and goes until November. Nowhere on the info I saw did it indicate this. And, of course, this week, they weren’t doing traditional Mexican games or toys, they were doing crafts. :) Oh well. The teacher was extremely nice and very welcoming, and because I asked about the games, she had the kids teach Lucas and Zeiva a couple of fun running/chasing games in the first 15 minutes. So that was really nice. And then they made dinosaurs out of cardboard and paint. The kids had fun and it gave us something to go do Thursday evening. They even hiked up the hill at 7:20 pm with no trouble, despite the fact that they were tired and hadn’t had dinner yet, so I have no complaints! And I'll pretend for your sake that bedtime went smoothly....

working on dinosaurs

lucas, too...