fresh hands to hold

Saturday we joined the kids who had been in the Diego Rivera Museum art course for their closing party. The kids had a great time, especially since lunch consisted of lots of candy, cake, ice-cream, jello and soda. Despite the fact that I was instructed to bring little bags of candy, I also brought a watermelon. I know it’s just more sugar, but somehow it made me feel a little better about what they consumed. There were delicious tamales, but the kids wouldn’t touch them. I had a pork/red chili tamale and tried a sweet tamale, which I’ve seen around but have never tried. It was strawberry – interesting and pretty tasty, but I wouldn’t give up space in my tummy again that could be devoted to a savory tamale. Fortunately, Carmen, the teacher who made all the tamales, loaded me up with more pork and chicken/green chile tamales before I left, so I’ve been eating those the past few days. YUM!

zeiva choosing her party gift - a princess bag (no comment)

comparing her score with sienna

lucas and zeiva filming a movie on an
extremely antique (i.e. cardboard) camera

the kids had built the above camera because the diego rivera museum is currently celebrating photography with incredible exhibits from three different artists who focused on portraits of everyday mexicans. here carmen had bravely attempted to take the kids into one of the galleries. they were running a little wild so she made them all lay down and take deep breaths. yes, that's lucas who won't lie down.

class photo

After the party we strolled to the central plaza and the kids joined a little puppet-making workshop. They spent over an hour making them and have been playing with them ever since.

working on their puppets

the finished products. there has been a lot of tiger eating clara (zeiva's puppet's name)

We also made it back to the Mercado Hidalgo. The place with the wallet Lucas had wanted was open, so he was very excited to get it. Zeiva also picked out a very cute mini-purse for herself, honestly without any help from me! The kids actually wanted to scope out the market some more, which was pretty fun (although I got tired of saying, “no toquen!” (don’t touch)) and allowed me to get a couple of photos.

one end of mercado hidalgo

a produce stall in mercado hidalgo

On our way out, I also noticed a stand selling t-shirts, including soccer jerseys.

Lucas has been building a bit of a collection of soccer jerseys. It started with his Argentine cousin sending him three of his old jerseys, which was really neat. Then our families started bringing them home from trips, so he’s now got additional jerseys from Argentina, Panama, and Turkey. It seemed obvious to get him a Mexico jersey while we were here. I asked around and was sent to the only mall in town (where the Mega is) and I checked another local sporting goods store in el centro. Both had jerseys for US$55-90!! Yikes. Sorry, Lucas, not going to happen. We even looked online after that, which taught us that the green jerseys are for home games, the black jerseys for away games (I hadn’t watched enough Mexico/international soccer to know this). There were lots to choose from and Lucas decided his favorite was the black away jersey, with number 14 (Chicharito) on the back. Unfortunately, they were all equally expensive, so I told him we’d have to think about it. Aaaanyway, so I see a little green jersey hanging from the rafters and ask the stall owner about it. He got it down – it was a size too small and it was the home jersey. The guy asks if we live in town, and I say no. He says, oh, that’s too bad, because Thursday I’ll be getting a bunch more kids’ jerseys in, including the black away jerseys with 14, Chicharito! I couldn’t believe it. I still don’t, of course, but at least it means there’s a chance. So we’ll be back to Mercado Hidalgo yet again later this week to find out if the perfect jersey is there. And, for the perfect price – 75 pesos, or about US$7. :)

We had a great thin-crust brick-oven-baked pizza at a fancy restaurant that my mom had taken us to when she was here, and both kids fell asleep on the bus ride home. I don’t know how they sleep through their heads bouncing against the metal bars on the bus seats, but with them both dozed off I couldn’t run interference for the two of them on every bounce and bump, especially on cobblestone roads!

Bedtimes are still often a challenge. After having to wake up and walk home, they were both grouchy and we had to work through the tears and sadness by writing letters to our dogs Moby (who passed away last summer) and Maya (still with us).

Tío and Carolina arrived too late in the evening on Saturday for us to see them, so we tracked them down Sunday morning. Last Sunday and this Sunday, they have cut the power to our end of town to work on the electrical system out on the street. It was a surprise to me last week because it hadn’t happened the whole time we’ve been here. And it’s a bit unnerving because we have no phone (cordless) and no internet. We’re completely cut off. Last weekend I went next door to ask about it and they said that it was common on Sundays for them to work on the power system for a couple of hours. Last Sunday the power was on by about 1:40 pm. This weekend it was out until 6:30 pm!! And then it went out again about ten minutes later and didn’t come back for good until about 8:30 pm. Fortunately, the stove is gas, but it’s still kind of a pain and you never quite realize how much you rely on it until it’s not working.

So the plan was for Tío to call us Sunday morning, but of course our phone was dead. So we just wandered down to their place after our pancakes. They weren’t there, but there was a note saying they’d gone to the bakery for bread. So we went the rest of the way into town and ended up doing the same loop that they did, just perfectly out of synch so that we didn’t see each other. After lounging a bit at the plaza at the base of their alley, I sent Lucas back up to their place and we heard him yelling down the hill, “estan aqui!” (they’re here). And basically we’ve spent the last couple of days cruising around with them, showing them the bits of Guanajuato that we know and just letting the kids climb all over them. Lucas and Zeiva have been SO excited about their arrival and are just loving them being here. When Zeiva woke up today, the first thing she said was, “are we going to Tío and Caro’s house again today?” Tío is a really great photographer, so just seeing him look around inspires me to take more photos. And having two other adults that the kids want to hold hands with also frees me up to actually take them!

step 1 of welcoming tio and caro: DONUTS!

tio and caro's place is in callejon del caracol (snail alley)

cruising el centro 

film, what's film? and why can't you show me the
picture right after you take it? tio is old school...

the cute little garden at tio and caro's

more garden - endless margaritas with this tree!

tio taking a picture of the kids down in the alley from
their terrace - you can also see the great view from their place

one ritual that never changes, no matter where you are

i just couldn't resist throwing this one in 

plaza de san roque

plaza de san roque

plaza de la paz

near plaza de san fernando

alongside templo de san roque

school started this week in guanajuato - monday
afternoon the streets were filled with kids in uniform 

Monday evening they took Lucas to his soccer class and had a great time. They were so cute walking away from the house, Lucas in between Tío and Caro, holding hands with each them, dressed in his Ballard Youth Soccer outfit. I regretted not having brought my camera up to the street-level door with me when we sent them off. And Zeiva and I had such a lovely, mellow evening – we played Go Fish, Uno, wrote a post card and read lots of books. Aaaahhhh.