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...