our lucky charm

Ahhh – Mexico with Django, it’s been great! He brought some serious loot with him. Ravioli and cashews from Trader Joe’s, gummy worms and Swedish fish, a big bag of M&Ms from Nani, some tasty chocolate for me and a fresh infusion of reading materials for the kids. All a nice treat, but most importantly and completely essential, he brought along Shy Kitty. Oh what a reunion that was!

So far he’s also been a lucky charm. We’ve caught all our favorite buses so Django has been able to see the kids interact with well-known, really friendly drivers and fare-takers, which is fun. We’ve also had no waiting at the bus stops, especially for the one normally very elusive bus that gets us closest to the casita. We may have to destroy his passport so he can’t go home!

Here’s one of the perks of having had our bus routine for a month – we rode one of our favorite buses into el centro and got off at the end of the line. The guy who collects the fares also got off while the bus was emptying and reloading. I keep seeing street vendors selling churros, walking around carrying big trays of them, and keep thinking I need to get the kids some but haven’t yet. So when we saw one right off the bus, I bought a little pack of 3 for 5 pesos (~50 cents). The fare-taker was crossing our path as we were buying them and said to the vendor, “give them two, give them two, come on, give the little girl a pack!” and basically grabbed another pack of 3 and handed it to us with a huge smile. It all happened very fast in the crush of a very busy sidewalk – it was over before we knew it and the fare-taker and vendor were gone. It was a very sweet gesture by the fare-taker, but I also felt bad that it was at the expense of the vendor. I suspect the 5 pesos isn’t going to make or break his day, but he looked a little hijacked in the moment and I ended up feeling like we’d taken advantage of him, so Django and I have been on the lookout so we can pay him anyway if we see him.

On Thursday, we all made the trek out to the kids’ camp, and then Django and I walked maybe a mile along the old dirt road that the camp is on to Ex-Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera. Here’s an excerpt from the Lonely Planet:

Built at the end of the 17th century, this was the grand hacienda of Captain Gabriel de Barrera, whose family was descended from the first Conde de Rul of the famous La Valenciana mine. Opened as a museum in 1979, the hacienda, with its opulent period European furnishings, provides an insight into the lives of the wealthy of the time.

The large, shady grounds, originally devoted to processing ore from La Valenciana, were converted in 1945 to a series of beautiful terraced gardens based on international designs, with pavilions, pools, fountains and footpaths.

Here’s a few photos of some of the 17 different themed gardens on the property and the Capitan’s house:

Here’s a few more from the walk to and from the Hacienda, as well as the basketball court at the club, which I hadn't managed to get earlier:

a completely random slide and teeter-totter in the very middle
of nowhere on the old dirt road heading out past the club

i love the court and hangar ceiling up against the beautiful ruin walls

On the way home we treated Django to tacos (5 for 35 pesos, about ~$3.50) at a place I’ve been to twice on my own and once with the kids. They recognized us and were really friendly (they always were, but didn’t go much beyond serving me respectfully) and asked us where we were from, etc. So I asked if I could take some pictures of the “kitchen”, which you pass by right as you come in off the street to get to the tables:

Thursday evening the clouds rolled in and showed Django the best lightning storm that we’ve seen here. The neighbors were at a nearby clinic for a check-up with their daughter, so Harry, their 8-year-old, was home alone. Django and I had pulled up two chairs to the perfect spot on the patio outside to watch the storm, right where we could see all the mountains but where we weren’t getting rained on. Django was inside grabbing two glasses and the bottle of wine. Just as he was gone, Harry came around the corner and started asking me questions. Within a minute, he sat down in Django’s seat and made himself comfortable. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. He’s a really nice kid. He seems to always be seeking company, so I think that’s all it was, but Django was really worried that he was afraid to be home alone in the storm. Either way, we had a great time the three of us watching the storm for about another hour until his family got home. During our conversation, Harry asked us how many times the kids had cried that day (he’d overheard a few). Unfortunately, since Django has been missing out, the kids decided to give him a double-dose of meltdown that evening – welcome to Mexico, Papá!

Friday was the kids’ last day at camp. After drop-off Django and I went back to town and I had a bit of my food fantasy fulfilled. We had 50-cent tamales from a street vendor that I always see but have never purchased from – mole and chili colorado. We went back to my favorite gorditas shop that Nani and I discovered our first week. Though the delicious aromas have pulled me into the bakeries here many times, I’ve only ever purchased bread rolls and a cookie. Today we bought pastry treats out of TWO different bakeries – YUM! We also went into one of the crazy sweets shops that they have and bought a little dulce de leche/chocolate bar, also very tasty. They don’t let you take pictures in these sweets shops, but I found two online anyway (one from the street). It’s multiple floors of rows and rows of meticulously arranged candies – impressive.

django on the university steps

more of the university

the view back towards our house from the top of the university steps.
we are just up and over the ridge from the statue.

just some more of all the colorful houses - i can't get enough of them.

It’s not like we were blending in by any means, but Django is helping us stand out even more. ;) We were on the bus to pick up the kids and as we passed the Mummy Museum, the fare-taker came back to us and announced that the “Museo de las Momias” stop was coming up. They often yell their destinations out the front door or windows to folks waiting at the stops, but they’ve never in my experience announced their upcoming stops to passengers. So it was definitely meant for us. I nodded and smiled, and then the guy across the aisle from us said to the fare-taker (in Spanish, of course), “maybe they didn’t understand you?” They seemed certain we were going to the Mummy Museum. So the other passenger looked at us more pointedly and said, “Momia? Mummies?” and made a face that looked like this:

We laughed and told him that we did understand and that we really didn’t want to go to the museum. He also pointed out that Django was much too big for the bus, which is true. He can’t sit in the seats – he has to sit in an aisle seat and put his legs out into the aisle because he literally can’t fit his bent knees in there. It also didn’t take him long to bash his head on a doorway that he didn’t quite crouch down enough in order to clear. Fortunately he was wearing his baseball cap, so there’s only a dent and he didn’t draw blood.

We showed up at camp a little early for a closing ceremony where they gave the kids certificates and had all their little art projects on display. Zeiva got a little shy when it was her turn, so she put Django on display as well!

I must say that Django and the kids are doing an incredible job speaking Spanish. I was telling him today that maybe they’ve been doing a better job speaking all along than I’ve realized because I haven’t been around them when they are with other people and they are still used to getting away with speaking English to me. But from the minute Django got here we’ve all been speaking Spanish, and they are both speaking SO much with him especially, it’s so beautiful and wonderful and exciting! It makes me think that it might actually work and even be fun to have at least a couple of days a week back in Seattle that are Spanish days.

We got a fairly last-minute invitation from the one other American family whose kids were in the summer camp to go get a drink and listen to live music Friday night. It seemed improbable at first, given we don’t know any sitters, but they offered someone they knew and as the evening wore on and we were having dinner we thought it might be fun to get out. I haven’t been out of the casita past 7:30 pm (and except for 2 or 3 nights, not past 5:30 pm) since we’ve been here, so I was up for something different. We had the most hilarious experience trying to get out that evening. The sitter they suggested is the daughter of Carmen, one of the women who works for them (cleans, cooks, watches the kids, etc). The mom (also named Michele) told me that Carmen was watching their kids, so we could call Carolina, the daughter. I called Carolina and explained who I was but she said she couldn’t commit to us until later (it was already 7 pm and we were invited out at 9 pm) because she needed to wait to see if Michele would need her. I told her that Michele had already told me that Carmen was staying with their kids so I could call her. But I encouraged her to check with Michele to be sure. She said she’d call me back. Forty-five minutes later, when I was about to call her again, she called. She said that she hadn’t been able to get through to Michele, that the connection was bad, but that she talked to her mom (Carmen), who didn’t know anything about watching their kids that evening. So she wanted to wait to see if Michele called her, but she said her niece would be able to come. She also asked me how much we paid and whether we covered the taxi ride. I told her the amount that Michele had told me they pay (30 pesos, or about $3 an hour) and that we’d cover the taxi. We agreed to touch base a little while later. I also asked for Michele’s number to see if I could get through to her. I tried the number and immediately received a recording saying it didn’t exist. So I called Carolina, she immediately answered and said, “the number is incorrect, isn’t it?” Right. She said she thought it was just off by one digit and that she’d find the right number and call me right back. Forty-five minutes later I tried her again. She said she’d gotten through to Michele and that Michele was going to call me very soon. I asked if she was free then to watch our kids or not. She said that her mom was in fact watching Michele’s kids but that she wasn’t up for watching ours anymore. I asked about her niece and she said the niece didn’t want to because she was afraid to come out to our house because she didn’t know us. ??!! ok, so we decided we weren’t going out, which in some ways was just fine. We were tired, the kids were still up and wired even though it had gotten late, etc. But then Michele called and told me that Carolina and her niece had backed out because we weren’t paying enough and they thought we weren’t paying for the taxi. I guess the 30 pesos an hour is a special deal reserved for Michele because they’ve employed members of their family for so long and are helping put one of the kids through prep school, etc. She hadn’t really thought about it when she’d told me how much they pay. And, it turns out the whole time Carolina was talking to me she thought I was yet another Michele who lives about 3 blocks from us who has hired her in the past for more. Michele felt bad about the whole situation and offered to try to sort something out. I guess they called Raquel, another daughter of Carmen’s who also works at their house as the gardener and the night watchwoman and asked her to come to our place. But she also said she was afraid to come out here because she didn’t know us well (even though we’ve met her a couple of times after camp when playing for a little while at their house). So Carmen offered to come out to our house while Raquel came to Michele’s to fill in for her. At this point it’s about 9 pm and it’s started pouring rain. But after all that we felt bad saying we were bailing. So Carmen finally showed up – she’s at least a foot shorter than me, probably in her 60s, little grandma type woman, very cute. Both kids were way up in Lucas’ loft bed reading and giggling and telling stories. We needed to zip out the door because we were taking Carmen’s cab down into el centro and couldn’t leave him sitting out there and Carmen and the kids all said they were fine. So off we went!

We had a nice time getting to know Michele and Mark better, and we met several other interesting gringos. All were artists or musicians, a couple of them in the Guanajuato orchestra and it was neat to hear everyone’s stories about how they came down for 3 months, 8 months, a year contract or whatever and 10, 12, 15 years later they are still here. One guy is a Canadian painter, married to a Korean-American from San Francisco (she wasn’t there, but she plays in the orchestra). They met down here, got married and have stayed ever since. Their 7-year-old son is completely bilingual. The wife and son are in California for another week, but when they get back he invited us to come spend time with them, so I’m excited to have the kids meet them all.

It was also really fun to see Guanajuato come alive at night. I’ve read in all the books that it has a great nightlife, but never imagined I’d witness it. There were tons of people out, all kinds of music and crafts and shops open, and the estudiantinas (a traditional Spanish minstrel music group) were playing to the crowds and leading people on tours up through the callejones. It was just a whole other scene with very different energy and was fun to witness. We got home perhaps too late and Carmen was out cold on the couch, so Django woke her up while I waited with our taxi so he would take Carmen home. We went to bed assuming that the kids would sleep in finally since they didn’t fall asleep anytime before 10 pm, perhaps even later.

7:00 am, Saturday morning, bright and early. Wake up time, pancake time! Oh well…

After breakfast, we headed into el centro in search of tamales, but our tamale guy was nowhere to be found, despite the fact that we’d confirmed his schedule with him just the day before. So we’ll have to get the kids to try tamales another day. We showed Django around town a little more and wound up at a tiny little seafood restaurant that someone had recommended. I’d seen a couple of seafood places but figured that we’re pretty spoiled in Seattle and it just didn’t make sense to eat seafood in the center of Mexico. But it was delicious. We had a large bowl of tuna ceviche, which Lucas and Zeiva both tried. Zeiva said no thanks to more, but Lucas probably ate about half of it. He said he liked the lime juice….who knew! It was great to see him really enjoying something so different and flavorful. We also had tacos with shrimp, an incredible smoked fish that they call marlin but I’m not sure is really marlin, and a white fish. The kids ordered empanadas – Lucas shrimp and cheese and Zeiva just cheese. She still didn’t like it (cheese fried in pastry dough, how can you not like that??!) and Lucas of course was all over it. That’s one drawback to being down here while the kids are so young. It is hard to enjoy and take advantage of all the different and often spicy foods. They are almost always game to try, but I haven’t found a whole lot that I can reliably feed Zeiva, especially.

Django and I have bought a few different sauce pastes while wandering around town the past couple of days, so we have three dishes to try making soon. We bought a bunch of pork and beef at the butcher this afternoon and were just about get started on some cooking when we realized there is NO water in the casita. Not a drop in the bathroom and just a trickle in the kitchen. I immediately called the property manager and they said a pipe broke and the casita and the big casa are both without water. They said they’re coming any minute to work on it, but we’ll see if that even means they’ll show up today. It will get really interesting around here when we can’t flush the toilet or wash any dishes. We’re also due for laundry, and given we only have about 3 changes of clothes each, that’ll get interesting quick, too. Fortunately, it started pouring again, so the kids got a rinse outside with a little extra massage from the hail!

the cool kids on the back of the bus

dogs are always hanging out on the rooftop terraces around the city

the kids watching a street musician

one of the more "formal" fruit stands; many just have the cups sitting out on tables.
it looks so delicious and refreshing and tempting, but i see them rinsing all the
fruit after they've peeled it with a cup of mystery water, so it just doesn't seem worth the risk.

the kids climbing on the lions outside teatro juarez

getting a rinse in the rain and hail storm

the rainbow after the storm