San Juan Gossip

Town gossip. It's terrific. And San Juanecos are into their gossip.

I imagine I don't hear most of the gossip that's about us, or I hear it and don't realize they're talking about me. I still don't understand Spanish unless I'm actually paying attention to whoever is speaking. If I'm just passing by, lost in my own thoughts, I tend not to hear what's being said.

I do know that there was a rumor going around for a while that we were growing and selling drugs. Marijuana, I assume.

And then, after Hanix was born a great deal more güero than other Mexican babies (um. yeah. it's because I'm white, people.) there was speculation that Hernan wasn't really the father. (And that may be the right way to write 'güero', but I went out of my way to include the diácritic just for Stuart.)

The latest gossip involving me appears to be that my mother-in-law is working me to the bone. Here's how we found out about it.

I went downstairs last night, to my in-laws part of the house, on my way to take the trash out to the street. My mother-in-law was visiting with my husband's aunt and cousin. When I passed through, Aunty exclaimed, "Ah! La Bebé is too skinny!" 'La Bebé' is how everyone refers to me, by the by. I'm pretty sure most of Hernan's relatives probably don't know my name - they just call me 'Bebé'. And, yeah, even though I'm pretty much always eating, my enormous child eats even more. Somehow he ended up gigantic and chubby and I ended up with a tortilla butt. But that's not the point of this post. Aunty then goes on to talk about how I'm altogether too skinny, and clearly it's the hard life I'm living here with my in-laws.

So my mother-in-law points out that I eat probably more than anyone else in the house - more than my husband, more than my teenage brother-in-law... I just pretty much always eat, which was kind of my hobby before I started nursing 'The Machine' anyway, so I'm thinking of going pro. Then Aunty concludes that really it must be because my mother-in-law works me too hard, just like they're saying.

Yeah, word on the street seems to be that she's a regular slave driver.

That's pretty much not at all the case. My mom-in-law is great. She cooks amazing food and lets me devour as much of it as I can. She watches Hanix for me all the time, giving me time to shower and eat (and blog). She's funny and kind and I really couldn't have hoped for a better mother-in-law/housemate. I hate to think of what kind of a mess I'd be without her. And I'm fairly convinced that if I ever think to pop out and rear another child, it won't be without family to help out, because I've been spoiled, and doing it all alone sounds hard.

So now my mother-in-law is very worried that the town is gossiping about what a terrible mother-in-law she is, to be working me down to the bone. She's been explaining to everyone who's come by today that it's just that the boy eats so much. I can tell she's kind of worried about it.

Here are my conclusions. (1) Apparently I have become altogether quite accustomed to my body and appearance being topics open to general discussion. This probably would have bothered or embarrassed me when we first moved down here, but now it's old hat. (2) I need to make an effort to eat even more, for my mother-in-law's sake. (3) I'm not really a small-town kind of gal. This gossip business might be amusing at times, but it's not for me.

What's next, I wonder? I can imagine it might have something to do with devil worship, since I've already been asked (by strangers, no less!) when I'm going to baptise my baby. When I replied that Hernan and I aren't Catholic, so we don't plan on doing the whole baptismal thing (do Christians baptise too, or just the Catholics?), I then got asked whether I didn't want someone to baptise my baby for me then. "No, really. Thanks. We're good." Since strangers are asking me about this, I can only imagine word is getting around about how we drink blood and whatnot. Who knows. I'll be sure to post about it when I hear it.

La Cucaracha

I would like you all to know that someone in my neighborhood has a car horn that plays La Cucaracha.　

Poor Food Choices

Sometimes when I'm hungry (read: always) and the kitchen is bare I do ridiculous, misguided things with food.

Example: I was living in Budapest but hadn't yet gotten the hang of grocers closing up shop Saturday afternoon and not reopening until Monday morning. I was used to 24 hour food access. So I forgot to stock the cupboard and lo and behold, by Sunday night I was desperate. So. I made pancakes. Except all I had was flour and water and salt. Come and get 'em!

Example 2: I once cooked a package of pasta by frying it instead of boiling and then frying (the latter option is delicious). It was a hunger-induced mistake. Don't ever do this. I ate about 2/3 of the results before a housemate intervened on behalf of my stomach.

Example 3: Limes + old tortillas + serrano chiles does not equal "casserole". Nuf said.

My other trouble is that I keep trying to bake even though I'm no baker. I shouldn't really migrate from the stove top. It's that I try to bake the way I cook, and I never cook with a plan. I constantly fuss with the food (because I'm impatient and hungry) and add additional ingredients, and then throw in leftovers, and then add more cumin, and then decide an egg would add some protein, and then maybe throw in some chile peppers, to "liven it up"... and it usually works out ok when I'm cooking, but that's not the way to bake, it would seem.

So, this brings me to Example 4. I've been going through a crisis this week because I really want cookies but I have no butter. I can't find any butter in San Juan, because it's a luxury item and all they sell is lard and margarine, and I'm on my snobby high horse this week and don't want margarine cookies. Actually I did make margarine cookies, and I ate them (of course I did!), but I was left disappointed because for some reason the margarine flavor, at least the kind for sale in the shop next door, just puts me off. So, snobbery admitted, I wanted non-margarine cookies.

I found a no-butter cookie recipe that seemed quite good. I almost managed to follow the recipe, and the cookies turned out almost really good. But I made so much that I had leftover batter. No problem, save it for later. Until later: I get hungry, think "I'll make some more of those banana almond cookies" and decide that I'll throw in the leftover french toast mix with the cookie batter (start shaking your head here), because milk and eggs and cinnamon are tasty, right? And then it's too liquid-y, so I toss in a handful of flour and some ground almonds, and some chocolate shavings and some more cinnamon and stir it up and then throw in some salt, because salt makes anything taste good (no it doesn't) and then mix it up and pour it on a cookie sheet and think I'm so, so clever. (Continue to shake your head.)

And yes, I'm eating the results right now. I wouldn't say "good", but I would say "it's a good think I resisted 'livening them up' with chiles".

It's not quite an apple pie substitute, but... I'm now finishing off the last one, so I suppose this wasn't a complete flop.

I guess I need to learn to always begin preparing food before I reach hunger-crisis moment. Or have more snacks on hand. And maybe to just stay away from the oven.

Teach, You're Wrong.

My sixteen-year-old brother-in-law came home from school today and told us he learned that the majority of children who grow up with homosexual parents are traumatized for it and that's why gay couples shouldn't be allowed to marry or adopt.

I could spit nails I'm so mad.

I told him I didn't believe that a bit, and asked who had told him such a stupid thing. When he told me it was his teacher... ooooh, I feel like marching (or taking the bus) over to his school and having it out. I'm so mad.

He said that his teacher told the class that kids grow up traumatized because they have two dads or two moms instead of one of each. You know, because all the other kids come from "normal" families, raised by their moms because their dads are in the States working to send money hone, or raised by grandma because both mom and dad are dead or gone, or bounce between mom's house and dad and step-mom's house, or (like my brother-in-law) have fathers who are alcoholics and are for all purposes out of the picture, or who have wonderful heterosexual, devout Catholic parents who beat them, or ignore them, or tell them that if they ever find out their child is gay they'll disown them and so help them God hope to see them burn in Hell. But surely having two moms or two dads will really screw them up.

I was pleased to watch Hernan jump right in, too. He really cares about his little brother, and often treats him more like his son than his kid brother. We were both really upset to find out that his teachers are saying this kind of thing in school.

I told him I'd like to read the "study" his teacher claimed to be referencing, and if he could please get the name of it or the author or a copy, I would love to read it.

Oh! I'm so mad. Even madder than a month ago when he told me that someone at his school told him that Darwin's theories had been refuted and were now popularly considered defunct.

On the positive side, I hadn't realized how good my Spanish had become until I started firing off reason after reason why I think that's the stupidest thing I've heard in a long while, at least since his aunt told me that brown eyes are healthy and "colored" eyes are inferior and "sick". I guess there's nothing like stirring up a person's passions (or a strong beverage) for getting that foreign language to come tumbling out a kilometer a minute ("kilometer" because I'm so metric now.)

At least every time I hear that gays traumatize their children, and blacks are all uneducated and lazy, and Chinese (which I understand to mean "Asians") are all ugly and smart and know kung-fu... and that goblins are going to steal my baby's soul, and so on and on... at least every time I hear it I can say that it's not true and hopefully that does something.

Especially with my kid brother. He really looks up to Hernan. I'm glad to see he listens to his big brother. Still, we're only two against all his teachers and all his friends. He's a smart boy, though; I think he'll wise up.

Oh! But I'm still so mad!

Dear Google

Dear Google Alex,

Please hire me to work on your speech recognition projects. And can I work from home?

Thanks.
Ember

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/automatic-captions-in-youtube.html

I Did It For The Flowers

S0 if you're going to trespass, you should wear your glasses. And I'm not talking sneaky, throw 'em off your trail disguise sunglasses with fake mustache attached. I'm talking prescription eye wear. Because blind ladies like me shouldn't be sneaking across fences without them. The reason: there might just be someone watching you sneak onto their property, and you wouldn't know till you're right in front of them, because you forgot your lenses at home.

It's because I'm slick like that.

So, I offered to water my mother-in-laws plants for her, the flowers we planted at her father's gravesite. I try to go at least every other day to the graveyard here in San Juan. I bring a bucket, which I can fill from a cistern there at the graveyard. The last three days, however, there's been no water. Dry as dust.

Yesterday before I even entered the panteon a little girl stopped me, saying there was no water. She pointed across the road, though, to a ranch and explained that she was getting water from a well over there. All well and good, I thought, you're a cute little girl, you can slip through the barbed wire and no one will care, but I'm a weirdo gringa with a baby in a carry pack, and I doubt I can slip through that barbed wire without getting stuck and then drawing the attention of exactly one third of the town, who will probably come yell at me for trespassing.

I considered it, though.

And I got home, and kept considering it, and thought of those poor, thirsty plants. So today I left Hanix with his grandma, so I could have half a chance getting through the barbed wire. And you know what? it worked. I got right through, with my two buckets, to boot.

But now we come back to the topic of vision and the eye glasses I should have been wearing. Li'l ole me, so proud to have made it through the fence, starts sauntering up to the well, only to realize someone's been standing there watching me approach the whole time.

Ooops.

I thought about turning around right then, but that seemed even more embarrassing, since it isn't as if they don't already know or will not soon discover who I am. And gossip spreads fast in this town, so I sucked it up and said my good afternoons and asked if it wouldn't be alright for me to fill my buckets from the well.

The guy seemed so surprised to see me, I think he didn't know what to say, so he just nodded his head and watched me dip my buckets in the well and then teeter off as fast as I could without spilling the precious liquid.

Way to go, Slick.

So, in the end it all worked out, and I think the plants will survive, but I was sorely embarrassed and will have to find a new means of getting water if the cistern remains empty.

Not so bad. But I have learned my lesson. Don't go traipsing onto private property without my spectacles.

Mari II

I look forward to getting old. Maybe not the part where my body gradually poops out on me, but definitely the part where I start being able to get away with everything. Yes, I fully expect to be a batty old broad when the time comes.

Mari, Hernan's grandmother, gets away with a lot, and she fully deserves to. After ninety-six years, during probably eighty of which she awoke at five every morning to take the corn to the mill, to grind, to bring home, to make into tortillas for breakfast, I think we can all cut her a little slack.

Just now she woke up Hanix. This is a pain, because for some reason my giant child doesn't care to sleep much. His naps last about 30 minutes tops, and I can only get him to nap on occasion. (A line from the movie The Ring keeps coming back to me: "She never sleeps!") Mari woke him up by hollering at who knows who that she didn't know where the people who live in the house were, who knows when they'd be back. All the while my mother-in-law was there shushing her.

But like I say, the woman deserves some slack. Besides, although she may have woken him up just now, there are plenty of times when she prolongs his sleep by rocking his little hammock-crib thing that we suspend from the pig hook in the ceiling (Yes, the pig hooks in the ceiling for hanging pig carcasses from and pig scales for weighing huge babies). The movement keeps him happy and asleep. Sometimes she even does me the favor of rocking the crib when Hanix isn't in it. Just in case.

And for the most part she gets to do what she pleases. She rakes the back lot, for example, even though the back lot is just dirt, and, especially now that it's the dry season, raking just stirs up a huge dust cloud that comes billowing into the house.

I mentioned in an earlier post how things disappear into her room. Recently my mother-in-law tried to store a bag of my sister-in-law's belongings in Mari's room. Mari opened the bag up and started sorting through the objects, picking out what she would keep and what she didn't need.

And yesterday we were eating lunch in the back lot, where we'd moved the dining room table and chairs on account of the new floor project going on. When my mother-in-law told Mari to come sit at the table with us, Mari refused and decided instead to perch on top of a heap of boxes and scrap wood and bricks. It couldn't have been comfortable, but why not let the lady do as she pleases?

I usually can't understand what Mari says. Between my poor Spanish, her old-person accent and vocabulary, and her missing teeth a fair bit gets lost between us. I did understand her, once, when she told me that she hadn't bathed in some six years or so. Let me tell you, I believed her too. Since then, however, my mother-in-law has started to shower her once in a while, which Mari protests vehemently. She refuses to get up, and even fakes a cough to get out of it, since we all know you can't bathe when you're sick. Even in May, in the scorching heat, she complains that a shower would kill her, on account of the cold. My mother-in-law puts adult diapers on her at night, but when Mari manages to remove them she sometimes then soils herself. My mother-in-law is then firm about the shower.

So maybe there are some downsides to getting old too, such as being showered against your will and wearing Depends. Still, I'm fond of the woman, and I hope we help her enjoy her last years.

More Home Improvements

Some mornings while eating breakfast with that cute guy I married and his mother I ask Hernan what his plans for the day are. Often this results in him leaping up from the table to begin demolishing some part of the house with a pick. A wall, a floor, whatever has been bothering him most or whatever his mother or I have been bothering him about most.

If we're lucky, the demo is then followed by some kind of home improvement. When we're unlucky, we get to live in rubble for a few days.

Today's project - finishing the floor in his mother's dining room so that it will be (1) level, (2) made of tile instead of dirt, rock, and patches of concrete, and (3) safer for his grandmother to walk around on. He didn't finish today, but progress is looking good.

Machetes

Even in Mexico we have to keep the grass cut. While in San Juan there are no lawns (this isn't actually true. There are lawns. But mostly they only exist in the rich people's vacation homes and are hidden from view by high walls topped with glass shards) we do have grass that grows along the highways, and this grass needs trimming from time to time.

Certainly, the easiest way to tend to the problem of tall grass is to sic your burros, horses, goats, and cows on it. This isn't always feasible, however, since burros, horses, goats, and cows often wander where they're not meant to go, like into the highway.

Just three days ago I saw a policeman herding a cow off of the highway. (See, they do work!)

So a better solution? Machetes.

I'm sure it's not true, but I like to believe that every Mexican owns a machete. This must not be true, because I'm sure many, if not most, though certainly not all, city people don't own said multi-purpose instrument. It probably is true, however, of San Juan Cosalá residents, and I think it's great. Remind me to acquire one for Hanix.

The machete is a very useful tool. My father-in-law owns at least one, as does my brother-in-law. I'm pretty sure my mother-in-law can wield one handily, and Hernan somehow acquired one almost immediately after we arrived. I'm certain that even his grandmother could use one, no problem. That's just how things are here.

I see people walking around with machete in hand all the time. I've seen old, wizened men using them as canes. I swear. And once a man threatened Hernan and his brother with one when they were little boys, to which, by the way, my mother-in-law responded by hefting the family's shotgun. The gun is gone, but the machetes we still have.

I've seen them used to hack open coconuts. I've seen them lashed to poles to harvest fruit. I've seen them used to cut firewood. I've seen them used, as I mentioned above, as walking aids. But of course, they're most useful for clearing brush, which brings me back to the topic of grass.

Around here, when the highway grass needs cutting a group of men go to with machetes.

I understand this approach better for lawns, which usually occupy a small space. For the kilometers of roadside grass, however, I'm really impressed. I'm sure it's very hard work, so I hope those men are paid well (though I'm sure they aren't) and I hope they get a back massage at the end of the day (I'm sure they don't).

Now, please enjoy my poem.


Machete

Machete, oh! machete
Clear away the brush
For with all these growing things
It was a bit too lush.
Machete, oh! machete
Cut down grass and vines and trees
Clear me a swath as wide as the world
So that I may walk with ease.

White Woman Steals Bratty Child

It's funny that after a year in this town I'm still interesting enough to warrant outright staring. Sure, staring in Mexico doesn't seem to be the taboo it is in the States, but nonetheless I think the outright gawking I experience every time I leave my house is a testament to the exciting times to be had in San Juan Cosalá. I realize it's mostly curiosity (boredom?), so I try not to let it get to me. A fun new twist, however, is a bit more of a drag. I've heard it a few times recently, and it more or less goes like this.

Mother and misbehaving child are somewhere near me - in the plaza, on the bus, in a store. Child is really getting on Mama's nerves. Mama has had it up to here. Mama points at me and says to her bratty child, "Look! If you don't stop crying/whining/misbehaving then that white woman is going to take you away!" Then the child shuts up and stares at me with fear and horror, and I (got to love this reaction) stupidly smile at the child and wave.

OK, maybe just the first time I did that. The second time I glowered at the woman who said it, and the third time I just sighed and probably looked peeved in a way that only intensified the child's fear.

Thanks, lady. I'm glad to help out with your little bratty kid, who now thinks I'm some kind of boogieman.

Maybe next time, if I have Hanix in tow, I'll just throw it back at her, like "Hanix, if you don't stop drooling all over yourself that Mexican lady there, the one with the annoying bratty child, is going to come over here and give you the evil eye". You know I won't do it, but I wish I were better at Spanish so I could eloquently tell those women to shove off.

Besides, what would I want with their bratty kid? Can't they see my massive manchild and his adorable chub?

The IRS Loses Me

Hey Internal Revenue Service, what's shakin?

Just call me Waldo. It appears that the IRS had no trouble whatsoevah finding me when they thought I owed them 16 THOUSAND dollars. Now, just a few months later, when it turns out that they owe me money, they can't seem to figure out where I live.

Go fig.

But really, friends at the IRS, I have updated my address with you. I have sent you letters. I have filed my tax returns. You have even sent me mail at my PO Box in Mexico. You have called me at my house here in San Juan... what do you mean you don't know where I am?

Ah, but wait, that was all back when you thought I owed you money. Now that the shoe is on the other hand you can't seem to figure out where I am.

I'm in Mexico! I'm right where you left me two months ago! Send me my money already.

A Post About Mucking Around

Sometimes I hesitate to post the personal. I'm sure it'd be a lot more interesting if I got my lazy fingers to type up a nice piece about el dia de los muertos or our little jaunt to the coast. But then I remember that I'm selfish and I'm posting because that's what I feel like doing, and frankly it's other topics that are on my mind.

I guess in a lot of ways life has settled down here. I've become a whole lot more content being here, though maybe it's not so much contentment that I feel as acceptance or resignation. Or maybe I've just been happily distracted by visitors, friends from home who've kept my spirits buoyed. Or maybe I'm just too busy and too exhausted taking care of my baby to think about much else. Any way I spin it, I'm not living in the pits of woe I was in nine months ago.

Blogging has helped. I guess it's therapeutic. I always knew I was blogging for my own benefit not because I thought anyone else would be entertained much by what little I have to say. Still, I started blogging, and just getting it all out in English was a big help. And then, oh and then, I found all these other American women living in Mexico with their husbands, many of them with young kids, and they're all blogging away about all this crap we're all facing, and all the wonderful stuff too, and suddenly I had this weird feeling of community or that at least I wasn't alone. And misery: it sure do love its company. So here I am reading these other blogos every day, half the time the posts are about exactly what's been going on in my head, and I want to write one big "I know exactly what you mean!" comment over and over again, and "Thank you so much for blogging. It means so much to me." and suddenly I find myself, still not thrilled to be here, but somehow managing it a whole hell of a lot better.

And then there are all my amazing friends - who send me email or come visit or send little gifts for my fat man child, and every gesture, every laugh, means so much.

And maybe it's just time - that I'm getting used to living with cockroaches and rats and the smell of burning garbage and sewage in the streets and constant noise and sexism and machoism and being stared at and not having any friends down here, and having to explain and defend every assumption, value and opinion and just being really lonely. At least a little bit used to them. Those things still drive me crazy.

I'm still frustrated a lot of the time. It bothers me how Hernan forgot how to do any housework since moving back in with his mother, how he now expects me to do it all. I still have no idea what to do about him going out all the time with dudes and leaving me alone and lonely, and I have to nearly break his arm just to hang out with me, because I used to think we enjoyed each other's company. It's hard that I feel like the freak all the time because I don't have anyone who shares my persectives on child raising (or anything else), and I feel like a bad mother for holding my baby "too much", for nursing him, for using cloth diapers. And I wish I had friends here. And I wish I had money and a job. And I wish sometimes for a whole lot of things.

But then I know too that I'm handling those things better than when I first got here. That I've come to really value the company of my in-laws, and I'm daily thankful I like them so much, and they're so accepting of me, and that my little Hanix can grow up with a big, loving family. And I've started liking a lot of things about being here and maybe I'm a little less uptight than I used to be. And probably this is all character-building anyway, right? So I'll look back on it all and feel it was a good thing in the end. Right?

So why am I sharing this (unintersting, poorly written, overly-personal) brain fart with you all? (Because I'm selfish. I think we alrady covered that.) Because (here's where I make up a reason for the time you just wasted reading it), in the end I guess we're all just mucking around in our lives, trying to make them satisfying and pleasing, or maybe noble and good, or maybe just entertaining. But somehow we're trying to do it right. And for me to "do it right", this whole living business, I guess I've needed a lot of practice and a lot of support. The practice I'm still getting, but the support I've had. So I guess, in a way, this is one big "thank you" to all the great people who've been rooting for us, and to all the strangers who support me by sharing their stories. And I guess I'm just saying I'm trying not to let you all down, and I swear I'm starting to get the hang of it.