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.