Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends in the U.S.! Today looks just like any other day in Mexico, no mention at all of turkeys.  There are turkeys that just roam around my yard a lot, though.  I keep telling him he wouldn't survive in S.C. like that!  But, despite the delicious feast, we are always thankful for all of the blessings and mercies we receive every day.

 

 

It has been 'drizzling' for the past few days so I couldn't go out in the middle of the yard to find signal like I normally do.  It was a non-stop, strange, drizzle.  It floated toward us just like snow does in the headlights at night, so much so that I opened my window to check. Nope, it was warm.

Yesterday and today, it has been "cold" enough to where if you wanted to wear a long-sleeved shirt, you could, without burning up.  I am, as usual, in a short-sleeved shirt and flip flops.

 

We have now made four all-day trips to the big city to the equivalent of the DMV office.  I will never, ever, complain about the SCDMV again.  It now looks like pure efficiency.  Every time they asked us for a new paper or gave us a new stamp, we were sent down street to the copy shop to bring back so many copies and wait again.  Got sent to the bank to pay one of the fees, come back with the receipt, where they stapled it to our paper and said "bring back one copy."  Ahh! You should have told me to go pay at the bank and bring back one copy of the receipt, all in one step!! But it's okay, all done now, we can now drive legally.

 

Yesterday, something strange-to-me and normal-to-them happened.  I have never been to a Mexican funeral (or the night of the death when they stay up all night at the family's house, a really long "wake"), but I have heard stories from Papi. I realize that Mexicans treat death very differently, but I still was not prepared for this, though.  While we were waiting in the "DMV" office, everyone gets quiet and Papi pulls me back away from the desk and towards the chairs, says "shhh" to Sofi and tells me to keep standing.  Ohhhhhh kayyyy?  In comes men rolling a coffin, and with a large group of family crying and recording on their cell phones.  Now, I'm really confused.  A BODY??  All of the workers get up without saying anything and follow the family to a back room.  We could hear some talking and then clapping, talking then clapping, and then everyone came back out with the coffin after about half an hour.  Papi tugged my shirt to stand up again.  Shushing Sofi was pointless because she kept saying "What is that?! What are they doing?! Why are they crying?!" But, I don't think anyone understood anyways.  They all left and the workers returned to their desks and resumed work as normal.  Apparently, the gentleman was working there until his death.  This was one of those "only in Mexico" moments.

 

Today and every day, I wake up thankful for my life, another opportunity to love on my sweet family.  We always have food on the table, even if it's not turkey tonight.  Some things are more difficult than expected but we have run into so many "this is not a coincidence, this is a God-thing" that I don't even get bothered much when things don't go as planned.  We are working hard to finish our house and make it a home for us and our "missing piece," my Estela bug.  We love you and miss you Estela... don't eat too much of Grandma's good cooking tonight!

 

 



Bananas Part II

Obviously with so many bananas, we couldn't eat them all.  And we all know what we do when the bananas start getting too dark (and really sweet, but mushy)... say it with me... banana bread and banana pancakes!  Well, in my momma's house, at least.

 

I realize pancakes are super easy and I don't need a "mix," but curiosity got me to find out what "Hot Cakes" were like.  Papi says they never ate them at home but when the fair comes for the yearly Town Festival that they serve them.  Pancakes? Fair Food?

 

It was a lot harder than I thought to find syrup.  The only one that I found was "Karo" brand, which is funny because in the U.S. I've never gotten anything Karo except for Light and Dark Corn Syrup.  Actually, it's not too odd because all it really was, was maple-flavored corn syrup.

 

 

 

The verdict:  Hot Cakes are way too sweet for me.  Normally, Mexican desserts are not sweet enough for me.  But I definitely am not used to super-sweet pancakes.  I'll just go from scratch next time.  Syrup, well, we'll just use fruit compote or goat-milk caramel or heck, even sweetened condensed milk.  I'll save my craving for Vermont Maple when I can get the real stuff.



The banana bread... from scratch, of course.  I made little loaves and gave them away to family and neighbors, who out of all of them had never tried it.  I might not freak out about bananas going to waste every time, because there are sooo many, but I do look forward to more food that reminds me of my SC home!

Bananas!

I thought bananas grew on trees, you know, with monkeys in them.  Although we may still call it a "tree" in English (I don't know?), they don't use the word for "tree" in Spanish to describe it, because there's no wood at all.  It actually looks like just layers and layers of the banana leaves all together to make up its "trunk."  This is probably why when it is full of bananas, it will fall over and you have to prop it up with a stick.

 

 

 

This is my neighbor and sister-in-law, Marisol. Although in Spanish, the word for sister-in-law would only be for Papi's sisters, of which he has none.  There is a special word for "my brother-in-law's wife" but in English we only have one word.  Anyways, beyond me learning more detailed Spanish, she gave us a whole bunch.  When I asked why you don't let them ripen on the tree, she showed me that if you leave them, they grow too much and start splitting.

 

 

The way they bloom is so neat.  I'll have to share pictures and explain that some other time.  Sofi is a big "snacker," so she thinks it is funny and amazing when she wants a snack and I just say "go out and the yard and find something!"

Plums?

This is the view outside my bathroom window.  When I asked Papi what it was, he said "a ciruelo" (a plum tree).  Later when I commented that it was very pretty and that it must be going to have plums soon because of the blooms, everyone had a confused look.  He said "those are not part of the tree, that's a blight." 

 

Oh, oops. Such a pretty parasite.

 

Back to "normal"

My super-slow USB internet thingy stopped working the other day.  I tried different USB ports, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the program, and removing it in the Device Manager.  After a few other things, I gave up and Papi drove me to the city.  The young guy at the office said he didn't know a thing about computers so he called a guy from a store a block or two away.  When he came I started the whole story about what I had done, to save myself from doing it all over again. He calmly listened, then when I finished, took my modem, opened it, took out the chip, replaced it, and plugged it back in.  It worked.  Well dang, I love simple solutions but I hate it when someone else comes up with them!

 

So that was the reason for the lack of posts recently, but we are all good and I have more pictures! :-)

 

Sofi is learning to do laundry.  She wouldn't stop begging so we got her a rock to do it just like they did at the river side "in the (not so) old days."  And of course, what she does, her little cousin must do as well.

 

And yes, we are wearing shorts and getting wet still.  It is getting "cooler," as in, last night was the first night we slept without the fan on.  This weekend has a forecast of low of 72F and high of 91F.  And yes, they are wearing sweaters and hats when it hits the 60's and saying that Sofi is going to get sick because she doesn't have a jacket on.  Sigh.  It's hard to explain what "cold" and "snow" and "icy mornings" are to people who have never seen it! :-)

Sugar

Remember when I mentioned when we were in Veracruz and almost home, we got stuck in traffic? This (picture below) was it. If we had waited here it would have been about 24 hours before we moved.  Luckily, we went up and around some unofficial roads to get to this bridge where I took this picture and got on out of there.  What was it?  A major accident? Construction? No. Sugar.

 

You see, around here, sugar rules.  Well, it does because it is the lifeblood of the area.  Besides a chicken farm and very few people that have jobs in the city, everyone relies on the sugar cane industry.  Papi's Dad is a sugar cane farmer.  People in town who don't have land either work as day laborers (especially cutting season starting now through June), or depend on their customers having money from that in order to buy from them. 

 

Veracruz is the largest producer of sugar of all the Mexican states by far.  The last harvest season, the price of sugar per ton was about half of what it was the year before.  Landowners in our town went to the sugar mill to collect their season's earnings and instead got a big fat "0" on a paper after the mill subtracted what was owed for advances for fertilizer, paying workers, etc.  They normally budget this payment to last for the whole next year, to eat, to pay power, to pay workers, everything they can. It is their whole annual income.  They were literally left with absolutely no money for at least the full coming year.  One man in town went to the top of a water tower and threatened to jump. 

 

August and September are normally "dead months."  People usually have no money and are just holding out until harvest starts again where they can earn $10 a day.  (And the fact that "things are cheaper in Mexico" is a big fat lie. Big. Fat.  It is cheaper if you are retired and have American money deposited monthly into your account like magic.)  But these last few months have been the hardest in many, many years.  All levels of the local economy are feeling the effects.  Desperate people lead to desperate measures.  On the day of the photo below, the farmers decided to block off the interstate in order to call attention from the government to their plight.  What exactly they wanted the government to do, I'm not quite sure, but from the little I understand so far they were asking for a subsidy to help offset the low price.

 

 

 

The fate of the coming season still seems up in the air.  We are just praying that it comes out well, many families are depending on it.

 

Delicious sugar straight from our mill, La Providencia.  It's lighter than brown sugar (but not at all sticky like brown sugar), but not white... and very delicious.  

 

 

 

 

 

My First Day of the Dead

On the night of Halloween, we all sat outside around the computer to look at the picture of Estela in her costume.  Sofi wouldn't stop asking when we were going to go Trick Or Treating.  I was at the point of handing out candy to the neighbors and telling them to give it to Sofi when she knocks on their door.  (I still might do that next year).  But luckily, we were invited to come see the elementary school kids perform and see their altars at their Day of The Dead festival. 

 

The altars were beautiful, each one unique to the person they were honoring.  Although the dates line up with Catholic holidays, they really have nothing to do with each other.  This is a continuation of the traditions of the indigenous people long before the nuns and priests arrived.  They celebrated death not as an end of life, but as a passing on and beginning of another life in the after life.  On this day that they honored the Goddess of Death, they believed that the spirits of those who had already left this life were allowed a day to come back and see their family and friends. 

 

I was a little hesitant of the word "altar" since I believe that only God and God as Man (Jesus) are to be worshipped, but it definitely does not have the same meaning.  Petals of marigolds (the Aztec Flower of Death) are left in a line from the street up to where the altar is, and it is decorated with (especially) foods that the loved ones used to enjoy (maybe even a beer or a cigarette if that was their thing), and possibly some of their possessions (especially toys if it was a child) and a photo.  There is a large amount of detail put into the selection and decoration of each altar, which vary incredibly from one to the other.

 

I put the kids to the test, asking them "Why salt?  Why is this one all white?  Who is that dog?"  Someone always piped up and answered, sometimes nudged by a niece or nephew of ours that insisted that I really don't bite.

 

 

 

When I asked why so many people do this even if maybe they don't believe that spirits really come back for the day, a nice lady told me a few things.  First, tradition and customs are very important to them, to not forget where and who they came from.  Second, they used to believe that since this was the opportunity for the spirits to see us one time this year, that we should show them that we are doing well (we have food to share!), we are happy, and we haven't forgotten about them.  Even if you just imagined having being able to have another day with the spiritual presence of your loved ones that had passed, you would want to welcome them like this.

 





 

Many also went to the graveyards (whole trucks full of people at a time) to clean up their family's graves and decorate them with flowered wreaths.  I didn't make it out to the graveyard as we were busy in the morning and the afternoon/evening was met with heavy rains and wind (like, laid down a lot of sugar cane, kind of wind). But, there is always next year!

 

At the school, each grade level (no more than 20 kids each) dressed in theme and performed a song with dance. It was so fun to watch!  Sofi cackled at their antics!  There was a lot of laughing and clapping along.

And yes, all the guys here dance!  I really need to learn how to dance, like, really.  :-)

 

Cutest skeletons ever!

 



 

Some were a bit camera shy, and some were not at all. Ehh, they'll all get used to me one day! There were some cell phones and even one Nintendo DS taking pictures, but no cameras, so many ladies came up to me asking for me to get pictures of their child/grandchild.   

 

 

It is a great opportunity among families to talk about ones that are gone from this life and enjoying their new life, share stories, and remember... to show that if they could see us today, that we are happy, healthy, and blessed.