Journey Deeper Into Mexico (Day 6)

I am sitting in our officina at almost 10 p.m. The girls are struggling to go to sleep. Sleeping and eating are proving difficult for both of them but especially for Azlyn. I have just bribed them with pancakes for breakfast (yes! I found a vegetarian restaurant with whole grain pancakes on the menu) if they will please, please, stay in bed.

There has been a tenor voice (not Chad’s) wailing in the background for the past two hours. His vocal cords must be bleeding and near rupture. It is a beautiful voice, just louder than perhaps healthy. The singer in Chad, perhaps it is tenor envy, can’t help himself. He just wandered next door, Negro Modela in hand to listen. He came back into the office just as I was beginning to type this post and relayed his experience. In his broken Spanish (God bless him, at least he is trying), he says to the bartender, “I live in house next door and I hear. I come to kill.” Clarification. He meant “I come to see.” Afterwards he thought he said “I come to kill,” but upon further investigation he actually said “I come to die.” None of it good. Morir/Mirar. A few small vowel changes, one big meaning change. In the spirit of painting a clear picture, I will recap. Scrawny, balding, white guy carrying his own beer walks into a bar and approaches four Mexican patrons who are enjoying singer/guitar player and says to the bartender…..Get the picture?

Onto what I really set out to write about. Today we had an exhausting outing. There were a few times when Chad and I both wondered what we had gotten ourselves, especially our two young children into. We received an invitation to the home of Angelica and her family. Angelica was the woman I wrote about meeting on our first day here. Remember? The woman who can’t get back into the United States with her daughter to be with her husband and perhaps thinks there is some way we can help her. With some trepidation, I phoned her two days ago to accept her invitation. I accepted it to be gracious. I accepted because I am a warm person always ready to make a new friend. I accepted so there could be no mistaking me for a “snobby American.” I guess I have appointed myself as a “Diplomat on behalf of U.S. citizens who think the immigration debate is filled with shades of gray, consider all human beings worthy of the same rights, and think the border wall is one of the dumbest ideas ever to be implanted in human gray matter.”

I felt nervous about accepting the invitation because this woman seemed so desperate and I’m not exactly sure what she wanted/wants from us. There is nothing that we can do. The appointment was made and we needed to keep our word. We met her in downtown Tlaquepaque. We walked several blocks and caught a bus that the locals use. It cost $9 pesos, approximately .80 U.S. cents for my family of four to board. The driver does not wait for you to be seated before he practically floors it down the street which is the equivalent in width and repair to a shabby ally but with cars parked on the side, lots of pedestrians, and other cars in motion trying to share the road. We traveled by bus for about 25 minutes east past the center of Tonala. I spoke with Angelica a bit on the bus and learned that she gave birth to her daughter in her house in America, aided by her sister. She was too scared to go the hospital in the United States because she didn’t speak English and I would assume, didn’t have the amount of money needed to pay what I am sure would have been an exorbitant hospital bill. I’m not sure if she was in the country legally or not at the time.

We journeyed to a very different neighborhood than the one where we are living. There are virtually no tourists in this area. The roads were made up of uneven, sharp rocks. When we asked Angelica if this was a safe neighborhood at night without hesitation she said “No.” We got off the bus and walked with her and her four year old daughter several blocks to her house. We were relieved to see a cheery yellow house with beautiful flowers painted on it. It looked inviting. I had asked her the names of her family members and practiced them prior to our arrival. We met her younger sister, Blanca (age 10) and her younger brother, Jose (age 15). After a few moments, her mom, also Blanca, joined us in the front room and greeted us warmly with a hug. Her father was at work and the rest of her 7 siblings no longer live at home. Two of them are in the United States working.

Blanca invited us to sit and offered us beverages. Conversing was exhausting because as we have demonstrated, our Spanish is quite awful, and the only one of their family to speak any English is Angelica and her’s is quite broken. We hung in there and made progress though. Blanca offered to give us a tour of her home which we graciously accepted. All of the homes that we have seen here are quite large. Not fancy, but large. Extended family often lives together. We even went on the roof where their two dogs live. It was very enjoyable to see their house. Blanca was curious as to why we only have two children after twelve years of marriage. God only knows what we communicated on this topic. Afterwards, it donned on me that she is Catholic and wouldn't think of birth control. Chad was able to say that we wouldn’t have a house big enough for a family of 10. It seemed to please her that her house was larger than ours.

I asked her if she has ever been to the Estados Unidos. She said “no.” Angelica then said “She doesn’t like America.” The discussion turned a bit political at this point. Perhaps a bit tense. Her demeanor turned slightly angry. We are a part of something that she sees as unjust. I’m not sure if we understood this correctly or not but I think she said that United States has wasted a great deal of money on war but they pay Mexicans so little for their labor. She then asked us why we elected George Bush as our president. Chad and I both emphatically exclaimed that we have never voted for him (no offense to those who did) and that the election was very close and Americans were quite evenly divided at the time of the election. She softened a bit but still seemed upset.

She was cooking for us throughout this conversation. We learned today (I think) that Mexicans eat their big meal of the day at 3 p.m. Dinner was almost ready but Blanca needed to go get tortillas. Her brother and sister have side by side tortilla stands at her community’s market. One makes tortillas de maiz, the other tortillas de harina. She wanted to introduce us to them. A conversation ensued between Blanca and Angelica. I asked Angelica what they were saying. She said that she asked her mom what she was going to say when people asked “Who are they?” Her mom said, with a touch of bitterness “We will tell them we are their employer!” (Chad and I read this differently. He thinks it was all in fun.) In the spirit of being humble and as gracious as possible, I said “You bet! Tell them I am your house cleaner!” She seemed to soften. She introduced us to her brother and sister both of whom gave us samples of their lovely tortillas. Her sister sent us with two free packages worth. A very generous gift.

We returned to their home and sat down to a meal of thin steak, cucumbers, napol salad (cactus, tomato, onion, cilantro) beans and tortillas – all delicious. There was no silverware on the table and I thought they had just forgotten to put it out. Angelica got a fork for me but no other silverware. She then explained that they usually use their fingers and tortillas. I politely put my fork down and joined in. The kid’s stomachs have been a bit upset and they aren’t that adventuresome when it comes to food anyways. Blanca insisted that they try everything. I begged Jaydn with my eyes to please comply so as to not offend them. She was a trouper and let Blanca shove cactus in her mouth. We talked, as best we could, about life. About why we came to Mexico. About our need for diversion from what have been a challenging couple of years. We spoke of Chad’s dad’s cancer and passing. We spoke of my cancer. Blanca and I discovered that we both think pesticides play a big role in cancers. During that conversation no one was thinking about being American or Mexican, we just became a group of human beings speaking about life. We all have no choice but to continue the journey forward through illness, death, birth, celebrations, family dynamics regardless of ethnicity or economics.

The girls played very well with Angelica’s ten year old sister and four year old daughter. The language barrier didn’t seem to matter. They all knew the language of play and that was all that was important.

We ended the meal with some galletas (cookies) that we had picked-up as a gift to bring. It was time to depart. We thanked and hugged Blanca repeatedly. Angelica offered to take the bus back with us. We politely declined. We didn’t want to take up that much of her time and thought we would enjoy the challenge of navigating the bus on our own. She wrote down the bus number to take and told us to tell the bus driver “Bajame en El Parian,” which basically means “Drop me off at El Parian” – a courtyard filled with restaurants practically next door to our house. She walked with us to the bus stop. We said good-bye and she asked us to call her and she would go with us to Tonala to see where many of the wonderful handicrafts are manufactured.

All things considered, the day was friendly and did add some good to the world – perhaps a little understanding. I believe we are friends.