It was back to good ol’ gorgeous Malinalco last weekend where we stayed at Jesus’ place with him and his girlfriend, Dayana, her cousin Queztalcoatl (incidentally, he shares his name with one of the most famous Aztec deities of all time), his girl, Claudia, another “couple,” and Priscila. Priscila realized her seventh-wheel circumstances and subsequently paired up with a man named Brandy who she found sitting on the counter amongst his friends Vodka and Rum, but this wasn’t until much later in the night. At first he was shy, you might even “closed,” the kind of guy who was the last to be invited to a party and even when he was, everyone ignored him most of the night anyhow. But Priscila took a chance and it was then that she discovered how great Brandy really was on the inside.
Last year Dayana gave Jesus a dog for his birthday, a Labrador, who he named Remo (“rowing”). At the same time, Dayana got herself a Dalmatian who she called Florentina. Now when they came to Malinalco for the weekend, they brought along with them the dogs. Dayana had driven them here this time, just as she had many times before, but took a different route on her way westward out of the city. As she winded her way around hairpin curves up to Ajusco she soon realized that Florentina was capable of being carsick and so her dog ended up vomiting all the way to La Marquesa.
In all frankness, Florentina is a bitch. And not the dog kind. As soon as we arrived, she jumped on me and bit my leg. While I nursed a bleeding wound, Remo discovered that he was now big enough to jump through the window from outside so Jesus spent every other minute of the weekend dragging Remo out of the house by the collar.
That afternoon we ventured down the town’s cobble-stoned streets to the tiny, colourful, market at the Zocalo in search of The Tlacoyo Lady. The original Tlacoyo Lady wasn’t there, but her set-up was in the same spot and who ever it was that was replacing her made sure to wear the same apron and hairstyle (two long braids) as the original Tlacoyo Lady so as not to confuse returning clientele such as ourselves. I bought some dominoes, the ever-exotic cow bone variety, then the nine of us climbed a seemingly unclimbable egg-shaped mountain with the help of some poorly welded holds and sketchy ladders (me in my skirt and sandals) in the hopes of reaching a set of crosses that could be seen from the valley town below.
We had pizza at a place where Jesus had been going to since he was a kid then Priscila, Brandy, and I stayed up until 5am playing Jenga and sitting with Dayana while she waited out the spins.
8am: Saul and I filled up on tamales at the market, then made way for San Andres Timilpan, all the in the north of the State of Mexico about 3 hours from Malinalco. What was the reason for this ludicrous act when we should have been sleeping? It was Saul’s Grandfather’s 79th birthday and “everyone is going so…” Okay, fine. So we went to the ranch.
Don Silviano is a cowboy-hat-wearing traditional Mexican who stole his half-French wife from her wholly-shocked parents when she was just his girlfriend then married her. They moved to Mexico City as soon as Saul’s dad was set to begin school and where Don Silviano took up position as a street cop in the Zocalo all those years ago. Even though his backwards way of thinking probably caused him problems when he was younger and built up a lot of tension between family members as he got older, I quite enjoyed watching and listening to him on Sunday.
Now, in his old age, he rambles on about things and everyone just kind of ignores him or laughs at his comments. And trust me, he ignores them sometimes too. While his 3 sons fried some fish, he overlooked the whole process then as it came time to cook the steaks he told his middle son, Salvador, to put lots of oil on the cooking plate. Salvador said that they didn’t need to use oil. Don Silviano disappeared, reappeared, shuffled over to the fire and silently let the oil flow generously from the lips of a bottle then turned around to place it back on the bench as though he’d never heard a peep out of Salvador. Once upon a time, he was a strong man, able to carry pigs. He’s lost some strength for sure but he’s still a handsome fellow and doesn’t he know it…he’s had the latest girlfriend for almost a year now.
The second youngest of her 7 children came to live and work at the house in Mexico City when it was a hostel back in the fall. At just 15, Manuel was a good worker and a nice kid. When he announced that he was going to be returning to Timilpan after just two months of being with us I was a little disappointed, although not all that surprised considering that he’d been express-kidnapped earlier in the month when he went to meet some clients at the end of the street to deliver their coffee and change to them. They pushed him into a taxi, drove him two blocks, took the money from him, and left him back on the sidewalk to walk home. They did it to the newspaper girl at Alvaro Obregon the same day. For a kid who had never experienced the city before, this did not make a good impression on him and I completely understood why he was leaving.
However, when the water wasn’t reaching the upstairs bathroom the day after he left, it was because the water pump had been stolen. Saul’s dad had someone in Timilpan check Manuel’s backpack and there it was, along with a collection of tools. Then when we received the cable bill the next month we saw that he had been ordering adult films every Tuesday night for 5 weeks. Just like Britney Spears, he was not that innocent…
The youngest kid was and still is helping Don Silviano around the ranch, feeding the pigs, cutting wood, and cleaning up.
Satisfied to finally be eating his oily steak, Don Silviano started spouting out things about how he wanted to be called Don Silviano by everyone, etc.…this resulted in all the grandkids giggling and the adults rolling their eyes and flapping a hand in the air, condoning his commentary with a, “It’s his birthday, just let him…”
Though he’s still strong in his opinions, it seems to me that Don Silviano prefers nowadays to just stir the pot, even be the one who starts the fire with a single comment, then sit back and watch his work unfold. I don’t remember what he said during one conversation in particular, but as his three sons argued about politics with increasing intensity, Don Silviano sat in his chair patiently eating a piece of cake and intermittently, but impatiently, calling for Saul’s mom, Lucia, to bring coffee: “Lucia! Café!” God forbid she arrived 30 seconds after his shout…
As the arguing continued, Don Silviano sat across from them with his fingers intertwined and hanging between his legs. He looked strangely comfortable watching all of this, but I suppose he wasn’t really listening. In fact, it appeared that he was possibly even bored when amidst the noise he turned his head towards the table, then gently raising his arm pointed at the cakes and said, “I liked the chocolate one best.”
It was a good day for him. He had literally his whole family there, with the exception of his now deceased wife. Lucia, in her usual manner, had invited one of her nine sisters, Guadalupe, along. In keeping with typical Mexican fashion, Lupe then invited one of her daughters, Erica, along. Naturally, Erica brought with her her three children and all of Lucia’s guests rode with her out to Timilpan, baby on knee and all.
Erica’s youngest, Eric, is three years old and was eager to show me the cows then the pigs, then the pigs again, and the baby cow…his sister Andrea tagged along and told me, as if I hadn’t noticed, that Eric loves animals. Saul came to my rescue when he walked onto the field with a bow and arrow. Every time he shot it, Andrea and Eric raced to collect the arrow and one time Saul shot it across what seemed to be a freshly-turned patch of land. We followed the kids across this patch as they ran towards the arrow and that’s when we noticed that Eric was running on top of a massive pile of cow shit and didn’t know it. It was relatively dry so he wasn’t getting grossly dirty, but depressions in the dung made by cow and horse hooves got him stuck and he desperately called out, “Andrea, ayudame!” Andrea, help me! So there he was: he didn’t know that he was standing in a pile of cow crap but got stuck in it anyways then called out to his sister to save him – this scene was a fine mix of cute and funny as you might imagine.
We were well sick of driving when we finally made it back to Mexico City that night and aren’t set to hit the highway again for two more weeks when we go to Patzcuaro with our friend Luis. To be posted in the near future…
