Bikes in Mexico

These (there were two of them) sitting in front of a restaurant.

And these for sale in a butcher shop.


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The Munchkin is attending Escuela del Mundo in San Pancho - a small town on the Mexican coast. Here's a glimpse of her school yard.

"Look, Grandma, it's made of all natural stuff.

Add a bit of recycling.



Dogs, cats, chickens, and a pig. Don't worry, they only serve vegetarian meals.

The next door neighbour.

Check them out on Facebook - Escuela del mundo
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Traffic in Mexico

Not at all an unusual sight in our area. Often we see the riders in town too and using their cell phones while the horse makes it's way seemingly unguided.



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Mexico -- more than a beach

A short drive inland from the beach brings you to lush mountainous terrain with rolling valleys.


No pictures of the valleys as we missed the "view point."
But, here are a couple of pictures of Compostella, the capital of the municipality. It's the churches that always grab our attention.




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The Munchkin goes to school in Mexico

We're in small town Mexico for a month over Christmas holidays and the Munchkin has a chance to go to school for a couple of hours one morning with her best friend. This is one of the schools she has gone to with her mother to talk about pet care and to explain about the free spaying and neutering clinics offered twice a year.
Today, she'll just be another student in her friend's classroom.









The school isn't fancy, but the rooms do have air conditioning. The playground, as you can see, is cement. At recess the kids improvise a soccer game using a small plastic cube for a ball.
The cafeteria, manned by a couple of local women, offers (mostly) healthy food at a nominal price.

Only in Mexico - cucumber candy

Yes, we tried some and yes, they did taste like cucumber with a dash of chili.

Ingredients:
corn syrup, sugar, water, gelatin, citric acid, modified startch, natural flavours, lactic glycerin, red, yellow, and blue food colouring.

Each package contains 3 grams of protein and 26 grams of sugar.

www.darlenejonesUthor.com

Worth a 1000 words

Photo hanging in a hotel gift shop in small town Mexico. Despair seeps from the paper into your heart. I hate looking at this picture, but at the same time I'm mesmerized by it.

Tacos de camarón

Hungry? Time for tacos de camarón (served with hot sauce, or for us northerners, mild tomatito sauce) at our favorite seedy bar in Mexico. Yes, it's seedy with lots of drinking and dart games and drinking and eating and drinking ... but, we're not about to let that stop us. We take the munchkin and go early enough to beat the crowd, chat with the staff who've already placed our order--they saw us coming--and enjoy our tacos (and beer) in peace.

Tacos de camarón

Hungry? 

Time for tacos de camarón (served with hot sauce, or for us northerners, mild tomatito sauce) at our favorite seedy bar in Mexico. Yes, it's seedy with lots of drinking and dart games and drinking and eating and drinking ... but, we're not about to let that stop us. We take the munchkin and go early enough to beat the crowd, chat with the staff who've already placed our order--they saw us coming--and enjoy our tacos (and beer) in peace.

Best kids' party ever

The munchkin beating on what’s left of her Peppa Pig piñata.

The best kid’s birthday party

               The munchkin beating on what's left of her Peppa Pig  piñata. 

Happens in the street. Yes, the street. In Mexico, that is. And it’s the party our munchkin has chosen for her birthday.

Tables are set up for the cake and food and gifts. Chairs line the sidewalk and curb. The piñata is strung up over the street. Everyone comes—kids, parents, grandparents.

Chicken or pasta salad is served on tostadas, agua de jamaica (made from hibiscus petals) is the favored drink.

The kids play, everyone eats, and then it’s time to sing as the children from youngest to oldest take turns trying to break the piñata. Usually it’s up to one of the teens in the crowd to administer the final blow so the kids can scramble for the candy that tumbles out.

Group photos are taken and candles lit, Feliz Cumpleanos sung to the birthday child, and cake served.

Several hours later, replete and happy, the kids go home with their parents, toting their goodie bags.

And, as they say in Mexico

Próspero año nuevo! 

The Twelve Grapes (Sp. Las doce uvas de la suerte, “The twelve grapes of luck”) is a Spanish tradition that dates back from at least 1895, but became established in 1909. In December of that year, when vine growers popularized this custom to better sell huge amounts of grapes from an excellent harvest.

The tradition consists of eating a grape with each strike of the bell at midnight of December 31.

According to the tradition, that leads to a year of prosperity. In some areas, it is believed that the tradition wards away witches and general evil, although this “magic” is treated like an old heritage, and in modern days it’s viewed as a cultural tradition to welcome the new year.

There are two main places where people gather to take the grapes. With family after dinner, or in the main squares around the country..

Christmas far from home

                                                  Balafon

My first Christmas away from home was in Mali. My friend and I were volunteers with CUSO*. We made pie crust from buerre de karite (yes, the same karite that’s used in skin care products). We found the karite oil in a big barrel at the market, bought some and took it home not knowing what it was. We put it in the fridge and a few hours later decided, by the texture and taste, that we had a perfect shortening. We bought canned apples from China and made a pie. It was a huge success with all the Canadian CUSO volunteers. And no, we did not have a turkey.

Two years later I celebrated Christmas in Hawaii. Santa wore red shorts, red flip-flops and a perfect Santa hat to go with the long white beard that covered most of his bare chest. Pineapple and poi for dinner? No. Instead, we enjoyed a traditional turkey feast at the hotel.

A number of years later it was back to Mali and off to the village of Faladye to spend Christmas Day with our friend’s family. We took French bread and bottled water with us. Raymond’s mother butchered a chicken Christmas Eve and we gnawed on the tough old bird which was served with millet liberally mixed with sand and grit.

While most Malians are Muslim or animist, Raymond’s family is Catholic and the village boasts a large brick church. I’m not religious, but as we walked to church along with the villagers that night for midnight mass, it seemed perfectly natural to anticipate meeting Mary and Joseph around the next corner. Turning our gaze from the mud-brick walls to the star filled sky, a sense of peace washed over us, heightened no doubt by the silence of the savanna. 

The service and songs were in Bambara, the carols played on a balafon. When we joined in the “fa la la la“ chorus, the children in front of us spun around to stare, wide eyed, mouths agape. We winked and continued singing. After the service everyone lined up outside the church to shake our hands.

For the past number of years, we’ve been in Mexico for Christmas. We have had tamales and flan, both of which are delicious, but we missed the traditional dinner especially the leftovers for breakfast the next morning which is the best part of a turkey dinner so now we cook a turkey on the barbecue.  We also have a piñata on Christmas Eve for the kids and we spend part of Christmas afternoon body boarding.

All so different from the white Christmas of home in Canada, with snow, and frost and sleigh rides, and Santa’s reindeer, but all equally enjoyable.

Joyeux Noël! Felix Navidad! Merry Christmas!