Wednesday, October 21, 2009

FRESH SEA-BREEZE...and...

(NOTE: I have revised the previous entry rather considerably, if you care to look it over. Also, PETER! If you´re reading this, please email me personally. We have a humble request, regarding our butterfly book, on the bed in our computer room. Please bring it! It has the directions to the butterfly forest.)

FRESH SEA-BREEZE...
The other day it was more than a "sea'breeze" --yeeeha, it was what is called in Spanish, "una tormenta." Great word for a storm. We wandered casually over to the beach as the dark clouds were building and flashing, and the wind was beginning.....

...to watch the waves, and to marvel at the waves. There were waves in every direction as far as the horizon. Huge ones, with long trailing seafoam blown off the tops like the hair of a blonde in a red sportscar. So huge, you could easily see these mammoth fellows rolling along the coastline right out there on the very horizon.

Some were rolling in towards our beach --none of those were in any predictable pattern -- but those huge rollers in the distance were going "sideways" to the beach. They were rolling from east to west, as we stood there facing south. Breath'taking wildness.

And the surfers? Oh, they were out there in spades, like little ants, scrambling around trying to catch a wave. But it was like pinball. There were waves everywhere, but most waves weren´t formed right. You had simply to be lucky, and be at the right place at the right time -- with no clue where that might be -- and with a mighty blustering wind fighting your every stroke.

Meanwhile, back at the casita.... Mind you, our every day IS sweet.

The air is fragrant because October here is like spring --lush and moist, and laced with flowers everywhere. Birds and butterflies flit about. Our house is daily filled with laughter and tricksters, and warm companionship. The latest craze is jigsaw puzzles of varying difficulty, plus creating chalk designs all over the floor of our ramada (which by the way, the kids then broom-wash away without prompting, because even THAT is fun). Much of the time, we are goofing around WITH the kids...

Occasionally, we get out there in our rolling large yard and hack down a few square yards more of the humongous overhead weeds that blanket our yard in the four'month absence. Later(!!) for hauling the tonnage to a central pile for composting. Hot work, heavy work. By the way, our last visit´s compost pile is now rich dark earth. Yes!

Is Mercury going straight YET?????

I ask, because as you all recall, I was kept out of the water from my very first day--for a week --with a stub-removal of a complete toenail. The DAY I was healed up enough to return was the DAY that ROBERT got injured and is now officially "out of the water" til HE heals.

Some dumb gringo surfer kid (which is to say, it was not a deliberate attack by you-know-who) jumped on Robert´s wave, saw him already there, and bailed from his board with a dive.... and in so doing, carelessly kicked his board directly AT Robert, causing a veryvery deep vertical gash on Robert´s shin.

Robert limped home, and we gathered ourselves to go to a clinic in a nearby village where there actually IS a clinic. All the kids that were playing at our house jumped in the car for the ride. Party! Party!

The clinic room was a recently whitewashed broom closet (small, I mean), and the treatment table was my knees. Robert sat on a folding chair and draped his injured leg over my knees and that was where the doctor treated him.. He was CLEARLY very professional, very thorough, very clean, very good.... Three stitches. Five more days and then Robert can cut his own stitches and go back into the waves.

I just learned, a propos of nothing, that a mapache is a Mexican raccoon, and a tlacuache is a Mexican possum -- so it seems from descriptions/behaviors.

Most night around midnight Guillermo (our dear Mayor, and dear friend) goes with his dog Payaso (meaning Clown) and often with Omar and HIS dog -- and they start at opposite ends of Guille´s cornfield out there among the coco trees, and they beat the stalks and yell and the dogs bark and race around and just raise hell. Scaring away the mapache. Two nights ago, Payaso caught and killed one.

Our life here is such a rich mix of ancient village life patterns found throughout the world over multiples of centuries, and the jarring nearby presence of the modern one. The anthropologist in me watches quietly, and the philosopher in me muses.

Enough! Town trip. I have many errands to do.

No comments: