SNAPSHOTS & VIDEOS

Well, verbal ones, that is. Can´t upload from here.

(But first: there are very fine waves for surfers, just not huge. You can "wear yourself out" as one guy said. Nothing for boogiers since the very first day, however. So, I swim laps.....
and Second: just after I wrote the previous entry, I saw folks with their wheelbarrows back in action AND my first burro sighting in our village.... he was from the neighboring village, however. All is not changed forever.)

1. iPOD: BROOKS & DUNN ("video")
Shoulda seen us! The village was dark and quiet the other night, but our porch was bopping. We hooked up the iPod to speakers (only loud enough for us), and just the two of us--we rocked out to the country sounds of whining guitars, close harmonies, and sappy lyrics.

2. MANDALAS ("photo")
After weeks of coloring between the lines on xeroxes of simplified mandalas that I supply, the local village kids took the chalk to the walk (meaning the ramada floor), and turned it into a full-bloom garden of colors. Hated to wash them away it was so beautiful... but they scuff, you know. And that night was Halloween, when all the village kids and a good number of parents crowd in to see the Gringa Bruja who bribes their ugly, hateful selves to leave her alone by giving them.... CHOCOLATE! Pix posted later.

3. ANCIENT MAYAN TEMPLE ("photo")
There is already of photo of this if you scroll to a previous entry-- but now it is so overgrown with large flowering vines that it looks very much like an archeological discovery. Soon to be transformed into a washroom for laundry, dishes, and bodies. Whether or not we put in a toilet is up for debate. Old hippies here. Whassamatta with a hole in the ground? Feeds that toad! Feeds them chickens! Furthermore, it´s beautiful back there in the jungle.... AND this woman right here at this keyboard doesn´t have to scrub and clean that hole out back. Now that there´s the real reason for wondering why bother to build a throne in a box.

4. DRUG DEALS GOIN´DOWN (photo)
A Facebook friend inquired if we´d seen any lately. I answered him there, but here it is again... Our dear friends who live right at the beach DID see (early dawn) a heavily laden and powerful-motored speedboat slide onto the beach just as trucks arrived from the road that ends there... a quick hauling of cargo from boat to truck and zooom. Boats and trucks were gone and all was quiet. Not for long. Shortly after, whether connected or not (you can never know), a man was found hanging from a nearby bridge over the coastal highway. There was quite the swarm of armed soldiers around that site. There are regular roadblocks with armed military as we drive to Zihua and back. And it is quite usual for truckloads of black'dressed, masked, and heavily armed soldiers to patrol our beach. We wave and smile, and some return the courtesy. One guy called a couple of the armed guys over, along with a couple of bikini'clad girls, and set himself in the center. Photo shoot! Big grins on the faces of all.

5. iPOD REDUX (whatever)
So, I´ll end this whimsical entry with another iPod story, kinda like bookends. Robert was in the ramada fixing up surfboards. I was on the porch with crayons and a xeroxed Tibetan mandala, very engrossed in my ouevre. On the iPod was playing "Raising Sand" (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss). Up our little hill, there comes bopping our delightful long'time pal. Omar -- with white wires dangling from his ears. Well, that was no surprise, since we "paid" him for work done with an iPod. What made it fun, is that he bopped over to our iPod, unplugged our sappy sweet music (to Mexican ears for sure, though this longtime folkie loves it) and plugged in HIS iPod. Man, he had on the coolest, most involving, rhythmical, great.... African music!

Sayonara.