The Living Dead and Cracker Jax

This blog was written Nov. 1…or 2….well a few days ago.
Yesterday (or today) was (or is) dia de muertos…or something like that. I’m not quite sure if that’s right, but in any case it’s the day of the dead. To celebrate people make certain foods, apparently tamales and mole. I only say that because I keep getting fed tamales and mole. We have more tamales than you can shake a stick at, but the tamales story comes later. So, also for dia de muertos, people leave offerings of food out on a table so their dead relatives can come during the night and eat. I suggested we go house to house eating all the food. And if we’re questioned I’ll act like a ghost and say “Yo soy tu abuela y tengo hambre. Yo soy blanca porque yo soy muerte.” “I am your grandmother and I am hungry. I am white because I am dead.” Well, we didn’t go because we’ve been loaded down with tamales, as mentioned previously. Also people put a line of flower petals out their doors so the dead people know how to get it, I suppose. Some people also spend the night in the cemetery, eating food and singing and stuff. I just don’t get it. The other thing people do for the holiday is make balloons and send them off. Montse (Israel’s daughter) and I went to watch the balloons. It’s pretty impressive. I have video if you care to see. It’s impressive because they’re made with paper, and they’re huge! Some are 10-20 feet high. What I find most impressive is that they create a burner and light it on fire to make the balloon go up. The reason this is impressive to me is because the balloons are made of paper, which you probably realize is highly flammable. So they have to strategically fill the balloon with air before lighting the fire so that the balloon doesn’t go up in flames. Usually, the balloon does eventually go up in flames, you just hope you get it to lift off before it does.
Eating tamales in rural Mexico is kinda like getting Cracker Jax. You know you’re going to get a prize in the middle, but you don’t know if you want it. The other day I broke open a tamal to find a chicken toe, complete with nail, staring back at me. I put the tamal back together, wrapped it back up in the corn husk, and left it for someone else. Sometimes the things you find in your tamal aren’t nearly that interesting. But you just never know what it might be, maybe beans, maybe another kind of beans, maybe chicken, maybe a pig hoof, they keep you guessing. I’m sure it’s interesting to watch a gringa who has been faced with making a choice between 40 tamales. Choose wisely, white one, choose wisely.
There’s something exciting happening in the church, and I should send out an email update. The youth have started learning how to play instruments and lead worship. Until now, they’ve been doing cd led worship, or this one guy has been doing some old time Mexican worship on a guitar. But this past Sunday the youth led their first song. I’m so amazed by them! There are 5 youth who steadily come to youth group and church, and 4 of them know how to play instruments. The other one, the only girl, sings. Seeing them play on Sunday brought me to tears. It’s really great, I’m very proud of them. They make me miss my kids.
Tonight 1 of the ladies from Huitzilan, which is where 4 of the youth are from, came to our house while the youth were here. She brought us atole, which is a hot drink made out of rice and milk. She and Aby went and bought a cake and they threw me a little farewell party. I videoed everyone saying a few words to me, even though I didn’t always understand, it was so sweet. When Aby asked the one guy what he wanted to say to me, she said he had to say it in English, and he did a cat call whistle. You know, the one you do when someone looks good. I definitely blushed and didn’t look up from the cake I was cutting.
I don’t like that bugs bite, not at all. But I think there are especially mean bugs that bite you in the worst places. I thought the bottom of the foot was one of worst places to get bitten, but now I’m thinking the palm of the hand is worse. Well, at least with the chilly weather, the bugs aren’t as bad as they were a few weeks ago.
I’m trying to waste time while my laptop charges. There are only certain places in the house where I can charge it, and I was trying to charge it earlier in the kitchen but it got in the way of cake and atole. Now I want to go to bed, but I don’t want to go upstairs until it’s charged. Well, I’m out of things to write about for now so I’m going to play a game.