More Mexico goodness

Hello my dear blog readers! Things have actually happened since last week. Here are some of the highlights (I really like the numbered-list format, so I’m going to employ it once again):

1. I cut hair for the first time. Angela hadn’t gotten a haircut for a year, and she asked if I would be willing to get rid of the split ends for her. I did disclose the fact that I had never previously cut hair, but she didn’t seem to mind. So on Wednesday when she and Brandon came to Santa Rosa for our weekly meeting, we set ourselves up outside with a chair and some scissors, and I went to work. I think it turned out pretty well. She has asked me to trim it a bit shorter, so I assume I didn’t commit any truly heinous errors on the first attempt.

2. Matt and I spent Thursday morning painting a house. We helped the family paint a little bit earlier in the week, and that was all the experience either of us had going into our Thursday painting extravaganza. The house in question belongs to our student Efigenia. She received the building materials and paint from a government program that provided the same to a lot of villagers, based on the quality of their current housing and the size of their families. Everyone was given two colors of paint—cream and bright pink—and required to use the pink. We showed up around 7:30am, and left five hours later, having painted the entire front of the house (see pictures below). She told us the pattern she wanted. By luck, we had already figured out how to make stars earlier in the week (I don’t know how the villagers do the whole star thing, but my way involved the sine function, Excel, and a ruler). We traced it all out, and then got to painting. She seemed really happy with the final product, which was, of course, the main goal.

3. Friday was the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). It’s traditional to visit the graves of your dead on this holiday, so we went with our family to the panteón (the closest cemetery) in the nearby town of Aldama. There’s a pretty significant contrast between the cheapest and most expensive burial options. The upper end consists of mini houses, but the range continues down to walls of boxes stacked on top of each other, or rusty crosses or plaques stuck in the ground. We visited the graves of Martina’s mother, a child of hers that died in infancy, and one of Daniel’s children that also died only a few days after being born. That afternoon, we went back to the city so we could go celebrate with the young single adults from church. Finding a costume given our available wardrobes and budgets was a little tricky. Brandon just hiked up his pants, ruined his posture, and called himself a nerd. Matt stuffed shirts into the shirt he was wearing and tied a bandana around his head to be a bodybuilder. Angela and I got some yellow electrical tape and made a sad little attempt at being bees (a pareja de abejas, for the Spanish-speaking among you). The cheapness of the costumes didn’t inhibit our enjoyment of the party, which was a really good time.

4. On Sunday, we went to an early church before heading back to Aldama for the baby baptisms of Alina and Jovani (I discovered that “Giovani” is actually spelled “Jovani”). There was a mass before the baptisms. We didn’t actually observe the baptisms, because they closed the doors to the church right after the mass ended, and we were outside. As soon as they finished, the doors were reopened and picture-taking commenced. There were quite a few relatives hanging around, plus the godparents. All four of us were lower-tier godparents of some sort or another: Matt and I were the godparents of the medallions, while Brandon and Angela were godparents of the “colored clothing” that the babies can wear before and after the actual baptism. Having additional godparents is a tradition they have out here, and has no religious significance as far as I can tell. After picture-taking ended, we all piled into trucks and headed back to Santa Rosa. Over the course of the afternoon, a surprising number of people showed up to enjoy mole, meat, and rice. Music got started later on, lasting until about 10:00. I was actually surprised (and grateful) that it ended so early.

Me giving Angela the haircut. We´re sitting outside my host family´s houses, under a mesquite tree.

Matt and me roasting s´mores, our FHE treat for the week. The family usually puts a comal over this fire every morning to cook the daily tortillas.

Before our painting adventure....

The final product.

Stacked graves at the panteon, decked out with flowers for the Día de los muertos.

Bodybuilder (culturista), bees (pareja de abejas), and a nerd (ñoño).

This is me holding baby Alina in her baptismal dress. She looked like a very fluffy cupcake.