A successful settling-in (Angangueo and Ocampo, Mexico)

I'm sitting on the floor of the kitchen with my legs sticking out the back door onto the spiral staircase that leads into our yard. Nina the Lopsided Kitten (she has hurt her left hind leg twice already in her five months of life, so it sticks out when she sits down, and she is slightly cross-eyed -- but don't be deceived! she is a fierce huntress, the bane of all insects in the Diaz Villanueva-Toro Martinez household) is sunning herself lopsidedly on the third step down, and a black and white sheep is staring at me from the neighbor's yard. Hello, sheep. The sky is blue, and the hills beyond the little river that runs behind the back yard are covered with patches of magenta and orange-yellow flowers, pine trees, and other green beings that are just thrilled to be living in this most hydrated part of the state of Michoacan. Behind me I can hear cars and vans and buses and trucks whizzing (or crawling, if it is a truck) along the road connecting Angangueo and Ocampo; soon I will be in one of the buses on my way to Ocampo to give an English lesson to Karina, whom I met last week with her cousin Anaisa and who took me on a ride in her dugout canoe in the Laguna Verde. We did not drown -- one of my successes du jour that day. My success du jour today might be forcing some unwilling victim to draw his or her conception of time in my little blue notebook.

Now that I am settled in, I'm starting to suffer from Watson project anxiety. "Am I doing this right?!" I think to myself in the wee hours of the night, sweating, eyes rolling wildly, gripping the sheets in my white-knuckled fists and wringing them like wet towels. That's a lie. But I am a bit worried, because, to my dismay and great amusement, nobody with whom I have spoken about the butterflies thinks about them! That is, almost everyone I have asked about them says something along the lines of: "Oh, the butterflies. Yeah, they come every year. You'll see them in your yard. No, I've never been to the reserves. It's only the tourists who do that. Stories or legends? I don't think there are any. They're nothing special to me; I grew up with them." One man has told me a sketch of a story that has to do with the butterflies -- they are drawn to the gold in the hills near Angangueo, which were mined intensively until the early 20th century -- but I have yet to hear about the souls of orange-and-black-clad warriors returning for the Day of the Dead or harvest time markers I read about online. The most important things that the butterflies bring with them are not dead souls but living ones -- tourists like yours truly. Several people have told me that, in the past ten years, more tourists have been coming than used to, and the towns' economies clearly depend on the tourist dollar, which rolls in between November and March each year. There are empty hotels waiting to be filled, monarch butterflies painted on many public walls, and the names of businesses in Angangueo, the more touristy of the two towns, are even decorated with a common butterfly motif. This is also interesting, and I hope to meet more people who were around before the reserves were reserves and the tourists came in flocks. Watson project anxiety, begone! (Right?)

I am living, as I wrote before, with Adriana, whom I like more each day (and I liked her to begin with, so this is a great thing!). We cook and eat together, and often have people over for late lunch or dinner -- I am still getting used to socializing every waking moment of the day and night, which is the norm here. Actually, I crack sometimes and retreat to the bedroom or backyard staircase to look at the sky, which is always doing something exciting. Among the things we have cooked (to say "we" is somewhat dishonest -- I generally chop and follow the directions that Adriana, Master Chef, gives me) are: tamales, pozole, pork with pumpkin (this was all her), quesadillas, soup, and . . . and . . . shoot. So many more delicious glutton-satisfying dishes. And I am such a glutton. We eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, including some that I had never seen before, like sapotes, which look like shiny deflated green rubber balls (i.e. unappetizing) but taste like capuccino when blended with milk. That, at least, is my opinion. 10/10 stars. I plan to weigh at least ten more pounds when I leave Mexico than I did when I arrived.

When we're not cooking or eating, we are usually doing things around the house. I'm acquiring practical skills, like learning how to make a water pump start, and washing the water tanks, and setting up a water boiler (I didn't set it up! I watched and cringed when Jacob, who did set it up, was fiddling with the gas tank; tanks make me think pressure makes me think explosion, and loud noises are one of my weak points -- take note, enemies). A lot of plumbing knowledge, it would seem. We have set up clothes lines in the backyard, and picked up more garbage, and will soon plant more green beings that will be just thrilled to be living in this most hydrated part of the state of Michoacan. The house is very homey now, thanks in large part to Adriana, who is a stickler for detail and whose adoring friends -- the many young men I listed in the last post -- happen to be handymen who all want to contribute to the effort by fixing doors that don't close properly or awkwardly placed electrical cords.

We have also gone on excursions! Last last Saturday, Adriana, Edwin, Ricardo, Jacob and I drove four hours to Uruapan for a wedding. Luis, another teacher who lives in the hotel where Adriana and Edwin used to live and I almost lived, was married for the second time, a Christian-style ceremony which, to our disappointment, lacked happy music and dance (also funny was toasting with grape juice instead of wine). It was lovely to see proud families and little kiddies throwing rose petals on the ground before the bride, though -- especially lucky for me because I had met Luis exactly once before attending this most important and holy event in his life. Adriana, Edwin and I have also gone to Zitacuaro several times. Zitacuaro is the city closest to Ocampo, and where we do our major shopping in a giant grocery store and in the markets. This past Saturday we stayed until the early evening to eat at the booths along the Calle del Hambre, inaptly named because it is really the Calle de la Gula -- we booth-hopped and stuffed ourselves until another bite would have meant a sudden and tragic explosion. I also went to Zitacuaro's enormous Thursday tianguis, the weekly market, and finally bought clothes for cold weather. Bring it on, Father Winter. Irene the Finally Appropriately Clad can withstand your frosty mornings and snows-upon-the-mountain. (Actually, since I bought the sweaters and coat it has been gloriously sunny and warm, and I am sunburnt. Go figure.)

I have to stop writing now to stand outside and wait for the next bus to Ocampo, but there is much more that I want to mention! I didn't write about how "punctual" here means showing up, and "very punctual" means showing up within an hour of the prearranged time, and I haven't described the people I see most often, and I haven't raved about the backyard fauna, which includes cows and sheep and lizards and butterflies and all sorts of interesting insects and spiders and caterpillars and worms and grubs, and I haven't said anything about Angangueo, which I finally explored thoroughly. It will have to be next time if I want to be "very punctual" -- and I do, because that part of my upbringing is too deeply ingrained for a few weeks in Mexico to vanquish it. I hope that somebody draws in my little blue notebook today! Maybe Karina will do it in exchange for the English lesson.