Yo Waddup 2020 ✌

29-December-2019, 7:04 PM CDT, My place in Tepexi

Well, last week I broke a streak of four straight weeks posting here on Poco a Poco. I forget what my excuse was for not writing last week, probably something lame like I was tired and didn't feel like it, lame but true. Anyway, here we are in the dregs of 2019, ready to leave the old year behind and embrace the new. Twenty-nineteen has been an amazing year, maybe the best yet for me, and my hope for all is that the next year is always better than the last. I'll be ringing in 2020 with fellow volunteers in Mexico City. I can't wait welcome the new year with dear friends who were perfect strangers half a year ago.

So what's been going down in Tepexi, you ask? Well, since my last report, school's let out, and I've found myself with not much to do and all day to do it. I told a dear friend recently that I need something, namely a job, to motivate me. Without the responsibility implicated by work, I stay up late, sleep in later, and play too much MtG Arena (WryDenizen if you ever wanna tap 😉). But does my life becomes stagnant without work unavoidably or because I allow it to? Good question. A philosophical one. How much control do we really have over our lives? Answers vary from anywhere between 0.1% and 99.9%, and I land somewhere in the middle (surprise surprise). It's a vain musing anyway because once classes start I'll wish for a break, so 🤷 , Ka is a wheel afterall.

Ok, tuvimos filosofia suficiente, entonces es la hora para cosas más concretas. My Spanish is coming along great. I recently fell victim to Duolingo's 60% off campaign for yearly subscriptions. Its free system stifles your progress by not allowing you to advance--at a commensurate pace--without earning gems, and even those you earn at a pitifully slow rate. The company's marketing/pricing teams finally got me because I want to advance more quickly. As I discovered in my departmental paper for my master's at Bloom, the use of mobile technology, research largely suggests, aids in the process of second language acquisition. Gosh, I don't miss that boring writing.

And here we are at the start of the fourth paragraph with next to zero mention of what's been happening here in Mexico. That doesn't surprise you, does it? Stream of consciousness is a great way to write--VA Woolf eat your heart out. Just let me check my notes...ah yes, aguinaldos, there's a good place to start. Aguinaldos are little bags filled with sweets handed out to kids old and young during posadas. Ok, well, what's a posada? Glad you asked. In my experience, posadas are events hosted by Mexican Catholics where community members are invited to their homes or capillas (churches) to eat tamales and drink ponche. Well, what's tamal-- Stop. Haven't you noticed I've linked them? I'm writing in a stream of consciousness style, not unconsciousness. ...Good one. Thank you. So at the posadas and masses around Christmas, it's common for one group of people to approach the home/church yielding candles and singing songs. When they arrive at the front door another customary song is sung in call and response style. I've deduced that the people on the outside play Mary and Joseph, while the people on the inside play the innkeepers. After a period on interplay, the doors open and people with little baby Jesus dolls are let in. Then the food and drink are served before we hang up the...

Piñatas! Before I share how the kids act when the piñatas go up, I'll tell you how I acted. Last night I went to a posada with my landlord and his family, i.e. my second Mexican family. After hanging back and watching while many others beat the paper mache containers of madness-inducing sweetness, I was offered a turn. I was blindfolded, but not nearly well enough. I couldn't see straight ahead, but I could see just fine through a thick line below my standard line of vision.

Should I tell them I can see and have them readjust it?

Nah hahaha.

What would you have done?

So I was unleashed as no other adults were, completely oriented from not being spun and able to see. The piñata never had a chance. Not to sound like a tool, but I've been working out, and I always make the most of chance to vent, so I was feeling strong. Appearing to others as one looking straight into the starry Mexican sky, I tracked the flopping target like a sweet-seeking missile. I connected once, full-on, then tried to play it off by swinging aimlessly for a while. I did a poor job because I really wanted to smash that thing so couldn't hide the fact that I could see. I landed two more good whacks before catching it square in its hard paper heart on its way up to safety. I saw through the transparent bufanda its guts splay in all directions and a horde of children scramble upon  the candy entrails like zombies on a fresh corpse. Friendships fray when the piñata goes up and dissolve altogether when its sweet innards trickle to the ground, its body a mangled and defeated form of its former beauty and splendor.

And back to the aguinaldos the ladies of the Aranguthy family and I started making them at, say, 9 PM, and stayed up till 11:30 finishing them. Tia Male told me a bunch of times to go to bed, but I was resolved, "We started this together, we're going to end it together." I stapled so many plastic bags of candy, around four hundred I guess. I was truly drained and sick of doing it, but as a member of the family, I saw it as my duty to see the process through to the end. And a few days later, scores of children were happy as a result. Definitely worth it.

I passed Christmas Eve with La Familia Aranguthy, and what a joy it was. They've have adopted me as one of their own, and I love them and respect them and need them as if they were blood. Take this into account when forming your opinion of Mexicans: my family here takes care of me. I came here with nobody to lean on, nobody to run to when I'm scared and lonely. And now I have the shelter of people who love me and care for me. And I'm blessed to have found another family that does the same right here where I live.

Yes, it's been one fine year and a marvelous half a year. Here's to 2020. Here's to Mexico and how they play music loud enough for the whole town to hear well past midnight 😕 But, I guess when you love somebody or something you need to take the good with the bad.  Love? What do you know about love?  You've been relatively quiet this whole time, but you had to make an appearance here before the end, didn't you? Well, for your information, I'm learning a lot about love here. I think I'm learning how to love the right way. Woah. Pretty personal, eh? Yeah, you're right. That's enough mezcal for one night.

Till next time, keep your eye on the prize ✌