Sheep and Snowmen

Driving south up the mountain we pass many businesses on the main busy road. There are dozens of people with colored balloons in hand to sell. Each person was selling the same colored balloons. The balloons read: Reyes Magos and have a silhouette picture of the three wisemen on their camels. Tomorrow is the day of the magi kings. It's to remember the kings bringing Jesus their gifts. So the children write what gift they'd like on a little card and send up the balloon to heaven. The next morning (*Spoiler alert) the parents buy the gift and write a letter as if they are the kings who secretly brought the gifts in the night. Reaching higher into the gloomy clouds we turned right up the street to look down into the smoggy city that is also today filled with low lying fog. The houses we pass are poor, cinder block houses without paint. There are stray dogs walking along side our slow moving car. There are tarp restaurants selling tacos of different animals. One of them had a rams head stuffed and sitting next to the open fire stove they've created. Graffiti covered walls hugged the road where steep hills cascaded down next to us. One of the tarp stands was selling Labrador puppies. We curved back to the left and passed some small stores of pottery. There are larger plots of land up here and we passed at least three outdoor paint ball courses. How fun! Just further down the road we passed our first field of ovejas (sheep). The mountains continued high above these flat lands. They were misty blue and foggy. Sally is sitting in font of me in the car, donning her sheep embroidered sweater she got from her friend. She is excited to get up to the farm we are visiting. She doesn't care much about the sheep, but the horses. She is remembering the horse that she rode a lot in Maryland at the brook side stables near our. House. His name was Teddy. He was a short, brown pony. He had a T shaved into his hip. She rode him first and always loved him most.

We waited for an escort to come help us find the way and when he came we followed him into a hidden driveway and did a couple of switchbacks until we came to another driveway with a greenish iron gateway. The driveway was like a 90 degree incline. I assumed our SUV would just tip backwards and roll back down. But no, we didn't. The driveway was made from cobblestones, much like the streets of Coyoacan where we live. We arrived at a green lawn on top of a bluff over looking a forest of pine trees with cobblestones bouncing the vehicle up and down as we parked in the yard. There was a cobblestone cabin with smoke rising from the chimney. We entered through a glass entryway with light-green rot iron trimming leading to the aged wooden front door. We entered into a world of antique bookshelves, stoves, trinkets and taxidermy. The fire was blazing in the corner fireplace to the left and we were quickly drawn to it to escape the misty cool air outside. Sally went outside right away to the playground next to the cabin. We diverted her to the stable to see the Horses. Beautiful horses were quietly in their stalls, the sheep however, were anything but quiet. They had their brand new babies wobbling next to them and they weren't about to have onlookers. They baah'd angerly at us as their babies attempted to feed. The mamas wouldn't sit still because we were there. The mothers had black faces, feet and tails and their wool was white. The babies were all black and like I said, wobbly. There were two stalls of sheep and Sally did like them until she saw a picture I took of the mama and it had a reflection of blue eyes. She wrote them off saying they weren't real sheep because sheep have black eyes and that wasn't a real sheep. Ha! The stable was open on both ends. We walked past the animals and came out on the other end to a cobblestone patio overlooking a grassy hill sinking into a sea of pine trees. There was a run down smaller shed on the tree line. The sidewalks were wet from the misty air or a previous rain. After a few minutes a light rain started and we filed indoors to the fire.

Soup was then served to the children as they sat around a rectangle table in the orange room with antique decor on the walls and a wagon wheel for a window. After the kids were fed the adults sat down around a series of tables placed longways taking up the living room, dining room and kitchen. We were served the same soup; red tomato base broth with broken spaghetti noodles. I added cream and chicharon to mine. Chicharon is fried pig skin. When it is fried it puffs up like a chip. You break off what you want and eat it or put it in the soup. It tastes like crunchy, salty ham. Who'd a thunk? Second course was rice with corn, guacamole, cactus and onion salad and Mole. Mole is a brown cocoa based sauce, blended with poblano peppers and almonds. Normally it is placed over a chicken breast or a cut of meat but this one had shredded chicken in it. It is served with tortillas of course and today we also had fresh baked french bread. Near the end of our lunch or rather after 'comida' (food that is served later than lunch is simply called comida or 'food'. It doesn't have a reference) we heard the rain really coming down outside. Veronica told me to come quick, it was hailing. It actually had been for quite some time because the grass and the field had turned white from it all. We took the kids outside after the rain and hail stopped. It had collected on some tents that were set up in the yard and on a tarp that was set out. The children collected it and brought it to me and Sally. We started some tiny snowmen and then some of the other kids made small heads. We used sticks for arms and nose and then someone came out with bottle caps for eyes. You have to make due in the mountains when they aren't used to making snowmen with button eyes and carrots for noses. :) We laughed a lot and I loved getting to see Sally play in the 'snow'. Even if it was just mushy hail.

Our toes and shoes were wet. We cuddled back in around the fire place along with 25 other cold people in the house and laughed as a child blew out his candles on his birthday cake. One of the uncles who'd had too much tequila smashed his face in a he went to take a bite out of the cake. Which is custom around here. After they sing you your birthday song, you blow out your candle and then take a bite from the side of the cake. He did and then when they coaxed him to take another, the uncle behind him just pushed his head and WHAM! right up his nose. The poor birthday boy, 5 years old. lol. We drank hot guava and cinnamon mild and ate cake in the living room of the cabin. The family is also Arabic from Lebanon and they drank Arabic coffee and smoked their cigarettes in front of the fireplace. We left around dusk because it cools down very fast in the night hours. Coming back through the small town we could see down in the valley the lights of Mexico City twinkling. In the night it almost looks magical, the lights rising up the side of the next mountain with the city going on and on for miles. So pretty. How lucky am I, how lucky am I?