rain

It's raining today. Not much, but just enough to make the day seem a bit more relaxed and slower. There aren't many people on the streets, so the town seems quiet.

Family Trees

Ok, so I guess I realized that most of you out there don't know who all the family members are. So I've created a short list of Who's Who here in Tuxpan. The numbers after names are ages. Some are approximate.

Cynthia's Family
Cynthia (30) - Luis' youngest sister
Sergio (31) - her husband
Sergiolito (4) - their son
Maribel (2) - their daughter

Pati's Family
Pati (40?) - Luis' sister
Raymundo (?) - her husband
Dorian (19) - their oldest son
Mayra (17) - their daughter
Oscar (16) - their youngest son

Laura's Family
Laura (44) - Luis' sister
Luis (44?) - her husband
Analaura (16) - their oldest daughter
Luisito (4) - their son
Abril (20 months)- their youngest daughter


Then there are the other family members who don't really play a part in my daily life:
Jorge (54?) - the oldest of the siblings, he lives in Sacramento, California.
Antonio (52?) - the second oldest, he lives in Colima City, Colima, Mexico. We see him from time to time, but he is a very needy guy, and wants everyone else to bail him out of situations he gets himself into. So time with him is limited.
Yola (48?) - the third oldest. She lives in Ciudad Guzman, and we've seen her two or three times. She and Luis had a strained relationship at one point, so I don't know much about her. She is Felipe's mom.
Fidel (38) - This is the only sibling I haven't met. He lives in Michaocan, which is the state to the south of Jalisco. He and Luis have had a very stressed relationship for years. But yesterday he came to the bar and apparently he and Luis have buried the hatchet.

Chayacate dancers

Chayacate dancers come around once a year, on January 20th to be exact. These are traditional dances done by men, women and children in the town of Tuxpan. There are actually two types - chayacate and another type - but obviously I've forgotten the second name and Luis isn't here to tell me what their name is. I'll let you know when I find out. Anyway, the chayacates have face masks with long "hair" attached, and they carry maracas. The other group is more colorful and they carry rattles. The dances start in the town square at the main church. The dancers dance into the square, then into the church. They take their respective saints out of the church and then dance themselves all over the town to the different shrines set up for each saint. When they get to their shrine, they dance for a long time and place their saint on the shrine. Then they move on to the next shrine. It's a day-long event and I'm sure the dancers get very worn out. I hit visual overload by the end of the day, which is why this entry is a bit dry in my descriptions. I need time away from the photos to get some perspective and verbal inspiration. In the meantime, I'll let the photos speak for themselves. The kids in the photos, btw, are baby Sergio (Cynthia's son) and baby Luis (Laura's son).

The body reacts, part 2

My cousin Jason warned me about this. Before I came down here he sent me an email suggesting that I take care with my health, especially for the first few months I was down here. Sure, sure, I thought, no problem. I'm fairly healthy and have always had a pretty solid constitution. Ha. Ha. Ha. I should have listened to him.

First I got the cold from hell. Apparently I wasn't the only one who got it as Dorian, Mayra, Ana, and Cynthia also got hit with it. It took about 2.5 weeks to go away. Poor Mom, she also caught it when she came down here for Christmas. But a thorough round of whatever drugs I could purchase over the counter, plus an injection of some sort of medicine, plus 4 doses of a very strong antibiotic I had left over from my trip to India four years ago (I got pretty desperate to get rid of this thing) finally killed it.

Less than a week later my intestines were attacked by something that made them sound like a washing machine on the "agitate" cycle, complete with regular "rinse" cycles where my intestines voided themselves in liquid form. Four days of nothing solid coming out of me. Five different types of medicine. Four more days with nothing coming out of me at all. Dehydration. Then finally, a full week after this all started, I returned to normal. When I was in India I had a short bout of diarhea. One pill of Immodium AD and it was gone. That was child's play compared to this. Three Immodium AD did nothing. Whatever the hell I ate, I hope to never be offered it again.

Off to the races

So we’re off to some bike gathering in Guadalajara today. I’m still shitting out liquid, but as long as I don’t have anything in my system I’m ok. Luis is off getting the motorcycle washed right now. Probably talking to a half dozen people along the way. I’m here watching Madagascar in Spanish, feeling sleepy, and waiting for the hot water to get hot so I can take a shower. I stink in a big way from all the sweating I’ve been doing at night. And probably from being sick like this in general.

Luis is concerned about me taking a motorcycle ride in this condition. But I feel a whole lot better today than I have in a while. Whatever has attacked my system has moved slowly south, like a slow moving storm front, and now feels like it is in the lowest depths of my bowels, ready to leave me alone soon.

This biker gathering should be interesting. I've never been to one in the States, so I'll have nothing to compare it to here. I'm not sure if I'll be the only female in the group, so that might be interesting as well. At least it is getting me out of the house.

The body reacts

I have shit out about all of the solid matter that exists in my body today. Something I ate yesterday has attacked my intestines, rendering them unable to solidly digest anything. The torta from dinner last night, the fruit and yogurt snack right before bedtime, the carrot, apple and chamomile tea I had for breakfast. It all came out as liquid. Plus chunks. Now I am hungry but refuse to try to eat. Luckily I am not so hungry as to drop my blood sugar. A room temperature popsicle I sucked down half an hour ago probably helps. We’ll see how it voids itself from my system.