la familia (12-22/26)

To all my friends, planning to spend whatever holidays we spend with whoever we call family, I wish much joy and peace. Particularly to those who, like me, spend these days among family of heart and of choice. 

Today I finally made it out to the village of my adopted family, Mazatepec Veracruz.  Where, just as hoped, I was welcomed back as if no time had passed. Except it has: in place of the cute baby girl I met two and a half years ago, I now have for a niece one of the loveliest three-year-olds I have ever met, with huge dark eyes and a way with animals. And I guess I should have expected that my nephew who, last time, was a fun and slightly silly seven-year-old, is now a scary-smart nine-year old with whom I can barely keep up with in conversation. I explained to him that I might have to ask him to slow down, as sometimes my understanding of Spanish (especially Veracruzano Spanish) doesn´t keep pace. He thought a minute, then asked me to repeat everything I had just said, in English. He listened to me, thought about it. "Yeah, I didn`t understand anything you just said either...alright." Then he spent the next hour teaching me to play marbles. Okay. I`ll start wherever I can. With the language I lack, and with all the memories of family and kindness I missed, my whole life. If they`ll let me -- and they will -- I`ll take my place here among the children, and let them teach me both.

This trip, as with the last, I carried a third suitcase 1,500 miles -- in addition to my own two backpacks -- full of gifts for the family.  Since they live even more simply and carefully than I do (a lot more simply, really), they're fine with used clothing and shoes.  Though I look for the best of Empire's leftovers to share with them:  Guess jeans, Adidas tennies, Gap shirts. Books for my niece and nephew from a last-minute used-book fair in the Capital.  My Christmas gifts were:  a paleta (lollipop) and a drawing from my nephew. A most amazing dinner of tamales de frijol, spicy red-chile-roasted chicken, tortillas handmade on a comal (the small wood-fired stove everyone uses in the village), and a hot drink made of apple, plum, and guayaba.  And the extravagant privilege of sitting on the floor in my pajamas first thing in the morning, surrounded by sweet family exclaiming over their gifts, all of us laughing and full of gratitude.  Really, I'm not sure if I remember doing that presents-in-pajamas thing even as a kid.  The family I grew up with was more formal than that, more attached to appearances.  The family in Veracruz lives without indoor plumbing.  Baths happen with a bucket of water in the kitchen.  The tin roof leaks when it rains.  I wouldn't say they stand on ceremony.  And I wouldn't call them poor, either, since they live with such awareness and generosity.

In the late afternoon we went back to mi hermana's mother's house, for leftover tamales.  Then she and I walked up the mountain, on the quiet road that climbs to the next town.  We crossed a tiny stream and a cow pasture, and hiked up into the cloud forest. Out of reach of the noise, of the people, of everything, we sat under mossy trees populated with ferns, orchids and bromeliads, watching fog roll up the ridge until darkness turned green magic into shadow, and dry corn fields, barking dogs and crowing roosters showed us where home was again.