Balls

I continue to have nightmares nightly: rafting down lethal rapids, daughter on drugs and getting death threats… that old chestnut. Nearly every night in my dreams I call Dad back from the dead for help, but in his state he’s practically useless. Still, it’s good to talk to him and each time I dread having to say goodbye to him yet again. And I’ve been having the recurrent dream about returning to our farm in West Virginia to find it deforested and strip-mined and housing-developed, and I can’t find my way home to the places I love there because they no longer exist.

I still don’t much like my room here, stuffed as it is into a dark corner of the house without natural light and with ample kitchen noise. It’s not too bad sharing a bathroom except that the guy I share with leaves his hair on the soap. I guess that explains the hair-loss shampoo in the shower. Last night I crushed, in bare feet, what I thought was a large cockroach. In light of day, I saw it was a cricket. In dark of night these evening, I saw a real cockroach, which swooped from on high to land on my shoulder: my guardian cockroach. I didn’t treat it thus, however. With a grand sweep of my palm all 1.5-inches-long of it went flying across the courtyard.

Despite these things, I’ve loved being here, and am very sad to be leaving Oaxaca and the lovely family of Magdalena tomorrow. I’m enamored of the dignified Abuelita.

Enrique, who I think has a crush on Sarah, came by to take us on the town one last time.

He is a remarkable and intriguing guy of whom I’ve become very fond. Same with my teacher, Araceli. Our plan for tonight was to wander a bit and then go to her house for hot chocolate. First we had to buy the hot chocolate, going through the mercado on the way for pan dulce. High up on the walls were six-foot-high Coke bottles of a Mexican persuasion.

From the market one could probably find the way to the chocolate store with eyes closed. What a scent.

We each bought a half kilo of their just-ground semi-sweet variety. From the moment they scoop the soft blobs into a plastic bag, you have about an hour to get the stuff home and moulded into the shape you want before it hardens. We raced to Araceli’s, only to find a very upset Logan who informed us she’d just cut her finger badly and was at the hospital. Still following Enrique like little ducklings, we tried to find her, without success.

Back at Magda’s, we made balls (and obscene jokes). Later got a call from Aracelli that she’s okay, except for a few stitches.