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Open Fire Kitchen

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The wedding was held in a tiny church behind the Flower Market. We three (2 gringos and 1 Mexican) arrived at 4pm, the supposed time of the wedding. Just one old woman in a rebozo and a young girl was there. But this is Mexico!! So we walked to the main road across from TelMex to find a bar. After two beers and some botanas later we walked back to the church…just in time!

As part of the ceremony to symbolize unity, a large loop of rosary beads called the Lazo Cord, is placed in a figure eight shape around the necks of the couple after they have exchanged their vows. The symbolism of the lasso is to show the union and protection of marriage.

Thirteen gold coins (arras), representing Christ and the 12 disciples, are given to the bride by the bridegroom, signifying he will support her. This represents the brides dowry and holds good wishes for prosperity. These coins become a part of their family heirloom.

Rigo and his family (wife and two children) and extended family are from SANTO DOMINGO TEPUXTEPEC in the mountainous Mixe region SE of Oaxaca City. The Mixe are one of the 16 indigenous groups…all with their own languages…in Oaxaca state. It is not uncommon to wait until a family has the money to actually have the marriage ceremony.

Rigo and his family live in Oaxaca City now. and takes care of our flowers and plants in our apartment courtyard as well as gardens belonging to other families. My neighbor, David, me and a Mexican friend Edgar were the only people there that were not Mixe. A DJ friend provided music on a keyboard. The Pollo Asado (chicken in guajillo chili sauce) individually cooked in tin foil, beans cooked with avocado leaves and up-to-date macaroni salad was delicious. Nothing like beans with avocado leaves cooked over an open smoky fire!

This was the loveliest and sweetest wedding in Mexico I have attended. This Mixe wedding differed from Mestizo events in that it was quiet and attended mainly by extended family. It was also different because the wedding was held in Oaxaca City where they live instead of in Santo Domingo Tepuxtepec, four hours away in the mountains, where they are from. Unfortunately my camera ran out of battery before I could get more photos of the guests.

I often encounter locals in Mexico who are quite shocked to hear that I have three sons…one in the U.S. one in Hong Kong and one in Thailand part of the year. To make it worse my husband is in Thailand also.

Why do you let them go there!? Never mind that the kids at least are 44, 42 and 37! And as if I could do anything about it anyway!

Sticking his finger out at me, one teacher implied I was a bad mother to let them go. Why not, I asked? Because it is dangerous! Never mind that the countries they are in are no more dangerous than Mexico! Never mind that kids as young as 12 crawl across the border illegally without their families. But that is survival and maybe another story. Or not.

Mexican children are expected to take care of their parents until death. This means not leaving home (or at least nearby their home) while they are alive if they have a choice. It means that Mexicans who have immigrated to the U.S. and lived there for 30 years are proud to come home as their parents age to spend their last years, months, weeks or days with them. Maybe we Americans could learn something from these people if we had more respect for our elders.

We Americans, until the recent economic downturn, usually have expected our kids to be on their own by about the age of 18…or out of college. We Americans are pragmatic. My Mexican-American friend, who was born in the U.S. but grew up with migrant parents and now lives in Mexico with her Mexican National husband responds this way when she hears Mexicans lamenting the American style of family

“If 18 years isn’t long enough to teach your children to be independent, then how long does it take?” Ha ha. That’s Patty!

I would never want my children to feel pressured by any kind of emotional blackmail. I would hate for my kids to feel a “duty” to me instead of love and interest freely given and received. I have my own life as does my husband in Thailand and we are careful not to try to live out our lives through our children….in other words…laying a trip on them. Often it is the parents who are getting their needs filled through their children.

I feel that I had a chance to live my life the way I wanted. I left home at the age of 12 because all children of isolated farm families had to go away to school if they wanted a decent education within which to prepare for university. My mother, a child of Polish immigrants and having grown up on an isolated ranch in Montana, did the same.

And it is now my children’s opportunity to answer to their heart’s desire. When I talk to young Mexicans this way I sense yearning. When I describe what my children are doing in various parts of the world they sigh. When I talked to my young female dentist about her mother who she took care of until she died, I asked if she was very sick. No, she said. She just had a problem in her head. Oh, I said…she was senile? No, no, no, she said. She was fine. She just wanted her children around her all the time so me and my three brothers would take turns visiting her each day! Oh, I said. Needy. Yes! she said. Then she sighed.

I think it’s good not to confuse geography with intimacy. It’s not the location that makes the difference. For me, it’s the frequency and quality of the communication. You can be interdependent and not living in the immediate vicinity of each other. Whether it is “fashionable” or not strikes me as an odd question. I am proud of my very close relationship with my “kids.” And thank God for video skype. I suspect they are quite happy that I am not in their hair all the time with me in Mexico. They always just rolled their eyes and did what they wanted to anyway.

Having said that, however, we are all very dependent on each other for safety and helping each other with personal needs. I have recently sent my oldest, in the US, a lengthy list of instructions…and put his name on the title of my car, and my living will, in case something happens to me here in Mexico. My Thai daughter-in-law says, “mom, I take care you!” You should have seen the look on my son’s face! hahahaha. Whatever will be will be but I know I would want to be independent as long as possible. Maybe located in a group home with a wonderful caregiver where my 94 year old mother-in-law is.

The kids left home when they went to university and afterward found their own paths in life which happened to take them away from their birth place. The oldest, unmarried, is in Las Vegas because that is where there was the greatest demand for his work at the time. Besides he hated the cold and windy and cloudy NW of the US and Chicago where he did his medical residency and likes the heat to physically train in. The middle one visited Thailand, loves the culture and the water and fell in love with a young Thai woman to whom he has been married for 9 years. She’s the daughter I never had and she’s funny and very wise. The youngest went to culinary school after university which led to working in Manhattan for eight years, Beijing for two and now Hong Kong for three. He has decided to stay in HK, has just been promoted to Executive Chef at the American Club and is quite happy to be avoiding the financial crisis in the US. It probably helps that he has a long-term relationship with Polly, his Cantonese girlfriend.

My husband is living happily within a noncompetitive culture which he is much more comfortable with. But we are tight and email and skype several times a week with each other and with our kids. I and my middle one were in Las Vegas together with my oldest one who lives there over Christmas 2011. And I travel to Asia for several months every couple years to see the two of them there…and my husband as well. Now we are looking for a location where we can all meet together for a couple weeks this winter.

I suppose living internationally came naturally to my family because they were raised within an extended Mexican family that I had lived with in high school. Then I was a volunteer director of a foreign student exchange program while they were in high school and they were exposed to students of many cultures when I would often host parties for them in our home. And I had a disabled Mexican girl for six months and a boy from Brazil as exchange students for a year in our home. And they all separately often traveled internationally before settling into their jobs.

Truthfully, I am so happy that they are all healthily capable of living independently…finding adventure and new horizons.

A friend in a Couchsurfing forum observed that when he first moved to Malta he would

…try jokes, wry observations, and other kinds of humor I was used to back in New Hampshire and Boston. I’d usually receive blank stares, nasty looks, and be ignored. I stopped the jokes, quickly.

Slagging in the Med might result in your new car being scratched by a key or maybe even a more severe, dramatic action. Losing face is a major traumatic experience in the Med.

——
I think gender plays a big part too. Women are more geared to sympathy-giving however sincere it may or may not be. And there may be other more arcane reasons too.

I think razzing/slagging is more a male thing…a safe way of bonding.

I grew up hearing my father razz his friends and being razzed by them. Then I lived in a house for years with a male spouse and 3 male off-spring and their friends. I was the in-house “straight man.” I soon learned that it was much more fun to join them than to go off sulking…thinking they were making fun of me. And to give it out as good as I got it. A bit of a confession here: Fortunately or unfortunately it has become second nature for me but usually people don’t expect it coming from a woman. So generally I prefer being around men who don’t take everything so deadly serious.

But this only works within cultures, as you say, where it is known and understood what is going on. And it can be absolutely hilarious. To this day I love being around my kids and their friends and listening to the repartee. “Intelligence” may play a part in how quickly a person can pick up on it and think of a “comeback though.

Outside of a culture that does this, though, it can be very dangerous. I had to laugh at my friend’s description of men in Malta!

My husband has a very dry sense of humor and he could say the most outrageous things possible with a totally straight face when we were traveling together. Getting enjoyment, of course, out of watching a shocked face of the person who doesn’t get it and takes him literally. Many times I have wanted to crawl under a chair.

This is most common in Asia. It got so tiring of having to take care to “save face.” Which is why I am so simpatico with Mexico and most Latino cultures that place a great value on humility. They can laugh easily at themselves and they are delighted when you tease them and they can tease back. The countries we were in in East Africa were great fun in this regard too. And India was the best of all! Indians can be really funny and they were great fun! Of course these are all generalities.

In the Couchsurfing International Politics group right now we are seeing a lot of sparring between an ardent edgy Iranian female feminist and an irascible male New Yorker neither of whom “get” the other’s sense of humor. Of course the start of it was a self-proclaimed satirical post which bombed because no one there really knew her and took it literally.

But humor is a great way of getting under the skin of another culture…if you survive to tell about it! Ha!

Why have I spent the last three visits in the States during the winter, I ask myself. Well, spending time with at least two of my off-spring during Christmas has a lot to do with it. But perhaps it is my need and not theirs.

After a few weeks in Salem Oregon with my middle son and 10 days in Las Vegas with my oldest son, I’m leaving today to go back to Salem for another 10 days before returning to Oaxaca and the sun!! And no more doctor check-ups to get some return on my medicare payments! Whoopie! But am happy to say that it looks like I probably won’t die anytime soon!

I miss my tribe of young friends in Oaxaca. I will be happy to see them again.

I was invited to a wonderful Thanksgiving potluck…turkey, trimmings and all. Far more than any of us could eat in a week of course. Most of these young people were volunteers for En Via…a local micro-finance project. Some were former couchsurfers who had stayed with me. And some I met through the others. Great bunch of younguns! And I am grateful they included a 67 year old lady! ha!

Meltdown: The Men Who Crashed The World

This is a 4 part documentary of the worldwide financial crisis and the inside story that will keep you on the edge of your seat. After watching part 1 click under Meltdown: (part 2) A Global Financial Tsunami, (part 3) Paying The Price and (part 4) After The Fall.

The men who crashed the world – Meltdown – Al Jazeera English.

And if that is not enough there is the earlier film called “Inside Job.”

In short, a comment on Facebook: America’s wealthiest one percent owns 40% of the country’s total wealth. (The bottom 80% owns just 7% — no typo) — America’s wealthiest one percent owns 51% of all of the country’s stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. (The bottom 50% owns just one-half of one percent.) — America’s wealthiest one percent takes in 24% of all the income generated each year. — Between 1923 and 1929, the concentration of wealth at the top of the country’s economic ladder was at the highest point in US history. Then came the Crash and the Depression. For decades afterward, the middle class was dealt into the game at a much greater level. As recently as 1976, America’s wealthiest one percent took in only 9% of the country’s income (again, the current figure is 24%). Time Magazine, hardly an outfit full of liberal kooks, says that the concentration of wealth has again reached 1929 levels. Something is wrong here. To quote a great man: “But if a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists. We are coming to ask America to be true to the huge promissory note that it signed years ago. And we are coming to engage in dramatic nonviolent action, to call attention to the gulf between promise and fulfillment; to make the invisible visible.”

In response we now have Occupy Wall Street sit-ins all over the U.S. and the world by young people who cannot find jobs in their chosen fields and, in the U.S., are saddled with education loans up the ying yang that they cannot repay. Jobs have been lost. Homes lost.

Statement published by Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Together

I have been glued to the Occupy Wall Street Livestreams worldwide where I am watching “a learning tribe that is trying to BE what it wants the world to grow into.”

What you don’t see going on in the occupations and is so difficult to communicate to the media, mainly because they don’t get it, is the TRANSFORMATION that is going on in the working groups and in the General Assemblies and in the personal interactions. It looks from the outside so diffuse because each individual is connecting into it from where they are personally in their growth and circumstances.

Comment I saw this morning to a controversial CNN YouTube video: F**k the media. Each and every one of them. They’re out there with one objective and that’s to create division between us. Everyone PLEASE stop with this Hippie, Teabagger, Republican, Democrat, Conservative, Liberal name calling classification bullshit! Don’t you fucking get it? None of it matters! All that those monickers do is provide ammo to the shit starters. Were all are in the same boat on this one and we all need to stick together as AMERICANS if were going to get anything done.” Right on! ”

A friend who is participating in Occupy Seattle says: I am trusting the nonviolence to win out.

It’s a process. Not a linear one…but an organic one. They don’t know yet how the movement will change anything. But they for sure know that nothing will change without a change of consciousness of each individual. IMO it will change when there is a critical mass of people that have changed. One by one. Each in his/her own way.

I have been hanging out with a group of young current and former Couchsurfers and volunteers here in Oaxaca (when I am not glued to the Livestreams) who are participating in the same process. Occupy Wall Street is just one manifestation of where these young folks, world-wide, are taking us. With their clear-eyed insight they are edging me out of my old paradigm…out of old categories. We spent all day saturday at a sustainability fair with representatives from 80 communities all over Mexico.

What amazes me the most is the lack of cynicism and the hope and trust they have. They are losing hope of being able to pursue their careers they studied for, so they are looking for other ways to plug into the transformative process. The exchange with them is exhilarating…and yes…they are changing me too.

Some of these young people have just come off a year traveling to 4 countries to live in and study local sustainable projects in India, Tanzania, New Zealand and now Oaxaca. They underwent life-changing experiences (and in one case a near breakdown) as they came to understand that you cannot go into a country to “show them how to do it.” That old liberal do-good paradigm is dying.

But you can empower local people in their own efforts and learn from them new ways like the one in indigenous communities here in Oaxaca called “Uses Y Costumbres” which is a consensus process they use to govern themselves and the Zapatista movement in Chiapas.

The director of the year-long program is here in Oaxaca. Here is an interview with him. He turns Paulo Friere’s educational pedagogy, that has become orthodox in US educational reform movements since the 70′s, on it’s head.

A very worthwhile film to understand why the men who crashed the world did what they did and the change needed to prevent it from happening again.

A high school and college friend on Facebook recently told me I have too much time on my hands! hahahahahaha. Can’t think of a better way to spend my retirement than encouraging and affirming all these young people!

This comunique will not make much sense without the back story but it will give you a taste of the flavor of the struggle in the indigenous pueblos for autonomy that was promised by the Mexican government in 1945 and the indigenous resistance against the effort of the PRI Party, in control for over 75 years in Mexico, to take over their land…rich in precious metals and minerals. This is not even to mention the resistance against foreign mining companies who suck up precious water to take the gold…lining pockets of government bureaucrats while giving the people pennies on the dollar for the use of their land.

Letter to an authoritarian government. Communiqué from VOCAL
Published: AUGUST 20, 2011
To: Mr. Marco Tulio Lopez Escamilla, Minister of Public Safety of the State of Oaxaca

Read the rest of this entry »

I retired in 2002 and spent the next 5 years on the road…then chose Oaxaca as a home base. Since I live alone with extensive travel only every year and a half or so, when my surfers from other countries come I feel like I am traveling again!

I have grown attached to every single one of my surfers and I keep in touch with many of them on my FB page. I space them however, so that I make sure I am “up for it” when they do come and that my time with them is quality time. The young women sometimes become like the adult daughters I never had and I totally relate to the young men who make me feel like I am with my 3 boys who are off to the winds. And I’ve loved the bicyclers!

If surfers are just enjoying some “down time” in my apartment I enjoy seeing them enjoy themselves and I enjoy cooking for them. Having said that, however, I hope I never make them feel obligated to spend any more time with me than they are willing. I take my cues from them and don’t try to control their experiences…also letting them be as independent as they would like. I hope they don’t feel “mothered!” ) After all they are adults traveling to experience other cultures/languages and as an expat in Mexico I try to introduce them to as many locals as I can…often inviting them to join our dinners. I am pretty knowledgeable about local mores and politics that I can share with them.

And my age means that I don’t get the hard-core partiers that come in late drunk. The fact that surfers choose me says a lot about them, I think. And I read and screen profiles well. Reading between the lines is an art.

The tone is set in the beginning. I trust them to be respectful and responsible just as I did with my own kids and the kids in my alternative education program for 10 years. So far my surfers have lived up to it. My fingers are crossed but then if there are troubles I will just consider it a teaching moment for us both.

I just get high on the smiles and laughter my surfers bring to me which I think is reciprocated.

Thank you to all my surfers now and in the future. And of course I enjoy all the other ages too! Bente and all the 50+ friends I am waiting for you! I know, it’s summertime and Norwegians are outside and not on the computer!

JULY 4th

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army;

Another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.

Eleven were merchants,

Nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated

But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured..

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall , Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Rutledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr ., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying; their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his Children vanished.

Comparing being in any country that is not your birth country for 2 weeks and being in a country for an extended period of time is apples and oranges.

Take a look here:

It’s not easy. I have been in Mexico for 5 years and still am not fully culturally adapted. Honeymoon, denial, resistance, humor, anger, rejection, acceptance, adaptation all happens at the same time on different levels at different times. There are some things about Mexico I just cannot accept let alone adapt to and probably never will. You probably know what they are. It’s all over the papers north and south. I watched the Mexican documentary Presumed Guilty There is no “system” of justice in Mexico. I am watching this system unroll since the murder of a friend. Four suspects (2 American and 2 Mexican) have been released at the whim of a judge who probably didn’t read the unorganized 6 inch file. I suspect he just hopes the whole thing will go away to avoid an international incident. I get to make the decision whether to accept it or not. But then I get to experience the frustrating consequences of that nonacceptance.

The cultural shock of reentering my birth country has always been the worst because I am reentering a changed person. Living part of the year or every second year in Thailand complicates things. Mexico to the US>US to Thailand>Thailand to US>US to Mexico. Each time my friends may think I have reverted to the PMS stage of my life. It feels like it until I smooth out.

It would be happening in whichever country one chose to live. The most valuable thing the new country is giving their expats is a chance to grow as a person. Anything else is gravy. There is no way a local is going to be able to understand the inner processes of the expat unless they have had a similar experience. We often are blessed with their patience. It may take years to peel back the layers of the onion if we are willing to reflect.

The least of what the locals will be gaining is a chance to learn and practice English. They will have to speak for the rest of it. I can’t speak for them. I just hope it is positive.

Ironically, probably the most difficult feeling is the intolerance we feel when we meet the intolerant because we open up and meet a brick wall. This forces us back in on ourselves. This is when we grow…or not.

Monday April 11 one of my American friends…a long time expat…went missing in Oaxaca sometime between 7:30am and noon. On thursday his body finally rose in the well outside his kitchen door. The motive appears to be theft but some also suspect vengeance because Tonee was beaten to death before he was shot in the back of the head. Two other Americans…a man and his wife…are among the suspects although the case has not closed yet. They have been released with no explanation. Locals nod knowingly and say “money.” Two other Mexican male suspects remain in jail.

Tonee lived in my apartment before me. His walls are painted with his colors. I sleep in the bed he had built especially for him. My dishes occupy his cupbords and my spices are in his spice rack. His best friend, my apartment manager, lives downstairs. He was one of the most gentle and generous people I have known. Tonee’s son is here. He is his father’s son for sure. Why him? Maybe his goodness made him vulnerable to some crazed psychopath?

This unspeakable event has colored my life for the past month and a half. Easter week came and went unnoticed. Friends call friends desperate for information. Rumors abound. Life goes unkindly on.

Although there for a second I thought the world might end. Well…not really.

Camping’s Family Radio network was worth $22 million in 2002. It was worth $117 mil in 2008. God knows how much Camping cashed in for in the days leading up to the fake rapture. Camping has been the source of a lot of mockery in the press for his poor apocalyptic prediction skills. Reporters seem to be missing the point. Camping has been laughing all the way to the bank for the better part of two decades, since his first doomsday prediction back in 1994.

This Sunday morning there is the usual weekend Tai Chi group trying to generate some peace in the park across from my apartment while a birthday party on the edge of the park 50 yards away a very loud hard rock band blares so loud I can hear it in my back bedroom like it was playing on the veranda! LOL

Tai Chi

Birthday Party with Hard Rock Band

In 2006-7 I lived in an apartment on Calle Fiallo about 6 blocks south of the Zocalo in which I got to know the maid, Adelina, and her lively bright daughter Fernanda. Adelina is a great single mom and I am helping finance Fernanda’s schooling. A couple Sunday’s ago we went on Adelina’s only day off, to the village about 4 hours from Oaxaca City, that Adelina was raised in, to visit her mother and other family members.

Fernanda, me and Adelina

Tortillas for the week

Mom and cousins

Well, I haven’t posted for quite awhile. Been on twitter and computer livestreams ever since the uprising in the MENA (Middle East North Africa) trying to make sense of it. Suffice it to say I am supporting the rebels and the humanitarian aspect of the intervention to the consternation of many on leftist internet forums who are incensed that the US and Europe would AGAIN enter a ME country with their planes and bombs. Interestingly enough, the far right tweeters I am following are just as incensed.

But I did take a break and drove 6 or so hours over a rotten mountain road with constant switch-backs and huge potholes to Zicatela Beach at Puerto Escondido. My first visit to the coast. Lovely. No high-rises. Just palapas and beach…and surfers…and great weather.

I went there with a Canadian friend who used to live and work here in the 70′s. We visited a family, old friends of his, in Colotepec, a small Zapotec village about 30 minutes from Zicatela.

Friends Mica and Bardo live in Huayapan, about 30 minutes from Oaxaca City on a good day. Mica’s mom is raising two nephews whose parents are living and working in the States. So it came time for the baptism and of course the accompanying fiesta with DJ music for dancing. Few people actually attended the baptism in the church but instead waited at Mica’s mom’s house where the party was to be…visiting with family and friends.

I have been glued to Aljazeera on my computer for a week. I am bleary-eyed. This youtube video posted today was a bit uplifting. Notice all the women.

And here is Juju…the girl in the last frame of the first video.

Protests going on from early morning and people will remain in Tahrir Square all night. It’s spread all over the country and other countries. Three dead. It’s after midnight there and twitter, cell phone, TV and all the rest have now gone down but there are some iconic pics that have been coming out of Egypt. And YouTube is full of video. This uprising is a really big deal! Even a friend in Serbia is all but afraid to hope.

My fav post:

Lessons of Tunisia:

To the Arab dictators: u r not invincible.
To the West: u r not needed.
To the Arab people: u r not powerless

There is hope tonight.

Internet Friends!

A Norwegian friend just posted this on a www.couchsurfing.com forum that made me laugh:

If the stone age son did what the stone age father told him to, we would still be in the stone age

December 23rd is the Fiesta of the Rabanos in the Zocalo. Huge radishes are grown just for the annual carving up into all manner of scenes, animals and whatever the imagination conjures up which are all on display and then judged. You can read a more detailed description of the Rabanos in an earlier post here.

The Zoc was packed so my friend Sharon and I made our way slowly to the Palacio to listen to a music group…Las Tunas…a hilariously funny singing group of guys all dressed up in Medieval Spanish costume…looking quite ridiculous. A suited up guy came out of the Palacio in the middle of a crowd of people around him. Hey look, the new Governor! God is he good-looking!

Christmas week I had a rotten cold and four Couchsurfers…two on the living room floor. The first couple (Mexican and Dutch) was hitch-hiking, and getting into Oaxaca a few days late, overlapped with the second couple (Swiss and French Lao).

But on the 24th I had promised a Mexican family I would be there for Christmas Eve dinner and I just couldn’t take an extra 4 people and it was a damn good thing. What time, I asked. Oh, 7 or 8. Ok, I thought, I’ll go at 8. I picked up my friend Max. I hadn’t had anything to eat since 6 in the morning. 9 came and went and I didn’t think anything of it. But then 10…and then 11. I had forgotten the custom was to eat Christmas eve dinner at midnight!

Ok, the man of the family who shall remain anonymous, said, come in the morning for breakfast at 11. It is the custom to eat left-overs from the night before for breakfast. Max and I got there at 11:15. No breakfast. Nobody said anything. 12 came. 1 came. 2 came. (I suspect the esposo (husband) had forgotten to tell his wife he had invited us. No surprise there!) Then another friend (born and reared in Italy; lived in the US, Oaxaca and Spain and now Oaxaca again) showed up and she knew immediately what was going on! About 4 she says, Oh, come eat with us! By this time it was time for cena (the last meal of the day) so we all happily went to eat left-overs with her and her husband and her two grown kids visiting from the U.S and Spain.

Mexicans celebrate New Year’s Eve or locally known as Año Nuevo, by downing a grape with each of the twelve chimes of the bell during the midnight countdown, while making a wish with each one. Mexican families decorate homes and parties, during New Year’s, with colors such as red, to encourage an overall improvement of lifestyle and love, yellow to encourage blessings of improved employment conditions, green to improve financial circumstances and white to improved health. Mexican sweet bread is baked with a coin or charm (in Oaxaca it is a tiny plastic Jesus) hidden in the dough. When the bread is served, the recipient whose slice contains the coin or charm is believed to be blessed with good luck in the new year and they are supposed to give the next fiesta party. They don’t…they just laugh.

New Years Eve I was in bed by 8 trying to enjoy some badly needed sleep interspersed with fireworks, rockets, banda music, church bells, laughing and squealing.

Next year I will know better.

I will be spending this Christmas with four lovely couchsurfers who are staying with me and we will all be christmas orphans together. One, a part Lao guy born in Paris who has recently been living in Canada, who will be going to Lao for three years to work on a development project and who has invited me to visit him on my next trip to SEA. He met his travel companion, Fanny, in Canada and who is from Switzerland. Another guy is from Michoacan Mexico and his travel companion, Inge, is Dutch. He is selling his photographs as a way of paying for his travel.

I wrote up this description of Christmas in Oaxaca for them:

Little kids dress up like Jesus and Joseph and march in a procession…usually with their respective church members. These are called Posadas. They stop by various homes asking for posada (shelter) in a ritual song, but are refused by those within who also answer in song. The group is finally received at a home previously agreed upon, where the padrinos ( God-parents ) of the particular posada will receive the pilgrims with song and prayer. Then, coffee and tamales are served for the adults and a piñata filled with fruits and nuts for the children.

Beginning with the ‘calenda’ (the procession in which people march in a procession at night with candles and sing songs…often with an accompanying band…and sometimes on the backs of decorated trucks ) on the 6th of December, the party continues with another calenda on the 10th, announcing the upcoming celebrations of the Virgin of Guadalupe. On the 12th, a festive breakfast is served to all in front of the Guadalupe church.

On the 16th, the nine days of ‘posadas’ begin, as well as the calenda of Oaxaca’s patron saint la Virgin de Soledád (Virgin of Solitude) around the zócalo. This calenda is filled with cultural and religious expressions of the indigenous people from the seven regions of Oaxaca. There is a solemn procession and then the famous and colorful Danza de la Pluma is performed outside the basilica of Soledad.

From the 16th through the 31st, is the ‘breaking of the plates’; eating buñuelos (a classic Christmas dessert) and drinking hot chocolate and then smashing the ceramic plates to the ground. (They are made just for this.) Beside the Cathedral, restaurant, stands serve chocolate and “bunuelos” out of bowls which are then thrown against the sidewalk and smashed. It is said that this has something to do with the ancient Indian custom of destroying all of one’s belongings every 52 years, at the end of a cycle proscribed by the Gods. It is also suggested that this comes from Moctezuma’s habit of never eating from the same plate twice.

The people from the mountains bring down the moss and orchids called “San Miguelitos” for the manger scenes on people’s home altars.

On the 17th, there are fireworks in front of the Soledad Basilica. On the 18th, in the morning, people can have breakfast in the patio of the basilica and listen to indigenous music from around the state.

The Noche de Rabanos (Night of the radishes) is on the evening of December 23rd, when the zocalo becomes the scene of a huge exhibition of figures sculpted from radishes.

The fourth and biggest posada is on December 24th, when groups from all over Oaxaca meet in the zócalo to celebrate the arrival of Christmas night. Prior to arriving at the zócalo, each posada will proceed to the home of the madrina (god-mother) who will provide a statue of the child Jesus for the local parish’s nativity scene. After a joyfully festive parade around the zócalo and through Oaxaca, the community returns to its parish church and prepares to celebrate the ‘Misa de Gallo’ (mass of the rooster), the first worship celebration of the Christmas feast.

The fiesta in Oaxaca, of course, is not limited to the days leading up to the 25th. The twelfth day of Christmas (Jan. 6th) is still celebrated here as the ‘feast of the three kings’. Small gifts (hand-made toys or sweets) are given to children on this day. Families, sharing a meal on this day with compadres, are served a special ring-shaped loaf of bread called a ‘rosca’. Inside the loaf are hidden a few tiny images of the child Jesus. If a person finds one in his slice of rosca he/she is obliged to host yet another fiesta for the final celebration of the Christmas season on February 2nd. Most people just laugh but they don’t really host another fiesta! But on this day, families are supposed to bring an image of Jesus from their home altar along with candles to be blessed at church which they do. This feast has come to be known as calendaria.

The Night of the Petition, “Noche del Pedimento” is an indigenous celebration on Dec. 31st. On a hill near Mitla, near Oaxaca City, this ceremony is acted out at a tiny chapel where a cave represented the entrance to the other world, symbolized by the mouth of the jaguar god. Country people, and many from the city come with small models to petition favors from the gods.

Of course the majority of the people are Catholic, in custom if not always in faith, so people of other faiths or no faith just join in the “cultural” activities.

There are things like this going on constantly all throughout the year (anything for a party) and sometimes I wonder how anybody gets anything done! )

Upside Down World has an article by a local writer summarizing the end of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico for 70 years) in Oaxaca and the inauguration of the new governor.

The writer describes the ceremony on December 1…the beginning of the new administration:

In the afternoon ceremony in the former government palace, Cue introduced his cabinet; indigenous groups offered a symbolic cleansing (which might apply to the building as well, since Cue has declared he will re-open it for Executive business); conch shells called fifteen ethnic groups of Oaxaca to give and receive symbolic batons of office; marches and street parties enlivened Oaxaca City. Rigoberto Menchú attended the event to sign an agreement between Oaxaca and Menchú’s environmental foundation. The Teachers Social Movement and the APPO (Asamblea Popular Pueblo de Oaxaca) mobilized 60,000 teachers who jammed the zócalo. Azael Santiago Chepi, Secretary General of the Education Workers union Section 22 stated: “Ruiz practiced the politics of terror and persecution and will go down in history as an incompetent who refused to hear the people…the teachers union is prepared to work with the new administration on all issues….” Punishment of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO) was demanded, again.

A friend who watched the march arrive in the Zocalo described a crowd that was impossible to walk through. Then by the middle of the afternoon the crowd emptied leaving the Zocalo nearly empty.

However by 5pm, when I arrived, a humongous stage had been erected in front of the cathedral and another different crowd was entertained by a famous Mexican singer and a Columbian (??) band. The Zocalo had been cordoned off on the north side in front of the stage so access was limited to the south end…unless you wanted to maneuver through thousands of people in front of the stage. I sat at one of the few remaining restaurant tables at the end nearest the rear of the stage. I was the only gringo in the zocalo that I could see.

The new Governor spoke about an hour…of course I couldn’t understand much of it. I hope there weren’t too many promises. The fireworks were good. I left about 11pm for the walk back to my apartment…with the music still playing.

This time it was the middle middle class. Not the fancy dressed upper-middle and upper classes…who I assume would have probably been aligned with the PRI. The people have cautious hope in a governor reputed to be honest and with the best intentions. I felt cautious too. We in the north were once excited about a new president too.

I waited until the day we left for Queretaro to call and tell my friend Patsy (we go waaayyy back) that we had changed our itinerary and would be seeing her that evening. What fun! It had been three years since I had seen her and Jose…in fact since June 13, 2006 when they drove into Oaxaca the night the municipal police tried to tear gas the striking teachers out of the zocalo. Haven’t seen her in Oaxaca since!

After she and Jose married in Oregon five years ago, they moved to Mexico so they could be near Jose’s aging mother after so many years working up north. A trained ESL teacher, they survive on what she makes teaching English in her home (cracker boxes are thanks to low-income housing by ex President Vicente Fox) and Jose’s meager computerized and complex mechanic work. Even though born of Mexican parents in San Francisco CA, Patsy feels isolated and lonely in this new country, she says. Interesting…

Parked the car in her fenced yard…in the care of her dog…and got a nice hotel in downtown San Juan del Rio. Drinks and dinner on me. My great pleasure. And I unloaded a few treasured magazines and books for Patsy.

The next morning after breakfast and coffee, Patty and Jose led us out to the toll road toward Mexico City so we wouldn’t have to use my GPS like we did during a Saturday fiesta day on the way in. Grrrrr. A brand new toll road cuts off after a few miles, however, toward Pueblo where we could then go on to Oaxaca. Open about a year. So we didn’t have to traverse Mexico City which can be crazy even on a Sunday. Cars are only allowed in the city on alternate days with licenses that end with even/odd numbers and we didn’t know which day was which…so the new Puebla toll road…as expensive as it was…about $30…was worth every penny.

Incidently, drivers are completely covered by Mexican insurance on the divided toll roads. Just keep your pay stub. Some are federally owned and some are owned by private corporations which are fenced to keep the animals out. A solar powered phone can be accessed every few meters from which a call to the Green Angels will bring out an ambulance and trained medical personnel. Or a mechanic. Repairs and replacement parts are free. A totaled car is replaced. A medical facility at the end of the toll will provide intermediate emergency care until transport to a nearby hospital. Now, why can’t the U.S. do this if Mexico can!?

From Oregon to Oaxaca Mexico! And all that worry for nothing! We’ve been reading too many newspaper articles up north. Flew through the Nogales border and down highway 15…no stops…no searches…no dogs…no federales to bribe…or narcos dressed like federales…no banditos!

No cars pulled off the toll road and set afire by narcos trying to block the police like happened at Loredo a few months ago. 18 of them! I made the mistake of telling my son about it…which disappointingly resulted in his reneging on a promise to give me his VW Taureg!

At the 22km mark got my $36 car permit good for the duration of my FM3 visa (one year) with no trouble. It renews automatically when I renew my visa. Good thing for plastic. Cash would have required a $400 deposit for a new Nissan Xterra to ensure no resale in Mexico and it’s return back across the border. (Some day) Sure wouldn’t want to take a sale from a Mexican auto dealer.

Nearly three weeks in Las Vegas with my oldest son Greg and his sweet Yellow Lab was a joy. He has to be kissing you and in your lap constantly…the Lab…not Greg! My early rising habit came in handy…I made coffee every morning for Greg before he joined another doctor and some others for a 7am workout with an ex Navy Seal. Then it was my job to rub on the Icy Hot and Peppermint Oil. I made Pork with Green Salsa and lasagna for his freezer. Maybe he’ll let me come back some time! Weather was great! Sat out by the pool with my computer every day. “You’re darker,” my friends here are saying. Good. Need that vitamin D!

I had picked up a friend near Palm Springs to ride down with me and as we approached Mazatlan we made a last minute decision to drive over to Lake Chapala. Expat City. Don’t even have to meet any Mexicans…

Spent the night in a very clean luxurious “love motel” in Guadalajara for $20…a “hot pillow” motel my friend called it. We confused the heck out of the maids when we asked for two rooms! Pulled the car through a narrow curving driveway and maneuvered under the room behind a metal door. Then up the stairs…never to be seen by anyone who might tell…

One wall full of mirrors. Vibrating king-sized bed. Porn on the TV. Bathroom two steps up…condoms and lubricants at the ready. Glass-walled shower allowed a view from the room below. You could order all sorts of toys, more condoms?? and viagra…that would be whirled around through the wall in a metal contraption that kept the maid from seeing anything. What a waste on me, I thought!

The next day we managed to make our way into the old silver mining town of Guanajuato without getting lost among all the canyon tunnels. Here is a video of one such tunnel.

The city is much bigger than I remembered from a visit many years ago. There are several colleges here and on a week day the streets were crammed with “kids.” Our beautiful old colonial hotel was also crammed with kids who kept us awake all night. Arghhh.

There are tunnel “raves” with electronic music held every year here. Incidentally, these are common in New York City and all over Europe. One of my couchsurfers from Berlin recently told me about A Love Parade rave in a tunnel in Duisberg Germany in July 2010 that ended in tragedy when the crowd stampeded and 21 were left dead and hundreds injured. That annual Love Parade, which started in Berlin, was permanently canceled. Below is a video of one in Guanajuato.

Visited Diego Rivera’s home which is now a museum…and of course the Mummies of Guanajuato. About a hundred naturally mummified bodies were found interred during a cholera outbreak in 1833. Horribly, you can tell some of them were accidentally buried alive. They were disinterred between 1865 and 1958, when few relatives could pay a tax in order to keep the bodies in the cemetery. They are so popular with tourists that the city has built a beautiful new museum to hold them…open about a year.

Well, that’s Guanajuato. It was my second city of choice when I moved to Mexico in 2006. Next stop, San Juan del Rio…just south of Queretaro.

I moved to Oaxaca City in 2006 to find 70,000 of the state’s teachers striking in the Centro. They had been striking every year for more than 20 years to gain a minimum of educational standards for a state with 16 indigenous groups living in the mountains…all with their own languages.

The strike gained scores of supporters, including human rights activists and civil organizations and this time it lasted 7 months before it was put down by thousands of federal riot control troops. It left more than 20 dead, including an American independent journalist and hundreds more beaten and/or incarcerated or disappeared. No one has been convicted of any of it.

I reported on much of this in this blog, thinking, like many other expats living there, that helping shine the light internationally on unlawful acts by the authorities, would help protect the innocent. I am not so sure any more because the impunity of the authorities has been escalating. The most recent incident is the killing of a Finnish human rights worker along with two Trique leaders as he accompanied a caravan bringing food and water from Mexico City to a barricaded Trique community. Repeated inquiries by the Finnish parents, the European Union and even the UN has not resulted in justice.

However, it is also unlawful in Mexico for foreigners to “interfere” in Mexican national politics and the authorities are free at any time to define what constitutes “interference.” The authorities can arrest or deport (or more) any foreigner on the spot and it has been done.

So when I return to Oaxaca, I will not be reporting on my blog on activities that I feel could be interpreted as “interference.”

However there are reputable blogs reporting breaking events in Latin America, including Oaxaca. Two of these are Upside Down World and Narco News.com with 450 co-publishers reporting.

Looks like another week holed up with my son, Greg, and my favorite sweet golden laborador, in Las Vegas. If Las Vegas is invaded I am quite certain I will survive.

I am cooking for the freezer as is usual when I visit him. Split pea soup with ham hocks, lasagna, Oaxacan pork ribs in salsa verde.

Greg has offered to take me to the Cirque du Soleil “Elvis” but just can’t bring myself to watch this dog and pony show of my old raunchy 7th grade love.

I am missing the Day Of The Dead in Oaxaca. I would definitely prefer to celebrate the dead there than to watch the dying off political process in the U.S. of A.

Sigh…

From Klamath Falls I cross the California border…past the WWII Japanese Internment camp at Newell near Tule Lake…euphemistically called the Tule Lake War Relocation Center…and head south toward Reno Nevada.

I have a blown-up photo of my father herding sheep on the Liskey Ranch on the drained tule lake beds. (tules are plants that grow in water.) In fact, when my father died, it was the lead article on the front page of the Tule Lake newspaper, which at the time was surprising to me. I hadn’t realized what he stood for in Freedom Country.

North and south of this border is the ORCAL (Oregon/California) freedom country where, as a little girl…my father’s shadow…I grew up listening to my father rant on his rounds of visits with his farmer friends about the government, the trilateral commission and the Federal Reserve and all other forms of perceived intrusion of the government in their lives. My father would get far-right mailings from far-right organizations that my mother wouldn’t let in her house…making him read them outside on the porch. He used to declare that if the govmt ever showed up at his house he would blow them away with his hunting rifle. Such was and is the mentality of these 19th Century land settlers and their descendants.

Fast forward to the near-end of the Bush-Cheney presidency. Thousands of farmers in the Klamath Basin Irrigation District (of which my father once was president at a time when they were letting excess water flow into the sea rather than let California have any of it) were struggling to keep their crops from turning to dust in a recent drought.

As growers were counting on a century-old complex of dams and canals to irrigate 400,000 square miles of potato and alfalfa and grazing range from water in the nearby Lower Klamath Lake, the Bureau of Reclamation was getting ready to shut down the water gates. Federal biologists announced that the Endangered Species Act had determined that diverting the water from Lower Klamath Lake to the Tule Lake farmland was necessary to save the lives of 3 endangered species of fish…the Shortnose Suckers, Lost River Suckers and the Coho Salmon….at least one of which was the fish that the Klamath Indians had fished for centuries. This was just the kind of thing that drove so many western farmers around the bend.

But I wonder now what my father would think about water being diverted from Klamath County Oregon to Tule Lake California.

My own opinion, at the time, was that, in the first place, all this was the result of draining Tule Lake to create more farm land with no assurance of an adequate future source of water. Mess with mother nature and this what you get.

In the meantime, I was not surprised to learn that protests against the federal water cut-off were edging toward violence. Farmers and their families organized a symbolic bucket brigade of 18,000 men and women on May 7, 2001, then staged raids in June and July, using blow torches and chain saw to open irrigation gate that the Bureau of Reclamation had welded shut. Some of them clashed with U.S. marshals who were called out when local law enforcement officers refused to intervene. One group of protesters formed a mounted cavalry, organizing a Klamath T Party of civil disobedience.

Anti-government activists from out of state, including militia activists from Montana, Michigan, Idaho and Nevada, gathered in August for a Freedom Day demonstration at Klamath Falls. You had farmers sitting in front of the locks. It was an emotionally charged and potentially explosive situation.

Vice President Dick Cheney asked the interior department to convene a God Squad. The Republicans had lost Oregon by only one half of one percent in the prior election in 2000 and all they needed for a Republican win in 2008 was a draw that pitted one group of scientists against another. Cheney’s shadow government was not looking for answers as to how the fish could be saved and the farmers still get water. This was not about fish. It was about politics.

So with plenty of television coverage the headgate was opened as farmers chanted, Let the water flow!

In late September 2002, the first of an estimated 77 thousand dead salmon began washing up on the banks of the Klamath River where it passed through Yurok tribal lands. The threatened Cohos were dying but in even larger numbers were Chinook salmon which was the staple of commercial fishing in northern California.

So, on my way to Vegas, I wasn’t surprised to see this archway with the word Freedom at the head of a dirt road leading into one of the ranches.

My iPhone google maps gets me around Reno to highway 95 to Las Vegas. Then no service appears on my phone as I drive through the seemingly unending Nevada desert. At dark, I stop in Tonapah to spend the night in a $38 with senior discount trucker motel with free WiFi where I let my son in Las Vegas know where I am via email.

The next morning I drive up to a Mexican dive for breakfast. An old guy was sitting on the sidewalk in front of the car. As I walked past him, he says I am from a good state.

No wonder there are so many “old people” at McDonalds! A $1.00 coffee is only 69 cents for seniors! The waitress looks up and says, you aren’t a senior are you? I say yes, 66. She says, really! Maybe just my granma looks old!

A guy next to me starts bantering with her. We went to circus school in Italy together, he says. Cirque du Soleil! So much for Klamath Falls being Red Neck! My son, Greg, is taking me to see the Elvis Cirque when I get to Las Vegas. The Beatles Cirque last year was outstanding! Almost unbelievable!

George and Jan took off this morning for Eugene…just to see a football game! Back at McDonalds…WiFi and listening to NPR…discouraging news but the station redeems itself with enlivening world music.

Now killing time waiting for an old high school classmate to get into town tonight. What to do? My choices seem to be a walk along the river, the county museum or the Indian Museum.

A few years ago at the County Museum, I found an article in an old newspaper with a picture of the Winema Riverboat that carried my paternal grandparents across Klamath River into Klamath Falls in 1906….that is after coming out west from Kansas on a “citizen train” to Dunsmuir CA (the end of the railroad at that time) where they climbed aboard a stagecoach to meet the Riverboat.

My aunt Mary was a little girl at the time…my father still in utero…has always talked about the ferry turning over on the way. I’ll be darned if I didn’t find a news article about that accident too!

But that wasn’t the end of the trip. A horse and buggy carried them another 40 miles to Malin…a whole Czech settlement that moved out together from the midwest because of the promise of plentiful irrigation water and where my father (Cecil) grew up being called “cecelic,” or some such spelling for some kind of little animal because my father was small. As a small girl I loved those Czech people who delighted in children and always made me feel liked and cared for. Well, the Irish sheepherder friends of my father did too…entertaining me no end with leprechuan stories.

Sometime before I kick the bucket I am going to have to lug all the Indian artifacts to the Indian Museum and give them back to the Klamath Indian tribe. Hundreds of pounds of pestles and bowls were plowed up over the years by my father on the property…Big Springs Ranch… which was years before a Klamath Indian encampment. Huge beautiful springs ran through it feeding the nearby Lost River…my childhood playground where I pretended I was an Indian Maiden like the ones I saw in John Wayne movies. Sometimes I would be a stealthy Indian tracker. Heck with the cowboys!

Oh dear, look what happens when I have time on my hands…

So I begin skype-chatting with a Thai friend in Bangkok.

I’m back at McDonalds…pretty good latte here…cheaper than Starbucks. I’m sitting in my car using their free WiFi when a bent-over older (old sounds unkind) fellow appears at my open car window which is apparently an invitation for conversation.

Watcha doin’? Studyin’?

You like this car? Big tires. You get better gas mileage with bigger tires. I say gas is expensive here…$2.99 to 3.07. Yeah, he says, they’re all crooks. Doesn’t cost that much to get gas in here. They’re all crooks.

You know what the fellow up there says? There are no pockets up there. No money. He (God) doesn’t like his name on money. No pockets up there. His name on money comes from some European country. No pockets up there and we will find that out. Yep. I don’t know what else to say. Ok, he says, pointing to the birds all over the parking lot, I gotta go feed the pigeons.

Bet McDonalds loves that.

Klamath Falls is turning out to be just as, if not more, interesting than many other places in the world I have been.

After 7 weeks in Salem Oregon taking care of a lot of unfinished business and spending time with my son Doug, who will be returning soon to Thailand to join his Thai wife, I am finally on my way back to Oaxaca in my new car loaded with stuff.

First stop. Klamath Falls in rural SE Oregon. I grew up 50 miles from here on a sheep ranch just outside of Bonanza (little more than 300 people) and attended junior high and high school in Klamath. Bea and Sal are gone now, but I am visiting with what’s left of my second family that I lived with during high school.

Red Neck country for sure. Of course I didn’t think that when I lived here. Hunting with my dad in the fall was something to look forward to after a summer of haying and irrigating 10 hours a day. He used me to flush the brush in the draw while he stood watch on the ridge. Sleeping out under the stars at night under only a blanket. We’d laugh at the city folk all dressed up in fancy orange gear lugging their sleeping bags, lanterns, cook stoves and such. Lambing time wouldn’t come until February. It is fall now and many businesses are closed with Gone Huntin’ signs on the doors.

I also didn’t notice the neighborly generosity when I lived here. I guess because I was used to it. My mom would trade eggs for ice-cream from the milk man. She was always taking cuttings of her plants and giving them away to anyone who visited.

George makes chorizo and salsa and gives it out to his appreciative co-workers at the lumber company where he works nights maintaining the machinery. His next door neighbor brought over fresh home-grown peppers and tomatoes yesterday. At Christmas, George grinds and cooks his own corn for masa for tamales like his Mexican dad always did…continuing a generational ritual. He will give away most of those too.
George gives me a bag of beef jerky for my trip south. George would give you the shirt off his back.

Last night, after a high school football game (football is endemic here), and while George was at work, his wife Jan, his daughter Melina and her husband and his parents and their twin 17 year old boys and their 20 year old daughter (my god where has the time gone… Melina is the same age as my oldest son…43!) and I gathered at Wubba’s BBQ rustic rib joint for dinner to celebrate Melina’s husband’s birthday.

I was the first one to arrive at the restaurant, so I had waited on a bench by the door…perusing my iPhone for emails. When Melina entered I jumped up to hug her leaving my iPhone on the bench. I was already seated when this young guy comes over to my table. Do I know you, I thought. Then I saw he was holding out the iPhone.

It has been a few years since I have seen Melina’s kids so she re-introduces me to them. Remember Eunice? Then she says I used to live with her dad! Everyone’s mouth drops open. She clears it up. “When Eunice was living with dad and his family when they were in high school,” she says laughing.

The 20 year old daughter squeals with excitement about moving into her own apartment with a friend. Almost everything they need has been given to them but they still need a few things, one of which was a microwave. People are often loud here and the daughter is so loud she could be overheard by those at nearby tables. I had been noticing a big guy with a face so work-dirty it was nearly black in a nearby booth. Suddenly the daughter and Melina’s husband disappear…coming back to announce that the guy with a dirty face had given her a small microwave that wouldn’t fit into the space for it in his work truck. He GAVE it to her. He didn’t ask to sell it to her. It was nearly new.

This morning I am sitting in my car at McDonalds using the only free WiFi I can find in Klamath…of course after having coffee (coffee is surprisingly good at McDonalds) and a Egg McMuffin. An older guy walks by my open window and notices my computer propped up against the steering wheel. He looks at the computer screen showing Amazon.com. He asks who I’m chatting with. Then he announces that he caught his wife talking to these guys on internet chat in kind of a “personal” way. Then he tells me that sometimes he sees naked girls whirling around on his screen. But his wife, he says, tore up his Playboy. I laugh…and he laughs and he moves on into McDonalds.

I’m here several hours (Jan is at work and George is sleeping) when I realize I am hungry again. A young kid with tattoos and a baseball cap comes out of McDonalds and holds up a bag with two chicken sandwiches. For you, he says. I am speechless as I gratefully take them with a big smile. I have no idea why he gave them to me.

What is this? Off the beaten track, Klamath County is one of the most economically depressed counties in Oregon. Gas is 2.99 a gallon here. Jobless numbers exceed national and state figures. Maybe they realize they are all in this together and they have to help each other out. Or maybe they were just always this way…