Chapter 3: Teacher Patreek

This is really the beginning: I set down the remainder of my belongings, looking at what I had: two boxes of clothes, one box of teaching supplies mostly untouched, one box of games and sports equipment and some dishes and my Nintendo 64 and its odds and ends, one tube with some posters, a cowboy hat (not mine, technically), and a backpack that contained a laptop which recently had stopped working, a digital camera that did (but now doesn’t) a Discman that works but not well, a case with 64 CDs, only 2 originals. I had also “obtained” and brought: two sleeping pads, one chest of drawers, one night stand, one wooden folding chair and two towels, all taken from the hacienda, all handmade with the exception of the sleeping pads. The bed frame that awaited the sleeping pads was also handmade. How did I bring this much stuff with me to Mexico? I don’t really remember.
I do remember sitting there listening to the music that emanated out the room across from the bedroom I was in. There was a guitar being played and apparently all the workers there singing. The tune of the songs they sang were familiar but the words were in a language I knew not to be Spanish.
I pushed the dresser into the corner and threw the bed pads on the frame. A few blankets that were already in the room were then thrown on top. I sat on the bed and looked at the mostly empty room with its paint chipping, dirty tile floor, and Kike’s possessions: his bed, black and white TV, some books, a boombox CD player, a broom and a broken metal dustpan, and some plastic cups which I knew weren’t his. I sat there, took a breath, and thought about crying. I think I knew what that moment meant; I could almost see the future, or whatever. That’s only a half truth because I suppose that if I really had known the future at that point I would have cried a lot more.
The black steel door flew open and Kike rolled in, threw his hands in the air and yelled like a baritone rooster, “ooohr ohr oohhr ohr ohhhr!”
Kike is like this: 19 years old, second in a family of five, the only one who lives away from home. He is very short, maybe five feet, maybe not, which doesn’t really matter because anyone in a wheelchair is going to be short anyway. Relatively. At least to my almost 6 foot 2, skinny, frame. Kike is a full-blooded Mazahua Indian, which says nothing about him personally, only that he is dark skinned, has a wide nose, speaks a little Mazahua but not too much because evidently it’s not cool to speak dying languages these days, and lives in the mountainous region of central Mexico. And at this moment in time, he’s my only friend.
As the story goes, he grew up in Santiago Casandeje, a small pueblo about an hour away from where I threw my stuff down and we began to be roommates. He went to elementary school, playing soccer and basketball, fighting with his brothers, and so on. His favorite story of his childhood is how there was a disfigured kid who everyone hated in his first grade class. Kike says he didn’t know why but he wanted to be this kid’s friend. He says that at the time he didn’t know why; he knows now.
“What up, Homie?” he yelled in English, forcing my surprised face to look at him, allowing him to see that I was crying.
“Where did you learn that?” I ask in Spanish, which, at the time, probably sounded more like “where you learn this?”
“From the movie ‘Sangre por Sangre,’” he says. “You are crying for me!” More of a funny statement than a question.
“No, I…” I couldn’t even begin to come up with words to even make an excuse. “I don’t know.”
“No problem. Come on.” He turned and rolled out the door. I followed him out onto the walkway and around the corner to where the classroom was. I use the word “classroom” but really names like “ceramics shop” and “stained glass shop” and “storeroom” and “office” are just names for what the room is being used for at that exact moment. Here, all rooms and materials are used for whatever current purpose is desired. The bathroom is really the only room that was built to be what it actually still is, and most likely will continue to be. I have seen the ceramics room moved to three different places. I follow him into the classroom and there is my class. English class. Kike, ten girls, me. I am not exactly sure what is going on, but all I know is that I am in no way prepared to give class, nor really ready to try out my struggling Spanish without anyone to help me.
This is January. You won’t believe me, but it’s freezing cold. It must be like 5 or 6 Celsius, but with no indoor heat anywhere, I have my jacket on, as well as gloves and a wool hat.
I had actually arrived here because I wanted some job teaching English that would allow me to learn Spanish. A Mexican man and his American wife invited me to live at their little mission. This is January, but this is my fifth month. It goes quickly like this: I had been told that my mom and sister were going on a mission trip with my church to some place in Mexico and that they were leaving in the summer and were fundraising, but one day that summer they came up to me and informed me that two weeks before the trip was going to be taken, one of the leaders couldn’t go and there was a space open and that they needed, and wanted, another “adult male” to go along, and since I, being good friends with most of the then high schoolers, was voted to be put in her place without having to raise the money or anything. So I said yes. We ended up in a three-hundred-year-old hacienda in the west part of the State of Mexico where we did a few work projects and ate some real Mexican food and had some fun. When the week was over, the owner, a nice friendly guy of like 55 years or so told me that he wanted me to come back to be the English teacher at the school he was starting. He said that at what used to be the old general store for that hacienda, which he had purchased just a year before, he was going to start a project that paid local people to come and work half day, study half day. I laughed and said “yeah, I’ll think about it,” intending to not think about it. But two more years of college went by and I graduated and realized I really didn’t want to go get a job and work for the rest of my life to live comfortably and would rather go have a wacky, less comfortable adventure so I wrote them and asked if the offer was still open to which of course they responded yes and that following fall I went. Just like that. No, no other real purpose.
I originally got there in September, and spent a good three or four weeks trying to find something I could help out with. It was difficult because I found the whole mission completely unorganized and I pretty much spent most of my time either working on computer projects that would never amount to anything and never be used by anyone, or hanging out with any groups that came to the hacienda. That is how they make their money: it is like a retreat center, where groups come and stay and the money is used to pay the workers so they don’t have to go to Mexico City or Chicago to find work. About four groups a year are Americans, and thus I stuck to them whenever they were around. I then went home in December and thought about staying there for good.
A couple days before I left for home, I actually went to the school for the first time, in the old general store called “Las Rosas,” about a 20 minute walk from the hacienda. That was where I was originally going to teach English, but the school was still stumbling around in bureaucratic problems and I hadn’t yet made it there. They promised that by the time I returned, there would be a school and they would have hired like 15 people to paint ceramics or make stained glass windows or little glass trinkets and go to school. Kike was living there at the time by himself, and Miriam suggested that I go live there with him and be the teacher and whatever. I hung out with Kike some and it seemed like a much better idea than being frustrated with nothing to do in the hacienda and also a better idea that a real job in the states.
The “mission” consisted of one large ex-hacienda, like a flat-topped castle, that they used as a getaway spot for groups of people wanting a different sort of cultural experience, “Las Rosas” which is the old general store that was associated with the hacienda back in the day, and a few pieces of property here and there. There was a cathedral next to the hacienda, but was not part of the mission. That was public property. Their idea was to pay local people to work at the hacienda when groups came to use it, giving them jobs so they would not have to search in Mexico City or the US. At Las Rosas, the old general store that was now being used as ceramics and stained glass workshops, lived Kike all by himself, and they decided it would be good for all if I was to live there. Actually I just went because I wanted a wacky adventure. Wish granted.
So I arrived once again in January, “obtained” some furniture from the hacienda and in one van load had everything up there to start my new job as English teacher.
“Paktreek” he said “can we start class?”
“Uh, uh, uh, I am not very ready” I stammer as they all stare at me smiling. “You permit me, um, go my notebook and book” as I turn and back out the door. I turn and as I scurry down the walkway to the room, I hear catcall whistles behind me. “Oh gosh,” I thought, “please don’t let that happen again when I get back. I’m already as nervous as I need to be.” I go to the room and grab my mostly blank notebook in which I have written “English, Class 1” on it, a line under it, and nothing else. I snag the homeschool English 2 book they gave me and hustle back to the room where they are chatting among themselves.
“OK, ok, ok” I am stammering. I can’t help it. “Um, what were you, um, where are you in the book?”
“What class are we starting with?” the girl closest to me asks.
“What? What class?” I want to say “what do you mean” but instead I just stare blankly with my mouth moving pretending to try to come up with some sound.
“What classes are you going to teach today?” I understand most of that.
“Umm, English. Yes? Am I the English teacher?”
“You are the teacher.”
“What?”
“Umm, English. Yes? Am I the English teacher?”
“You are the teacher.”
“What?”
“You are the teacher. I would like to learn English, math, and computers.” Others concur.
“Oh good God,” I think as it hits me (not a frivolous use of the Lord’s name in vain, but an honest prayer of help). It’s not a huge life changing realization: it comes quickly and passes, but certainly scares me more than I was before. This is Little House on the Prairie, this is “The Classroom,” and I am “The Teacher.” Not being one to show much fear, I simply smile and blink. “I did not know” I answer. “Other class you want to learn?” They inform me that they have both Spanish and History already, but that those are homeschool courses learned out of studying their books together, and subjects that I will have a hard time supplementing with my own knowledge. They say they used to have a mandatory micro-management class on Saturday mornings, but they didn’t like coming on Saturdays and it was cancelled. We somehow work out that we will have English three times a week, three separate math classes each twice a week, and a computer class if we find a way to get a hold of some computers, which supposedly actually exist and are floating about someplace, so I am told. I have no expectations for computer class.
I think I grasp most of this, and it turns out I did. At least enough to continue.
“Can we start by you telling me your names?” it comes out straight and true. I hope.
“Angelica.”
I am writing this all down.
“Adalaida.”
“Angeles.”
“Adalid.”
Oh please let this be a joke. This is already hard as can be.
“Hilda.”
Finally, a name I can remember. Ok, note to self, Hilda is the short Mexican girl. Nice.
“Silvia.”
“Angeles.”
“Again?” I ask.
“Yes, there are two.”
Oh my gosh.
“Leticia.” Leticia is a Mexican name? I thought it was an African American name. I have my full concentration on how I possibly spell that, and if it is unusual for a Mexican to have a African American name. I’m hardly even looking at them except to smile and nod. It is African American, isn’t it?
“Consuelo.” Who they immediately call “Chelo,” confusing me all the further. Sweet.
“Lolita.” That’s a keeper. The only one I will have no problem remembering. She has a funny smile, easy to remember. And the only one I will possibly remember for the next month. Lo-LI-taaa.
I tell them to open their books to page blah de blah, some exercise that I stare at for a minute, “changing active voice into passive voice.”
“Umm, can you do?” The activity. That is what I want to say: “Can you do this activity? Can you understand what is going on and complete the sentences.” Nice first try though. I turn to put an example on the whiteboard behind me. Immediately I get whistles. I blush bright red and turn to look at them, whereupon they simply laugh. “Laugh it up. Have your fun. Pick on me when I can’t comeback with any witty retort” I think. This look back was, of course, the key that opened a huge door of more to come, and I realized it much too late. Focus would become quickly moved away from English to trying to make my face as red as possible.
“We are going to try the exercises on page. Please. Here is example.” And I write on the board “Johnny ate the cake.” “What is that in voice passive?” Blank stares. “Ok. This is…um… that one person does something… but we want to say something is done… by… something.” Blank stares. Did that not make perfect sense? I am starting to get the impression that this is not that they have not arrived at this point in the book, but that the book has not been used at all, ever, and this is more than just my inability to explain. Huh. “Do we know numbers?” Some heads nod. Well, let’s start there.
“HOW OLD ARE YOU,” I say loudly and slowly, in English. Blank stares. Nice. “How old are you,” I repeat, in Spanish. “But you tell me in English.” They all look about 18. I am 22. Whatever. “Lolita?” Told you I would remember her name.
“Twenty.” English, good. I guess she could be 20.
“Consuelo?” Her sister. Easy enough as her name sits next to Lolita’s on my list.
“Twenty One.” There is no possible way that she is older than Lolita, but I should be concentrating on English.
“Good. Yes. Umm, you, Hilda.” I am avoiding the A’s and the African American Mexican.
“Twenty Two.” No possible way.
“Very good. Ummm, yes, Kike.” Nice bailout, as I search the rest of the names desperately trying to come up with a match.
“How do you say ‘19’?” Spanish.
“Nineteen.”
“Nineteen.”
“Good. Umm, the rest of you?”
“Twenty Two.” Could be.
“Twenty.”
“Twenty Seven.” Bwah? She looks older than me, but not 27.
“Sixteen.”
And finally the last girl, the second Angeles I remember but not in time. She looks like 20 or 21.
“Fifteen.”
“What?”
“Fifteen?”
Awkward pause. I open my mouth and shut it again. More pause. “Tell me in Spanish.”
“15.”
“Are you sure?” Blank stares and polite smiles. Right. I only believe it in the slightest because I figure if she wanted to impress me or lie, she would give herself more years than she has, not less.
“You know what? We are going to play a game. OK?” Smiles. Horray. I run to my room and grab a deck of cards. Screw this. We’re playing “spoons” until the bell rings.
My favorite joke when I was teaching English in Taiwan with my buddy Ethan was this: when telling each other about a class that hadn’t gone well and we were about to bail and just play some stupid game, we would say to each other, as if we were talking to our class, “listen up. I am going down to 7-Eleven for a smoke. You, um, Johnny or Hoo-Cho-Crum or whatever your name is, you guard the door. If the principal comes, tell him I am in the bathroom and look like you are busy with English.” Of course neither of us smoked, but when we were especially tired and wanted to tell the joke, we would just pretend like we were smoking a cigarette, taking a deep inhale and exhale, finger and thumb holding the imaginary cigarette. Most of our jokes were pretending like we were being extremely culturally insensitive, or extremely “American” like our Australian buddy Paul liked to say. That was his favorite joke, I think. We, of course, are not quite the jackasses like I might portray us as. The worst thing we probably have said or done is that Ethan says he votes only for men, because he is sure there are women who only vote for women and he wants to even that out. I say that I like to only vote for the people who I think will win, kind of like filling out my college basketball Final Four bracket, trying to predict the winners. Our friend Liz says that makes us horrible people. No one else has called me a horrible person except for her.
Just to let you know, for the sake of my good name, I will faithfully fill out Final Four brackets for the next three years even though I will watch zero games. I will do exactly as well during those three years, having known nothing, as I had done the previous ten years. Just pick upsets here and there!
I pretend to smoke my cigarette, grab my cards and get back and motion for everyone to gather around one table. I have realized the brilliance of non verbal communication. A lot can be accomplished with hands and facial expressions. These should be greater revelations, as each one makes my life a trillion times easier. But they aren’t. They come too quick to be thought about and just happen and I hope I am not taking them for granted but I figure I probably am.
So we all circle around the table.
“OK, is what we do, we are going, ok, sit. OK, I am going to give everyone one…these…”
“Cards.”
“Right. Cards. Four. Every person four. Understand? OK, only 8 people. Only small cards. Only eight people, four cards. Now. Do you have pencils? Give me pencils.” They break out the pencils and I put seven pencils on the table. “So. Eight people have four cards. So I will start, I will take one card and give one card to you. You say yes or you say no and you give one card to her.” I sound like a child and I know it. I am actually using “so” in English. “We are going…just to play.” I say “just” in English too. I have no word to replace it. Actually I take off the “t” from the end, saying “jus” and hoping it sounds something like what I hope its Spanish equivalent is. So I go. I just start picking up cards and handing them to the “A” girl sitting next to me, who is smiling at me, looking at my face every time I turn her way. It is making me incredibly uncomfortable. I swear that if she has “Te Amo” written on her eyelids I am out of here. She is not doing anything, so I motion for her to pass her cards, which she does. I just keep going as everyone watches me, passing cards to the girl on my left but obviously not knowing why. I am looking at Kike hoping he is figuring it out. He is not. OK, so I get four jacks and show them to everyone, and pick up a pencil. I motion for them to pick one up, which they do nicely, leaving one person out. She looks at me like “what?” and I smile and say “you lose. Change with you” pointing at another girl.
There is a tremendous “aaahhh” as a collective understanding occurs and suddenly I feel a lot better. They chatter among themselves as those who didn’t give the “aaahhh” shout out the first time now give it. Sweet. Sweet. Yes. I smile and nod like four or five times and deal the cards again. Four out to each, and here we go again. Pass left pass left girl still looking at me and not her cards but at least the others are suddenly really into it and catching on really fast. I got the four again first, and grab a pencil to have five of them grab pencils leaving on the table one pencil and two of them staring. The others chatter and they both dive for the pencil. One is out and another in, and everyone has grasped the idea. We are not in any way learning English but I figure they are getting used to me and that is probably good enough to keep going like this. Around the cards go and the pencils are out and someone loses and a new person is in, and everyone is now not only understanding but intensely interested in winning.
This goes on for like a half-hour. I couldn’t put the breaks on this train if I wanted to. Finally two pencils break as a result of people fighting, so I stand up and say: “ok, ok, ya. Fun fun. Is all. Math class 1 tomorrow. OK?” I get some head nods and Kike’s gives me the thumbs up so I clasp my hands together, smile, and everybody watches me as if I am going to do something. I turn and walk out of the room and they all laugh. Man I am smooth.
I would later find out that the two sisters’, Lolita and Chelo, real full names are Maria Dolores and Maria Consuelo. “Dolores” of course means “pains” or “sorrows,” and “Consuelo” which means “consolation” or “comfort.” I never would find out what it was, but there has to be a story there. There has to be some great story behind that one.

Chapter 2: Stories

About me: the hair on the back of my hands makes them look rugged. They aren’t really. When she slides her fingers through mine and turns my hand over to see how her dark, smooth brown ones look on my long, kind of fat, white ones, mine look exceptionally manly. I got that from my grandpa. He has the same hands I do, except he is a carpenter, a house builder, a handyman, so his not only look sturdy but they actually really are.
OK. So everyone has their story right? I mean, everyone has like one or two great stories, stories that you bring up for them. You are with a group of friends and even though the moment is not at all appropriate, you want to hear it again so you say “hey, tell your story.” It’s so good you feel they must be just ready to explode, like you are, so you try to give them a place to start, which never really works out the way you wish it had.
My story is that I stole a car. On accident. A buddy asked me to pick him up from the airport with another friend’s car. I went to get the car from where he had told me. I parked it in the underground parking and took his bags back to the car while he waited for the other friend. The other friend of course knew the car wasn’t hers, so I called the police and had them come out. I actually was nervous for moment that they might arrest me or something, but I have had the cops called on me three or four times before for things I didn’t do or wasn’t doing, so I knew it would probably be chill. We took a taxi home and left five bucks on the seat for the guy to pay his parking fee (which probably was more like 100 by the time he actually came to get it, but I didn’t stick around to find out).
The story is better than that, but I’ve told it so many times it has gotten a little tired.
What really happened is this: My roommate Chevas went to visit his fiancée in Wisconsin whom he had met only a few weeks before. He had no way of getting back to the dorms from the airport, but he had another friend coming in that day, maybe a half hour later. It worked out for all of us for me to bring her car and pick them both up. A totally different friend ran the keys by my room, and gave me directions. Up on 65th street. We are on 45th. A nice walk. So I make it up there and see two cars like the one she had described: red Ford Acura’s. I try the key on the nicer one, no luck. The older crappy one I hop in, fire her up, and bring her down to the airport.
I get into the temporary parking, grab my ticket, and find Chev. His friend won’t arrive for another half hour, so we go to put the bags in the car. As we walk out into the parking garage, we approach the car. “Where is it?” he asks. “Right here.” He stares and it and says it doesn’t look like hers. I open the door and start the car. He shrugs and I go to open the trunk. The key won’t work. I try and try getting a little nervous. I try the passenger door and it doesn’t work either. Hmm. I furiously get in the car and open the glove compartment. I ask Chev what the girls name is, and it is totally different than the registration. What in the world? I can’t think straight. What is going on?
“OK,” I say. Let’s go find her and bring her back and she’ll fix this whole mess. So we go find her, bring her back, and she says “nope. That’s not my car.”
Beeep!
I think hard, and remember when we were filming a movie one time and we were shooting a fight scene. Someone didn’t see the camera and lights and called the police. They came and we all had a good laugh and they told us just to notify them if next time we are going to do something like that. We asked if we just call 911. They said “yeah, that’s fine.” We laughed about going to rob and bank but first just calling 911 to let them know we are filming a movie there first. They will never show up.
So I walk over to the pay phone and dial 911. The operator comes on and asks me if it is an emergency. I say no. She asks me what the problem is. I say this:
“Ummm………….I think…………” Huge pause. I open my mouth and no words come out. “I think…….. I think I just stole a car.”
“What?”
“Yes. I did. I’m really sorry.”
“You stole a car.”
“Correct. On accident, kind of.” I tell her the story as best I can. She seems incredibly confused. She asks for the license plate and I give it to her. She pauses a minute and says “Ford full size van?” I think “oh great, I stole a stolen car.”
“Um, no, a Ford Acura.”
“Huh. OK, where are you?” I tell her. “Stay by the car. An officer will be there in a little bit.”
Meanwhile Chev and his friend go to call another friend to come get us. Chev is getting a huge kick out of calling people and telling them I stole a car. I sit by the car and wait. About ten minutes later a police car lazily winds up the parking garage ramp. He stops in front and steps out. “A good day to go to jail, huh?” I laugh my best non-nervous, loud laugh but he smiles too so I feel a little better. “Yeah.”
“You stole the car, huh?”
“Yep. First strike.” We take a look through the registration and whatnot, and he runs the plates. Chev comes over to get the details. The officer comes back.
“Well, they don’t have insurance, which I sure report, but let’s just let this one slide since they really haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Do you have their phone number? Should I call them? I could just bring it back if you want. I just am nervous of showing up to a 300 pound man with a shotgun asking me if I enjoyed my joyride in his car.”
“A good point. No, just leave it here. I’ll contact them.”
“OK. Well, some friends are coming for us. Is there anything else I need to do?”
“You might want to leave them some money for parking. It will be a dandy ticket by the time they get here.”
“True. Chev, got any money?” He has none. I have five bucks. I leave the ticket and the five bucks on the seat. I want to leave more money, but I really just want to get out of there.
It turns out the actual car hadn’t even been there at all. Her roommate had taken the extra keys and gone shopping. I have no idea what I would have done if there hadn’t been the other car there to steal. But certainly not ended up with a good story.
That’s what you’re here for, right? I mean, if you are looking for wisdom or insight, you can find it yourself because I just have stories. Some aren’t even mine. Some I adapt to make them better. Some I take from other people and put myself in them because it would be stupid to tell someone else’s story for them. Most I just recount as I remember them, which may be completely inaccurate or maybe or maybe not as someone else may have seen the same incident. I try to keep the events linear, but usually there is something I forget and have to add later. So I guess the stories aren’t linear unless I’m thinking really clearly. It happens. Some stories I have to tell for other people, because they aren’t here to tell them, maybe they don’t speak English, or maybe the details don’t allow me to put myself into them, but they are too good not to tell. Like my friend Lazaro’s story:
“I used to be a world class runner. I ran at the Estadio Azteca when I was 19. A guy tripped me coming out of the blocks. The track was this spongy substance that I had never ran on before. I complained ‘hey, that didn’t count,’ so they let me run in different heat. I won, with a time of 2 minutes and 28 seconds. That was the one kilometer of course. When I won, another guy in the heat said ‘that wasn’t fair. He had a motor.’ Everyone laughed. I had had some gastro intestinal problems that day and as I ran I made a lot of noise coming out of my behind. I guess they heard it too. I had a great time. That was the Olympic qualifying race for the Olympics in Los Angeles, 1984. The first place ran a time of 2 minutes 24 seconds. That was my friend, Carlos Barragon. He is from around here, Atlacomulco, too. He set the world record that year, there is Los Angeles. In the 10K. I came in third in the qualifiers, no more than the alternate, which makes you hope something bad will happen to the other two. Not career ending, but a pulled hamstring or something. I had never run in spiked shoes before that race. It was something I could not have imagined. And the track. I ran like the wind. Whoosh!
Carlos told me ‘you pull for me in the 10K, get out fast and get the group moving. After four or five kilometers I’ll catch up and go from there. Then I’ll pull for you in the 24K. We’ll help each other win.’
There was another winner from around here that year. Alfredo Sea, his name. From Ixtlahuaca. He won the gold medal in handball. Or the world championships. Or something like that. No, not that year. He won it in, let’s see, Barcelona in 1992. I have played him a few times. No, whoo! he’s good, give me a break.
I did get to go with the team to Los Angeles though. They gave us a visa so I stayed after, for almost a year. Did I tell you I almost got married to an American? “Caroline.”
I learned a little English there. I wish I had learned more. I think I want to speak pure English, all the time. I am tired of Spanish. I have worn out the language. It makes me tired to speak in it all the time.
Oh I could run all I wanted. Here it is like 3500 meters above sea level. But there in Los Angeles, I never got tired. I could run until my muscles ached. Run run run run run run run. I ran the marathon, the 10K, the 20K.
I wanted to come back and go to school, but he stayed and trained in the U.S. Carlos. He married an American woman. Soon after the Olympics, they invited him to run in Japan. They paid him 10,000 dollars just to go. And he won, and took home 70,000 more. He won in Las Angeles, Houston, Holland, England, Africa, Asia. Rotterdam, Germany, too. He took maybe 500,000 home just that year. Imagine that! Wow. Every year he invited me to go train with him, but I was in school then. I wanted to finish. Maybe I should have gone. He lives up there now. In Saint Louis.
I ran in Monterrey, the stadium there. Whatever the name of it is. In Puebla too. Pachuca, Guadalajara, Morelia. Many stadiums. All those soccer stadiums and I have never seen a soccer game. I have always felt strange watching someone else participate where I ran. I liked it more when everyone was watching me.”
Of course you have to imagine it with huge thoughtful pauses. After each sentence he would wiggle in his chair, take a drink of coffee, something active. Contemplative, yes, but not silent. He is always doing something, even when he is thinking about what to say next. He wants to train hard for the next few years and go try to win again, in the veterans division. He wants to go run and see if he has a chance. He wants to travel and figures it is the best way, even if he doesn’t win.

Chapter 1: Really Really Thirsty

“You rip off a chunk, like a small piece, and turn it over between your fingers and pinch the food you want to pick up with the piece so you don’t get germs on your food.”
“But you are holding the tortilla.”
“But the tortillas are clean.”
“How can that be true? An old lady whose hands are all gross, who has no water to wash them, rolling the dough around in her palms before they go on the heated steel plate that hasn’t been washed ever, and heated just until warm.”
“No…” and then he did this thing where he laughs once loud, buckles over and hits his knee with his fist. You don’t know if he is angry or happy until he comes up with a huge smile, face red from laughing at you. This was the first time I saw it. “Ok. Take the piece and eat your tuna. There is no other food, so just eat. Next time you can buy bread instead and have it all be clean. OK, now, if you want to eat a taco, you take your tortilla and put it in your hand like you think you would. Scoop the tuna in with that chunk of tortilla you previously ripped off, and there you go. Oh! You only hold it with one hand. That’s the Mexican way.”
It was in those first days that Kike and I both realized that we either had to quickly become best friends or it was going to be an incredibly taxing, difficult situation. So we had to make bad jokes, explain them slowly and loudly with small words, repeat them a couple times, and then laugh helping the other person see where to laugh.
Food was a trick, and one of the things that helped bring us together. I poked fun at the meager meals we ate, laughing and asking about the food and manner of eating, the cultural things that he never thought about. We would go buy handmade tortillas and tuna fish, or just fruit and bread, or buy some small homemade meal from the neighbors. We would scoop the tuna out of the can, or whatever we were eating, and onto the warm tortillas. I told him it was some of the most boring meals I had ever eaten. He told me I was in for a lot more boring meals. He taught me to eat with tortillas.
“Eating it with one hand? That’s what you guys have for traditions around here?”
“Do you want to be Mexican or not?”
“Fine, fine.”
We eat what we have. Actually after a few meals like this, you begin to be thankful for what you have and not griping about what you wish you had.
The tuna is gone but there are still two tortillas left.
“Ok. I get one, you get one.”
“What?”
“Eat your tortilla. I am eating mine.”
“You don’t have to eat the last tortillas. You always buy more than you need. If you find more food, you can put it in the tortilla and eat it. But right now we don’t have anything else.”
“Listen, there are starving children in China right now and you have more than you need. Eat your tortilla.” I am laughing eating my tortilla plain. Kike makes this face like he can’t believe I am eating a plain tortilla, but he laughs and puts some salt in his and does likewise.
Of course I am just paraphrasing what actually took many sentences to get out. He had to repeat himself, and I had to talk slowly, thinking of words, and come up with completely original creative ways to work around words I didn’t know.
We made a pact that night: he cooks, I wash the dishes. I was terrified of throwing the tortillas around over the live gas flame, and he couldn’t navigate his way down to the wash basin very easily, so it worked out great. He just sat there and smoked a cigarette and we chatted.
“You smoke?”
“No.” I’m answering. “You?”
“No.” He throws down his cigarette.
“Cool. I mean, not that I care...” He pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil from the backpack he had kept on the back of his chair since that morning. He started to draw. I had seen him paint the ceramic plates and bowls and salt shakers before, and I knew that he had an incredibly steady hand. I figured that simply meant he was a good artist, with plenty of practice. It turns out I was right. He drew for five minutes, and had a graffiti impression of me washing dishes. I laughed. I was a stereotype, but then again how else was he going to draw me?
“I love sitting out here watching the stars. When the moon is out, it is even nicer.” He takes a deep breath, putting his hand on his chest. He shrugs and wiggles his chair back and forth. My hands are freezing from washing the dishes.
“Before you came I would just sit out here and not do anything. Just by myself. I didn’t mind it, but it got so boring. I loved it when people came up to visit. I love it when we fire ceramics because sometimes Leti and Osve come up and stay until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. Israel comes up with tacos for dinner and we chat.”
“Did you hear that mouse in our room?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what there is to eat in our room though.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“Not really. It’s not like there are a lot of places to hide. I’ll ask them to bring us a trap tomorrow. It’s pretty easy.”
There is just a huge basin of water that I just want to dump all the dishes into and wash in that. But you have to put the dishes to one side, where there is a drain and pull water with a bowl or something out of the basin and splash it over the dishes. You then grab a sponge and scrub them down with soap. Then more water scooped out of the tank. It takes me forever to get all the soap off the dishes. I am scooping and scooping. Finally I just pile them up, hands red from the cold, and bring them up to the kitchen.
The next night I bought instant soups (although without a microwave, not so instant), and taught him how to use chopsticks (I had brought two pairs for fun). He ended up eating it with tortillas anyway, and I ended up with a fork.
A couple days later, the handyman Davíd called me to go help him. I didn’t understand what was going on, but suddenly we had two pieces of four-meter rebar that we were attempting to connect by bending the ends, through the means of banging it curved with a hammer. We ended up getting them satisfactorily hooked, and used some wire to make sure they were somewhat together in a now almost eight meter rod that I still didn’t understand. We took it out to the back forty (which was really like back “half”) and made our way along the ancient stone wall that used to house so much more 200 years ago. There sat a cement water basin that held probably a couple hundred liters of water. It came from the stream that came down the hill. I looked up and saw that the stream came down between two houses that were remarkably close together for having a stream between them, and above that water spilling out of a pipe that poked out from under the thin curving road, so the water wouldn’t flow over the road. Still further up was another similar basin that allowed for a large amount of spillage, and above that somehow an actual stream again winding it’s way through houses and trees. It was easy to follow just watching the heavy vegetation that wound its way up the hill amongst barren land filled with cactus and rocks.
It appeared that there was a concrete pipe about five inches in diameter that lead out of the side of the basin, into the ground, and then a few feet passed and it reappeared again. At that point there is a plastic tube, just a little bit smaller in diameter, shoved into the end of the concrete one.
“What’s this?”
“Where the water goes.”
“Our water?”
“Yes. Did you think we get our water from the channel?”
I physically shudder at the thought and Davíd laughs. The channel of course is a man made waterway that runs pretty much directly under my room, and out the other side of Las Rosas. It runs horizontally along the hill, bring water from the reservoir above the hill down and then laterally from South to North. There are big “keys” as the call them which are the irrigation gates that are opened a few times a year to let water flood down the hill and onto the plain, watering the corn. After the gates are opened, it floods down the land uncontrolled unless some farmer guides it by digging ditches. The water in the channel starts clean, but the channel is so filth, we have often discussed how you should carry a knife with you so that if you were ever to accidentally fall in, you could kill yourself quickly and not have to agonize through it. We see dead dogs or sheep floating around, the whole bottom lined with garbage, and crazy sorts of bacteria filled plants. No animal besides the water snakes we occasionally see would possibly survive here.
We spend about ten minutes pulling on the plastic tube, trying to dislodge it from inside the cement female end. It comes off with a pop, and water spouts out. The pressure quickly fades until it is nothing more than a dribble falling off the end. We look inside, but we can see nothing but black. I reach my arm up into it, and pull out a few large rocks, but surely nothing jammed that would have plugged the water.
I step back and finally see what the rebar is for. We pick it up and with me at the back start to negotiate it in. We get like three meters of our eight into the pipe before we hit something. We start to ram the thing in there. We give it a couple good knocks before we back up and give it a running start. It isn’t like a rock, it is like something soft with a little give that we are hitting but can’t pull out or push in farther. We need a fishhook to get past whatever is in there and yank it out. But all we have is rebar so we keep going at it. We actually get the rebar past the blockage and far enough past that it comes out the other end up into the basin. We pull it back out, black guck coming out, like leaves and stuff, but nothing solid. Each time we get an influx flow of water, but it quickly decreases and runs out again.
I went up to the basin to check things out. First of all I noticed that clothes were hung over the walls of the basin, not quite touching the water. So laundry is clearly washed in here before it makes its way down to our showers and sinks. I start to walk above and see garbage sitting on the sides of the stream. There are a lot of wrappers, bottles, and even a diaper. Yuck. That is there right above, or in, our water source. Not that we drink it, but I certainly wasn’t going to want to brush my teeth in that anymore. Man, that’s gross. I shudder again, and David laughs again, assuming I am thinking about the channel still. I am not.
I walk back down and Davíd is trying to bang a hook into the end of the rebar, to make it a wider stab into the pipe. We get it up and going again, working away at whatever is inside it. We probably toil there another fifteen minutes before we catch the clog, and give a few tough yanks, pulling it free. The water now flows, as we pull the rest of the rebar out. Out come two bags, both filled with now crunched plastic pop, detergent, and bleach bottles. We sit there, watching the water flow into the field below. We let it go a while, flushing out some more garbage, and reconnect the plastic tube.
We head back, and I go inspect the water system. It seems that in order for water to get into the bathroom, it has to be pulled from the water line through an electric pump, that goes into an underground reservoir, which is just under the classroom actually. It’s like a good swimming pool lane in width and pretty far back. There is a ladder down into it, so I could swim around if I wanted to. But the lid is only like a foot and a half across, so it would be kind of scary. So anyway, the idea is that if there is solid material in the water, it would just flow on through the system, into the channel with most of the water that goes through. But if we wanted water, it would be pumped out, in theory through some sort of wire screens or something inside the pump, into the reservoir. But when I open the door to the reservoir, a fat frog that was swimming at the surface sees me and dives down. Great.
I continue to follow the line, which appears to need yet another pump to pump it from there up into a tank on the roof. The line pulls water from the tank about half way down, so if there is garbage or animals, hopefully it is floating or has sunk, not getting sucked into the hose. And then from the cement tank on the roof, uses gravity to flow into the bathroom or the hose.
So it was somewhat poetic injustice that that day was the day that we ran out of drinking water in Las Rosas. Kike and I ate dinner without anything to drink, and finally went up to buy water from the tienda just up the road.
The next night we realize that we forgot to get drinking water again. Usually the water guy comes once or twice a week, but we haven’t seen him for a while now. And I forget to pick up water in town. Again, we go to the tienda. The next day the same thing happens, except there is no water at the tienda. Apparently, the water guy hasn’t been up for over two weeks and no one has water. I balk at the idea of the water guy not coming around, and don’t buy water in town, thinking about carrying that huge jug of water up the road twenty minutes. But again there is no water.
The fifth night we are dying of thirst. No one on the hill has water to buy from. Oh, and amusingly enough, we also run out of gas that day to cook with, and the gas man hasn’t been around for a while either.
So we are out there, me washing dishes and him cursing his physical ineptitude to stop pouring deadly smoke into the part of his body which hates it so much than all the other parts, dying of thirst.
“We don’t have water, we can’t buy water, and we can’t boil water. We are so stupid. Why don’t I just bite the bullet and haul that garrafon up here?”
“I can’t handle this. I am so thirsty. I won’t be able to sleep tonight I am so thirsty. We haven’t drank water in like two or three days. We have had pop, but that is just making it worse. I need water.”
And so, much like a Braveheart slow motion shot, I look up at him and nod, knowing what must be done. What must be done in the name of survival. Trumpets blast the death march, or the Imperial Theme or something, as I set down the dishes I am washing and walk up the stairs to meet him at the kitchen door, wifes and kids crying and holding out their hands. I pause, and then enter, picking up two plastic glasses. We do an about face and walk back outside. We stride towards the bathroom entrance, not saying anything, both knowing what is about to come.
Noooooo!!!!!
I go to the sink, and drop my head in defeat as I turn on the faucet. I fill both cups up, and set them next to each other on the counter. I look at Kike, thinking of my past, non-diarrheal, youth. We each take a cup and stare into the water. I dump mine out and fill it up again. It looks the same. There is nothing floating, but your eyes can for the first time actually see batrillions of microorganisms chomping their large teeth and doing unmentionable things inside the water. I grimace and say: “well, if I’m going to be sick, so are you.” And with that we both down the entire glass of water.
For the rest of the night we start to feel sick. At least every twenty minutes someone says “I think I’m feeling sick.”
We both woke up the next morning fine.