This is, verbatim, an essay Adalid wrote yesterday. She edited it once, but pretty much is the original version. I think it is absolutely amazing:

Do Not Be Quiet

As we get older, many of us have noticed that certain things become easier for us because the knowledge we have acquired and the confidence that the years have given us. A child usually does not know when it is appropriate to not say or do something, but over the years she begins to understand why sometimes silence is better than words. Over the years she also has to learn how to act with family, friends or others. We must to know our culture and how to live in it. In the Mexican culture there are certain topics that can’t be mentioned in vain. For most Mexicans their religion and their mother are sacred. In other words, a person has to be really careful if he wants to talk about those things, otherwise he will be in trouble. My mother isn’t a saint for me, but without question she is the greatest woman in my life. She is devout to her faith and family. Although she always has loved her family, her faith is the reason why our family exists.

It was a day in the winter of 1991, when the mornings in my town are frozen, but during the day the temperature reaches up to ninety degrees. The day seemed to be normal; my sister and I were coming back from school. Our daily route took us one hour walking from home to school, and one hour going back from school to home, since there were no taxis or buses to ride at that time. For us winter was the worst season because in the mornings we had to wear warm clothes that we then had to carry all the way back, walking under the suffocating heat. That day, just like every day on the return trip, we made our usual stop to ask for some water in a house owned by a kind noble lady, whose name we didn’t even know. Yet after several months of giving us water, she knew us very well. Sometimes she had prepared plastic bags filled with water, and to make it easier for us, she used to close the plastic bags making a knot and putting a straw into them. That way we could take the water with us to continue on our hot journey.

Our walking was slow, as it almost always was, and we weren’t talking; we were too tired to say anything. We had left behind the town where our school was, and we were approaching to the first houses of our town. My sister was a few steps in front of me, stopped, turned and looked toward me nodding. I knew what that meant: we had to get ready to run. I despised that because the only fresh shade we could get was there, right where we had to go running past. I hated that dog, but I hated more that older woman because she never did anything to stop her dog. She just sat in front of her house, embroidering. While we were running and yelling “buenas tardes,” hoping she would do something to help us, she would just sit there, watching us.

Finally, we got home. My mother wasn’t outside washing clothes as usual. I opened the door. The house was fresh, almost cold, and there was a tenuous smell of soup. The concrete floor was still humid after my mother had mopped it. My mother was seated next to the table in front of the window with her hands resting on the table, holding a New Testament that my father had given to her a couple months before. My father was seated across the room, in front of my mother. The light coming through the window was hitting his face, so his gray-green eyes looked even more beautiful. He was wearing his typical Charro clothes: white shirt, black vest, gray pants and black boots. His gray hat was resting on the floor. I suspected something was going on because he was supposed to be working, and of course, we wanted to know what was happening.

“It’s so hot out there Mami,” I said, while I was walking toward her to kiss her. “I’m so glad you are here honey,” she said. I kissed my father too; then my sister and I dropped our back packs and coats under our chairs and sat next to each other as if we were ready to eat even though we were taught to go away when adults were talking. But I was really hungry, and I’m sure my sister was too. I really wanted to hear my parents’ conversation, and I’m very sure my sister wanted to hear it too. To our surprise, my mother let us stay there.

After heating the tortillas and serving us soup, she went back to her original place and position. “You decide,” my father said to her. My sister and I had food in our mouths, so we couldn’t talk, but my sister hit my knee with hers; again I knew what that meant. We both knew what they were talking about. “I have told you that if some day I would leave you it would be for someone better than you, and definitively I prefer him,” answered my mother. I stopped eating. My father looked at us then toward my mother. He didn’t say anything else. He grabbed his hat and stood up. My mother got up too. My sister was crying, and I was almost. My father opened the door and the sun came into the house. It was still really hot, and I could feel the heat in my face. He looked outside and wrinkled his face. I wasn’t quite sure by the expression in his face if he was trying to hold back tears that were already in his eyes, or if it was caused just by the bright light that was hitting his face. He looked at us again without saying anything. My mother had called my younger brother and sister to say goodbye. I didn’t know if that was a definitive goodbye or if we would see him later that day, so I stood up, kissed him and hesitated a little before hugging him. Nobody said anything, and he left.

I was seven years old when he left; after that I saw him twice, may be three times over the next fourteen years, but we never talked. My mother had been a mediocre catholic for thirty years until the day she read the New Testament my father had given her, and she discovered someone that loves her so much that he had died to save her family and herself. After that my father forced her to choose between him and her new faith. I remember my mother cried many nights. I thought she missed him, but she wouldn’t say it though she asked us to pray always for him.

Two years ago I went to invite my father to my wedding. It was hard to recognize him because he looked much older than I remember him being. While we were talking, we were walking down the school’s corridor where he works now. We stopped in front of a big window; his eyes looked as beautiful as in that winter day, fourteen years before. I wrinkled my face trying to avoid tears in my eyes, and pretending it was for the light coming through the window in front of us. “You have my same look.” He said. I wanted to tell him many things, but I didn’t because I wasn’t sure it was appropriate to say anything. I left, and now I ask myself why I did. Why it is so difficult to say “I love you, forgive me” and “I was wrong?” I don’t know, but I would like to tell my father that I have forgiven him and how much I love him. Some day I might tell him. I hope there is time.

Chapter 23: Wheelchair Sports in Toluca

We meet in Atlacomulco at like 8:30 in the morning. A little bus is there to pick us up. There are like 15 or maybe 16 of us there, all there to participate except Liam, myself, and Juan Pablo’s sister Laura. I lift all of them into the bus, one by one. All of them. Maybe Liam helped some. And then we folded, took the wheels off, and stacked all the chairs on the bus too. And then we rode with Laura all the way there, facing backwards on a wooden plank leaning against the bumping speaker in her beater Volkswagen van.

When we got there, we jumped out, unloaded unfolded and reassembled all the chairs. We got all the seat cushions down and into place, and then all of them down and into their chairs. Some did it themselves.

So I’m not always gracious; I don’t always like this job. Judge me if you must.

We get into a real gym, with real tennis courts outside. It is a nice 70 to 80 degree day. Liam and I both get chairs to play in. We wheel around and shoot hoops. The best part of the day. This is actually the first time that I have ever been allowed to play wheelchair basketball in a real gym with real hoops and real wood floors. It is difficult, but awfully fun. Shooting from outside of 15 feet is extremely difficult, and I could only do it using momentum from my lower body which of course they don’t have. Juan Pablo is built like a horse and can easily throw the ball that far, but with little accuracy. I teach them how to shoot the ball from immediately under the hoop, spinning it up off the backboard. They teach me how to move in a wheelchair. They knock me out of it at their own will.

There are maybe 20 to 30 people in chairs total. We dominate the chaired numbers. There are two guys teams and two girls teams that are made up of deaf individuals. They play both basketball and soccer. We got play tennis while they play basketball, and then we finally get a sweet full game of wheelchair basketball going while they go play soccer outside.

The funniest part was the awkwardness of the political situation. What happened is that the event was sponsored by both the city of Toluca, which is the PAN political party, and the state athletic department which is the opposing PRI. Kike pointed this out to me as soon as we got there, and said that both the mayor of the city from the PAN (who I knew from his huge billboards) and the head athletic chair from the PRI (who Kike knew from TV) were there, and both wanted credit for helping these poor unfortunates. And they both gave speeches to that end. All the local and national TV stations were there, who were all interested that Liam and I were there. Not to get on TV, but interested to chat.

Don Memo was invited up and gave a long pompous speech about being there. I love the guy, but he is way too into himself. I think he just wanted to be on TV.

Kike ended up being on TV. He got a great interview (he is definitely the most photogenic of the group, with maybe the exception of Juan Pablo) and was totally relaxed and himself, talking about how much fun it is and how people need to stop thinking people in wheelchairs are contagious and start building more ramps and sidewalks and stuff. We saw him on TV that night, as did a lot of friends who told us later.

And we loaded up the people, chairs, and equipment and headed home. This is the day: from 8 AM to 8 PM we spend a total of three hours on the road, one hour loading and unloading, an hour listening to bogus politicians rant about who deserves credit for helping people out, an hour awards ceremony that was fun but way too long, an hour waiting, an hour eating for lunch, an hour for dinner, an hour for TV interviews, and whatever is left over for playing. This is not good or bad. It just is a different style. It’s patient and slow and no one is in a rush to do anything. It’s just what it is. Some days I love it. Some days I hate it.

Chapter 22: San Felipe

As it was getting later on in Spring, I started going more and more to San Felipe. I would go early in the day, check my email, buy a delicious torta in the torta store in the corner of town, do whatever errands I had to do that day, and wait for Adalid to arrive. I don’t completely recall if it was really to kill time, or if I really enjoyed it there. Regardless, one day I ended up at the high school and told them that I would be willing to help teach English there. I met the English teacher (a very nice lady), we chatted (she knew quite a bit of English for what I expected), and I was brought around to ALL the classrooms in the school to be introduced. I instantly knew that this was going to get me in trouble, as they now all knew me, and I was expected to remember all 400 of them.

I was told that I was invited to come to sit in on any class during the day that I wanted – the only thing they could offer me in return for my services was the opportunity to learn more Spanish by sitting in on, for example, high school economics – and then taught an after school English class that really bombed from the first day. There were no requirements for being in my class, no minimum standard or anything, so kids who knew not a word of English were mixed with kids who had lived years in the US. The worst was that I couldn’t even bail because the word on the street that English was being offered got out and kids would come in, we would play games that were either way too easy or way too advanced for them, and the turnover rate ended up being incredible. Like basically a new class every week. And those that stayed completely frustrated.

But by this wandering around and hanging out in town, I started to get to know some people. The guy at the torta shop asked me if I’d give him classes. He was a pretty quiet, serious guy, but I had time before my class at school, so I started giving him class.

Marco is a very sharp, straightforward kid. It took a while to get even a smile out of him, and he liked to wax philosophical on different subjects, many of which he knew nothing about. A lot of it turned to theory of things that I had facts for, but was unsure of how to go about telling him he was wrong. It turned out he was about 8 months older than me, the youngest of four kids. His girlfriend was quiet, nice, and very polite. She always kept working as we had class. Shorter and very white for a Mexican, Marco’s parents lived poorly in a very old house that they probably could have sold and made a lot of money off of. Actually, the position of the torta shop, along with the tienda just around the corner that his two brothers owned and operated, were prime territory, probably the highest property value in the city.

Soon he opened up, we starting laughing and talking about common interests, and I met his family and friends, their family and friends, and a huge network of people opened up for me. I still had to be home by 7 or 8 (after daylight savings), because the walk up to Las Rosas in the dark was brutal, and there were no taxis or buses after dark, so I never got to go to any family parties or anything, even though I was often invited.

This was an interesting time in my life because I was suddenly meeting people from all walks of life, and involved in so many conversations about countless subjects. The real characters were Marco’s two brothers, Gabi and Chucho, and Marco’s friends Chava, Chaparro, Chicote, and El Maestro. The two brothers were very large men, maybe 25 or 30 with a couple kids each. Very serious men. Whatever they did, they did it with complete conviction. They worked everyday, open at 9 and closed at 11, seven days a week, 365 days a year. They wouldn’t take one day off. Each had very serious life goals of building houses and new businesses and they were set out on paper and achieved each in their own time. Tuesday night drinking was a VERY serious matter and I was only let off because I explained my situation.

Chaparro was a typical Mexican build with the Mariachi gut and typical Mexican style with cowboy hat and boots. It was funny to me that he fit in the group. But he did. He loved his mother and the Virgin and spicy food and tequila. He was a violent drunk they told me, something I vowed never to see. Chaparro was well know for failing at everything. He had been in every type of business there was in town, and had always got tired of not getting instantly rich, and looked for something else. He currently had about a dozen video game machines that he was trying to expand into a larger business (he never would).

Chava was a totally different type. A stereotype of the developing middle class Mexican. A kid of a rich family, he had his own car and was always in school for the lack of a real opportunity to work. His parents just figured that if he got enough degrees, someone had to give him a good job. He had an easy life, an allowance, freedom to do as he pleased. They constantly mocked him for his liberal ways and his love of the strip clubs. He had a nice girlfriend and always cheated on her.

Chicote loves America. That is the one striking feature about him. He is short and skinny, talks fast and with a lot of motion. He talks almost constantly about his two year experience of working in LA. Always saying how it was in the states, how it is different there, how the people are different, what Chicanos are like and how they are different from Mexicans, whatever you can possibly imagine that there is to say about the US, he has said it. Every time I see him, someone tells him to shut up. I laughed every time he wanted to talk about the “ook-la” because in Spanish you always say your acronyms and never the letters (he meant UCLA). He was there maybe a year before he returned to the US, never to come back to Mexico again.

El Maestro was a crack up. He was tall and skinny and had this bright red “Toluca Red Devils” coat that he never took off. He was a teacher at the middle school, a lazy teacher at that, and lived from day to day. He was conservative and never liked to do anything that would take up too much time. I have no idea what he did that he didn’t want to waste time hanging out for, but he was always on the move. He had sayings that would make everyone within hearing distance fall over laughing.

Soon they each had gotten to know me and always called me over to chat when they saw me in town. After a while working at the high school, I saw them altogether one day out on the curb in front of Gabi and Victor’s store. They had a bottle of tequila between them. They called me over. The first question I was asked was this:

Gabi: Could you possibly marry a woman that isn’t a virgin?

I answered slowly: Umm, yes. Yes. I mean it depends. I mean like is her heart virgin? I mean, if she is a woman running around with guys and then wants to marry me, I couldn’t do that. But I wouldn’t date a woman like that anyway. If a woman had made a mistake or two and had repented of that and assured me I was the only man for her, I would trust her, yes. And it wouldn’t make a difference that she had had sex before. Her past has nothing to do with me. I can’t change that anymore.

Chaparro: But you can never really know, of course. Until you see it. You can’t trust a woman one hundred percent because you never know what she actually is doing. I know what time my wife should be home. I know what she does all day. If she strays from that routine, something is going on and I am going to find out what.

Me: I don’t know. I guess I feel I can trust Adalid completely. She is a big girl. She knows the consequences to her actions. It certainly isn’t worth it for me to mess around with another girl because I love Adalid so much. If I actually risked that for one stupid fling, even if I didn’t get caught, it just wouldn’t be worth it. I am pretty sure she is the same way.

Chaparro: That’s crazy, my friend. She wants you to feel jealous, and will do things to make you react. If you don’t react, she will just keep pushing it. That’s how it is.

Me: No, what’s crazy is you guys who feel that you can sleep with all the women you want but that your wife should be a virgin. How is this possible? Can you do the math? Do you all really honestly think that all your wives were virgins when they met you?

Chaparro: If I found out a guy had slept with my wife before we got married, I would kill him. That simple.

Me: But YOU slept with women before you got married. Are their husbands coming to kill you?

Chaparro: No, because I would never say anything to anyone. And I know she wouldn’t say anything either.

Me: So you think your ex-girlfriends have an obligation to you over their husbands to be dishonest, but your wife has the obligation to you over her ex-boyfriends to be honest. This just doesn’t make any sense.

Gabi: A woman wants you to be experienced. She doesn’t care that you aren’t a virgin. On the contrary, she wants you to please her so you have to know what you are doing. If you don’t know what you’re doing, and you don’t feed her needs, she will find a lover a huevo!

Me: But if she’s a virgin, how will she know what is good or not? It seems like anybody having sex for the first time will think it’s incredible. If you are honest with each other and trusting each other it would probably be fantastic sharing such an intimate thing, even if the other person doesn’t know any more than you do. It would probably be better that way.

Chaparro: It’s the culture, my friend. I could not live with the idea that my wife was disrespected by another man. If someone disrespects her now, just saying something sleazy to her on the street, I would probably (hand motions a gun out of its holster) BOOM BOOM BOOM. (They all laugh)

Me: How would it be disrespect if she chose to have sex with that guy? Along the same logic, wouldn’t you be required to kill your wife too, since she somehow disrespected you before she even knew you?

Chava: You are talking to a big, ignorant, bunch of country folk. They are stuck in their conservative ways. (Gabi, Chucho, Marco and Chaparro starting ripping at him, telling him he just a drunk who knows nothing of real Mexican culture)

Me: But I don’t agree with you either. You do the same exact things they do, like running around to the brothels, but just feel like you can excuse it because you are somehow more liberal than them…? Just because you could marry a woman who is not a virgin, you would still fool around behind her back. You would probably only marry her once she got pregnant. That’s the other half of the culture I see around here.

Marco: We may be ignorant, but at least we know it. We know it is hypocritical, but that’s the culture.

Me: At least you guys are making me look good. I can tell Adalid I am a virgin and because she thinks no guy would ever brag about that, she knows it’s true. It gives us a deep trust for each other that goes beyond our language barrier or communication problem.

Flaco (or “Maestro”): Yes. Exactly. (His arms being thrown in all directions like he is flashing complicated gang signs)

Me: The only person who agrees with me.

Marco: It’s only because he’s so ugly that he hasn’t got with a girl. It has nothing to do with morals.

Me: You guys also make me look good because I tell her I will help her with housework, which of course would be totally expected of me by any American woman, and she thinks I am some savior.

(This gets a rowdy, dissenting laugh)

Chaparro: No, my friend. You can’t do that.

Me: No, you don’t understand. I have to. Even if I didn’t want to, I have been trained to this way of thinking my whole life.

Chaparro: No, no no. Listen. A man has like five major responsibilities here: to work. To cut the lawn. To carry heavy things… um, if there is no water, the man gets a big pole on his back with two buckets and walks down to the well to get the water. And he has to come home, lie down on the couch and say “my love, bring me a plate of fruit.” (this gets a good laugh out of everyone)

Me: No, even though that sounds great, I have been conditioned to help out with all the housework. Right now I do all the housework in my home. It will actually seem like a great help for me just if she helps me out.

Chaparro: No, you are missing the point. We are not asking you. We are telling you. You cannot do that. Otherwise your wife will be so happy she will tell our wives and then we will all be doing housework like you! (this gets another good round of laughter)

I have a good laugh just thinking about that. It was different. I don’t know if I will ever have friends like that again.

There were others too. I met maybe 100 people in the course of the first month I wandered around in town by myself, and maybe another 150 from the kids in the school. I would show up early for my class to play basketball or eat with them or whatever there was to do. Most people treated me very nice – even the teachers liked me a lot. One guy was always trying to invite me out to drink pulque. I just smiled and laughed and pretended like I didn’t understand.

Oh, and I started to see Elias there a lot too, working every other day. I already knew a lot of his friends, but I met even more of his co-workers, probably on a first name basis with at least half the police force in town. This would later thoroughly weird most of my friends out.

And everyday Adalid would show up, we’d walk around, I’d introduce her to the new people I met (even though she already knew, or knew of, most of them). She’d tell me the gossip about this or that person, what they were known for, whatever it happened to be. We’d eat free tortas (my fee for teaching Marco) and chat. I’d walk her to her taxi or bus and she’d be off with a kiss.

I made about 40 pesos a day off classes, which was enough for transportation and food. Carefree, happy days passed one after the next.

Chapter 21: Jokes

I forgot to mention something that happened in Mexico City. As Kike tells it, here goes this story:

No bro, you won’t believe it but we were in Mexico City with my cousin, in her car. We went to go fill up the tank at the gas station. So we roll in, pull up to the pump. Some kid is selling candy, and comes over to see if we want any. We buy a pack of gum and off he goes to the other cars. Of course the nerd pumping gas takes forever but finally comes over and asks us how many and we are like “you think we are rich or what? Just because we have a Gabacho? 50 pesos.” As he is filling it up we see this motorcycle drive up. This huge guy with a leather coat and everything. The beard and whatever. We see the kid with the candy go over and offer the motorcyclist some. We see him smile a big grease smile and tell the kid that if he drinks a liter of gas, he’ll buy all his candy and give him 200 pesos on top of that. A little macabre, but we all watch in horror as the kid drinks the liter. The man is laughing but pays the kid what he owes him, and the kid takes off running. He runs down the street and around the corner. We all look at each other and, you know, ayyy. We pay the man and take off, deciding to follow the kid to see if he’s ok. As we turn the corner and see him lying face down in the middle of the street. We got out and turned him over and you know what had happened to him? He had run out of gas.

When we were in Acapulco, as we were walking down the beach in front of million dollar hotels, Adalid looks out at the ocean she had seen for the first time just the day before and asks contemplatively, “do you know why the ocean is blue?” I begin to slowly explain the reflection of the sky and what causes the hue of the water to look different colors. I am struggling greatly without all the words I need, but I am pretty sure I am getting the point across. We walk in silence a few minutes and she says, “…no.” I look at her and think maybe I didn’t explain it well, or didn’t have the right words to express myself. “Yes, it’s like… it’s like…” and she cuts me off “no. It’s because the fishes say ‘blue blue blue.’” It took me a minute to get but I guessed that in Spanish the fishes say “blue” like the roosters cry “kee kiree kee!” I guess it was pretty funny.

Here is another joke (I was told this one at church):

There is an American and a Mexican on either sides of the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande) hunting ducks. A duck flies between them and BOOM both hunters shoot. The duck falls into the water and the Mexican hurries down and picks it out of the river. The American, quite adamant, tells the Mexican that he shot the bird and it is rightfully his (although the joke was told to me making the American guy as stereotypical as possible, you can imagine the Mexican as a blatant stereotype, because I am telling the joke and I can tell it like I want to). The Mexican says that he is sure he shot it, but if the American would like, they can make a deal. “Here is the deal” the Mexican says. “I am going to kick you in family jewels as hard as I can and for as long as I want to, and then you can, and then I can, and so on, until one person gives up. The person who doesn’t give up gets the duck.” “Fine,” the American says. So the Mexican kicks him and kicks him and kicks him until he is tired from kicking him so much. “Great” the American says, “now it’s my turn.” “Aaagh,” the Mexican says, “go ahead and take duck.”

Everybody else is laughing but you don’t get it, do you? I don’t either. It makes no sense! Why is it funny?

Chapter 20: Climbing San Agustin Hill

So, when she suggested we should climb up the hill above the Las Rosas, with Kike, it came as the greatest idea I had heard, and especially cool coming from Adalid. The biggest surprise, I guess, was that we hadn’t thought about it before. It would be the biggest physical feat that Kike would have endured up to that point in his life, but an awesome challenge. And Adalid wanted to both help and be part of it. Obviously.

So we talked it over, packed a lunch, and started up the trail. The challenge was this: to get him, in his wheelchair, about 2000 feet up the hill, along a “road” that was mostly boulders, cactus, and eroded trail. We would have to back track about a fifth of a mile, along a grassy path, to get him to the main road that would get us about a quarter of the way up the hill. The next half was pure boulder, maybe a mile, and the last quarter would be cactus, plants, and otherwise uphill gravel to reach a lookout point that the San Agustin church had built for Easter Sundays some years back.

We didn’t really treat it like a challenge, like something we were going to conquer, though. It was a definite battle getting him up the poorly paved, winding road, but we would stop and chat and laugh and throw rocks. It was more like an adventure, one that would take hours but we were set on doing it, so there was no turning back. There are houses up as far as the road is paved, so we stopped to buy chips or cookies or whatever we wanted. I had finally got my Spanish down to the point that if I wanted to throw something in, some side joke or whatever, I would start to, they would wait, I would think about it, and then at some point it would come out, better late than never. It was great.

The view out across the valley was a curious site, as we climbed higher and higher you thought there was no way that you could possibly see more, that it could possibly get nicer. As we moved forward, the valley lost its contour, all the little hills and bumps became a flat plane that ran all the way across to Mount Joco across the other side. All the little towns lost their borders and houses met corn fields wherever they felt like it, order and organization lost in the vast layout. It felt like I was flying over head, instead of looking down from the hillside.

When pushing Kike’s chair – Adalid and I took turns – Kike doesn’t really let you push him. He more uses you as propulsion to keep him moving forward. I mean, he is always pushing, as if you weren’t there. But obviously it would be a lot more difficult for him to get over boulders and through shifty gravel if we weren’t there keeping him moving forward. The motion of pushing and pausing while you reach back to push again really hurts your momentum. Sometimes Adalid and I would each take one handle, throwing our other arms around each other, each doing half the work. It was more fun than effective, but we weren’t in a race.

Then, as I was almost at a 45 degree angle, full force into the chair, something scary happened. We came up over a ridge and as I looked up, coming straight at us was the one armed man. Have I mentioned the one armed man? He is a guy that lives somewhere up the hill, I think all the way up actually, who comes down the hill everyday to catch the bus to go somewhere. And he always stares me down. He scares the living daylight out of me. People generally tell me he’s a really strange guy and to be careful of him. He is tall with a long twisted beard and has long hair that is always topped off with a blue wool hat. He looks like he is coming right from jail. The three of us reacted, all of us facing directly forward looking past him as if he didn’t exist. The protocol in San Agustin is to say “good morning” or “good afternoon,” depending on the time of day, in Spanish or Mazahua, to anyone you pass, simply because they are in your community. But we froze. Nobody said anything. I could see he was staring us down. I swear I was ready to grab Adalid, throw us over Kike’s chair and hurtle us back down the hill at full speed. Luckily without a word he passed us by and at a great stride, continued down the road. We stopped and watched him continue down, waiting until he was out of sight before saying anything.

“Oh my gosh”

“Aaaaagh”

“Oh, let’s run for it.” I grabbed Kike’s chair and pretended like I was going to go full speed into a cactus patch.

We were at the last house on the hill. Which meant the last stretch of moderately smooth ground. The really rough stuff was coming up, and we could see it. We had three switchbacks left until the final ascent. There was nothing crazy steep, nothing a car couldn’t climb if it really wanted to, which made me relax a little. From the bottom of the hill it looks like there were pieces where rock climbing was going to be necessary. I hadn’t really figured how we were going to get Kike up that, but now seeing it from here, I realized that it wouldn’t be necessary. We continued to move slowly, sometimes have to work all three together to get over certainly places.

Up ahead we could see a stretch of where the pavement continued again. As we got closer to that point, I started to see that the concrete made no sense. It was a stretch of about 30 yards of straight road that looked like it probably got washed out constantly, and that was the reason for the pavement. But where it ended and began, it was maybe a foot or two up or down, where the dirt had eroded away in front and at the end. If any car tried to take it, it would totally scrape up the bottom to pieces. I couldn’t imagine any car high enough to make it cleanly. We pulled Kike up onto it and he could help push again. It made the going much easier for us, but I could see no other logical use for that road.

The view was exponentially sweeter than it had been down below.