Another day in Tlacochahuaya (or, where I’ve been for the past year)

When my neighbor Luis, who’s 11 and somehow or other always knows what’s what in Tlacochahuaya, informs me that there’s nobody in the market because “they’re going to crucify a guy later”, it takes me a second.  …It’s Good Friday. 

Last Easter, we were in Salina Cruz, planning a move to Chiapas, and trying to discern how much of my belly was due to our baby and how much to my mother-in-law’s enmoladas and camarones al mojo de ajo. 

Most of the plans we had this time last year have been thwarted, except for the baby, and even he surprised us, with his physical appearance if nothing else.  Our blue-eyed, curly-haired Isaias is the toast of the Tlacochahuaya market, and we’re living in the middle of the Oaxaca valley, surrounded by chickens, semi-feral dogs, the occasional crucifixion, and a motley array of neighbors–Seventh Day Adventists, benevolent alcoholics, speakers of Zapotec and Mixe, bossy señoras, farmers, motherless children, show-offs, an asshole or two, and a few of the genuinely humble people on this earth. 

So it’s Easter.  Spring–though we were harvesting tomatoes in our yard in February, so “spring” seems a bit arbitrary.  Still, yes.  Spring.  Baby Isaias is beginning to reach out and touch his world–adobe, chicken feathers, brick, bougainvillea, woolen rugs, mango.  Freshly-laid, stillwarm eggs.  Gil is working too hard, as usual, and I’m working not hard enough, as usual.  But we’re finding balance.  Something new.  Home.  Resurrection, probably, would be overstating the point.  But spring: nothing to do with the weather, but it feels like spring.