A day in the life of Josefina

I live with Josephina and her three daughters in the rancho of TAMAHULA. It is quite funny because the people of Tamaula write the name of their rancho with an “H” in it as TAMAHULA but on the entry gate of the rancho it is written without. I guess this has to do with the relatively recent establishment of the rancho but of course this is just a supposition. Anyhow I am going to describe a typical day of my host mother, Josefina. In the morning she gets up to make fresh corn tortillas every day. She grinds the corn to make the masa and then enters her little shack situated right next to her house with the only light of a 8x10 inch window opening can give her. She makes all her tortillas for the day and the best ones are the fresh ones! We eat breakfast at about 9 or 10 in the morning. While we eat we share stories of all sorts and the recurring theme seems to be scary stories, legends of Tamaula or any spook story so far. I guess they must be trying to scare me off! Josephina has an amazing laugh. She is such a good hearted person. For instance, anyone who comes in her house is offered a tortilla and whatever food she can prepare for them. She told me that she would expect, and hope, that if any of her kids were in need of a tortilla that one would offer them one as well. After making the tortillas and chatting, Josefina does the outside chores. She cares for her animals which include 15 pigs, chickens, a donkey, a cow and dogs that roam around and peek into the kitchen begging for hand outs. She also washes clothes in a cement basin, bleaches the whites and hangs everything up on clothes lines that I always knock into because they are very low. One day, I washed my clothes by myself in the basin and I had to stand to the side of it because my back was hurting from bending down. Josefina told me that I was supposed to stand in front of it, and I told her that it was too small for me and that my back was hurting from bending down—she laughed her heart out. Josefina washes the dishes outside as well. All the water they use for bathing, for dishes, for drinking, for cooking, for washing clothes comes from bins they have outside. In the rainy season they fill up of rain water but in draught season the government brings them two bins per family for a week. They bring their donkeys and horses in order to carry the heavy weight of the little water they are allotted per household. I came during the rainy season so there has not yet been a lack of water but I can only imagine how they have to carefully supervise the use of water in order to not waste a drop of it. While Josefina does the hard outside work, the girls Karina and Silvia take care of the inside house chores. They sweep then mop while watching their novellas on TV. Oh yes I need to mention that there are TVs in every room…or at least almost, there is no TV in the kitchen. They follow their novellas (note the use of plural here) daily. Once done with the house chores Josephina and her daughters sit down in the living room on one of their three couches and start crocheting and embroidering. The other day I brought out my pair of pants that needed to be repaired. I have been willing to mend the seam for at least a year now and I finally got to sit down—in front of a novella—to fix them. Josefina told me to leave it for her—“Deja le!” she told me—but I asserted that I could fix them by myself. Once I was done Josefina took a look at the job I had done and she agreed, I did indeed do a good job J (Thank you mama!) When lunch time comes Josefina warms up the tortillas she made in the morning in a large flat pan over the oven. Most days we would eat lentils, frijoles, sopa, papas, eggs all with chile in it to add some spice. Some days if there has been a party every household gets left overs of the chicken with mole that we eat at dinner. Any tortillas that are left over from the day’s batch are discarded; well not really they keep two trash bins under the kitchen table, one with any organic wastes for the animals and the other with any inorganic waste that they will burn outside. What is very bad is that they burn EVRYTHING including plastic and polystyrenes. But on the other hand there is no waste pick up here in Tamaula…
On the weekends, Saturday evenings, Josephina’s four others daughters that study in Rancho Nuevo return home to their casita. I could tell that she loves having a house full, I mean she is even open to hosting three foreign guests!
Other happenings are the “juntas,” the meetings that occur as often as something needs to be done. I have already seen two in the past four days. Josefina assists in both the ALL mens’ junta and the juntas for the women. The men got together in order to nominate which of the men in Tamaula will be working to fix the road. If the nominated cannot fulfill their task they have to pay a fine. This money that is paid goes to improving the infrastructures in TAMAHULA.

Image on the wall in the Church of Tamaula, la Virgenita.

El hermanito de Lupita

Ana Guadalupe y Paloma


Marisa

We got invited to a party by one of the prepa students. The prepa students are ages 16 up to 21. They do not have any professors that come to Tamaula so they take courses through the Prep@net program. Prepanet has been set up in communities in order for the youth to have an education without having to leave their communities. Some might not have money to send their children to Irapuato and this enables them to get an education taking courses in math, chemistry and other subjects while staying in their communities. Below you can see the inauguration of the new Prepa building. They had a library with books donated for them and computers that are connected to internet. It is a little weird to think that a town like Tamaula can have access to internet but has yet to have running water! Anyways getting back to the point, we partied with the prepa students and we learned how to dance to Norteño and Cumbia music! Picture this, we partied outside below the moonlight, the stars our feet in the mud, we could hear donkeys, goats, chickens and the turkey while we admired the unique scenery of the nightlights of the surrounding cities. It was wonderful. I really felt in Mexico! We danced a lot and we even introduced them to some “American” music and dance moves including the cue tip move inspired by the Hitch movie and the shopping cart! It was a lot of fun! I danced with one boy whose name is Juan Manuel, he is 16. He told me about his family situation. He lives in Irapuato with his older sister and his younger brother. His father left to the U.S. He told me that the last time he spoke to his father they had a fight. The father wanted Juan Manuel to come to the U.S to work and he did and still does not want to. He told me that if he were to go “al otro lado” it would only be on a vacation visa. He has no intent to stay in the U.S to work. He also told me that his father started a new family “al Norte” and he must have 4 step brothers and sisters. He does not go to school and told me that he prefers life in Tamaula to life in Irapuato. Life in Irapuato brings him to the “calle” and too many drugs and marijuana are in circulation. He told me that he prefers staying with his grandfather Don Pedro in Tamaula than staying at his mother’s which is to escape any social pressures.

Life in Tamaula is an escape, a refuge.

He told me that there are “chollos” in the street and I asked him what he meant by that. He described them as shaved headed and tattooed guys. We then moved on to discussing politics.
Juan Manuel dreams of traveling and now he wants to come to France! He told me that he wanted to see of his own eyes what life is like in the United States. The echoes he gets is that everyone is equal in the U.S. and this appeals and adds to the pulling and pushing effect of migration, and I can testify that little towns like Tamaula are greatly affected by migration.

In the back of a pickup truck

Students in their school uniforms.

Amadelia

Rico

The view from my balcony at 7 in the morning.

We traveled down the mountain of Tamaula in the back of a pickup truck with our luggage and bags packed for 4 days. The family that took us down was on their way to vote. I will let you know what the elections results come out to be. On the way down in the pickup truck, I got to chat with a young man who hitched a ride down as well. He told me that he is studying to be a priest. The length of studies is 14 years. He told me that they have class from 8 in the morning until 2p.m. and then they clean their dormitories and play sports such as soccer, basketball and volleyball. They are 7 in the program. They learn theology of course but also math, history, physics and chemistry. His name was Manuel and he is 19 years old. He was about 5.7, dark skin and a tint shy. He was traveling with one suit case slightly bigger than a carry on size bag. I asked him if he got to come home to Tamaula every weekend since he seemed to be traveling pretty light. He told me he came back every month. Although he was shy and did not seem very talkative, he enjoyed knowing about the life in the United States and life at the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic University. I told him about dorm life, the chapels in all the dorms, about Saint Adalbert Parish i which offers mass in Spanish for the large Latino community of South Bend, IN. Once we got to the bottom after a 30 minute drive down a red rocky dirt road we were dropped off and waited for our mini vans. We jumped into our transportation and traveled to Mineral de Posos. Mineral de Posos is a mining town where several minerals were extracted including copper, silver and bromine. We got to visit some of the ancient mining lands. We threw rocks down a mine of 200 meters (!) and tried to hear the impact the rock should have made at the bottom…we hardly heard any noise! Mineral de Posos has a lot of artists and there are hidden beauties behind the unrevealing walls facades we can see through the streets. Compared to Tamaula, Mineral de Posos has of course a lot more inhabitants about 1200, the streets are paved and the weather seemed to be a lot drier looking at the surrounding vegetation. There are a few projects that are on their way. One is to build some little casitas that would be less costly than the nice hotels built by Americans and would offer a relaxing immersion in nature and in the midst of the mining land, offering amazing view of the country side. Martha a woman who owns a business selling Chichimeca pottery instruments has the project of building a hostel. She is having architectural plans made for her project by three IBERO students. This hostel would be cheaper than the hotels in town and another advantage would be the proximity of her location. She has her land in the city and this would offer another touring place for all those backpackers looking for a low cost place to spend a few nights in Posos.

Photos from the first five days in Tamaula

Party for graduation of the primaria.







Violetta and her bottle of 'refresca' Pepsi for the party after the inauguration.

Inauguration of the new Prepa for the Prep@net program they have here in Tamaula. There are no professors for their highschool they have Internet and follow courses and are evaluated through their online courses. It is challenging but there are 12 hight school students enrolled in the program. One of the students from tamaula scores the highest out of all the Prep@net programs in the state of Guanajuato!

Violetta

More kids in Tamaula

Working...or playing with the kids

Kids from the school in Tamaula

GORDITAS!!!! with papas and chile!

I went mud hopping with the girls! it was very dirty and muddy...BUT FUN!

Boxing lessons to the Tamaula kids :)

With Laura!

The way you wash your cloths. I did it and it takes time! No running water in tamaula.... so no washing machines.

Chile! Very ?picante? but very good! the women dry them then peel them, and voila!

Home made sling shot, works very well!

Filtered 'chiva' (goat) milk. They make cheese here in Tamaula and are starting a buisness, so they need funds in ordeer to get more goats, a tractor and milking machines. They need two goats in order to get 1L of milk and 1 brck of cheese takes 2L of milk. Do the math...

Don Pedro's Birthday party. We ate mole!

Arrival and my first five days in Tamaula

This has been my fifth day in Tamaula. We were very well received by the community and we are placed in families. The family that I am living with lives in the center of the town in a blue and white house. Th mother is name Josephina , and she is living here with three of her daughters that are still at home. The eldest is Silvia, she is 27, then there is Rosita who is 16 and finally their last one Karina who is 11. The family is very caring and enjoys having us here. I am in this family with two other girls from Chicago with the Latino Progresando Theatre group. The father is in Athens, Georgia and the brother Rudolpho also left to"al Norte" when he was only 15. There is no running water but they have had electricity for the past 3 years. Everyone is very welcoming, I have been to different homes just walking aroud an all just invite you in to have a seat and eat some "comida". I think I have never eaten so many tortillas in my life!!!! For breakfast, lunch and dinner tortillas that are freshly made in the morning from ground corn. I have really been enjoying the food and talking with all the people here. They all have interesting stories and the kids that we are working with are full of energy and life. They are curious and love using my camera to take pictures! Some even are very good pictures. I will try to post some...I need to put them on a USB key.
Otherwise our boxing trainings have been going real well. Most of the kids and teenagers come and are all very excited to learn and participate in the boxing program. We installed a boxing gym with two heavy bags and one speed bag. We are trying to get them motivated to start training on their own and not only reach out to the male population but also to the girls and women of the town.
I will post picture soon. It is a beautiful town and the people that live here love it, even though there is no work, they cannot really explain their true reason for loving to live here in Tamaula..

Night stay in Irapuato

We had a great time in Guanajuato. It is a beautiful city with a lot of lfe and many colorful houses. The view from our hostel was magnificent. A patchwork of colors with mountains in the background.

We are now in Irapuato. We stayed the night at Adrinana´s colonial home! We are stalking up on snacks, WATER and meeting with the crew to talk about our mission, our expectations and regroup to have a game plan. Our boxing crew is a good solid team and even though I am the only girl with them. I hold my own, I showed them my fencing equipment, and showed off my jump roping skils¨:D

I am not on my computer right now but as soon as I can I will upload pictures!

Arrival and First day touring Guanajuato

Arrival at the airport. I got my bags checked completely...of course...

We went up MANY steps in order to arrive at our cute and wonderful hostel. With the luggage I seriously got a good calve work out.


Some art at the restaurant we ate at: a Mexican celebrity...Frida Kahlo's auto portrait.


MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!


Here are two plazas that we visited in the city of Guanajuato. The plazas come alive, mariachis are playing, vendors, little kids selling chicle, young teenagers hang out. The plazas are central to the Mexican city of Guanajuato. What is special about this city is that there are many plazas and each have their own character and feel ;)


There is a legend to this street that towns people tell tourists and they also describe all the ways of kissing! The legend is that lovers lived right across the street from each other. The young girl was from a well off family and the young boy from a low class family (like many love stories). The balconies to their homes were built so close that they could kiss from their respective homes! This is where the guides described all sorts and ways to kiss to cite a few examples there wall the kisses described by the guides!

El beso monaguillo tocar la campanilla

El beso arabe salva ba saliva biene

The end of the legend is tragic, the father of the young girl could not stand the relationship of the couple and the legend says that he ended up killing both of them.
Taxi ride back to our hostel after a full day of touring the city.