It hasn’t rained for awhile. The green and foliage of summer has receded. I thought I wouldn’t appreciate the dirt and the brown and the bald, but I find that I do. When I walk the Bufa, if feels as if I’m on an asteriod. Cactus and colored rock… purple, camo-green, and mustard. There are shrubs with spiny thistles and the wind moves through them.
Last time I came back from Leon, the sun was setting. I was on a 2nd class bus so instead of a movie, I listened to the driver’s music. Ranchera and some of the old Mexican ballads. The music layered below the landscape washing by the window, and seemed to go perfectly with the mix of desolated dirt landscape punctuated here and there with elaborate Christmas lights. Kind of like the life here: famine then feast; long worry, then hope. Or the family that works hard to save up for a son’s baptism or a daughter’s quinceañera. The miner who toils underground all week so he can live it up on the weekend. Or even like Maestro Chuey… yesterday, I found out that Maestro Chuey and his wife had slept on a twin bed for nearly 50 years until they received a larger mattress. His shining light? Two of his daughters attend University and the third will also when she comes of age.
John and I echo “Nicely written, Juanita”.
Feliz Año Nuevo to you, Juanita and Fernando!