The Summer of Broken Dreams

The title for this post was originally inspired a few weeks ago when I attended the World Youth Conference in León, Guanajuato. You might recall this conference as my first Mexican television exposure. Side note: I have been filmed again. To my knowledge, my interview hasn’t been aired yet but I don’t doubt it will be. Tamaula hosted a huge workday on my birthday last week, complete with a documentary crew to film clips that will be airing on local television. Did they need to ask me twice to get in front of the camera for an interview?

Back to the back story of this post’s title. While attending said conference (that even though I only attended it for free food and free television exposure, I still received a congratulatory certification of participation), I found something I’ve been looking for a long time. I don’t really know how to describe the contraption as a jumping thing. Picture two 30 foot high poles tied to the sides of a trampoline with the equivalent of huge rubber bands tied to each pole. Basic idea is strapping yourself to the rubber bands and jumping to launch yourself 40+ feet high and flip on the way down. That is my idea of fun. And it was free! Unfortunately the economics of free means a huge line that I waited in for an hour but didn’t get to see the end of. The bus was leaving and I wasn’t allowed to stay in León for the night so my heart was broken. I was really set on being as dangerous as possible outside of getting involved with Mexican drug lords. But, this episode only inspired the title for the post. I considered writing the “Broken Dreams” post but figured that was a little dramatic if all I missed out on was jumping and flipping on a trampoline.

Well, the fates conspired and this weekend provided the perfect marriage of an inspired blog post title and my goodbye post. I’m writing on my last night in Tamaula. We’re leaving in about 5 hours for Irapuato, DF, and “el norte”. My favorite joke today was telling everyone, “Ahora estoy a punto de salir de este país de perdedores, pero tengo que salir por otro país de perededores.” That’s been getting be a few laughs today. I’m saying that I’m just about to leave a loser country but I have to go to another loser country. Though the beginning of the weekend saw me talking a lot about Mexico and the US meeting in the World Cup finals the pinche (refer to the story about Leo) Argentines and Ghanaians conspired to destroy the hopes of close to an entire continent. We both lost! It’s not all bad news. I would have been annoyed to leave Mexico if they were winning and the US wasn’t.

This is going to be my last blog post for the summer. I’d like to end it on a high and (not really) low note. Let’s start with the low note.

At least one reader of this blog (my mom) will remember the story about living with a convicted felon and his family. They aren’t my host family. No, they are visiting my host family. Still. We’ve definitely passed the three week mark. I’m so happy that I’ve become enough of a part of this family to get all the gossip. I started learning more about a week ago when I found out that two bags of popcorn were stolen from my room. Doña Martina, my incredible host mom, sat me down when I got back the night I found out and had an extremely dramatic conversation that confirmed many of my suspicions. Doña Martina told me she liked it a lot more when it was just us (us still being 9 people). However, it was clear that the visiting family had not only worn out their welcome, they had burnt a hole through the welcome rug. Despite this, as I write, they are still here. I got the goods today. For three weeks I thought they visited because they were in dire financial straits and had to eat. Many incidents and conversations just bolstered this hypothesis. I won’t bore you with all the details of this fascinating journey but unfortunately I can’t ethically give you all the juicy details either. They may suck, smell bad, and be overall extremely annoying to me and my host family but they’re still real people. So, I’m going to try to keep as much of their privacy as I can but I feel compelled to share this. My suspicions were completely off. They certainly aren’t wealthy but they’re not here because they didn’t have anything to eat. Rather, the father’s criminal activity in the United States didn’t stop at the border. I wish I knew the whole story (even though I couldn’t share it), but I know enough good stuff. They’re fugitives. Yep, a family of fugitives. They’re on the run and can’t even go down to Irapuato because the police would pick them up. That’s way more exciting than just living with a convicted felon. It’s also way more terrifying for my mom but she’ll sleep easy knowing that I posted this after leaving Tamaula.

You see why it’s not really a low note? I want a life full of experiences—good and bad. This experience happens to be living with a wanted man and his frustrating children. Seriously, I almost followed up the “If I Were An Animorph” post with “If Guanajuato Had ‘Cops’” post, but I figured that was too risky.

So for the high note. I hope this translates well without knowing intimately the people involved. Last night was the funniest dinner I’ve had since arriving in Mexico. One of my host sisters is dating a guy in Arkansas named Beto. Turns out the family more regularly refers to him as “Beto el Gordo”. That translates to Fat Beto. My host sister is thin as a rail but we apparently can’t say the same for her novio. In fact, one of the funniest jokes of the dinner was Doña Martina telling me how my host sister and her boyfriend form the number 10. She’s really skinny like “1”, and he’s so fat he makes a “0”. The conversation started because I asked my sister when her boyfriend was coming back. Luckily for joke’s sake, he’s returning in December. Martina says they’re going to dress him up like Santa Claus and put him on a donkey to bring a gift to Oscar, my little host brother. The best jokes are the hardest to explain. They might be especially funny because they were in Spanish and I was understanding everything everyone was saying. We were talking about the possibility of me meeting Beto if I drove through Arkansas this summer. I told my host sister that if I meet her boyfriend I’ll take a picture with him and send it to her. This set off a riot, but you wouldn’t have known it. The other host sister and Martina were really serious when they said, “Oh, Tomás. He’s not going to fit in a camera. Yeah, you’re going to have to take at least 3 or 4 if you want a picture of him.” As we considered the possibility of me sending the photo via email they explained that it just wasn’t going to work. He won’t fit in the computer screen. First, they say, I’ll have to send a photo of his left foot, then the right foot. Finally, I can send a picture of his face. This is great but the other host sister (with a normal-sized boyfriend) concluded with the observation that it really wasn’t going to work to send the photos because there’s just not enough internet out there. My kind of people.

This is the time for sappy goodbye stories, etc. I’m not comfortable with long goodbyes and prefer the quick and dirty. So here it is. Goodbye Tamaula! I’ll miss you but hopefully I can come back in March. Thanks for everything. You were great. I promise this isn’t another one-summer stand.

P.S. I realize I’ve been really short on photos in the last few posts. I’ve liked to use photos that relate to what I’m talking about but that hasn’t really been applicable lately. I think I could get interrogated if I put up a photo of a fugitive and we already know about the problems with photos of Beto. Anyway, I don’t want to leave you wishing. Here are a few of my favorites from the last couple of weeks.

Yep, we went to a mask shop.

Best friends!

Amazing view

Favorite photo