I had my first Mother's day ever in my life - the best mother's day present ever of course is just the miracle of life that is my son. In that respect every day feels like mother's day. But we got to celebrate it officially - on May 10, which is Mother's day here in Mexico - Dia de las Madres, then again today, which is the official day in the States. On Friday, Veronica invited me to go with her to the grade school for a mother's day event where Pancho was dancing in a "bailable" - the big thing all the kids do here for any special occasion - dancing choreographed folk dances. He danced a cumbia with his class and did a damn fine job of it, twirling his girl around like an adult, which of course he imagines himself to be half the time anyway. Anyway, sitting there with all the other madrecitas gave me a little taste of what future years will be like with Marco, dealing with teachers and school yard squabbles and kid friendships and all of it.
The thing is I just can't imagine Marco at that school. Its just such a stretch for me, and not just because I'm the American and its the funky local Mexican school. Its more than that. I don't know where I imagine him. Life is full of tradeoffs, my dad always said. There are things that I don't understand about American schools and things that I don't understand here. Each place has its pros and cons, its quirks and quandaries. Some differences are just funny. For example just in the course of the dance, 3 things jumped out at me as things you would never see in an American school. One - kids up on the roofs over our heads dumping confetti over us. An American school would never let kids go up on the roof, with no rail or any kind of protection, just kid dangling over the edge with a bag full of confetti. In the States that would have lawsuit written all over it - even if nobody fell down, they'd be suing the school just for letting it cross their mind. Whereas here, it never even occurred to anyone that it might not be such a great idea to let 10 gradeschoolers climb up on the roof. Two - in the dance of the second graders, which was a swinging banda number with the kids decked out cowboy vaquero style, there is a part where the boys lay down on the ground and the girls dance over them from foot to head, basically straddling them. Except that all the girls had on little denim skirts, and the boys could see right up them. In the States, there would probably be another lawsuit about the perversion of it, and sexual harrasment, and gender inequality, and molestation, or something BAD. Whereas here again, it never occurred to anyone to see it as anything other than second graders dancing. Three, there were references time and time again to God, prayers, more prayers, thank you God and angels for guiding us, thank you God for mothers, for children,more prayers - where in the States is that still allowed in a public school? Whereas here it never occurred to anyone that someone in the audience wouldn't be Catholic and could possibly be offended by the prayers (which of course I wasn't - they were super sweet prayers - I just noticed the difference between here and the States, where you can't do anything anymore without fear of offending someone).
Well, there are the pros - the school is half a block away. Cons: class lets out at 1 pm everyday to save costs on teacher's wages I guess. The bathrooms are nasty, no toilet seats, no toilet paper, no soap or paper towels (that would be way too luxurious) - of course lots of people don't have such luxuries in their houses, so less can one expect that the government would fork out for such luxuries at the school. So even less can we expect that there would be a gym or an auditorium or a cafeteria or a patch of grass for P.E. or sports, or any kind of amenity that one might see in an American school. There wasn't even a cent of money from the school itself to throw the Mother's Day party - everything had been donated by the parents, from rental of chairs, to paper plates and cake. All said though, they put together a lovely thing, pinning a corsage on each of us at the door, and giving us a little ticket with "Lonch" written on it in squiggly little kids handwriting, to redeem for a plate of pork and rice and tortillas.
So who knows where I'll send my kid to school someday.
Yesterday was the official Dia de Madres of course, and Nikis brought me a gorgeous giant flower arrangement and a frame for a photo of Marco. And he brought me his heart, the kindest gift of all, telling me with watery eyes that I deserve all this and more, that he loves me and that I am the best mother. So sweet and if you'd have told me 5 years ago that this would be happening now, I'd have just as soon thought you'd said you'd bought me a round trip ticket to the moon.
We then had to make the rounds of the bisabuelas, Marco's 2 great-grandmothers - you can never have a holiday here without trying to make the bisabuelas happy, which is an impossible task, since they're both terminally infeliz. The first bisabuela's first comment, when we all as a family went to bring her her flowers, was a cynical "que milagro", like what a miracle we'd let ourselves be seen in her realm. Well we'd probably visit her realm more often if she wasn't such mean spirited gossip, sticking her nose in all kinds of places it doesn't belong. I mostly tune her out these days, letting Alberto and Veronica deal with her, because she inevitably launches into a tirade about how we haven't baptized the child yet, and that heaven forbid that I should eat pineapple, which is venomous for my breastmilk, and heaven forbid that I should feed squash to the baby, which is also horribly venomous. Yeah. Its weird. And the baby eats squash secretly and is fine. And I eat pineapple, and we're fine. Well, the baby cried on Mother's Day when we visited his first bisabuela, maybe because his great uncle pinched him on the sly, or cast the evil eye on him, or maybe because his bisabuelo isn't on speaking terms with his abuelo and was throwing his energy around, or maybe just because he was remembering how his bisabuela almost killed him in his second bath home after being born, when she literally almost threw the baby out with the bath water. She set the tub up on a little 3 legged stool, and I was too messed up at the time to notice, and as we're bathing him I'm feeling the tub begin to slide and move, and suddenly the whole thing dumps over. Luckily she had a good grip on the baby, or he would have been on the tile floor with all the soap and water. I bet he remembers.
So then it was on to his second bisabuela to deliver more flowers. That's where we were also scheduled to have our big Mother's Day meal - they'd sent to have barbacoa dead sheep cooked up, since its the bisabuela's fave and she ordinarily doesn't have any money so it really is a big deal to have meat on the table,even if it is dead sheep. Bisabuela #2 is pretty cool even though she's sort of a hardened hunched over ornery old lady. She has a big soft spot for Nikis, though and thus for the baby as well. But he cried with her as well, maybe because his great aunt, my comadre,was leering at him drunkenly from over her shoulder, probably casting, if not the evil eye, then the drunken eye on him. The youngest of her 4 kids isn't even two yet, and looks like one of those kids out of some charity plea for sending money to third world countries - big brown doe eyes and grubby torn clothes, and his hands black with muck and dirt like she has never stopped to look at him close enough to realize she needs to wash the kids hands once in a while. The highlight of the day was the kid bringing the soccer ball over and putting it in front of Marco, him waggling his body excitedly like a puppy, and kicking the ball with all the strength his chubby 6 month old leg could muster. Everyone has high hopes for a future soccer star now. We'll see. I'm still rooting for art, but hey whatever makes him happy, right? I don't care if he's a garbage man as long as he's happy. My Mother's Day prayer - that he be happy in his life.
The thing is I just can't imagine Marco at that school. Its just such a stretch for me, and not just because I'm the American and its the funky local Mexican school. Its more than that. I don't know where I imagine him. Life is full of tradeoffs, my dad always said. There are things that I don't understand about American schools and things that I don't understand here. Each place has its pros and cons, its quirks and quandaries. Some differences are just funny. For example just in the course of the dance, 3 things jumped out at me as things you would never see in an American school. One - kids up on the roofs over our heads dumping confetti over us. An American school would never let kids go up on the roof, with no rail or any kind of protection, just kid dangling over the edge with a bag full of confetti. In the States that would have lawsuit written all over it - even if nobody fell down, they'd be suing the school just for letting it cross their mind. Whereas here, it never even occurred to anyone that it might not be such a great idea to let 10 gradeschoolers climb up on the roof. Two - in the dance of the second graders, which was a swinging banda number with the kids decked out cowboy vaquero style, there is a part where the boys lay down on the ground and the girls dance over them from foot to head, basically straddling them. Except that all the girls had on little denim skirts, and the boys could see right up them. In the States, there would probably be another lawsuit about the perversion of it, and sexual harrasment, and gender inequality, and molestation, or something BAD. Whereas here again, it never occurred to anyone to see it as anything other than second graders dancing. Three, there were references time and time again to God, prayers, more prayers, thank you God and angels for guiding us, thank you God for mothers, for children,more prayers - where in the States is that still allowed in a public school? Whereas here it never occurred to anyone that someone in the audience wouldn't be Catholic and could possibly be offended by the prayers (which of course I wasn't - they were super sweet prayers - I just noticed the difference between here and the States, where you can't do anything anymore without fear of offending someone).
Well, there are the pros - the school is half a block away. Cons: class lets out at 1 pm everyday to save costs on teacher's wages I guess. The bathrooms are nasty, no toilet seats, no toilet paper, no soap or paper towels (that would be way too luxurious) - of course lots of people don't have such luxuries in their houses, so less can one expect that the government would fork out for such luxuries at the school. So even less can we expect that there would be a gym or an auditorium or a cafeteria or a patch of grass for P.E. or sports, or any kind of amenity that one might see in an American school. There wasn't even a cent of money from the school itself to throw the Mother's Day party - everything had been donated by the parents, from rental of chairs, to paper plates and cake. All said though, they put together a lovely thing, pinning a corsage on each of us at the door, and giving us a little ticket with "Lonch" written on it in squiggly little kids handwriting, to redeem for a plate of pork and rice and tortillas.
So who knows where I'll send my kid to school someday.
Yesterday was the official Dia de Madres of course, and Nikis brought me a gorgeous giant flower arrangement and a frame for a photo of Marco. And he brought me his heart, the kindest gift of all, telling me with watery eyes that I deserve all this and more, that he loves me and that I am the best mother. So sweet and if you'd have told me 5 years ago that this would be happening now, I'd have just as soon thought you'd said you'd bought me a round trip ticket to the moon.
We then had to make the rounds of the bisabuelas, Marco's 2 great-grandmothers - you can never have a holiday here without trying to make the bisabuelas happy, which is an impossible task, since they're both terminally infeliz. The first bisabuela's first comment, when we all as a family went to bring her her flowers, was a cynical "que milagro", like what a miracle we'd let ourselves be seen in her realm. Well we'd probably visit her realm more often if she wasn't such mean spirited gossip, sticking her nose in all kinds of places it doesn't belong. I mostly tune her out these days, letting Alberto and Veronica deal with her, because she inevitably launches into a tirade about how we haven't baptized the child yet, and that heaven forbid that I should eat pineapple, which is venomous for my breastmilk, and heaven forbid that I should feed squash to the baby, which is also horribly venomous. Yeah. Its weird. And the baby eats squash secretly and is fine. And I eat pineapple, and we're fine. Well, the baby cried on Mother's Day when we visited his first bisabuela, maybe because his great uncle pinched him on the sly, or cast the evil eye on him, or maybe because his bisabuelo isn't on speaking terms with his abuelo and was throwing his energy around, or maybe just because he was remembering how his bisabuela almost killed him in his second bath home after being born, when she literally almost threw the baby out with the bath water. She set the tub up on a little 3 legged stool, and I was too messed up at the time to notice, and as we're bathing him I'm feeling the tub begin to slide and move, and suddenly the whole thing dumps over. Luckily she had a good grip on the baby, or he would have been on the tile floor with all the soap and water. I bet he remembers.
So then it was on to his second bisabuela to deliver more flowers. That's where we were also scheduled to have our big Mother's Day meal - they'd sent to have barbacoa dead sheep cooked up, since its the bisabuela's fave and she ordinarily doesn't have any money so it really is a big deal to have meat on the table,even if it is dead sheep. Bisabuela #2 is pretty cool even though she's sort of a hardened hunched over ornery old lady. She has a big soft spot for Nikis, though and thus for the baby as well. But he cried with her as well, maybe because his great aunt, my comadre,was leering at him drunkenly from over her shoulder, probably casting, if not the evil eye, then the drunken eye on him. The youngest of her 4 kids isn't even two yet, and looks like one of those kids out of some charity plea for sending money to third world countries - big brown doe eyes and grubby torn clothes, and his hands black with muck and dirt like she has never stopped to look at him close enough to realize she needs to wash the kids hands once in a while. The highlight of the day was the kid bringing the soccer ball over and putting it in front of Marco, him waggling his body excitedly like a puppy, and kicking the ball with all the strength his chubby 6 month old leg could muster. Everyone has high hopes for a future soccer star now. We'll see. I'm still rooting for art, but hey whatever makes him happy, right? I don't care if he's a garbage man as long as he's happy. My Mother's Day prayer - that he be happy in his life.
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