The cursed tamales

It's been a struggle for me to try to wrap my head around the Mexican cultural identity, the customs and traditional ways of communicating and living life here. It's so completely different from the American way, and it's so complicated, convoluted and subtle in its beliefs, hidden rules and unspoken regulations, that I can barely begin to understand it, let alone follow it and not stick my foot in my mouth at every turn like the bumbling gringa that I am. And this after 4 years of living in it, in a family, with my ever-patient Mexican husband who does his darnedest to educate me, kicking me under the table and giving me emphatic looks to shut me up when I'm already digging my way into some huge hole with a breach of a custom. I find myself hard pressed even to find the words to describe the customs. Trying to describe the Mexican way of life is like trying to dig a shard of egg shell out of an egg - everytime you touch it and think you have it, it slips away again into the impenetrably slippery mucous of the eggwhite, and you have to try again.

I wish I could just take in the experience of the customs and beliefs here like a neutral observer or cultural tourist, but living here inevitably means that I have to participate in the conversation at some point, and that's when I realize I have no map to navigate the intricacies of the etiquette. Or I'll think I've found the right road, the proper orientation, and suddenly I've wandered off the plotted grid into the savage hills and I've volunteered to let the hill tribe chief skewer me and roast me for dinner. How many times do I wish I could just stitch my mouth shut and return to my post of observer, cultural tourist, here for a couple days of vacation and no worries about turning a whole family or village upside down with some comment I made or opinion I had.

But in spite of it, I just love the loopiness of the beliefs here. Here's a great example of loopy beliefs. The other day, Nikis' grandmother Anita (Marco's greatgrandmother whom I affectionately call Bisabuela #2) came over to our house, which was loopy in and of itself, because she rarely leaves the cloistered grounds of her own house. She's about 68 years old but looks like she's older, in part because she looks exactly like my grandmother did many many years ago before she passed away - short shrunken lady with deep serious worry wrinkles in her face, her long thin hair in a bun with a bunch of bobby pins sticking out all over, and always in the classic village lady uniform of an old dress with a faded apron over it. Anyway, Doña Anita came over and we offered her kiwi because kiwi is supposed to be good for diabetics, and Doña Anita has diabetes. Of course she'd no more seen a kiwi in her life than she'd been to the moon, but I peeled it for her and she silently followed the cultural etiquette rule of always accepting what is given to you, and so she ate it even though she'd probably rather eat a cow eyeball than a kiwi. Anyway, she came over to see Marco, but he was sleeping, so we sat around in the garden under the tree and shot the shit. Now Doña Anita is a very serious lady with a hard kind of personality, but she's really funny with that particular brand of sarcasm that bitter old widows or left women, of which she is both, can get. So when she tells a story, you're likely to be laughing soon, especially when she gets to using curse words in her flippant way, waving her hand as if to brush the world away.

So she tells us this story: that Soccoro (which appropriately means "help!"), her daughter-in-law, came over the other day and demanded that Doña Anita take back her oldest son, this woman's husband. Now mind you this man is 50 some years old and they've been married for oh, 30 years. But now she's sick of him and wants to send him back home to his mother. She's spent about 30 years treating him like shit - she won't give him food, but won't let him use the kitchen to cook himself something either, so he spends his afternoons hunting for a meal, but on the sly so that people won't see him in his street dog position having to scavenge for a meal. If he sees us in the fonda, he'll pretend like he's already eaten to lessen his embarassment, although its evident he was on his way to the fonda for his own meal. She wouldn't let him even use the bathroom in his own house for a long time, proclaiming that he'd just make it dirty (as if her shit doesn't stink?!), so he'd have to go across the street to his sister's house just to take a leak. They sleep in separate twin beds like in some old 50's TV show. She won't let him use her car, and when he wanted her van, he actually had to buy it from her. And for some reason, he stays with her and adores her and does whatever she asks. We all wonder why? She's fairly hard on the eyes, so she's no great catch in the looks department. She's not nice or interesting or witty or wealthy or healthy. She treats him like a doormat, and he stays. Not only does he stay, but he throws her parties and brings her treats and takes her on trips and does all sorts of spineless things to get in her good graces. Why? Because of witchcraft of course! Surely she's given him toloatche tea. Surely she's spun all kinds of blackmagic charms around him to keep him stupid and bound to her for all eternity.

So now Socorro shows up on Doña Anita's doorstep demanding that she take the guy back, because she's sick of him after all. Well, Doña Anita scoffs in her crusty cynical way and says hell no! You two are adults - deal with it yourselves! Well, Socorro is used to getting her way and does not like that answer one bit. So she goes home and shortly thereafter sends her son (who at age 30 has barely worked a day in his life, because she coddles him like a baby) over with a tray of pork tamales and sweet bread as a gift. This should have seemed strange to Doña Anita, a little reminiscent perhaps of the wicked witch offering the poison apple to Snow White. But Doña Anita is a woman of few means, so pork tamales are few and far between and certainly a gift of them would go far in providing her household with much-needed protein intake. So they all eat them - Anita, her son and daughter who still live with her and the son-in-law and the 4 grandchildren. They all eat the mysteriously given pork tamales. And they all immediately break out in a wicked fullbody itch. The cause is obvious to them - the tamales are cursed! Socorro has put a hex on them as punishment for not ridding her of her husband problem, and thus she has put a hex on the family. Thank god they didn't eat the bread as well. But one of the poor little grandsons just can't resist - they look so fresh and luscious and sweet, so he eats a roll, and instantly breaks out with huge swelling in his eyelids. He has to go to school the next day with his eyes swollen shut - just two red lumps on his face. This is some pretty serious witchcraft this woman is up to.

Doña Anita tells us this story out there in our garden, and I'm rolling, because she makes it so serious and funny at the same time. And I mean it is funny - because it's 2008 and people are still running around putting hexes on each other. Well, a couple days go by after Doña Anita tells us, and then one day her crazy son, the husband who is so ongoingly foolish as to fawn all over this witch, comes around and tells us he's throwing a big party for Socorro for her birthday. He tells us we have to come over and eat the barbequed sheep they're serving. He comes over 3 times in the space of a couple hours to tell us. We're like hell no! Besides the fact that barbequed sheep smells like dirty bunghole and tastes like moldy tennis shoe, its probably hexed!!!!