Day to Day in Valladolid

Hi All,

As most of you know, we are back in our house, located in Portland, Oregon, the United States.

It does not feel right to say that we are “back home”, because part of me feels that I left “home” back in Valladolid. It seems so unfair – an atonement that we must pay. We pay it for the wonderful opportunity of extended travel. We will cherish our Valladolid experiences.

So, I have decided to devote this post to describing what life was like in our home down in the Yucatan. More importantly, I want to call out to the friends we left. Some of them are introduced here. We look forward to seeing them all again…

We started off living in the Wonderful Casa Quetzal (http://www.casa-quetzal.com/default.asp). Judith Fernandez was our lovely host here in Valladolid. That is her in the center along with her good friends including Ricardo, Rosalia the Ti Chi teacher, and a visiting friend originally from Germany.

After a couple months at Casa Quetzal, we moved to this quaint house:

That had a nice a jungle for a backyard:

From our front door, we had a lovely view of El Convento de San Bernandino that was built 500 years ago...

That is right. Across our street is the oldest church in the Yucatan.

Almost every evening, there was a pickup game of football on the grounds. And this was great fun for all who joined in (from 5 year olds to 42 year olds – it was different each night).

Right next door to us, Ricardo has massed a considerable collection of masks from all over Mexico. He has quite a gallery:

Some of our most endearing friends are Paula and her family who we met at Casa Quetzal. In addition to being a great companion, Paula took us under her wing and showed us how to cook Yucatecen and provided the finer points of living here. Paula has three great kids. There is Leonardo, Leydi, and Anali. Here are a shot of our clans.

We had many wonderful experiences with Paula’s family. There were birthday parties, weddings, Easter visits to the beach with her entire neighborhood. And whenever there was not a formal excuse for a party, we just had one anyway.

Lourdes is a friend of Paula’s who also worked at Casa Quetzal from time to time. We certainly enjoyed here company also.

Since I am on the subject of Judith’s staff, I must mention Don Andres. Don Andres es un my guapo gente, and basically takes care of the place. As a telecommuter who chatted at his computer all day, it was hard to describe what I did for “work”. Many asked who my boss was. I found it just simple to say that Don Andres was my boss.

Another important person in our lives is Quelaztli Salas Gongora. Not only was she a good friend, but she was a wonderful tutor for us all. Her novio (and now husband) is Alfonzo. Alfonzo works for Calpine and is an operator in the plant down here.

Those that know me, know that I like bikes. And, Valladolid has a lot of bikes. For some families, the bike is their only vehicle. A common sight is dad riding his four year old on the top tube while his wife sits side-saddle on the back rack holding their infant in her lap. For crime here, on a scale of 1 to 10, Valladolid is a 1. What this means is that almost nobody locks their bike.

With all the bikes about, there needs to be places to get things fixed. People did it themselves, or they went to the bike shop.

One good thing about all these bike shops is that one does not have to go far to get the pelota pumped up.

We tried to get Stefan and Sasha into the top private school here in Valladolid that was highly recommended by many. However, we visited the school administrator many times with various versions of report cards and letters of recommendation. But, it just did not look as if they would enroll Stefan and Sasha.

Terri, a friend we met through Casa Quetzel, knew the administrator at the local public school. We did not think this was an option because we were not tax payers. But, at Terri’s recommendation, we went and talked to the principle. How easy was that? The principle called in the teachers that would have Stefan and Sasha in their class and asked them if it was Ok? Well the very next day, Stefan and Sasha were enrolled in Artemio Alpizar Ruz.

What a great thing. The school was only a block away (along side the Convent), and we met families from all over Valladolid there. We were told that Stefan and Sasha were the only Americans to ever attend that school. In the end, what a novelty for all!

I think Stefan and Sasha both have a grounded appreciation of education and what is offered to them. In addition to experiencing a different culture and appreciating another value system, they have gotten darn good at Spanish. We went to the movies in the last week and saw Yours Mine & Ours. It was dubbed in Spanish (without subtitles). Stefan and Sasha understood it and howled at the jokes that as they came.

Any way, it was time to go… And, we have been “home” now for a couple weeks…

We return from a place where it was common to hit 100F during the day; where bugs swarmed on any crumbs left on the kitchen counter; where everybody is nicely dressed; where one does not worry too much about the time, and most importantly – where there is zest to enjoy what life gives us.



It was a great trip. I would do it again, and I would stay in Valladolid. Besides all the great peoples that became friends, I think what I will miss most is just the simplicity of our life there.

We had no car.

We had no TV.

We had no phone.

We had no daily mail with its bills and credit card offers.

We had no English newspaper.

My first morning back to our house here in Portland, I have to say that I did enjoy a breakfast with sourdough toast, homegrown eggs, and Pete’s Coffee. However, I went out and got a news paper… and, I did not enjoy the news.

I will cherish this uncluttered life that I had with my wife (my lover) and my children. I hope to reap this benefit of sharing such an experience together for a long time. Thank you for reading this. Thank you for your support. And, thank you for your welcomes.

Happiness to all…
Tim

p.s. For those of you new to this BLOG (and if you are interested), be sure to search out and click on the Archive Links if you want to see the other articles that will not load with this page.

Creatures That We Lived With

One thing that kept things interesting was discovering new creatures inside our house, around our house, and very close by as we traveled.

Of course, there are spiders.

The spooky thing that Stefan discovered is how to find spiders quickly at night. Just put your flashlight on your forehead and look. Their many tiny eyes reflect the light right back at you. When we were out at the Sian Ka'an Bio-Reserve in Tulum, we astounded to see just how many spiders were out hunting at night… like this tarantula that Stefan found.



There are insects all over, and it’s a good idea to check your towel before you use it.

(We’ve summited!)

That first guy is a Pseudoscorpion. They are supposedly not dangerous. There are also scorpions that appear on your walls, in your shower, in your kitchen, etc. – especially after a rain.

These guys are supposedly not dangerous either. But, their sting may be worse than a bee (luckily, we don’t know for sure). We were told that it is the light brown scorpions that one should worry about. This guy here was about the size of a dollar bill. The baby scorpions, in comparison, are tiny and could hide themselves on a penny. One time I tried to get a picture of a little one as he sauntered across our dining room. I put a coin down next it to show scale, and then the little bugger scampered off under a chair! Well, that chair got put outside and hosed down.

One night, I found a mantis who was about as curious of me as I was of him

Off course there are many types of moths and butterflies. It's hard to tell in these photos, but these guys are HUGE!

(Do you see the spider? Click on the photo to see a bigger version. If you like, you can click on all photos.)

With all these insects, there are animals to eat them. Throughout the nights, one hears the geckos chirping away. They patrol each room clearing out spiders, mosquitoes, and other things. We liked the geckos.

One day coming home, we found this guy at our front door. He had such beautiful colors that these photos just don’t do him justice. We checked him out for a while and then herded him across the street back to the park.

Our neighbor (and friend) had many cats – probably over twenty. They’d check us out whenever we went into the backyard. And, they would come inside and sleep on our beds and checkout the fridge if we left a door or window open.

Pato!

Ok. Stefan was reading in the back room when he heard a good thump. It turns out a duck had crashed into our backyard. Yes, a duck! There are no lakes anywhere near us (It’s the Yucatan, most all rivers and water are underground in cenotes.). So, he must have escaped from a neighbor. Now, all the cats were very interested in this duck. So, we had to find his home. I checked out the backyard to look into other neighbor’s backyards. But I didn’t get to far because it is HUGE! The open space in the middle of the blocks as a couple football fields in size -- all over-grown. Anyway, we never found the owner. But, Sasha and a friend found a family that knew of a family that had pet chickens and stuff. They took Pato off our hands.


Cuco!

And then there is Cuco. Cuco lives in a tailor’s shop. Cuco and Stefan became best of friends. Cuco would happily bite our fingers and keep us away, but Cuco was the happiest bird when Stefan was around. I think there will be a parrot in our home some time soon.

Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading,
Tim (et.al)