EN MEDIO DE NADA

Last Saturday I went with Aurora, Javier and Sophia to a birthday party for Guadelupe. Guadelupe is Francisco Coronel's partner. In the fall, I wrote about visiting their workshop where they make whimsical figures from papier mache.

The party was to be in a pueblo called Tecojote beween Queretaro and Tequisquiapan, and somehow I had imagined it was going to be in a community building or in someone's house or something. However, I do miss a lot of information because I don't understand a lot of what gets spoken between people. We drove to Tequis first because Javier had some errand to do there. Then we headed back to Tecojote following a map that Aurora had . We drove through the very quiet little pueblo on very bumpy streets and then headed out into the desert -- well, officially it's semi-desert. We found one landmark, a "bordo", a small reservoir of water, and followed the dirt road which got more and more difficult. Finally, Aurora and Javier decided we had taken the wrong turn, so we headed back. As we arrived back at the bordo, they saw another car heading the way we had come, and in the car were very good friends of Francisco's, so we headed back again the way we came and finally arrived at our destination.

Francisco and Guadelupe had bought a piece of land, "terreno", about 3 hectares, I think they said, which was quite a good sized area. They had cleared a lot of the area and planted trees and different kinds of cacti, dug a small bordo and started construction of a house. They have a wonderful vision of what this place will be for them -- a weekend retreat from their workshop in Queretaro. They will use solar panels for electricidad and collect rain in the bordo and rain barrels. Water is the big problem out there. They have done an incredible amount of work already, and you can get an idea of how wonderful it will be.

For the fiesta, they had set up some shelters from the sun which was muy, muy fuerte! And they had arranged for their neighbor to make carnitas -- a whole pig, cut up and boiled in oil in a big vat. There was also frijoles, arroz, nopales, papas, guacamole, tortillas and salsa...... and, of course, tequila. Que rico!! Kikey came also -- though they sent someone to Tecojote to meet her and lead her to the place. Also Mario and Edita whom I had met at my opening. It was a lovely party and we didn't leave until sundown - el puesto del sol.