talvez te asombres

Boy, am I tired.

I'm still on delegation right now and today I got home from a town not too far away from here called Teotitlan del Valle, where there's a women-run weaving cooperative. They weave traditional Zapotec rugs and more modern stuff, but all made on traditional looms with local dyes. They showed us their whole project and all that. It was pretty interesting. I didn't really get any of the downtime that's intended for delegates during these visits, because I was interpreting for the delegates the whole time, which I think is just how these things go sometimes.

What I really did enjoy was how welcoming the families were. "Our" family was very kind and included the woman who had really pushed to form the weaving cooperative. I got to ask lots of questions and spend lots of time with her. Our first afternoon there, she made a really wonderful potato soup with tomato broth. It was just like my mom's soup. Spending time with these strong women and eating their amazing food (and having Pastora, our host, sit on the edge of my bed when I was sick with a migraine) made me feel really cared-for but also made me really homesick.

Just now, I got home and made some white rice. It's funny, the smells that really bring you back home--I made the rice the way my mom makes it, with a bit of onion and some vinegar in it, and the smell brought me right back to cooking with my mom.

Unfortunately, it's not often enough that I reflect on how lucky I am to have this experience: to be welcomed rather frequently into people's homes and shown their gardens, the important herbs in their cooking, and then many times be offered their food. It's amazing. And then to be shown the projects they've concocted with such care: in the past five days I've been offered basil from a rooftop vegetable garden, taught about tree bark that can be used for dyeing wool from a reforestation project, and offered tiny squares of Jell-O from someone's market stall in a corn husk. I didn't take a camera because I thought that would be weird, but it was all really beautiful.

I don't mean these things to brag, it's just that I realize I get so gloomy about Mexico and being far from my family and being lonely and all that, but the things I get to see and live (and, uh, eat) are really pretty amazing.

And, uh, exhausting. Southward, Christian soldiers!