Tuesday, August 19th, 2009.

We had red snapper Italian style last night. It reminded me of my former mother in law, Elsie. Many Italian families have a tradition of fish for Christmas Eve dinner. Elsie used to make red snapper with red sauce, pasta and all the fixins for dinner. I fudged it but it did come out well. I was feeling much better after waking up this morning at 10:10 am (that would be noon ny time) I walked out to the patio and noticed that Stephen had already picked up the “car”. We are getting well known in town because of the car.
Last night we went out for a drive around town and to the internet café. The internet place is run by a very smart fellow that is crippled. He does not speak English but one of his friends does. He has been able to be very helpful to us. I did notice that the owner was wearing a t shirt that said (roughly) Mexico helps its disabled people. There was also a sign in the store that said something to the effect that the business received start-up money from the country of Mexico. We have been to several internet café’s so far but this is the best. The owner is smart, business-like, and the place is clean. While Stephen was sending his email’s I wandered outside the door to watch about 15 kids on the street playing hide n go seek. Uno, dos, tres, quatro. The kids were from about 4 to 12 and all were having a great time together. There were adults sitting on the stoops and in chairs along the side walk chatting while the kids were running full speed around them looking for the best hiding places.
Every time we go out without the camera, we are sorry. Last night we saw a man with a horse in the middle of an intersection. He was training the horse to raise his front legs like horses in the circus do. Camera-nope. There was another horse that was standing on the corner in his stall. Not enclosed, mind you, just a fence post affair next to the road. We stopped for a bit to watch the training. Stephen finally did get a picture of the back end of a horse which, he said, he took as an expression of how he sometimes felt in a brand new culture rather than an expression of his "interest in horses".

We left home early this morning to buy fresh fish and have a day at the beach. We went to the other end of the cove to enjoy calm water and the fisherman still at work. There were no tourists because school has started in Mexico.


The fishermen used two techniques to catch fish. These are the guys fishing off the shore line. The guys in boats are not even in sight. The fishermen go in the water just beyond the wave breaking area. Both styles fish in the same area. One fishing style, is to put bait on a hook that also has a heavy metal sinker on the line. The line is rolled up on a variety of things from a stick to a tube. They do not have fishing poles. Then the fishermen begin to twirl the line over their heads, cowboy lasso style, and throw the line in the ocean just after a wave breaks. There are fish behind those big wave breaks. The proverbial hook, line and sinker style of fishing was very successful today. The other fishing style is with a large net that is about three feet wide and maybe 12 to 15 feet long with sinkers all along the bottom edge. Along the top edge is a rope to pull tight. The fish are caught in the net and several are pulled in at one time. The fisherman gathers his net up carefully and is an expert at throwing the net out—also very much like a cowboy lasso’s. There is no bait involved with the net style of fishing. The pelicans and the fisherman work in tandem to catch fish. Steve and I could see the fish jumping after a wave crests and so could the pelicans. The birds would start diving and the fishermen would know exactly where to throw their nets.

At some point I began to think of the scripture about Peter and the boys out fishing and how they were told to cast their nets on the other side. I could really appreciate that after seeing the net fisherman. I would have loved to see the nets so full that they had difficulty harvesting the fish.
It was truly exhausting sitting on the beach and watching all this work going on. We were at one little beach shack place that serves food and drink under umbrellas on the sand. Our waiter was a round, jolly English-speaking fellow named Gustavo. He remembered us and our names from several evenings ago. We ordered two fresh pineapple juices and spent the next two hours watching people work with occasional dips for ourselves. Then we ordered one lunch plate special to split between the two of us and one margarita and a water. More swimming, chatting, and bird watching. Then we had a fruit leather type thing for dessert and Steve had coffee. We headed home at about four for a siesta after a long day of work.
We have several families that we have a hello relationship with but everyone speaks on the street. People are very polite. There are two families with children that are particularly sweet. If no one is out as we pass we hear HOLA being yelled by a small person after we have gone by.


Well, we just had visitors! The Dutch painter and his wife came by. They will be taking us to another little town nearby tomorrow in their car (a real car). Marie will also be taking us to the local weekly market. Stephen didn’t want to come but kindly gave in when I told him he could take pictures. Hopefully, some of those photos will be posted here.

We spent much of the day considering the health of one of our family members and the needs they may have coming up. Sometimes, the desires of God for us are right in front of our noses. Love to all, meema


Granddaddy here.

To paraphrase an old song, “What a friend I have in Mitzi!” She’s just more fun! While I’m dreaming up great schemes for the future (Of course I take myself seriously! It wouldn’t be any fun, otherwise!), she’s plunging us into life here and life there and a life now and not a life then. Now we have this infamous golf cart that I protested and tomorrow I’m to go shopping with the women (lead by Mitzi’s new Dutch-artist’s-wife friend) which I also protested, but unsuccessfully. They seem to want me to go with them along with the Dutch-artist himself, so what could I do? I wanted to spend coffee time with an elusive-to-the-public husband with new knees and a broken back who lives in his swimming pool. After learning that Felipe’s drinking is notorious I begin to think that I am drawn to broken old men. Anyway, my coffee time will be limited since I have to go shopping and the Dutch artist will go too, and they will even watch while Mitzi and I get hair-cuts—the Dutch artist’s wife, Marie, thinking I should get a crew-cut! Does this all sound scary? You bet it does! Marie’s a live-wire like Mitzi—and ten years older and more seasoned than Mitzi—and so tomorrow could be dangerous. I’ve been praying a lot. Then we’re all going down to the next village for lunch, and that seems safe. It’s all a jumble in my mind, but Mitzi’s got it sorted out, and I don’t think I will be getting my haircut in the food market. I love these fearsome daily adventures and Dutch septegenarian Marie ups the ante for adventure along the villages of Mexican-Pacific shores. Her husband, Cornelius, whose hair is cut close to crew, keeps telling me about this strange version of eschatology as though I could do something about it. Have you ever noticed that everybody else has a strange version of eschatology? Big words, I know, but all that means, Malachi, Isabella, and Elijah, is the end times.
So, as to the more immediate and our future, only God really knows, but at this point it looks like we’ll be living for a few months in a hotel run by a drunk’s wife, teaching children Bible parables in a language we still don’t understand, going to a church in which the deep struggle is whether good Friday is really a Friday at all, and setting up another church in a village where there are no Christians except those skewered by a dictatorial priest! That sounds like the right combination of impossibilities that is just my cup of tea, uhm…coffee, in my case. Add to all that that the worm may have turned, and Mitzi may now want to stay up north and take care of ailing loved ones, a burgeoning church, and praying that her husband won’t fall on the ice and die, while I may want to come down to Mexico and go crazy!

This morning I took off early before Mitzi’s day began and walked down to Felipe’s to get our golf cart (he plugs it in for an overnight charge) and talk with him about John, chapter 6. So in the same day I learn of what quantities of alcohol this Saint used to drink and maybe still does, I also spend a profound hour-and-a-half sorting out confusions that he has more than I do—it’s always amazing when that happens. What a time we had going over issues of ecclesiology (they were “having church” out there when the loaves and fishes appeared!), predestination (“draw” in verse 44 means “drag” not “woo” as a suitor, and, yes, you do have to be careful of the King James version, Felipe, but don’t throw the baby out just because you think KJ was a jerk!), and about Peter thinking Jesus was the Son of God (it’s right there in verse 69, Felipe!)
I know Felipe was sober because it was 8 a.m. and he was at his coffee and cigarette when I arrived. By early on in John, chapter 6, he was in tears, however, and something about the dear Bible was touching deeply this man who has wanted to stay away from that book for many years, especially the KJV which is the version I confronted him with. His tears continued off and on and especially when we prayed together at the end of our hour-and-a-half Bible talk together.
I wish every morning started like this. It’s a lot safer than taking my hair to a female, Mexican barber and having instructions given by a Dutch woman who speaks Spanish but thinks I ought to get a crew cut. I could come out bald, and my head wouldn’t be good for that because of the huge scar I got at four years old when I enjoyed tipping my high chair away from the dining-room table and finally fell backwards onto one of those old, dig-your-skull-apart, iron radiators. It may be the first “I told you so!” I can remember, but I have the strangest feeling that lesson may be coming around all over again. Wise old Cornelius is excited by the “Lord’s will” prospects of my impossible vision but warns me at the same time. Marie looks at the grandchildren-swimming-pool-pictures from our backyard back home and tells us, much as she might like having us come down here, to stay put. So, it’s been another day of building sand castles at the seashore. Now I’m tired and I wanna got to bed. Goodnight.