Easter in Mexico

Technically we were here for Easter last year, but we had just moved into the 'permanent' apartment we have here after our first month in an Air B&B.  We didn't know our neighbors that well yet.

This year we were invited to the 'Pascua de Resurrección' celebration at their vacation home.  

Now, I know it doesn't look like much, but it's hectares of land that they own and enjoy.  It's being built as the money comes along, little by little.  This is the main structure, that has a bed in it, and plans to make it an Air B&B eventually.  The hole in front is where a swimming pool is planned, but work is slow.  

The location doesn't have a water connection, so it's a lot of water hauling from their main house next to ours.  The bathroom is an outhouse with a flushable toilet (due to a cistern on top).  I wish I'd taken a picture of that, but it was a place I disliked while we were there.  I have to use the bathroom a lot, and asking for help to flush was embarrassing.  Also the toilet was too low for mom to use.  Even I had trouble getting up from it.  

And by 'out house' I mean one concrete wall with tarp tented around it, and a tarp flap door that would happily blow in the wind to show everyone outside you sitting on the toilet.  (But no one was out there so it's fine.)

Granted, there is a lot of junk collecting on the land.  Numerous cars, buses, and refrigeration units.  My neighbor Rudy is a mechanic and delivers beer coolers to restaurants.  So he has a lot of broken ones there to scavenge for parts or restore.  

He has two trucks that he drives.  His regular pickup truck for work, and a big open box truck that he uses to deliver the drink coolers and cisterns (he also delivers/installs cisterns in houses).  

Side Note:  What's the deal with cisterns here?  We have a water shortage, so the city turns off the water a few days a week.  You have a cistern to collect water on the days it's available so that you don't notice it when the water is off.  We have two for our apartment, one on the roof and one buried under our driveway.  We've never been without water here.

Rudy is hustling in a million different ways as they do here.  He's got the beer cooler gig, the cistern gig, he gets old cars and fixes them up to sell them (there were at least a dozen waiting for his attention there).  And, he's raising chickens to sell organic eggs

They have older layer hens that are producing eggs right now, and 50 young chicks growing up to be eventual producers.

 
I was concerned with the cost to feed them.  They're fed Amaranth (the exact thing I tried to grow once for chicken feed when I had chickens in the USA).  Amaranth is an ancient grain of Mexico and is a great chicken feed.  Think millet, but smaller.  

There's also a lot of amaranth candy you can get here, and puffed amaranth for some reason.  I bought it thinking it would be good to put on yogurt, but so far haven't used it.  (I should give it to them for the chickens now that I think about it.)

The chickens were beautiful.  The older ones had two gigantic roosters, with stiff bright red combs.  Truly gorgeous and healthy.  The babies were just adorable and I wish I could have snuggled one, but I gave up fast so I didn't stress them.

But wait!  There's more!  They had four horses.  Riding horses!  There's my intern B. going for a ride.  (She's one of their two daughters).  Like...freaking horses!  These aren't cheap to have.  I mean, they have enough land for them, but they need alfalpha.  

I asked Rudy how much it was for a hay bale each day.  $150!!  That's pesos, so $8.  THAT'S ALOT!  Remember minimum wage is only $22 USD a day here.  Having a third of that go to horse feed would be a big hit.

So it tells me they're doing okay.  Better than I think.  Rudy must be making decent money with all his hustles.  This isn't even their only property!  They own a rental house in the mountains too.

This is edible cactus that they grow.  They're always trying to share it with us, but mom doesn't like it.

The prepper in me was super-impressed with this beautiful land.  Land that you could use to grow your own food.  I talked to Rudy about making it an Eco Tourism place where kids could help garden and care for the animals.  He said that was the plan.  Just needs time and money.

If I wasn't so busy with my own business I'd be all in.  I know and trust my neighbors and they are people I'd be happy to go into business with.  But we're all so busy hustling in our different ways.  :sigh:

On the right here is their other daughter and her friend from school.  They had a four-wheeler!!  I've never owned one.  

For me I see such a rich life for our neighbors.  They have so much more than the average person from the United States.  We claim 'poverty' to Mexicans, but it's so not true.  They have fun they have more wealth than you know.  I mean, how many girls have dreamed of owning their own horses?  

Anyway, in the USA 11am is when lunch time starts.  In Mexico 1-2pm.  My mom and I haven't gotten used to that yet and we were ravenous.  We brought some steaks and some cookies (even though they weren't needed, but y'know, you never show up to a BBQ empty-handed). 

I watched them cook, drooling, wondering when the paper plates and plastic silverware was coming out.

AH HA HA HA HA.  -_-  You foolish gringo.  

Elba just offered me a pan piled with meat for me to take with my hands and eat with my teeth.  Thank God my mom got her teeth fixed!  We had paper towels, that's it.  

I was so hungry, I didn't even mind.  It was great, and the dogs were happily eating all our bones.  (There were at least four dogs running around to protect the place from intruders).

But let me tell you...I downed so many ribs, steaks, cookies, and donuts.  Omg.  I'm on punishment today for my diet.  

Speaking of diet, when I arrived in Mexico I weighed 106 kilos (233 pounds, I'm not using kilos to be obnoxious, you get used to metric and Celsius pretty quick here).  Today I weigh 94 kilos (207 pounds).  Mexico has made me healthier, and I love it here.

They had beef ribs that were so delicious.  My steaks from Sams Club were chewy and I much preferred theirs.  They also had young roasted onions.  I tried it.  It was what you expected.  A roasted onion.  I wasn't a fan.  I think I was supposed to eat it in a taco, but we just devoured the meat and didn't mess with tortillas.

I am going to start breaking the bad gringo habits I have of buying my meat from Sams Club.  In my defense, I was getting meat there because it was the cuts I recognized.  I never know what I'm buying in the Mexican grocery stores.  I don't know how to cook the meat.  But I know how to cook a ribeye, strip steak, or beef ribs.

But they had what people from the USA would call 'Korean cut' ribs, and they were so soft and rich.  They told me where to buy them.  And I will. They're much cheaper than the chewy crap from Sams Club.

I need to stop buying food like a gringo and fully embrace my new life here.  And I will.  Because a rich life is easy in this country.