Hell’s Half Acre

Our awning has been limping along, providing us lovely shade, but grousing the entire time. When we were in Chetumal last year, a light rain collected on the fabric and warped the pole and one of the supports. We were able to use it, but it was hard to retract and extend one of the support poles. The day before yesterday, here in lovely Guanajuato, an incredible wind appeared out of nowhere (well, there were sheets of rainclouds surrounding our point on the hill) and bowed both support poles to the point that they had to be hammered together to close.

We were sad of our loss of awning and shade and yesterday I found that we could open the awning but not extend it; allowing us shade but making it difficult to get in and out of the trailer (as the door would scrape against the awning). So, we limped with this solution, grateful for the shade. Last night, the wind picked the awning up, it was about 3 feet from the ground, so the gust was enormous, and wrapped it over the roof of the trailer. Jamie was inside the shower, so I had one boy hanging onto one end of the awning while I tried to get the other off the roof, screaming for Jamie and Micheal to come help. We finally got the awning off the roof but the wind was too strong to allow us to fix it enought to retract it; it covered almost the entire side of the trailer (along with the door). The rains, so evident on all the lower hills surrounding us, never approached, though we did get a few drops while the lower elevations got a soaking. Finally, the winds dropped enough to allow us to retract the awning and put it away, (sob!) for good.

This morning, we got a knock knock on the door from the manager of the restaurant (which never has customers and is not obviously a restaurant) complaining that the kids broke numerous items there. I walked over with him and found that they had broken an already broken wooden box and that the swingset they had been playing on had been installed so shallowly in the ground that the posts had been coming out of the ground. Note that the posts were already coming out of the ground when they started playing on the swingset. I offered to have the kids (and me) clean up any disorder they had caused (he mentioned that some bricks had been moved) but he refused, instead demanding money. I refused and he said he’d have the duena talk to us.

When Jamie and I saw the duena and another man talking to the manager we headed up to what we now recognize as a restaurant to see what is what. As soon as a “buenas tardes” had been exchanged with the duena, an old coot, who one can only assume is the duena’s husband, started bellowing in a heavy southern accent at us. I had previously spoken with the encargante of the campground, who counseled me to offer a reasonable amount to cover the cost of pouring cement. I was completely unable to even start to talk about offering compensation (for what???) as I was yelled at and threatened. We were told that we had one hour to leave the campground or we’d be thrown in jail. Jamie and I immediately left and headed back to the trailer.

I just sent Jamie and Michael into Guanajuato to call the embassy and also to get them out of here. The encargante of the trailer park, the restaurant, the Florida codger and the Mexican duena all left at the same time so I’m worried they’re off to get the federales. I’m hoping that the federales won’t put a mother with no other adult around in jail and leave the kids alone just because a swingset post came out of the ground, but who knows. The Florida codger was really unreasonable, mean and vulgar. Even though we’ve paid for 3 more nights we’ll probably leave here as soon as we get the van back from the electric shop. I hate this sick feeling in my gut; not knowing if the codger was bluffing or what.

So, I sit here and wait, fear in my gut and wonder if Jamie and Michael even got out of here…