December along the Caribbean

One of the good things about living in PaaMul is that we can have our house (trailer) with us all the time. We also get to have our house with us, steps from the Caribbean. We further get to pay merely a trifle for this pleasure. BUT, living in a community of Canadians, Americans and merely a handful of Mexicans (our neighbor is Mexican and one of 4 families I can think of living here) means we see none of the Mexican culture. And really, why live here (other than the turquoise seas and flour sand, endless sky and barefoot in December weather) so isolated from the culture. I am beginning to become quite unhappy with the fact that the children are not realizing any cultural exchange and am looking to seek it out.

December 12th is the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe and while Jamie and I had been seeing various pilgrims along the carretera, the kids, who never want to leave the security of home, had not. From 9 Dec to 11 Dec many devotees of the Virgin make sponsored pilgrimages from their villages to the Parish of their choice, supported along the way by offers of food and lodging from fellow devotees. Our 2nd closest town, Playa del Carmen (Puerto Adventuras is closest to us) has a rather large parish and Cozumel apparently has the “best” festival outside Mexico City. Since the day was rather gloomy and rainy I decided I’d drag the uncooperative kids (only the girls; Jesse was sick and Pike very negative about the whole thing) off to nearby Playa instead of across the sea to Cozumel. This is really a more private celebration than a festival but I was able to show the kids some of the altars and shrines people had made and brought to the parish and we sat inside and *I* absorbed some of the energy while the girls fought over a catalog of horse figures.

We then headed out to tiny Puerto Morelos and fell in love with the quirky pier (damaged by the wind and waves brought by Hurricane Dean) and a lovely bookstore and a plaza where the girls played with a group of local girls for a couple hours and didn’t want to leave. I hope to take the boys back in the daylight hours where the reef looks to be even closer than here in PaaMul and the Mexican kids abound.

Las Posadas begins on the 16th and the 21st brings the Solstice but I’m a bit worried about Dengue as SacBe is located further into the jungle than we are and the rains this winter (more rain=more mozzies) have been surprisingly frequent. So I’m not so sure we’ll go unless I can get all the kids to wear long pants, shoes and socks. Assuming they all HAVE shoes. We’re still working on a tree for the palapa; Pike is insistent on a pine and Jamie and I really want a palm tree. I purchased lovely little edible ornaments for the tree but (not so surprisingly) they are slowly disappearing. I highly doubt that even the incredibly efficient leaf cutter ants are taking them away. We have decorated the palapa with lights (some from last Christmas at Goose Island) and it feels rather festive. I hope we can see some of the Las Posadas celebrations and might ask our neighbor Jorge if we can hang at his home in the Ejido to experience some of it.

Jamie is finally over his awfulness of bronchial crap, Jesse is working on it, the girls are pretty strong and after my 4 weeks of constant sickness in the states, I’ve managed to avoid the crap hanging around our family here. I can only hope my luck continues.