It’s What’s For Dinner

Ya’ll know we are from Texas. My Dad was an avid hunter and fisherman. I grew up eating venison, dove, quail, squirrel, with an occasional domestic rabbit thrown in for good measure. Ty comes from a West Texas ranching heritage so cabrito (kid goat) prepared from roasted to barbequed was often served on his Grandmother’s table. Ty’s job has taken him to the far corners of the earth so he has consumed local food from New Guinea, Africa, Burma, Kazakhstan, Bolivia, Argentina, and Peru. We love good food!

When we moved into our new Mérida home, we became accustomed to the family of iguanas who lounged in the sun, ate the leaves off our plants and scurried to their home in the rock wall whenever Gringa Dog made an appearance.

As the construction debris began to take over their space we saw less and less of our family of iguanas. As I have mentioned before most everything seems unfamiliar here, but this is just my impression, for thousands of people here it IS familiar, it IS normal, it IS life as usual.

One afternoon, when I knew the guys were finishing up their work for the day, I went outside to say “Hasta Manana”, they were all gathered together with hushed voices and all eyes glued to me as if anticipating something. As I stepped off the back step my eyes fell upon what they were anticipating a reaction to….

There neatly bound with twine was the largest of our iguanas (at least I think it was our iguana, as it is hard to tell them apart). Instantly I told myself to mask my shock and proceed as normal. Somehow, in my not very good understanding of Spanish I managed to comprehend, some albaniles and their family would be feasting on Iguana. In fact, it probably made its way back to our house for lunch the next day disguised in some wonderful spicy mole. I hope my reaction was one of honest curiosity, as I would not have wanted to offend these men. Ty has worked in countries where iguana was standard fare. Iguana to these guys was just dinner.

As the days went by the mounds of sand and gravel slowly began to disappear, mixed with cement then hand carried by the bucketful, and skillfully poured and smoothed into place.

PVC pipes were set in the mamposteria walls for the pool drain and filter. The plumbing for the pool jets were installed in the walls of the pool.

Our beautiful patio and pool area

The concrete columns were placed over the rebar towers and filled with cement, sand, and gravel; soon they would begin the arches.

 It appeared we all had fine-tuned our routines; we began to eat when the guys ate and take our siestas while they took theirs. Every day we anticipated what would take place on the construction site that day!

We began to joke, “Living in Mexico IS an adventure and we don’t even have to leave the house”.