Due to the current string of holidays that Mexico is having (Oct 31 = Halloween; Nov 1 = All Saint's Day; Nov 2 = Day of the Dead) I thought I'd start with a few scary stories:
It has recently come to my attention that HAL (the school hospital) is haunted. Apparently on repeated occasions when nurses stop in to deliver meds to admitted patients the patients confess that they were just given their meds, and when asked by whom they describe the interfering culprit as a nun!
The main cemetery here in Guadalajara has dead people....but not just any dead people; these dead people walk around. The outside walls of the pantheon are covered with pictures of the deceased that have been seen walking around after the time of their death. Every Thursday night for the month of October and November tickets are sold for midnight walk-throughs of the pantheon. No need to decorate or add to the scariness there; the idea of "what if" is enough to sufficiently scare and thus justifying the selling of tickets.
Ok no more ghost stories:
When I got back from Ixtlan yesterday trick-or-treaters were out and about. They'd walk down my street yelling "Queremos Halloween" (We want Halloween). My neighbor underneath me would have them say "Trick-or-treat" before actually treating them.
Last story for the night:
I almost died Saturday! No just joking! Replaying it in my head I've decided I wouldn't of died, but my car would have been completely totaled! I had just started on my way to Ixtlan Saturday morning and in the process of making my way around a round-about when right in front of me a car sped into the round-about without slowing to enter or yield to cars. It was going so fast that you could see the heads in the car ping-pong back and forth violently as the car squidded into a 90 degree turn at the inside lane of the round-about. I was so distracted by the idea of the car slamming into my car that I kind of forgot where I was for a bit, and had to end up making a right turn from the left lane. I'm sure most people back home will shake their heads and say 'crazy Mexican driving' upon hearing this story, but the saddest thing to me about this story is that is not what came to my mind. Yes, Mexican driving is crazy, but the fact is that there is an underlying unspoken rhythym to it. Once you pick up its beat it flows rather smoothly. Seeing the car I was immediately reminded more of something that would be seen in the USA, where people drive to their own rhythym unconscious of the rhythyms around them. And even worse and more specifically, it reminded me of high school age boys from corn-field MidWest when in persuit of "coolness" the line between thrill/tough-guy and utter stupidity gets blurred to the point of disappearance and the two permantly combine. So moral of the story, have patience, because stupidity will always exist, and that extra two seconds you are detained behind some slow grandma could potentially save your life....or your car....or both.
Hasta!
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