It’s been a hard day. Tantrums (not mine) (mostly) before six a.m. are a sure-fire indicator that it’s going to be a no good, very bad day. And it was, for a good while, and then off and on for a bunch more hours. The cycle went something like this: blow up, work it through, simmer…and then do it all over again, yay! And while all that was going on, there were meals to fix, eat, and clean up after, buses and taxis to ride, groceries to purchase, and church to attend. It was not easy, pretty, or nice.

Mid afternoon, things mellowed out a little. There was a peppy little breeze dancing down the porch. My older daughter pulled one of the mouse-eaten chairs out there for her rest time (there was no way on earth those girls could’ve co-existed in their hot little bedroom for 30 seconds, let alone a whole hour), but then she got busy with other things and I plunked myself down in the chair to read a magazine while sipping an iced coffee in an old jelly jar (brand: Anna Belly; flavor: strawberry) .

From the party house down yonder came the lilting sounds of a marimba band. When they played Ya Queremos Pastel (We Want Cake), I joined in, much to my family’s annoyance. From a slightly different direction, there came the sound of a long-winded church service—the PLUNK-plunk-PLUNK-plunk-plunk-PLUNK of the bass and the nasal shrill of the lead singer into the mic.

(Note to self: we have got to find a couple of hammocks and hang them up that porch. It’s the place to be on a sweltering, evil-mooded Sunday.)

Anyway, my older daughter got it into her head to build a little house in the dirt along the edge of the porch.

One thing led to another, and soon I was weaving dry leaves for a roof (or a floor mat) and she was soaking leaves for some thatch.

My youngest son got out his cars and made a road.

Flowers were collected and replanted, holes were dug, steps built.

I just happened to click over to my friend’s blog, and, wouldn’t you know, she had just done a post on Fairy Houses! I showed the kids and the plot thickened.

After a bit, my older son, husband, and visiting brother left to go “help” the neighbors harvest snails. (Or fish.) (Or something aquatic.) I set my younger daughter up at the computer to tool around the American Doll website. My younger son stuffed a rag with a banana and jocote (a fruit I haven’t told you about yet), tied it to the end of a headless broom, and trekked on down to the ponds. Her computer time up, my younger daughter soon followed.

I ate a mango and snapped photos and typed this post, and still, my older daughter is hard at work, creating. Her creative calm helps me settle. Her total absorption is a balm for my wrung-out self. So, despite it being a (mostly) perfectly horrible day, the afternoon, I’m relieved to say, is shaping up to be pretty near perfect.

I am not, however, placing any bets on the evening…

After writing this, my daughter came in to my room and demanded I go take some more pictures.

Her project was complete: flowers everywhere, lit votives, and a cross to top it all off with.

Can you tell that my children attend a Catholic school and it’s Holy Week?

Usually, I take a taxi home from Chamelco. After walking to town, taking a bus to Bezaleel, working, taking a bus back to town, and navigating my way through a bunch of market purchases, I just want to get home as fast as possible. But yesterday, I didn’t have too much stuff in my market bag—just some tostados, two avocados, six hairbands (bought individually, of course), and a small bunch of cilantro—and I didn’t feel like tracking down a taxi and then sitting politely in the back seat, making small talk with the driver, and then digging out the exact change, so I slung my bag over my shoulder and struck out for home.

It wasn’t until I was leaving town that I remembered I had my camera in my backpack. Which then led to this internal debate.

Me: Yay! You can take some pictures!
Self: But no one else is with me and what if someone decides to snitch my camera.
Me: It’s so gorgeous today!
Self: I’m an easy target for a hit and run robbery.
Me: You’ve gotta take pictures of the road home. This is Your Life.
Self: Eh, I don’t know…
Me: No one is around! It’s broad daylight!
Self: I really like my camera. I’d like to take it back home with me.
Me: Look. Just loop the camera around your neck and tuck it into your bag, like so. There! Isn’t that nice and discreet?
Self: Well, if you say so…

We don’t know the exact address of where we are living. What we tell taxi drivers is this: Take us to the road of Casa de San Juan (Saint John’s House). A little bit beyond that, turn right into Rancho Santa Fe (Ranch Saint Faith). (Or something like that.)

We live in a well-off part of Chamelco. You might say we live in the fancy suburbs. Casa de San Juan is a big establishment that hosts all sorts of parties and events, though I have yet to see anything be hosted there. Some dignitary lives in our general area. There’s an upscale restaurant, or there used to be—not sure which. There are houses with armed guards, though I rarely see them along the road—they slink around back behind the high hedges (I presume).

Big SUVs drive back and forth on the hand-swept paved road. Hired men clip the hedges by hand and cut the grass with machetes. (Though once, on our walk to church, we passed a man mowing a lawn with a mower. The smell of gas mingling with freshly cut grass, the putt-putt of the small motor, and the fact that it was a Sunday of all days combined to transport us back to a Sunday afternoon in the States.) Villagers, women with baskets on their heads, men bend double with homemade wooden tables that they’re hoping to sell in market, school kids, and boys on bicycles are constantly streaming by. But because it’s a wealthy area—because of the sharp separation between rich and poor—it’s an extremely safe neighborhood. Which is weird.

At our first house in Carchá, we were told we shouldn’t even open our front door because people would ogle our stuff and eventually rob us of it. But where we are now, way back in and perched on top of a hill, there are no such worries. Sure, we lock our door when we leave, but when we’re home, we leave the doors gaping open. We don’t have an armed guard on the property (that I’m aware of), but the hired men keep a sharp eye out and interrogate any strange faces that show up, and there are the three dogs that strangers are (rightfully) terrified of. Heck, the Big House is completely open to the elements via the porch and living area, and they leave all sorts of stuff like power tools (!) sitting around outside. We feel perfectly comfortable keeping our washing machine and dryer on our porch and leaving clothes drying on the line while we go to work.

When I first came here, I said that of our two situations—work and home—only one could be a challenge. At least, that was my hope. If they were both difficult situations, then I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to stick it out. In retrospect, I’ve decided that the home situation isn’t optional. It has to be safe and comfortable. I need, we need, a place to unwind, to be ourselves, to be at home. We have that, and it’s even better than I thought it could be. For this, I am supremely grateful.

But back to the walk home. Here’s the entrance to our property, Rancho Santa Fe.

I can never get over the bougainvillea. It’s lush and vibrant and makes me feel like skipping.

Except that by the time I reach the entrance, I don’t skip because I’m hot and tired and just want to get home as quickly as possible.

To the right of the entrance is a soccer field.

With its sloping sides, soccer “bowl” is a more apt name.

Up in the distance, to the left, is the gardener. This old (40s? 60s? it’s impossible to tell a person’s age here) man is a hard worker to beat all hard workers. He shows up early and works steadily all day long, machete-ing grass, transforming overgrown fields into orderly gardens, planting and hauling and raking.

There’s a creek that they’ve been walling up and shaping into a little pond of sorts, I’m not sure why. (My husband says it’s for a water source for the animals.) I think it may make a good cool-down spot, one of these hot days.

Our house is on the top of that there hill. You can see a little of the big house. Ours is off to the right and back a little ways. The driveway goes to the left, out of the picture, and then winds across, up, and around that hill.

Here I am, up past the house that’s being built. (Want to move here and be neighbors?) The side of the hill is planted in some sort of flowering bush, and then the gardener went back through and planted beans and cilantro.

A little further up the hill and here I’m looking down on the field that’s been planted with pine trees. Planting trees instead of crops is something the wealthy do—poor people have no option, and not enough land, to do anything but plant food.

See that not-so-little patch of bare earth? The gardener cleared that by hand in a day and a half an then planted beans (or corn or something). Makes my back hurt and my hands blister just thinking about it.

These Dr. Seuss trees crack me up.

Some of them have spiky straight hair.

And others have hair that gets all curly at the bottom, just like human hair. When it rains, the curls frizz up into wild kinky happiness…or maybe I’m just imagining things.

And then I finally come to the top of the hill and there is our squat little red barn of a house waiting for me.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

Several weeks ago, my younger daughter turned nine. Or rather, two and a quarter, since she’s a Leap Year Baby.

We made whoopie pies to share with her class (and a taxi driver and the neighbor kids and another volunteer who was celebrating a birthday), and that afternoon we had a piñata, in honor of both the February birthdays. There was a chocolate cake and a few little gifts—a recorder for school, a fake Barbie, a stuffed Pooh Bear, etc.

However, it wasn’t until yesterday that she got her real gift. We weren’t sure it was all going to work out, so we downplayed the whole thing: we said that her uncle was bringing one of her birthday presents when he came, but it wasn’t any big deal. Which was a lie and I think she knew it.

See, a ways back when I wrote this post about her one and only toy, I alluded to her great, persistent and vocal longing for an American Doll. My cousin-in-law read the post and immediately announced, She can have mine. And then she, bless her heart, bent over backwards to travel to her parents’ house, dig it out of their attic, and mail it to my brother.

Yesterday after school, we called everyone together and handed her the box.

When she opened it, there was a loud gasp followed by much hollering.

Hers is the Felicity doll, the girl from Virginia, which is fitting, I think. I read all about her online the night before—how she was the first doll to be added to the collection in 1991 and how she was discontinued in 2002 and how there was such an uproar that they re-introduced her a couple years later.

My daughter, however, doesn’t care about all that. She has an American Doll of her very own and that’s all that matters. She has opted to call her “Lily,” which is probably some type of American Doll sacrilege.

Lily has her own bed under the night table. My daughter goes into her room and shuts the door and I can hear her happily chattering away to her new friend.

Thank you, Kate. You have made one little girl (and her mama) very, very happy.