Monday, January 1, 2023
This morning we all slept way in. After staying up until 2 or 3 am every day, we really needed a break.
When we finally woke up, Betty and I went for a nice long walk. Her leg has been sore since our last days in Utah, so we haven’t been running. But it doesn’t bother her when she walks.
When we got back to the house, we found River and David’s daughter Mía playing doctor. It’s funny to watch River interact with people. They mostly talk to her in Spanish and she mostly responds in English, although when pressed she can speak in Spanish. She also always speaks Spanish to dogs and to the boys with the hair.
After a bit, we went for a little drive and we swung by the house of Dayan. She is Raymundo’s daughter and my kids’ only first cousin on Betty’s side. She lives with her mother in Guaymas -- actually quite close to David. We’ll do more with her on a different day. Today we just wanted to say hi.
The main event of day was lunch at Sergio and Chuyita’s house. They are the friends of David that we met on Saturday, said hi to last night, and now we’re going to spend the afternoon at their place. Along with our family and David’s, we also had Betty’s mom (who spent the night at David’s house with us), and tía Cháncali (Betty’s mom’s sister). Oh, and Óscar, David’s brother, and Cháncali’s ex-husband (I can’t remember his name).
I think this merits an explanation. Neither Betty nor I had ever met Sergio or Chuyita before a couple of nights ago, but this is a super common thing among Latinos. In general they are warm and welcoming. It’s not just Mi casa es tu casa. It’s also Mis amigos son tus amigos or Mi familia es tu familia.
Sergio and Chuyita are just the best people. They are not members of our church, but they are excellent Christians with deep faith. I was especially impressed with Sergio’s closeness to the promptings of the Spirit. He really tries to be led, and God has protected him throughout his life.
Lunch was amazing. Chuyita made this amazing dish that was like a ceviche (lime-soaked shrimp), but on top of spicy Tostitos. We also had regular ceviche on tostadas as well. It was very spicy, and very, very good.
As the meal settled down, the adults got to visiting while the kids played out on the patio. Then Ian came running in to tell me that he’d seen a cool bird outside. Sergio and I went out to investigate, but we missed the bird. I told Sergio about how the boys were getting into birding, and he told us he wanted to show us something. So we walked out in front of his house and down the road maybe 50 yards, and there was the ocean.
It was actually a little bay with a couple of islands -- a serene little corner of the port of Guaymas. And there were so many great birds! Of course there were tons of brown pelicans, but we also saw the much more rare white pelicans. They were swimming around in a group of five, and they have the most unusual behavior. Every ten seconds or so they would dip their heads under the water to feed, and after a few seconds, they would all pull their heads out. It was all totally synchronized -- like they were counting it off. It was amazing!
The other really cool new bird for me were a couple of black skimmers. They have long beaks that are orange and black, and the bird itself is white on the bottom and black on the top. The black on top of their head makes it look like they don’t have eyes. They are pretty big birds -- smaller than the huge pelicans but bigger than a raven. While in flight they dip their beaks in and skim across the water while keeping their beak in. It’s beautiful.
On our way back to the house, a bunch of dogs were barking at us, but that wasn’t a concern. Ian and I were getting used to all the stray dogs. One of these was a fat old dachshund. We looked at him as he barked at us, and we sort of laughed. But then, from behind him came a much bigger dog -- some kind of sheep-dog looking mutt -- and it was mad and headed straight for us. Before I could react at all, Sergio jumped out in front of us and started flapping his arms like a giant bird and making monster sounds. This terrified the dog, and it ran away. We had a good laugh, and even more of a laugh when we got home to tell everyone about what we’d seen.
You might be wondering where Kimball was during all of this. Well, the University of Michigan is playing the college football playoff, and tonight they faced off against Alabama. Kimball loves the Wolverines, and he’s content to listen to the radio call and follow the stats on his phone. As we got back to the house, the game was coming to its exciting conclusion. We all huddled around Kimball’s phone to listen to the radio call. The funny thing was, none of our friends had a clue what was going on. (A) they don’t understand English and (B) they don’t know anything about football. So we were there translating the play-by-play and also explaining the rules of the game and making diagrams out of napkins and things on the kitchen table to explain it. And it worked! They were excited and cheering along with us. And Michigan won!
As we were leaving the house, we lost track of River for just a second, and she was finally able to hug one of the stray dogs that are always around. She’ll definitely be getting a bath tonight.
By now it was night, and we had to take Betty’s mom back home. It was hard for Betty to say goodbye, and she was so sweet talking with her mom and hugging her goodbye. But it’s not a final goodbye yet. We’ve still got a day or two here.
