Today was the last day to go to Villa Seca for the weekly reading program. Actually the other program that the kids had to make them run wild around town (called hide and seek or soccer, something like that) also ended today. They’ll both start up again in February (they always say that…more like a maybe). I was the only one who showed up from my class—what’s new! At 3pm there was a Last Day Party with guacamayas and a piñata. Guacamayas are semi-gross, coming from somebody who will eat anything under the sun. It’s a bread roll (yum) with fried pork skins (questionable), salsa, and avocado. The piñata was fun because we made the thing last week and it’s always fun to brutally destroy inanimate objects with bats.
This is my second piñata in Mexico, and the first that I’ve done without a blindfold. I think we did that because there were little kids, I’m not sure, but I gave thing quite the whacking. I was the last one to go, let’s just say that.
My earliest piñata memory was my fifth birthday party. I thought it was a blast, I remember that much. We had slip and slides in the backyard and the whole place full of five-year-olds. Can’t imagine that now. I had been Pocahontas for Halloween and so someone brought a piñata of her. She got tied up in the big pine tree with a noose around her neck and hoards of white five-year-olds whacking the shit out of her. Anyway, the moral is that my dad didn’t want to have anything to do with piñatas after that. I’ve come along way to be a human rights activist.
So I hadn’t pounded a piñata in many years until last week when I just happened upon a party in the language school where my Japanese friend was dressed up in an Arab costume and my friend from W. Virginia riding a toy horse. No questions asked. The language school is where it’s at.
Back to Villa Seca, where I was today. For the last time, with the kids for the reading program. After the piñata, they all wanted to read! Psyched to read! I just shrugged and went along with it, surprised how pumped they were. The only detail was that I brought few books because the plan wasn’t to read the last day. So we dawdled with those for awhile and then I asked if they wanted to make a video. I had my camera and I filmed all of the kids present (maybe eight) about what they like about reading, why it’s important, and what they had to say to other kids who liked or didn’t like reading. They were so eloquent! We did four rounds: every kid spoke four times! The first three were “serious” and then the last they all spoke in “ranchero” accents, the equivalent to hick talk.
Finally my professor arrived and they all went running to him, surrounding him like cawing seagulls, hugging him and saying how much they missed him, asking what books he brought. Can you see why I love this place? Then I walked up and he was so surprised and happy that I’d stayed so late. It was already dark. I’d been there at least four hours. I gave him my final work for the class, hugged all the kiddies, gave away the ten or so books that I had on me, (this amazed the children; literally left them in awe that they were getting their own books) and I was off.
The Honey Feast 