THIS ONE TIME: June 2012

Here we are in Oaxaca, la Ciudad, where I feel exceptionally lucky to visit Suzanna, whose life here is pretty damn idyllic, at least from the perspective of a vacationer breezing in for a week. Her house is sprawling, open to the elements, perched on the edge of el Cerro with a breathtaking view of the city, accessible up an uneven collection of staircases from a street with the unfortunate name of Porfirio Díaz.

La vista Imagine delivering a washing machine...

She is the only person I know who is capable of living in el Centro, and still not having road access. Being the happiest, most smiling person I know, she knows everyone a person would like to know in Oaxaca. She has also adopted two adorable street dogs, Ciruela and Zapote, both named after frutas (plum and zapote, which is a Mexican fruit that is dark inside, like Zapote is outside), who serve as doorbells/guard dogs/puppies to love. Zapote is a ADHD puppy who finds it pleasurable to chew a toy, but far more pleasurable to chew a toy on top of my foot. For some reason this makes me feel loved and accepted and worthy of the space I take up on this earth. He ate my flipflop, but it is hard to hold it against him for too long.

Ciruela (left) plays the role of responsible older sister, following commands, only barking when someone arrives, looking concerned when Zapote gets in trouble, and wagging her tail when he (occasionally) gets praised, but spending the bulk of her life alternating between playing with him and telling him to buzz off.

My first night in Oaxaca Suzanna gave me fresh ciruelas and guavas and a pile of rocks to throw at the feral dogs if they were keeping me up with their barking. “I hope they don’t visit tonight,” she said with a smile and a shrug. I put my rocks on the table in my room, but slept so soundly that whether or not they visited, I didn’t need the rocks.

Ciruelas y guayabas Rocks to throw at dogs

Suzanna lives with her boyfriend Eyder, from the DF, who is dulce como todo. If machismo is part of Mexican culture, it does not live in a single bone in Eyder’s body. His English is impressive, his accent adorable, his manner calm and unaffected. “You cannot have tacos and mole,” he laments, torn between his loves for his home cuisine and his adopted one, “It is universally impossible.” There are tacos here, but apparently not tacos. “The mole here,” he said as we ordered dinner at a restaurant called Bisnaga, “is spiritually fulfilling.”

Suzanna has been here three years now, teaching in an ad hoc school, which consists of Suzanna taking 6 or 8 or 10 kids under wing, figuring out what inspires them, and teaching them about whatever that is, with some reading and writing and ‘rithmetic woven in. It is a beautiful educational model, and Oaxaca is their classroom.

A comparative study of Ganesh and Horton

Her students have ranged in age from 3 or 4 to 9 or 10, but most were gone on vacation when I arrived, leaving only two little brothers, Jacobo (9) and Samuel (7), in her charge.

Sam watches a man weave. Suzanna plays. Jacobo dons a crown we made.

These were sweet little bilingual boys who, under Suzanna’s tutelage, showed irrepressible longing to learn how to crochet a blanket. So we learned! My beginning was a little funky, but it makes a passable coaster.

Entertaining side note about Sam: At age 6 he decided he wanted to be baptized. His secular parents looked at him funny and said no, so he went to the priest and arranged a date for his baptism and explained to his parents that the party would follow.

Jacobo’s passion is food (and eating), and he has lots of advice about it, rattling off, “Have you ever had memelas? Have you ever had horchata? Have you ever had tejate?” faster than we can order. Which makes me really happy. I hope he doesn’t get beat up too much next year in a conventional school.