Bits and pieces from a busy week (or two)

Monument to the Niños Héroes.

The two biggest recent happenings were a wonderful visit from our friends (Sarah, Adelaide, Mathilda, and Tom) and the start of the kids' school year. Given the impossibility of doing justice to either of these landmark events, we offer instead a selection of superficial observations and things about which we have photos or other electronic media to share.

First, the friends! We were really looking forward to showing them around, but I was thinking this morning that they showed us a lot of new things here, too. (Kale cakes...guayaba fruit...yum.) Add in Sarah's superior Spanish and previous experience working in Latin America...well, we learned a lot hosting them, and it was so fun.

We went to Palenque...

More than 1,000 years ago,
this was a swinging Mayan metropolis.
Now, más verde.

View of Pakal's tomb from inside the palace.

Divine portrait.

The ruins were beautiful and fascinating, but it's possible the kids preferred the hotel pool.

Ruins or pool? Okay...pool. 

A spasm of decadence
in advance of the 2012 Mayan apocalypse.

Apocalypse? Blammo!
Not going gentle into that good night.

The jungle around Palenque feels intensely alive. Both nights we heard howler monkeys. Someone told me it's the bones in their throat that make this sound possible. I may have misunderstood the guy, and anatomically "throat bones" may not be possible...but I can easily imagine this awe-inspring roar coming from deep inside a chamber of bones.

This link should take you to an audio clip of the howler monkeys we heard: HowlerMonkeyHowls


On the drive home from Palenque, we stopped at a river to swim with the devil fish.

These black "devil fish" are all over the bottom of the river.
Creepy but cool.

It's the rainy season, and the water was high. Glad the
kids are all strong swimmers....

Going native. (First step: getting all black and white.)

The Monday after we returned from Palenque, the kids started school at DICET (acronym for "Desarollo Integrale Con Excelencia Total" which just HAS to sound less fascist to native Spanish speakers and in truth seems like a great place).

First day of school 2012.

I don't know quite where to start talking about this aspect of the kids' experience; maybe I don't need to say much, since they are both covering the school beat pretty thoroughly on their own blogs. (Well, Wilhemina is covering it; Oscar is mostly discussing the food he's eating, as Susan noted).

But I do have to say that as the new Spanish words and sayings flow into (and out of) my brain every day, the phrase "Niños Héroes" keeps bobbing to the surface of my thoughts. Our niños  are handling this challenge -- new school, second language, unknown social scene -- heroically.

In Mexico there are numerous streets, school, monuments, etc. named after the Niños Héroes. As Señor Wikipedia explains:

The Niños Héroes (in English: Boy Heroes), also known as the Heroic Cadets or Boy Soldiers, 

were six Mexican teenage military cadets. These cadets died defending Mexico atMexico City's 

Chapultepec Castle (then serving as the Mexican Army's military academy) from invading U.S. forces 

in the 13 September 1847 Battle of Chapultepec, during theMexican–American War. 

One of the cadets, Juan Escutia, wrapped himself with the Mexican flag and jumped from the 

roof of the castle to keep it from falling into enemy hands.

Nobody's ready to wrap themselves in a flag anytime soon, and no one's going to die of social awkwardness or low comprehension or scholastic challenges here, but still. I feel really proud of the kids.