Tuesday, December 24, 2013

CHRISTMAS EVE 2013



For more than a half century I've spent Christmas in Mexico. Visiting homes and barrios distributing gifts and generally ending the night at an orphanage. Some Christmas Eve's are wet and some dry, but all are dark and cold in this area of Tijuana.

Near the orphanage we were driving to, we stopped and spent some time with a poor family we knew, living on a hillside. Lorie and her eight kids were working on a big pot of pozole soup. The soup was cooking outside over a hot wooden fire. Pozole is uniquely Mexican (pork, hominy, and jalapeno peppers). In fact most family's throw a lot of extras. A bowl of pozole would be their Christmas Eve meal treat ... no gifts under the tree this year!


When the three of us arrived they quickly pulled out some old chairs and gave us each a desert of store bought cake with a mix of whip-cream and fruit. The pozole wouldn't be ready for an hour or two.

For a few minuets we became part of a poor family doing Christmas Eve the way the poor do.

Of course we left them happy with their unexpected gifts. Mom now had enough money to think a few meals ahead.