Baby Shower

The buttons that are passed out for all the guests to wear feature the words in English: Baby Shower. We are gathered at Silvia's sister's house and the party is for Silvia's daughter-in-law, Lucy. No alcohol served. Long tables. Folding chairs. About 30 of us. My kind of casual crowd, everyone in jeans.
We play a game of Loteria which is pretty much a bingo game, except all the squares are filled with baby items, and the answers of "stork," "rattle," and "baby bottle," are answers to quiz questions, so I'm learning plenty of vocabulary. They tell me in Spanish that when you win you are supposed to yell out "Loteria," so when I get my four across, I put my arms in the air and yell out "Loteria" right as Silvia's 80-year-old mom does the same.
Then blank cards and pens are passed out for a new game. We've already written down best wishes for the baby, so what now? Monica, the woman next to me, says, "I'm going to make Lucy paint her face with lipstick," and then scribbles something down on her card.
I want to play to win, of course, so I'm trying to figure out how to top Monica's strategy. How far should I take it? Would it be out-of-bounds to make the honoree strip off her clothes? Is repurposing some item of feminine paraphernalia required? I could really get myself in trouble here.
I try to ask these questions in Spanish and finally the thirteen- year- old yells at me in English that if Lucy can't guess the giver of a gift, then she would have to perform whatever embarrassing action the giver had written on the card.
Okay, I think. And since I'd just learned the word "Hen" in a previous game, I write, "baile como una gallina."
I didn't think about what would happen when Lucy did guess the giver correctly.
After a few rounds of gifts, Lucy pulls out my repurposed Aveda bag and reads it aloud in English, laughing. Then she gets to the "Howdy from Tucson" onesie and starts pointing at me and laughing.
I employ my usual strategy of crouching behind the taller person in front of me.
But I am caught. The English gave me away.
This is how I end up dancing like a chicken in front of thirty Mexican women I just met. I do a few circles, flapping my elbows up and down while everyone laughs.
It feels surprisingly good, the flush of embarrassment, the energy of it. I'm finally communicating.

La Primera Noche

My plane arrives in Oaxaca and I go through customs. The English lady who sat next to me on the plane had told me the part that said "maletas faltas" was for indicating checked bags, and though that didn't seem quite right to me, I followed her lead because she'd been to Oaxaca before. The inspection officer who is about to search my bags looks at the list of 2 "maletas faltas" and gives me a questioning look and says, "dos maletas faltas," and I suddenly remember a day in Jackson Heights when I was popping a letter in the mailbox and this man hanging out on the corner said, "falta, no completa," and then that letter got returned four days later because it had no stamp on it. "No maletas faltas," I say, "tres maletas aqui," and the guy starts taking my stuff out of my bags. 

The host dad, Juan, a sixty-seven-year-old white-haired man helps me get my luggage into his car and we talk a little bit and I'm able to get it across that this is my first time in Oaxaca and he gets it across that he hasn't traveled much because he has six sons. It's a pleasant conversation and he strikes me as friendly, earthy, kind. 

We get to the house and meet Sylvia, Juan's wife, who is in her fifties. I break out the "I love my abuelitos" t-shirt and they love it. They especially like the Arizona socks I give them with images of saguaros and roadrunners to which Juan says, "Correcaminos," and "Meep-meep." Sylvia goes into the kitchen to get the tea, and I break out the chocolate chip cookies I brought. Juans asks, in Spanish, "You made these?"

"No," I say, "mi esposa."

"No, tu esposo," Juan corrects me.

"No," I say, "esposa. Es una mujer." 

Juan's eyes widen. He stretches his arms out straight in front of him as far as they will go and digs all of his fingers into the kitchen table. He clenches his eyes shut and takes a long, deep breath. 

Sylvia comes in and says, "Who made the cookies?"

I say, "Mi esposa."

"Tu esposo," Sylvia says. 

"No," Juan says, "su esposa."

Sylvia nods slowly and says nothing. 

Muerto

So, I'm sitting on the floor of the Tucson airport on the day of departure for Oaxaca and charging my Ipad when I decide I probably ought to pull the address of my host family off my email and write it down.
My suitcase is filled with some gifts that I hope will be right for the family. I called ahead and in my limited Spanish asked whether they had children in the house and learned that a grandbaby was on the way. Somewhere in a blitz of Spanish words, I had also caught the word "muerto."
Now I'm sitting here in the airport hoping to God a baby didn't die. In the suitcase I have an "I heart my abuelitos" toddler shirt. A "Howdy from Tucson" onesie. Maybe the husband died? Mrs. Pacheco did sound like an older lady.
I open the email and begin to write down the address. "101 Huerto Limonares."
Huerto.
The word for orchard.
I chuckle softly. What I thought was an obituary was simply an address. Although I had enjoyed walking around with the mystery in my head, I was worried the whole time that the answer to my big question was going to be a somber one.  How will I react in Spanish? I'd wonder.
I'm now the proud owner of a nifty little mistake. A good omen, I hope.

Notes on Foolishness

I'm in Mexico and I'm fucking up.
Chronically, constantly, from one second to the next.
It's quite possible that I've always made this many mistakes in a row,
and that every social interaction is peppered with mishaps,
but here in Mexico, as I try to learn Spanish, each pie-in-the-face
hits me in slow motion, and there's a kind of beauty to it.
Back in my regular life, I had been working on admitting my faults,
accepting myself, the usual middle-aged quest for a little bit of peace
in a hectic world. Judging from the NPR segments on failed start-up CEOs
who are now sought-after potential employees because they "know how
to fail well," maybe, as a culture, Americans are ready to accept some
humility too. Accepting failure, analyzing it, not being so afraid of it that
you hide under the covers...I'm interested in these ideas.
I'm studying Spanish which is something I have wanted to do
since I was sixteen and gave up on, since I could not
 (and still can't) roll my r's.
I gave it up because I knew I would never be perfect at it.
That idea was certainly a mistake in itself.
Everyone here has an accent. The other day I made the Australian
guy say the word "mermaid" three times before I got it. And he was speaking English.
So I hope to fill this blog with my mistake stories.
And, in that spirit, I'd like to let my words fly out a bit more freely
than I usually do. I'll do one super-fast draft on paper and then edit only as I retype.
Consider this blog a toast to foolishness and buffoonery of all stripes. Call it the manifesto of the
klutz. Cheers!