the last week sucks

I have noticed that the last week that I stay here is always the worst. I don´t know if it is because I am excited to get home and fed up with certain things. Or it could because everyone kind of gets into a bad mood because it is easier to say goodbye when you are sick of someone.

I have had a couple of rough days the past week. First, I went to Tecamachalco to pick up the photos that I had developed. I got home and I was huffing a little and sweating. (I was trying to go fast because Delia and Leticia were over at the house and I wanted them to see the photos before they went home.) I got into the kitchen where everyone was eating corn on the cob, and my father in law said, ¨You are that tired just from walking 2 blocks to the store?¨ Now, I hadn´t just walked 2 blocks, more like half a mile or so. Someone said that I hadn´t just gone to the store down the street but to Tecamachalco. I got pissed because he always has something to say about my weight.

I went into my room and sulked a little, but then decided to go back into the kitchen and eat with everyone. I got into the kitchen and someone asked me if everything was okay. I said, no, that I am sick and tired of mi suegro making fun of me. Then I got emotional and started to tell him that I have asked him nicely over and over again to stop. He said that I make jokes of him too, which is completely falso. I said, when? what? Of course he couldn´t come up with anything. I said that I don´t walk around telling him that he is fat and ugly and lazy (which is all true!) so that I really want him to stop doing it to me. At this point of course I was yelling at him, he was yelling at me, and everyone was a bit uncomfortable. He left and I cried and cried.

I went to a birthday party later that day, and brought him back a piece of cake as a ....I can´t think of the word. The next day he bought me some bistek - like thin sliced pork, because he knows that I like it.

Well, then this past sunday I went to the store - the one that is only 2 blocks away. Well, at this particular store they sell beer, so men from the neighborhood sit outside and drink on sunday (because on saturday they get paid) I walked by and one guy in particular was pretty drunk and he offered me a beer. I told him no thank you, and went into the store. Well, he followed me into the store, and said that now that we were alone without all the guys outside, could he buy me a drink. I said no, that I didn´t think that was okay. I told him that my husband would get really angry with me, and that I was busy making lunch for my kids. He was pretty adament. The woman who runs the store told him that of course I couldn´t take a beer from him. He started to say that it was because I wouldn´t accept what he was offering, kind of like I was being rude. She told him that it wasn´t rude, that my husband would get mad. At that point her son started talking to him and got him to go outside again.

I went around the corner, to another store to buy limes. On my way back, with the guys that were drinking, was a street vender selling cups of fruit (the street venders around her ride bicycles that are set up with what they are selling.) The kids had asked me earlier if I would buy some watermelon for them. Well, I asked him how much they were. Right then another street vender came by selling raspados, which are like snow cones in a bag. The fruit guy asked me if I would take a raspado, which at that point, I thought, well, I can accept a snow cone instead of a beer. So I said yes, and got one. The fruit guy also gave me 2 watermelon cups for the kids, and paid the snow cone guy with a beer. I thanked him and went on my way.

I got home and told Leticia what happened, because I thought it was funny and nice that I ended up getting fruit and a snow cone. She told me that what I did was wrong and that she was mad at me. I was confused, and I was like, really? Are you really mad? And she was like, uh, yeah. That isn´t something that you do. Wait till Moises finds out and you will know if I am joking or not.I said, why, they are just guys from the neighborhood, and if it was so bad that Moises would get really mad, then I wouldn´t tell him. She said that you never accept something from men who are drinking, especially if you are alone on the street. I went to the kitchen and asked my mother in law if what I did was wrong - she had overheard the story. She said yes, that around here, that is something really bad.

Now let me stop here and say a couple of things. I can see where they are coming from, a little. But at the same time, these are men from this tiny little neighborhood. I also know from going to peoples houses and going to parties, that when people offer you something, it is considered rude not to accept it. Knowing this, I didn´t think that it was inappropriate for me to accept what they were giving me. I thought that it was a nice thing, and that if I didn´t accept it, they would think I was rude.

So after talking to my mother in law, I started to get mad, and called home and freaked out on the phone with my sister Stacie. I was pretty hysterical. I mean, the last thing I need is for the people in town to say that I am a whore or something. (which apparently is a big problem here right now because so many men leave to the US or other parts of the country to work, and the women cheat on their husbands.) Stacie reassured me that I hadn´t done anything wrong, and that if I had in their eyes, who gives a damn. They can all go to hell. So, I calmed down, but was still really upset. I went outside because I was heating up water to give the kids a bath. My sister in law said that she was going home because she had upset me, and it was better if she left. I said that it was her that was mad at me. I was still crying and she came and hugged me and told me that she was sorry. She didn´t mean to upset me so much, that it was because mexican people are jealous, and to please please calm down and forgive her. I calmed down after a while, and now it is past history.

We´ll see what else happens this week!!