Saturday. 11.27.10

Today was Tia Prima’s birthday! We went with the family to Chalma to visit a famous church that is said to have had many miracles happen there. Mari & the family wanted to take her there to pray and say thanks for another year. It was a very beautiful church that was built right on the mountain side. The center of this mountain town the path to the church is full of vendors of all sorts, toys, keepsakes, food, snacks, candy… you name it! I guess it’s tradition here, that when it’s your first time visiting Chalma, you should wear a “corona” (crown), so there are people all over selling crowns made from fresh flowers. At Mari’s urging, Josue bought me a crown. When you enter into the church, you are asked to leave your crown at the door, when you leave you can pick it up again, or any crown that is there. It was a very pretty drive to get there, we went through Tenancingo and just kept driving east, which took us through a very steep mountain road.
On the way home, we stopped off at a restaurant for some barbacoa tacos and back to San Francisco! Once back at home, all the ladies got on with the cooking for the birthday party. Josue & I went into town (Villa) with Ma & cousin Leti to get some last minute party items; ice, tortillas & cilantro! The birthday girl had a craving for some mole, so dinner was rice, beans, chicken & red mole, with a side of fresh pico de gallo with chiles manzanos.
A little while after dinner Josue got some little cousins & nephews together for a “cascarita” (what they call a pick up game of soccer) and we must have played for 2 straight hours on the side of the house! Final score: us - 20, them - 14!!! His little nephews were saying I was “dangerous”! That was funny to me - I‘m so “peligrosa” when it comes to soccer ! We got all sweaty and the game ended up being much more intense than either of us thought it would be, but we had a lot of fun!

Off to the showers, then had some drinks with the Tias & cousins to wind down!
What a great day!