Monday. 12.27.10 Jaime, Araceli & the boys arrived yesterday - Cascarita!

Yesterday Josue’s cousins Jaime y Araceli arrived to San Francisco with their two boys Jacobo & Josue, to spend some time here with the Tias. We got to catch up with them a bit yesterday. Then after a little while the boys had their soccer ball out, and we started kicking it around. Jaime asked if we liked “futbol” -we said yeah, it didn’t take long for the challenge to be put out. It didn’t matter that night was falling. We had a date for cascarita in the front yard. Them against us (me, Josue y Gerardo). They had already been bragging about being on winning teams, even his cousin Jaime currently plays on a team.
They obviously are more in shape and used to playing lately than either Josue or I are, and then we have Gerardo on our team, who is just a clown, so, that’s how the teams break down. A little unevenly stacked, but we’re up for the challenge anyway. We can tell their a little more than competitive, but what they don’t know is we can be too! Especially when they’re not even taking us seriously! Their Josue (who they call “Vocho” - “Bug” like the car, in spanish) starts the game with his soda in his hand - as if we’re not going to be any kind of challenge! The nerve! We score the first couple points of the game and he puts his drink down. Let’s just say we gave them a run for their money! And even though there was a misunderstanding as to whether we were playing to 15 or 20... At either game point - WE WON!!! Final score 20-17!! Whoooooooooo hooo for the underdogs!! “Buen juego, buen juego” (good game, good game). As we shake our opponents hands!
We all took showers and turned in for the night.
Today, the challenge has already been put out there for a rematch. Since we could tell they were a little bothered we won last night, we decided to have a little fun with them, and tell them, well if you want another whooping, sure! But later, first we have to go to Villa to meet up with our mechanic friend.
When we get there, luckily we find Juanelo and this time he says he’s ready for us. Not all the parts we requested came in, but enough to get through the issue at hand. Good, thing because we were really hoping to be ready after New Year’s to take her to the city. So Josue got a chance to get his hands dirty as he completely took apart the carburetor this time, every single piece was removed and thoroughly cleaned, before being put back together. Juanelo made new seals for it. We also replaced the screws on the fan shroud to hex bolts, which are easier to tighten due to the small space. We fired her up & she started up fine. He calibrated the carburetor for us to an idle that sounded good. And we’re on our way again, complete with our third ally - Charlena! We’re glad to have her back on the road again.
Back at the house, the boys were waiting for us for rematch. But this time “Vocho” didn’t want to play, so we had to find a replacement - so we recruited Alejandra to play with us. She was down, so she was going to be on their team. Since we’re starting earlier in the day today, we changed the location to the street. They set up the goal posts (rocks), and it was on! So it was them: Jaime, Jacobo (who they call “Enano” - it‘s like saying “shorty”) and Ale, against us: Josue, Me & Gerardo. Once again it was a pretty competitive game, rougher than the last, but still a super close game. This time we came up short, they won 20-19. Soooo close!
We are definitely going to need to play a tie breaker, but that will have to be for another day. It’s getting dark outside, we gotta take showers.
After showers, we play uno with all the kids.