A day in the life: Remote Mexican Village

First: thank you to the few who will scroll through this entire fucking novel of a post. Thank you for reading. My grandmother's village is very poor, and not considered beautiful by most people, but I love that place. The people, the mountains, the dust and the dirt. My grandfather placed explosives in those mountains to mine for minerals, which is why the neighboring town is called Dinamita.

People get around on dirt roads. The houses here are made of adobe (mud and straw), and the natural colors blend in to the environment.

The day begins around 7am. My grandma's memory is deteriorating and she forgets who I am sometimes, but goddamn can she still cook a bitchin' meal. Beans are a staple here (and the cheapest, most filling food), as are tamales, coffee and flour tortillas.

How the magic happens.

Many of the houses here look like this. Decrepit structures inundate the village with a strange, deteriorating feeling. This house got too expensive to complete.

My grandmother's house.

My dad managed to pay to make my grandpas house out of concrete. It's the most luxurious house in the village. It's a whopping 2 whole rooms. A kitchen that connects to the bedroom through a doorway without a door.

After breakfast, it's time to pay monthly dues since it was the end of the month. This cardboard piece of cereal box works kind of like a credit card. You put on there what you owe (for food, toiletries) and at the end of the month you pay. Here the total was $1,105 pesos. My grandmother was worried about not being able to pay it all (I paid it as her Christmas gift and she cried). In the US, this is equivalent to $57.15.

Where she gets her groceries. This store is usually inside the owner's home. They can afford to go into town frequently to bring back goods so people from the village don't have to travel.

After noon chores and paying dues, it's off to the big city. We ride in the back of a pickup about 45 minutes on the highway into town.

The market. Good for buying things not available in the village: meat, cheese, clothes, shoes, etc.

High-end electronics store to repair my grandpa's watch.

By the time we get back, it's time for dinner. Gas is too expensive to pay for, so they've built a little wooden stove in a corner. Food tastes much better this way, in my opinion.

For dinner: potatoes, juice, and tortillas left from the morning.

These tanks hold drinking and dish-washing water. The only clean water accessible to them every month. You can fill multiple tanks, but they make do with just one.

After dinner I like to roam around the village. This is my favorite bridge. My dad learned how to walk here, and I learned how to run here. I still run across it every time I'm here. It's like running back through time. Hearing the creaks and ferocious stomps on the old, rusty metal makes me believe in the monster I was running from that I made up as a kid.

When the sun begins to set, its mo'fuggin firework time! The locals here think I'm strange for blowing things up with the local children. At almost 25, I don't have children of my own and I'm not even married. This goes against all traditional customs here. Seeing a grown ass woman play in the dirt with kids isn't a normal sight.

We conjure up a plethora of dangerous and fun ways to blow shit up. This usually consists of finding tins blow into the sky, but our absolute favorite game:

Blowing up a glass bottle and and running from the flying shards of glass. If you're hit, you lose. This round, the loser had to try to summon La Llorona. My friend Juansi here was hit right in the butt by a shard of glass. I'm pretty sure medical attention was needed, but you know...just rub some dirt on it and keep going.

Where La Llorona lives, according to local rapscallions. And nobody saw Juansi ever again. (Just kidding, he chickened out).

We're out until bedtime. They are my favorite part about the village. None of these kids go to school anymore. The youngest are 10. They can't pay their monthly dues, so they're not even let on the bus. I'm a teacher, so naturally I tried to talk to them about it, but they laughed in my face and their reality punched me right in the heart. If they don't go to school, they can work and help their families. Two work in alfalfa fields (one 11, one 10) and the other 10 year old works with his dad at a chicken coop. I offered to help them pay, but they don't see the payoff. They'd rather make a little money now rather than have to wait to make a little more later.

Then after a week I'm gone. This picture describes the feeling. I fall in love with the place and the people and then I have to leave. I get to come back to California to my semi-comfortable life (luxurious as fuck life compared to this). If I could, I would send all my money to fix their leaky twig roofs, get them shoes with soles that are whole, pay for my grandmother's food and give them all I can. I do what I can when I come back every year and hope it makes a small dent. They don't care for that though. They welcome me with open arms and don't ask for a cent. They're absolutely happy, and I love that. I miss my dusty boots and the dirt under my nails already.

Hasta luego, Mexico lindo. *Edit* Holy crap, thank you all so much for taking the time to read all of this. My heart is so full from reading all the comments/messages about all the memories this brought to you guys. Please continue to share your stories. And call yo grandmas. Thank you, thank you, thank you <3