Ode to a Fossa Septica

Ode to a Fossa Septica

O, wondrous tanks I see

Work your magic when I pee

Hidden under limey loam

Grey, ivory, plastic, foam

Trio of tapas cover all

No need to lift until the Fall

We can’t see your inner world

None wish to see the innards curl’d

Now my lucky fingers cross

The cost won’t feel a total loss

Praying all will flow and go

As it all swirls down the bowl

So let the people do their best

The soft’ner, washer, all the rest

Send it down the deep, deep hole

And free me from my weekly dole

What I'm Doing On My Summer Vacation

What I'm Doing On My Summer Vacation

     Eating

     Watching "Law and Order" and endless repeats of Mother's Day movies on "The Hallmark Channel".

     Eating

     Washing my mother's hair.  (you heard me...don't make me say it again.)

     Eating

     Waiting for Wednesday.

     Eating - you get the idea.

     May is a slow month in Merida - or so we're told; we've never tested that rumor.  But I do know it is hot.  In fact, May is the hottest month in the Yucatan, and if the three weeks leading up to May were early indications, we are in for a long, hot summer.  So May is when we choose to close Casa Del May for a month for maintenance and upgrades (new doors, new paint, and even - now hold on to your seat - a new, larger septic tank!).  But May is also the month we fit in a trip to the U.S. to visit family.  And for the most part, and for many years, this has been an enjoyable visit that I looked forward to.  But things are changing, and have changed.  I am finally in that time of life when parental obligations are taking hold.  They have already taken hold for my two brothers and sister-in-law and nephew.  But living away from Louisville has spared me some of the stress and strain of my mother's slow decline into elder-hood.  And this visit is proving that this is going to be a quicker and more rapid process in the near future.

     My mother is 88 and by all indications is healthy, both physically and mentally.  But she is, and always has been, something of a hypochondriac.  Mom has a touch of COPD from being a smoker for about 20 years.  Thankfully she quit smoking in her 40's, so she has spared herself a lot of the effects that I have seen evidenced in other people over the years.  But she does have that COPD.  And when I say she has a touch, I mean a touch.  Her breathing is barely strained.  Don't get me wrong, it is strained, but ever so slightly and I think she has chosen to make much more of it than she should.  But it is what it is, and she has convinced herself she needs to be on oxygen 24/7.  This one decision is driving all other decisions in her life.  And because she chooses to be tethered to a steel tank and plastic tubing, she has found it difficult - not difficult, bothersome - she has found it bothersome to perform many of the everyday things we all take for granted.  Because she feels she cannot be off the oxygen for even 10 minutes, she has stopped taking showers and "bathes" at the sink.  Because she is afraid of too much heat near her oxygen tube she does not cook meals and eats much more "junk" food than she should.  Because taking that portable oxygen tank with her out of doors is cumbersome she has stopped leaving the house.  Many members of our extended family meet at a local restaurant every Friday night, and for years Mom attended.  She has not been to that dinner in over 8 months.  She is not even dressing, but sits in her recliner all day in her nightgown.

     We are all flummoxed about what to do.  This is partly because this is so unlike my mother.  She has always been fairly active.  For 35 years she walked to and from her job at A&P.  And except for one, brief stay in the hospital after my sister, Tina, was born, she has never suffered from much more than a cold.  And it is partly because she digs in her heels whenever we try to discuss what she needs to do to keep her quality of life high.  

     For Mother's Day I prepared a breakfast for Mom.  She, my two brothers, my sister-in-law, and I ate at Mom's dining room table and had a nice time.  But Mom refused to dress for the occasion.  I almost insisted she dress, but she flatly refused.  

     So now I'm trying to figure out what is the problem, and what to do about it.  Is she depressed?  Does she feel physically bad all the time?  Does she not perceive any reason to live?  I cannot figure it out, and she won't talk about it - just says she cannot do this or that because of the oxygen, or because she is not feeling well, or because her back hurts.  But she has been to the doctor and she has ruled out all these reasons, but cannot help us further.  

     So I think we are about to make some decisions for Mom that she may not like.  Or maybe she will, who knows?  We are about to hire someone to come in 3 times per week to help take care of her.  We'll see where that leads - and how I feel about things in a few months.

     This puts me, and my family, in different shoes.  We are now becoming the parents, as so often happens.  But when it happens to you it seems much more daunting and foreign.  How do I now turn to my mother and tell her how things are going to be?  I have to tell her that if she does not do certain things to take care of herself that we will step in and take over her life.  We will decide when she goes to the doctor.  We will decide who comes to her condo to help take care of her.  We will take over her finances, which will be such a turn of events for Mom that it is hard to imagine how she might react; Mom has ALWAYS been the family accountant.  My father had no clue how to even make a withdrawl from the bank.  And we will decide, when we must, when and where she will live, next.  

     I guess I knew all my life that this time would come - that the children must become the parents.  And now that that time is here, I am very uncomfortable with it.  It feels like a betrayal.  I can certainly rationalize it - I know that the changes my brothers, sister, and I will force upon Mom are for her own good - but we will probably never feel good about it.

     In the meantime, I'm spending my summer vacation in Louisville, Kentucky, getting a taste of what it might be like when - and if - I'm 88, and vowing not to follow my mother's lead on this one.  

     I want to be like other 88 year olds: Bob Barker, my 92 year old friend Raul, who is embarking on yet another 2-week walking tour of an Asian country, or even Betty White, who has given us all a new outlook on growing old.  It's going to happen to us all, if we are lucky.  I just hope I handle it well.  

     But right now I'm getting in a lot of doughnut time.

I Did It!

                I finally did it.

                Two years in Mexico and I finally did it.

                It took me a while to buck up my courage, but I reached way deep down and said to myself, “Self, you know you gotta’ do this.  If you truly want to call yourself a Yucateco… Yucateca?...  Yucatecan?... ah hell, if you truly want to call yourself a Mexicano…Mexicana…shit. 

Just gotta’ do this.”

                I’ve been avoiding this since we moved to Merida.  I would walk to the market…the one in Santa Ana Park or Santiago Park…or even the main one (Lucas Galvez?), I would walk in and see the hanging corpses, the split open flesh dripping red over the table and then snaking its way to the closest hole in the floor.  Entrails piled in the corner and in barrels waiting to be picked up by – whom?  And the stench!  My God, the smell makes you want to hurl.  And yet, I’m supposed to purchase some of these dead corpses and turn them into some type of dish that won’t make Bobby Flay run for a toilet.

                So yesterday was the day I was going to take the plunge.  

               All during my walk to Santiago Park I kept making like Jack Handy and trying to calm myself with my own DeepThoughts.  And it kinda’ worked.  By the time I approached the back side of Santiago Park I was feeling that finally buying one of those (fresh?) chickens in the market was going to work out just fine.

               

                As I turned the final corner on Calle 70, which runs behind the Park, I was feeling positively elated at the big step I was about to take.  I almost skipped around the corner and headed South and there, right in front of me, was a man suffering from exactly what I feared I might be in the not-too-distant future.  He was bent over, one hand on a light pole, the other on his knee as he projectile vomited onto the sidewalk.

               

                Oh yeah!  This is a GREAT omen!

                I quickly crossed the street and almost ran past the spot where the man stood heaving in a herculean effort (if I do say so myself) to avoid looking at and – please God – smelling the results of his liquid gift to the city. 

                I began searching my mind for a better thought to push out the vision my imagination was trying to cram into my brain.  But like always, this only backfired and my thoughts were filled with the image that I always use to punish myself.  Suffice it to say that seeing your parents in flagrante delicto when you are 17 is one of those images you can return to again and again in your life when your mind forces you to a dark place.

                I drug myself into the little market area inside Parque Santiago.  I began first in the fruit and vegetable section.  I made my purchases of a pineapple, papaya, cantaloupe, and bananas, then turned to face the dreaded meat room.

                I walked down the little walkway and turned into the room, noticing a band saw on my left that looked like it MAY have been cleaned at the turn of the century – the 20^th century, I think.

                A few feet further was one last poultry seller still open at the late hour of 1:30 PM.  The room was hot and smelly, and I was terrified of contracting some animal-borne disease just by being in the room, let alone eating anything that had been hanging out in it. 

                I approached and one of the two women behind the counter left her lunch to assist me.  She looked up at me and knew right away the kind of Gringo she was dealing with.

                “Pollo?”

                After what seemed an eternity I managed a little, “Si”.  Was that me that said that?  It sounded like a 9-year-old little girl who was about to cry.

                I looked down on the counter to see a chicken languishing on the table, already sliced in half.  Each half had a breast, thigh, leg, and more flies hovering about than I’ve seen in the bottom of a very recently used septic tank (but that’s a story for another time).

                The chicken had a nice amount of meat on it, so that was a positive.  The flesh was shiny, not dried out.  I noticed all the fat was still on the specimen as my eyes pored down the breast, past the thigh and down to the legs with…their feet! 

                I tried to be non-chalant about the whole thing – like this was something I’d done a million times before.  I said to the young woman, “I’ll take it all”, then remembered where I was and tried to use my oh-so-excellent Spanish. 

                “Todo.”

                “My God, this chicken has feet”, I thought.  “What am I supposed to do with feet?”

                Now look, my uncle was a farmer and I spent a couple weeks with him and my aunt each summer when I was a teen, so I learned a lot about farming and milking cows and slaughtering hogs and I know chicken have feet.  But, my God, this chicken had feet!

                The woman seemed to sense my distress about what to do about the feet, so she picked up a cleaver and cleanly chopped them off with a quick 1-2.   It didn’t make me feel much better, but at least I wouldn’t have to deal with chicken feet.  I mean, I know you can make soup with them or even fry them, but I am NOT about to each chicken feet.  You know they walk in their own poop, don’t you?

                The woman plopped the chicken pieces into a plastic bag and nimbly tied it as they seem to do with all plastic bags, here.  The bag was clearly wet and slimy from chicken guts, and I started looking at my own recyclable cloth bag I had brought with me to carry home my purchases for where to put this bag of chicken without making a stinking, sticky mess before I got home.  But then I looked up to see the woman place the first bag into another, stronger bag with handles for carrying.  Guess I underestimated her.

                I paid for the chicken – 70 pesos – not bad at all – thanked her and headed out the opposite door of the meat room and started my trek back home.  I kept my right eye closed as I hugged the walls next to the very narrow sidewalk opposite Mr. Vomit in an effort to keep from seeing that horror scene again, but I only managed to fill my brain with that horrible image of 85-year-old Mrs. Probst on her front porch in a lovely house dress – and nothing else – sitting with her legs spread wide open for all the world – and teenage boys - to see.

                I think I need help.

                Upon arriving home I immediately stuffed the chicken pieces into a pot, filled it with water, and got it cooking as soon as possible.  I probably over-cooked it out of my irrational fear of poisoning Steve and myself, but it made for a nice, rubbery addition to a chicken-broccoli-rice casserole we ate on for a couple of meals.  And guess what?  I’m still here!  All my body parts still work – well, if you don’t count the knees – and we don’t, yet, feel any repercussions.

                So I did it!  I made that great leap from the grocery store and its scrawny, over-yellowed, shrink-wrapped, perfectly cut pieces of chicken (with no feet), to just about the freshest, juiciest, plumpest natural chicken you can find anywhere.  Next week: fried chicken, chicken panuchos, and even chicken salad!

                Who knows, I just might fit in around here after all.  

New Friends

                One of the things Steve and I always enjoy about running a B&B is the fantastic people we get to meet and with whom we have become friends.  We’ve met folks from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Italy, U.K., Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Egypt, France, Australia, Germany, Austria, Romania, Argentina, Columbia, Brazil, Spain, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and many other countries I have momentarily forgotten.  I can safely say that they all have been interesting, friendly people. 

                What makes this come to mind today are two things:  we are approaching the end of our first year at Casa Del Maya, and the departure of some guests who have been with us three times, and whom we now consider to be good friends.  Lee and Paul are finishing up a house in Merida, and we look forward to the day when they are living here.  Until then we must satisfy ourselves with their periodic renovation-check visits.  Come back soon, guys.

                Departures are bummers, because we hate to see our guests leave.  But I guess without the coming and going of our guests we would not have the chance to make new friends. 

                We hosted a fascinating Japanese artist, who works in several mediums, including creating live silkworm installations.  He also creates sculptures in stone and wood.

                We met Joel, a singer-songwriter with a gold record for his work with Bonnie Raitt.  We have had actors, writers, artists, and many “regular” people who have been just as interesting, telling us about their world travels.  We even had a Russian princess stay with us. 

                We have had several photographers, both professional and amateur, who have sent us fantastic photos of Merida and Casa Del Maya.  Another interesting chap was Paul, a pub designer in London.  He has created many really cool bars in the London area, and owns several himself.  Suzanne is a TV producer from New York, who we hope to see again.  Our first guests, Zach and Andrew, live in New York City; we felt a real connection with them right from the first. 

                Many of our guests “discovered” Merida while visiting, and some have already moved here or are in the process of purchasing a property.  Dean and John are now living here and renovating two properties and thinking about opening a business.  Paul and Steve purchased two properties, as well, and are moving to Merida in the spring.  Carol and Virgil fell so in love with the city that they returned a few short months after their first visit and rented a home to get a better feel for living here.  These are but a few of the many guests we have welcomed at Casa Del Maya in our first year.  All have become friends. 

                Another great aspect to running a B&B is the way we get to vicariously travel.  Our guests share with us their travels and their home countries, which only force us to lengthen our bucket list.  I was not certain the Netherlands was high on my list before we met a lovely family here for a week who espoused the virtues of their homeland.  The large population of Brazil kind of scared me until two young people from that country convinced us that we should visit.  And although the pyramids and other archeological elements of Egypt have always interested me, I was not certain it was a place for me to visit.  But now that we have hosted some lovely people from Egypt, I am anxious to see it for myself.

                There is not a place our guests hale from that has not peaked my interest.  I want to go to Vancouver, Montreal, Colorado, California, see more of New England, the U.S. South and heartland.  I want to see a musical in the West End of London then have drinks at one of Paul’s pubs.  I want to get out to the countryside of France as well as revisit Paris, and stop in to say hello to Anne and Estelle and Thierry and Alain.  Despite having lived in Italy there is still so much to see of that incredible country, as pointed out by our Italian guests.  In short, it’s going to be a busy retirement, someday.

                So as we round out our first year operating a B&B in this incredible Mexican city, we thank all those guests who have walked our pasillo, shared their lives, and helped us become a top B&B in Merida.  And we look forward to discovering more of the world through the eyes of our future friends.

October, 2015:  An update.
As I reread this blog post recently, I read some things that have changed, and thought I should update the post.
First, the good stuff:  Lee and Paul have finished their house and are in the planning stages of moving to Merida permanently.  Lee has begun an ex-pat website, which we love.  We still look forward to the day they are living in Merida.
Sadly, Dean and John have broken up.
Steve and Paul didn't take to Merida, and have divested and moved back to the U.S.  We miss them.
Shockingly sad is the loss of Virgil.  He suddenly passed away.  But Carol has decided to keep a home in Merida and we are fortunate enough to see her, now and then.
We end year three next month, and have made many, many new friends, and hope to make many more.

Brooke Kelly

             There’s a little girl I think about often…at least two or three times each week she comes to mind.  She is singing a song, playing a comedy scene in one of our high school productions, or just bounding into class with the kind of energy she demanded of herself.  Her name is Brooke.  Her name was Brooke.  She died two years ago.

                I am not one who thinks more highly of people in death than I did of them in life, so this is not what this is about.  Brooke was an extraordinary person, and one from whom I learned much more than I was able to teach her as one of her high school teachers.

                When I think of Brooke, she is usually singing a song from the Broadway musical, Shrek.  “I Know It’s Today” is sung by the character Fiona, actually three Fionas at different stages of her life.  Each sings that she knows a prince is coming for her, today.  Three of my students performed this song in class, and I liked it so much I kept having them repeat it for other students.  All three girls were good in the piece, but Brooke, like she always did, stood out.  Not because of her stump arm.  Not because of her stunted growth.  Not even because of her singing.  It was because of Brooke’s wonderful outlook on life that shone through in everything she did.

    

I took photos of all my students and posted them on the "artists" wall.  This is Brooke her Freshman year.

            I first met Brooke when she showed up for auditions to be accepted into our high school of the arts musical theatre program, which I headed up.  She came in all bright faced and enthusiastic, handing me a professional looking resume and headshot (most of my students didn’t even know what these things were), and even gave me an audition tape.  I was a bit taken aback and thought that this was a bit over the top.  It just didn’t feel sincere to me, at first.  But speaking with Brooke I quickly learned that she was nothing, if not sincere.  Then she sang, and she had a pretty good voice.  But what blew me away was that her routine was perfectly polished; she was a bundle of confidence performing for me and had obviously worked very hard on her audition.  So she offered talent, hard work, discipline, a great life outlook, enthusiasm and love for the art.  Well, what could I say to all that?  She was in.  And it wasn’t out of any kind of pity – Brooke could smell pity a mile away and wouldn’t have any of it – it was because she demonstrated her commitment and love of the art.  That’s all I wanted in a student.  The rest would come later.

                Brooke was born with a lot of physical problems.  I never knew exactly what they were, but I knew that there had been problems since birth.  She told me many times that she wasn’t expected to live a week, let alone 16 years, the age she was when she entered high school.  She had been in and out of hospitals her whole life, but it did not weigh on her.  She was highly intelligent, open and loving to everyone, and wise beyond her years.  I could not find a student who didn’t think the world of her.  At first I thought some students might mistreat her or be mean to her and so I was a bit over-protective at first.  But I was completely wrong, as her mother told me when she called me to say, basically, “back off”.  I should have trusted Brooke to handle things as superbly as she did.  Even the most difficult students, the ones who hated life, hated all their teachers, and bullied other students, treated Brook with respect.  She just brought the best out of people.

         

Brooke as a newsie in "Gypsy"

       Brooke had a stump arm, which was really the only outward sign of her physical limitations.  She once asked me if I thought she could be on TV with her stump arm.  I just showed her examples of performers who have overcome various limitations.  She learned about Sandy Duncan and her eye cancer challenges, and I found a beautiful video of two ballet dancers performing an incredible routine, each missing an arm and leg.  I told her she could be whatever she wanted.  And I meant it. 

                The highlight of Brooke’s Freshman year was a Make-A-Wish trip to Hollywood to visit the cast on the set of the Disney show, “The Wizards of Waverly Place”.  She came back on cloud nine, having met her idols and starting to feel that she, too, could be a real actress.  After that trip is when she began asking about her chances to be an actress on TV. 

                Before I had the chance to use Brooke in one of my productions, one of my students, who was directing a short musical for our local area thespian competition, cast her in her show.  Brooke had natural comedic timing and I found myself laughing after her every delivery, even after having seen the production at least a dozen times.  She had great comedic timing, which you cannot teach.  I subsequently cast her in my own productions and found a role for her in most every one.  But one of her proudest moments was early on, when she worked backstage on a production of “Little Women”.  During a scene where the character Beth dies, I had a kite symbolically fly up and away.  Brooke flew the kite and it was quite beautiful.  After each performance she asked me how I liked the kite.  I just said to her, “It was perfect”, which it was.

                In class she was enthusiastic, if not always in attendance due to ongoing challenges with her health.  But when she was there class was different.    The students upped their game whenever Brooke was watching.  There was less of the belly-aching that can go on with high school students.  And the ones who usually sat in the back of the class, unwilling to allow themselves to open up enough to bare real feelings, even they began to join us in some of the in-class performances.  I noticed how they looked at Brooke, and I could sense the impact she had on them. 

                I wanted a great future for Brooke.  She deserved it.  I envisioned her on her own Disney show, “Just Brooke”, or something equally as corny.  The world needed to get to know this kind of energy. 

                I knew Brooke would be successful at whatever she did, given the time.  But time was the big issue.  Although she never said anything, I could tell she was worried about her time on Earth.  I guess that is why she was packing in so much living while she could.  There was no telling when another physical challenge would raise its far-too-ugly head. 

                I left my teaching position before Brooke’s Senior year of high school.  In the fall I received a message on Facebook from one of my former students to tell me that Brooke had passed away.  I was stunned and heartsick.  I really had convinced myself that Brooke would be alive when I was old and gray.  I was certain I would enjoy my retirement watching Brooke on her own show.  I wanted so many more people to get to know her, to experience life from her point of view, and to enjoy that unbridled enthusiasm for theatre, love of her family, and especially of her sister.  Few deaths have seemed so unfair, made me so angry, and left me feeling so helpless.  I try to make sense of Brooke’s death.  Several times each week I think about Brooke and try to figure it all out, all the while Brooke is singing her Shrek song in the background.  Why her?  Why all the suffering?  How did she overcome it all and live the full, gracious life she did in only 19 short years?  But it is, of course, impossible.  How can you make sense of a senseless event?

                I guess the reason I think about her so much is that she did so much more good in her 19 years than I have in my 57.  When I think of Brooke, I become less angry, more enthusiastic.  When I think of Brooke I demand better of myself.  For Brooke’s sake I am working to enjoy life more, be a better friend, try to become the person Brooke knew we all were.  Brooke motivates me to be a more human human being.  I am just so sad that she had to leave us for me to learn those lessons.

                So now I picture her in her heaven, still cracking jokes, stirring people’s passions, and showing us all how to live (if only we would listen).  And I picture her waiting for her prince.  I know it’s today.

                

I Guess It's Better Than The Alternative

                I will be 57 years old in a few short months.  To say I have been feeling my age recently is an understatement.  The “little aches and pains” my parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles  always talked about are now my claims to their realms.  My constant worrying about every little ache and pain and what they potentially may be both embarrass and anger me.   I find myself turning into a bit (okay more than a bit) of a hypochondriac.  Completing the age-old cliché, most of the conversations I have with friends and family ultimately include talk of getting old.

                Last week my sister and her husband visited us.  On their third day I slipped on wet concrete and performed one of those incredible body gyrations you do when you will do anything to keep from falling.  Fortunately I caught myself after performing a stunt that must have looked like a killer orca rising up out of the water and twisting and turning for all it’s worth before lumbering back into the water.  As I said, I caught myself, but I must have twisted something because the next day, and for five days after, I was almost unable to walk.  Just pulling my left leg out of bed onto the floor was no easy feat.  And every time I breathed in a stabbing pain hit me in the back.  If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn I had a samurai sword stuck in my liver.  The pain slowly, and I mean SLOWLY dissipated until by the seventh day I was able to return to my normal routines.  But, wow, I have never experienced any kind of back problem and it has made me think about…and accept…my age!  (Did I say accept?  I mean begrudging allow.)

                I remember my parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles always talking about their little aches and pains.  It was SO boring.  I was determined not to sit around and be the kind of middle age fogey that couldn’t wait to share the latest bump on my head or how many times I got up last night to pee.  But here I am, worrying about all the same stuff, asking my mother if my father had this little rash, or insisting that my friend Diana take a look at my poop.  I guess it’s just part of growing old... if you’re lucky.  I know I should feel fortunate that I’m still alive at 57, especially after the history of the men in my family.  But it makes me mad that I am succumbing to the fear and loathing, and hypochondria, the little aches and pains bring.  I should be celebrating each day I wake up in the morning!  Instead I am certain that the looseness in my hip means I need a hip-replacement or that the pain in my lower abdomen is cancer or a headache means I have a huge brain tumor, and you know that no one survives a brain tumor.  I am constantly certain I will go to sleep and never wake up.  (Yeah, but what a great way to go, please God.)

                I suppose what all this is really about is death.  I am going to die.  We all are going to die.  And it is the ultimate end, or transition, or whatever you believe it is.  But whatever we believe, it’s pretty clear we all want to stick around as long as possible.  And in my quest to stick around I look for every little clue I can find that might tell me it’s not yet my time.  I am on the site DeadOrAliveInfo.com constantly.  It somehow reassures me that someone who did something that made them famous enough to be listed on a website went before me.  I also like it when I see that someone made it well into their 90’s…gives me hope.  Esther Williams was 91.  Aw, I liked her.  Sorry she died BEFORE ME!  James Gandolfini was 51?  5 years younger than me?  Man, have I got it going on, or what?  But then there are those who are way up there and still hanging on.  Betty White, you bum me out, and yet curiously thrill me at the same time.

                So now I sit around and figure how much I will need to retire, not because of all the great traveling I will do or great places I will see, but because with the way my body is failing there is no way I can work until 66 (and 4 months, thank you very much Social Security Administration!).  How much will I need to retire?  How long will I live?  Is there really any point to all this, acknowledging that growth on my ankle? 

                Well, I’ll tell you how long I’m going to live:  144.  That’s right, I decided when I was 21 that I was going to live to be 144 years old.  I am going to die on New Year’s Day, 2100.  And since I have no idea at what age I’ll ACTUALLY buy the big one, I may as well shoot for the moon.  Unless, of course, my recent forgetfulness is, just as I feared, the first signs of dementia, in which case, please just tell me I made it to 144.  

Yucatan Haciendas

                When you visit the Yucatan, there are three things you must see: at least one Mayan site (and I highly recommend several), at least one cenote (and I highly recommend as many as you can fit in), and at least one hacienda.  One hacienda that is now more of a museum than a working hacienda is Yaxcopoil, just an hour outside Mérida. 

 

Entrance Arch

                Hacienda Yaxcopoil (yaksh-ko-PEL) is located on Highway 261, on the road to Uxmal.  You enter through a driveway to the left of the large entrance arch, which is closed, probably to save it from accidental destruction by vehicles hitting it as they pass through.  It is a stunning piece, and suggests to me architectural design borrowed from the Middle East.  Its curved arches contain lights, making it look like a giant candelabra. 

                The walkway up the middle of the front yard is still mostly intact, as are the steps leading to the wide front porch stretching the entire width of the main building.  Inside the main hallway we paid our entrance fee, and then continued on.  I expected this building to be pretty much the entire hacienda, but I was in for a bit of a surprise as we discovered room after room, structure after structure, and fields that stretched on for, seemingly, miles and miles.

                The main building contained much of the owners’ family’s living quarters.  There were bedrooms with much of their original furniture, and a salon, all with their original pasta tile floors still intact and gorgeous.  I am constantly amazed at how well these old pasta tiles hold up in construction, design and color retention. 

       

Pool and bathhouse rooms

Maintenance Building

         The next building contained a library, dining room, and at least one kitchen.  Behind that was a pool and bathhouse for those hot Yucatan summers.  As we continued beyond the bathhouse we came across the property’s well house, with a huge, old water pump reaching deep down the well to suck up the water running in the underground rivers below to disperse throughout the house and gardens.  A huge concrete reservoir (I thought it was another swimming pool), sat next to the well.

       

         The grounds are beautiful, if not 100% maintained.  But it is easy to imagine the huge cost of running a hacienda, with all it encompasses.  There were trees to be used for lumber, all kinds of floral offerings, areas for vegetable gardening, and some agave plantings.  As we strolled the gardens an employee of the hacienda stopped and asked if we wanted to see the maintenance building.  Of course we did.  So he unlocked a gate and guided us through a field (where locals happened to be playing softball) to another huge structure. 

Storage Building

This was the building where all the heavy machinery was located.  There were old saws, lathes, smelting equipment, welding equipment, and a huge smokestack just behind the building.  Just beyond, stunningly, were two more huge, ornate buildings with statues and many carvings.  These, we learned, were for storage.  Then, beyond these buildings, were acres upon acres of the hacienda’s land, some still owned by the hacienda, some having been given to locals to farm many years ago. 

             

Smokestack

   I had no idea these haciendas were so large and so self-sufficient.  Next to the main house were several other buildings.  One was a small hospital, one was for feeding the hacienda’s employees, and one was a school for the children of the hacienda’s workers.  It was a small town contained on one family’s property.  I suppose you could see it as the Yucatan’s Downton Abbey.

View from the Maintenance Building

                There are several haciendas in the Yucatan, and some are still working haciendas, where you can see workers cultivating and processing henequen into rope, baskets, purses, rugs, and many other products.  A trip to the Yucatan should definitely include a trip to at least one hacienda.