some way baby it's part of me, apart from me

photographs taken in san caralampio where i ate my first bug, made a lot of bread,
and slept in my first hammock

in the morning, i woke up in a city. a woman was calling to me through the window in spanish, i rushed quickly, realizing i was late for breakfast. the morning was blue. having arrived late the night before, i looked out of the window seeing for the first time ocosingo. a beautiful valley. i'm not in america, i can tell because there are colors here that i've never seen before. the sounds of roosters, motorcycles and people talking as they walk to the market are new to me. the air breathes a different language, even.

after breakfast, santiago, juan and i got into the black explorer. i was quiet. i was still self-conscious then about my spanish and santiago's ability to speak english seemed to be contingent on his mood. we drove for four hours in silence into the depths of the chiapas jungle. i asked no questions. i knew that i loved santiago and juan the moment that i met them. i knew that it was okay to be quiet. my eyes were fixed on the countryside passing beside me. the window was down as we drove along the bumpy dirt road. i breathed in the smell of fires burning and the smell of fresh rain soaking into the earth.

santiago broke the silence, pointing at a river, calling it the chocolate river. i said to him in my awkward spanish, "let's go swimming!" he laughed. and i knew that he already loved me as much as i loved him. making people laugh in mexico became my favorite way to communicate and in some ways, the only way that i knew how to. i flirted with everyone i met - because i knew no other way. my spanish is pretty good, but mostly it's just cute. it made me vulnerable to everyone i met. i was at the mercy of every person i spoke to and i relied on their kindness in order for me to survive there.

mostly i got along fine - i just sort of trusted that nothing was so important that you needed to actually talk about it. and that's how i drove four hours into the jungle of chiapas without having a single idea where i was going, if santiago and juan were even the right people to have picked me up, or what i was going to do when i got wherever we might be going. it just wasn't really that important.

two hours after we left ocosingo, we stopped in a small town. later i would find that this was the town where santiago and his brother, pablo, had grown up. i stayed in the car with juan. i had gathered a few things about juan in our 24 hours together so far: juan had a cold. juan was not santiago's son. and juan was from matzam, the village i had visited with my church in may. juan only spoke when spoken to. and when juan did speak, he spoke in a whisper.

santiago got out of the car. a man and his daughter walked towards him. santiago shook the man's hand, and then picked the girl up and twirled her around in a circle. she was beautiful and his rough, worn face became gentle in her presence. this was the first time i really got a good look at him. he cocked his hip to the side and rested one hand it. when he walked, he looked at the ground, watching his black cowboy boots as they pressed down on the green grass. sometimes he looked up, and he always had this smile on - this smile with these wise, knowing eyes, that held secrets, memories and wisdom that were buried so deep that i knew i could never really know this man. he was made of mystery, full of the things that men used to be made of in myths.

santiago dropped a few things off with them and then we drove on. he never told me it was where he was born. he never told me that those people were his family. it just didn't really need to be mentioned. i could tell that it was a good place, and they were good people, and that santiago seemed happy there. that was enough for me. and as the weeks would pass, santiago would never really tell me anything about himself. he would never tell me about his wife who had died, or what it was like working for his brother, or if he wished he would have had the same opportunities as him. he'd never tell me about his children. or why he always sat outside of church and never went inside.

but as the summer would go on, i would get these precious chances to glimpse what was inside of him. and in these glimpses, i saw a man with a heart made of gold. who treated me gently. who treated every person with care and affection. who asked me if i was okay when i seemed sad. and one day, he would eventually walk into church, look around the room awkwardly and shyly. he would spot me from the door. he would stand next to me, as i was seated on one of the benches, and he would motion to me to move over. and despite never learning about his past, and never telling him much about myself either, i knew he felt comfort sitting next to me there. we were the kids in the back of the church laughing too much, because they didn't quite feel like they belonged there. we were the kids who would sneak out of church early to buy coca colas across the street.

the last week i was there, he asked me in perfect english to wash his clothes. although he was joking, i still responded to him honestly, "it would be my honor."

eventually, we arrive in san caralampio. we turn right up a small road. ahead of me i see a mixture of white people and people from the village. i see pablo and jan and the people who work for them. these people will eventually become like family to me. the journey begins here, i breathe in deeply, and step out of the truck.