Friday, April 27, 2007

Another Exciting Week in Chacala

There is all kinds of excitement around Chacala these days. Another big birthday party for a five year old. With lots of family and friends. And, today the circus arrived in town, for a three day stay. There are more gringo tourists here than there were this time last year. Maybe a dozen. And the weather is great: warm but not humid, with nice evenings and comfortable nights.The birthday party was late yesterday afternoon. I think there were five piñatas, and lots of very well behaved kids, watched over by their moms, aunt, and older cousins. And sometimes by Dads, uncles or granddad. There were piñatas to whack, and games to play, and treats to eat, and lots of visiting,The birthday Mom asked me to take photos, when she thought the real photographer wasn’t going to show. But he did show, thanks goodness. I would hate to have someone depending on me for photos of their five year old’s birthday.The photographer and a videographer (the birthday child’s aunt I think) and I were all busy photographing everything. And sometimes each other. I found it really hard to take photos with so much going on, and people moving around constantly. I am afraid some of the photos are going to turn out blurry because I took them for across the party area. Normally a parking lot under the palms.I took about 550 photos, and narrowed them down to 115 by getting rid of the obviously poor photos. And the ones that weren’t directly about the birthday party. Like nice portrait photos of people at the party that weren’t close friends of family.I think I mostly know who were friends and family at the party, and who were neighbors. Not always, but a lot of the time I know who’s who.Then this afternoon the Mom and I went though the 115 photos and picked out about 35 to print. I hope they come out okay. It’s kind of potluck. It’s amazing how different some photos luck on the computer as compared to when the are printed out.Two trucks hauling cages filled with sort of sad animals were circling around town tonight, just before dark. I was having pizza at Victor’s Pizza place (now open Friday, Saturday, and Sundays, later in the day) when they started circling thru town.This will probably be the 7th or 8th circus thing I have missed since I moved to Chacala. I don’t like seeing circus animals, and in Mexico it seems to be even worse. But people have been telling me the acrobatic acts and clowning stuff is good, so I might go tomorrow night.There were two ponies, a monkey, and two lion-like animals in the cages. It was kind of sad to look at the animals and imagine what kind of life they might lead. I took some photos, but I don’t know if I will publish them.Last winter, when I was camping at the beach, the circo was parked in the field across the road. Early one morning most of the animals escaped and were roaming around. It was mildly exciting. No one seemed to be taking the prospect of lions and cats roaming around Chacala very seriously.

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