Salt, lemon and pepita crush!

It’s Sunday and I’ve been thinking about what to write next and I thought well I always have my childhood right? Who doesn’t? To tell you the truth I just couldn’t remember anything. I was having such a hard time and I don’t know if it’s what a psychologist would describe as blocking bad memories or if there’s something wrong with me because well I’ve had a hard childhood. Don’t get me wrong no one hit me or mistreated me but I’ve gone through a lot as all of us humans I suppose. I just guess we all have different ways of coping with hard times. I was dealing with this new found knowledge of me when I remembered, and I thought to myself laughing “well, there you are childhood! I was worried about you!” breathing a sigh of relief I started remembering.

There’s this one great memory that I would love to share and although it’s silly and probably unimportant, If It’s the one that popped into my mind first; I’m classifying it into my top ten happiest moments. It’s one of those moments that separates itself from time, it doesn’t matter in what circumstances it happened or what you were going through you just know that you had a good time.

We have a lot of rural areas here in Guatemala, and my grandparents, Papa yin and Panchita (that’s how we call them, I know, you can laugh) own a sort of farm right in Chiquimulilla.We used to go there almost every weekend when I was a little kid. It was a big gathering since my mom doesn’t have one or two siblings as you would normally think right? No no no she has eleven siblings!! Meaning that I have eleven aunts and uncles and adding to this number all of my cousins (By the way, I haven’t met them all… Yeah I know! It’s ridiculous, how much we girls can stand! Imagine being pregnant all the time. Grandpa he should’ve taken a grip, I guess boys will be boys) Well yeah you get the picture.

 I remember how the ride over there was just as much fun as being there. The smell of gas station coffee and diesel bring back the way my favorite cousin, Sofia, and I used to be smashed together in the back seat were all the coolers and the groceries my mom bought for Panchita were put. We always said “next time we’ll bring cards, Barbies and my Britney spears CD so we can play and dance on the way over!!” We were asleep fifteen minutes later(yeah not much time left to play) ,there’s something soothing about long car rides and bumpy roads that makes you fall asleep and drool on the person next to you always, no exceptions.

 There’s a restaurant/shop on the road ,nothing elegant it was simple humble even, were we always stopped . When we were a few feet from entering the parking lot my mind was already flying with possibilities. What will it be this weekend? Condense milk with fruits? Or maybe salt, lemon and pepita? I don’t know why I always wandered because I ended up with a salt, lemon and pepita crush every weekend. I can feel my mouth drooling just with the image of it. My dad would buy carnitas, rellenitos and tortillas for everyone. When we were on the road again my mom would act as car chef since we all wanted a tortilla with carnita, and when she opened the box containing them the smell of pork meat and wheat filled the air with the delicious promise of a happy and fool tummy.

When we got there we hugged anyone who was already  at the farm (even if we didn’t know them) and some would go eat more, some would go to the ranch and lay on a hammock, some would go ride the horses, most of the kids loved to climb the trees and collect mangos for later. Sofia, Krista, Berenise and me, we would go to the old abandoned small house just a little to the right and behind the main house. There we would find old, dusty skillets and buckets full of water. Our favorite game was to play as if we were housewives. Not your regular housewive, we replayed what we saw and we dramatized. Typical dialogue lines would be “Oh Berenise! What am I going to do? I don’t have enough to feed my kids!” or “I only have these fish (tree leafs) some corn and wheat (mud) God help us!” to what the answers would be” I know what we can do! Let’s do mud pies! We could feed the whole family with them!”

 And so that is how we started to make mud pies. A typical mud pie contained: Dust, water, leaves, and whatever rocks we could find for “decoration”. This mix we would pour into small containers we found on a box that had been left there on the house. We left it outside to dry and voila! , a delicious mud pie would be ready (if it was this easy we could’ve stopped world hunger a long time ago… ah! To be children! Those great far away times of mine) there was this one time when I decided I was going to be creative and take a risk … guess what I did? I added corn to my mud pie!!! (Genius child) and I poured it into an empty bleach container I had found that had the top of it cut off. By doing this, we later found out, I created the perfect conditions for corn to grow and soon my very own miniature corn plantation was developing right there in my mud pie filled bleach container. I was ecstatic, I will never forget you mud pie/corn plantation (R.I.P).

We would end the trip by eating all together at late afternoon when the sun was just setting. By this hour the fireflies woke up and thousands of tiny lit dots would fill the pastures around the house. In the car when I looked back the image saying goodbye to me would be of Papa yin and Panchita standing by the gate, arms entwined, and  around them the blurred firefly rears shining that would make them seem as if they were floating .By this moment my eyes were getting heavy and my mouth opened to deliver a gigantic yawn, but as I closed my eyes in my mind the image of them was the promise of another weekend, another salt, lemon and pepita crush, another tortilla, another mud pie, another body smashing car seat, another gold dotted night sky.