Halloween

This piece, originally titled Jack o' Lanterns, was one of my very first on this blog two years ago and remains one of my favorites. Reposting it is becoming an annual Halloween tradition. I'm taking a few days off from writing to prepare a presentation on photography for the Bloggers Conference, which takes place Nov. 5 in Mérida.

Three years ago on a weekend off from teaching in the summer course at San Ildefonso Tultepéc, in the state of Querétaro, I took a hike on the outskirts of a tiny nearby pueblo named El Cuisillo. It's located close to the border between Mexico and Querétaro states. That makes it about equidistant from the towns of Amealco, Querétaro and Aculco, Mexico, along a two-lane highway that in two or three hours takes you, if you flag down and jump aboard one of the dusty buses that occasionally passes by, from this very small place to the world's largest metropolis.

The people of El Cuisillo are very shy but friendly. In keeping with that spirit, it is an unpretentiously scenic walk along roads and paths through their land. From hilltops you can glimpse distant rock formations, ravines and cliffs, and the occasional small house with cornfield, or perhaps far away a small child with a stick trying to goad a slow-moving cow out to pasture. There are some interesting pre-hispanic ruins in the area. The ruins are just there. There is no visitor center with bored security guard, you'll fend off no vendors selling fake artifacts and bottled water, and you need not heed any "do not climb" signs nor thoughtfully consider pedantic interpretive plaques of questionable interest. There is no one else around; you can enjoy the quiet and imagine yourself the explorer.

For some reason here, I suppose it's the stillness of the air and the rock formations reflecting sound waves, once in awhile I mysteriously hear clear voices and laughter but see no people. Perhaps they are hiding in the bushes and watching this strange foreigner smiling and whistling to himself, writing in a little book and taking pictures of things that seem to them very ordinary and mundane. Perhaps, as many acquaintances of mine in Barrow, Alaska will attest, the "little people" do exist, and maybe they live here, too. It certainly seems like a place they would appreciate. It may be a mystery I will never solve, and I like that. I've walked in the vicinity many times over the years and always find something new to do or see. It's a place I have visited with others, but mostly I like to wander here alone.

Many of the families in the region are indigenous Otomí, like these boys, and live a subsistence way of life near the poverty line. Besides keeping some animals and planting a small garden and milpa, or cornfield, some families make fired-clay products to produce cash income. The area produces a lot of these ceramics, such as pots, planters, platters, small replica churches and houses, sun plaques and other decorative, kitchen and garden items. Apparently someone in the area realized that with well in excess of 20 million persons living within a couple of hour's drive, there might be a market for jack o' lanterns. It seems like every clay workshop produces them. Halloween is not a tradition in Mexico, but some families do observe the day.

When I passed by their house the boys ran up to the road with arms full of "calabazas," or

pumpkins, for sale. I purchased two at the asking price of about a dollar each. I managed somehow to get them back to Mérida in my luggage without breakage. They have served me well now for three Halloweens. I have yet to receive a trick-or-treater at my door, but if one comes, I am ready.

Happy Halloween.

Living Here: Embracing Color

Some foreign residents of Mérida have taken the plunge

Foreigners from cooler northern climes often comment on the uninhibited, sometimes chaotic color sense of many Mexicans. The foreigners don't always warm to it. I used to feel that way, too.

In my family home the color scheme was what I might term midwestern conservative. When I was small, our walls were always beige and furniture shades of brown. When we moved into a new house in the late '60's and my mom chose "harvest gold" shag carpet, upholstery in muted green and reddish tones and an avocado refrigerator, we thought it was pretty hip. But that was about as groovy as we ever got.

Although it's changing, where I grew up things still look pretty dull. In Juneau, shades of brown, tan and gray seem to be the predominant color choices for the exteriors of houses and buildings. I am sure these are not everyone's favorite colors. So why, in a climate where the weather is often dull and dark, do people paint their houses in dull and dark colors? And in Mexico, especially tropical Yucatán, why is it so vibrant? I suppose it has to do with culture and what we are used to, but I wonder how environment influences our feelings about color. That's something to look into.

My friend Paul, originally from the midwest, blogged about the time he allowed his maintenance man to choose colors for some accents as he painted the patio area of Paul's Mérida home. Paul was "stunned" by the choices, but they didn't seem all that wild to me.

I realized at that moment that I've changed. I have come to enjoy the cacophony of color in Mexico, and now see it as pretty normal. When I travel north on a visit, it seems like a pretty drab place. When I return to Mexico, I am immediately dazzled by not only the brightness of the sun and the heat, but by the color. No holds are barred. Rules are made to be broken. And as far as I am concerned, that's good.

When I moved here, I changed the way I did a lot of things. I wanted to be less inhibited and open to new ideas. One thing I decided to do was to paint every room in the house a different color. Now I have a red living room, green bedroom, and the kitchen/dining area is multicolored, with green and orange predominating. Tile patterns clash. Checks and curlicues abound. It's great. I love the feeling of the place.

Oh yes, although it still wears the same coat of paint it did the day I bought it, the front of my house is pink. One of these days I'll do something about that, but I am not in any hurry.

I am just one of a crowd of foreigners who've moved here and have taken the plunge into color. Embracing color is a simple way to break out of a routine and celebrate the unlimited possibilities of life. It creates energy. It's a manageable form of chaos.

In any case if you later have regrets, paint's not all that expensive.

Home sweet home

Wanderings: La Barranca

San Ildefonso Tultepéc, Querétaro -- Every time I go back to La Barranca, I have a different kind of experience. I teach at a summer school in this pueblo, where, on my time off I sometimes walk down the barranca, Spanish for a ravine or small canyon, to relax and explore.

One July day I took an afternoon hike here with two fellow volunteer teachers, my friends Yulma and Antonietta, who hadn't been before. We walked down a side street in the pueblo, passing little stores and a group of men drinking beer and pulque, to where the corn fields begin, only a block or so from the highway. What looks like the results of simple erosion, tiny rivulets that can be stepped over, quickly deepens as the terrain suddenly drops. We walked and slid down a steep but passable crevice in the rock, and in moments found ourselves in a different environment, completely hidden from the houses of the pueblo just a couple of minutes' walk away.

Cactus, maguey and other plants adapted to arid lands loom over the rim of the barranca above our heads, while around us on the damp bottom, water flows even in parched weather. Ferns and moss luxuriate in the shade of verdant trees, which keep the temperatures noticeably cooler than in the dusty, sun-baked open spaces above. In places, water seeping out of overhanging cliff faces drips in a perpetual shower onto hikers passing below. Dark algae contrasts with orange and lime-green lichens that grow in the microenvironments of shaded rock faces. There are many organisms living here that are not seen just a short distance away, straight up.

As we descend, the high cliff walls spread apart and the view expands. Here the floor receives more sun, beginning a slow transition back to the drier state of the environment outside of the barranca. As we mount a trail that hugs the right side of the widening gorge, suddenly a yawning, black cavern, overhung by the cliffs, comes into view. Under this roof we enter an ancient potters' workshop. The cavern is stacked with hundreds of half-finished clay comales, flat platter-like utensils used for heating tortillas over a fire.

I once met an elderly man working here. He digs his own clay from the walls of the cavern, hauls water from the stream below to moisten the clay to the right consistency, and forms his comales on the dusty floor of the cavern. When the clay has dried out, he then fires the ware in a rock kiln, using brushwood he has cut in the nearby forest. This man hauls the finished products on his back, up the narrow trails to the rim of the gorge and back to the highway. I've often wondered how many generations of local clay artisans preceded him. The thick accumulation of discarded, time-worn pottery shards on the paths approaching this place indicates to me that people have worked here for a very long time.

Although the scenery is beautiful, I usually find the most interesting things to be the small or unexpected. I have seen at least three species of hummingbirds in this place. The wildflowers are fabulous. I've noticed evidence nearby -- scatterings of artifacts -- of an ancient settlement. 

On several occasions over the years I've been startled as I suddenly find myself looking into the dark faces of solemn, silent Otomí women as we cross paths, I with my high tech daypack, bottled water and digital camera, they with their herd animals, dogs, many children and enormous bundles of firewood. The realities of our different worlds brush past each other for a moment, but just barely intersect. In the evening I will be in a dry, clean, cozy house, uploading photos online in order to write my blog post. They return to the laborious and sometimes grim business of survival.

Antonietta, Yulma and I had a meeting of this type, although we'd heard a dog barking down the path so weren't completely surprised when a pair of indigenous women appeared as we rested in the shade. After glancing furtively our way they looked at the ground as they walked silently, which is normal behavior unless the stranger says something first in greeting. I think Yulma spoke, wishing them a good afternoon, to which they replied in kind, in accented Spanish, "buenas tardes." To my surprise, they slowed and made further eye contact. Perhaps this was because, accompanied by these women I was no longer the lone, foreign male on their path. I'm not sure.

The women took a breather as they shifted their loads. The older one who was in the lead did not smile, but her expression softened as she looked at us. After a few seconds, she tilted her head up and directed her gaze ahead, as if to say, "goodbye, we've got to get on with it," and they started up the steep trail.

Living Here: Taking the Bus

I was the only passenger on a long-distance bus Thursday. I had the entire first-class coach to myself. It was just me and the driver. This was surprising to me considering the high level of bus ridership here, and is an experience I have never had before in Mexico, even though I have traveled a lot by bus.

I make a lot of trips between the Cancún airport and Mérida. This typically has entailed a half-hour shuttle between the airport and the Cancún downtown bus terminal, and the four-hour bus ride between Cancún and Mérida, or vice versa. Recently I have been able to use a newer ADO (Autobuses del Oriente) service that takes passengers directly from the Cancún airport to Mérida, skipping the shuttle and bus station segments entirely. In Mérida it stops in Alta Brisa and at the Hotel Fiesta Americana.

This is a great service and although it costs a little more, if it dovetails with one's arrival or departure schedule, it will save an hour or two. However, I have been on this bus route several times now and have never had more than one or two fellow passengers. At this time there are only a couple of departures from the airport per day, both in the afternoon. From Mérida there are only midnight and 10:00AM departures. With the kinds of flights I've been taking lately, I've only been able to take advantage of the Cancún airport to Mérida run and not the other way around.

The novelty of riding alone in the big bus this week prompted me to recall past bus experiences. When I first traveled by bus in Mexico nearly 20 years ago, I was amazed by the habit of Mexicans to close all the curtains in order to sit in the dark and watch movies or sleep. As a curious traveler, I always prefer to enjoy the beauties of the countryside and see where I am headed. It frustrated me on several occasions, as we passed through spectacular countryside I'd never seen before, when a fellow passenger asked me to close the curtain to eliminate glare on the video monitor so they could watch a vapid, violent movie. Even after making the trip dozens of times, on these cross-Yucatán runs I still often prefer to watch the countryside pass by, monotonous as it may appear along the toll road, than to watch a movie or read. There is always something interesting to see.

I also recalled my surprise, some years ago, at seeing a Jalisco bus driver hurling his cola bottle, junk food wrappers, plastic plate and bags out of the bus window one by one after finishing the various courses of his on-the-job lunch. No one said a word.

I remembered a couple of long, long rides, when a combination of winding mountain roads, those always-closed curtains, heat and questionable roadside food led to the most disagreeable travel experiences I have ever had. Despite those bad trips, I enjoy taking the bus.

I thought about my very first Latin American bus rides, when in the early 70's I did volunteer work in rural Colombia -- the romantic heart of Gabriel Garcia Marquez country. These were true pigs-and-chickens buses. The surplus early 1950s American school buses were painted bright colors and had beads and bangles hanging in the windshields. All of our baggage was piled on the roof, accompanied by a few passengers, young men whom we later suspected of having passed the trip reviewing the contents of our luggage. We sat eight abreast on closely-spaced wooden bench seats as the buses slowly ground along muddy, potholed dirt roads. As we reached a stop, people would swarm on and off the roof, passing down boxes and bundles, and despite the fact that we wanted to watch this process in order to make sure our bags were not stolen, we remained seated in order to not lose our places in the crowded interior. We once waited hours in line at an isolated sun-baked, steamy ferry crossing on the Magdalena River. My most vivid memory of that experience is the very poor campesino family who offered to share their meager food, thick tortillas and some overripe fruit, with me as we waited.

Modern long-distance bus travel in Mexico is a far cry from that long-ago trip and is vastly superior to similar services in the United States. Buses are safe, run frequently, generally run on schedule, and make connections to small towns and pueblos. Buses here are for everyone. Middle-class families and even business executives take the bus. The deluxe buses, such as Platino here in southeast Mexico and ETN in the central part of the country, are more comfortable than first-class airplane cabins, offering roomy reclining seats with full leg rests, snacks, cold and hot drinks, comfortable, clean restrooms, and for those who like that sort of thing, movies -- with headphones -- so the rest of us don't have to listen to movies we have no desire to see.

Second-class and country buses are more interesting, but slower and less reliable. However the people on these buses are wonderful. I can't count the number of times seat mates have offered to share food and drink with me, just as that family did decades ago in Colombia.

I love the bus system here because you can easily go just about anywhere without a car. Taking the bus often costs less than driving, and although it may take longer, it is certainly less stressful. It also affords the chance to really look at the countryside (most of the time), and sometimes to meet interesting people. It's my preferred mode of travel in Mexico.

A Lesson from Xpakay

It started out as a normal August afternoon.

Late in the month I drove out to spend a couple of days with my friend Jonathan at Hacienda San Antonio Xpakay. It was hot, and as well as Jonathan, who'd been in town on business, my friend Victor was in the car as we drove out Mérida's Calle 42 and trundled along the back roads, through tiny pueblos and haciendas, out to Xpakay.

I've mentioned this hacienda many times. It's one of the magic places in Mexico that have taught me a great deal about the country, its culture, and about greater things.

We'd thrown hammocks, machete, water, food and extra clothes into the car. We stopped several times along the route to observe sights that caught our interest, buy cold drinks in a tiny mom-and-pop store, and later to attend to the necessities of nature after consuming the cold drinks. It was a pretty typical drive in the country.

A typical drive, that is, until we got to the hacienda road.

There are butterflies, mariposas, all year here but the population hits its apex in summer. When it is hot, the butterflies often stop to drink in damp areas around sources of water. The rainy-season puddles in the ruts of this road must provide the most accessible water source in the area. Anything that disturbs the resting butterflies, a wandering cow, a person, or a passing vehicle, scatters them.

There were plenty of the multi-colored insects fluttering around as we entered the 3.5-kilometer dirt track to the hacienda, but we noticed nothing remarkable. Then we rounded a curve in a low spot. Startled by the car, dense waves of the insects began to rise in front of us. It was a breathtaking sight. We slowed to a crawl. As they fled the car, the tendrils of escaping insects seemed to curve into the distance like smoke.

The rapid opening and closing of wings made the swarms of butterflies seem to sparkle jerkily, as if this real-life scene was a primitive film animation. A swarm  -- also known as a rabble -- of such magnitude must contain many thousands of insects. Perhaps tens of thousands. This day they were mostly white, yellow, orange, and shades of light green. These are not large, ornate, showy species, but the types with wings of one solid color.

I'd seen butterflies along the back roads of Xpakay on a number of occasions, but the numbers I'd viewed here in the past were nothing like what we saw this day. We must have hit the very height of the season for several species. The sight made me think of other species that mass together in impressive numbers: the salmon, for instance, of my home state of Alaska. Although still numerous in some areas, the populations of these species are mere shadows of what they once were.

I thought of the American buffalo, slaughtered by the tens of millions for meat, hides and target practice in the 19th century. I thought of the Passenger Pigeon, once so numerous in North American that their flights darkened the skies for days as they passed overhead. It led me to consider other vital parts of the natural world we have lost and continue to lose by daily increments. Many are not as spectacular or attention-grabbing as these examples, but important still in the overall scheme of things.

I suppose that such masses of butterflies were once much more common all over the world, but due to destruction of habitat, contamination and the use of pesticides they now are rarely seen. Because the destruction has taken several human generations to occur, we have become accustomed to their now-meager numbers. In most cases, we don't know anything different, so we don't realize what we've missed.

We've lost a huge amount and we keep losing more due to our tremendous fascination with consumption. The incredible numbers of butterflies here in Yucatán make me think. There are things we can still save. What are we doing about it?


My regular readers will ask me, "Where are the pictures?" The truth is that it happened so quickly, and I was so enchanted by the sight, that I took no pictures of the butterflies, preferring to enjoy the moment as I experienced it. Here's an earlier post on butterflies at Xpakay.

Contentment: The Pool at Night

An outdoor pool in the dark is one of my favorite things. I float on my back, ears under the surface to drown out sound, and watch the night sky.

On warm Yucatán nights, when the water temperature feels neither hot nor cold, after a few moments I cease to notice any separation between my skin and the liquid that cradles me. I float effortlessly and lose sense of the water. I bend my knees. Sometimes, arms extended, I bend my elbows and entwine the fingers of both hands across the back of my head. My respiration falls into a rhythm at which, although the buoyancy of my body drops and rises slightly as I breathe in and out, my face never dips below the surface.

Having reached this equilibrium, I drowsily observe the scene; moon, stars, clouds. These objects all have their own motions, but I add to the dynamic once in awhile by moving hands or feet, which sets the upward view slowly whirling and shifting.

Sometimes during this quiet repose I witness a lot of action. High winds aloft set clouds scurrying across the sky. The overhanging branches and fronds of the garden fidget in response to the breeze. Or bolts of lightning from a distant storm create a strobe-light show as they reflect off the thick atmosphere. I always hope to see falling stars. I see satellites.

But this isn't all.

Here in Mérida, owls come out at night. Often they announce themselves with a loud screech. Then a white silhouette glides against the black sky like a paper cutout suspended on a wire in a grade-school play. The bird of prey is patiently searching for its supper, maybe a careless opossum, rat or other small animal.

There are other flying night visitors that actually interest me more than the owls. These are the bats.

Certain bat species eerily pollinate the banana and pitahaya flowers when they are in bloom.  It seems strange because although with their broad, quickly-beating wings they appear to be sizable, active creatures, they make no appreciable noise as they flutter around and back again to visit different blooms.

The bats drink in mid-flight by swooping low enough to skim the water's surface with their mouths as they quickly pass by. For me, floating as I do, this is interesting to witness, especially when a bat takes this flying sip only a foot or two away from my face. Bats make a slight, wet, swooshing sound as they touch the surface, and leave a tiny wake. I have felt the breeze of their wingbeats on my cheek.

When not engaged in observing the nighttime environment around me as I float, I simply relax and let my thoughts drift along with by body. Sometimes I make decisions, solve problems or come up with ideas for blog posts. Other times I lock my gaze on the stars and attempt to quiet my mind and have no thoughts at all.

I suppose there are people who think it all a little odd, or maybe something to try once, but for me frequent sojourns in the pool at night are another of the little pleasures that make life here fascinating.



The idea for this post germinated after I read and commented on a post by my friend Lynette, The Big Ass Belle.

Living Here: Socializing

Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca -- My Mexican social life has gone through an evolution over the past eight years. When I first came to Mérida, my group of friends consisted mostly of other foreigners. Now, although I have expatriate friends and continue to make new acquaintances among that crowd, mostly I socialize with Mexican people. The reasons are varied. An experience a few months ago prompted me to think more about the subject.

I was invited by my friend Victoria to visit her home pueblo of Juchitán, out near the Pacific coast in southern Oaxaca, not terribly far from the border with Chiapas. It is a tiring, winding five-hour bus ride from the city of Oaxaca through the mountains down to this area, where traditional Zapotec culture and language is still an active influence on daily life. 

I took a cab from the bus terminal to Victoria’s house.

This old house was first inhabited by her great grandmother, and has come down through the matrilineal line of the family ever since. Roots run deep here, and although Victoria lives in Mexico City where she has pursued a career in music and acting, she identifies herself first and foremost with this place and as a Zapotec woman.



Not long after I arrived, we rode with Victoria’s nephew and his family out to visit relatives who live a little outside of the town. When we got inside the wall that surrounds the large yard, a dog barked once or twice in welcome, and I could hear the sounds of children playing. We were led to a kitchen-dining area that adjoined a roofed patio.



This was an extended-family gathering of maybe 25 people, consisting of mature brothers and sisters, some of their children, grandchildren, and assorted aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.

 The eldest men and some of the women were seated around a long table in the large kitchen. I was provided a chair amidst this group.

The table was scattered with heaping platters of seafood, bottles of beer, and an open bottle of mezcal. Over the next several hours, my plate was never empty for more than a moment before another course was served. The fish soup was followed by caviar and ceviche, shrimp, clams, conch, fish cakes, smoked filets and a variety of salsas and other dishes. My beer was never allowed to warm or become empty, nor was my double-shot mezcal glass. People drank, slowly, but no one appeared drunk or became loud.

I noticed the background sounds of talk and laughter. There was no knot of kids sequestered in a room staring like zombies at a big flat screen, X-Box or computer. The children were all playing together outside. No one was checking their cell phone or sending text messages. The music we had came from one of the older uncles who crooned and played the guitar. At times the others stopped conversing to listen or join in the singing, which was sometimes in the Zapotec dialect. Lots of applause and appreciative cheers followed favorite songs.

For cool-blooded, less-demonstrative northerners who have not pariticpated in these kinds of gatherings, they may present a challenge to notions about personal space. There is plenty of hugging, kissing and touching going on. There are lots of people around, and they like to be close together. And being together was the entire purpose of this afternoon. There was nothing to get in the way of that goal.

I have gravitated increasingly toward this type of socializing as I live longer in Mexico and meet more people. I think in part that is because the Mexican parties are gatherings of family and old friends, and most of the foreigner parties are given by people who do not have family or life-long friends around. For this reason and, I suppose for reasons of culture, the foreigner parties are of a different sort.

At "mix and mingle" foreigner parties I occasionally attend in Mexico, I sometimes feel like the goal is to talk to an individual for a couple of minutes, make a good impression, and then continue to "circulate" in order to chit-chat with everyone else before the evening is over. It seems as if my job is to do a little personal PR presentation to each one I meet. In this environment, only superficial interactions are possible. My wallflower tendencies and dislike of small talk have always inhibited me at these types of social events.

In comparison, the Mexican gatherings are leisurely and more relaxed. People don't arrive punctually, but once they've settled in they tend to hang out for a long time. The importance of family and long-term relationships is obvious in the affectionate way people interact. There is a group spirit. Hospitality and manners are integral and highly-refined arts. And often, cultural roots and history are living participants in the here and now.

These are people who know who they are. Here you encounter them among the folks who know them best. Falseness and superficiality are just about impossible.

In these gatherings, there is plenty of time for an in-depth conversation or to listen in on an intricate discussion between others. People may sing or quote snatches of poetry. There is time to not talk and simply enjoy moments, savor the good food, listen to the words of a song, or to soak up the friendliness. There is time to sit in the garden and watch the children play.

On this particular occasion, in a situation where I was a stranger, I was treated like a long-lost relative. I was told with complete sincerity that I was "in my home," and I was made to feel that way.

That's what makes the difference.

Learning and Friendship with Bloggers

I am not much of a joiner, and prefer to socialize and work in small groups. So last year when I was invited not only to attend, but to present to the Third Annual Latin American Bloggers Conference, I didn't immediately jump at the chance.

However I went. I had a great time, learned a lot, and formed some new friendships.


All interested persons are invited to attend the fourth installment of this event, which in the past has attracted people from all around the Yucatán Peninsula, other parts of Mexico, Canada and the United States.

The meeting takes place in Mérida, Yucatán on Saturday, Nov. 5. The main session begins at 9:30AM and will run until about 6:00PM, with lunch scheduled from 2:00 to 4:00. Optional social events are scheduled Friday and Saturday nights.

The agenda includes presentations and roundtables on various aspects of blogging, and special sessions for those working in Blogger or Wordpress.

There is no cost to participants. The event is run by volunteers and the venue and technical support is lent or donated.

The Mérida area has a lot to offer out-of-town conference participants who choose to make a long weekend or vacation out of their visit. A variety of music and cultural events, great food, archaeological sites, museums and beaches are all easy to come by around here. Comfortable, reasonably-priced accommodations are plentiful near the conference site in the heart of Mérida's centro historico.

You can view the conference blog here, and email your reservation or ask questions at the email link on the blog or at:

latambloginfo@gmail.com


I hope to see many of you there.

I Still Miss Alberto

The Yucatecan painter Alberto Castillo Ku passed away last year on Sept. 14. He was a true original and my good friend. In observance of the anniversary I am repeating a post I wrote last November in tribute to Alberto.

* * *

I saw an enchanting painting, a colorful and mysterious portrait of a woman, hanging on the wall of a house in Mérida a few years ago. I asked my host where it came from, and learned that the artist lived not far from me, and although in his eighties was still busy working. Not long afterward, I met the man at a social gathering. His whispy hair was windblown, his precariously-perched glasses held together with adhesive tape, and his clothes spotted here and there with paint. The artist handed me his card. The black on white card pictured an artist's palette and brush and said simply, Alberto Castillo Ku, Pintor.

A few weeks later I called the phone number on the card and Alberto Castillo invited me over to his house in San Sebastian. As we got acquainted that afternoon we touched upon many subjects. We looked at paintings and photos and slowly wandered through his ancient, eccentric house and extensive garden. He cooked, and while eating the lunch we shared a couple of large bottles of beer. Over the next several years, visits like this one to Alberto's house became a regular and unforgettable part of my life.

Alberto Castillo was born in Mérida in 1920, and even as a child he liked to draw. When Alberto was about ten years old, his father bought the old colonial house in San Sebastian where Alberto lived off and on for the rest of his life. As a young man he was passionate about art, and against the advice of his father, decided to go to Mexico City to find work and study. There one day he wandered by a studio where Diego Rivera, probably the best-known and loved Mexican artist, was teaching. Alberto started talking with Diego, and was invited to sit in on the class. This began an exciting time in Alberto's life. He was a young man from an isolated provincial capital, suddenly immersed in cosmopolitan Mexico City of the 1940's. Communists, Nazis, spies, artists -- a fabulous mix of interesting figures -- were part of the scene there. Alberto lived near Diego and Frida Khalo, with whom he began to socialize. Included in this social set were the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias and his wife Rosa, the American writer Alma Reed, who was once the lover of executed Yucatecan socialist Felipe Carillo Puerto, and many other figures in Mexican and international art, intellectual life and politics of the era.

After many years in Mexico City, Alberto married and was living in Acapulco, where he had a studio and small restaurant. Acapulco then was a trendy hot spot, with foreign tourism just taking off in the area. Movie stars, the rich and the famous all made appearances in Acapulco, and Alberto's place was right in the thick of things. Then suddenly, after giving birth to their two sons, Alberto's wife became ill and quickly died.

At this point in the story there are gaps in my knowledge, partially because I never asked a lot of questions when Alberto began telling stories, and perhaps because my memory for the details a few years later is not all that good. After leaving Acapulco, Alberto made a living mostly from art and his culinary skills, working in Mexico, many years in the United States where he made many lifelong friends and became fluent in English, and finally returning to Mérida to live with and help his aging parents. For many years Alberto ran a restaurant out of the Mérida family home. And always, always, until unable to during the last few years of his life, he painted.

All of the images in this blog post are from paintings sold to me by Alberto Castillo. Most are works completed in the later years of his career, when his skills, due to arthritis and deteriorating vision, were past their peak. I have seen a number of examples of work from the height of his abilities that would have made his old teacher Diego proud. The sense of light and energy, the sensuality, presence and fine techinque in some of these works are witness to the mastery Alberto achieved in his art, thanks to talent, passion, hard work, and to teachers like Diego. Although most of my "Castillos" were painted in the later years of his career, I have a couple examples of earlier work. Below is a detail of a 1970's painting of a woman from Chiapas "in the style of Diego," as Alberto put it, which hints at the life he could project and attention to detail that he was capable of in his prime.

Alberto painted original religious and Mexican subjects and to pay the bills in later years also made copies of paintings for churches and individuals. Yucatecan daily life and Chiapas were favorite subjects of paintings. Above, a late painting of Chiapanecan musicians that hangs in my living room. At right, a portrait of a young man from Chiapas. Above, near the top of this post, a Chiapanecan woman on her wedding day.

His Catholic faith was important to Alberto, and it was a significant influence in his art. This portrait of Jesus and the Sacred Heart is one that he painted for his mother and which hung in her room for many years.

Alberto's painting of a Mestiza preparing tortillas over a wood fire hangs in my kitchen

Alberto's studio was located in a roofed patio area at the back of the house. It was a hodge-podge of paintings, sketches and sculptures, memorabilia, tools, bundles of canvas and wood for stretchers, works in progress, paint tubes and containers of other liquids, brushes, and many years' accumulation of bric-brac and found objects that one day might be useful in a project. The area was bright and airy, which made it a good place for working. And like the rest of the house, the studio leaked like a sieve in the rain.

I recall an afternoon in the dining room. We were seated at the table, which was always set with a complete service for eight, plates on metal chargers, cloth napkins, wine glasses and other service items, 

along with a collection of unrelated objects that over time had accumulated here. The afternoon was darkening as a storm approached, so our meal was illuminated by the chandelier, which had been manufactured from an artificial Christmas tree, complete with decorations and lights, hanging upside down over the table. Alberto opened a bottle of beer and toasted the meal amidst rolling thunder. Just as we started to eat, the heavens opened and in a moment rain began to pour through cracks in the roof. One cascade began to fall right in the middle of Alberto's bald head. Alberto grabbed a baseball cap that just happened to be hanging on the back of the next chair and put it on. Then he looked at me for a second or two and laughed. "C'est la vie," he commented. We continued eating without further talk about the weather. After finishing, we walked through the house gathering the various buckets and pans, strategically situated under the worst leaks, and emptying the accumulated water in the garden.

I regret not having photos of the house. During the period I was spending a lot of time with Alberto, I was not doing much photography. I always said to myself that I ought to photograph his house, but 

preferred to enjoy his company in the moment rather than try to make images. The cluttered house and 

garden were a museum of more than a century of family life and his interests that included art by his father, son and many friends, photos, antiques, stained glass, valuable religious art and artifacts, various collections, and furniture manufactured by Alberto himself. There were dining rooms whose roofs had gone years ago, but which were still furnished with tables and chairs from the long-closed restaurant. In one corner of the grounds lay a huge mound of wine bottles, the accumulation of decades in the restaurant business and enjoying fine drink. In the back grew a large ceiba tree, which is the sacred tree of the Maya people, with a bench underneath. Once Alberto told me that there was a baby buried in that spot, apparently the dead infant child of a young relative or family friend who stayed with the Castillo Ku family when she got "in trouble," many, many years ago.

There are more stories I could tell about Alberto Castillo. We went out drinking at his favorite bar, the expat hangout Pancho's in downtown Mérida. We took the bus and rode on errands in the city. We went out to dinner. I bought large paintings and before I had a car carried them across a good piece of Mérida centro to my house in the heat of the afternoon, prompting interesting conversations along the way. One painting, the large oil of Saint Michael with which Alberto poses in the photo of his studio above, was once lost when a hurricane-tossed tree landed on and collapsed the roof of Alberto's house. The storm then sent his possessions flying all over the neighborhood. The painting was later returned to Alberto by a friend who had found it. It now hangs in my front room.

Alberto loved fruit and knew a lot about plants, which he was always giving to me. Roots from plants growing on an outer wall of the house broke through the wall and hung down inside the bathroom. Alberto didn't cut them. Instead he painted a woman's lips and eyes on the wall and incorporated the roots as the hair in a new piece of living art, which happened to be right over the toilet. Every so often when I used the bathroom I noticed how the woman's hair had grown.

There was the story of the son whom Alberto had never met, the product of a love affair with an American woman years ago. His obvious pride in his grandson in France, also an artist, who had come to visit. Stories of friends who'd passed on, of whom there are many when a person reaches his late eighties. Through it all, Alberto's attitude seemed to be to enjoy life as much as possible. He was always saying with a smile, "such is life," as if to shrug off the problems and sadness that we all deal with at times. His other favorite saying, whenever someone thanked him, was, "don't say thanks, say more."

One of the last times I was with Alberto he suddenly looked at me, gave me a bear hug, and told me, "I love you." I could only reply, "I love you too, Alberto." About that time Alberto stopped painting and was having more pronounced health problems. He was no longer taking care of the house and was less able to handle his own personal care. I offered to help in the house but he mostly refused. Not long after this, one of his sons, who for some time had been trying to convince Alberto to move in with him over in Puerto Morelos, moved Alberto to a nursing home where his needs could better be taken care of.

Earlier this year a 30-year-old bonsai flamboyant tree that Alberto had given me suddenly dropped its leaves and dried up. I felt guilty because I had been gone a lot and feared that my lack of attention had been the cause of the loss. Then, when I heard belatedly of Alberto's passing, I thought again of that tiny, gnarled old tree that Alberto had started from a seed and taken care of for 25 years before he gave it to me, and I thought, "C'est la vie. More, Alberto, more."