Goon Hall

I have finally stolen some pictures of my fellas!! I didn't get all of them. Actually I didn't get most of them but these (I admit) are among my favorites. This past week was their last week of work until February or March. They will all be heading back to Mexico on Tuesday. Though I'm very happy they'll get to see their families I'm quite sad about this. These are the silliest guys. Despite their acting like tough guys in the photos, they have been smiling and singing and laughing all year. Except for a few that don't enjoy being teased, they are always in good moods, always optimistic, and always poking fun and playing tricks on everybody.

This here is Jorge, Ricardo, Victor, and Ramiro. Jorge knocked out one of his front teeth and now refuses to smile. If something is really funny and he can't hold back he'll turn around and laugh until he can control himself. I think he's going to get a new tooth when he gets home.

Ricardo has more personality than anyone ever. He has a high-pitched girlish goose-cackle laugh that I always hear coming out of the rows of tomatoes or driving by on a tractor. He sings happy spanish tunes while he works and can't help but smile if you look at him. You know what makes him even better? He's only 5 feet tall!! He and Victor have taken over as the resident pranksters. Back in October they set up some sort of sensor in the veggie stand and every time I walked by it a ghoulish howl would emanate from the corner. They watched from a safe distance as I desperately tried to figure out where it was coming from. It was making children cry!! Victor there is one of my favorites. I have a little crush on his outstanding character. He has a bittersweet story and he's turned into just the greatest guy.

And Ramiro. Ramiro and I play charades. He's been staying with me up at the Tree tent to help wrangle and trim the trees. He doesn't understand much English so gets very tickled at my attempts to act out "stand it up straight", "they're just looking", "can you trim some branches" and "tie it onto the roof." Its not as easy as it sounds. Worst of all I have to do this little show in front of the people wanting the tree. I go "Ramiro! Nyyeeenyeenyeee" and he knows to get the chainsaw and take off a few inches. It's very embarrassing but it really tickles the two of us. Lately he (and another one named Javier) have been making me repeat everything in Spanish. They'll turn a light off and then look at me. They won't turn it on again until I say "apagado". Then he'll switch it on, "prendido". Off. On. Off. On.

There was much giggling and acrobatics involved with setting up the tree tents and hanging lights from such heights. Meanwhile they are still picking veggies and plowing fields.

That's little Ricardo shimmying up the poles to hang lights. In white there is Gilberto who still hugs me everyday and brings me flowers and Gatorade.

This is Miguel. He's married to Gilberto's sister and he's very nice. He speaks English very well but he doesn't really understand it. He'll talk to me for 5 minutes about something only to give me a blank look when I respond to him. He does a lot of smiling and nodding before casually slinking away.

And then there's these two- Jadie and Erik. These two run the show. They work together everyday and I still can't decided who's in charge and who's the sidekick. They both rely on the other immensely. Jadie has a million things to do and is very scatterbrained and mentally pre-occupied. He's extremely kind and will do anything for anybody and is always coming up with kooky ideas for things. Erik runs the farm and is very much sane and level-headed. He is constantly having to appease Jadie's kooky ideas meanwhile biting his tongue and grinning at me- as I seem to be the only other one aware of Jadie's mad-hatter state. These are technically my bosses and I couldn't love them more.

 Last weekend was Serefino's birthday so of course I came over and sat amongst a blur of spanish words and laughing. I could only use context clues to decided what was going on but from what I can gather, once the people from their church came over they all hid their "drinks" and made the children go outside. Raul and Gilberto hid in a bedroom and the Grandmother made the birthday boy stay outside until everyone left. Ahh the universal panic of having good people in your home.

I'm really gonna miss mi amigos.