This is a picture of my house in Echavarria. It is a small settlement outside of Tecate, Mexico. It is near the border, high on the mountain range  between Mexicali and the Pacific Ocean.

I couldn’t warm myself up so I left the house and drove into Tecate to have breakfast.   It rained all the way on the icy road.   I thought that I would check out a joint that I had not visited.

I stopped at a new joint along the way. It looked like an old fashioned “greasy spoon” but I figured that they couldn’t ruin a cup of coffee so I gave it a chance. The pancakes were good!     Old widows around here go to work in these joints and the food tastes like home cooking.

Here’s a picture of my boy, Carlos. Most people called him “Boy”.  He lives in Houston, Texas where he works as a librarian. We are sitting in front of my house here in Echavarria. That was a nice day last spring when he came for a visit. Today, however, it is snowing.

Yesterday I went out to the well and tried to get water. The bucket was heavy. It felt like it was stuck on something. I tugged and tugged until I heard something crack and I brought up the bucket filled to the brim with rock solid ice.  It was very cold and windy here on top of the mountain. All I have to warm up the house is a little heater that plugs into the wall.

I became bored sitting in the house shivering after I came from Tecate so I went to the Rumorosa.  That is another settlement to the east near the summit.  There is a joint there that serves beef soup just like My Mama used to make, with all the vegetables in the garden. It started to snow on the way and the snow stacked up around the wind shield making it look like it had a white frame all around. The soup was worth the trip.

When I got up this morning everything was covered with snow.     I was drinking coffee and looking out of the window when the snow started to fall again.   I said that the snow started to fall but it really did not do that.    The wind was blowing so hard (about 80 to 90 miles an hour) that the snowflakes were floating horizontally and they stopped whenever they collided with something.

I’m going back to Tecate.

(24 Feb, 1987)