Wednesday, Wine Phoo, and Sal de Gusano all rolled into one

Wednesday:
We worked out. Body weight lifting. I can't really remember what else we did. Attempted to hurdle school obstacles. Came into town in the evening for bible study again. After the study Domino's pizza was ordered. Domino's has the same recipe here in Oaxaca as in the states - if you wondered. Something a bit different however, delivery comes with katsup packets. Yep, the little ones like you get with McDonald's fries. There are no crushed red peppers, no parmesan cheese. Just red tomato paste... oh and salsa. EVERYONE puts katsup on their pizza. Hawaiian is very popular too. It must be the tropical climate. We also had coffee and pan (bread). Esperanza, one of the women at the study, owns a little restaurant in town. She invited Zach and I to come eat breakfast Thursday morning. We made our plans to be there around 9 or 9:30.

Thursday:
We made our way into town for breakfast. Expecting a good meal and then perhaps a short jaunt around the city. We had a few things we wanted to do. Visit the leather shop, check out shows and times at the Benito Jaurez Theater at the Llano, and pick up some fruit to take home. We had to stand for most of the bus ride - holding onto the overhead handles like in the movies. The bus was full of kids on their way to school. Back to school already. As we walked up the sidewalk to the resturaunt, we saw Alberto and his wife approaching from the opposite direction. They were also en route to the resturaunt for breakfast. We decided to congregate at the same table and dine together. They asked us about our plans for the day, and upon finding out we didn't have too much going on, invited us to let them show us a few things Oaxaca is proud of that no one had shown us yet. The first was to be ice-cream and little cookies. But since we had just eaten we planned to part ways for a few hours and then meet up at the Theater. Zach and I went to the leather store, and then to a sports equipment store where we purchased some balls for Fronton. We made our way to another fabric store and bought some soft green yarn to make a hat for Claudia's baby (the girl who works at Gerardo's Caseta is going to have a baby boy this month).
As we walked down the street I (the linguist) became intrigued, puzzled and somewhat frightened by the scrawling on a sign. It said "Wine Phoo Guarderia". I didn't know if this was some kind of secret hybrid Italian/Asia eatery or if they were guarding some sort of fermented Phoo. It was then that I heard the faint cries of children from with the metal gates. Shouts and screams of terror, or wait, no, laughter. It was then I knew it was the world being guarded from the children within and that it was none other than the infamous Wine Phoo (a.k.a. Winnie the Pooh although probably a ninja variant) who would keep them from destroying the planet. Whew, glad I got that straightened out.
We then went to the Llano and still had a bit of time to kill. Zach has been wanted to get his shoes shined - especially since the poo-shoe episode. We found a nice gentleman (they aren't hard to come by) who was ready and able to work on the shoes. Zach is addicted. He said it felt like a great foot massage, and bonus - the shoes look great - and smell infinitely better. While being shined I read about the push to legalize mary jane, a new passage being discovered at Teotihuacan, the trash picker uppers (I mean waste management engineers) going on strike in the city, the Oaxaca Guerreros baseball and their series in the playoffs and a number of other strikingly interesting things. Then, at last, I put aside my periodical and beheld the pair, a brilliant black the quintessential opposite of the radiant sun; I clicked, I walked, I tapped and I smiled. And I tipped the man 33%. Life is good.
We checked out times, locations and prices for the theatre, looks like a feasible option for next week. Exiting the entrance (or the exit) Alberto and his wife were there, so we hopped in and rode downtown to the cathedral called La Soledad. The hot spot for ice cream.
The plaza is located right next to some government offices so I got to walk past the news. Upwards of 100 guys were hanging out, gambling, sitting, staring. We past through all but visually unmolested. We sat down and began to decipher the menu. There were over 30 flavors to choose from. Kimb ended up with Carmel and Pecan. I, of course, ordered "the special" (no doubt containing some sort of native insect, worm or other semi-edible life form (intentionally or non)). Just kidding, it was a marvelous blending of ice cream with fruit chunks that tasted incredible; I will remember this place.
After ice cream and 10 different kinds of sweet bread, we piled into the car and went to San Bartolo Coyotepec, home of the world famous black pottery. I had previously been, but it is still worth going and having a go at the various wares. We found a number of tempting items, but succumbed (weird, I wanted to say succame) to none. We returned to Esperanza's for lunch (taquitos). It was again, delicious. We took a dive on coffee, saying we would do it another time; we caught the bus to Tule with preparations needing to be made for tomorrow's plans.
I cut the grass. Then I ran out of weedeater wire. I cannot determine how to put more on. This, no doubt, will be the stuff of legends, an epic battle between man and his creation, enshrined forever in the annals of the chronicles of the highest council of some synthesis between Olympus, Valhalla, Heaven, Nirvana. It's going to be big.

Friday:
We woke up. (I wrote that so you would know the following is not a dream). We ate hurriedly and took up our rackets making for the bus, balls in hand. We arrived at the fronton courts with a little over an hour to become experts. The court was inundated but there was enough of a dry spot for us to play a section of the wall.
I don't care what kind of propaganda they want to use to promote Gatorade as a post-workout replacement formula, nothing will ever come close to competing with the nutrition or flavor of a torta from Gerardo's caseta. Can't happen. I'm going to start at Harding advocating they replace the Gatorade in the buckets on the sideline with fresh hot tortas. I'll make millions (dollars not tortas).
We went to the bank and then to Pochote (the organic market) with Alberto. We tried Tejate a chocolate etc drink. We found some cool coffee mugs with saucers. It was at the mezcal stand that Kimb went native. Not in the over-consumption of the stout sample shots (not even partaking in one though the smile old man behind the counter who had no doubt been sampling samples would have probably given her a liters worth of sample just because she has the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen; instead he gave me the samples, he even resampled me, nice fellow) but in the tasty salt/chili/? and lime. I tried it first and it was quite good and encouraged Kimb to have a slice of the lime. I DID NOT KNOW WHAT WAS IN IT. There that should clear my name of any wrong doing or other nefarious action. She really enjoyed it beginning to reach for a second, when I heard Alberto say a word "gusano" and begin to elaborate on the process by which this salt is produced. I did catch any about the fabrication because I had just been slapped in the face with a verbal gusano. You see, a gusano is not just any innocent earthworm it is the death worm in the dregs of the tequila bottle, it's the fat little bloated sucker who had to much fell in drowned and then invited all of his friends to join. Don't worry he had been baked and ground up being mixed then with salt and chili powder. I didn't have to tell Kimb... but I would miss out on the greatest reaction this side of the border. So I told. Curtly put, she did not finish her reach for a second.
In fact, my stomach rose up into my throat just thinking about the grub pieces I had just ingested. I don't know whether it is satisfying or terrifying to say that it actually tasted really good. The thought of it turns my stomach a little still however...
We really enjoyed the organic market, and after we were done there made our way to the family tortilla shop. They turn out tortillas by the thousands. The machine is fast and very precise. In the 3 and a half minutes that we were there I bet they sold 250 tortillas to people stopping by. Tortillas around here are really tasty. They are made with corn flour, but don't taste like the ones we buy in the stores. I don't know what the difference might be. Perhaps the lack of Oaxacan sweat. After the tortilla factory we had only 3 hours until we were supposed to be at the church for the bible study. It didn't seem very efficient to take a bus all the way home just to turn around and come all the way back again, so we opted to go back to the church and take a nap in the upstairs portion of the classroom building. There are three bedrooms up there with beds and sheets, so we camped out for a while. About an hour before the study we went back to the Caseta and had tortas and talked with Claudia and Alma Rosa. On our way back to the church we stopped in a little convenience type store and had an ice-cream bar. It was my favorite yet. Better than any Schwans I have ever had. The study seemed to go well, I worked on the baby hat since I am not really a part of the men's bible study. After the study Alberto and his wife took us home and the gang (Pedro, Miguel, Jose and Pedro's girlfriend) came in just behind us. I learned how to make Chocolate (a hot chocolate drink) and guacamole Oaxacan style. We ate tostadas and had our tasty drink and played Jenga and listened to music and talked and laughed. Somehow we got to saying hakuna Matatta. Apparently my pronunciation is quite improper, and Miguel was sure to teach me that it is not "MataDUH" but MataTA" We laughed as I sang the song in english and simultaneously he sang the Spanish lyrics. I will have to be sure to learn that one.