En Mi Vecindario

On the walk to school there is a fantastic, if slightly (OK, extremely) tacky pottery shop which consists of a massive yard with every manner of pottery animal yard and wall ornament one could conceive of as well as a number that almost no one could. To a photographer´s eye, (yes, I pretend to be a photographer) it is beautiful. I somehow find it much more appealing than most of the art I saw at the Louvre in Paris or the Met in New York. Perhaps individually it is tacky, but taken together it becomes greater than the sum of its parts. I am not exactly sure how. I love walking by the pottery shop and will surely purchase some crazy frog wall ornament or some kitschy bird to look out from our balcony.


When I first walked up to the man who was working away at an unglazed pottery sun and asked him in my polite, probably quaint Spanish if I could take pictures of his products, he grudgingly agreed. But now that we see him each day and greet him sometimes in the morning and afternoon, his face brightens. Perhaps he realizes that we were not simply tourists too cheap to purchase his art, but residents (too cheap to purchase his art - at least for now).

Flash Flood

After school today it rained like there is no tomorrow (avoid cliches like the plague!!!). I would not have been surpised to see cars washing down Avenida Central, the water was so deep on the roads. The wind which seemed as if it would knock down all the trees in our courtyard, was an added bonus, not to mention the hail. Our swimming pool is now under water. I was swimming just as the rain started and I suspect it may be a few days before I swim again. Oh the hardships of life in foreign countries! I suspect most of the cats in the neighborhood have washed most of the way to the Pacific by now.