Really?

Yesterday afternoon, V & I went to Flagstaff to attend a lecture offered by the NAU Applied Indigenous Studies Mayan Elder, Marina Xoc Castillo de Vasquez (as I said we would in the middle of this post). After the class, she invited us to dinner at her home where we helped make frijoles topped with a chili-garlic yogurt sauce, beef with nopalotios (good for diabetes! who knew?) and tortillas. We drank karkade (though she had another name for it). We chatted with her husband. She would love to have some of my chili when they start to grow. She wants me to take home some rue plants because they're taking over her garden. V taught her to belly dance in her kitchen.

When I write it down like this, I can see that belly dancing in the kitchen of a Mayan elder that I randomly met a bus stop 6 weeks ago in a town 3 hours away from my house - all of which felt entirely normal at the time - could be seen as a bit unusual. It makes me appreciate the "magical realism" literary tradition in an entirely new way. But it is pretty exciting that this is the way life works here these days!