Around every corner in Ensenada it seems there is little abarrotes (small grocery), a kind of throw-back to 1970 America. These little structures are no bigger than your living room but they offer a variety of goods for a handful of pesos, from pork rinds to Coca-Cola to fresh tortillas still warm from some abuela’s home cocina. This abarrotes was the fanciest one in the neighborhood by far, with fresh paint and fridges newer than the ’70s. Lydia and I wandered down from the Ochoa’s house during a lull in the action for a six peso Coke, which gave us an idea . . .

We trekked back to the top of that steep, dust-swept hill and grabbed Yazmin and Roman, plus Isabella, who, as part of our group brought laughter, joy, and levity to everything. I hung back as the four teenagers marched and laughed their way down the hill. They couldn’t communicate beyond hand gestures and smiles, but they were carrying on like old friends just the same.

It struck me, as I watched these four teenagers from immensely divergent backgrounds giggle and snack on junk foods like they’d known each other forever, how universal the need for friendship and connection is. These kids have never gone to school, they don’t play volleyball or rock climb in expensive gyms. They work all day to be able to eat that night. They take care of their younger siblings and help build and repair their family’s shelter. Roman dreams of moving somewhere to get a good job so he can help his family climb out of poverty. He is sixteen years old and he bears the weight of 12 other lives on his young shoulders and in his heart. Despite all that, despite the daily struggles they face, struggles that gratefully our daughters will never face, they still want to laugh, to drink a soda and spend time with other teenagers and for just a moment to forget everything and just be kids.

Sigh. Mi corazón.

To be continued . . .

Several months before we left for Mexico I decided I should try to learn some Spanish. I knew I couldn’t become fluent in a few short months but I could at least pick up a few useful phrases and greetings. “Dónde está el baño, anyone?” I took Spanish in high school and remember almost nothing. I took it again in college where I managed to get a C, one of only two grades below a B earned in my tenure there. Undeterred by my past failings I downloaded DuoLingo and got busy. Armed with my new words I attempted to order tacos at a Milwaukee restaurant in Spanish, only to confound the waiters who apparently don’t understand bad Spanish with a Minnesotan accent; who knew? I tried it out on my beloved housekeepers whom I have been trying to befriend for years but without a shared language I barely knew. We shuffled along poorly but still, it was something! I was far from a Spanish speaker with my sad list of forty or so words but ready or not, the day came when my knowledge, such as it was, would really be tested.

It was only Day One of our trip when my sweet hija (daughter), who is also clearly an adolescente (teenager), informed me that I was embarrassing her; obviously, I was getting it all wrong. People had to ask me “¿Como?” (What?) a LOT. My list of words lacked connectors which left me asking “Where . . . food place . . . no . . . flour . . . stuff?” (by the way, they don’t really know about gluten-free so don’t bother, ha). I felt a little sad at her teasing, sadder at my poor speaking skills, but as I laid in my bunk that first night I reminded myself why I learned it in the first place. I decided that the words of an embarrassed teenager are not really words to live by (duh).

I think that learning someone else’s language is a form of respect. You honor them, even if your attempts are broken and silly and completely out of order. You show the other person that you are not there to make Mexico or Africa or Haiti into a Little America, but you are there to stand alongside them in their own journey, in their own country. It feels good when someone tries to understand your language, whether it’s spoken or unspoken. We all want to feel heard and known.

The day I met the Ochoa family, that wonderful family with ten children at the top of the steep hillside, had I not learned my little basket of Spanish words we would have simply said “hola” and gone our separate ways. I would not have come home with twelve new friends. They may have continued to feel isolated and alone and would not have found a new community in a local church (more on that later). Beautifully, we made a meaningful connection, starting with broken Spanish and flourishing through a translator, a translator app, Facebook’s multi-language interface and now hours of chatting through Messenger and texting using Google Translate.

I am so excited to build on my Spanish, to keep learning more about this family, to get back to Ensenada to visit them, get real-life hugs from them and most importantly, to have deeper conversations with them using my newly acquired language skills. It is a journey worth taking, ya’ll. Connections are life.

Yesterday, Roman, the Ochoa’s oldest son, told me to hug my husband and kids from him and from his family. I told him to hug his family, too, teasing that it will take a while to hug them all. He replied to me “Oh, no, solo reuniré a todos a mi alrededor y les daré un gran abrazo”, basically, he will gather them all together and give them one big hug. “Ah” I said, “We call that ‘a group hug’ and it sounds wonderful.” I can’t wait to deliver an “abrazo grupal” to them myself very very soon.

Click for the next chapter: Ensenada: Laughter is the universal language.