Oh, who are the people in our neighborhood?

There are two ways to enter our house.  The first is through a front gate, of sorts, that is hidden behind the abandoned car in the driveway (pictured in an earlier post).   Recently we learned the story behind the car, although it was one of those explanations in a foreign language that makes you wonder whether you understood all of it.  There is a category of communal land in Mexico (or maybe many categories) that falls somewhere between private land and public land.  The front driveway is communal land shared by our landlord and our neighbor, and maybe by others.  When our landlord built a carpark over the driveway the neighbor got upset and hired someone to dump a wrecked car in it.  The city removed the wreck once, but it appeared again a few days later.  Understandably, the wreck is a thorn in our landlord’s side, but we see it as a security measure to make the house less appealing to burglars.

The second way to enter the house is from a dirt road that ends at our back gate.  When we walk to school or go to catch a bus, we walk the two hundreds yards or so down the dirt road then turn left at the street.  

The road to our back gate

Across the street is a driveway to a nursery.  The signs on the gate say they sell orchids and organic tomatoes.  

Sometimes there are chickens and ducks walking around the property, and there is a horse corral.  Several times Natalie and I commented that it looked like a neat place and that we should check it out.

Boy were we right.  The first time Natalie and I wandered in, we met the owner, Gabrielle, who is nice beyond words.  It turns out the nursery is just a side business run by someone else.  Gabrielle does a zillion other things on the property, including:  organic farming, fish farming, raising rabbits, ducks, geese, chickens, a turkey, turtles, and guinea pigs (not sure what the guinea pigs are for; probably rescued pets), heat and worm composting, keeping and riding four horses, baking in traditional adobe ovens and a solar oven, and selling organic tomatoes, honey, and eggs.  There also is a nearly-completed swimming pool, where Gabrielle plans to relocate her swimming school.  The pool should be ready next month.

Soon after our first visit, we took Max and Helen to meet Gabrielle and to see the farm.  Although we were on our way somewhere else, we ended up spending about four hours there and abandoning our other plans.

Feeding the turtles 

Fishing

Chilling

After seeing the farm, we went across the street to Gabrielle's house.  Another amazing place.  Hidden in a lush garden of native and volunteer plants are cages full of rescue parrots and other birds and… a trampoline.  Fun!  Her parents’ house – the main house – is there too.  Gabrielle’s father lived in San Leandro, California, about 60 years ago.  When he returned to Oaxaca to run a coffee plantation on the coast, which they still own, he built a house in the city that looks like it could be in California.  Most houses here are built of brick and stucco, but he used stone and some wood.  The house is full of projects by Gabrielle’s mother (macramé, butterfly wing paintings, wooden and shell sculptures, furniture), by her father (oil paintings, a handmade garage door opener, a grey water system for the garden, handmade double hung windows), and by Gabrielle and her siblings, one of whom is an artist living in East Bay, where he teaches Education at St. Mary's College.

While Natalie and I toured the main house and gaped at all the projects, Max, Helen, and Gabrielle played on the trampoline.  They kept telling us their house is our house, and to come back whenever we want.  So Max, who was especially enamored by the farm, has been going back on weekends to help out.  He feeds the animals, harasses the fish, and helps wash the horses.  A couple of times, he has even gotten to ride one of the horses, Tio Juan.  Max is not the only one who has enjoyed the horses.

Riding lesson with Gabrielle

A quick study

Sharing the fun

Not one to turn down a horseback ride

Now, every few days we take our green waste to feed Gabrielle's chickens, rabbits, turkey and guinea pigs, and next Saturday we are going to make pizza together in the adobe oven.  Meeting Gabrielle and her parents, and living across the street from such an oasis, are a few more reasons we cannot believe our luck at finding this house.  --Harrison