LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • Dec 2015 | jan 2016 Vol. 28 Issue 10• 3 - - - night before. The cov night before. with ered tables are filled their celebrations of the their celebrations of and people eating, talking laughing. Children dart laughing. Children counter the cruda from counter the cruda from between the tables and between the tables up for their menudo to up for their menudo race around the little trailer race around the little that is the heart of this enter prise. An errant dog picks its prise. ws way carefully between the feet ro and legs tucked up under the tables C searching for bits of food that may r e have fallen to the ground.
t ritual Serving as a backdrop to this Sunday
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o of noise that But I must confess that there is one bit This past trip home, this very same rude and overly I truly desire to bring none harm, but I fear that had I o
at the taco trailer is a mixture of Mexican music from at the taco trailer is a mixture of Mexican
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cous early morning songster—I would have smiled serenely as I ladled out servings of a delicious pollo en mole pobalno. nearby houses and cars driving by as well as the small Afri- well as the small nearby houses and cars driving by as has The church corner. can-American church on the opposite their services. a speaker wired up outside and they broadcast and in some odd The musicians and singers are quite good And sounds just right. way all of the sounds mix together and I feel it most—that, it is in the midst of this cacophony that this is home. I have never become no matter where I have encountered it, At home it is not accustomed to it; the crowing of a rooster. of chickens ranging uncommon for there to be various broods Despite her claims parts of the community. about different that they are not her chickens, one such brood has taken up backyard, accompanied by their residence in my mother’s a handsome devil; all brilliant greens, He’s very own rooster. golds and reds with a swagger to match that of any player. ambitious rooster crowed me awake every morning around two am. Once he stopped—I would eventually fall back asleep, whereupon he would almost immediately begin his next round of crowing. It was as if he had a little chicken spy peering in the side of the blinds giving him the signal of when about your “peeps”! Talk to commence again. not left and returned to my own home when I did—that there And if anyone may well have been a rooster gone missing. thought to notice the absence of Señor Gallo—that loud, rau
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m o H The taco stand that sits across from my mom’s house The taco stand that sits across from my mom’s My mother lives this neighbor There are a lot of people who walk in stays busy. Cars and trucks pull in and out, doors slamming Cars and trucks stays busy. all hours of the day as people stop by for something to eat and perhaps a little visit with whomever else is waiting for can get the best aguas frescas there. I like the You their food. They also have my favorite tacos, barbacoa sandia the best. con cilantro, lime and onion with just the perfect salsa verde on freshly made hot corn tortillas. On Sundays the men line hood; workers going to and from their jobs, mothers with hood; workers going to and from their like little ducklings strollers and little ones tagging behind And there are always lots of teens trying to all in a row. hold themselves at just the right angle to be considered cool enough, as they laughingly jostle one another while ambling down the street. Often the elders are out and about for their Calls daily constitution, sometimes with grandchildren in tow. of buenos dias along with the ensuing conversations fall like Sure, this sporadic spring showers as people pass one another. place where my mother lives is poor and it can even be called man- a “rough neighborhood”, but here in its humble poverty, ners still matter. and works in a rural agricultural farmworker on community that sits the outskirts of Dade Florida. I love to City, go home to visit, this place where I too have But lived and worked. no matter how often I go home, it always takes me a bit of time to adjust to the sounds. Just outside the window there are lots of cars going by on the street at all hours with their stereos music. usually blasting really loud Mexican of riffs always the whine followed by the quick It’s other folk it’s the accordion that you hear first. Sometimes rattles the windows, who come driving through and the bass way into the back of boom, boom and you can feel it all the the days and nights, your teeth. Sirens at intervals punctuate not only angels it’s their piercing cries a sharp reminder that car then a sheriff’s And every now and who walk among us. community so fast it rockets down the main street of this little lifts shirt tails and blows back your hair.