Week 2 (Day 14)

Day Fourteen

We are getting through a lot of clothes. While Daisy is taking the formula, we are seeing quite a lot of it again, all over her clothes, my clothes, Paul’s clothes, and the bedding.

We do not have a washing machine. Instead we go to Our Laundrette of Perpetual Optimism, where you can check your laundry in any time you like, but it may never leave.


Every other day we take a huge bag of clothes in, and they weigh them (all washing is priced by weight), and tell us they will be ready in about four hours time. Four hours later, we go back in, and our clothes are sitting in a soggy heap somewhere in the corner.

I don’t think they are trying to disappoint us on purpose, more that time simply runs away with them. There always seems to be something better to do, rather than the washing. One time we go in and the family are doing some kind of hopping dance around the room, and another time they are making orange and white Day of the Dead decorations to hang in the shop. They are also very serious Baptists, and are doing some kind of crossword about the book of Joshua.

Everything goes in at the same (high) temperature, meaning that I can kid myself that Daisy is growing massively because one of her babygros has shrunk. Her bibs, which have a waterproof backing, have gone distinctly crunchy, but thankfully still work. I am now washing them by hand, along with her baby sheepskin, which takes a long time to dry.

We make a banana cake for the birthday party we have been invited to, using red and yellow bananas we have bought in the market, and the only type of chocolate you seem able to buy here, which is distinctly granular and comes in little balls.

We have begun to fantasise about opening a (good) chocolate shop and café, since there is nothing here, and most tourists and residents love chocolate. What’s more, Mexico is where chocolate was invented, so it is a surprising lack. Xhocalatl Nichim may never get off the ground, but it’s a nice dream.


The birthday party (for the 17 year old brother of our friend Enrique), is loud, sugar-laden …and teetotal. I’m sure Eduardo doesn’t really want to spend his birthday surrounded by his extended family and a couple of gringos he has never met, but he seems pleased with the cake, at least. Mexican cakes are mostly covered in cream and the tradition is to push the birthday boy’s face into the top (muy hygienic, no?).


Daisy sleeps happily through all the screaming children and clucking old ladies, and it isn’t until we get home that she does a spectacular projectile vomit over all of her bedclothes just as we are settling down to sleep. Back to the laundrette tomorrow, then.