Week 5 Jueves

Become irrationally convinced that Daisy is missing out on all the things she would have been doing had I remained an (almost) yummy mummy in South London. After all, she has never been to baby yoga, baby massage, baby music group or baby salsa (yes, it does exist).

To be honest, she hasn’t even been in a buggy or car seat for a month and half, and we have been fashioning toys out of aluminium foil and a blown egg because we worry that she’ll get bored with the limited selection we have brought with us.


We visit Granda – the John Lewis of San Cristobal De Las Casas – in search of a baby bouncer in the only place in town with a baby section.

Unlike John Lewis, however, Granda proves somewhat difficult to get into, due to the fact that most of the road in front of it has been removed for some reason (gone for cleaning perhaps?) The practice of leaving holes in the road with no warning is common around here, and a constant occupational hazard of walking around.


As department stores go, the shop is unusual. For a start, if you want to buy anything they take it away from you and give you a ticket, which you have to take to one till, get a receipt and then collect for it somewhere else. For another, the foyer is filled with Mexican ladies doing their embroidery in the haberdashery section.

Still, it does have an escalator (all of ten steps long), which apparently the inhabitants of San C were queuing up to ride when it first opened. The baby section is a riot of baby bottles, rattles and pink fluffy babygros. It also has a small selection of buggies (but how on earth would you manage to wheel them out of the door?)

Sadly it appears that I can add “baby bouncer” to the list of baby things that simply do not exist in Mexico, along with bouncy chairs, baby monitors, changing mats, pre-packaged formula milk, toys more exciting than a rattle, and cellular blankets. The lady behind the counter is baffled when we ask for one, and doesn’t even come up with the standard response here, which is “you can get it in Tuxtla”.

Tuxtla is the big city down in the valley, which is apparently a mecca of shopping where you can apparently buy (amongst other things) yeast, electric kettles, casserole dishes and the Holy Grail. But baby bouncers, apparently, simply “no existen”.

Daisy is just going to have to remain underdeveloped. Her Tzotzil is coming on in leaps and bounds though – and we have actually found a baby massage class, so maybe she won’t be so far behind the rest of the NCT class after all.