Indulgences

As my life begins to mold to some sort of routine once again, I have taken great pleasure in some of my favorite indulgences. I am thinking of three, specifically: coffee, chocolate and books.

When I started typing this post, I found myself typing “Simple Pleasures” as the title; however, after some reflection, I realized that these three things are not quite simple, as in they are all somewhat expensive habits and not easily accessible to the majority. Especially books. Very few Mexicans read.

But I do. So one thing that I will not compromise when it comes to packing my suitcase in June is literature. I have probably compiled around 20 pounds of books while here in Mexico. Last Sunday, Laura and I went to a talk on the drug war at the community center for an American expat group in Cuernavaca. Afterwards, we went to the adjoining library, where they also sell used books for about one dollar. I bought seven.

I’ve been eating very healthy these past two weeks, lots of salads and fresh fruit, but two things, in addition to books, that I will never compromise or give up in my diet are coffee and chocolate. And I’m okay with that.

This morning I woke up at 7 to volunteer at the breakfast program, so I did not have time to make coffee. When I arrived home at noon to collect my things and head to work, I bought a coffee on-the-go before getting on my 35-minute bus. As I sat sipping my café americano and reading my book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (ashamedly I have never read it), I felt happy, despite being on a cramped, stuffy bus, with the sun piercing through the window next to my singeing face (Think Sid and the magnifying glass in Toy Story 1).

Thirty-five minutes later, I got off the bus and began my ten minute walk, through a very impoverished neighborhood, to the University. I’m pretty sure there’s no running water in this neighborhood. The dirt road that I walk on is bordered on the left by a large field, where donkeys are often munching, and on the right by the small, rundown community of gray cinderblock homes. Walking through, I usually catch whiffs of burning coal or human waste, which I believe is deposited on the side of the road or around the field. Kids are usually running around barefoot, pushing and racing each other on rusty tricycles. Routinely I pass young pregnant women who I estimate could be no older than me. Coincidentally, I discovered today that one of the women involved with the breakfast program in Cuernavaca lives here.

One of the little houses I walk past in this neighborhood acts as a tienda during the day, selling miscellaneous candies, soft drinks, ice cream bars, and chips. I stopped today to indulge in a chocolate bar. Not wanting Nestle or the oh-so-common Mexican selection of weird chili-flavored sweets, I asked what kinds of Hershey chocolates they had. The woman shuffled back to the ice-cream freezer, and after rustling and digging for a few moments, she came back with four types of chocolate bars. I felt for a moment as if I were a character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, getting the special treatment. So many choices! In the end, I chose a small Hershey’s cookies’n’crème bar and a little chocolate truffle. And that was the highlight of my afternoon. Call me a nerd, call me boring, but that little moment (combined with the affects of just having read some Maya Angelou and the coffee beginning to run through my veins) made me feel on top of the world.

And that is all I wanted to share. Moral of the story: I love coffee, chocolate, and good books.

(A chocolate bar my mom brought me at my apartment last spring when I was dying of a high fever. It healed me.):