Osprey
Ultra Nomad
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Location: Baja Ca. Sur
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Jasmina
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watizname
Senior Nomad
Posts: 772
Registered: 8-7-2009
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I don't get nutten
I yam what I yam and that\'s all what I yam.
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Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
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Providence in Mexico
See this? You see this? It’s Jasmina, Jasmina and her family, friends, who knows. See the ocean? We’re on the beach as you can see. There’s no
pictures of us together because I didn’t have the language or the guts to ask anybody to take pictures of us. What a jerk I was then.
That’s the beach at San Isabel where I was visiting my uncle Rob at Spring Break in 06. I met Jasmina when my uncle took me to get a haircut. He said
I was embarrassing him with my wild assed looks – my hair was getting wicked long and ratty. We just drove a few blocks in the village, down some dirt
streets to a little Mexican house. Rob said Lupita, the lady who sometimes cuts hair at her house, would probably be off work at the school by now.
As we walked through the gate and up to the porch we saw Jasmina sitting on the porch reading a book. She wore shorts and a halter top, had short
hair, a full, pouty mouth and eyes you could fall into and never want to come out. She went into the house, called to her mom who came out, got a
chair for me and started clipping while my uncle was giving her instructions for a look I wasn’t really after.
I couldn’t tell Jasmina’s age but I was 19 then and she seemed to have all the equipment of an adult woman – all somehow perfectly arranged, neat and
natural. She smiled at me but I couldn’t read it; I looked like a dork before, during and after the haircut routine. Also I couldn’t say much. I was
trying hard not to move, keeping a little smile as a greeting of some kind. I knew about five words of Spanish left over from High School in Denver.
Jasmina smiled right back and began to speak Spanish to me and Rob at the same time. Evidently Rob must have felt there was no harm in our meeting so
when she said she was going to the beach the next day, mańana, he told her I would be down there too. I got part of it and I was higher than a kite
when I saw her beaming with the idea of a casual meeting on the beach. Right here I better tell you where my head was at back then. I had limited
funds but I had enough to party hearty on the gulf coast for a day or two but Rob had said I could come down to Baja, to this little village, chill
out and save some money. I must have needed some slowdown too because I didn’t even think about going down to the madness at Cabo and was loving the
quiet, the calm, the serenity that was Rob and Maria, the dogs and the little jungle house near the beach. Even the first step toward a law degree can
beat you up and this was like charging my personal battery for the work ahead.
When we got back to the house and I found a mirror, my world came crashing down around me. Now I was embarrassed. Lupita must not watch television or
go to the city, malling, whatever because she had it firm in her mind that Rob (or I ) wanted me to look like a Neo-N-zi at Military School. Mańana
would definitely be a hat day, all day. The days of the next two months would be hat days. Scraggly maned dork or skin head dork – no middle ground
for Andy Graham. Now this is even more embarrassing; that night I couldn’t sleep. I know, I know, a little Mexican girl I can’t even talk to. You had
to be there.
Anyway, I walked down there about nine, looked around kinda nonchalant and splashed around in the water for a little while. No Jasmina so I walked
back up to the house and had some breakfast. I had some juice on the back patio and with the binocs I could see most of the beach and I couldn’t see
anybody, anything close to a young Mexican woman. I talked to Rob, then Maria for a while, checked my Email about a hundred times, watched T.V., used
the binocs again. I put on some more sunscreen and about eleven I walked back down. There she was with two other women and a little girl under one of
the palapas.
I told the girls my name was Andy and with that Jasmina made introductions. I didn’t even understand their names. We just walked down to the water and
started splashing around, throwing the friz – we laughed and played and just fooled around like little children. It all felt so natural and, I don’t
know, wholesome I guess, uncomplicated, like things you don’t have to think about. We didn’t learn much about each other. Time whizzed by while her
friends or family came and went, walked down to the water to splash around with us, holding the naked little girl above the waves. We sat in the shade
and shared a coke. She smelled like the ocean and flowers – perfume, Jasmine? I got across that I was at school, Universidad and she told me her
father was a fisherman, a pescador. I wondered to myself if she could go to college, if fishermen make a lot of money or just scrape by like lots of
Mexicans in little towns like this one.
It was time to go. The shadows were getting longer, a wind had come up from the east and the ladies gathered up their stuff and got ready to leave. I
walked with them to the house and waved goodbye as they continued down the dirt street.
I know how corny it must sound but the next day at the airport I found myself looking up from my book expecting to see her walking into the terminal.
Nutty, I must be nutty. I asked myself a thousand times why I continued to think about, fantasize about this little Mexican girl from San Isabel. On
the plane, back at the dorm, the whole next semester I couldn’t get my mind off Jasmina.
The following year, when I might have been on another spring break at San Isabel I was laid up with bronchial pneumonia. I was hospitalized twice and
could not seem to kick it. The doctors said my immune system was less than it should be, they went looking for answers and pumped me full of exotic
drugs. My grades were flagging and I doubled my study time to catch up. By the time all the drugs kicked in and I was playing basketball most days and
getting my strength back my grades were looking a lot better and I asked uncle Rob if I could come back down for spring break again.
On another plane now I couldn’t help but wonder if I would see Jasmina again – it had been over 20 months since I waved goodbye that gorgeous day near
the beach. Rob had a big grin on his face when I told him I was gonna walk over to Jamina’s house. I had unpacked my bag, showered and changed into
shorts and T- shirt; Rob had picked me up at 11:00, it was now 3:00. I just couldn’t wait any longer.
There she was, sitting in the same chair on the same porch. My heart was in my throat. In a kid’s car seat at her feet was a baby. As Jasmina saw me,
straightened up in the chair I could see she was pregnant. Too late, too late to walk away so I went through the gate, walked up to her trying to
smile. She picked up the baby as she stood to greet me and told me the baby’s name was Jose Manuel. Her father walked out to see who was here and she
introduced me, best she could – evidently he knows Rob and Maria so I got a big smile and a handshake. He went back inside and I took that as my cue,
my chance to escape.
Back at the house I asked Rob “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We talked about it. I really don’t know. Thought it might be better if you just went over there.”
“How about Email? You could have least told me she got married.”
“She’s not married.”
“What? She had a baby there and she’s pregnant.”
“Well, that seems to be the modern Mexican way in these little villages. I think my sweet Maria Elena would back me up on that. Honey, are Jasmina’s
sisters married?”
“No.”
I said “So, you mean I, we couldn’t, wouldn’t …….”
“Well, around here these young girls just want babies. Mexican girls love their babies – fulfillment, for a lot of them, is being a mother, raising
kids. The young men are just handy, willing sperm donors. Most of them don’t stick around and I get the distinct feeling the girls are not really
disappointed – they raise the kids on their own, hang out with lots of other single mothers in the village. Jasmina’s boyfriend, Jose Manriquez, is a
palapero but he hasn’t had much work the last couple of years so although he’s a nice kid he wouldn’t be much of a provider to help the family.
If you had stayed awake during the Spanish classes at school, played your cards just right, you might have been the willing sperm donor. But
providence was lookin’ out for all of us. You didn’t have the words – if you had, you probably would not be finishing college to pursue your law
career. You would most likely be a working stiff now trying to find a way to raise your new Mexican family and keep it together wherever you could
find work.”
“But you and Maria Elena….”
“Yeah, I stayed awake in Spanish class. I had all the sweet words, all the words about loooove. Maria Elena is a big city girl. We met in Monterey.
She was bright, modern and dreaming of a rich future of education, career, then family. Back then it was different, we got married first, had babies
later. It was easier for U.S. immigration then and Maria was able to come up north to be with me while I finished college and got my engineering
degree. When you’re a famous Colorado trial lawyer you can look back on all of this and thank the language and haircut gods for your good fortune.”
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BajaBlanca
Select Nomad
Posts: 13195
Registered: 10-28-2008
Location: La Bocana, BCS
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Whale-ista
Super Nomad
Posts: 2009
Registered: 2-18-2013
Location: San Diego
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Mood: Sunny with chance of whales
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Thank you for this sweet story.
So much of life is a series of seemingly random meetings and opportunities- some missed, others fulfilled, by choice or chance.
\"Probably the airplanes will bring week-enders from Los Angeles before long, and the beautiful poor bedraggled old town will bloom with a
Floridian ugliness.\" (John Steinbeck, 1940, discussing the future of La Paz, BCS, Mexico)
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