christening for Jose's sons, april 2007

Sunday, today, was the baptism of the two youngest sons of our mozo (house man), Jose', and his wife, Wendy. He has three sons, all of whom are darling -- Jose Manuel will be 4 in November, Jonathan just turned 2 on Friday, and Juan Carlos was born last November. They are really happy kids.
We spent the day with them last Sunday in anticipation of this christening. Jose' had asked Eva to be one of the godparents for the baby Juan Carlos, however, the Catholic church here requires that godparents be a married couple, so she could not officially participate in the church service. However, unofficially, she has taken on the role and is having so much fun with it. We took the family shopping for outfits for the boys to wear today, had lunch, and played a little. On Jonathan’s birthday, we shopped again for outfits, toys, books, and cake – the favorite thing in the world for Jonathan and Jose Manuel – for the birthday boy and his big brother, so there would be no hurt feelings.
Then, this morning, the family insisted we have breakfast with them before the ceremony. We joined the extended family (Wendy is one of 11 children ((and so we think they ran out of Spanish-sounding names by the time they got to her)) and Jose' is one of 5) to eat relleno negro in Uman before proceeding to the large cathedral in Merida where the ceremony took place. The ceremony was a never-ending two-hour production during which about 60 children were baptized, blessed, and cajoled by the priest in a side chapel where we were packed in like sardines and grateful for the fans which would hit you dead-on every now and then, just often enough to make life worth living. By the end, every overdressed child was in tears and many of the adults felt like joining in just because it was soooooo hot and, although he tried valiantly, the priest’s jokes were not that funny.
Jose' works very hard for us – he cleans, he gardens, he takes care of the pool, he makes sure mechanical things work properly, he does the dishes, and he, even gladly, does the windows. He was working for us 5 days a week (which even with the floor cleaning we thought was overkill) and said he’d like to make a little more money, so now we share him 2 days out of the 6 he is now working with friends. The biggest job, or the most unrelenting at any rate, is the floors. Since we live in a city to begin with and in a place where the words “emission controls” have yet to be uttered, our floors get dirty -- dirty enough to blacken your bare feet when they (the floors not the feet) are not washed daily. And we have about 5000 square feet of floor that needs sweeping and mopping daily. Thursday morning, he and Sandy were out in the garden trimming and pruning. They worked for about 4 hours in the increasingly hot sun and made the garden look cleaner and lighter than ever before – in part by trimming up the bamboo which began as a stalk with some leaves at the top last June and is now quite a lush clump – and then Jose' went on to do the floors, clean up the kitchen, and wash the car, while Sandy dove into the pool and then slumped in the shade.
And so we were thrilled to be part of this important day for him and his family.
See the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/necshs1/Baptism