I think my host father wants to adopt me...

Seriously. For the last 4-5 days, he has asked me everyday, more than once, if I have considered living in Mexico and if not, why not. Yesterday we even had a conversation-- him, L, her brother did, I was mostly listening-- about what I could do if I decided to stay. I coud teach english, I could translate for sucha nd such organization in oaxaca, I coud... you get the drift. They are so confident I could make my way here, don´t understand why I don´t want to. It´s been fun trying to explain that, no offence to their country, I love it deeply, I dont have a good reason to stay here. I´ve had those conversations before with people about the USA, and there I do have a coupe of good reasons not to want to stay (ok, one good reason big enough to make up for everything else: the medical system that has caused me too much trouble in the past!)... but how ultimately, it isn´t about why not USA or Mexico as much as why USA or Mexico when I have everything waiting for me back home in Delhi... if I had a good reason to stay, I´d think about it, but things being as they are, why even think about it? Still, it cracks me up because of how often he asks me this question, as if anyday I might suddenly have found a reason to stay. Too sweet.

Tomorrow, we head to the Sierra (at last!). At this time tomorrow, I will be trying to keep up with a group of 30 something children running about the hillside. I´m looking forward not only to being back in the mountains but also specifically to Zoatecpan. it´s been 3 years-- 3 long years-- and while I am on one hand excited to go back, on the other hand I am wondering how things will have changed. The little babies I carried about will now be running all over the place; my host family in the village has a new baby in the house; I dont expect to remember many names, and I am not sure how many will remember me either. In my heart, the village is frozen in time, and going back feels like it should be a going back to what I left behind... but of course, the years have passed for them just as they did for me, they will have grown as I have, and this will be an interesting re-encounter.

Been thinking a lot about what this process of creatng homes, only to leave them behind, entails. As fortunate as i feel to have been able to travel so much and live in so many different places, a part of me also dislikes the way that means I will never again belong completely to one place the way I did before leaving home for the first time. I have come to accept that from here on, at any given moment, about 3/4 of the people closest to me will not be physcially where I am... maybe over time, as I settle down in one place, that number will come down to half, but at least that many. Yes, it´s wonderful to have close friends scattered throughout the globe, but it´s also frustrating always to be missing someone!

Well, I have little more to say today. Shall sign off here, hoping to receive emails from some of you soon, and will write next from the Sierra Norte de Puebla.