We were guests at a pro baseball game on Friday with the group we had dinner with last week. The Mexican Pacific League runs from October to January and many of their players end up in the majors in the U.S. and Canada. The Hermosillo Naranjeros is the home team, and while they made a late game rally they lost by 2 runs. Some of the pitches exceeded 100 mph so it really is professional level baseball. But - in reality - the game was just a backdrop to the most entertaining sporting event we've ever attended. In fact, I said to Roger at one point - "I have to remember to watch the game", to which he responded, "What game?"
Once again, this group of new friends took us under their wings and gave us another great evening to remember.
A cute fan...
There was music. Dancing. Fantastic food and cold beers delivered to your seats with a novel way of keeping your tab --- at the end of the evening, the vendor just counts the number of plastic glasses you have!
Javier told a friend in the stands that we were Canadians. No big deal.... until we started hearing "Canadiense" and the crowd laughing, and we saw our pictures were on the jumbotron. Turns out Javier's friend had a bullhorn and was getting the crowd revved up by kidding us (and Roger in particular). Not sure exactly what was said but it was all in good fun and at one point the crowd chanted "beso...beso...beso...(kiss...kiss...kiss)" so we stood up and Roger gave me a kiss much to the cheers of the crowd!
Roger and I decided to have the 3 workers from the office and their families to our house for dinner on Sunday. While octupus wasn't on the menu, I couldn't resist taking this picture!
Below: Santiago (in blue T-shirt) is the service man and is a really wonderful guy. He and I buy the food each week which he then drives up to Cucerpe (a small town 3 hours north of Hermosillo where the drillers live near the project). He practices his English, while I practice my Spanish. He has 6 children --- all extremely well behaved and polite and it was a treat having them here.
I must admit the first few minutes were pretty intimidating as only Jake (the administrator) was bi-lingual so we resorted to opening up a huge cooler and pointing to drinks to get things started. We then encouraged the kids to go to the pool and while they didn't have bathing suits, they just jumped right in with their clothes on. It was happiness personified.
Above: Santiago's children had a ball --- and you couldn't help but laugh along with them.
Below: Jose (our mechanic) and Santiago's son, Francisco share a laugh.
Below: Roger and Jake
The menu: BBQ chicken, potato salad, pineapple salsa, vegs, shrimp....
Below: Roger and Santiago load up their plates.
Fortunately I made enough for our 16 guests with enough to send extras home with Santiago's family!
I had to scrap my plan to bake a cake as I couldn't find baking soda and didn't know what it was in Spanish, so resorted to buying a chocolate cake and serving it with a fruit platter...
So, more experiences that warmed our hearts, boosted our endorphins, and made some great memories.
"What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul." ~ Yiddish Proverb
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