Family fun

All this week I've been having lunch with Carlos's wife's family. Her mother cooks and the whole family descends! Minerva's sisters and their families, her brother and sister-in-law, and now me! They come any time between 1 and 3, and in total she must feed 10 people everyday! It's their main meal of the day and of course consists of rice, tortillas, beans and salsa and then fish, or meat with a sauce. It's really lovely to be included in this, and they usually bombard me with questions about the UK, about the Volcano - is it going to erupt soon? when? (If only I knew!) They also tell me about Mexican culture and about local cuisine etc.

Last Thursday was the 7th anniversary of a magnitude 7.6 earthquake which destroyed a lot of the buildings in Colima. They sat around at lunch telling me their stories about it. It was about 6.30 pm on a Tuesday when everything started shaking. All the lights went out and most of them ran outside. Minerva told me that it lasted for a minute, and after it stopped she went straight round to her mum's house. A lot of the houses in the street had been flattened, and were just rubble. She was crying for her parents and praying that they were ok. Their house still standing, but with a lot of damage. Luckily, both of them were ok. It was interesting to hear there stories especially in light of the Haiti earthquake. I think that has reminded them of how it was. There are a lot of people raising money for Haiti in the streets - dancing at traffic lights and collecting from the waiting cars.

This morning Carlos and I planned the next week's fieldwork, which made me much happier. I told him what my plans are and he agreed and suggested some sections to visit. Fantastic. The truck is being repaired, but Gabriel, the Director of the Observatory has said we can take another truck but we're not allowed to stay overnight! A bit of a bummer, but he's giving us the truck and Carlos's help for free, and we definitely can't argue with that!

I decided to take a walk into the centre. It's about half an hours walk from Carlos's house. You go from a nice little cobbled street housing estate with orange, mandarin and lime trees everywhere, to something that resembles the United States, to the centre which is very colonial, with run down buildings and again fruit trees everywhere.

The Primavera or spring blossom trees are starting to blossom. They're a stunning bright yellow against the blue sky. Beautiful. I swear I haven't seen a cloud since Ivan left.... is it some sort of sign I wonder?