To the sea

Ola Amigos!

Here I am continue my trip across Mexico find my Mamma. Almost finished. Just this one and then one final tale for you.

Hopings you enjoy...

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Phew - in this hot sun I am very much needing my big green hat!

Yes Pablo finally make the trip to big soggy sea! Is so beautiful here. The water it hold my little body so good and warm make me feel like the mushy potato filling in some sweet fried tortilla!

(warnings though – the water not so good for drinkings, is very salty. Bathing water is much better drinkings anytime!)




Here I see many peoples from different colours and shapes (so many big big bottoms!) all wanting to turn into some barbecue chickens, greasing up their fat bodies and burning their skins all day long. Some no wear no clothings at all – this make Pablo go red face too!

When I get here I find me some nice peoples who say they can help me find my mamma. I help them working the beach, selling some shiny plastic bobbins to the gringa ladies. Ido very good at this because my no legs make them feel sorry for Pablo give me more moneys. I live nice place share with many other like me, where we all sleep very close up and can eat or drink the chica if is a lucky day.

But is not all easy life I tell you. Sometimes we must eat no nothing if when the police they come and take the money we make. Also the big fat men who give us the bobbins can get angry if this happen too and they no get their money. Sometimes if we lucky they just beat our faces. Other times people just disappearing. Never see them again.



The people who working like me, asking for money in the street or on beach, mostly they dream of going to where the fat gringos are coming from. Me, I dream of my simple kneepit, of Juanita and Chico, my friend Frank the Zapatista, the cheeky red-ass monkeys and my other dead friends.

Mostly I dream of Mamma.

They like it when I sing the songs I know from my Mamma, somehow they seem to know the words too and sing with Pablo and make very happy.

This singing make me feel good too. It remember me where I am from, and keep me closer still to my Mamma. ---

This story is continue tomorrow for the big end. Is then I can tell you what really happen. Until then...

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PS – if you wondering about the little kitten cats from last time, they both very happy. My friends here are sleeping with them at night, keeping nice and warm. Her you see picture them happy lazy asses with my new amigos eating the icy creams!
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Adios!

Next time - I find my mamma!

Evil bastardo God

On my way to the sea I find me a very old town. Many buildings are broke, no people anywhere it seem, just some wind and dogs that lie waiting to die.

At the end of the main road I see an old church, look like half destroyed by some God or some other bad men.

In this church I find some old woman still living, in a room with many scrawny cats cuddled round an old wood stove.

She invite me in like she has been waiting for me and give me some tacos covered with dust and some warm green dirty water. I make very polite trying to eat dust and funny water, when she look me in the eye and tell me her story.

She was born in this town and had many children and good husbands who work the land and provide food for many in the town. They very good peoples who go speak with God in his big house every week and help the poor people who come from the villages far away. Everyone happy.

But then one day God make the big bottom noises and belch the twisty air so hard make the town break in pieces. When she wake she find all her family die. The peoples that live go leave the town, saying God has cursed this place. They say cannot survive someplace with no walls and so many angry dead soul.

But she is stubborn you know. She stay in the town, eating what she can, because she is wanting to know why God he do this to her. Why so much sufferings and pain? What she do wrong? She spend her days in the old church with nothing left, just her story and her cats, and she start to go crazy with God.

But then she change her sad face and look me in the eye and say that now she is happy. She say she has been here many years, waiting for something, for someone to come.
Now Pablo has come she can give away the last things she have left, and can go to the next place.

She holds out a dirty sack which seems to be moving.

“Here Pablo, you have my story, now take what is left of me. Give them a good home.”

I take the bag and thank the lady.

After I leave the old church - a few minutes down the road I hear a rumble. The last of the church has collapsed. The old woman is no more.

I look at the kittens. There are 2 of them, black and white, with small scared eyes. I put them in my poncho to keep them dry and warm and sing them a song, make them feel better. For soon we will be by the sea.

Adios amigos! Come back soon…

Grow

It take me many weeks to make my journey through the forests and mountains of this land. In this time I have seen many wonderful new thing – but also some very sad thing too.

I see fear in the eye of many like me who wander the road, looking for food, some pesos, some place to be. Like me they have left their homes, but not like they have no kneepit to go back to.

I watch the fear as it grows in peoples eyes when they hear the army trucks come, or they hear the guns that scream the pain of their lost loved ones.

But is not just the living who have no place to go. Here I see the dead sprits walking at night - their resting places destroyed by the modern world, and the new gods sent to 'save' them.

When they come walking I will always greet them and invite them sit by the fire with me, this way they feel less lonely and afraid.

Sometimes they speak, but some words I cannot understand.

Mostly they sing their slow sad songs, making Pablo sleepy.

When I wake I am fresh and happy, thinking of the new day, knowing that it may bring me soon to my mommas arms!

Until next time my friends.

Adios!

Blue

Pablo is on a long journey through the mountains and forests of Southern Mexico, searching for his lost Mama….

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Ola my friends, it has been a long hard journey for me these weeks. For many days I have been without my underpants and my singing monkey. Some nights I get so cold and lonely I think of all the friend I am leaving behind in my kneepit, the fun I had with my potatoes in the fields, and the fiestas I would make for everyone come stuff their fat faces. Pablo feel very sad for himself, wishing I had my dead doggie back to lick the tears from my face, or that my papa never sell my legs in card game to the gringos long time ago, so I could walk proper to where my heart it lies by the waves in the sea.

Most of all I miss the sweet smell of my mamas long black hairs, the sound her singing and screaming in the night, and the bitter hot taste her special mole.

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One morning I wake up and find I am not too far from a big village, bigger and stranger than I ever see before. I notice everything is so very quiet, even the birds have gone away. This make me scared, so I make my way slow past the crushed trees and broken rocks until I see a place so beautiful – I think I must be dreaming!

All the walls are painted blue and red and yellow and green and the roads are smooth and clean. It look just the same like something from a photo I find one time when the big truck crash and kill many chickens and peoples some years ago. I kept this photo under my pillow for many years, until it disappear one night, same time my mama she go away.




So I look inside the houses, thinking that maybe I find someone there, or maybe some clue why everything so empty and sad here. But inside is empty too, and dirty with dust, and old, so much older than the world outside the village.

Too scared to stay here long time, I decide to move on as quick as I can. I keep on going and don’t look back until I am back in the forest and the birds are singing again.

Its funny, but as a bambino I always dreamed to visit this place, but when I got there I found I did not want to stay. I am wondering what this mean when I fall to sleep.

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Later that night I dream of a big jaguar, who carry a baby in her teeth away from big forest fire.

When I wake I find the tip my fingers blue because of some long black hairs twisted round them.

It is then I start to smile again for the first time in many weeks.

My mama, I know, she cannot be too far away.

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Adios amigos. Come join me again soon!

My friend the singing monkey

Pablo make many friend on his journey to find his Mama. Like the shy singing monkey who follow me a long time from Palenque through the jungles of Chiapas.

I never see him, but I know he there because I hear him singing from the tree tops just above my head. When I look and call out for him he hide away. Maybe he shy monkey? I dunno. Pablo not mind, am just happy to know I am not alone.

One time I am tired and sad. I was stuck, cleaning my underpants by the magic lake in the mountains, eating some nanbannas, wondering how I can get across the other side. This is when I hear him start singing some very sad song, the kind that make your eye tickle and your ribs ache with longing for some warm arm huggings.


I cry for some long long time, and finally, when I run out of eye water I see my hat has gone. Just when I think I may cry some more, I see my hat peeking out a small wood boat behind where the tree the monkey was singing from before. A boat!

Pablo very happy! Now Pablo can get across the lake!

But what about my friend the monkey? He help Pablo with his singing and his magic, what can I give him to make him happy?

Pablo know what to do. I take out the freshest avocadoes and nanbanas, and the chica from the Lacandon Indians, and make for him a beautiful salad. I move away so I cannot see and sing to him one of my fiesta songs for that he can eat and make happy.

When I finish my singing I see that all the food has gone. Happy, I get ready for the boat.

But wait, where are Pablo’s underpants?

“The cheeky monkey he take my underpants”, I am thinking and laughing, as I get into the boat. I laugh for a good long time, which give me strength to go fast across the waves.

It is only when I am nearly the other side do I stop laughing long enough to hear the silence, and that I realise that my friend he has gone, and I am alone again.

Without my underpants.

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Remember friends – take good care your underwears, or maybe the cheeky monkey will take them.

And you will lose a good friend.

Adios amigos!

Visitor

One night on my journey I was sitting under the stars drinking the last of my food - some nice cold potato soup - when I hear this noises coming from the trees ahead. It was like a lady whispering in my ear some words I could not quite hear. It make the hair on my moustache tickle like when the fairy spiders come for their dance parties - and it make Pablo blow the big noisy nose trumpet so loud the jungle go very quiet.

After this I am hearing some footsteps and in the dark I can see some tall thin old lady wearing big dark dress. She stop just far enough away so I cannot see the face.

So I call to the old lady - ask if she would like to share some soup (even though it is my last). thinking she must be very hungry and tired here in the middle of no place. The lady say thank you and drink the soup - all the time her head turned away from me.

I ask her where she is coming from, and she says she is from the small village called Guanjanito (or something like) and is looking for her granddaughter who got very scared when the bad men came and ran away into the jungle and must have got lost someplace.

So I ask her if she want some help - maybe we can look together?

But no, the lady say that is not needed. She prefer to travel alone. Besides, it is the strangers which scare her away, so if she see another she does not know, she will maybe run even further away.

Now I am feeling bad, and say sorry but I am just passing through, I too am looking for someone I love.

"I know", said the old lady, "that is how I knew I could come and sit with you. Do not worry about the child. She will come back, they all come home in the end".

So I give her some of my gunannybanny juice - saying the child will be needing this more than me - and wish her well. The old lady she take the juice - say thank you - and then she was gone, her green dress disappearing into the jungle like how it came.

Her story make Pablo feel very sad, but Pablo happy at least can be of some help (even if he have no guannybanny juice left now!)

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In the night I have some big strange dream of a green and red bird who come find Pablo in the hot jungle, dying of thirst and who carry me over the mountain and towards the big blue water, towards my mama...

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Some days later I find myself some miles north away, when I meet some kind local farmer who give me some of their water and tacos, and let me sleep with their cow.

I ask them about the village the woman come from. The old one he says "yes, this was just a few miles away south of here."

Then he tell me some spooky story about this village.

"The indians they were very proud people, who lived in these parts for longer than the trees can remember. One year was terrible disaster. They have little food because of the bad storms which wash away their crops. Then the new government ask them for even more money so when they could not pay, they send in the troops to teach them a lesson, to show the other villages they must also pay for protection.

"So there was some fight, more guns came, and then the whole village was burnt to the ground and many peoples they just disappeared - men, women and children. Nobody know if they were killed or if they run away to the cities, like the president he said. All we know is that was many years ago, but also it is like yesterday.

"Where the village was is nothing now but birds, trees and their secrets".

Adios amigos!

Palenque arrows

Pablo is sorry it is taking him a long tome to have more adventures, but please do remember that he Pablo has no legs.




In the meantimes here is what the Lacandon indians gave pablo.

And also in colour:



Remember that it is a long way to travel to find your soul. And to find the answers you have to know the right questions to ask.