Pinal Villa

Pinal Villa is a tiny village east of Melaque tucked away behind a small mountain. By road, it’s halfway between Melaque and Jaluco and about a mile from the highway.

There are no paved roads here, in fact, the roads are very primitive. As we drive around we find deep troughs in the road that are dug to let out the water from the late summer rains. It plays heck with the car’s suspension so we only drive at about 5 km an hour.

Rosalie and I like to walk around the neighbourhood just before the sun goes down as it’s cooler then. We talk to the Mexicans and are always rewarded with a smile and a joke. We’ve also seen a few purple mango trees which to us are unique and very interesting.

A lot of the homes here are very primitive as this is a community including indigenous workers from the neighbouring states of Michoacan and Chiapas. Once in a while though, we see a really nice house and wonder if it belongs to a Norteño or a rich Mexican.

Part of our walk takes us past the El Tunco residence. Their butcher shop is in Melaque and where we buy our meat. The lady of the house is Chabela and as we walk by she comes out to greet us and have a word.

The kids around here think we’re a novelty and sometimes follow us. One evening they asked us how we were “Como estas” we replied ” Muy Bien” and walked on. Then we heard the little guys say ” Habla ingles?.” “Do you speak English?” We told them that indeed we did. I’m looking forward to meeting these little Mexicans again and having a friendly conversation with them. Most are about 8 or 9 years old.

We haven’t seen any kids here with cell phones. but we do hear them laughing and running around enjoying themselves or hurtling around on their bikes until sundown and then it gets a little quieter.

On the weekends the locals party until late into the night. Over Easter, I had to get up and close all the windows to keep the noise down. However, it’s not as bad as our last location and I’ve only had to do it once.

Another thing we noticed is that as you pass people in their homes they shout out “Adios” which is a little strange for us. It’s not exactly a greeting but somehow is.

There is a store just around the corner. The stock is a bit sparse but they have the essentials. We get our veggies, rice, flour, eggs and beer from there. At first, they were a bit reticent but the more we go there the friendlier they get.

Oh! And Rosalie got her hair done.