This adventure was a long time past!

In 2003, I went with Karla to an area of Mexico called Los Tuxtlas in the state of Veracruz to interview people about sustainable development projects that the Mexican government had implemented in indigenous communities throughout the country. In this particular community, Santiago de Tuxtla, people had traditionally grown coffee, but the forces of globalization had rendered the product basically worthless, so the government was encouraging the planting of small palm trees, which could be sold for use in religious ceremonies and crafts.

In this moment, we were down in the coffee fields speaking with some of the people working there. For the most part, they speak a indigenous language called Amuzgo, which has nothing to do with Spanish. When this little boy saw me, he pointed and screamed "GRINGO LOCA!," which normally would mean "Crazy American!" but since Spanish was not his first language, he got the genders wrong and screamed instead "Crazy American man-woman!"

Karla and I still laugh about it.

<from amy b>