The musicians have played their set and I write this from a zocolo in the park. Two boys on the bench next to me say that they don't have school today because of the exposition and because their teacher is a drunk with a bad hangover. They are serious.
And a group of 6 middle school kids in red uniforms-boys and girls-approach us with outstretched masking tape covered bowls and a picture of a sweet looking girl apparenly named Esmerelda on the front. I imagine she is a friend diagnosed with cancer or m.s. or something too expenseive to afford here. My spanish is pathetic, but I have to ask for the sad truth.
'Who is Esmerelda?' I put to them collectively.
'She is. ' one replies with a pointed finger to another amongst them.
Esmerelda smiles sweetly with a dozen barrettes framing her face.
'She is our queen.'
'Queen of the exposition here?' I ask.
'No, of our class at school.'

Already the more grown boys next to me are slipping down the bench and sliding their hands in their pockets. Apparently, this explanation makes perfect sense.

'And what will you buy with the money?' I ask Queen Esmerelda.
'Clothes and candy and things' she says.

I drop my 2 pesos into the bowl, they thank me and move on through the park.

To my right a little girl of about 6 and her mother have just sat down, and I love this little girl right away. She is and has been working quite hard to secure at least twenty peices of scotch tape to her mouth. She unravels strip after strip, locking her mouth up completely. She stares at me expressionless, refusing to match my smile even with just her eyes. Her mom thinks she's a nut job and shakes her frown over the newspaper she lays across her lap.

The little girl keeps at her project. I imagine she has suffered some prick to her consience. Maybe she has said a bad word, or told a secret that she'd sworn to keep. She stops taping her face, and peels off the mask. Now she jots down some notes in a notebook with a pen that looks like the one I write with now.

Her mother just decides to pull out a package of markers. She is asking her the names of the colors.
She points to a blue one and nothing but a garbled mess comes out of her daughter's mouth.

But as I said, the tape isn't there anymore.

'Azul' the mother says
'Grabbale!' the daughter replies
The mother points to another
'Rojo'
'Rrrrrabell' is the mess that comes out.
The mother puts the markers away. They are already tired of these games. No miracle has happened over night. The big bellied little girl goes back to her notebook, and mama goes back to her paper.

Behind us a school of three year olds have just finished an incredibly important soccer match in their blue and orange smocks. They have decided to chant in unison 'HELADOR! HELADOR! HELEDOR'
And the icecream man comes running to service all twenty five of them in the jackpot sale of the day.

And we three look back at them and the mother and I look back at eachother and laugh,
but the little girl can't tear herself away.
she thinks it's the ice cream she is wanting,
and she holds out her hand to her mother for the pesos.