Sometimes you forget how much you miss a place until you visit. Then you get nostalgic and want to stay. That’s how our recent trip to Hermosillo, Mexico was, after a few days we wanted to stay. Not forever, but for a little bit longer. The trip solidified our good feelings about adopting from Mexico, because for both of us it really is in our hearts our second home.
We visited this past Thanksgiving for Edgar’s grandfather’s 95 birthday bash. Here they are chatting it up at the party
We both love visiting Hermosillo, so we thought we’d do a he-said-she-said here to explain why.
But before we get all romantic about how we feel about Mexico, one quick Adoption Update. Regarding the location of where our future children will be coming from, we submitted a formal letter with our final dossier to Mexico that stated we would be submitting to social services in the states of Sonora and Baja California. So it looks like one of those places is where our children will be coming from, so it’s either a short drive across the border or a short trip by plane.
And now for musings and pensamientos…
Siana’s Musings
I first visited Hermosillo, Sonora in the spring of 1991. I went with our high school Spanish club on a week long exchange/intercambio. I stayed with a family and we hung out with the students from my high school and from a high school in Hermosillo all week and I just fell in love with the city and my host family, I was all weepy when I left. I went again in 1992 for another week. By the time I met Edgar in college and he told me he lived in Hermosillo as a kid I was like “no way, I love Hermosillo!” And he was like “What??” and then we pretty much had to love each other because where was he going to find another girl at Cal Lutheran University that knew about Tres Hermanos shoe store? Coincidence? Perhaps. But either way it’s kind of awesome that we both love Hermosillo.
We hadn’t been to Mexico since Tata Joaquin’s last birthday bash, which was five years ago when he turned 90. We got excited while we were there because we realized we’re going to be visiting the country a lot in the next 6-9 months. We have no idea how long this adoption finalization is going to take, but we’re kind of excited to have a lot of legit excuses to go to Mexico!
And the food, did I mention the food? I’m not sure how I can talk about Hermosillo without talking about the food! When you drive into the city you can just smell food cooking everywhere, it makes you hungry all the time!
The tacos de carne asada, coctel de elote, the little fat flour tortillas that at one point I just ate with nothing in them because they are so delicious by themselves! And the Tosti-nachos we had in the plaza may be one of my favorite new discoveries! This trip got us all psyched up to get all Mexico’d out. We’re ready, now we just have to wait for our adoption referral…
Edgar’s Pensamientos
Some of the fondest memories I have of my childhood are associated with Hermosillo. The heat, the warmth, the brightness of the place, and of its people. A relentless and crisp sun, a place that seemed so modern and urban compared to the rural town in Durango that I had associated with Mexico up until that point. Hermosillo was my first exposure to modern, metropolitan Mexico, and it was glorious.
Its boulevards, lined up at night with parades of cars and buses, ferrying families’ like ours back and forth from our barrio in San Benito to El Centro. Trips to bazaars and merchant stands that appeared so luxurious and extravagant to a 7 year old – a magic that has slowly dissipated over the years as NAFTA has cleared way for the super Walmarts that now blanket this city of over 1 million residents.
Its street eateries, culinary treasures of fresh grilled beef tacos, made with the most buttery and fluffy of flour tortillas. The hot dog stands that, similar to the magic El Centro once had over me, have come to remind me of how the simplest and most accessible of delights trigger the most powerful torrent of memories of a city that has nestled itself in my heart. Its welcoming and seductively languid plazas, (here’s our favorite next to the kiosko)
its alarmingly friendly and gregarious denizens – it all feels like a full bodied embrace and welcome to one of its expatriate children from a loving relative who is dying to make you feel at home.
Hermosillo will always be home. And I am grateful that my wife feels the same way. Here we are enjoying a view of Hermosillo at night.
This city, and the mere thought of it, will always bring me to the edge of tears of gratitude and happiness, because it reminds me of the simplest beauties of life, and how often I take them for granted, and how often I have to remind myself that they are at my beck and call.
