When we returned from a quick grocery shopping expedition in San Felipe there was a note tucked in the screen door of our casita. The note was a little tough to decipher but we finally concluded that the folks who take care of our watering when we are away wanted to see us. Their names are Wili (short for Guillermina) and Victor. The parents of four children, they are tiny Indians, hard working and incredibly happy, smiling people. Their children are all in school, which is a tremendous sacrifice to these nearly destitute folks. They had obviously watered all the cacti and other growing things and had even raked the sand around the plants so the place looked very neat and tidy. Now they wanted us to come by their house. We had not seen them for three months, had intended to touch bases with them as soon as we settled in for the season. We had arrived in San Felipe the day before. Wili and Victor obviously knew we had returned because our gate was open and the truck was parked beside our patio wall.

We stowed our groceries and headed back into town to Victor and Willi’s house. When we got there Wili was elbow deep in laundry washing. She hugged us with wet hands. She washes her clothes by hand and cement washboard. Buckets of water for rinsing were sitting around on the ground. She told us they wanted to have a get together with some friends. She took us into the house and showed us the huge bowl of masa arena she had made for tamales. She said there would be cake (pastel) and asked us if we would come back at 5:30 for this shindig. Ok…this was going to be neat cultural experience. We unloaded the boxes of dishes and curtains that we had brought down to Baja for them. We gave the kids dominos, some toys and lots of school supplies. It was 3:30 and we had lots to do before the party. I had to find something that would work as a hostess gift for Wili. We’d have to shower, change into nice clothes to show we respected the event and Wili and Victor’s effort. A skirt would have been appropriate but we were having really cool nights, and anyway, Dan looks better in pants. I would wear pants, too.

We arrived at Wili and Victor’s place just as other folks were arriving including a couple, Lee and Mary, from the U.S. They help Wili and Victor as we do, are neighbors of ours in Baja and are fun and funny people. We were delighted to see them. Wili and Victor had planned a surprise for us. Everyone, it seemed, was supposed to bring wine and each person arriving proudly carried a bottle into the house. It was to be wine tasting party in our honor. They knew we made wine and wanted us to have fun trying some good Mexican wine. We were very surprised. Wili and Victor rarely drink. A half a glass of wine will last them all night. Victor told us once several months ago, “Money is more important on food and wearing for the children.� We were sure he meant clothing. We understood and once gave them a bottle of wine that he said lasted them for four months. They do just sip.

Wili and Victor’s house is about 14’ x 20’, brown unpainted (inside and out) wood, an uncovered cement floor. (we haven’t yet laid the tile in our house in Baja either) There is no insulation. The 2 x 4 studs show on the inside…and there aren’t very many of them. I noticed Dan counting. A refrigerator stands against one wall, bungee cords holding the door closed. Between the fridge and the corner there is a set of bunk beds hidden (more or less) by a drape of sheets attached to the ceiling. In the opposite corner from the bunk beds is a small table on which sets a two burner propane cooking unit. Beside it is a TV tray as workspace. Under the table a 5 gallon bucket holds water (has to be hauled from the faucet by the highway in front) used in the cooking process, a bucket for trash (with lid neatly applied), a box containing a bag of rice, a bag of beans and something else I couldn’t determine without being obvious. For the party, two folding tables had been placed end to end and ran almost the entire length of the interior. A tired but immaculate, purple oilcloth tablecloth almost covered to the end of the table closest to where Wili was cooking. There was just enough room for chairs on either side of the table and a wee bit more space on each end, sitting space and cooking space respectively. A single light bulb hung in the center inside. The cooking area was very shadowed and dark. There are two doors to this house. They are exactly opposite each other nearest the cooking end. They are wooden and when inside the doors are held shut by a rope attached to the outside that is brought in to wedge the door closed. When not in the house the door is pushed shut and the rope handle is hooked over a nail in the outside wall. A sheet is hung over the outside of each door so that in hot weather the door can be opened for circulation and the sheets flapping in the breeze discourage flying insects, provide a little privacy and keep the sun out. There are no windows. There is brick (ladrillo) around the outside one of the doors, perhaps extending a couple of feet on either side of it. A small counter beside the door has tile on part of it. It seems a lot of projects in Mexico are never finished…..always a project in progress.

By 6:00 it was dark and the doors were closed to keep out the cold breeze coming off of the Sea of Cortez. Wili’s uncle Damion arrived with a huge cake and a bottle of wine tucked under his arm. He put the cake on the cooking end of the two tables. Wili placed a giangantic plastic bowl over the cake to keep flying critters off of it. The bowl just fit. Everyone laughed. I asked if I could help with something. Wili was stirring something in a large pot. “No, you must relax,� she told me. “Have some wine.� I squeezed my way back to my chair. No one was opening any of the wine. I grabbed the camera and continued taking pictures. I’m sure I’m going to see things in the pictures that I didn’t notice while taking them. There weren’t even any glasses, cups or mugs in evidence. Sitting at the table by then were Victor, Juan, Berta, David (prounced Dahveed), Cornilio, Amalda, Portunando, Cici, Teresa and a very old man everyone called Tio Concho. Wili clustered the kids at the working end of the two tables. That is where she would eventually sit, also. Each of the guests had brought a bottle of wine; each different in color and label. The wine bottles were placed carefully on the small tiled counter by the door.
Wili announced that it was time to open the wine. Dan asked, “Where’s the opener?� We gringos evidently expected that Victor had a wine opener because we hadn’t brought one. Victor announced to everyone that he had a wine opener. Very suave and poised, he reached into a box on a shelf that had held miscellaneous things. Out came a screwdriver and a hammer. With screwdriver on the cork Victor tapped the cork with the hammer while Wili held the bottle. They had obviously done this before. Simple and easy! Dan and I could look at each other or we would have laughed out loud. The only problem was toward the end of the bottle. Whoever was pouring had to try to keep the cork sideways in the bottle so the wine would come out. (by the end of the evening there was a lot of bottle shaking going on) White wines and red wines. Dubious labels that said Vino Blanco de la Villa, Vino de Bisabuelo (great grandfather’s wine ?), Hacienda del Sol, and the lesser of all evils was the Santo Tomas – Reserva – Vino Tinto de Uva – Cabernet Sauvignon – Hecho in Mexico and it was a 1980 wine. (We have an unopened bottle of the Santo Tomas that we will share at the next meeting Wine Makers Meeting.)
We had taken small paper plates and napkins in bright colors that said FIESTA on them just for the hell of it…and maybe the cake that Wili had told us we would be having. And we took sodas and ice. Besides a bottle of Mexican wine, Mary and Lee had brought some candles and lit them. The draughts in the house kept blowing them out. More laughter. As the bottles of wine were opened they were passed down the table along with the fiesta napkins. Mugs and a few odd sized glasses appeared. Wili and Victor stood proudly at the little tiled counter and saluted us.

Then down the table came two very large bowls of tamales. Next cups of what appeared to be hot chocolate were passed down, one at a time, until everyone had a cup full to the brim of steamy, creamy, chocolaty smelling, light brown liquid. The plates in front of each person and the cups containing the hot stuff were from the box of dishes we had given her earlier that afternoon. Wili said something to Uncle Damion and he reached for an orange Tupperware container from a shelf near where the screw driver and hammer lived. Inside there was the silverware; mostly soupspoons, and a couple of forks with twanged tines. (I made a mental note to bring them flat wear then next time we come down – and maybe a container to store it in) I took a soupspoon. I really felt in that moment that I was truly a part of Mexico. The tamales smelled good and so did the light brown, very hot stuff in my cup. No ceremony, everyone just started eating and drinking so did we, too. The cornhusks piled up on the plates and the chatter was light and lively. Lee, asked Victor if he would go out and check to be sure all of our cars still had their tires on them. (Wili and Victor live next door to a used tire vendor). More laughter especially from Victor.

The wine that came out of those bottles was beyond description. We (the U.S. folks) smiled and sipped. There was no place to dump it. There was no sink in the house. Dumping wine in the bucket under the cooking area would have been too obvious. Going and coming in and out the door would have been too obvious. We sipped and smiled, smiled and sipped. We all won academy awards. We had to keep reminding Victor that we had to drive a long, dark eight miles back to our respective houses and must limit our tasting to tiny amounts.
The tamales were different than any I had ever eaten. They tasted good. The seasoning was perfect. The insides were another story. The meat, beef we were told, was very stringy and difficult to cut, especially with a spoon. Chewing wasn’t any easier. Twine. That was it! I was reminded of a Tarzan movie. If the beef strings had been long enough, Tarzan could have made his way through the trees hanging onto these morsels. I found that by sort of chewing all the pieces in my mouth into something like a wad of string, I could swallow the hunk all at one time. Big swig of wine and swallow fast. Get rid of all the hemp like stuff at one time. I said a quick prayer for my digestive system. There were green olives in the tamales, too, one or two per tamale. Lee was the first to come across an olive and warned us under his breath, “The olives have seeds.� Dan and I did eat three tamales between the two of us. I liked the taste even if the corn meal part did stick to the roof of my mouth and behind my teeth and the meat was mostly stuck between all of my teeth. I was careful to smile with my mouth closed. What I really wanted was dental floss and a place to hide while I used it.

It took the hot stuff in my cup a long time to become cool enough to drink. When I took a swig, it rather stuck all over my mouth and tasted like nothing I have ever tasted before…kind of a very light chocolaty taste but mostly like corn meal pulverized to a powder and then liquefied. We each complimented Wili and Abi, their daughter, on the wonderful tamales and the drink. I asked what the hot drink was. Wili produced a package much the same as the large plastic bag in which one would expect to obtain brown sugar. I read the ingredients and sure enough the first was corn flour, the type that is used for making tortillas. There was some cocoa and something else I cannot remember so I can’t look it up for a translation, if there is one. It was pretty nasty stuff, especially the colder it got. I almost split my sides holding in my laugh when Mary, Lee’s wife sitting next to me, said under her breath, “Drink up! Bon appetite!� I explained to her quietly that mine had a film an inch think on top of it resembling cold gravy. She giggled. We both knew we had to drink it…or eat it…whatever. The family speaks very little English, so I could have looked over at Uncle Damion and said, “This is consistency of thick, cold gravy� and he would not have known what I was talking about. If he should ask me to say it again, I would have told him in Spanish that the tamales have a lot of flavor. He would then smile and nod and/or correct my Spanish.
Then, ta da, the cake appeared in the center of the table. More wine was passed around. Lee, Mary, Dan and I were very surprised to discover that the icing was whipped cream. The cake was a very moist yellow sponge cake that was delicious. There were strawberries in between the layers. Yummmmm!!! Each of us was handed a huge slice of this delicacy and there was still half a cake left.

When we left around 8:00 (it was a week night) Dan and I were handed the full, partially full and the empty bottles to take home. Wili offered us tamales and cake to take home. We all declined the cake as there was just enough left as a treat for the family of six. We knew it would be gone by the next day. Dan and I accepted only four tamales claiming that we were getting fat. Much of the wine will be employed it in various recipes in the future…but no way will it go into a wine glass. Yuck! We do feel honored that Victor, Wili and their friends would pull together a fiesta in our honor. This was truly a remarkable gesture considering that Victor and Wili do not drink anything containing alcohol and also have so little to share. What sweet people!

The next morning as the sun rose over the Sea of Cortez, so did I, very slowly. With aspirin bottle in hand I headed for the coffee pot. Coffee started, I sat at the computer and began writing about the Baja wine party of the night before. Then I realized I was freezing my patootie off. The sun was coming through the window but I still felt cold. It was 55 degrees. That’s when I decided that if I were in Fiddletown, I’d already be bundled up. Hmmmmm. I got a sweater and started a pot of soup.

That night with the soup you can bet Dan and I had some of the wine we brought with us, some of the good Amador County, California stuff. Now that’s wine!