I am famous

... at least among the locals in our village of Mitla, or more precisely among those listeners of Radio Zapoteca, or (to avoid exaggeration) - at the very least - among those who happened to be tuned in at exactly 6:10 P.M on March 11, 2011.

The ladies at my Bible study felt badly that they were so busy preparing for the (late) Valentine's banquet for the couples of the church that they hadn't acknowledged my birthday the Friday before (which was actually five days after my birthday), so they surprised me with flowers, a gift, a time of "refrigerio" (fellowship and a snack), and special music dedicated to me (and another woman whose birthday is next week) on the radio.  I was indeed honored.

Tradition here prohibits opening the gift at a party or even in front of your giver, so I had to wait until I got home to open my sweet gift.  I guess it serves me right to wait almost two weeks after my birthday to get the gift, and then another half hour before I could open it, since I did open my Kindle a few weeks before my birthday.

When I got home, Jim had invited four of our recording technicians (including Diego and Luz, our newest recruits) over for supper.  Amid all the mess in the house, and piles of junk from the laundry room and half the table covered with miscellanea, they were sharing a simple meal of pizza and Dr. Pepper.  It seemed a waste to serve Dr. Pepper to our Mexican friends, who generally think it tastes like medicine, but that's all we had on hand.  Occasionally they sell it in Oaxaca City now.  :)

It was fun to have an audience to tell the story of my short-lived fame, my moment of glory on the radio.  What's the point of being famous if you can't tell people you are?

If you want to listen to this new Christian radio station, and hear scripture read in Zapoteco every hour, go to http://www.radiozapoteca.com/.  Our former recording technician, Arturo, is the one who started this project. Just this morning some guys from another language group came by looking for him so they can learn how to start a Christian radio station in their village, too.  That's exciting!

Here is the song they played: Las Mañanitas, which today I dedicate to my newest ddil (dear daughter-in-law, for those who don't read my IRL blog).  Happy birthday, Amy!



Now the memory:

I'll never forget when we surprised Mike on his 18th birthday by inviting friends and neighbors over to serenade him and shoot off fireworks early in the morning.  Las Mañanitas is the birthday song, so we planned to sing it, but alas none of us knew the words.  It was an interesting rendition with lots of ad-libbed "la-la-la-la's".  I wish I had taken a video of it for posterity.