We visited Ale’s Uncle Dario in San Juan de Sabinas in early August 2006. San Juan de Sabinas is an “ejido,” a traditional Mexican farming collective. It is about two hours south of Piedras Negras. Dario lives in an adobe house on a large lot in town. Jacobo loves running around on the dusty lot with the beagle puppies, chickens, old implements and nopales cacti. Dario has a 10 acre “parcela” outside of town on which he grows two crops of corn per year. He uses a horse and plow, and harvests by hand. He shucks the ears by hand and uses a steel grinder to de-kernel the ears. He sells his harvest to rancheros and other “ejiditarios” with livestock. He always saves some kernels as seed for the next planting.

We spent a lazy Sunday afternoon with Dario, watching the sun set over the mountains to the west. We bought two kilos of fresh steak from the corner store, chopped it up and fried it with sliced onions to make some tacos. Dario had some tomatoes, chilis and cilantro with which he ground a fresh salsa. He warmed up some homemade corn tortillas on the “comal” hotplate. The tacos were excellent. We relaxed under the stars for a while until we left around midnight. We arrived in Piedras Negras about two in the morning and I went to work the next day.