Every single day Julissa and her two best friends, Giovana and Lorena, ask me to take them to the "Half Moon," a little park about two blocks from Oasis that has two slides and a ramp for skateboarding. I take them almost every day for about thirty minutes. They get to play, and it gives me a chance to catch up on my field notes.

I have gotten to know these three little girls very well. They follow me everywhere I go, and to be honest, I am happy to have their conversation and company. They're very useful resources too, like Julissa explaining about the guasoliki yesterday. Julissa, who turned nine last week, is the oldest of the three. She suffered from tuberculosis about three years ago. Thankfully, she appears to be healthy as can be now, although I'm sure there are after effects that I don't know about. She's energetic and happy and also very considerate and sensitive. Giovana is lady-like in her appearance and actions, articulate beyond her five years, and extremely funny. Her mom is strict and extremely vigilant of her daughter, and it shows; Giovana is the most obedient of the three. Lorena is also five, but hasn't started school yet. She understands Spanish perfectly but has trouble speaking it. Lorena is the one I have to keep a close eye on, not because she is intentionally naughty, but because she is fearless. I'm especially careful when we walk across a bridge that has bars wide enough for Lorena to fall through--I wouldn't put it past her to throw herself into the arroyo in pursuit of a stray soccer ball or something shiny. The fact that the three mothers trust me to take their young daughters out of Oasis is a huge honor because it is a sign that they trust me.

It's fun to watch the girls play in the park because, first of all, it's nice to see them having a good time, but it's also interesting to observe how they play. Rarámuri children have some different games from other children, which I will describe in a later post. The girls enjoy the excursion, and I'm glad the mothers allow them just enough freedom to go with someone trustworthy and not on their own. There are always nasty men sitting in the park watching little girls play. Crossing the street is dangerous, since cars tend to take the curves too fast. And we also pass kids and teenagers, rarámuri and non-rarámuri, getting high from paint thinner on the streets. They manage to get away with it on the open street because they put the thinner in a coke bottle, then stick it into the sleeve of their oversized sweatshirt which all the druggies wear. This way they can walk around putting the concealed bottle up to their noses. Most of them are just kids and young teenagers and I feel they are unlikely to rob anyone right around Oasis; ironically, there are a lot of patrol cars that circle this neighborhood all day. Overall, the neighborhood around Oasis is safe during the day, but not safe enough to let young children walk to the park by themselves (some mothers disagree, but I wouldn't let my five-year-old or even ten-year-old walk to the park by themselves even in the safest neighborhood in America). This is where my ideas of parenting tend to conflict with some of the Oasis mothers', and I have to be careful not to be too critical and judgmental, because many of the moms allow their kids to roam freely around the neighborhood. Well, perhaps it's not fair to say they all "allow" their kids--every case is different. Either way, I'm definitely attached to these three little girls now and feel protective of them.

Normally the three of them are well-behaved and we have a nice time at the park. But today some devil was in Lorena. She called Julissa "pendeja" (and supposedly she doesn't speak a lot of Spanish!) after Julissa playfully pushed her. She didn't say it maliciously--it was clear to me she was just repeating a word she hears other kids say when they're rough-housing. So I admonished her, but not too harshly. Lorena seemed to understand that she shouldn't say that word anymore, and the three continued to play, although I noticed Julissa was more serious. After a while, Julissa lay down on one side of the skateboard ramp and covered her face. She wasn't sobbing, and she wouldn't answer me when I asked her what was wrong, so I just sat by her and didn't say anything. It took over an hour to convince her to lift her head and tell me what was wrong. She was still hurt by Lorena's insult, so I called Lorena over and had Giovana explain to her in rarámuri what was wrong. Finally, Lorena apologized properly and Julissa felt better. I was frustrated and annoyed about having spent so much time taking care of this conflict, but I gave them five more minutes to play before heading back to Oasis.

Within two minutes, Lorena picked up five pesos that Julissa had dropped and refused to give them back when Julissa asked for them. Julissa tried to pry the money out of Lorena's hands, and Lorena bit her, hard. Both started wailing at the top of their voices, and passers-by were smiling at me trying to calm two little girls. I managed to get them back to Oasis, but Lorena was still crying when we walked through the entrance. As usual, there was a group of women sitting by the entrance sewing. All of them looked up to see which child was crying, and when they saw me holding Lorena's hand, I swear all of them grinned at the same time.

"Why did you hit the child and make her cry?" Paula asked. Everyone tittered.

"Of course I didn't hit her." I released Lore and she ran off to find her mom. I sat down with the women and explained what had happened. Their smiles were amused. They probably saw this event as further proof that I am a strange specimen of woman--after all, what rarámuri woman reaches the age of 24 without having at least one child of her own? It's almost unheard of.

"Children are a lot of work," I said after a while, once the conversation had already moved on.

"It's probably best that you never marry, or have kids," Paula said. The women smiled into their sewing. Instead of feeling ridiculous, like I usually feel when the women tease me, I said, "no, I want kids. I think the work is worth it."

By now Julissa and Lore were friends again, and they were playing house under an old wooden table with Giovana. When I said goodbye a while later and prepared to go home, Julissa opened her arms, as if she was asking me a question. I opened mine too, and for the first time the girls ran at me and hugged me. We were just beyond the entrance of Oasis. I glanced over at the group of women, who kept glancing up from their sewing to look at us. I saw some of them nudge women sitting next to them, who also looked up at us. They watched us, whispering and smiling.