We've been here four months. I still don't know the language; I still have a hard time entering into and understanding the lives of the Mexicans in this small town, so different from any life I have ever lived. But I am loving being here.

We wake in our little house and open the doors to the courtyard; the tangerines are heavy on the tree, and turning orange. I strap Jesse into his baby-backpack and we walk into town to buy groceries; women touch his cheek and smile, tell me how handsome ('guapo') he is. With Jesse strapped on, we make a white-skinned two-headed unit that disconcerts the children and dogs. Even the adults stare, but (usually) quickly respond to my smile. "Buenos dias." "Buenos dias." Parrots wheel and screech overhead. Our white clothes on the line are being bleached by the strong Mexican sun, but the nights are cool and the crickets sing. Opposite our house through the trees we barely glimpse pale gold pastures, and the blue Sierra Madres.

On Wednesdays, Rosie comes to help me in the house and cook a few meals—she's in her early forties, has lived in the tiny neighboring town of Palmillas all her life. My kitchen fills with delicious smells. I often start sentences I can't finish but she's quick to understand my attempts, quick to clarify that she sauteés the onions and garlic before she puts them in with the tomatillos, that she adds a few peppercorns to the ground beef for sabor. We falter our way through conversations about her granddaughter—who at eleven months is bigger than my seventeen-month-old son. She talks to Jesse and chuckles at his attempt at her name—it's clear that my intention he call her "Doña Rosie" has failed and "Woshie" it is. I put music on and she agrees that it's different than Mexican music, but adds that she likes it, that it's easy to work to.

Some of the Price kids wander over to play with Jesse, pattering in and out of the house. "Can I have a glass of water?" "Jesse just said 'Nank you'!" Jesse and I walk down into the valley, to the riverbed where the water runs clear. Foraging cows look sideways at us. After nine the taco stand on the corner opens and David and I buy the best tacos in the world: corn tortillas, grilled beef and onions, cilantro, tangy green tomatillo salsa.

Mexican towns are not still, but under the loud mariachi music, the braying of donkeys and yipping of dogs, peeping and crowing of chickens, I experience a deep quiet. I am away from the blare and sophisticated complication of United States life, and my ignorance of the language protects me from much knowledge of the blare of life in Mexico. That ignorance won't last, but I hope by the time it's gone the quiet I'm experiencing now will have sunk so deep that nothing can root it out. At night, I sit silent in the clear cold air and watch the stars—the stars that are so visible here in this little town.