(This is the 5th installment of my childhood memoir, "An Existence that is a Dreamlike Memory") The bleats reverberated and slowly faded away as the cabrito’s life force drained into a bucket that was placed beneath its head: Maaa...maa...ma... ▪ At the age of four, I...

A young village woman was paid to make tortillas and deliver them to our living quarters on the school grounds. Corn tortillas were part of every meal in rural Southwest Nuevo Leon. Poor soil and low rainfall made corn the core food staple in the semi-arid...

On pleasant autumn nights, we would gather on the stage of an old weathered white open air Roman-style theater situated on the school grounds. On the adobe platform four feet above the ground, feeling closer to the heavens, me, my...

When I watch pregame ceremonies at international futbol matches involving El Tri, the Mexican national soccer team, images of the school where I received my early primary education in rural Nuevo Leon come to me. Like the players on the field at the World Cup, the...

Small dust remolinos (whirlwind) were ordinary sights during the hottest months of the year. That is one of the lingering memories of Albercones, the last of a handful of ranchos (rural communities) where my mother worked as a teacher and where I lived...