Ela from El Refugio
This lady is German born but has lived in Mexico for the past 25 years. She was travelling in Belize where she met her husband (from North Mexico). They continued travelling through Guatemala (some crazy hitch-hiking stories!) and then settled back in southern Mexico. Through their married life they have seen the powers of good and evil in the world at work in so many ways. Many many people have come to them for all sorts of help.
For the last 15 years they have been living in a gorgeous wooden house in the mountains. They have several grown-up children of their own, as well as two little adopted ones who were abandoned. Ela runs a little clinic and has a birthing house which women come to (both locals, and friends from the city) give birth with her. They have a community of people living in houses nearby who have come to the mountains to seek freedom from addictions, and answers to their questions. Ela and her family are highly regarded, and people seem to come from far & wide to speak with her.
Albert was a quirky, laidback, stick-thin Italian dude who had come over to Mexico a bunch of years ago and never returned to his home country. He met a girl in Mexico City and they ended up marrying, coming out and settling on a little patch of land near where Ela lives in the mountains of Oaxaca. They're just on the edge of a tiny village called San Mateo. They built their own little wooden house with the help of friends, on a hill with an amazing view through the valleys. They have two cows, whose milk they sell to support themselves (fresh cow milk seems to be pretty rare in Mexico), a skinny horse, a donkey, a cat who is friends with the donkey, and a tiny pixie of a girlchild.
El Chingiringi
This guy was a real character. I met him at El Refugio. He had taken a nasty cocktail of drugs & alcohol before arriving and was still recovering. He was totally loopy, but cheery and goodnatured most of the time (unless he was begging Jose for "un chingiringi" - a shot of mescal. This gave him his nickname). The day after arriving the guys already had some funny stories to report of him. Apparently he commented on the family's black labrador, saying "I've never seen a blue dog before!" Later he was found in the cookhouse below, waiting with a stick by a hole in the floor - for a seal to stick its head up!!
After a few days he wandered off again. He found his way to San Jose (5km away) where apparently he got into a spot of trouble and was transported to another town about three times as far away. He walked all the way back to SJ before the crew found him, and had the biggest blister on his foot that I've ever seen. They sat him by the fire and Ela set about mending his wounds. To everyone's merriment, he began telling another guy that he was his king.. then one moment when Ela was distracted, and before anyone else could stop him, he grabbed a burning log straight from the fire and dropped it in a basin of water by him (which was waiting for the kettle). "Para calientar el agua" (heat the water), of course!
