false evidence appearing real

I was happy to say goodbye to our rainy June. As much as I appreciate seeing another side of Mexico, (the wet and muddy side) I'm happy to get to enjoy the sunny dry side I fell in love with. 

It was so cold, wet and miserable that we started feeling that autumn came to us. We started sleeping with a furry winter blanket during the nights and watched Christmas movies in the evening. I switched from white to red wine. Very confusing indeed. 
Here is a video from our beloved Guanajuato this June. I'm really sad to see how bad they were hit.

Now in July things are looking up. The sun is visiting us more frequently and drying places up.
I don't have to carefully plan when I walk to the local grocery store anymore.  I have several hours to figure it out.

I got to take my scooter back out and go for my favorite ride down the mountain. I really love the view and it's a nice ride, as it's all down, down, down. 

First time I took this route I remember being really scared of facing a scorpion. My friend had reminded me of their existence, a few weeks earlier. I'm not really used to them. Not having to deal with them in Finland nor Canada, so I looked up a few videos on Youtube. They are impressive little things. I have never felt the need to be scared of insects but that is easy to say when you have nothing but mosquito bites and worse case scenario wasp bites to fear. 
In Mexico there are over 200 different species of scorpions but apparently only 8 of these have venom that is deadly to us humans. This fact calmed me down a bit. It however doesn't mean that it's anything but painful when they actually sting you and how are you to know what kind that did so? Or if you might be allergic to them? On my scooter ride, I didn't come face to face with a scorpion but about two weeks ago, during the rainiest time, one paid us a visit in our little back yard. 

It was surprisingly small and peaceful but a scorpion none the less. So now I make sure to clean the house as properly as I can and spray the windows and doors from the outside to help keep scorpions and cockroaches away. So far so good. I chased down a gardener to come and cut our grass in the back where I have to hang the laundry to dry. I seem to speak perfectly understandable Spanish every time I'm in need of help, a peculiar phenomenon. Where does the words go when I just need to do basic small talk? I guess I blame that on my antisocial Finnish roots. Then again, the most friendly social people I ever met in Montreal were all Finns, so I don't think that fits either. But back to the scorpions ... I saw it suitable to have a few sips of tequila while doing household work, just in case. It might sting a little less. So now when I have a cleaning day, I tend to send my husband a text message informing him that some tequila cleaning is being done in the house. I feel less guilty this way.
I learned that the scorpions not only use their venom on their victim but actually on each other as well. The male sometimes use it during mating on the female to paralyze her (I guess that makes her more agreeable). And then after mating the female using it to kill the male (she is clearly less patient at this point). They are pretty passionate creatures and pretty smart to keep at a safe distance. 
To get away from my scorpion thoughts and research I started to go regularly to Zumba class. I had forgotten how much this does to one's mental health, when one doesn't have much of a social life. A female instructor and nothing but female participants, there is just something magical about this. Our instructor is a beautiful girl with long black hair and both energetic and inspiring.  I can be as tired as I want on my way to class but when I come home I feel so hyperactive one could think I was stung by some kind of caffeine creature. 

I get to feel part of the locals and it really lights up my day. Another little hobby I have, is to feed stray dogs. We have a few in the neighborhood. They are very scared and shy and it is really hard to become friends with them. They will not let me feed them from close but if I leave the food and then walk to a certain distance they will eat, so that's what I normally do. I'm a Finn, I understand keeping humans at a safe distance. We call it personal space.

It is however disturbing to see how scared the dogs are of us humans. There is obviously a reason for this fear. The only dogs that have come up to me here have been puppies, so they haven't lived long enough to see torture or whatever they are faced with. We were in Costa Rica earlier this year on our honey moon and there the stray dogs (way less than you have here) would walk up to me one after the next very happy and playful. I guess this means that Mexicans are no as friendly as they seem. Not with animals at least. Then again Costa Rica is known for their respect of nature and that includes all animals in it. Nothing but Pura Vida. I honestly think that Costa Ricans and Finns have a lot in common. We both have a profound respect of Mother Nature. Something that should be a given but rarely is.

I read some disturbing things about how Mexicans exploit scorpions and my husband came home with a morbid story about how in the USA you can buy lollipops with a dead scorpion in it. How horrible isn't that? I looked it up and he wasn't joking. People actually do this and it's called scorpion pops. 

  

So here I went from fearing Scorpions to feel bad for them. Humans are sick but what is new? The best thing is to keep the bad ones at a far distance and be good to the good ones. After all, fear might just be false evidence appearing real.