a traveler's diary

As I was waiting in the Manzanillo airport for my flight home from Cuyutlán, I noticed these little boys being, well, little boys. Actually, they were very well behaved, weren't acting up or making undo noise. Of course, the 'Zillo airport has very high ceilings, is made of concrete, marble and glass, has tile floors and plastic seats, so the merest peep out of such a one reverberates through the whole place. At first I though they were brothers; a pair of twins and two singlets. Then I decided no, they were cousins. There was also a baby girl, about 6 months old, but she didn't get down on the floor with the boys. After several trips to the loo by all of them, they settled down on the floor with a little DVD player set up by one of the dads (see his knee in the far right of the photo). That did it. They were absolutely silent, totally focused on the movie ~ except for the youngest, on the right, named Hugo. He just couldn't sit still. I was utterly charmed while watching these little kids, obviously on their way home from a vacation that had left two of them tanned and freckled and had bleached out Hugo's curls.

Pretty soon it was time to go through security. I could not contain my curiosity any longer and asked the mother of Hugo if the boys were related, and who belonged to whom. I had thought that one of the dads looked like the other mom, so decided it was one big family off on a frolic together. Wrong. These two families, both from Calgary, had never seen each other before. They came to a resort for a week's holiday. The three oldest boys fell in with one another at dinner the first evening. They were inseparable for the entire trip, keeping each other amused and out of their parents' hair. They reluctantly agreed to let Hugo tag along most of the time. The parents struck up a fast friendship and every body had a great time. Including me!

Nice remembrance for Mother's Day.