Feliz Dia de las Madres!

Happy Mothers day! It's a big deal here, with mariachi serenades, people selling roses in the streets, "Dia de las madres" specials everywhere and congrats to the moms on local business signs.

I celebrated my mother earth/ocean by visiting good ol' South Padre Island. It's only an hour away and with nothing else to do by myself in a quiet clinic, I may as well spend my Sunday on the beach. Unfortunately I laid out a little too long and am looking like the famous Gulf of Mexico shrimp. Of course I also called my Mama and Grandma today.

Mexicans tend to take any chance they can to celebrate, so I'm hoping we get to do something for National Nurses week which is just wrapping up (May 6-12). When I was in Peru, they celebrated the day of the Patron Saint of Nurses while I was living with a family. What I thought might be a minimal holiday (and maybe it is, but that didn't diminish the scale of celebration), turned out to be a feast of fireworks, music, late-night partying, and festive food and drink.

A random mama factoid: Women here during pregnancy often wear a safety pin with or without a key on it over their belly button to protect their unborn child from lunar eclipses, which according to lore: eat parts of babies and can cause birth defects.