Almost done with my 365 challenge | Day 357 of my 2023 Journal

I have been asked if I am looking forward to completing my 365 challenge so I am off the hook of writing a story every day. It is a good question, and I have been pondering for a while as to whether I am going to continue my daily update. Next year.

I think I will. Even though I am often a few days behind, and it sometimes stresses me out, I am happy to do these little stories, and I am equally motivated to continue. I might look for a different format next year; most importantly, I am tired of the Instagram character count; I want to write whatever I want. But that is a different story.

Even on days when close to nothing happens, something still happens. On this last day before Christmas, after the boat ride to the Mangroves, we went to the weekly Market with our lovely host, Kimberly. We power-shopped veggies for the week. We also got a bit intimidated by pigsheads and cowsheds in plastic bags for sale at the butcher's stalls and of an entire sheep on top of a pile of meat.

I travel back and forth between vegan and vegetarian, not claiming to be any saint. But the dead animals piled up like that are almost offensive. I have friends who are cows, sheep, pigs - it does feel like corpses I look at when walking by the butchers. So that was that. What else? 2 veggie stalls, five butchers, no tamales without meat for sale, some clothes, a simple home supplies stall, a bit of toys, a guy selling little things like string and lighters and gloves and plastic bags out of the back of his truck.

Everyone is very nice to us. We did talk about the talk of Mexico being this dangerous place and how our experience is so different from the stories. Even the stories about the many street dogs are not true. Here, finally, we are in a small sleepy town by the ocean in Mexico, and there are many, many street dogs. The thing is just that it is not a sad story. They seem to thrive. They are friendly. They are more like the cats in Istanbul, everyone’s dogs rather than no-ones. Does that make sense?

We went out with the kayaks again, even though I dared (I am not the best friend of water). We walked to the skeleton of the grey whale they have on display; we saw plants we had not seen before; we cooked, we started watching the Danish Christmas show called “Jul på Vesterbro” and went to bed early so we could listen carefully to the big party that was going on in town: everyone singing and dancing and laughing in the night.

And I am happy to share it, to talk about it, to organize my memories.

With love

Cecilie Conrad

Thank you for reading
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