A Mayan breakfast in Mayapan Yucatan Mexico

 

click here for video of my co-workers fixing, and eating a Mayan breakfast 

I've got 5 guys that work here with me 5.5 days a week. I could not ask for 5 co-workers that would be any more hardworking than these fellows. The man without a shirt is the "jefe" or superintendent of the others. 3 of the men only speak Mayan but Salvador, the jefe, is bilingual Mayan (first language) and Spanish. I'm learning Mayan but for now we communicate often with handsigns, my own Tex-Mex, or Google Translate in Spanish and English.

These men all have their own cows or animals or crops to work, so they come to me at about 6:45 (rain or shine) and work until about 12:30, Monday thru Saturday. There are other places where you can hire men for the full day, but not here. As part of their work routine, they stop at 10:00 and eat breakfast. There is no time clock punched or hours kept up with. It's just part of the deal, that they work, but they stop for breakfast for about 20 minutes and rest and shoot the breeze. They always invite me to eat with them, but their menu does not exactly fit my palette yet. :-) It's simple. Maise meal with cenote water and seasoned with some onion and some type of pepper (that set my mouth on fire when I tried it). They mix it all in a soupy mixture and drink it like a shake. One or two days a week, depending on what's ripe, I give them a couple of sandia (watermelon) to have with the breakfast as a treat). I wasn't able to get a video of them cutting it, but I will. It's a unique style of making the slices with a hooked-tip-machete, and then busting it open. I kept recording to show the sharpening of the machete. This one tool is their primary work tool, and they are diligent about keeping it razor sharp all the time. I mean sharp enough that you can just hold a piece of paper in the air and hit it with the machete and it goes through like a hot knife thru butter. Also, fyi. Here, and most other places in Mexico, desayuno (breakfast) is eaten about 10 am. after working a while. And then mid-day meal would be the biggest meal and eaten about 3 or 3:30. The late meal of dinner would be smaller than lunch and eaten about 9:00 at night. Another note about the machete. I tease them and tell them they are my Samurai, because regardless of what they are doing, if they happen to look down and see a poisonous snake (which is not often) they can pull the machete out of the scabbard and have the head cut off, all in one motion that lasts about 1 second. It's incredible to see the speed and agility. I love and value and respect these guys. They are the salt-of-the-earth type hombres.