Beauty in the half shut eye of a drunk

Never having considered myself beautiful it can be flatering to walk down the street to whistles and refrains of "preety baby" and "beauteeful" (although also often annoying and perverted if you think about it). Recently however, the experience of instant gringa (white tourist)beauty became a little ridiculous. One of the many wonderful things about Mexico is the hospitality of the people. This hospitality makes it likely that at some point you will be invited to the wedding of complete strangers, as was my luck last weekend. I was working on my independent research project in the La Escuela Popular de Agua y Energia) School of Water and Energy that has monthly workshops for rural community members on various alternative technologies and sustainable organic agricultural techniques. One of the students invited us all to the wedding of his cousin. Always ready to go to a wedding, I, and a few others, gladly trooped to the reception in our dirty jeans and sweatshirts (the school is in a community a few hours away from where we live so we had no other clothes). We had great fun dancing and eating and people watching!
The next day I was invited back to the "day after the wedding party". Again there was dancing and food and children playing volleyball and tag on the lawn. There were also a significant number of very drunk relatives.
One swaying cousin of about 40 sidled over and sat at our table. It was discovered that I was from Canada. And Drunk Cousin eagerly launched into slurred English.
"Oh you speak English? Where you from?"
"Near Vancouver, the West Coast."
"Oh. I work in New Mexico for 14 year. You know New Mexico?" (in Spanish the verb conocer-to know, means have you been there)
"I know where it is but I've never been there, no" I say.
"Ooooh" he slurrs, "you know Albuquerque?"
"uum nope."
And we continue
"Waz you name?" He asks.
"Tara...like Sara but with T" (Mexicans have trouble hearing Tara...and I always need to give this little lesson)
"Sara," he glows, "Thas my wife name (oh great, he thinks we have some karmic connection now)! I have leetle girl too. I work in New Mexico for 16 year."
"oh umhum...not 14?" I laugh.
After about four "waz you name?"s and "where you from?"s and many "huh?"s on my part,
I find out he has a wife (ex) and a six year old daughter in the States. Later he unwittingly tells me a little more about why his marriage may not have worked out.
"I has so many freinds in da States (in Spanish Amigo-friend can mean girlfriend/boyfriend when talking about the opposite sex). I like da ladies so much. I has so many friends. I like, but my wife, she don't like."
"hmmm, I wonder why?...darn her!" I say with sarcasm that a drunk can't hear.
"You understand me? My English good?"
"Pardon?" I try and be polite.
"You understand me? My English good?"
"huh?"
"You understand me? My English good?"
"ohh, yeah! good English..."
"You have preetty face." he smiles droopily.
He translates for his cousin, my friend from the school.
"Preetty eyes."
This painful conversation continues for at least half an hour ending with, "wanna dance? common!"
"hmm. maybe later." and I escape to the bathroom.
My next encounter is with another drunk cousin. This time so drunk he has one eye closed and the other on the way. He lumbers over to our table and plunks himself in a chair. He stares at me and tells his cousin, as if I speak no Spanish,
"The guera (white girl) is so beautiful." He stares some more. and some more.
"Tell I like/love her." Stare. I everyone is laughing hysterically expect drunky. I can barely breath I am laughing so hard. He pays no notice, just keeps on staring at me. and staring. The above dialogue repeats serveral times with slight variation.
This continues for a while until the couple that invited me takes pity on me and we leave to take some pictures.
The most awkward part of it all was that his two teenage daughters were playing volleyball next to us and his wife was preparing food a few tables away!