Part One, Section 2 (through page 15) Summary and Analysis

The author describes the layout of the village and his family's adobe cottage. The village consists of one street of hard-packed ground and a row of cottages on either side of the street. Each cottage has a front doorway and a back doorway, which leads to a backyard corral. The roofs are made of thatch. Piles of stones define the back corrals.

The public places of the village are the street, the chapel, and the plaza. The chapel is a simple adobe building with a small front yard. The plaza is an open square decorated with a few trees.

Jalco has no resident priest or defined system of government. The existence of a chapel in town is merely a formality. Serious worship is taken to a basilica in Tepic, 40 kilometers north. Weddings and...