Walking across town, I stumbled upon  Museo de la Revolución.

I love museums. Especially the ones about history.

It was Saturday afternoon, and I was the only person in the tour. Some high school students were guiding. Their English was very limited, and my listening and vocabulary in Spanish are limited, so while I can understand “things” and express needs and emotions, connecting ideas in Spanish for me isn’t really happening yet. So I don’t really know why there was a revolution, except in the context of revolutions in general, but the museum had a very familiar feel about it.

Torreón is about the same age as DeQuincy. It was established shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, after the railroads were built, and the revolution took place during this period. The museum has photos of trains and depots and artifacts associated with the railroad.

I still can’t tell you much about the revolution. I know there was one guy who was president only long enough to have his photo taken in the presidential chair. I know that Pancho Villa was shot to death with dozens of bullets. I saw rifles and pistols and uniforms and lanterns and cash registers and all the usual items representing the history of an event.

Equally interesting to me was the outdoors. The museum is in a building that used to be the center of a plantation operated by a man from China. (Another part of the story had something to do with the Chinese being kicked out of Mexico, but I don’t know any more than that.) The plantation produced fruits and other food. The city grew up around the house, but in the museum grounds there are still fruit and nut trees growing.

And this gigantic thing against the wall:

I don’t know  what the name of this is, but I know pecans and hickory nuts and oranges when I see them. The lawns around the house were green and well-kept and the shrubs lining the walkway were familiar, and although there are things we can grow only in pots in Louisiana that are used here as landscape plants, they are nonetheless recognizable.s Seeing them here in this town made me feel right at home.

I want to go back to this place when my Spanish is better so I can really understand what it’s all about.