bobbert
Well-known member
This is an interesting story from Yahoo's blog... It's aboot a family living under a boulder in Mehico.<br><br><a href="http://homes.yahoo.com/blogs/spaces/couple-living-under-rock-quite-literally-230218154.html" rel="nofollow">http://homes.yahoo.com/blogs/spaces/couple-living-under-rock-quite-literally-230218154.html<br></a><br><p id="yui-tmp-10" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;">For many people, the idea of living under a rock might seem like the punchline of a joke. But for one Mexican couple, a hut wedged below a 130-foot boulder in Coahuila, Mexico, has been home for the past 30 years.</p><p class="first" style="margin: 11px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;">A reporter recently visited the couple, Benito Hernandez and Santa Martha de la Cruz Villarreal, in their primitive desert home 50 miles south of Texas. Hernandez is a farmer who plants and collects the Candelilla plant used in making <span style="color: #a68a61;">Candelilla wax</span>.</p><p style="margin: 11px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;">He first saw this boulder 55 years ago, when he was 8, and decided to make it a home one day. Twenty years later he was able to secure rights to the land.</p><p id="yui-tmp-31" style="margin: 11px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;"><span id="yui_3_0_0-2-1359068621797214" class="yui-editorial-embed"><span class="yom-figure yom-fig-left" style="clear: both; float: left; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 6px; margin-bottom: 11px; display: block; width: 620px;"><img style="display: block; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;" rel="lightbox" src="http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/E...2013/01/24/rock25n-7-webcouple-jpg_231110.jpg" class="editorial bbc_img"><span class="legend" style="display: block; margin: 5px 0px 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.7em; color: #414141; padding: 0px;">Santa Martha de la Cruz Villarreal watches her husband in the home's kitchen. (Photo credit: Reuters)</span></span></span>"I started coming here when I was 8 years old to visit the Candelilla (harvesting) fields, and I liked it here. I liked it and then I continued visiting every three to four months. I wasn't married and I didn't have a family yet, but I liked it and I had to keep coming to put my foot in (on the property) because lands here are won through claiming them," <span style="color: #a68a61;">Hernandez told Reuters</span> (note: the link goes to a video).</p><p style="margin: 11px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;">The home, made of sun-dried bricks and cement, has a dirt floor, a wood stove, and no plumbing. Electrical service is said to be unreliable. A nearby stream supplies fresh drinking water. In winter, though, the water source freezes over.</p><p style="margin: 11px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;">"It gets very cold here and we struggle to get food. We have to work hard here on the Candelilla (fields). That's the only job we have. That's what we live from," said Hernandez.</p><p style="margin: 11px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;">The couple have seven children, six of whom are married and live nearby.</p><span id="yui_3_0_0-2-1359068621797198" class="yui-editorial-embed" style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;"><span class="yom-figure yom-fig-left" style="clear: both; float: left; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 6px; margin-bottom: 11px; display: block; width: 620px;"><img style="display: block; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;" rel="lightbox" src="http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/C...s/801/2013/01/24/rock25n-8-web-jpg_230801.jpg" class="editorial bbc_img"><span class="legend" style="display: block; margin: 5px 0px 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.7em; color: #414141; padding: 0px;">Lucero Hernandez, Hernandez's granddaughter, in the doorway of the home. (Photo credit: Reuters)</span></span></span><br style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;"><br style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;"><p style="margin: 11px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.453125px;"><strong>Related </strong></p>
