I flatter myself that I speak Spanish reasonably well, but every so often I read a sign that just leaves me stumped. For example the “Rosticería Tirado” – “thrown-away roaster shop.” Who threw it away, and why? Later I learned that “Tirado” is a common last name in Spanish, and a “rosticería” is a shop where you can buy roasted chickens. Or, in the Colonia Montuosa there are four or five storefronts in a row that all share the same name – Cinco Letras (Five Letters) – but there was no indication of which five letters, or what they meant. I still don’t know the answer to that one. When I first moved to Mazatlán I explored the town by taking a series of long walks. On one of these walks I saw a sign that I just couldn’t figure out. It said “Cortinas de Caracól – El Pirata.” Well, I knew that “cortinas” are “curtains,” and I knew that “caracól” means “snail,” and that “pirata” means “pirate,” but I just couldn’t puzzle out a coherent explanations for “Snail Curtains – The Pirate.” I didn’t know that snails needed privacy. So I stopped to investigate. Maybe Mexican snails were different from the snails back in the States, and anyway, it would be something to write home about. Standing behind the counter was a very thin elderly man holding a pair of wire cutters – El Pirata himself! As I watched, he picked up a tiny seashell, carefully clipped the tip off the large end, and strung it on a string like a bead. I learned from him that the word “caracól” means not only “snail,” but also means any kind of twisted shell. So a conch shell is a “caracól,” too. And the tiny seashells he was arranging into decorative curtains were also “caracoles.” As I looked through a stack of photographs of some of “El Pirata’s” previous seashell curtain creations, including depictions of mermaids, dolphins, sharks, shrimp, cartoon characters, historical political figures, and copies of photographs, I asked him how he got into the seashell-curtain business. And he told me. El Pirata, formally known as Agapito Jerónimo Marco Kapultika, has been creating beautiful seashell curtains for over thirty years. He was born in 1914 in Puebla, and was a small child during the Mexican revolution. His mother died fifteen days after he was born, and his father abandoned him to be raised by his cousin. He was very poor, to the point where ‘to eat was a luxury,’ as he put it. He worked all kinds of odd jobs, including painter, shoe-shiner, and a clay brick maker.