From Here to There and Back Again: A Mexico Tale

I have discovered that there is very little margin in my life right now. Perhaps that is why the trip to Mexico was such a welcome change; there was continual margin in my life down there. Yes, there were things that had to be done at certain times, but there was also the openness to sit and talk with friends for hours, to laugh about old stories, and to share life. The reason this posting is so late is due to the fact that ever since I returned every moment has been filled with work, homework or completing tasks that need to be done. Unfortunately, the times I have had to spend with friends and family has felt rushed as I think of the endless to-do list. However, that is not what this post is supposed to be about.

My return to Mexico was very quick, but a nice way to bring closure, albeit two and a half years late. It started with being greeted by a group of teenage girls at the airport, after a long day of travel. No problems through immigration, although I was asked a couple of times if I was sure I was just visiting (I think this had more to do with where I was going than with me). I am looking forward to who is going to be on my plane from Houston to Buenos Aires, Argentina because my last two flights have involved groups of young people returning hom

e. From Houston to Quito, Ecuador I was surrounded by an Ecuadorian dance team (teens and early twenties) returning from a competition in San Diego and this time I was surrounded by high school/college students returning to Oaxaca after a month in America on a language exchange.

Flying into Oaxaca felt like returning home in a sense. I was so excited to be back. I arrived on Children's Day and the Sunday service the next day was evidence of the importance that is placed on celebrating children in Mexico. We sang very energetic worship songs and then welcomed the special guests- the clowns!!

The rest of the service (which I should mention, was held at a hotel with multiple swimming pools) was dedicated to entertaining the children through silly games and chistes (jokes). They were finally released to swim and a whole lot of fun ensued! We took the opportunity (as

visitors) to sneak away to the Tlacolula Sunday market and the surreal feeling of being back in Oaxaca ensued. It was strange to be back walking familiar ground after so long. Throughout the week I got to meet the 3-year-old living with and being cared for by one of my friends, meet the two daughters that have been born to a couple on staff since I have been gone (they are adorable!), catch-up with friends, cheer on a couple of girls now in university, help assess some of the little girls as the mission gets ready to start its own school this coming fall, drive into Oaxaca once again, help with homework, hang out in the Zocalo and actually say goodbye when it was time to leave.

I am curious to see what God does with this trip. I have to admit that I didn't want to leave. I love Mexico with a deep part of my heart and I have been wondering lately what that means for the future. I wish I could go and visit more frequently. It definitely feels like a second home even after all this time. I know part of it is because I became so familiar with the area, but there is also a tugging at my heart when I am there. We shall see. But for all of those who were curious about the trip- it was just a week to visit old friends and gain some closure to a trip cut short two years ago. It was a good trip, and now I am back. From here to there and back again. Thank you Lord for the opportunity to visit friends and family, even if for a short time!

Fairlight

A new way to travel home

Well, I wasn’t sure I was going to post this story here, but people have been asking, so I thought I would at least put part of the story here.
As many of you have heard, I had the interesting experience of being deported from a foreign country. Although I thought what I was doing in Mexico (volunteering and learning about a new culture and a new language) was fine on a tourist visa, it was not okay to the Mexican government. They want you to be pouring money into the economy, not helping out those without money. Anyway..here is some of what I wrote the day after I got back to Oregon.

It is snowing outside. I am wrapped in a blanket and have slippers on my feet as I watch it fall. As you can probably guess, I am no longer in Mexico. It is a long story. I wasn’t supposed to be home until a week from now, but some things are out of our control. The story will unfold below, but the simple answer is, I was deported from Mexico. And what makes it so hard, besides the fact that I only have a small suitcase of my things that someone else packed for me and I didn’t get to say goodbye to any of my friends or the kids, is that I was yanked out of my second home.
That’s what Mexico has become to me over the last several months; my second home. So, it is good to be back in my first home surround by family and knowing I have the support of people who love me, but everything around me reminds me of my second home that I left without any kind of closure. Seeing the snow reminds me that in Mexico the sun is shining. Wearing slippers reminds me that just a few days ago I was wearing my Chaco sandals and walking around in a t-shirt. Driving down the highways reminds me of the Pan-American Highway and driving in to Oaxaca City. My parents heading off to church this morning reminds me of the fact that I was supposed to be worshipping with familiar Spanish songs this morning…songs that mean so much to me, but that I won’t be able to listen to for a long time. I see my car and worry about driving in the U.S. because I am so used to driving in Mexico. I see Christmas decorations and think about the Christmas party I am going to miss with my 50 kids and my many friends.

On Thursday morning I went about my normal chores; however, when I got to the office the Mexican Immigration van was waiting outside. Told to get my passport so they could check my Visa and documents, I headed back to my apartment…not worried about anything. Two hours later I was in the immigration office in Oaxaca City with four other missionaries. We then began to be called one at a time in to separate offices to give statements. While I was being interviewed I kept reiterating that I wasn’t being paid, I was helping where they needed help and I was here to learn about the culture and to learn Spanish. The Immigration Official printed off my statement and then asked me to sign it. I prayed that everything on the Spanish-written document was correct and then signed it. I will admit, I was a little nervous, but I still didn’t think I had done anything wrong.

After several more hours, one of the missionaries was allowed to go home, but we still hadn’t heard anything else and we continued to sit in the little room with a guard sitting outside. We were tired and began to wonder when we were going to know what was going on. They moved us downstairs to a break room and brought us dinner. There they started interviewing us again, one at a time. Carmen was asked what valuables she had on her, what color her eyes were, if she had any tattoos…we started getting concerned. Were we going to be stuck here over night? That is when Carmen got a call from her fiancée, Fabian, who had been waiting in the office all day. All I heard was “Honey, that isn’t funny. Don’t joke about that.” I knew the worst-case scenario had occurred. We were being deported. Fabian came in…we could each have one small suitcase and he had two hours to go and get them. Just enough time to drive to the Mission, grab something, and drive back. He told us to write down what of our belongings we wanted. He grabbed our practically non-existent lists and headed out. We cried together. All of a sudden our worlds were turned upside down. We tried to comfort each other, but it didn’t work.
The most frustrating thing was sitting with the unknown. They wouldn’t tell us exactly why we were being deported. We didn’t know how or when we were leaving. We were going to have to leave Cristina by herself as she headed to Guatemala and the rest of us headed to the U.S./Mexican border.

Fabian brought us our bags. We got a slight laugh out of what was in our bags, since Carmen would be heading back to Sheboygan, Wisconsin in December with cut-off shorts, some tank tops, an old pair of flip-flops and apparently her whole medicine cabinet.

Then our cell phones were taken from us and we were put in the break-room, which now felt like a prison. The guards on the other side of the break room were laughing, cussing and smoking, while listening to loud music. We prayed together, trying to find the blessings in the situation: we were all together, the Mission was trying to help us get home safely, God is with us in all circumstances and knows what will happen to us. We turned off the TV and tried to sleep, curled close to each other on gym mats on the floor. We were afraid to use the blankets, not knowing who else had used them before us or when they were last washed.

In the morning we had more papers to sign. We once again took turns being escorted to the bathroom. They told us that those of us from the States would be flying out around noon. Cristina would be left by herself until they drove her to the Guatemala border, leaving around seven in the evening. They brought us breakfast and we didn’t really eat. They didn’t realize that not only was Carmen leaving here fiancée, but we were all leaving our second family and we hadn’t even said goodbye. We were abandoning kids that had already been abandoned by their parents. We brushed our teeth and tried to feel refreshed even though we had been in the same clothes for at least the last 24 hours. We talked about what we were looking forward to in the U.S., what we wouldn’t miss from Mexico, three things we wish we had from the mission that we didn’t.

Around 10 am we had to say goodbye to Cristina and walk out to the van to drive to the airport. We now felt like prisoners- knowing that we would be escorted by four officials the whole way to the border. They escorted us through the airport and sat with us in the waiting room. It was a good dose of public humiliation.

I ended up sitting next to one of the officials on the first flight; a twenty-year old man who had been with immigration for a year. We talked about several things; the fact that you can’t even help or volunteer on a tourist visa, that we could come back in a year. We talked about my other travels; how I would love to live in Oaxaca, but obviously couldn’t right now, and how I loved visiting Costa Rica, but wouldn’t want to live there. I talked about my job back in the states. We talked about our families. He wasn’t quite sure why it was so hard for us to leave. We were going home to our families, we would be back in the U.S. I explained to him that the majority of our things were at the Mission (my clothes, my Christmas presents to my family), that we hadn’t said goodbye to anyone, and that we considered Mexico our second home. I think it may have dawned on him the actual emotional severity of the situation. They don’t usually deal with three young American women who think they are doing things right and who have come to love people in Mexico and call it their home. American women who feel called to Mexico.
The guards were nice and considerate even if they were rule-followers. By the end of the first flight to Mexico City I felt like the young man I was sitting next to saw me as a person not as a number.

When we got to the front of the plane, we were escorted out the side door, not through the regular exit into the airport. Outside the plane a Federal Police Car was waiting. On our short drive in a Federal Police Car to the second Mexico City terminal, we talked about how we felt like true criminals being led by Federal Police and Immigration officials through the airport. We were led to a small room in the back of the airport with a guard sitting outside. Trying to make light of the situation we noted that there were two bathrooms attached to this room so we wouldn’t have to ask permission to use the bathroom. We could just walk in when we needed it.

I called the Mission while Carmen called her fiancée. I was comforted by Janelle’s words from the Mission…the American Consulate would meet us at the border and walk us through the process; a couple known by some of the missionaries was going to meet us and we were going to stay at their house for the night; Peter, the director of the board for the Mission in Oaxaca, would be arranging tickets home for us on Saturday. We were being taken care of. I called my parents for the first time, even though they had been notified by the Mission about what was happening.
Our next flight was from Mexico City to Ciudad de Juarez. We disembarked the plane, joking with each other that we didn’t know what were going to do when we got in to airports in the U.S. and didn’t have personal escorts. When our bags had been collected by our escorts, and an Immigration van had been brought around, we were taken out of the airport. They drove us to the border crossing and walked us over the bridge to the U.S. side. When we got to the other side we were taken to a back office.

After the Mexican officials had left, a new American official walked in and one of the officials that had signed us in told him… “Guess what, these three girls were deported from Mexico.”
He looked at us with a quizzical look and said, “How ‘d y’all manage to do that?”
We laughed, that is exactly what we had been thinking. Who gets deported from Mexico?

In a few minutes we were picked up by Peter and Glory who took us to their home, fed us dinner, let us take showers and made sure we had flights for the next day.
On Saturday morning they made us a wonderful breakfast, we packed up our things and headed to the El Paso airport for the last few legs of our trip.

I almost missed my connecting flight from Phoenix to Portland, and I have to admit that I cried when the lady told me that I might not make my plane. That’s what happens when you are emotionally stressed and tired. I practically ran through the airport to my gate. They had to reopen the door for me, but I was on my way home.

What a wave of tears of relief and sorrow hit me as we landed and I saw Oregon’s trees all set for winter and when I saw my parents waiting anxiously for me.

The bright side…most of my things, including my Christmas presents, are now in Bend, Oregon because a family that had been down there simply cleaned out my room before they headed home. Now I just have to figure out how to get all of my stuff over the mountains, but it is all back in the United States. What a blessing!

I know that this is a long posting, but I actually paired down all of the story from seven pages to the length it is here, closer to three pages. The thing that is most frustrating to me is that others (and myself) are putting so much stake in this deportation I am afraid it will overshadow what I have been doing for the last several months in Mexico. I would hate for everything I have learned in the last several months to be completely wiped out because of the emotional upheaval of my deportation. It is true that it was emotional and trying, but it is also a story amid many stories in my life. For now I can praise God that I am home for Christmas and not stuck in the Houston airport waiting for the Portland airport to allow flights to come in.

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me through words and prayers over the last couple of weeks. Grieving takes time, but joy comes in the morning and God is still at work in this world and able to overcome all things.

Guevea de Humboldt

I had the absolute pleasure of traveling down to the Isthmus of Oaxaca and into the mountains to a village called Guevea de Humboldt. There isn’t much to see in this village unless you are accompanying John and Donna, missionaries from my church back in Oregon. They have been living and working in this village for years, learning the dialect of Zapotec and working on a translation of the New Testament in this dialect. I had the honor of seeing them at work as they build relationships and distribute materials to the people of Guevea. I will say, I got more than I was bargaining for because the first evening and the following day were partly taken up with a wake and funeral for a lady that had died that went to church with John and Donna’s language helper (a man from the village). However this turned into an interesting cultural experience as well and I am sure presented John and Donna with a chance to build some new relationships.

I loved listening to them speak in the native language of the pueblo and the way in which they interact. You can tell that they are dearly loved by many of the people there. There were so many experiences wrapped up in the four short days that were spent there and traveling that I don’t know how to write them all down. Instead I will simply say that I am impressed with the work they are doing and wish I could share the experiences I had with them with others, especially from my church back home. If you belong to NFC, know that you are supporting important work when you support John and Donna.

One of my favorite stories, that doesn’t really have anything to do with Bible translation was one of the little boys I met. His dad was related to the lady that passed away and so he and his dad were talking with us after the funeral. I said I was a kindergarten teacher in the states and the dad told his little boy, a kindergartner, that I could be his teacher and he introduced me to the little boy by my Spanish name, Luz. The next day Donna and I were walking around selling calendars and we happened to stop at this little boy’s house. The dad said, “Hey, there is Teacher Luz. Maybe you can go back to the states with her and learn English.”
He didn’t get too excited about that, but as we were leaving he ran out the front door and called, “Adios Maestra Luci” (goodbye teacher Luci). I was completely touched.

One of the ladies in the village (in traditional dress).

Overlooking their village, Guevea de Humboldt.

Christmas Letters

(Note: due to lack of internet at the Mission and my sudden removal from Mexico, this post was written, but not posted, probably a month ago…it was just waiting for the picture which is now here)

Just in case any of you are wondering why you are not getting any kind of Christmas card from me this year, I will let you know. Besides the fact that I have been in Mexico, and the price of postage alone would make me go broke to send all my dearest friends and family Christmas notes…there is in fact another excuse that I would like to present.

Over the last several weeks I have been encouraging, prodding and practically demanding Christmas cards from kids and young adults ages 4-24 to send to sponsors around the U.S. and Canada. After each of these cards has been lovingly made and written (and believe me there is a lot of love in them) I had the joy of translating each and every one from Spanish to English. Then I got to stuff them in envelopes, seal them and address them **with the loving help of a group of people from Chicago and California—Thank you!!**
So, after making sure that over 200 Christmas cards had translations, pictures, cards and what-not and were ready to go without missing anyone from the list (I hope), I honestly don’t feel like I can do any more. However, I do love you all very much and appreciate your love and support that you have been sending me. Know that when I travel home in two weeks (is it really just two weeks now!?) I will be coming home with lots of pictures and stories and I will look forward to sharing with you in that way. For those farther away, write me a letter or e-mail…I try to respond to them in a timely manner and I will answer any questions about my life you may have, that may have been answered in an actual Christmas card.

Merry Christmas, a bit early!!!

The first mailing of the Christmas cards the kids and I have been working on.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

…or not. I can’t believe it is December. In my growing up years in the beautiful Willamette Valley of Oregon, Christmas meant the coming of rain, wind and colder weather. I have to admit that I knew Thanksgiving was coming, with Christmas right around the corner, when leaves blew across the road, the rain came in steady sheets and I would go to work and come home from work in the dark.
Well in Southern Mexico, it is a bit different. Yes, the wind can blow and yes the temperatures have dropped, but the shining, warm sun each day does not help me believe that Christmas is on the way, and is in fact less than 20 days away. The Christmas tree in the dining room helps as well (yay to Christmas decorations!).

However, a week ago my roommate Lynnae and I had an experience that really had us, both Pacific Northwest natives, scratching our heads. Through the generosity of some friends we had the opportunity to stay at a beach house in Puerto Escondido, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, in the south of Oaxaca. We were ecstatic. A chance to relax, enjoy the beach, and get away for a little bit. I have to admit I was a little nervous. Never before have I gone to a tourist location, during an appropriate time to go there (i.e. cold at home, warm at the tourist site). It was exactly as we imagined only better…did I mention their house is pretty much on the beach? When we pulled in the first night we looked at the ocean crashing against the shore straight in front of us, and from the deck off of our bedroom we watched the sun set behind palm trees and ocean waters. It was beautiful and we are absolutely blown away by this gift that God presented to us through friends. We had a great time taking a boat trip, walking along the beach, swimming in the warm ocean water, watching fishermen (that is part of another story soon to appear) and enjoying some dinners out.

On our boat trip we got to see this sea turtle up close.


View from the balcony of our bedroom.

The funniest thing about the whole trip was that I thought back to my last trip to the beach that had been in June in Oregon. If I recall correctly (and I will be locating a picture to prove this), I was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and fighting against the cold wind as I walked up and down the beach with Rosanna. I believe we were both freezing when we got back to the car and we didn’t even think about going in the water, which we were sure would feel like ice.

And yet, in December I traveled to the beach, wore my swimsuit for three days straight, and went swimming in beautiful turquoise water. What are the chances.



Me at the beach in June in Oregon.

(you might not be able to tell, but we are in sweatshirts with the hoods up due to the cold and the wind)


Me at the beach in December in Oaxaca.

Thank you Lord for this wonderful gift!

Zipline Master

Well, I believe I wrote a while ago that I knew soon I would be joining the ranks of those who have gone down the zipline. It has happened. I braved the daring zipline and conquered it! I better watch out though because it is quite fun and I might become addicted. My roommate and I feed our addiction at night sometimes when we don’t have to fight the kids for the taller zipline.

Besides that, I have gone to the next level, tandem ziplining with little kids. Actually, it all came about when I was crossing the playground one day. I was walking along when one of the little boys wanted to introduce me to his friend who had come over to play. They were climbing on the rocks you have to climb in order to reach the zipline and he asked if I would help him up. At that point I didn’t realize that he had never been on the zipline before. I followed him up the rocks thinking that I was simply going to help him grab hold of the zipline, which was being brought up the cable by one of the other children. However, when I got up there with him and we were standing looking over the cliff, he started to panic. At this point I realized that this was probably the first time he had been up on the rock wall at all. Not knowing how I would help coax this boy back down the rocks, I asked him if he wanted me to go with him down the zipline. That was fine by him. So, with my hands over his hands to keep him from slipping and my legs positioned in such a way that they would help break his fall, I counted, “uno, dos, tres” and we jumped off. I wish I could have seen his face because his house mom said it was priceless…that look between fear and exhilaration. The pictures below were from our second attempt. Wahoo!!!

Getting ready to take off on our second attempt.

The triumph of victory!

Isn’t that an American holiday?

There are lots of things that, when moving to another country, you give up because they are not a part of your new culture. Here, Thanksgiving dinner is not one of them. We had a group that came down from the states specifically to cook Thanksgiving dinner for us and it was superb! It was just missing mom’s homemade zupfe. All of the foreign missionaries ate it up, but the kids were slightly less impressed until it came time to for the pie. My favorite anecdote from the evening, besides our little five-year-old boy falling asleep on my lap before the food was even served, was the 11-year old sitting next to me. As I passed him the food he only took a few dishes with interest. When he say the gravy he got a little more excited. He leaned towards me and asked, “Pica?” (is it spicy). “No,” I replied.
His face immediately dropped. Apparently, unlike all of us Americans who ask the same question of others when we are concerned that the salsa will be too hot, this little boy was greatly disappointed to discover that not only were there no tortillas with which to eat his turkey, there also was nothing to spice it up a bit. Ah, the differences in taste-buds between two countries!

Two of the boys enjoying the pie with whipped topping.

Our wall of thanksgiving…people added to it throughout the evening.

Consequences

My kindergarten students taught me early on that when giving choices I must be ready to follow through on either choice because sometimes they don't pick the one I would think.
The same holds true for kids in all countries.
A couple of weeks ago I was driving our Ford Ranger to church. In the truck with me were all the teenage boys. Right behind me was a 14-year-old boy...we'll call him Manuel. I told everyone to buckle up (a new law in Mexico) and Manuel just sat there. "Put on your seatbelt Manuel." I said.
He reached down next to himself on the seat and said, "I don't have one." Clever boy. It was a shoulder strap seatbelt, not just a waist strap.
"Higher up, " I told him to play along.
He reached to the ceiling... "No, no I don't have one."
At that point the game became annoying to me so I said, "You can buckle yourself or I can buckle you."
Now honestly, I figured a 14-year-old boy surrounded by other teenage boys would not want a 25-year-old girl to buckle him in. When he didn't budge I figured he would put it on as I climbed out of the truck. He would be too embarresed for me to actually buckle him in like a baby.
Boy was I wrong. I got out of the car, opened his door, took his seatbelt and buckled him in as he sat there.
That is why you should always be prepared to follow through on either choice you give a child. You never know when you might have to buckle in a 14-year-old boy.

**The funny thing; on the way home he again told me he didn't have a seatbelt. "Again?" I questioned him and he put on his seatbelt all by himself. We haven't had a problem since.

The Gift of Hope

I've realized what a privalege and learning experience it has been living here at the Mission. I have been around and worked with kids from a variety of backgrounds:

• Kids with parents in prison
• Kids who grew up on the streets (or in prison)
• Kids who have been abused
• Kids who have been sexually abused
• Kids who lived in the dump
• Kids who parents love them, but can't provide for them and make the hard decision to bring them here because they hope for more for their kids

It boggles my mind the lives these kids have had. But what amazes me even more is the effect of a healthy, loving atmosphere.

• Kids who come shy and reserved and scared who turn to laughing
• Kids with discipline problems and problems with authority who turn to voluntarily hugging an adult
• Kids who have become mute due to abuse who glow with hope

What a gift God gives us to be a part of their lives, even if only for a little bit. I feel absolutely blessed to watch these children grow.

Just a Normal Day in the Office...

P.S. I'm working on my computer at this moment...

In the Mountains of Oaxaca

This weekend three other American girls from the Mission and I (I think that makes us sound like the American girl dolls, don’t you?) decided to check out some mountain cabins we were told were only about half-an-hour from the Mission. We were ready to get away from the Mission for a little while and thought this sounded like a close, cheap way to have a get-away. Little did we know the adventure we were in for.

As we headed up towards the cabins, we went through a little town. Now we didn’t have a map or a specific name of where we were going, just directions from one of the house dads at the Mission and the fact that we were headed to an Ecotourism sight. As we entered the aforementioned little town we were stopped by a Transit police officer who told us that we needed to take a different route. We told him we were headed to the Ecotourism sight and really needed to head through the town because we weren’t quite sure how else to get there. He hesitated and than another officer came up and told us to continue on our way. We laughed as we drove away, convinced that they just didn’t know what to do with four white tourist girls…you can’t really turn away tourism in this part of the country. We continued on our path and a couple of miles further on our way we ran in to another police officer. This one was definitely not letting us by. Not only did he wave us over to park in an empty lot on the side of the road with some other stopped cars, but there was an obvious road block further up the road. We pulled off and two of the other girls got out to ask the police officer what was going on. Apparently we had just been driving down the route of a cross-country car race and we were going to have to wait at least half-an-hour with the other cars that were currently pulled off, until the race had passed and the road was no longer needed for the competition. We decided to park and wait, since we were pretty sure this was the road we needed. What a hoot it was to watch as racecar after racecar pulled up and parked on the side of the road while the drivers got out, stretched and prepared to take off on a more dangerous part of the route- up a Mexican mountain road.

The best we could figure was that this was some sort of timed race or multiple day race since the drivers all pulled off in their order of arrival and took some time to pull on helmets, test steering and chat. It reminded me a lot of the old Herbie movies where Herbie is in multiple-day races. Anyway, they then headed up the mountain and after a few minutes we were allowed to pass the roadblock as well and continue on to our destination.

Two things struck us as we headed up the mountain road. First of all, this race must have been a huge deal because we passed several people along the first few miles up the road that were sitting in lawn chairs with picnic lunches. The second realization we had is that although this road was paved and in quite good condition considering roads in Mexico, we would never want to race up this road. No shoulders, huge drop-offs and lots and lots of switchbacks. Not my idea of fun for racing a car. After a half-hour or so we started feeling as though we were perhaps on the wrong road because of the length of time it was taking us, but we were told by several people to just keep going, it was farther up the mountain. The farther we got up the mountain, the more and more like home it felt; more trees, more green and colder weather. At last we reached the town were thought we were looking for, complete with a sign for Ecotourism. We stopped at the tourist office, but it was closed, so after using the bathrooms at the office we continued through the small town we had discovered to see if we could come across any cabins. Right as we were getting ready to leave the town another Transit cop stopped us. Apparently the race we had already seen part of was actually going to be coming back down the hill so once again we were going to need to wait half-an-hour until the cars had passed. What about cabins? The cop didn’t know, he was just working the race, but we were told to park further up-ahead, off the road and we could ask all the guys standing there. What we found out, when we finally asked them, was that the lady running the tourist office had probably just stepped out for lunch and if we went back now we could get back before the race came through, therefore not needing to wait for the race again. What a relief!
Back at the office we were told that there were indeed cabins to stay in, in the town and the lady showed us to our room for the night.

Our little cabin.

The town we ended up in was called, San Antonio Cuajimoloyas, said to be Zapotec for Mole Curdling in Saucepans (mole being a Mexican dish, not a rodent). We still aren’t sure if we ended up in the same town that other people from the Mission have gone to, but we found the hiking to be beautiful (and definitely a work-out for the lungs and muscles hiking very inclined streets at nearly 11,000 feet above sea level), the town people to be very friendly, the night weather to remind us of winter back in the states, and the whole 24 hours we were gone to be quite an adventure.

Janelle, me, Jill and Lynnae
We think we look like sisters in this picture, and we had quite a laugh at our accidental coordination of black sweatshirts, jeans and running shoes.


Our next adventure was of course cooking our dinner. We came completely prepared, thanks to the training of my parents and Lynnae’s parents on former camping trips. The only difference being that our fire was in a fireplace in our cabin instead of an open campfire. This turned out to be fine because, frankly, it was practically freezing outside and we preferred to be inside wrapped in five different layers. The stir-fry chicken and veggies were a welcome treat, followed by s’mores! Thanks for the Hershey’s chocolate Mom and Dad!!

Jill cooking our dinner over the fire.

We slept wonderfully on our bunkbeds, covered in five to six blankets and dressed in sweats. We were glad we had thought to bring warm clothes. The next morning we opted for breakfast in town after our fire took forever to light and then we headed home, quite uneventfully considering our former days fun.

Drinking chocolate caliente con leche at a small restaurant in town.

It was a wonderful girls get-away and a chance to relax in a very idyllic Mexican mountain town.

The view over the mountain town from our cabin

Quince Años

The last several weeks have been a little hectic since I have been on the team in charge of organizing the Quince Años party for two of the girls here at the Mission. For those of you unfamiliar with the Mexican tradition, it is similar to a “Sweet 16” coming-out/coming-of-age party, but it happens at the age of 15 here and is similar to a wedding in its scope. I was put in charge of decorations, which meant I thought of the weddings I have been to and the decorations at those celebrations and tried to come up with something similar to deck out the room in which we would be celebrating our two wonderful girls. It was a lot of fun to be involved in the whole process, from the first meeting discussing colors, time and place, to the dress shopping, to shopping and designing decorations, to set-up and tear-down. The first thing I learned is that the Quinceñera is the girl of honor, whereas the party is referred to as the Quince Años party (15th birthday party). What was especially entertaining to me was how Jill and I (their house mom, also American) started out with one idea for the decorations and ended up with a completely different idea, but it still turned out beautifully.

We started with a big empty room (once all of the church chairs were moved out and the music set-up was moved to the corner)…


And ended up with a wonderful banquet hall feel, perfect for our evening party.


The girls were stunning! Beauty school students came in and did their hair and make-up for free, which was a huge blessing. Their families all showed up for the celebration and the evening was wonderful! I don’t know how a traditional Catholic/Mexican Quince Años party goes, but I loved how the one here at the Mission was truly a celebration of the lives of the two girls; the ways in which they have grown, and the hopes/prayers we have for them for the future.

One of the great cultural differences between the states and Mexico is the distribution of favors. In the U.S. there are usually designated items that are given out at weddings or other parties. In Mexico, as I learned at the wedding I went to back in July, all table decorations, or any decorations for that matter, are free-range as party favors. That means that about half-way through the evening, or as people start to get up to go, all the decorations start to disappear. Our tables started out looking like this…


…and by the end of the evening were nothing more than a tablecloth and a couple of scraps of fabric. The vases, candles, mirrors, robosos (table runners)—all gone off the tables, with the leaving of the guests. It is an interesting phenomenon to watch people sneakily stuff things into purses or check with other tables to see if anyone has claimed the vase yet. At our table we eventually had to pull our decorations off to the side of the table so they looked taken so people would quite trying to take our beautiful decorations. It is something I find quite humorous.

Overall though, the evening was beautiful, well played out, and a great tribute to the girls. They were absolutely pleased to be the centers of attention for an evening and they deserved it. I think it is a wonderful practice to have because, as their house mom said during her part of the evening, in the U.S. we tend to only celebrate people’s lives at their wedding or funeral. Celebrating this way gives people, or at least young girls, a chance to see how loved they are and to be recognized for how special they are as individuals at a very formative age.

Cute Little Smiles

I wanted to include the following picture because it is one of my favorites. I drove one of the vehicles to church last Sunday and happened to have all of the little boys in my car (or bus, more accurately). Their house mom was in a different vehicle so when we got to the church I told the youngest ones to wait for me to walk with them to the church (a couple of blocks down). This is how I found them when I got out of the drivers seat. The smiles were an added bonus when I pulled out the camera. I now have complete sympathy, no jokes or snide comments to be made, for mothers who carry cameras at all times. You never know when that priceless picture opportunity will present itself.

And the stories begin...

Life without internet at the Mission, for me means that blog postings are few and far between because it means I have to go into town to use the internet at an internet café. Not a big deal, except I usually only get around to doing that when I take other people into town and that means a limited amount of time to check e-mails, respond to e-mails as well as write up a post and figure out a way to get my pictures posted. Well, today is Sunday and I am sitting in my dining room at the Mission writing up blog posts. Hopefully this way, the next time I go into town, I can post several different stories at the same time for they will already be written up and ready to go. So, here is the first for today and perhaps you can check back a couple of different times and pretend like the following few posts were actually done on different days, instead of in one mass posting broken into different segments.

The first story that should be told is of the Governor’s wife. Apparently the Governor’s wife (does she have some title like first lady?) is head of the Social Services department here in Oaxaca (DIF). Because of this, she oversees all of the Children Homes in Oaxaca. She especially requested to visit ours…a special request that isn’t often extended. She was supposed to come several weeks ago, but didn’t end up coming. Than a couple of weeks later we found out that she was indeed going to come. There isn’t much to tell of this story, except that it was a huge honor to us and she was greatly impressed with our facilities and the state of our children (clean, well-fed and loved). It was a very huge deal, and the road outside of our Mission was actually shut down for her visit with Feds posted at the end of our drive-way and other key points around our property to secure the grounds.
I have to admit that one of my favorite moments was before she even arrived and the Federal Police showed up with their bullet-proof vests, helmets and machine guns. As they jumped out of the truck looking very intimidating, all of our little boys went running over to them to check out their uniforms and equipment. So much for the intimidation factor.
One of our missionaries was going to take pictures with his camera, but his battery died, so all the pictures ended up on my camera. I jokingly asked if he was going to get a picture of me greeting the Governor’s wife…and he did!

Here is my historic moment, greeting the Governor’s wife.

She was extremely kind and asked wonderful questions about our facility, the way we cared for children, how children ended up at our facility, where our workers came from, etc. I also captured a video of all my kids singing to her. It will be the video that makes me cry months after I get home as I watch my little kiddos sing “My God is So Big” in Spanish. Not much more to tell, but thought you all should know about the important people I am meeting down here.

Play

One of my favorite things to do is watch the kids at play on the playground. When homework is all done and the sun is out, the kids flock to the playground. It is a pretty awesome playground, and I know we all feel blessed to have it.

I love watching them interact with one another like siblings, the joy that they have on their faces, and the freedom they have in being kids.

A few weeks after I got here, I learned what all of the tall poles are for. The house dad for the little boys reinstalled the zipline!! A kid favorite, but I still haven't done it, more for fear that my knees will be completely torn up than anything else (it is very low to the ground). The second one is currently being installed and it is higher up off the ground, so I might become a 'zipliner' in the next couple of weeks.

It would be great fun to have one back on the playground at Newby, but probably a principal's nightmare, huh Mark?

Yo Comí Chapulines

The kids here at the Mission have taught me a lot. Besides Spanish they are teaching me how to be a kid again, eat honey straight from the bee hive and the fine art of collecting Oaxaca's greatest delicacy...grasshoppers. I went on my first chapuline hunt within the first month I was here. It is great fun; everyone out in the fields together, grabbing at grasshoppers and stuffing them into bags or bottles. The kids definitely know how to shoot their hand out in order to entrap the grasshopper before it can jump to the next plant. However, the veterens go out with bags tied to sticks and swoop their handmade net back and forth through the tall grass. The first thing I learned is that there are grasshoppers and then there are grasshoppers for eating. It is important to make this distinction before you begin collecting although I haven't learned why one type is for eating and the other not, but that is beside the point...in Spanish I would say there are chapulines and there are saltamontes, I don't know the name distinction in English. After you have collected a nice bagful, the next step is to let them sit over night. The reason may be obvious to some, but for those who are unclear...there is a need to allow the grasshopper to excrete all that is whithin its body.

The cuna kids and I catching chapulines.

I have learned that it does not matter if the chapulines end up dying during that night stay, or if they are still alive the next morning. I have learned that if you let them sit too long (multiple days) they become too thin to enjoy. The next step is to boil them as a cleansing method. If they are alive, you must hold some sort of container around the pot of boiling water so that they do not jump out. I was glad that mine were dead so all that was needed was a quick dump of the contents into a pan of boiling water. As mentioned before, the boiling is supposed to cleanse the lovely insects you are planning on eating. Boil, drain and rinse.

Now that the chapulines are all ready it is time to prepare them. Although many people in Oaxaca catch and cook chapulines, and many even sell them, I have heard that our cook here makes the best chapulines, so I am attempting to learn her secret recipe. The short version, they get cooked up with lemon and spices and then fried quickly in a little bit of oil. After that you have some delicious, crunchy insects for eating.

My first batch of chapulines that I have ever made.

By the way, the teenage girls ate them and thought they were pretty good.

Truth be told: I can enjoy one or two, but it is a mental game with me every time. The kids eat them like chips for snack and sometimes even put them in a tortilla, just like any other meat.

There are more posts to come....

but I am currently waiting to post until I can get to an internet cafe and upload some pictures. Posts aren't nearly as much fun without pictures, so please be patient. Sorry there hasn't been anything new here for a while. But wait another week and hopefully there will be a couple of different postings on life in Mexico!

Mexican Drivers

There is definitely one thing I have learned about Mexican drivers (please excuse my stereotyping in the following post). True, all road sign postings seem to be mere suggestions not actual rules, and yes, at times they seem crazy and ignorant of danger in the way they drive. But the thing I have found most interesting about Mexican drivers is their amazing spatial intelligence. Practically every Mexican driver has a very good sense of how much space his/her car takes up. I think about how we sometimes hit other people's parked cars when pulling out of a nicely marked parking space at the mall and then think about squeezing between a parked car, a pile of dirt, people walking and another car coming in the opposite direction with inches between the cars. Or, someone parallel parking where there is just enough room for the car they are driving...no error room at all. One thing can be said: I have yet to learn where every corner of the cars I drive are (my excuse is that I drive, on average, three different cars a week). I leave that to the experienced Mexican drivers and try to trust their confident, "pasale, pasale" (pass, keep driving) when I am sure that the inch between our trucks will soon become a scrapping noise, painful to the ear. I don't think I will ever experience driving as close to other cars as I have here, when I return to the states. But perhaps you better watch out for when I get back...I may be picking up some bad habits.

Viva Mexico!

4

A little bit late, but still worth posting. I have been meaning to get this posted for over a week now, but haven't been inspired to write anything amazing, so it continues to sit as a draft. However, now, edging towards two weeks after the event, it seems to me it is time to post and add more later. Last Tuesday, September 16th, was Mexican Independence Day. However, Monday is when the party starts. We had a great party at the mission. The invitation stated that we were to make a traditional Mexican food by dapartment for a competition (i.e. the office worked together) and we were to wear traditional Mexican clothes. Preparations started early on in the day. Everyone was in the kitchen working on their dishes and a few days before we went shopping in Mitla to buy our clothes for the night.

Everyone in the kitchen making different kinds of food.

The teenage boys learning from one of our cooks.

Besides all of the great food, everyone looked absolutely wonderful decked out in different kinds of Mexican garb. In Oaxaca there are many local styles to choose from and many were represented at our little party. After a dinner of tacos there were games (including a round of musical chairs for adults which I won, surprisingly!), little silly contests and of course the food competition. The office made tres leches (it took all day) and we won for best flavor! Of course the evening wouldn't be complete without a pinata and the Mexican grito of long live Mexico and all of the heroes. Overall it was a lot of fun, and kudos to all those involved in planning! It might not have been the kind of party enjoyed by those in the zocalo in Oaxaca City, but we definitely enjoyed ourselves. Sorry I don't have more picutres; perhaps I can upload some more at an internet cafe sometime. Enjoy!

The pretty ladies of the staff.

Mud

For those of you who think there is just one type of mud, I am here to tell you differently. Living in Mexico I have found that there are different types of mud. Listing them may remind you a bit of Forrest Gump, but it is true. Here is my poem about mud:

There is...

red mud, black mud
yellow mud, sticky mud
goopy mud, rocky mud
grainy mud galoore

brown mud, grey mud
soupy mud, slimy mud

cracked mud, cakey mud

slowing growing stagnant mud


slipping and slidding on mud
winding my way through mud

rain mud
hail mud
partly dried in the sun mud

mud puddles
mud pies
mud that never seems to dry
mud you can walk through and mud you can't
mud stuck to my shoes...
and another muddy footprint on the freshly mopped floor

Written by Fairlight
Edited by Lisa