The thing we have struggled with the most and continue to struggle with is how to best help the people we find in our path here. Every day we see a need, feel some pain, touch a wound and we are not sure when we can or should help. It is not just about money – maybe it’s least about money.
I have told you many stories about some of the families we have come to know and love. Recently I have been sharing about the 3 girls who have stayed in our home after mom lost her house. We are living week to week in that story and last weekend we waited at the orphanage on Friday afternoon to see if mom would come for her girls. 2 of them were in school (yay!) and the agreement was that at 4:50 she would come to pick up her youngest and then walk to the school to gather her other 2 for the weekend. We waited and at 5:27 we decided she mustn’t be coming and we needed to go pick up the 2 at school at 5:30 and bring them home with us. I was relieved. We jumped in the golf cart and about 4 blocks from the orphanage we saw mom slowly walking towards the school. So now my conscience had a battle. Should we meet her, hand over her 5-year-old who was with us and deliver her to the school to get the others? Or should we turn down a different street, so she didn’t see us, go get the girls and take them home. Honestly, I didn’t want them to go home with her – but she is their mom and she appeared to be doing the right thing – although late and without her youngest. So, we pulled up and
Watching Mom walk away with ‘our’ girl
offered her a ride to the school. I knew the oldest daughter would not be happy – she wanted to go home with us – so we quickly left before we were seen by the girls. No one needed a scene outside the school. We continued on to drop off 3 of the other Mans de Amor children in another town 20 miles away and stopped for some seafood. We were quiet – I imagine this is how divorced parents feel when the ‘other parent’ gets their kids for the weekend. We were worried, angry, frustrated. But we are not their parents and it seems mom is trying.
About the time we were leaving the restaurant, I looked at my phone and saw a number of missed calls from the orphanage director. She had the girls, mom didn’t actually want them that weekend because she had no beds in her ‘new’ home. Relief. They would be ours for one more weekend at least.
We headed back to Bucerias to pick them up and then we were faced with another moral dilemma. We had an extra bed in our garage. Our friend Diana had left it there and told us to give it to someone who needed it. I knew the orphanage had another little bed to be given away. We could help them set up their house so that they could again have their daughters with them. I could make happen the exact opposite of what I wanted. Oh, the struggle that went on inside. No bed = the girls stay with me. Beds = the girls go home.
I talked to Veronica that night and she said “let’s meet tomorrow morning and take them the beds. Also, they want you to take your truck and help them get all the things that were thrown in the street when they were evicted from their last house.” I knew – albeit grudgingly – that this was the right thing. Let’s help them make a new home.
Saturday morning, we drove to their new house to pick everyone up. House is a bit of an exaggeration. There was a tiny cement room. The yard was surrounded by a wire fence and miscellaneous filthy blankets were attached to the fence to create walls. There was a piece of tin over it all. That was the home – a fenced yard. But it was theirs and it was not much different than many others in the neighborhood.
Off we went to help them find their discarded stuff. We drove into one of the worst neighborhoods in Bucerias. Grant and I had driven through there before in the golf cart and had said we didn’t think we better come back – a little rough. But we helped them load and unload their few belongings and left them to set it all up. The littlest one
Family Saturday errands
stayed with mama and we took the 2 middle girls to the swimming pool for the afternoon. I was very upset – I didn’t want them to go live in that little house – and when some tourists at the pool tried playing with the girls I grabbed our stuff and said “Let’s go” – no stranger is going to talk to my kids. Except they’re not my kids and the home their mom is making for them is all she can provide. The best way to help right now is to empower her to be the best mom she can be – offering support when she needs it. That is what my mind tells me, my heart was struggling to agree.
That night the two youngest daughters were excited to stay with mom. The oldest still refused and stayed with us. We had some good talks about the importance of family and we told this angry 9-year-old we would be there if she needed us. If you are scared, you know where we live. She talked about her other siblings – besides the three of them there are 3 more brothers, 2 more sisters. The sisters live with Grandma. She doesn’t even know where the brothers live – Brian and Juan Carlos and one other. They are just teenagers living on their own. It was a sad conversation and I feel so much pain for this child and for the mom who has lost all but 2 of her 8 children. For now at least, the girls will continue to come to Manos de Amor during the week so mom and her boyfriend can find jobs. Our weekend house will be open if they need us.
This family is not the only one we contemplate helping each week. There are constantly people showing up at our door selling things, needing things – maybe legitimate needs, maybe scams. There is one young man who comes once or twice a week and rings our doorbell and asks if we have work. We get him to sweep leaves or wash our car or other small tasks. We give him 20 or 50 pesos, usually whatever food we have around. Grant noticed his shoes were almost completely worn out and gave him some sandals. Another day some pants. A leash and some food for his scruffy little dog. Well you’re not going to believe this. Today he came to our door as usual and this time he said – “I am Juan Carlos. You know my sisters. You know my mom.” It was one of the lost brothers! For the past 4 or 5 months we have been feeding and clothing the brother of these three sweet little girls. No one but God could have joined us all together.
I don’t know what our continuing role will be with this family. The oldest daughter does not want to go home with her mom. She does not like the mom’s boyfriend. I don’t know that it is right for us to keep her with us. I want to support a relationship but how can we help it become a healthy one? How can we help reunite the brother with his siblings and his mom?
Today we stopped at the orphanage and all 3 girls surrounded us and gave us letters they had written to us. Yesterday they had been in a fight with one of the boys in the home. The letter said they were sorry for fighting. (I didn’t know anything about the fight – not sure why I was getting the apology 😊) And then the last sentence of each letter – one to Grant, one to me. I love you Grat. (They can’t say Grant). I love you Karen. Hugs all around. And the story continues.
Over the next 2 days I called that number 35 times. One call lasted 1 hour, 44 minutes and 58 secs. Another was 31 minutes and 5 seconds. Norma would ask the same questions, give me the same instructions (you must email your boarding pass and passport and a letter) and I would give her the same answers (Norma, I emailed that to you this morning – please check your email) and then she would say “Okay let me check” and put her phone on the desk so I could hear her talking to the guy with the lost IPhone and then 15 minutes later we would have the exact same conversation. For 1 hour and 44 minutes and 58 seconds. I was starting to lose it. I could see that computer slipping away. She kept asking me which flight I lost it on and I kept saying “Norma, it is sitting at the Terminal 2 Lost and Found – please just check your email and then go get my computer and put it on a flight. PLEASE NORMA!!!!” “Okay let me check.” “Okay I found your email and boarding passes, but I need a copy of your passport.” “Norma, it’s in the same email.” “Okay let me check”. 15 minutes. “Okay I found your passport but I need a letter asking us to send the computer.” “NORMA IT’S ALL IN THE SAME EMAIL. PLEASE CHECK.” “Okay let me check”.
The same inspector looked at the trailer yet again and this time he admired our ladders on top of the trailer. “I could really use a new ladder – how much are these worth?” We ignored the bait and we headed inside. He looked at the new sticker, shuffled and reshuffled the papers, punched away on the computer and finally said “Sorry – this number doesn’t seem to be in the computer database. There’s nothing I can do. You’ll have to go back to the border”. WHAT? Okay I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS. We are not taking the trailer to the border. You can see the serial number matches the papers now. “Well then you’ll have to see my boss in Tepic”. We already saw your boss – in his office in Bucerias. “That’s not my boss. That guy has nothing to do with this. You need to go to Tepic”. I really wish I had taken a selfie right then – my face had to be in complete shock. What was going on? So I did what I should have done 11 months earlier. I sat down in a chair in front of his desk and said, “We are not going anywhere – you have to do something.” And then I sat there. For 90 minutes. A standoff of silence. I was not leaving until the inspection forms were stamped and stapled to the other papers. Just. Not. Leaving. He phoned a few people. Told me over and over he couldn’t do anything and I just sat there. After about 90 minutes I said “Look, just fill out the form and give us the plates.” And you know what he said? He said “Okay”, and he pulled out his inspection pad and filled it out in triplicate and handed me the green copy to take back to the DMV office. We were getting plates – and just to be sure, one small ladder stayed behind.
When we arrived back at the Transito office we lined up at the cashier – one last step. But nope. Back to our friendly lady in the office. I am not even exaggerating. She unstapled our stack of papers, made new copies, reshuffled, and restapled. Then she sent us back to the cashier. After another ½ hour or so the cashier went to talk to the woman in the office and they both came to us, “This telephone bill you gave us to prove your address – it is dated September 2016. That’s a year old. We can’t use it- we need a current one.” WELL NO KIDDING IT’S A YEAR OLD – CAUSE THAT IS HOW LONG THIS THING HAS TAKEN. ONE YEAR. Luckily we had just paid our phone bill that morning and it was in our car and we handed it over. Surely that is it right? “No we are missing the original registration to prove it was registered in Canada.” Oh my gosh – you are seriously kidding me. How can you need more papers? You have every paper I have ever owned. It is all stapled in that stack with 1 million staple holes. I don’t have anything else to give you! And then she pulled an email out of the file folder I was carrying. It was the email Grant had sent to the manufacturer asking for another Serial number sticker. “Okay, this is good enough”. WHAT? That paper had nothing to do with the registration – in fact it was evidence we had changed the serial number on the trailer. But it was in English and she had no idea what it said and she was happy to have one more piece of paper. Whatever. Back to the cashier. We paid the fees. And then the cashier handed us all our papers back, divided into 2 piles and told us to go back to the office and get 2 copies of this pile and 3 copies of the other one. WHAT? We were just in that office. She made lots of copies. How can you need more copies? Back to the office. More copies. More fees to pay for the copies. Back to the cashier who stamped every copy, reshuffled the piles, restapled them all.
ell Day 1 was not exactly a success. At all. Except that we did make it through the first Custom crossing and are now traveling in the United States. The Border Guards looked over our list for quite a while and waived us through without even looking in the trailer. So the thing I was most worried about was a breeze. Everything else about today was a tornado.
Karen Moves to Mexico 