Tag Archives: living in mexico

2 Mamas, 2 Boys, 2 Showers

Posted on by
2

I have been to 2 Baby Showers in the last month.  I love both of these mamas – they represent totally different parts of my life here and I am excited to welcome both of the little boys that will be arriving any time.  The showers – and the life stories of these moms – were completely different and yet surprisingly alike.

18157921_10212893575482317_2120895677132309211_n - Copy2Marthita and her husband Gregory are pastors at the church we attend – they are some of the first friends we made here and their children Elly and Gady are excited to welcome a new baby brother.  This baby was not easy to create and he was so loved and wanted before he even was conceived.  The ladies at the church planned this fun garden party and it was just a beautiful evening with delicious food and baby boy decorations and lots of gifts for little Mateo.

18944632_10154558954506198_354226748_nLast night I attended another shower – this one for sixteen-year-old Ibet who is also about to have another baby boy.  I say ‘another’ because Ibet is also mom to 3-year-old Kevin.   The first thing that struck me is that we played all the same games as we had played at Marthita’s shower.  I guess these are traditions.  Considering I was the only English speaker at this shower, it was a relief that I kind of understood what was going on as they were wrapping toilet paper all over Ibet, writing on her face with lipstick and taking away nametags whenever anyone crossed their legs.  They had done all the same things to Marthita at her shower.  Although I had pretty halting conversations with the other young moms and their children, we laughed a lot and I felt like I was welcome, although maybe not totally accepted.  I think they weren’t quite sure who the heck I was or what I was doing there – but Ibet had invited me 4 or 5 times and I knew it was important to be there to support her and Kevin and the new little one.   It is not going to be an easy road for this young family and I struggle every day to know how to best help them.  For this week, a few tiny blue clothes and a stroller which will double as his crib is what my heart told me they needed.  I could be wrong.  I just hope they know they are loved and can accept that they are deserving of that love.

A few more weeks – 2 more little boys in our world to love.

Happy 99th Birthday!

Posted on by
Reply

Happy 99th Birthday Puerto Vallarta!  One of the things I love best about my new country is it’s love of parties.  Mexico really loves to celebrate, and although I look around and see a lot of problems, I also see a lot of singing and dancing and joy.  Any excuse to turn up the music is a good excuse – and you can imagine that a 99th birthday is a REALLY GOOD EXCUSE!

Although we don’t live in Puerto Vallarta, we are close neighbors and last night we headed down to the Malecon to celebrate the city’s 99th birthday with our friends.

20170531_194602

20170531_200826

 

 

 

 

 

 

The streets were packed – thousands of Mexican families and gringo tourists singing and dancing along with Celso Pina, the famous Cumbia singer.  My new favorite music!  We were lucky to find a table at an open window on the second floor of a pizza restaurant overlooking the Malecon and the ocean – a perfect view of the band and the fireworks, with room to dance while we ate pizza and sipped sangrias.   It was a great night with great friends and I can’t even imagine what the 100th birthday will be like!

Feliz Cumpleanos Puerto Vallarta!

 

20170531_221311

20170531_214101

 

 

A Crappy Week? Or a Great Week?

Posted on by
Reply

No point lying – this week was difficult, with more bad situations than good.  Or at least that is how I felt at first.  Bad things always take more of our attention, more of our energy, more of our focus. If we’re not careful they will settle in our hearts and become larger than they need to be.  That was my test this week.  Was it a crappy week or was it a great week with a couple of crappy moments?   I mostly failed the test, but when I sit here and think about how to recap our week, I remember we had a lot of great experiences too.  So for the sake of being real I will share some of the bad stuff – but no need to dwell on the details:

  • We had some stuff stolen and lost some stuff – the golf cart keys, Grant’s phone, a watch, a big tub of bungee cords from the back of the truck. Aargh…..
  • I didn’t feel so great.  I had an ear infection and pink eye – painful, plugged ears and red, goopy eyes.
  • We had to take baby Alison to the hospital twice – she had a bad flu and seems to have an allergy to milk. The pediatrician tried to convince her 15-year-old mama that she needs to nurse the baby but she’s embarrassed to discuss that.  She’s 15.
  • We first began the process of importing Grant’s trailer full of tools in September. We have hit roadblock after roadblock.  Months of bureaucracy.  Come back in 3 months.  Bring more papers. Bring different papers.  Pay more pesos.  We finally made it to the final stage of getting the actual plates but needed one last inspection.  We took all the papers – stamped by every imaginable Mexican department – to the inspection place.   And then….. No.  The serial number on our Saskatchewan registration form does not match the serial number on the paperwork done at the border in Nogales.  WHAAAT??
    20170519_113818.jpg

    Doomed inspection

    In all these steps no one had noticed that the trailer manufacturer had placed 2 VIN stickers on the trailer.  Saskatchewan had recorded one of them.  Mexican had recorded the other.  And they don’t match.  “Okay but senor, you can see both stickers are there.  It is clearly the same trailer.”  No sorry – you will have to take the trailer back to the border and start over.  Have you ever seen 2 gringos stand and just stare blankly at a Mexican official – no language, no emotion.  Just unbelief.  Our only hope is that he said to come talk to his supervisor on Tuesday – maybe he will have a solution?

 

BUT, we had some fun too.  Yesterday we went roller blading AND boogie boarding.  One afternoon we took the golf cart and the Bucerias map and drove up and down a whole bunch of streets and neighborhoods we had never experienced before.  Everywhere we went people waved at us and children ran alongside our cart.  We found new restaurants, new tiendas (stores), new potholes and speed bumps and dirt piles.

Friday we bought a piñata for little Kevin.  Last week when we picked up Jose, his little 2-year-old nephew Kevin kept saying he wanted a piñata.  I have no idea where he got that idea from but he was very serious in his request.  So I told him I would bring a piñata on Friday when we came back.  Of course, I promptly forgot my promise and on Friday morning Grant reminded me.  My first thought was “Oh, he won’t remember I said that”, but after Grant gave me the look of incredulous shock, I remembered how important it is for these children to be able to trust our word and to be able to depend on us.  So we went piñata and candy shopping in a little shop in San Vicente.  The only piñatas they had were far bigger than Kevin but I filled that giant Spiderman with a pile of candy and we delivered it to Kevin.  He was so excited – I expect Kevin has never had anything given just to him.  In a few weeks his 16 year old mama will give him a brother and he will have even less for himself.  We couldn’t stick around to play with him as we had to take baby Alison to the hospital but before we drove away I saw a whole bunch of 2 year olds – most with few clothes, no shoes, droopy diapers – gathering to have their own piñata party in the dirt.

Last night we had good friends over.  I grumbled about our week.  I think I whined.  But as we sat in our candlelit garden sipping coffee and eating cake, I remembered that I really love living here and believe I am placed here for a purpose.  I don’t love everything that happened this week, but I know that every good thing comes with opposition.  I believe in spiritual battles.  And I believe in being bold in spite of it all.  I believe that this week Kevin needed a piñata and that Alison needed to get to a doctor.  I believe that 12 children will have better lives because they learned a couple new English words and were kissed on the forehead by Maestra.  I believe in the Good Shepherd who leads me through the valley and to the still waters on the other side.  So I just step out in faith and say “This was a good week”.

Who Follows Signs Anyway?

Posted on by
Reply

One of the things we love about Mexico is the more relaxed and fluid attitude about almost everything.  Except for driving, things just move slower here and matter less.  Manana is real.  Sometimes that can drive us crazy.  Our insurance agent told me three times in the past 2 weeks that she will call me back in 5 minutes.  I am still waiting – and I suspect she had absolutely no intention of calling me back.  People don’t mean what they say and rules are meant to be ignored.  The up side is that we can get away with a lot and we feel a kind of freedom that you won’t find in Canada.  On Friday we decided to take our golf cart into Centro to find a burger, which meant going the wrong way down the highway lateral for a block.  Meh.  No one cared and a woman on a motorcycle slowed to let us pass with a big smile.  We then drove right through the middle of the market stalls yelling “permiso”  so that vendors would pick up their chairs and move out of our way.  They just smiled and waved us through.  I can’t even count how many traffic rules we broke, but the burger made it worth it.

The trick is to figure out when ‘they’ mean it – we have been given tickets for not wearing a seat belt (fair), for going through a yellow light (come onnnn), for driving too slow (what?) and for speeding (we weren’t – and the electronic speed sign RIGHT BESIDE US proved it).

Here are some signs around our neighborhood that don’t seem too effective:

20170109_185159

No Littering – or you will be punished

20170421_195026

No Parking – Respect my space and I’ll respect your car

IMG_20160101_184029

No Tenting sign – right beside the tent

20170330_130211

No Passing – on the double solid yellow line.

These photos below come from videos I took of stop signs a block from my house – neither of these cars even slowed down.  I don’t even know what that sign on the right is for – it is in the middle of a block and there is not a crossroad there at all.

And these aren’t the only unheeded stop signs in the Bay.  Last year approximately 20-30 new stop signs were installed in Nuevo Vallarta – I have never seen anyone stop yet.

Of course some ‘signs’ are useful for finding what you are looking for since addresses are completely useless here.  This church used what was handy to point the way!

20170115_185933

Of course, directions to important places are important!

IMG_20140727_164546

Emergency signs don’t always translate well:

IMG_00002548

Only porpoises can use the phone?

070

Warning at the Zoo…. “Hello Giraffe, please meet my hand….”

But you don’t always need language to get the message:

294.JPG

IMG_20160312_152633

No flip flops for construction workers on this site

Warning signs are always good but unfortunately this DANGER: Do Not Use sign was only at one end of this sketchy bridge and we saw it after we had crossed over.

And finally, this sign is just an irony I laugh at every day.  One of the main reasons we moved was to get away from Canadian winters.  Well now I live on Calle Invierno:   Winter St.  What are the odds?

20170514_122504.jpg

Happy Mexican Mother’s Day

Posted on by
Reply

No, I’m not early in wishing you a Feliz Dia de La Madre – here in Mexico Mother’s Day is always celebrated on May 10th, no matter what day of the week it is.  Our observation so far is that this day is celebrated with:

  • Flowers
  • Cake

While we were at Costco waiting for our battery to be tested (nope it was no good so they gave us a new one) we watched all the carts go by on their way out the door.  The place was packed with Mexicans (usually it’s mostly Gringos at Costco) and there was a constant lineup to get out the door.  Well over 90% of the carts had at least one bouquet of flowers – most had 2 or more.  And more than 80% had a cake.  Flowers and Cake in almost every single cart.    We also saw a lot of tables set up in the streets selling bouquets and the street vendors at every stop light were doing a brisk sale of their roses.  Tonight as we drove home from our evening with friends, we saw families with tables set up in the streets, laughing and listening to loud music.  And eating cake.

Feliz Dia de las Madres!

20170510_152155

20170510_152140

A lot of flowers and a lot of cake!

20170510_205741

Mexican Mother’s Day Dinner with my Mexican children

Saturday Night Is for Dancing

Posted on by
Reply

We have settled into our routine – although it is still pretty flexible and I intend to keep it that way.  I work at my desk in the morning – answering emails, planning programs, balancing budgets.  Grant putts around in the garage – fixing stuff or making stuff – inevitably needing some part he will never find.  Our afternoons are spent at the orphanage – teaching English 2 days a week, and being silly the other 3.

But Saturday is for experiencing Mexico and on Saturday nights we often jump in the car with our friends and head to one of the nearby towns to hang with the locals in the town square.  There are 18-20 towns in the surrounding area and every one has a town square with a raised bandstand and colorful flags and ice cream vendors and taco stands.  Each town has a specific night in which the community will gather in the square to listen to music, dance and visit with their neighbors.  Grandmas and Grandpas dance together while little children run among them.  Old men in cowboy hats sit in circles telling stories and teens flirt with one another.  Although Grant and I are often the only gringos in the square, we are welcomed as though we belong.  It is fun and we stay until the band stops playing at 10:00.  2 weeks ago we spent the evening in San Juan de Abajo and last Saturday we were off to La Cruz de Huanacaxtle.  I am a terrible dancer, made only worse by the Mexican quick tempo music and the realization that everyone around me was born with the rhythm DNA that my white parents did not have.  Grant is worse.  But we have fun anyway and we feel like we are becoming part of the fabric of our community.Map

The town of San Juan de Abajo

Fresh, hot Mexican Churros – tastes just like a mini donut at the fair

20170429_195402

20170429_200202

As we head into summer months, the demographics have shifted drastically.  Most Canadians and Americans have now headed home.  Many shops and restaurants have reduced their hours or closed completely. It is sinking in that we are definitely not here on vacation.  As we walked into one empty Mexican restaurant, it’s owner asked  “What happened, did they leave you behind?”.

“Nope – we live here now.  We’re locals”.   Best. Words. Ever.

El Dia de Ninos – Kid’s Day

Posted on by
Reply

In Canada, we look forward to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day – a day for children to express love for their parents.  Mexico celebrates those days too.  But every April 30th since 1925, Mexico has also celebrated Children’s Day, El Dia de Ninos.  It is a day – a few days actually – where everyone stops what they are doing to honor children.  We noticed that even in the poorest neighborhoods, homes were decorated with balloons and children were hauling around bags of candy.  I spend a lot of time with children here and I tend to see all the things that are wrong – poverty, disease, lack of decent education and medical care and shelter.  But when I let myself relax a bit I also see a country where family is important, where children are allowed to play with abandon and where laughter is loud and common.

This weekend we celebrated Dia de Ninos twice – once with the children of Casa Hogar and one with the children in our community.  Because Natalia’s birthday fell on Thursday and the children had Friday off school, we had a combined Birthday/Children’s Day party.  Natalia and her brother and sister live at Casa Hogar during the week to help their mom who works at night during the week.  She is young and had her first daughter as a very young teen. But she loves her children in the best ways she can and they love her too.  On Friday, she brought a giant pot of pozole and a cake for all of us to share.  We played some games, had a dance party and eventually filled up the water balloons for a giant water fight.  It was a super fun day for the children and the grown-ups too.

Natalia’s mom (top) brought delicious pozole for us all to share

Water fights and dancing party – yup I was soaked too!

On Sunday night, the local church had a community Dia de Nino’s party – over 300 children showed up to play games, eat hotdogs and cake and watch a bunch of Trolls tell them that Jesus loves them.  We picked up Jose to come to the party and while we were waiting at the house his 3-year-old nephew Kevin gave me the ‘look’.  The ‘please don’t leave me here while you take Jose to a party’ look.  “Do you want to come too Kevin”.  Giant smile.   His 16-year-old pregnant mom gave me a tired smile and a nod.  So Kevin came for his first big outing with us.  I don’t think Kevin has been out of his neighborhood often and he clung to Grant and I as he tried out the activities.  I have never seen a child ravage a hot dog like that and by the end of the evening my dress was literally dripping with green juice, snot, and catsup.  Once I asked Grant, “Do I even want to know what I feel dripping down my leg right now?”.  Twice he wiped out on the play structure hard enough to make most children cry – instead Kevin got up and kept going, not wanting to miss a second of this new freedom.

Kevin’s first adventure

20170428_130708

Hanging with my buddy Lucio

Obviously, I still worry about the children in this country.  Every day Grant and I get up and we work to find ways to help the children in our lives experience futures with hope and opportunity and possibility.  But this weekend we put that all aside and we joined with our community in celebrating these little people and the simple lives they live today.  Feliz dia de los ninos mis amigos!

The Road to Fun

Posted on by

Okay this is what I signed up for!  No we didn’t spend the day by a fancy pool in a gated community sipping pina coladas which is what I THOUGHT I was signing up for.  Today we went for a spin around the neighborhood in our finally finished ‘restored’ golf cart.  Over dirt piles, into potholes, around roosters and horses and dogs.   We picked up children along the way and stopped for a lunch in a tiny new restaurant – less than $10 for 2 giant meals including soup, drink and dessert!

 

This golf cart has been my husband’s project over the past few weeks – Grant cannot be at peace unless he is fixing something.  And this REALLY needed fixing.  It had been donated to the orphanage and the children had used it as an experiment to figure out how things work.  Wires were pulled off, tires were shredded, the oil tank was full of water and the gas tank was full of toys.  We even pulled an MP3 player out of some random crevice yesterday.  Before going to Canada we had ordered all the needed parts to get this thing back on the road – we picked up some in Montana, had more shipped from Arizona.  We drove into Vallarta to get vinyl for the seats and had a local guy sew them up.  So today we set out exploring some of the back roads between our house and the orphanage.  We waved at old grandpas wearing sombreros and sitting on broken chairs outside their homes.  We were chased halfheartedly by the neighbor dogs and laughed at by toddlers in diapers.  It was just fun and it reminded me why we are doing this – to see life through a childlike lens of joy and simplicity.  Today I felt like a kid – and it was fun!

Check out the progression….

What on earth have they done to this thing???

16996342_10154285043581198_7573674399306282629_n

We’re on the road but it looks like we’re heading to war

Some paint…. some upholstery….. a top….

20170419_120443

Ready to pick up some passengers and hit the road! 

A bit nervous about what his next project will be….

A Very Long Trip

Posted on by
Reply
20170328_152525

On the road again

No point lying.  It was not an easy trip from Nogales down to Bucerias.  It was really long – and pulling a 32 foot red box full of heavy stuff for over 5000 km is bound to come with challenges.  We were pleased to cross the border with relatively few problems, but that left us with 1570 kms to go and of course, it would not be uneventful.  Although we arrived at the border on Friday, we could not meet with the broker until Monday – and honestly we really needed a couple of days rest in Arizona over the weekend.  We set out on Monday morning, and after spending a few hours at the border, we only made it about 4 hours to Hermosillo.   The next day we went as far as Culiacan.  That is not our favorite place to stop – it’s El Chapo’s town – but it was the most convenient and we found a decent place to stay with a parking lot big enough to accommodate our crazy rig.   It was our plan to make it home or close to home on Wednesday – I had a plane to catch on Friday – but that was not to be.  We set out on Wednesday morning, and after only going about 40 miles we heard the clunk you don’t want to hear. Another tire gone.  And this time when we looked closer we saw that the axle on the trailer was completely broken.    So there we were on the only stretch of highway I don’t feel that comfortable on – Culiacan to Mazatlan – with a broken axle and shredded tire.   When you travel on toll roads on Mexico, you are entitled to roadside assistance when you have breakdowns and I had the number for the Green Angels in my phone.  When I called them they told me they don’t look after trailers, but they gave me another number to call.  That number put me through to a dispatcher in Mexico City who tried to understand where we were and who said he would send help.  At that point I decided it was time to call in the heavy guns – my friends Francisco and Anita.  Francisco and Anita are Mexican Americans who are living in Bucerias as they finalize the adoption of their sweet son.  They have become good friends and I needed to hear the voice of a good friend.  Who spoke Spanish.  So Francisco set to work calling the highway patrol for us and after about 4 hours two kind men showed up with a tow truck.  A small tow truck that had absolutely no possibility of towing our trailer.  They knew of a welder who lived nearby, and after about 2 more hours he showed up to spot weld our axle so that we could at least drive the 2 hours to Mazatlan.  We would try to find a new axle or a trailer repair shop there.

6 hours staring at this corn field thanks to this broken axle

We drove slow and made it to Mazatlan, exhausted and starving.  I started to look at bus routes and plane schedules – we thought perhaps we would leave the trailer there and return for it in a couple of weeks.  But when we started to look for trailer repair shops we realized our plan was impossible.  We eventually found an American guy who repairs trailers but when we met him on Thursday morning he told us he had absolutely no time and there was no chance of getting a new axle for many weeks.  The only thing we could do was drive home – slowly.  Unfortunately, the very worst part of the trip was still ahead.  From Tepic to Bucerias is only around 140 km, but it takes close to 3 hours to drive it.  It is a windy, hilly mess with crazy drivers who pass on the DO NOT PASS curves and we knew our trailer was going to be a hazard.

20170330_171134.jpg

 

We decided to take a detour to San Blas which is still an insane road but with less traffic.  By the time we reached San Blas it was late afternoon.  It is an interesting beach town and we stopped to eat some roadside sweets before tackling the final stretch.

Those last 3 hours were murder.  It was dark, we were exhausted and traffic on the curvy road was insane.  If my husband wasn’t already my hero, he definitely became one for me that night.  I don’t know how he did it but we made it home – with 12 hours to spare before I had to head to the airport to catch my plane to Cuba.

Yes, it was difficult.  It was exhausting. It was scary.  But it was worth it.  I think that’s how many of the best things in life come to be.  Through great pain.  I sometimes wonder how many times I have quit something that could have been great because I thought the pain was too much.   This time we couldn’t quit – we had to see it through and I am so grateful.  Grateful for a husband who just kept driving, for friends who spent the day tracking down help and checking in on us, for 2 highway patrol guys who stayed with us until we could head out, for a welder who welded the heck out of the axle so that we could make it home.  Grateful for the knowledge that no matter how difficult this all is, we are exactly where we are meant to be and the craziness of the journey just makes arriving at the destination all the sweeter.

20170416_094307.jpg

Sharing Easter breakfast with our Road Angels – Francisco & Anita and little Ivan

We’re In – And so is our Stuff

Posted on by
Reply

Today was a surprisingly good day – and by ‘good’ I mean our ridiculously large trailer full of ridiculous items were allowed to join us here in Mexico.  This was a day I have longed for and worried about for a long time.  Although I don’t believe your identity is in your belongings – I believe the total opposite – there is no doubt that after 35 years of marriage we have gathered many things that we love and that make us feel at home, especially when everything else around us feels so unfamiliar.

As we packed, we really did purge an awful lot.  We sold lots, donated lots, pitched lots.  But we also packed lots and our reasons changed throughout the process.  After living here in Mexico for most of the last 18 months, I have realized the value of many of the things I wanted to get rid of.  I see so many needs and realize that some of these things just might be exactly what someone else needs.  For instance, I absolutely do not want to sew any more – but what if a young mom could use that old sewing machine to earn some income for her family?  What if someone living up in the surrounding mountains,  where winters are cold could really use some of the blankets I will never need?  And the kid’s games and Wii stuff – how fun for our Manos de Amor children who sometimes come to visit.  So we packed more than we intended to and spent these last few days pulling the monster trailer through USA, knowing that the border crossing might be difficult and scary.  We had done it with the tools in September and were not excited to do it all again.

But today went much better.  After getting the permit and approval from the consulate on Friday, we arrived at the Custom Broker’s office at 9:00 this morning.  It took about 1 ½ hours to get a bunch more papers filled out and signed – for a country of very loosy goosy rules, Mexico sure does love its paperwork.  We then headed to the Border, a few miles down the road.  There we were sent through a giant x-ray and then told to back up to a loading bay.  Unfortunately, they asked told us to start unloading the trailer.   They wanted to see all the way up the middle of the trailer and along the right side.  Apparently, there were recently two cases where people smuggled in video games and medication, hidden in mattresses, so security was tight.   We had packed that trailer – twice – like an enormous Jenga puzzle.  Everything JUST fit and there was not an inch to spare.  So to unload it and put it all back was terribly frustrating for us.  The good news is there were 2 guys to help – the bad news is they had obviously never played Jenga.   After the inspection, we did get it all back in but I expect it to explode like a spring loaded jack-in-the-box when we open that back door.  Altogether, the whole process took about 4 hours and then we were back on the road.

 

We now have 2 more long days of driving.  It’s not over yet.  But we are in.  Our stuff is in.  We have everything we need to make a comfortable home -and hopefully share some of our stuff with some new friends who need a hand.  Mainly, we are just really ready to be at home.