A Wedding on our Street

Posted on February 8, 2020 by Karen moves to Mexico

It’s been a while since I have written a blog post and this week, I was challenged by a few different people about that. Some were friends. Some were strangers who have been reading. What happened to us? What happened to our story? And I realized that we have settled into our life here and now it feels normal. Just normal. And I forgot that there’s nothing normal about what we do here, and I need to continue to share it all. Not because you particularly need to hear it – but because I need to tell it. To stay in the moment, experiencing the wonder of it all every day.

What could be a better story to share for my big return than a wedding story. Everyone loves to see a bride and a groom on their big day, and we had a wedding right outside our door this week. An impromptu wedding and honestly, while the bride looked beautiful, the groom didn’t look all that impressed.

It all started with our neighbor named Brittany who lives 3 doors down. She’s around 8 or 9 and although she doesn’t’ speak English, we have lots of conversations and laughs together. Every few days she comes over to take Nacho for a walk with her dog Luna. Apparently on one of those walks, Nacho and Luna fell in love and Brittany decided it was time to formalize the relationship.

A few days ago, we came home to find a note shoved under our door. The note (translated) said: “Hi, I am Luna. Nacho, tomorrow you will marry me. I love you. Please wear a suit. At 1:00. It will be at your house.” Enclosed with the note was a red and white bow tie. To go with the suit, I suppose.

Unfortunately, fate was not on the side of the betrothed. The next day the skies opened and for 3 days it rained. There was no wedding. But on Day 4 the sun came out and the doorbell rang. Luna was standing there in her lovely white wedding dress and her flower girl Brittany was carrying a bouquet of yellow sunflowers. It was time and I quickly tied the red and white tie on Nacho. After 3 days of rain, his white tuxedo coat was a mess, but Luna didn’t seem to mind.

The wedding was short – the groom easily distracted by nearby tires. A quick sniff of the butt instead of a kiss. But Brittany thought it was perfect and we laughed a LOT as Luna kept tripping on her dress in her excitement.

So no, there’s nothing normal about our life here. Up north, I never would have taken time on a Thursday afternoon for a dog wedding with a tiny neighbor who didn’t care that I speak a different language than her. I wouldn’t have spent this morning on my hands and knees drawing chalk art with children from hard places. I wouldn’t be listening to a DEAFENING mariachi band outside my front door while I write a blog story about what it means to live our normal life. And just maybe I wouldn’t be this happy!

For Everything, There is a Season

Posted on May 18, 2019 by Karen moves to Mexico

I have had many people tell me the main reason they couldn’t live in a southern location like Mexico is because they would miss the changing of the seasons. I know what they mean. The crocuses and tulips popping through the ground in spring after the many months of cold. The hot days and nights of summer with vacations and BBQs and lake swims. The reds and golds and oranges of fall leaves. The new crisp air and the change of wardrobes from cutoff jeans to long jeans. From flip flops to sneakers. Everything pumpkin spice. And then the inevitable sudden blast of that first snow. The beautiful frosty trees and the not so welcome blizzards and wind chills and trapped at home snow days. Life in Canada, especially in Saskatchewan, is defined by the change of the seasons and conversation about the weather. Good and bad. So much talk about the weather.

I have learned that here in Mexico there are season changes too – they are just more subtle and don’t look all that much different to the untrained eye of the tourist. But after a couple of years around the calendar, I now recognize that it is time for the shift. We are heading into rainy season and the signs are around us.

First is the temperature. Last week, for the first time in a few months, I felt the trickle of sweat running down my back. My hair screamed to be tied up on top of my head rather than resting on my skin. We turned the air conditioner on in our bedroom to give us overnight relief as we slept. It is getting hotter. Here in Bucerias, the change in temperature is slight – only a couple degrees higher – but the humidity makes it all feel more uncomfortable. There is less difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures, so our cement houses just do not cool down. We are fortunate that our house stays comfortably cool – I can’t imagine those families who live in home with no fans, with thick tarps for walls and roofs.

The dust. Oh, the dust. It has not rained since January – and that was only a few drops. The last real rain was in November – 6 months of closed skies. The unpaved roads spit out giant clouds of dust every time a vehicle rolls by. The plants are gasping for air, their leaves completely choked by the fine dirt. And yet, amazingly, flowers still bloom. The bougainvileas who don’t love water all that much are in their prime now – thick with every color imaginable. And the mangoes. The mangoes are coming! My house has not fared as well. With windows open for needed breezes, every surface is covered with a thin coat of the fine dust. As fast as I remove it with my soft microfiber glove, it returns.

So much dust….

And yet…. new life….

Critters emerge. First the ants. A couple of weeks ago we sat down for our regular breakfast in the garden and saw a GIANT pile of dirt that had been pushed up through a crack in the pavement overnight. As we looked closer, we saw hundreds – maybe thousands – of large ants running around the hill they had created. Coming out from their underground palace. Some say ants sense when rain is coming. That they are getting ready to head indoors. That will NOT be happening in this house my little friends!

We also were visited by a large poisonous cane toad last week – probably looking for water after a long period of winter drought. As per usual, puppy Nacho needed a 3:00 a.m. visit outside. I haven’t decided if he really needs to go peepee every night, or if he is just too bored to sleep – I strongly suspect the latter. But I staggered down the stairs and into the garage to let him out the front door. I could see something in the stray cat’s food dish which sits in the garage and as I bent down and looked closer, I saw the dangerous cane toad. Nacho sniffed at is as well which could have been deadly for him. Cane toads are extremely poisonous and dogs who touch their skin can die within 20 minutes. Being as it was 3:00 and my superhero protector was snoring deeply upstairs, I found a pail and covered the food dish, leaving it for a morning evacuation by someone other than me. Unfortunately, when hubby went down in the morning to bravely save his family, the little poisonous darling had escaped and now I live in fear of whether he is long gone or whether he is waiting amongst the garage stuff to reappear. We have moved all pet food and dishes inside to keep everyone safe, and I am wondering if that was raccoon cat’s plan all along – conquering the final frontier to move from the garage and into our home for good.

The most obvious telltale sign that seasons have changed is the absence of straw hats and palm tree shirts. The tourists have left. Our town is quiet. Many restaurants and shops have closed until October. Our garage is full of unrented golf carts getting bright green makeovers in preparation for fall. Soon Mexican tourists will begin to arrive on the beaches with their giant coolers and pulsing boom boxes.

These are the signs that tell us that rainy season is almost here. Hurricane season officially began this week. There are 19 hurricanes predicted for the Pacific side of Mexico this season. Living in a bay, we are mostly sheltered from such occurrences, but many of our neighboring communities are at risk. As the dangers of the hurricanes pass us by, the winds and rains of the accompanying tropical storms will make themselves known. The clouds have started to roll in. It is almost time. Time for the heavens to open and the pounding rains that come quickly and stop just as quickly. The fun of watching little children dripping with sweat, running around enjoying the cooling waters on their faces. The deep puddles for jumping in…. and getting stuck in. The powerful thunderstorms and mesmerizing lightning shows over the ocean.

These are now my signs of the changing of the seasons. As I think about why that matters, why people love to see the beginning of a new season, I realize that change always brings hope. A new season means the possibility of a new dream, a new experience, a new start to a difficult chapter. We are wired to look for crocuses and sunshine and rains. To rid ourselves of dust and disappointment. To start again. So Happy Spring to you up north and Happy Rains to me and my neighbors here! For everything….. it is time.

To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecc 3:1-8

Maybe our Worst Trip Yet!

Posted on August 11, 2018 by Karen moves to Mexico

It wouldn’t be the first time a road trip between Mexico and Canada clobbered us with challenges and frustrations, but our recent trip last week might top them all.

We knew we would need to take our truck and trailer back to Canada within the next 2 years – our truck was not the correct type or year to be imported – and since Grant’s family had planned a reunion for the August long weekend, we decided that would be a perfect time to drive north. Our intention was to leave Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, drive 2 or 3 days on smooth Mexican toll roads, eat our way through American restaurants, spend a couple of days in my Canadian hometown with my family and some friends and then hop on a plane to Alberta for the reunion on Friday. Somewhere in there we would take our trailer and our truck to a consignment lot and eventually jump on a plane back home. It was a good plan. It should have worked. But…..

The first snag was that we really wanted to have the trailer painted a spiffy black, so it would look a lot younger than its actual years. Of course, when the painter guy said it would take 2 days, he actually meant 4 days, which meant we didn’t get away until Saturday morning. The driving days would need to be longer, the restaurants more fast food than sit down, but we could still make it. Until Guadalajara. Only 4 hours from home we hit our biggest, and scariest, challenge to date.

Guadalajara is a REALLY BIG CITY and we knew it was going to be tricky driving a truck pulling a 30-foot trailer through there. But the highway goes straight through the city. It really is just put the car in Drive and go straight. Unfortunately, Mexican motorcycle drivers seldom just go straight and, on this Saturday, a young man on a motorbike decided it would be faster if he could just weave in and out between vehicles, making the 2 lanes into 3. What he didn’t calculate well was the width of our dually truck and that trailer. As he tried to drive between us and the car beside us, he scraped against the side of the truck, bounced off the trailer and landed under the tires of a Jeep behind us. We didn’t see this happening, but we did hear the squeal of brakes and tires and when Grant looked in the mirror he saw the Jeep run over the young man. We still didn’t realize we had been involved in this accident until someone beside us yelled for us to pull over.

And that’s when we realized this was serious. It looked like the young man was okay, but we still didn’t have a clue what had happened and no one around us was speaking any English. Immediately we pulled out our insurance policy and called an agent – please come, we’ve been in an accident. It didn’t take long until our agent was there as well as the agent of the other driver. Still, no English. So of course, we did what we always do when we can’t speak the language – we called our friend Francisco. 35 times we called Francisco over the next 8 hours as we sorted this all out at the side of the road.

In Mexico, accidents are basically about the insurance settlement – you don’t leave the scene until the insurance has been settled. For the next 2 hours the police measured scratches and took photos and wrote statements while the insurance agents negotiated. Finally, our agent told us that they had reached a settlement – everyone would pay their own damages and that would be the end of this. Huge sigh of relief. Maybe this would be okay. The motorcycle guy obviously had injured his legs and feet, but basically seemed okay.

And then his dad arrived and decided that he was most definitely NOT taking that settlement, and in fact was deserving of receiving money for his injuries. Now I get that Dad was worried for his son, but the police were very adamant that this accident was the young man’s fault and he did not deserve any cash, but Dad was not having it. Either give us money, or we’re going to court.

At that point our agent told us that the deal had fallen apart, we would be going to court on Monday, which meant our vehicles would be impounded tonight. And they could keep them impounded for up to 2 months if they needed further investigation. Oh my gosh. 4 hours into the trip and our vehicles were being seized.

The negotiating continued. The police and the insurance guys kept pushing the father to accept the deal they were offering. If we indeed went to court on Monday, he would probably lose and then he would be responsible to pay all the damages on all the vehicles. But Dad stayed firm and then he made the call that escalated this all to the next level – he called an ambulance for his son. Now this young guy had been sitting there for 3 hours and definitely should have gone to a hospital, but calling an ambulance increased the severity of the situation – and that is when we got the call from Francisco who was clearly upset. The agent had called him to tell him that Grant – as well as the driver of the jeep and the motorcyclist – would be going to jail for 48 hours. Until court on Monday. Grant was going to freaking Mexican jail. I stood there shocked. 48 hours? In jail in Guadalajara? Where no one spoke English? This was so not good. The police lined the other driver up with Grant and 2 women officers came with the necessary paperwork to process the arrests. By this time our friends in Bucerias were frantically calling everyone they could think of who might be able to help. Shortly thereafter, an acquaintance of Francisco and Veronica arrived to see if he could help. He didn’t speak English either, so we will never really know what went on, but he started negotiating with everyone, pushing them to let us go, trying to find a way to make a deal. By this time 5 or 6 hours had gone by and just when we thought the day couldn’t get worse it started to rain. POURING with giant hail stones. They let us jump in our truck and then the streets flooded. Water to the top of the police car’s tires. Just so dark and dismal as we sat waiting for them to take Grant to jail. We hadn’t eaten since 7 am so we were starving. Our agent had gone to buy us a bottle of water, but we had nothing else.

The police kept going back and forth to the hospital and finally things shifted for us. The police had continued to pressure the boy and his family to make a settlement. They continued to resist until the police said “Enough, this accident is your fault and you’re going to jail. You’ll be paying all the damages as well as paying fines for dangerous driving”. Right there they arrested him and took him from the hospital to the jail. They were still planning to come for Grant and the Jeep driver, but after his arrest, motorcycle dude’s family left him alone – they had had enough of this mess – and he agreed to take a settlement. To pay for his own damages and not go to court. Which meant we would be free to go. It was another hour or two before all the papers were drawn up. We had to agree to:

not press charges
not ask for damages
pay the police officers 500 pesos for all their hard work (negotiated down from the 1000 they asked for at first).

By this time, it was after midnight. It was still raining, and we had to find a hotel. We were exhausted, hungry, scared and just really grouchy. But we were okay, Grant was not in jail and the hotel we found agreed to take puppy.

Of course, this wasn’t the end of our troubles. Not even close. The next morning, we came out of the hotel and saw we had a flat tire. After changing it, we left the hotel, eager to get out of this city. We had only been on the highway for 2 or 3 minutes when a siren pulled us over. You have got to be kidding me. I don’t know if we were flagged in the system or if it was a coincidence but again we were on the side of the road trying to talk to policemen who did not speak English and did not look happy. We finally understood that we were not to drive on this highway with this vehicle – we could only drive on the side road, the lateral. Fine, we will do that. And we would have to pay a fine. On Monday. 1200 pesos. Oh my gosh. I do not want to stay here another day. Can we pay you here somehow? Well if you give us 2400 pesos we can pay your ticket for you on Monday. So another 2400 pesos down the drain to the Mexican ‘legal’ system. But we were free to get out of town.

Over the next few days we had challenge after challenge. 5 hours inching along in a 106 degree lineup to cross the border into the US. Vehicle problems. Tires wearing. 5^th gear shot. Some kind of broken belt. Which pointed to some other part that was needing to be replaced. The realization that it was now August and Grant’s driver’s license had expired in July and he couldn’t renew online because it was time for a new picture. Every day more hours behind schedule.

We had already told our family we would not make the reunion by Friday. But Saturday. We would be there Saturday. Our oldest daughter was driving 2 days from Vancouver, so we were not about to give up. But each day it seemed less likely. Our flight was booked for 5:00 on Saturday morning and Friday at noon we were still in South Dakota. Which meant we had to drive through South Dakota, North Dakota and Saskatchewan. We had to drop the trailer at a consignment lot 40 miles north of Regina. We had to drop the truck at our mechanic’s shop. Which we did. At 2:30 am. One hour before having to head to the airport. One hour to spare. After 1 week on the road with accidents and breakdowns and border delays and police encounters, we had arrived with 1 hour to spare.

I know you’re asking why we keep doing stuff like this. Why do we keep driving back and forth hauling vehicles full of weird stuff, encountering weird people and experiencing weird situations? I guess because we’re weird people who are in the middle of doing something pretty extraordinary. Trying to build an unusual life in the best way we know how. Yes, we could have stayed in Canada until all our ducks were in a better row, until our language was better and our bank account bigger. But then we would have missed hugging little Perla today, would not have little girls who need a safe home living with us on weekends, and would not have realized that the things that are most worthwhile in life are always the most difficult.

“I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.” – Rising Strong by Brené Brown.

In the end, we had a fun weekend with family from Canada and the US and Sweden. We celebrated being Swansons. We hugged our daughter and played fetch with our puppy and ate soup with Uncle Paul and Aunt Rita and celebrated cousin Albin’s new log home. We told our stories and laughed about the whole crazy adventure. And then we got on a plane and came home – because this is now home and it is indeed all worth it!

Gael’s Gets His Surgery

Posted on July 11, 2018 by Karen moves to Mexico

Most of you now know the results of our long-awaited trip to Guadalajara for the Cochlear Implant surgery for Gael. It was the day we had been working towards since late last fall when we first took Gael to a doctor to find out just what was possible for him. Since then there have been many trips to many doctors in Puerto Vallarta and Tepic and Guadalajara. Tests and more tests -MRIs, CT scans, Brain stem tests, blood tests, audiology tests. Hours and hours of research to find the best surgeons, the best implant device, the best sign language and speech therapy resources. And of course, the fundraising. 5 months of events and online crowd sourcing campaigns and Facebook posts and email blitzes and PayPal transactions and bank wires. After many setbacks, many date changes and location changes and device changes, we were finally on the road to Guadalajara to have the surgery. Gael, his mom, his teenage cousin, Francisco, myself, Grant and a big red cooler – all piled into the Blue Explorer SUV owned by Manos de Amor. We had a three-bedroom Airbnb booked for 2 nights, the cooler full of important stuff like coffee and peanut butter, and Grant’s leather bag packed with cash. Yes, we were paying the hospital and the surgeon in pesos – a giant pile of pesos.

The surgery was booked for early Tuesday morning and the doctor had asked to see Gael on Monday afternoon at 5:15 in preparation. We headed out around 10:00 in the morning – certainly better than the 3 am start on our previous trip to Guadalajara. We stopped ½ way for some tortas and gorditas and were just coming up to the outskirts of the city when a warning beep and light came on. An oil light saying oil pressure had dropped. Of course. This day had been all together too smooth to be a Swanson story! Almost immediately we saw a small shop that sold oil and other lubricants – how perfect was that! We pulled in and the owner said he only sold products – he didn’t fix vehicles, but he would call us a mechanic. It didn’t take long for a young mechanic to arrive in his beat up blue half ton truck. He looked, listened and agreed that it didn’t sound good. We better not drive any further. Aargh. This was not in our plan for

this week at all. On the up side, we had made it to Guadalajara. Almost anywhere else along the way would have left us stranded in the middle of nowhere. On the down side, Guadalajara is giant, and we were nowhere near the surgeon’s office and now we had 5 adults, 1 deaf boy, a bunch of suitcases and one big red cooler standing by the side of the highway.

The mechanic suggested we call Uber and for the next 3 days that is just what we did. In Guadalajara, Uber only uses small cars for up to 4 people so that was our first challenge. And you can’t call a second Uber with your app until the current trip is finished. So we placed our request and within 5 or 10 minutes Ana Patricia was there. Francisco and Gael and mom and cousin jumped in the car, leaving Grant and I and the luggage and of course the big red cooler on the side of the highway while Grant downloaded the Uber app on his phone. I watched as the tiny car on my phone app rushed Gael to meet Dr.

Macias. They left us at 4:06 – arrived at the hospital at 5:18. 3 minutes late for the appointment we had been planning since last fall. Ana Patricia waited for them outside the hospital – in the end the trip was over 2 ½ hours and it cost $392 pesos – that’s about 20 bucks. For 2 ½ hours. In the meantime, Grant and I had called another Uber and loaded it up and headed to the apartment that would be home for a couple of days.

We had expected to take Gael to the hospital by 7 on Tuesday morning, but instead Dr. Macias decided to admit him Monday night, so he would be prepped and ready for the early morning surgery. His mom was nervous and scared but also excited. She and Gael were given a beautiful private suite with a separate sitting area for her to spend the night. We promised to be there in the morning when Gael came out of surgery.

The surgery took about 3 hours and the doctors told us it had gone perfectly. While there is never a guarantee, they were confident it had been a success. We won’t know for sure until activation day which will be in 6 weeks. That is the day the device will be turned on and Gael will hear.

We were relieved and thrilled. Gael was carried back from the operating room and his mom and I shed a couple of tears as he moaned in pain. His head was wrapped in a giant white bandage. The nurses laid him in his bed and as I leaned over to kiss his cheek he reached up with his one arm and hugged me tightly around the neck. He was groggy and in pain but still the affectionate Gael we love.

I expected him to be dopey and in a lot of pain all day, but it couldn’t have even been an hour before he sat straight up in his bed, grabbed Grant’s phone and started playing Candy Crush. It was as if nothing had happened. Soon he was out of bed, entertaining us and playing with the 2 trucks the hospital had given him. He was concerned as they took his IV line out, didn’t like the teensy drop of blood that was on his hand, but he was amazing and strong and brave and was proud of his bandage when I showed him his picture.

About 9:00 that evening he was released from the hospital and we made plans to go home the next day. Except of course we had no vehicle. After many conversations with the mechanic it was determined a timing chain had broken but he promised it would be repaired by Thursday at noon. Guaranteed. We really didn’t want to keep the whole gang in Guadalajara. Our suite was not available for another day and we couldn’t all fit in one Uber so we had to take 2 cars every time we wanted to go anywhere. So on Wednesday morning Francisco, Gael, mom and cousin headed to the bus station to take a bus back to Bucerias. Grant and I found another suite in the same apartment building that was available, and we moved our suitcase and our big red cooler down the hall. We would stay for one more day – have a mini vacation – and bring the car home on Thursday.

Wednesday was a fun day. We went to the giant Guadalajara zoo and had a romantic dinner in a nearby restaurant. I was ready to be home, but this had turned into a nice bonus day together.

On Thursday morning we called our Uber, loaded our crap into the trunk and headed to the mechanic shop to get our vehicle. He said he was on track – it would be ready by noon. The first problem was that we didn’t really know where the shop was. The address he had given us was super vague. The Uber guy couldn’t figure it out. We knew the general vicinity of where we had pulled over when the whole problem started, but the mechanic had towed the truck to his shop and we weren’t sure where that was. Finally, thinking we were close, we told the Uber driver to let us out and then we piled our suitcase and briefcases and the big red cooler on the side of the road and started asking people if they knew where this shop was. Turns out we had quite a way to go and we weren’t even on the right side of the highway. Luckily there was an overpass to walk over the highway nearby, so we started the long walk to find the shop. Along the way we kept asking people where this shop was, and we got all manners of directions – all of them different. 5 more blocks. 3 more blocks. You’ll have to turn left and go one block. No, it’s on this highway. No back the way you came. We just kept walking. We piled the red cooler on top of the suitcase which promptly hit a hole in the road and dumped the contents of the #*(#**@ red cooler all over the road. Just as we were getting frustrated and a bit grumpy, we came upon the shop. In fact, we almost walked right past it until I spotted the car right out front. Still being worked on. Not quite done.

Fine. I was happy to sit for a while and wait. After a 1/2 hour or so, the mechanic guy got in and started the car. He stepped on the gas. And then we all heard it. A weird knocking noise. It didn’t sound good. Long story short….. the car wasn’t ready. It needed more work. Maybe Monday or Tuesday. Not today.

And that is how we found ourselves boarding a fancy 2-story bus heading back to Bucerias. I laughed when Grant frowned and said, “We’re not really bus people”. No, we’re golf cart people and this bus had huge reclining seats, flip out foot rests, individual TVs, and a free sandwich. A big upgrade for us!

As always, the week had more challenges than expected. It wasn’t all smooth sailing. But we arrived at the correct destination unharmed. Gael had the surgery we’ve been dreaming of for a long time. If all goes as expected, his life will never be the same. The course of his future has completely changed, and we are so grateful for your generous help and God’s provision and protection. And of course – even in the midst of celebrating, there’s another bumpy surprise! The day after Gael got home, a red rash broke out – he now has chicken pox! Oh Gael….

A Big Final Step for Britani

Posted on May 16, 2018 by Karen moves to Mexico

Two steps forward. One step back. ALWAYS! If we think we have something completed, well we don’t. It’s just the way it is and we are learning what it means to be persistent and stubborn and patient. Last November I told you about Britani who was in the process of getting her birth certificate which would allow her to attend school. She is 7 and has never been registered, has never legally existed. So we were excited in November when it seemed the process was finally complete and Britani started school for the first time.

https://karenmovestomexico.com/2017/11/09/good-news-for-britani/

But the story was not finished – not even close. After I wrote that Blog post, things slowed down. The government registration offices said too much time had passed. The final papers we needed were no longer accessible at the hospital – they are only kept for 5 years. The whole process had to start from the very beginning. A lawyer, more offices, more trips to the hospital in San Pancho and saddest of all – no more school for Britani. At the end of December, the school reminded us that 2 months had passed and no papers had been produced. Britani could not return to school after the Christmas break. Just one more sad letdown for this little one.

But Super Director Veronica kept knocking at the door, kept pushing. We kept picking Mama up and driving her to the hospital, to the registration office. It was sad but hilarious when they put Britani’s 7-year-old foot in ink and stamped it in the box on the birth certificate form that was the size of the baby foot it was intended for.

But finally! This week Britani received her Birth Certificate – with Grant and I signing as witnesses and friends and weekend parents. Her life, well it is still full of challenges that make me cry every day, but tomorrow morning she can go to school. She can learn and grow and dream of what she wants to be when she grows up. She can be like the other little girls who are 7. And that is a big deal for Britani!

A Long Awaited Christmas Gift for Pricila

Posted on December 20, 2017 by Karen moves to Mexico

You know well the story of our little weekend girls who have not been able to attend school because they have never been registered with the Mexican registry. In Mexico the rule is “No birth certificate = No school.” In Canada, that process happens in the hospital when our children are born – it is free and it is easy. It is automatic and I never had to question whether my children would be allowed to attend Kindergarten when that big day arrived. But here, it costs money to get a birth certificate and it means going to a few different offices and filling out reams of paper. So some moms just don’t get it done and that means their children will never receive an education. The children who come from difficult places, who need education the most, cannot access it. This has been the case for Britani and Pricila and Mama Vero has been working for many months to get the papers processed. Unfortunately, mom must be involved in the process and that has not always been easy in this family. But over the past couple of months mama has been living nearby and has been cooperative.

The process has been long and it has been difficult. Surprise, right? Because Britani is now 7, her papers were no longer available at the hospital where she was born. They had been sent up to Tepic – a 2 ½ hour drive through winding mountain roads. Veronica, our Super Hero Orphanage director, made 2 trips there but must now hire a lawyer to start a whole new process because too much time has passed. Since the process was underway, the school allowed Britani to begin classes but only for 2 months. If the papers aren’t here in 2 months she will not be able to continue. Unfortunately, the clock is ticking down and it is not looking good. But it is just a matter of time and perseverance and eventually Britani will be registered and in school permanently.

Yesterday the word came that Pricila’s papers were ready to be signed, fingerprinted, sorted, copied and stapled and this morning we all headed over to the Registration office. Pricila put her tiny little fingerprint in all of the correct boxes, Mama signed the papers, and then Grant and I, as her Padrinas, signed as the witnesses.

That made me think about our roles in these little girls’ lives. We have indeed been witnesses… to so much – their pain, their poverty and their brokenness. Their laughter, their affection and their hugs. We have witnessed their sad faces and their joyful hearts. We have witnessed their pranks as they snuck up on a sleeping Grant and scared him half to death. We have witnessed their messy morning hair when they knock on our door at 5:30 am and their late night pyjama movie parties where they slather their popcorn with ridiculous amounts of hot sauce. Last week I witnessed a single tear from Mareli as she watched the ending of a happy Christmas movie. Oh how we hope that we can continue to witness these precious lives and maybe more importantly, we hope to BE WITNESSES to them … of love, of family and of future hope. Of God’s love for little orphan girls.

But for today, Feliz Navidad Pricila – next month you’re going to Kinder!

Happy 99th Birthday!

Posted on June 1, 2017 by Karen moves to Mexico

Happy 99^th 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 99^th 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.

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 100^th birthday will be like!

Feliz Cumpleanos Puerto Vallarta!

A Crappy Week? Or a Great Week?

Posted on May 21, 2017 by Karen moves to Mexico

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??
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 May 14, 2017 by Karen moves to Mexico

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:

No Littering – or you will be punished

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

No Tenting sign – right beside the tent

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!

Of course, directions to important places are important!

Emergency signs don’t always translate well:

Only porpoises can use the phone?

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

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

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?

A Very Long Trip

Posted on April 17, 2017 by Karen moves to Mexico

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.

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.

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

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Karen Moves to Mexico

My story: The craziest idea of my life

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