My 150th post about Mexico!

In the moonlight you can clearly see the path everyone walks from my house to the big house. In the daylight, all the dust looks the same. I love walking in the dark here in general. The roads naturally light up since they are made of gray gravel, white sand, and yellow dust. If I had to walk on paved roads at night, it wouldn’t be as magical.

They threw me a great surprise going away party tonite. It was soooo special. I now have a prayer shaw, my very own praying flashcards, and even a couple home decorations!!! The sweetest thing was what people shared though, things like that I was a good mom, a prepared mom, that I’m well-educated/smart (that’s always a hard one for me to believe, don’t know why) that I’m kind…I should have written down what people said, but after the lasagna, salad (with Spinach!!! And Feta!!! Fancy ☺ You can only get Feta in the states), and after the beautiful cake, a gigantic heart cake, with turquoise ribbons- which were the same color as the shaw Johanne knit me, and after Dance Dance Revolution, how could I even pretend to remember ANYTHING? I tried to teach the 9 yr old E---- how to DDR, but I’m not sure she figured it out. I was really touched, and really surprised. I thought at the most we might have a little dinner with just a few people or something. The fact that they were so willing to turn it into a dance party! Just for me ☺ was very touching.

Today has just been full of fun, this morning was women’s meeting at 6:30, then at about 10:40 we left for the pools (two hours late I might add). We stayed at the pools till 5 or so for the graduation ceremony and fun cookout. It was cold outside, but the mountains are beautiful and the water was bluer than fake water whose saturation has been messed with in films. It wasn’t too cold for the kids to swim though.

Tomorrow I’m taking a fun trip to Ensenada, to goof off for the day with peers (Hope said I was good at being both a mom and a peer in here “eulogy” for me). It’s a “big tourist town” with half a million people, but there is only one 6 lane bowling alley, no putt putt, only 2 movie theatres. There IS the “second-largest of three known major marine geysers in the world.” (from wikipedia No plagiarism here folks!) I’ve already visited it twice. I think we’ll find something to do though. They have a cultural center (which I visited once for a meeting for children’s services, but we only were in a meeting room) and an art museum, which we plan on stopping by, and if we really don’t have much to do we can watch the cruise ships come in and out, or go to Costco! or Walmart! (I live 2 hours away from a Walmart/Calimax/Costco/any grocery superstore, and my life hasn’t fallen to pieces, can you believe it???)

Ok. I have a feeling this next week I’m not going to go to bed on time once!

Convos.

Thursday morning convo:
V- We’ve had oatmeal 3 times in a row exits back door
Me- excuse me?
V- re-enters, heard Me through door We’ve had oatmeal 1 time in a row
Me-that’s not what you said the first time
V- yes it is!
Me- we had Oatmeal on Monday, Doughnuts on Tuesday, French Toast on Wednesday, and now we’re having Oatmeal again
V- that’s what I said, 1 time in a row.
Me-I guess my ears are broken

Almost regular conversation upon entering the car
E- Do you know how to drive?
M-Do you know where to go?
E- Can you even drive on the highway?

(This however is understandable, b/c many people {and my perception is that more men drive than women} don’t drive in our part of Mexico, and even some who have cars only drive the dirt roads and not the main highway. I may drive everyday, but probably only once or twice a week on the paved road)

Convo with Boy who DROVE to my house to sell veggies
Boy- Do you want to buy a box of tomatoes?
Me- How much?
Boy- $10
Me- ok. Are you or your brother going to carry it in….wait? How old are you?
Boy- I’m 12, He’s 8.

(This made me sad. There is school here, you can go in the morning, or in the afternoon, the big cost is the uniform pieces. People ask if there is child labor here. I doubt there is much that the gov’t knows about, sure some farms do illegal things, but there is much more child labor in the oldest staying home to tend to the other siblings/housework while Mom/Dad goes to work.)

and last but not least, the Mexican idiom for having a wedgie is "the donkey wanted to eat grass"

assortment...

assortment is just another word for too lazy to write about any one thing.

Well- I did take V--- to see if another family had anything we wanted. They were having a garage sell, but it was all free. She kept picking out stuff we didn’t REALLY need. But it’s the hardest to say No when it’s principally for other people. She wanted a boxing game for L---, and a really used Camel water bottle for Dad, and the ab roller for Johnny, and beans for Mom and… well you get the idea.

I made French Toast, and everybody ate breakfast, unlike when I make Oatmeal. French Toast, while it seems harder than pancakes, is actually easier for me.

While out running errands today I stopped by a bakery with the intent to buy a treat. I did not since I wanted sugary, sugary crème filled bread, but all they had was sweet breads and seashell shaped bread, with sugar stamped on top. Also, a driver for the propane company passed me, and we live in a small enough town, and our family phones them enough that he waved and smiled. This could be related to me frantically calling them yesterday to fix the bad tank they gave us (my words). They came out once, but went to the wrong house. I phoned again an hour later wanting to cook very badly (gas stove) and they said no one was at our house! So I re-explained how to get out there and they came. Turns out, our hose that connects to the propane tank developed a leak in it over night. So not their tank’s fault, but our fault. Oops.

I like it when the kids tell each other things we tell them. I heard one of them (V---) telling L--- he needed to love his enemies, and that he doesn’t love them b/c he does this and this and this. She listed his faults very scientifically.

One of my kids chose not to go to school last Tuesday, nor this Tuesday. (I couldn’t force her, I suppose that’s always the day her typewriting hmk is due) After her friends came back from school on Tuesday, they said that only 10 (of 30) kids showed up and so her teacher went home and they combined their class with the other class. I asked why so many would skip, and (according to my kids) it’s because that many kids don’t have a typewriter and couldn’t do the homework, so instead of coming without the homework and just failing out of that class, they skip the whole day. They want them to use old fashioned typewriters, not electric ones, nor computers. I can’t even understand it. I had one teacher explain to me that computers are different than typewriters b/c you get immediate feedback when you use a compu, and you can continually be looking at your results. I remember learning the immediate feedback helps learners self correct more often, and make them more successful at the task. I’m trying not to have a chip on my shoulder about this. (I also would not allow my kid to do something just b/c every other family allowed their kid to do it- i.e. skip school)

We have a new lady helping in our house a lot. She’s bilingual, and yet there are things she looks at me funny about. Apparently my kids shorten all the words, compu (computadora) , refri (refrigeradora), bici (bicicleta)…so consider this a warning, I may come back from Mexico talking all wrong.

10 days and I’ll be home…

dirty kitchen, clean food?

We have a pretty sooty kitchen right now.
One of the burners isn’t burning clean, so all the pots and pans and skillets have soot on the bottoms and sides. The kids have put said pots and pans in the fridge to store leftovers, so the black magically migrates to the fridge, and also to the countertops, and to my sleeves and your brand new shirt.
C--- wanted to cook eggs before heading to school, and so she cleaned one of the skillets that was waiting to be washed, but she was too impatient with the second step of the process. Rinsing is VERY important, unless you want to eat an egg with a bunch of soap bubbles on it, which she shockingly did. Maybe the chili has burned off her taste buds.


oh, J--- is working on her new math book, but it looks she should have done this one BEFORE the one she already did. hm.

I'm almost gone

J--- passed her math test, the one she took the day after Mother’s Day!!! Yay. She only has two more tests to get her 6th grade certificate! One is about “being young” (sex, drugs, alcohol) and the other is another math test. So fingers crossed! We do still need her birth certificate to continue her in school. I really need the gov’t to get on that.
The next opportunity she has to take tests is the Monday after I leave, or in 2 weeks. Can you believe I only have 2 weeks left here??
I can’t. and it seems like every song lyric I hear speaks to me about it…. “throw my heart out on the stones, and I’m almost gone” or “where we gonna find the eyes to see a brighter day”
I’ve been mourning slowly this departing since January. I even had problems when I was home, I’d drive past/through an agricultural area and my heart would go up in my throat.
I’ve learned a lot of things that I didn’t anticipate, like how to cook better. I find that when I have free time I listen to music in English, not Spanish, which I would have never predicted. I think it’ll reverse when I’m back in the states.
I’d like to find a job, I’m not sure which job would be the best though, as soon as I get some more free time I’ll get more to work on that.

I’m having trouble with one of the girls. She keeps comparing our place to other places she has lived in, apparently they were all better then ours. They didn’t count out how many strawberries you could have (I did it so everybody would get a fair amount- didn’t want them fighting like vultures). They bought you new clothes every week (we let her earn money to buy some pants, she spent her money on junk food). They only served Mexican food (we had Spaghetti tonite). I probably don’t mean this, but I would rather her be nice to my face and only say those things behind my back. Although, she could start some kind of revolution if I’m not careful. I’m trying not to let her change my attitude. I think the only way to fix this would be to build a relationship with her, and that’s not going to happen in 2 weeks. I also think that after living in 6 places, she has a lot of home life styles to compare. The most recent place she lived besides our house, was a temporary place- they needed to place her, and my girls told her how fabulous and perfect our lives are here, so I’m sure she has unmet expectations.

Oh, on a Mexican radio station they had the song “Dust in the Wind” playing, but in SPANISH. Sooooo crazy!

I had a nice chat about jealousy the other day with a couple of my friends. When we are intimidated or jealous of others, we often avoid them. Instead of this affecting us poorly, and just being “our own loss”, it also affects those we avoid, those we think are perfect and don’t need us. It punishes them in a way.

I’m falling asleep writing this, blogging earlier in the morning tomorrow…

They're tiny and their tooney...

Some kids really live up to their names....


One of my kids’ names is only one letter different than Elmira. Remember the character from Looney Toons? She always said this about animals “I just want to hug ‘em and squeeze ‘em and kiss ‘em and hold ‘em and love ‘em forever and ever.” During her death grips on them, their eye balls would pop of the sockets as they would try to claw their way out of her affectionate assaults.

This post is going to be dedicated to “Elmira’s” adventures with animals.

Recently, a small dog followed a child home. This dog is owned by another missionary family. When “Elmira” saw Ruby she locked her in her room b/c she couldn’t “walk back home on her own.” It was already dark out and they didn’t want her to get hurt. “Elmira” and her sister tucked Ruby into the bottom bunk, with a bowl of dog food dumped on their bed room floor. When we found them asleep on their bedroom floor the next morning, they made it clear to us they were protecting Ruby. We made it clear to them that Ruby can hold her own. One of the older girls told me to tell "Elmira" not to do that, b/c she'll get bugs in her bed, and I said, you and I aren't sleeping in it? :) I did tell her that Ruby doesn't belong locked in their room.

A yellow lab puppy that belongs to the neighbors often wanders over to our house. I’ve seen the girls walking around with it in their arms, even though it’s approximately their size. I’ve also seen it with a dress on, and being pushed around in a baby stroller.

The old golden retriever, Kona, that lives with us has been seen with my favorite apron tied on it’s back.

Friday, we were looking for Tyson, the pit bull, to take him to guard the new property for the night with our Rottweiler. Jose was walking all around the house/property calling his name. I was looking in the house, and thought it was extraordinarily strange that we didn’t find him right away. Jose told me he thought he’d seen the dog go into Mom’s room, and would I check? So I went in there, but no sign of the dog.
When I came back out “Elmira” suspiciously closed the bathroom door with the light still on, exiting and remaining there, hands behind her back still grasping the door knob. I asked who was still in the bathroom. “Tyson” she said.
“Jose and I have been looking for him, why would you hide him from us?”
“He’ll bite Jose.”
I just sighed and told her we don’t lock dogs inside bathrooms.
Really, I think she didn’t want the dog spending the night out at the property, she just underestimated her power of preventing that.

C—although not “Elmira”, has also done her fair share of dog/people torture, the last few days. A weirmeir (a gigantic dog!) is visiting us while Hannah visits. This dog’s name is Papi, and it is terrified of C—and with good reason. She gives it these big neck hugs and chases it around the house telling it what to do like it’s a toddler, “don’t lick that, eat this, bite her” (that would be me.) She grabbed my sweater that I happened to be wearing and tried to provoke the dog with it. I asked her not to damage my clothes. Also, the word Papi comes in a very popular song, which C—has found appropriate to sing/rap at him every 30 seconds, just the chorus though, which is probably more torturous than getting my clothes destroyed.

Consider this a fair warning, not to bring your pets around if you don’t want to have to pay for pet therapy later… ☺

June Cleaver never says, "I quit."

We had a costume party on Saturday for a 16th birthday party. I didn’t want to dress up b/c it was too much effort, and I knew some people had sweet outfits planned that I couldn’t compete with. I did have pearls, a full skirt, heels, and an apron, so I conceded and went as June Cleaver. There was an award for “most out of character” which the girl who went as Juno won.

I baked some cookies Tuesday, GUESSING while I worked. And I’ll give you one GUESS how they turned out…

.,..tastey-tastey.

We’d had a chiropractor and his wife visiting. I got adjusted for the first time in my life. (I also couldn’t stop laughing on the table, there were several people waiting their turn, and my inability to stop laughing made everyone else in there crack up too.)
Since I had such a nice experience I baked cookies to thank them.

Someone had rearranged all the kitchen stuff, although I had a recipe in front of me, I could only find the 2/3 cup measurement and NOTHING ELSE. (Can you quit before you start, because I definitely threatened it!!) I liberally scooped in flour, poured in vanilla , did a pinch of baking soda, and a pinch of salt- I felt pretty rebellious or reckless. I dumped in a can of crushed pineapple, (which I drained the juice off of and drank- C---- looked at me and said, “gross!” and I said, “that’s just like pop or juice that you would buy.”) I sprinkled oatmeal on top of it, and crunched some almonds in. I estimated with the sugar (white and unrefined white) and mixed.

I defrosted butter, but too well :) and not on a plate or anything, just in it's wax wrapper. M--- opened the microwave to a mess. She said, "eww, who did this?" and I got high and mighty and said, "whoever left a mess in the microwave has to clean it up." before I realized it was my mess. hehe. That was the second time I said, "I quit."

Really, my intention had been to make white chocolate chip cookies, but someone had ate them all (mysteriously, just like other food mysteriously disappears, including that sliced Provolone I brought back from the states. Granted I didn’t hide it very well.) I hadn’t noticed that we didn’t have chocolate chips until I’d already made the dough. I know I should check for all ingredients before I begin something, but the chips were there the day before! That was the third time I said, "I quit." But Hannah animated me to finish them.

After everything was stirred well, and I added another liberal amount of vanilla, I tasted the dough, which C--- once again told me was gross, and that I shouldn’t eat the dough b/c I’ll get sick. I kindly disregarded her advice and gave dough to Hannah to try.

Cooked, they came out looking like gourmet cookies, AND tasting like gourmet cookies, taste infinitely more important than looks.

So I’ll accept losing the “most out of character” award. Because only June Cleaver could make perfect cookies in such an imperfect situation, without measuring the ingredients, creatively thinking of replacement ingredients, and without breaking a sweat. ☺ Although, maybe June Cleaver wouldn't have said, "I quit" out loud, she would have only thought it and smiled convincingly.

Super-Women, Super-Noise, Super-Skipping

It’s been a couple of hectic days so I haven’t written. Monday and Tuesday my little girls didn’t have school b/c their teacher was sick and they don’t get subs here, or maybe they would get a sub but there aren’t any?? I don’t know. It seems like they don’t though. I try not to get frustrated about school for them. The two little girls have been with us for almost a year, and now can sometimes talk in full English sentences! We haven’t formally taught them anything besides, “I’m Steve Manzano’s daughter.” Or “You’re pretty.”- That’s a nice one to tease them into saying ☺ Immersion really works! But I’m worried they are going to grow up without a full knowledge of Spanish as there is so much vocabulary that we don’t use in our house.
The other reason it’s been nuts is that Tuesday, two of my children decided to skip school. They got up, were wearing their uniforms, and then went back to bed hoping I wouldn’t notice, and they lied to one of their classmates saying that I told them they could stay home. It caused a lot of drama, and it was really difficult for me to sympathize b/c I can’t remember ever having feelings of not wanting to go to school. Their only reason was that they were going to get recess taken away for not having something done, and that they hadn’t slept the night before. Getting recess taken away is no reason to skip school, especially for teenagers. They are in 7th grade and both are 15. It seems like when one teenager gets a bad attitude it infects the whole house, but I think we’re better now.
The kids were using the internet 24/7 on Sunday and Monday, and so I prayed that it would stop working, and it did! I think they’ve figured out how to get unlimited log-in time, so I was glad for the intervention. BUT the whole time it wasn’t working they whined a lot at us, and I told them, if they knew how to fix it they were welcome to fix it. They thought we disconnected some cable on purpose, but I assured them I hadn’t. While they didn’t have internet, some of the girls in my house put the music on in both rooms upstairs, two different cds, AND played guitar at the same time. It was like SUPER noise pollution, or maybe they were having a top secret meeting and they wanted to be sure that I didn’t hear any of it. ;) I heard from a reliable source that used to live up on the hill where everyone has smaller lots, and half built houses that you often can hear 2 or 3 different radios playing at once. Plus I can imagine that you can hear the loudspeakers from parties and things REALLY well, b/c we hear it down here a couple times a week.

When the internet started working again, you should have heard the shouts of joy in this house.
Today is peaceful so far, and I anticipate that it will only continue this way. Tia Janey was supposed to come over today and cook a lunch and dinner, but she wasn't feeling well. Instead of having time to worry, somebody dropped by bread for us, surprise! So lunchmeat for lunch it is. Can you eat lunchmeat for dinner? hehe.

She is still coming to do dinner :) yay! Any woman who can cook us two meals a day is a super woman.

never quiet.

We have a problem with noise pollution here. You know how phones play mp3s now, well I’ll be in the grocery store and the stockers will have their phones playing music while they stack cereal boxes. Or the cashiers have their phones rocking out while they ring up groceries. The most disconcerting for me was the young man who was up on a ladder directly under a loudspeaker, they are called “loud” speakers for a reason, with his personal music also blaring.

It’s even a problem at home. When you have more than one teenager with a cell phone. It seems fashionable to get a cell phone, but then not buy minutes for it and just use it to take photos and listen to music. As I was in the kitchen stirring soup, one of the girls just stood in there watching, and occasionally commenting, all while entertaining us with her phone playing music. The thing is, I already had the radio on, and was too accommodating to do anything about it. Then, her sister walked in, with someone else’s phone around her neck, listening to another song, luckily she took what she needed and walked back out. Three different songs in one room- that never happened in my childhood. Sigh.

(and in all the noisey-ness, I had one of the kids walk into the bedroom that is closest to the kitchen and shut off the stereo in there, so that there'd be a little bit more peace. Granted all of this overlap of music only happened for a few minutes, but it still blew my mind.)

Silent, and deadly.

It seems normal here in Mexico that if you harbor an offense, the silent treatment is the best way to go. I’ve seen adults do it, teenagers, and even little kids. I try not to let it get to me. One of my girls gave me the silent treatment this week, just for a day, and I was so worried it'd be a lot longer than that, but she forgave me after about 24 hours thankfully!!!

I came back into my house after being gone for a few hours to see all the down stairs decorations moved. All the photos were removed from the picture frame with only the models in the example pictures to smile at me. My two favorite paintings, while NOT art ( though the best I can have for now), were on the kitchen floor tucked in between the water dispenser and the stove (a great place to get ruined).

All of this because she thought the house looked ugly and dirty, which is ironic, b/c she didn't even dust the frames or clean the ceiling fan or anything. Also she took most of the books off our bookshelf and threw them into various containers, to hide them/get rid of them.** She also nailed our Sequence game board to the wall. I don’t deal well with change generally, but regardless, this wasn’t even, “surprise a decorator came and made your house look better change”, this was “surprise somebody-well meaning took down all the decorations except three, and now we can see where all the nail holes are in the walls, oh and now you have to confront someone”. After spending 12 hours or so calming down I decided to speak to her.

I thanked her for thinking to do something nice, reminded her that she only should be making those choices about her own bedroom area, and would she fix a couple things I thought didn’t look so nice?, i.e. TAKE DOWN THE SEQUENCE BOARD. We’re not a bachelor pad here, nor a trendy neighborhood bar/grill chain with a lot of character to make up for our overpriced hamburgers. She told me she wouldn’t. I waited to see if she’d change her mind.
I did tell her it hurt my feelings that she thought the photos were ugly, (and she had the audaciousness to say a girl in some of the photos is ugly, and that that girl doesn’t live with us anymore and shouldn’t be in the photos).

While she gave me the silent treatment I tried to affirm that I still like her, by smiling at her, but she generally avoided my eye contact. I also engaged her in friendly easy chat, like “have you eaten dinner yet?” or “did you sleep good” or “what was for dinner” and she just stared straight ahead like I wasn't even there. I'm trying to learn to provide unconditional love, not try to instantly fix everyone.

Luckily this has all been resolved. She changed her mind, and re-decorated again, according to the suggestions I made. It doesn't look like the original decorations, but it looks a lot better than her first attempt. I still cannot believe that was a point of contention in this house. When I think of troubled teenagers I think of sex, drugs, skipping school...NOT redecorating without your mom's permission! We have pretty good kids.


**While we may have too many books to put on our tiny bookshelf and it still look neat and clean, but I AM of the opinion that one can never have too many books.

pssst. wanna buy a watch Milk?

Scene:
Motel Parking Lot

Actors:
Adult Woman
Young Adult Woman
Man in Trench coat selling fine Swiss watches, I mean, Milk.





Today is grocery day. Last week on grocery day, we had a BIG stroke of luck. I didn’t have my camera with me, but a story so outside the imagination naturally entreats you to believe it.
We were on the lookout for the Lala man. He sells dairy products. We’ve special ordered through a grocery store to stock products they don't have, and have phoned the GS repeatedly to ask if they were in yet, once we phoned every day for a week, only to have them NEVER follow through. The result of their inattention was that we decided to take things into our own hands. As we drove to the grocery store 35 minutes away, our eyes played “Where’s Waldo?”, except the refrigerated semi-truck wasn’t red and white striped. When I made the happy discovery we pulled into a local motels parking lot! My allegedly miss-spent youth reading those "Where's Waldo" books proved well spent.
We didn’t have to knock on any motel room doors, they were already in their trucks- like they were about to make some deliveries. You see, they drive two hours south to us. They spend the day delivering to area grocery stores, stay the night in town, spend the next day delivering and then drive back. Wash, Rinse, Repeat!
Paying them in the parking lot, I felt like we were waiting to get caught by some area grocery store owner who might say, “Lala man, you’re stealing our profits! Stop it!” Granted, buying directly from them makes a lot of items cheaper. Milk is 40 cents cheaper a gallon, and milk for 25 people adds up quick!
My favorite part about all of it was they walked the milk, sour cream, and yogurt to the car. Or maybe my favorite part was when they offered to make home deliveries whenever we called them. Or maybe them charitably giving us more change back than we were owed because “we’re doing a good thing.” Or maybe my favorite part was having ALL the products we wanted, and in the SIZES we wanted at our fingertips!! (It’s embarrassing and pitiful to buy 8 small sour creams, even more so a waste of plastic, when you could purchase 2 large sour creams. Better to bring home 8 than none at all or 24 people ask you repeatedly “where is the sour cream? Why don’t we have sour cream?”.)

Life goals:
1. Scuba Dive
2. Read every Chaim Potok novel
3. Buy Milk in a motel parking lot
4. See the Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janiero, Brazil

I feel like a more whole person as a result of this...
and I’d say Milk is probably the only thing I’ll ever buy in a motel parking lot.

Coffee!

One morning, C—asked me for coffee. She’s not a usual coffee drinker, but she seen all of us do it, right? Wrong, maybe.
She heated up a glass of water in the microwave, walked over to the canister with grounds in it, and started to spoon the grounds into her cup! Frantically preventing her, I stopped her and said, No! She said, “but you said, Yes?” insinuating that I was a meanie for changing my mind unjustly. “You can have coffee, just not this way.” I assured her while pouring her a cup from the coffee pot, taking her hot water for my own to make tea with. Then showed her how the grounds go in the coffee maker, not in the cup. In a year and a half I have NEVER seen instant coffee in our house, only beans/grounds. But maybe it’s so Mexican, that that’s the only way SHE knows. (Honestly, when I go to the grocery store, the instant coffee products FAR outweigh the good stuff.)

Today, Johanne and Steve leave with Abigail to go to their sons M.A. graduation in Texas, and then to Johanne mom's for her 80th birthday party! They'll be gone ten days, with more of the kids leaving Sunday with Tani. I'll be manning down the fort, but I believe the new house mom will be helping me, as well as Hannah! (who I adore for making this sacrifice!) I think we'll make it, especially if C-- can make the coffee for me :) I know that will be big time saver. hehe.

The Shower of Doom!!!

I had a funny moment with C--. She started her shower upstairs, but there was no water, which happens. She left, and forgot to turn the shower knobs back to off. After she was in the other house for a while, showering over there, I heard a noise. It sounded like someone showering! I ran upstairs and shut the shower off because apparently it had begun working. When she came back in the house, I mimed everything that had happened. I didn’t get to the part where I’d shut the shower back off, because she had already ran upstairs horrified as fast as a gazelle, but clumsily like a rhino, shouting “oh. perdon” the whole way. I can only imagine she got a couple bruises in the process.

quiet.

so, I’ve realized that in the last week or so, I haven’t had a moment of quiet. Every moment no child was near me I’ve had my iPod on. Today, a sermon to which I was listening, ended, and I decided not to find something else to listen to, and it was shocking hearing all my thoughts. Granted I’ve only listened to “good” things, but even good things that bring you away from yourself aren’t good. I did listen to Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, that was an accomplishment!

Today I was reading part of Ruth to the girls. Boaz’s name in Spanish is Booz. M—said, oh, like Bus in English! It was precious.

J—was taking a nap on the couch today when two little girls rung the doorbell and asked about taking some costumes out of my dress up clothes box. I said it was ok, but that they had to be super quiet b/c J—was sleeping. They shut the door SOOOOO carefully, which is tricky b/c my door always slams. They tip-toed in, but in stark contrast L-- walked over to J—and poked J—‘s head with her finger. I just don’t get it.

Mother's day Monday?

I need to write. I took Sunday off b/c one of my weekend entries, while dramatic, was all about what one of my girls shockingly did to upset me. I deleted it, but later, I do hope to tell the story, but not in such a mean way. Yesterday was Mother’s day here. And as seems to be tradition, people come to your house singing “Las Mañanitas” at all hours of the night. Johanne, was woken up three times. One of the ladies of her church had paid her son to play it on his guitar at 3am. My girls knew I wanted to sleep, so they left me alone ☺ I now have a basil plant, which I hope not to kill.

I’ve got some things I’d like to write about, but it’s been one of those crazy mornings. Not only are 2 of my girls studying for 1 exam each tonite, but we need to make lunch, rather unexpectedly, and making tortillas for 25 people is a large undertaking.

Pray that they do well tonite on their exams!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m gonna send out a “support” email this week, hopefully. Johanne put together a little newsletter that I’d like to get out.

(oh, today was all the kids first day back. BUT one of my kids got sent home b/c apparently they had a doctor come to the school and send home any kids who could be “contagious”. They sent her with a pretty letter explaining and a form indicating various conditions. The only box checked was cough, but that was enough to have her walk HOME BY HERSELF, without notifying us. She is allowed to walk home, but with her sisters, not alone. Their school is sooo different than the ones I’ve taught in. If she weren’t honest, maybe she wouldn’t have come home right away.)

I didn't get to talk to my Mom for Mother's day, but I certainly tried. I think it was good though b/c one of my kids asked to call her mother, which I didn't think was a good idea, and so I said no. She said, "Did you talk to your mother today?" and I could honestly answer her, "No."

in which the question marks tell the story.

I had a misunderstanding with the ladies that work for us. We keep some of our food products locked in a little storage shed that we call the “bodega.” This is generally the first place donations go before they go to other needy families, missionary families, or into our kitchen. Recently we decided to try buying bulk (works great for our family) and had gotten like 100 lbs. of flour. As it wouldn’t really fit in our kitchen, at least not at the expense of other food products, we put it out in the bodega.
Since I have a key to the Bodega, the lady cooking for us asked me to bring her flour. I asked her how much she wanted, and she said “half.” I wasn’t sure though, and thought I’d clarify. Half?? And she said “like half of the white thing” or “la mitad de lo blanco.” The bag of flour is white. Panic seized me. What was I going to tell her? That she is being unreasonable asking for 50 lbs of flour? That we can’t afford it? That I don’t have time to bring her an entire half of bag?** That we just bought that flour two days earlier and it’s meant to last us for a while? What is she cooking that she needs 50 lbs of flour? Does this mean we can only have homemade tortillas twice this week? I also was worried b/c I’d offered to help her, in my continued quest to learn to cook like a Mexican.
Thinking I had gotten in over my head I started backing away from her, so as to not catch HER type of crazy, saying “uh, no te entiendo.” The gringa way out, except that she knows me pretty well so she waited and I, as always, was tempted to talk more. “We use half just for OUR family? Are you sure? Do really want it up till half???” bearing my teeth in a half smile as if to say, “change your mind now lady” and then biting my lower lip in my insecurity. Bending over, she pulled out of the cupboard the giganto white plastic bowl she ALWAYS uses to make tortilla dough in.
"Oh, so not half the bag, half of this container." I sheepishly said, assessing whether my non-native Spanish was to blame.
I don’t know how many pounds of flour it holds, but after we had a good laugh and I told her every single confused thought I'd had, I found it weighs less than her 2 year old son, and is about 12 scoops of a regular size soup bowl.

**whole half was so much more tempting to write.

This may have been a lot more hilarious experiencing it than reading it, but I assure you, dear reader, we've mentioned it almost every day we've seen each other since. And we were laughing so hard we were crying, so if you're not crying there is something wrong with you.

We'll even do homework we're so bored...

School was supposed to be canceled only until Thursday. Now it’s canceled until Monday ☺ This easily puts the kids at 5 weeks without school in the last 8 weeks. 2.5 weeks for pig flu, 2 weeks for Easter, and a few federal holidays/teacher meetings sprinkled in for good measure. Kids really need a schedule. And so do Moms.

We’ve tried to make things fun for the kids. They went on a little camping vacation to a water park and the mountains for 4 days, we’ve played soccer, baseball, cards, house, restaurant, kitchen. We’ve put them to work cooking and cleaning more than usual. But they are INCREDIBLY bored.

How do you know, you ask? Supernatural Mom-sense??
No. They tell me, “I’m bored.” A lot. And then look at me like I have a vaccination for boredom. Said cure would probably include unlimited shopping at the "globos" (used toys, cds, used clothes, used anything-you-can-think-of, and fresh junk food) as well as non stop movie marathons. Neither of which am I willing to provide.

I've even told them that I consider the word "bored" to be a swear. So they say it when they know I'm listening especially ;)

But the kicker Tuesday was the kids were showing me the homework they had to do from last week, legit. We worked on it, fully knowing they weren’t going back for some more time. Then the girls brought me MORE homework, and said they had forgot to tell me their teacher assigned this page, and they have to read this book and so on and so forth. Hehe. They’ve been without school so long, they’re making up their own homework. That is true desperation.

Two of the girls that I do school at home with have exams Monday night, one is taking Math, the other Civics. The civics stuff is stinking hard, I’m even having trouble helping her study for it (and more so b/c all the kids that go to public school have been home having fun!). The one taking math asked me today, “when are you going to let me stop doing math papers?” and I said, “when you pass this exam.” She didn’t know what a solar calculator was, but was given one by the gov’t to complete her math book. It didn’t have a battery in it, and the back was open (it does have a spot for back up battery if you want) and she said to me, “I can’t use this. We need to buy batteries. Why do they give me stuff that doesn’t serve its purpose?” So I said, what’s 2 times 4, She told me the answer, and I pressed the buttons. Turning the face of the calc to her face, she said, wow. She was so amazed that it worked! What a fun moment! She was really confused until I explained it was a solar calculator. She’s heard of solar power, and some families we know have it, so it made perfect sense. Steve has plans to make the new house he’s working on all solar power powered, but I think it’s gonna be a big job.

P.S. I'll be home exactly a month from today. Let's do something! ooh! and job leads, if you have any. AND they are talking to a prospective woman to take my place. we'll see!!!

Domino, frozen

There are many mysteries here, why there is a domino in the freezer… Why there is a spoon in the trash…Why there is mud in my windowsill?- I guess I can answer that one. Ya’ll have dust. Made out of skin particles and the like. We have dust. Made out of clay, sand, and anything else the wind whips up. I used a wet cloth to clean out the window, and it literally clumped up like a big glob that I’d just pushed out of the tread of my galosh. It was almost as thick as play-dough.

Another mystery I had was whether one of my girls was misbehaving at school. Her and another one go together, and M—was always coming home with these elaborate stories about C—not behaving at school. I sent the teacher a detailed note, and she signed it and sent it back, but didn’t write anything, like “don’t worry, everything’s fine.” So since we sometimes go grocery shopping near their school (40 minutes away) I decided to stop by after grocery shopping. I wasn’t quite sure how it’d go. Her teacher was really nice, and explained that M—is exaggerating things, and that C—and M—are her two best helpers in the classroom. The thing that surprised me the most about the visit was how stinking EXCITED M—was that I was coming. As I waited in the car for her teacher to arrive, M—played in the yard. M—pointed out to all her friends, that I was waiting outside the school, and told them my name, and waved CRAZILY at me. When I was a teenager, I would have been mortified. Granted she turns 20 in July, so maybe she’s past that, but she does get embarrassed of me sometimes in the grocery store. After I chatted with her teacher, she tried to directly introduce me to her classmates. It was cute!! They start their school day doing a military style thing. They march in place with two or three different steps/rhythms, and then they go to their classes. They also march in place after breaks while they wait to be dismissed to their classes.

Are you smarter?

J--, who struggles in Math, did her long division page ALL BY HERSELF last week! Except that she didn’t. We were checking it over, and I noticed that when there was a remainder, she wrote R (to symbolize remainder). In Mexico the kids do S (to symbolize sobra, “too much, surplus, excess”), so I taught her to use S. I did not teach her to do R, but some reason it was all over her paper! So I asked her, “who helped you?” -Nobody. “Who helped you???” -Nobody helped me. “The person who helped you speaks English, I know.” And she looked at me guilty, and shocked.

D and I were playing music the other weekend practicing for worship, and I had some music theory epiphanies while answering one of her questions, and then I realized- If I went back to school now, I could totally pass some of my class sooooo much more easily. I could whip all those Spanish classes, I’d do better in Music Theory, and she was like, yeah, You learn so much after college. If only...

Grocery Shopping

So this weekend we had a party for Pastor Rance’s 65th birthday, and his change of ministry position. When we were planning, our conversations went like this.
“Well, where can you buy Ginger Ale?”
-“Sometimes they have it at that one store, but also you could check Alfer-mart.”
“Could we get gold balloons?”
-“They don’t sell gold balloons at the party store. Do we want yellow?”

Going to the store here is often a guessing game. One of the ladies used to regularly buy jello, sour cream, and pudding at a certain store, and they don’t stock ANY of it any more. We found sugar free fat free yogurt at a store, and were buying it once a week, when it disappeared again. In the states, if you go to a certain store, you know the same products will be there week after week, and if there is a change, they put up signage “item will be discontinued.” It’s taken some getting used to. It's totally normal for people to come home from the grocery store without getting to buy everything on their list, b/c it's just not there. They also only sell products IN season. For example, when no one was harvesting Cucumbers there were no Cucumbers to buy. Sadness. We also don’t have coupons here, but do talk about which place sales a product at a better price.


(Happy Cinco de Mayo, but I think more people celebrate it in the States, than here in Mexico, except for maybe in Puebla- where the battle that is commemorated happened, and MAYBE in D.F. (Mexico City) )

Wive Catalogue

ok, so this is an old story, but it needs to be told.
So on Valentines Day, some of the single ladies got together and had breakfast. It was decadent, my friend Danielle stewed strawberries, and we had different kinds of melted chocolate and French toast and pudding. Well, we all cleaned up together. Everybody washing/drying and putting away dishes at once. Not one of us had idle hands, some of us even had aprons on.
Well, as we’re doing that there was a knock at the door. We continued cleaning while D let the people in. It was one of the Mormon women from town, who is part of a polygamist family, with her son, who is single (who I’ve seen at parent meetings at the school, I always thought he was a parent! Opps!). She was dropping off a Vday gift for D, as she has gotten to know their family. After they left, we were so embarrassed. It felt like a scene out of a movie. We joked about how his mom might have said, “look at all the women available to you, and didn’t I tell you they are hard workers and good home makers?” I can imagine that we looked like an interactive/live Wive Catalogue. We asked each other if we would still be friends if we were sister-wives (That’s what you call yourself if you share a husband), and concluded that we’d all be jealous of each other and have lots of inter-personal conflict. Luckily, nothing awkward ever came of it.

We're burrowers.

There are other tricks to living in a big family. Hiding food! If it’s in the kitchen, it can get eaten. I’ve saved cupcakes for kids that weren’t home in decorative display bowls that are up on the highest shelve. The top of the fridge is a good place too. We have two shallow drawers that are low and store things like plastic bags and table cloths, a great place to hide apples or oranges! Sometimes, if you hide food, it still gets discovered and eaten. We go through a box of bananas in a day, maybe a day and a half. The size box your grocery store uses to stock the shelves. The motto is, if you don’t eat it, someone else will! Maybe we live like squirrels??

It may be spring here, but it's not like Spring where you are.
The flowers are dying, trees are turning brown. The wheat is now big fields of creamy yellow (which I think is pretty, but it probably doesn't make the farmers very happy that it died.) I noticed lying in the hammock at my friends house that the tree's leaves were thinner. During the winter, you wouldn't notice the hammock from the road, but now it's a very clear shot. Our winter is when everything is in bloom and beautiful. Our spring is so much more like fall.

Steph's Bday.

In a big family, we have to share everything. We have 5 bathrooms for 25 people. So you can imagine how it is in the morning. Only about 2 people can be showering at a time anyways or there isn’t enough water. One of the tricks the kids do is turn the bathroom light on and close the door, with no one in it. They do this so that they can do other things, like eat breakfast, or find their clothes and towel, and the bathroom will still be free when they come back. Many people will walk by the bathroom and not even knock, thinking that someone is in it. Sometimes they lock the door, but you can undo it with your thumbnail. Even I have fallen victim to this.

Today is Stephanie's 12th? bday. She is sooo sweet. This week, it was the birthday of one of the children of a lady who does our laundry three days a week. They weren't going to throw a party for the 6 year old girl because they don't have extra money. So Stephanie took it upon herself to make her a cake and decorate it (it was BEAUTIFUL.) She got two little gifts for her and then we went and dropped them off! I hope my children turn out thoughtful of others and kind.

Hey Tootz!

I have this memory in 2nd or 3rd grade of a little boy calling the art teacher, “Tootsie”, and then getting kicked out of class for it.
Well, yesterday one of the little boys who lives with us called his sister “Tootsie”. I was thinking, where does he learn this American slang. I was about to ask him where he’d heard the word “Tootsie” when I heard him say, “and I’m a hutu.” Then I realized he was saying “Tutsi” instead of “Tootsie.”
Of the few movies our family owns, one is Hotel Rwanda. Which is about the Hutu-Tutsi conflict. It sort of makes sense calling her a “Tutsi” b/c she is taller than him. But that’s about all the sense there is.

Yesterday was "Day of the Child." One of my kids insisted that there was a party at her school even though they've cancelled school until May 6th. Plus we were supposed to have a Beach Party today (and no school) to celebrate "Day of the Child" but that's been rescheduled because of the swine flu. This weekend is also "Labor Day- Mexico" So the kids weren't supposed to have school Monday anyways. Mexico has a ton more holidays than the U.S. I'm sure of it.

One of my girls asked how the Swine flu started. In spanish it's "influenza porcina", (can you see the word pork in there?), so when I explained that it comes from the pigs, she was all, "Oh! so that's why it's called Swine Flu." :) I can't believe she hadn't figured that out with all the media attention, and household chatting.