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.