“These days you don’t know who’s going to school- the child or the parent,” my mother in law would say, tsk-tsking, whenever her neighbor would talk about what she had to be doing for her two kids in school. I wasn’t sure if the tsk-tsking was mostly a social nicety, or if it was just to highlight the differences of the time periods, or if what was expected of parents with school kids really was absurd. At the time, Lucia was still a baby, and it all seemed so far away that I didn’t pay much attention.

Fast forward and pan in on my three year old, and here we are in the big league of obligatory preschool. In Mexico, there are three years of preschool / kindergarten before they start elementary school. If your kid has their birthday between September and December, they won’t even have turned three when they start going to school. This is great for little social butterflies like my child, but I witnessed a little boy in full-blown tantrum / panic mode on the first day of school, refusing to let go of his mother’s leg, and thought, “Maybe 2 is a little young for some kids to start school.” (And a couple of kids in Lucia’s class are still in diapers, which must be a bummer for the teacher.)

Regardless, Conan and I were excited about Lucia having the routine / structure of going to school while I’m at work. The schedule is from 9-1, so when she gets out coincides nicely with my lunch break. It sounded so great for her to get out of the house, to have someone else be in charge of her safety and stimulation for a few hours every day. Little did we know how much work it would entail on our part.

We’d started sending her to the 2 year old, non-official school program at this private school. For that, we’d had to go ahead and buy her two types of uniforms- one for the two days of physical education and one with the khaki skirt and collared pollo shirt. Everyone here wears a uniform to school for their entire education, up to university (and some universities even have uniforms, but not mine, thank goodness). This is probably good since there is so much poverty here that not having uniforms would instantly reflect huge inequalities. It’s weird for me, though, since I was one of those kids who definitively associated my (thrift store-bought, punk rock) clothing with my identity expression. I picked out my high school based on the fact that other “weird” kids went there and you didn’t have to wear a uniform. Here, whether it’s public or private, you wear a uniform- once again, taking options off the table in a way that just doesn’t happen in the US. I imagine it won’t be a big deal for Lucia since there won’t be any other options. She already just takes it for granted that she wears a uniform to school.

Her little uniform…(yes, a white shirt for small children. sigh)

But buying the little uniforms for my pint-size kiddo was about as seriously as we took the school situation at first. She only went for a couple of months before (the only 5 weeks long) summer break, but it was a nice, easy introduction to school. It might have been misleading for me, though, since now she’s in “real” school and I’m still having a hard time taking it seriously. I mean, what does she really need to learn at this point? She already knows colors and numbers and all that jazz. I figure it’s mostly about social skills and it’ll help her level of Spanish language. If there were a Montessori school around she’d be there instead, and I’d be a bit more impressed, but there’s not Montessori here.

But sending her to school really is serious business! I had no idea how much work and money it costs to ship kids off to someone else for a few hours a day. It almost is like we, the parents, are students, too, getting graded and judged, and getting  lots of homework! My mother in law wasn’t just saying that to be nice!

Don’t get me wrong. I can understand that it’s important to be involved in your child’s education. But where do we draw the line between being a support person and taking over your child’s education?

There’s a lot of stuff that’s a shock to my system but that’s not unreasonable to expect from parents. We need to buy uniforms, books. In a private school there’s the enrollment fee, the monthly tuition, the events fee. If it’s a public school they still ask for / demand money for events, and you have to buy a bunch of supplies that are for the school, not specifically for your kid. Plus you have to go to a ton of meetings and volunteer your time for all kinds of stuff, and if you don’t do it you often get fined. Then there’s all the other stuff that we just didn’t have to think about and incorporate into our agenda in such a strict way. Like making sure her hair looks a bit more tamed every day. Making sure her fingernails are short enough for the school’s standards. Hanging our heads in shame if we forget to send a spoon in her lunchbox for her oatmeal. (Gasp!)

Most of that stuff is within reason, in my opinion. But schools (public schools more than private ones) assume that there is a stay-at-home parent to be full-time involved in school. Mothers (and it’s pretty much always mothers around here) are expected to go to meetings every month or more sometimes. They often have to volunteer to clean the school and put on events. I remember helping a woman I know in Juquila write a play for a Christmas event that groups of moms were going to turn in to the teacher who would pick one to be the Christmas play. And it wasn’t voluntary play-writing, it was mandatory. I don’t know if I’m just being an anti-involvement parent (go ahead and wag your finger at me here) or if my eye rolling is justified. It’s one thing if you volunteer for the PTA and bake your brownies for the bake sale or whatever, but obligatory play-writing seems a bit much. Who has time for all that?

Even stay-at-home moms don’t really have time for all that, because they’re too busy doing their kids’ homework and delivering lunches at the precise time each day. Imagine dropping off your kid at 9AM and going back home. Then you return at 10 or 10:30 bearing their lunch (preferably good and hot, too, since almuerzo is a big meal at midmorning after a light breakfast when you first get up). Then you go back home after you drop off lunch. Then you go back to pick them up at 12 or 1. And if you’ve got them in different schools- one in preschool, one in elementary school, for example- then you’re on double duty! It’s crazy. All the moms who do it think it’s super stressful, but they still do it. Some schools won’t let you send a packed lunch, so the other option is for your kid to buy lunch at school from a private vendor (which might be another mom or group of moms at some schools). But that option is not usually as healthy and it’s more expensive. There’s not a cafeteria where they make some kind of effort to provide a nutritious meal, and it’s definitely not free for anybody.

At private schools, they are more likely to have an on-site vendor who sells food, with cost and quality varying. At Lucia’s school parents are actually discouraged from bringing almuerzo, for which I am eternally grateful. Instead, parents can either send a packed lunch or buy on site. That eliminates one absurdity from our lives, but there’s still the homework issue.

I occasionally give homework to my university students. Mostly I don’t bother, because they’ve already got enough to do and half the time they just copy off of their friends anyway. But for me, when I do, it’s because I want to really, really encourage some extra practice with whatever we’ve been doing in class.
For three year olds, who can’t even read to see what the homework assignment is, I’m really not sure what the point is. It does seem like homework for parents rather than students. I’ve been reading articles lately, too, on this precise thing producing helpless adults in the US- where parents are still, like, filling out their kid’s college applications for them. In Mexico, in many ways, people tend to raise much more independent children, so I’m a bit baffled by this kind of homework thing.

Lucia just got her first couple of homework assignments, and I don’t really understand. The first one was to paste pictures of her immediate family members and label their relationship (mama, papa, brother, etc.). This one kind of pissed me off because 1) getting pictures printed here is expensive, and who has extra pictures of individual family members just laying around that they want to ruin by pasting them into their kid’s notebook? It’s not like we had time in that afternoon to run out and get some extras printed, either. 2) This is totally homework for the parent to do. There was pretty much zero participation for Lucia. I had to go find spare pictures. I had to tape them in because we didn’t have a glue stick (Lucia helped push down on them once they were taped- what an educational feat). I had to write the family relationship because my three year old can’t write yet! What was the purpose of this? Are there 3 year olds who can’t yet recognize their mom and dad?

The second assignment was from English class. While I’m really pleased that they already have English class in preschool, I’m not sure why they had homework in it since they can’t read to see what the assignment is. It was a picture where they were supposed to color one part green and one part red. But if they can’t read what they’re supposed to do, that means parents need to tell them. And what happens if parents don’t know enough English to tell them what to do? Then parents have to go find someone to help them (the parents) translate their kids homework so they can then tell them what to color. Then for kids who haven’t learned colors well enough in English, they’re going to end up just being told in Spanish what to do. And if they’ve already got it down, why do they need homework in that? Is this really helping their kid learn English? It seems unlikely to me.

Parents and teachers, please weigh in here. Save me from being an eye-rolling, uninvolved parent! Give me some research or reasons to buy into this stuff. I’ve seen some research that early education might help with future educational success, but I don’t think it applies here. Unfortunately, despite 3 years of obligatory preschool, Mexico has some of the worst educational outcomes compared to other countries worldwide, and our state ranks worst in the country. So help a mama out here. How do you cope with a much-less-than-ideal educational system? What do you do about homework that’s more for you than your kid? How do you support your child’s education without taking it over for them?

This should really be title something more like “Happy Trails” rather than “Hard Travelin'”, but the Woody Guthrie song is so much cooler! When you have a child, traveling is not the same kind of adventure it once was. But at least you can still travel some; it’s not impossible, especially when there’s just one. When you have two (or more!) children, it’s a whole other ballpark, especially if there’s only one parent (luckily Conan and my mom both accompanied me for parts of the trip, although I was on my own for some). But people have done it before me in much more difficult circumstances, and other people do it all the time. Besides, I wasn’t going to get to visit Kentucky if I didn’t pull off the trip with a baby and a three year old, so I got the Little Engine That Could motto stuck in my head and chugged along. Here’s what I have to say about it, now that we all survived it (and mostly had fun to boot).

in the airport together, ready for flight one of three on the way up

My Tips (By the time my kids are grown, I might be an expert)

I’ve flown with Lucia several times now, starting when she was 7 weeks old. Plus we’ve gone on numerous road trips, both in private cars and on public transport.  I’m no kind of expert, but I do have a couple tips for travelling with small children.

Really, layovers are your friend when you’re travelling with kids. You want time to get yourself a coffee or an alcoholic beverage if needed (no, just one, not the five drinks you might really need). You want time to eat something besides the granola bars and junk food treats you packed (do pack as many snacks as possible, though- some healthy and some outlandish). If your kid is crawling or walking, you want time to let them do that, to play, to stretch out more than they can on a plane. It’s a wait, but you can make the airport a fun place. I tell Lucia we are going on an exploring adventure! This is the keep-the-kid-entertained way of saying we walk around looking for someplace good to sit/ someplace good to eat/ something else fun to do.

For early morning (or middle of the freaking night) flights- put them to bed in whatever you want them to wear the next day. If you want them to wear pajamas to the airport, cool. If you want them to wear some other comfy-but-not-quite-pajamas outfit, then they can just sleep in that.

If your kid doesn’t want a real meal while travelling (sometimes I don’t either), then there are at least some pretty healthy snacks these days in most US airports. Get yourself something, too, or you end up with cranky, over-sugared, hungry child and parent.  (I mean, there’s stuff like fruit and greek yogurt! Hummus and pretzels! Seeing stuff like that readily available is always my first culture shock.)

If your kid is still in diapers, take an extra change of clothes in the carry-on (your purse or backpack or whatever will actually be on the plane with you). Your kid will almost inevitably have a poopy blowout, or vomit all over you at some point on your trip. So while you’re at it, throw an extra t-shirt or something in for yourself, too.

Rent a luggage cart! If they’re old enough, the kids can help push it around, or at least they can ride in it if they’re past infant stage. Even as infants, it’s nice to only worry about the baby.

Now for the serious details about this trip:

The Difficult Moments (But we got this, y’all!)

The way back home was hard in general because 1) the three of us were all sick with a cold and exhausted from 10 days of non-stop visiting and adventuring in Louisville, and 2) we had to get to the airport by 5am the first day! Lucia was having asthma symptoms with her cold and had to use a nebulizer every 4 hours (thank the goddess my best friend was able to lend me one for the trip). I’d gotten 3 or 4 hours of sleep, thanks to packing all night and nebulizing Lucia. Our saving grace was that my mom was going back with us as far as Mexico City, so really it wasn’t nearly as hard as it could have been.

On the way up to Kentucky, it had seemed like it might be perfect- Lucia wore herself out at the playground and promptly fell asleep on the last plane. Khalil was a little fussy, but I was able to get up and move around with him since Lucia was sleeping. Then she woke up. She couldn’t get comfortable. She wanted to go back to sleep. She didn’t want to be on the plane anymore. Etc, etc. I tried to sit down and pat her. She wanted me to carry her. Khalil started crying. Lucia started crying. Yikes! Double trouble crying on the plane, mom with the deer in headlights look! No one to rescue any of us!

I resolved the crying monsters problem by force-feeding Khalil (sorry, kiddo, use this as a pacifier, please) and singing to them both, with Lucia half-way sprawled onto me and me patting her head. Luckily, this worked, although I’d like to propose that people to have a little sympathy for the screaming kids and babies on planes, please. The parents don’t like it, either, and neither do the kids, really. Travelling is hard and makes everyone cranky sometimes. Parents are doing their best to keep everyone happy, but you can’t always solve everything.

The Outrageous Moments (But there’s still hope for humanity)

I was lucky enough to have a lot of help. Conan flew up with us as far as Mexico City, and then my mom flew back down with us to Mexico City- and they both turned out to be vitally needed. Additionally, strangers helped along the way. Someone helped me get my suitcase in the overhead bin on one of the planes. A lady in the seat across from me held Khalil for a while on another flight (yes I let strangers hold my baby under some circumstances). A flight attendant took Khalil on a tour of the plane for a little bit. When milk wasn’t a drink option on our early morning flight, another flight attendant gave Lucia some of her own personal milk (whole cow’s milk, not breast milk, folks). There were some definite good feelings about humanity happening at certain points.

Unfortunately, I also saw a lot of calloused, lousy behavior. I mean, I know you’re busy in the airport, but be a Good Samaritan when you can, please! If you notice, for instance, like my mom and I did, a woman with a sleeping toddler strapped to herself, a backpack on her back, a carry-on in one hand, the toddler’s drooping head in the other, offer that person some help! Maybe for health reasons some people can’t help. Maybe for time reasons some people can’t. But surely somebody can. Ask yourself: could I be that person to help?

My mom, the kids and I were the last people off the plane in Mexico City, besides this lady, so of course my mom offered to help her, even though my mom was already helping me. The flight attendants just stood there watching while my (short like me) mom had to climb on the seats to get this woman’s other carry-on out. Then my mom dragged the lady’s carry-on, as well as one of mine, as far as the gate in the airport. Luckily, after that, the woman found some other help. But I thought it was outrageous that no one had offered to help her up to then.

Then I got the dreaded red light in customs. I’d been hopeful for a green light, since someone two people before me in line pressed the button and got a red. But no. It was dreaded because I had two giant suitcases, two carry-ons, and a backpack for them to go through, not because I had anything prohibited (although they did eye my bottle of Annie’s Goddess Dressing for a long time; maybe they were just jealous). (And yes, like the other lady with two carry-ons, I do need all that stuff, thank you very much. No need to judge me.)

So Customs people say, okay, “Put all your bags through the x-ray machine…. Now put them up here on this table.” And they just watch you. I don’t know if there’s some rule about them not being able to help you, or if they’re just rude, but geez. Luckily, I am able to lift 50 pound bags, as long as I don’t have a baby strapped to me, and luckily, my mom was there to hold the baby for me. But I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I were there alone, with the baby on my chest. And there was certainly nowhere else to put him. And what if I just couldn’t physically lift them like that for some other reason? What do they do- send you to jail if you can’t put your suitcases on the table by yourself? Detain you until some other person gets the red right, too, and offers to help? It seems pretty ridiculous to me.

The Best Moments (Sharing the joy of discovery with my babies)

On the way up, we passed through the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport for the first time. We had our normal good time giggling about the magic stairs and magic sidewalks (escalators and moving sidewalks). Then someone clued me in that there was a kids’ play area behind the McDonald’s. It turned out to be a purely electronic play area. (No, we did not eat McDonalds, and yes, I could make a snarky comment about kids eating McDonalds and then sitting around playing computer games instead of doing physical activity. But I won’t, because travelling with kids is all about survival! Whatever it takes!) I found Lucia some shapes-matching computer game that she could play while I nursed her brother. She liked it so much she forgot about her previously dire need to return to the magic stairs. (Score one for McDonalds. Thanks!)

Then I hit the jackpot, while wandering aimlessly looking for something good to eat. We were “on an exploring adventure” and suddenly a miraculous set of words appeared before my eyes: Children’s Play Area, along with a gate number. “Lucia, you want a surprise?” I asked her.

She put on her super smile, the one so big her eyes and nose get scrunched up, and said, “Yeah! Is it chocolate?”

“Even better,” I told her, following the signs.

When we got there her eyes went wide in awe. “It’s a playground! For me!” She yelled and ran over to it. It was everything we could’ve dreamed of! A safe and appropriate place for my kid to run around, climb on stuff, play with other kids! Why doesn’t every airport have these? And why isn’t it advertised in the airport? I only found it because I stumbled across it. But you know parents 3 terminals down with long layovers would be there if they knew about it. Somebody send that airport a memo! Good job building this but please tell the people about it. The other passengers will be grateful, too, to be riding the plane with children who haven’t been sitting down all damn day.

the kid play area at Dallas Fort Worth airport is awesome!!! Lucia’s having so much fun, she’s just a blur. Bless her culture shock; she started talking to all the other kids in Spanish.

driving, of course, in the play area- getting tired, but the need to play is greater than her sleepiness.

Khalil is a trooper everywhere we go. At the hotel restaurant in Mexico City, Mommy needed to eat without holding the baby, and ta-da! Khalil learned to sit in a high chair. He’s a good traveler, too. (Notice how even the baby has bags under his eyes from our exhaustion by this point.)

The very best thing, though, was realizing that it’s also just a joy to travel with Lucia now that she is so communicative. She still remembered our last trip from over a year ago, and she loved that trip, so it’s easy to get her excited about travel. I think the two of us were equally thrilled, discussing who we would see and what we would do in Kentucky. (Yes on the zoo, but she’ll pass on seeing the lions. Yes to all our family members there- and we name each one of them. Yes to parks. Yes to eating asparagus. Ad infinitum. I don’t get tired of talking about it with her, either.)

She got a piece of candy for takeoff and landing (“Another treat?!). I taught her my prayer to the patron saint of travelers (which she didn’t want to repeat, but she listened nicely). We hold hands and say, “Here it comes, here it comes, almost there” when we’re almost “down to the ground” as Lucia says. I love love love sharing these moments with her. Even when she was over it and telling me she didn’t want to go on any more planes, she still hung in there. Even when we had to find a spot to plug in and use the nebulizer in the middle of the airport, she enjoyed our cuddling, book-reading time while she breathed into the machine. In the difficult moments, we still found something good and were able to discuss the happiness in what would happen next.

I am overjoyed that my baby girl likes to travel like her mama. I am proud that she is brave and tough, willing to see what happens next, hanging in there like a badass little 3 year old. I am so pleased that she is becoming a good little traveler in her own right. I can’t wait to do see what we discover next time!

Lucia in Cherokee Park, one of my favorite places in the world. Learning to explore is beautiful. 

This latest trip to Kentucky was all about feeding me. I sounded like an exaggerated porno during every meal I ate, with my oohs and mmmms every 3rd bite. I smiled and laughed and reveled in the joy of good company like nobody’s business. Family, friends, and food are all important forms of sustenance for the body and mind, and while I have all three of those things down here, to some degree or another, I can’t get the same ones here as there. Despite all the obstacles, I made it to Kentucky at the end of July for a much-needed recharge on all three of those things I’ve been missing so badly. I got the chance to break bread with many great folks, and I got to cook for some of my favorite people, too (one of my big pleasures in life, and something I feel like is at the core of my being). In so many ways, this trip fed my spirit.

So I thought I’d share some of my near-orgasm inducing dishes with you lovely folks. Think of this like a little thank you note in recipe form. I want you to enjoy these foods in my absence! It makes me feel better about missing out on them if I know someone is savoring them. (Lots of these recipes you can make down here, either with a couple tweaks, or if you’re willing to spend the money on expensive stuff, or if you pay attention they’ll occasionally have things in the market like okra or brussel sprouts- but only every once in a while.)
The Beautiful Brunch 

Salad and Artichokes for Breakfast
Salad and Artichokes for breakfast? What? Yes! I was down to the wire, with only two more days worth of meals to enjoy, and I still had a bunch of food calling my name in my mom’s fridge. So this is how it played out, and even at 9am, it was perfect. It was more perfect because we ate it with my fabulous friend Shannon (the Super Shannon, as Karina calls her, and surely one of the only people who would agree to this absurdly luscious meal first thing in the morning).

These two hit it off like peas in a pod! My shy-with-strangers kiddo couldn’t resist the Super Shannon! And she loved artichokes. She ate half of mine and then hit up Shannon for hers!

Salad:

-packaged mix of 1/2 spinach and 1/2 other salad greens (yay for pre-washed, pre-mixed greens!)
-walnuts
-red onion
-blue cheese
-berries (any kind works on this- blueberries, strawberries, cranberries)
-heirloom tomatoes (if it’s summertime)
-avocado (optional)
-US version dressing: Annie’s papaya poppyseed dressing (from the makers of Goddess dressing, yum yum yum)
OR
-make your own dressing version (adapted from my friend Anna):
1 cup olive oil (or mix canola and olive for a cheaper version)
1/4 cup vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 small onion, chopped
salt to taste
Throw it in the blender and it’s ready.
Whole, luscious, sensual Artichokes:

Boil or steam for about 45 minutes, until outer leaves are tender and falling off. Melt some butter for dipping. Also for dipping (Chilean style), squeeze some fresh lemon and add some salt to it. If you’ve never eaten the leaves before (geez, I’m making orgasm noises just typing about it- how embarrassing!), you dip the not-prickly part of the leaf in butter or lemon, then scrape the “meat” off with your teeth. Repeat, repeat, repeat. As you get closer to the center, the heart, the leaves get smaller and more tender. Dining on artichokes is a nice, slow process. Yes, you have your reward in the center, the tender heart (nothing like what it tastes like from a can), but the leaves and the eating process are their own reward as well. FYI, this is like the best romantic dinner food, ever. I’m pretty sure that’s what sealed the deal between Conan and I. Although Shannon and I proved you can safely share artichokes among friends as well, so don’t feel like you have to wait for romance. Any beautiful friend will do.

So Much More than a Work Reunion
Kidney beans with Stir-Fry:

I don’t know why I can’t get red beans down here. There are black beans galore, white beans, pinto beans, lima beans, even black-eyed peas, but no kidney beans. So I bought a couple cans of red kidney beans, which normally I love to mix with okra.
But instead I stir-fried some bok choi with mushrooms and corn fresh off the cob (of course with garlic and onion), then threw the cans of beans (liquid included) on top and let it cook a few minutes on low to blend the flavor. It’s not complicated or exact enough for there to be an official recipe. But it’s quick, nutritious, and yum-inducing, so enjoy.

I got to enjoy this dish with some of my very favorite humans on the planet, some folks I used to get paid to work with, who now I’d pay money to work with again! (Well, okay, maybe I don’t have that kind of money. But still. They’re that great.) These are people who are radically, consciously, lovingly making our world a better place every day, in the way they work, the way they live, the way they raise kids. It was just a couple hours, but the hugs alone recharged part of my very being. And you know, great people, great food. For example, there was sriracha hummus (genius)! And next time I’ll get you Gabriela’s recipe for some kind of chocolate banana bread, which was one of many things that destroyed all my hopes of eating in moderation during my trip.

Some folks couldn’t make it, and only some of the crew agreed to have their picture taken, but it was still all joyful.

Making Family Believe in Vegetables, An Inherited Trait
Damned Delicious Brussel Sprouts:

My dad used to always cook brussel sprouts with elaborate sauces, like béarnaise, or some fancy cheese-based sauce. This is one of the many reasons I grew up loving vegetables. While I’m not half as good with sauces as he was, I have some other vegetable tricks up my sleeve, and my damned delicious brussel sprouts are one of them. I took them to a family get-together my step-mom threw for us. The family time was much too fleeting, and I didn’t even see everyone, but it was still medicine for my heart. So I took some love in the form of food but then I sampled about half of the sprouts myself (oops). I tried to make sure everyone tried them, but I felt the need to try them again every time someone else did, so they would be in good company. Sorry, guys, I was just trying to make sure they weren’t poisoned! Next time I’ll make a triple batch.

If you just can’t wait till next year, though, here’s how you do it:
Cut off the hard bit at the bottom. Then cut them into halves or thirds. Sauté over low-medium heat with chopped garlic, salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning (if you’re in the US with your fancy pre-made spice combos). Just cook them until they’re al dente- they should still be a bit crunchy. Then try not to eat them all before the other food is served. (Especially when the food is chili! A life necessity!)

family loving- Khalil with his Great Aunt Linda

The Potluck

My mom threw me a potluck, as well, which is my very favorite kind of get-together, what with the mixing of food and good company, all the variety of flavors that result from everyone bringing something to the table (figuratively and literally).

I was already in heaven with the company, and I haven’t even told you about the food. I didn’t make anything for this potluck, unless you count cutting some fruit. Nonetheless, there was an excess of food, including about 8 different desserts that I had to sample (especially pecan pie and some kind of spicy brownie business- wow). There was succotash and pizza and curry chicken salad, and I ate the best cornbread I’ve ever had. And I’m from Kentucky, folks; I’m a corn bread connoisseur. It was kind of like the company and conversation- so many great people in one room! Who do I talk to? How can I talk to everyone? I overloaded on everything, in all the best ways. And I even finagled the recipe for you!

Dan’s Cornbread (my new favorite cornbread)
Obviously, Dan made this- not me. He is a chef after my own heart, in that he didn’t want to commit to an exact recipe. As you can see from my recipes, I’m more of a spontaneous, don’t measure, throw it in there kind of chef. But when someone begs you to write it down, you’ve got to come up with something. So here’s how he got it down for me.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Put 2 Tablespoons of vegetable in cast iron skillet and place in oven.

Mix
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup white flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
Optional: 1 teaspoon of each or any cumin, chipotle, garlic powder, onion powder. Your preference.
Optional: 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Mix
1 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4  cup vegetable oil
1 small can diced green chilis (4 oz)

Combine wet ingredients and dry ingredients. Mix well.
Pour into cast iron skillet.
Bake at 400 until edges are brown and toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle. (Guessing at the time, but no more than 30 minutes)

The beautiful Kathy! Who takes lovely photos. Just one of the many fabulous moments of the potluck. She and her mama spent a lot of quality time with Lucia.

My best friends, sitting on the porch
Easy Kale:

Okay, I didn’t eat greens with my two best friends while I was there. I sat on the porch and drank bourbon and beer with them (so worth it to stay up later than the kids- so, so worth it). But while we’re talking about Kentucky food and people and things that I love, let me talk about the plethora of greens. (Because I don’t have a recipe for bourbon, after all.) Turnip greens, mustard greens, collard greens- my bluegrass home is full of greens! I took advantage of the cheap and plentiful kale, which is so easy to make. Here’s one of my simple versions:

Sauté onion and garlic, then throw in the washed and chopped kale with a tiny amount of water (think of it like a version of steaming, not boiling- you don’t even want the water to cover it). Put in salt, pepper, and some lemon juice (yeah, lemons! The yellow ones! We only get limes down here.) And voila! Cook until tender.

me and my girl b.f.f., on the porch. even the photo is blurry with squinty-eyed joy!

at the end of the trip, the three of us are sick, but my male b.f.f. is still rocking it with us!

There were a lot of other moments I could highlight. It was pretty much non-stop moments of fabulousness and nourishment. But since I don’t have days on end to reminisce, I want to just say thank you.

Thank you so much to everyone who took time out of their busy life to see us. Thank you to everyone for sharing with us. Thank you to everyone in Kentucky who I didn’t get to see this time, but who is still a beloved friend or family member, who still makes our lives rich just from knowing you. Thank you to everyone here in the state of Oaxaca who is making our lives richer and more delicious here, too.

So I’m going to try to keep making a yearly pilgrimage to my homeland, for my beloved family, friends, and food that I can’t get (or can’t get enough of) down here. There’s more food and joy to write about, but this will have to tide us over for now. Buen Provecho! (That means enjoy the food, folks!) xoxoxo

You know you live in a tropical paradise when your three year old names one of her dolls after the currently popular virus “Chikungunya.” Not that there weren’t already plenty of other glamorous signs that indeed, we dwell in the land of eternal summer, aka the land of tropical disease and pests. There are signs like the ever-present layer of sweat and grit no matter how many seconds ago you bathed. There are sudden plagues of ants invading your house on a regular basis. There are giant flying cockroaches (which luckily don’t tend to invade my house). There’s knowing that you always, always need to check your shoes for scorpions before you put them on. There’s the ease with which fungus grows in your house and on your body. Pretty much nothing but glamor around here.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by my daughter’s ability to pronounce Chikungunya, since everyone is talking about it these days. Maybe she doesn’t know what it means, and I hope with all my parental fervor that she doesn’t have to learn through experience what it means. But somewhere she picked it up and it caught her attention enough to want to go around saying it herself. It does sound pretty funny, even if the reality of it is anything but.

Chikungunya is just the latest exciting tropical virus I’ve learned about. I learned about dengue before I visited Paraguay back in 2006. Dengue is very similar; they’re both mosquite-borne illnesses that cause sudden fevers and some flu-like symptoms, including joint pain. Dengue can occasionally turn deadly, especially with repeat infections, or among children. I’ve known people who have had dengue, but thus far I haven’t been around for a serious local outbreak, so I haven’t worried too much about it.

Chikungunya was named in Tanzania, and according to the World Health Organization,  “The name ‘chikungunya’ derives from a word in the Kimakonde language, meaning ‘to become contorted’, and describes the stooped appearance of sufferers with joint pain (arthralgia).”1 The joint pain can be severe, and last for months for some people. On the positive side, it doesn’t usually lead to death. On the negative side, there’s a huge outbreak happening right here in my town! Some of Conan’s family members have had it already. Everyone knows someone who’s had it already, and rainy season is still going (albeit without much rain lately), so they’re predicting lots more cases before it gets better. (Fun fact: During rainy season pharmacies don’t sell drugs like ibuprofen- nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents- without a prescription because of the risk of hemorrhaging if you take it when you have dengue. Imagine ibuprofen being like a black market drug for 6 months of the year! Only in paradise.)

Personally, I have some sort of natural repellant in my sweat glands or something (See! I was meant to live in eternal summer!) and I almost never get stung. My partner and daughter, on the other hand, attract those beasts like revulsion in a port-a-potty. It’s just inevitable. So we’re dousing the kids and Conan in mosquito repellant (no, not the natural kind; that doesn’t work down here) and crossing our fingers all the time. I am grateful that these days we live in a house with screens on the windows. The possibility of this, and other new-to-me diseases is just part of the trade-off for living down here. But mosquitos aren’t the only ones causing havoc down here.

Another interesting disease I’ve learned about since moving here is called Chagas. It’s transmitted through some weird parasite that lives in bugs called “kissing bugs” in English, chinches in Spanish. But get this: (do not read while eating) it’s actually spread through their poop. These little bastards bite you, then poop nearby on your skin, and when you go to scratch your itch you rub the poop into your open wound, thereby infecting yourself. Gross, right? Then you may or may not have symptoms and then 20 or 30 years later your heart may suddenly explode if you didn’t know you had it and never got treated. Fun and excitement in paradise!

No matter where you live, there’s something dangerous, something uncomfortable. I come from the land of violent thunder storms, tornadoes, ice storms and the like. That kind of stuff sounds terrifying to folks down here! I’m willing to pay the price for never being cold and having sunshine most days of the year.

And here’s another upside to it all: Conan and I just marked our 3 year anniversary of moving down here. For me, that also means in a couple more years I could gain a little more immunity to some strands of E.coli! That infection they call “traveler’s diarrhea,” according to NPR 2, will become less painful and less common for me as I continue to live here in the coming years. Woo hoo! Cheers to my tropical paradise, and cross your fingers that Lucia’s doll is the only one with Chikungunya! Just another day in paradise…..

Here’s the link to the NPR article-

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/08/06/429356591/can-you-protect-your-tummy-from-travelers-diarrhea

And here’s more information about Chikungunya-

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs327/en/

Here’s a picture of chinches, which transmit Chagas.

The image is from this website: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2010/10/20/departamentales/41206-japon-apoya-combate-al-mal-de-chagas      (I think chinches are related to bed bugs. Ewww.)

Lucia is a great big sister. So far we’re really lucking out in terms of her treating the baby well and not being a total nightmare of jealousy and havoc. It helps that we try to find ways to give her extra attention. It helps that she’s started school. It helps that she’s really stoked about being a big girl and being able to do all kinds of independent things (use the potty, get dressed semi-solo, etc.). We talk all the time about how she can talk, she can eat food, she can walk and run and jump, and the poor baby can’t do any of that stuff yet. I don’t know how she’ll feel when the baby can do that stuff, too, but so far we’re enjoying the way she interacts with Khalil.

We also constantly rehash the when-you-were-a-baby scenario so she doesn’t feel left out. When you were a baby you ate num-nums (breastmilk). When you were a baby you wore this same cute outfit. When you were a baby you had this toy. She says, “When I’m a baby I cry like, wah,wah, like the baby, huh?” That’s right. Exactly like that. Sometimes it’s a stretch- when she says things like, “When I’m a baby I laughed at the cat, too, huh?” and really, “no, because we didn’t have a cat then, but, you know, you liked to watch other animals when you were a baby.” Anything to appease the big baby, to remind her that she’s special and important, too.

I think that her age- or her life stage / phase / whatever you want to call it- helps, too. Right around the time that I got pregnant, she started playing with dolls and stuffed animals. Before that she was completely uninterested in them. But she hit that stage where she started reenacting scenarios of ways in which we take care of her. Suddenly she was singing to her “baby,” reading to it, taking it to time out, taking it with us to go out, patting its back, and much, much more. Her baby of the moment can be any stuffed animal or doll, depending on her whim. It is incredibly endearing and also wildly funny the conversations she has with her baby, the way she replays her relationship with us, her parents, trying to internalize lessons. “Baby, we don’t color on the walls!” she scolds, for example. “Baby, we don’t hit people! Do you need to go to time out?” Or my personal favorite, “baby, you need to take a nap.” (Because Lucia never, ever believes she needs to take a nap.)

One of her many “babies”

Lucia playing Mommy- a bit too realistic!

And once the baby came out of my belly, her baby-caring just amped up. “I’m taking care of my baby, too.” She says, mouth set in a line of serious determination. “I need to change my baby’s diaper, too. Pass me the wipes. Pass me a diaper.” She shushes the baby, rocks him to sleep in the hammock (her babies are now almost always boys- what a coincidence since Mommy’s baby is a boy!). “Mommy, my baby needs num-nums,” she says, pulling her shirt down to uncover a nipple and putting the baby there to nurse. I’m sure many people in the U.S. would be appalled by her realistic mothering. I’m proud and enamored.

Matching Babies in their Wraps!

Lucia reads a book while she puts her baby down for a nap in the hammock- just like Mommy does for her! (this is not our house, btw)

I came home from work a few days ago to find little brother strapped into his swing, big sister in the chair beside him, reading him a book. “Mommy, I’m taking care of him!” She squealed, so pleased to be taking care of the real, live baby. Although Khalil was trying to chew on the book as much as look at it, she was certainly taking care of him- keeping him occupied and not crying. I told her I was impressed and happy, and that she’s a good big sister. After I got settled in and Khalil started crying a bit, I went to pick him up to nurse him. “Mommy, no!” Lucia shouted at me. “I’m taking care of him!” It took a while to convince her that I could take care of him in a different way for a little bit and that then she could take care of him some more. She’s a bit possessive about her role, which is nothing but great even if I do have to convince her of my role in the matter.

But of course, I’m sure she won’t always adore her little brother. And as soon as something more interesting happens around her, her baby gets dropped and abandoned. She did just turn 3, after all, and “Mommy, it’s just pretend, okay?” as she likes to reassure me. It’s all just a learning process, and she’s still my baby, too. “Mommy, you take care of me, okay!” she orders sometimes, lest I forget that she needs special attention, too. And maybe that puts her a step ahead of the rest of us, because she already knows that we caregivers need caring-for, too, and sometimes you have to come right out and ask for it. Here’s to learning to take care!

Remember that blog post I wrote about us getting electricity finally? A week and a half later we were plunged back into darkness, and I fell into the deep dark depths of despair over it. The worst part was that it was all because of our nasty, backstabbing neighbors.

Not the good neighbors, thank goodness; they had nothing to do with it. Both households of our friendly neighbors were supportive. Our other neighbors, however, all got together behind our back. They didn’t come say, “Gee, guys, how did you get electricity? How can we all get it?” No. They got together to complain that we had it. They went to the electric company, and instead of protesting the fact that we were supposed to have electricity six months ago, or that everything has been set up for us to have it for 3 months now, they went and protested only that we had it! They didn’t demand to have it themselves! They just demanded that we not have it. I’m still furious and shocked. Why would you do something just to hurt someone else, that has zero benefit for you? Nobody acquired electricity through their actions. What a waste!

So our lovely connection who hooked up our electricity in the first place went to talk to someone in the office. He, our connection, was told he’d have to disconnect us because we were causing too many problems. He said he’d take care of it in 2 days. So less than 2 weeks into our joyous venture in modern life, we were scheduled to return to darkness.

But he didn’t get around to shutting us off the day he was supposed to. He asked us to keep it on the down low that we still had electricity until he could come shut it down, so that he wouldn’t get in trouble. This meant that we couldn’t use our lights or our ceiling fans, since you could see all that from outside. We couldn’t use the blender or any other loud appliances.

But until we got shut off, we could charge things. We charged the lamps we used for light at night, without having to go back and forth to someone else’s house twice a day. So even though I was grumpy to not be able to use real lights, at least we didn’t have that errand.

It was still revolutionary having electricity, even without lights. The most amazing thing was plugging in the laptop. I could clean the house or do dishes with music on my laptop! Suddenly we had to start putting a limit on Lucia’s screen time, because for the first time ever she could watch a ton of videos without the computer going dead. Conan and I could watch a video together, too. I got to do exercise videos and write my blog and listen to music. Just plug in the laptop! What a world.

On the weekend I didn’t have to worry about where to charge my phone so that my alarm would go off on Monday morning. And even though we mostly couldn’t use the ceiling fans, we did use our two floor fans, which was still a huge relief from the non-stop heat and humidity. Plus I used our ceiling fan in the middle of the night a couple of times, when all the lights were out and I was sure no one could see. It was reassuring, too, to know that we had electricity. Lucia got a cold and we thought we might need a nebulizer for her again, and it was fantastic to think we could just plug it in and use it, instead of seeing whose house we could go to, or using up our car battery to plug it in.

And we bought a refrigerator! Despite knowing our electricity could be cut off any day, we bought a big, fancy refrigerator, with one of those things on the door for cold water to get into your cup without even opening the fridge. I’ve always wanted one of those. We bought a fridge and put a pillowcase over our small kitchen window and crossed our fingers that no one would realize we hadn’t actually been cut off yet. You should have seen Conan outside checking to see if it was noticeable, me opening and closing the refrigerator door, Lucia yelling to her Papi out the back door (in English, thank goodness). Granted, the water is something we have to fill up all the time, but Lucia can get water by herself. I can get water one handed while nursing. And did I mention it’s something I’ve never had and always dreamt about? It is amazing! And we can make ice! I can drink terere, my lovely Paraguayan iced tea, whenever I want, because I can make my own ice. We don’t have to buy ice to keep food cold(ish). I don’t have to stress about the shelf life of our leftovers or my breastmilk because- yikes! the ice in the cooler is running out again. No, now our fridge maintains a cold temperature all by itself! And we can freeze things! I can freeze breastmilk and Conan doesn’t have to go somewhere else to get it! It’s already right there in our house. I can make big batches of soups and stews and beans and things and freeze it for later! I’m going to make popsicles, someday, when it really sinks in that we have a working refrigerator. Because it is a paradigm shift, that’s for sure.

Using my coffeemaker every morning became an act of rebellion. It makes a pretty distinctive noise, but I was guessing that our closest neighbors would not recognize it as a coffeemaker since almost nobody has them, electricity or not. It was so nice to get up in the morning, press a button, and go lie down another 5 minutes until my caffeine fix was magically prepared for me. Every day that I could get up and do that, every day that we still had electricity, I decided it was going to be a good day. We were still in the dark, but we had so much more than before.

The worst part, though, was trying to explain to Lucia that she couldn’t turn on lights anymore. “But we got electricity now,” she said when we first told her that we didn’t / couldn’t have lights, after finally, finally having it. I almost broke down in tears over her confusion and the senselessness of it all. She is too little to understand or carry the weight of spiteful people trying to bring us down. So instead we fumbled around, nodding our heads that it didn’t make sense, but that was just how it was. Now we don’t have lights, okay? It’s really, really important that you don’t press the button. Thank goodness we have the best three year old ever and she accepted this absurd change in the situation and miraculously didn’t turn on lights after that.

Except for the bathroom light. We indulged ourselves on that one and kept on using the bathroom light. It’s in the interior of the house, and from outside it looked more or less the same as using one of our rechargeable lamps. It was another act of rebellion, and yet, unlike the joy of my coffeemaker every morning, it made me nervous as hell. I loved it, reveled in the act of flipping the switch, loved being able to really be illuminated in the bathroom. (Even though the only bad part of having electricity had been seeing how dirty my bathroom looked in the bright light! I think we’d never cleaned it as well as we thought because we’d never really seen it before! It was shocking.) But it was nerve-wracking! Every time I turned it on I pretty much started biting my nails, worrying that someone would realize and we’d get totally shut down. I kept thinking, “it’s not worth it to give up all these other electrical pleasures like floor fans and computer charging just to see all the grit on my bathroom floor.”

But here we are. A month and a half since we started stealing electricity (inadvertently stealing for lack of other options; I would have gladly paid for electricity since we built the house two years ago). Our electricity didn’t get shut off. And now, finally, finally we have electricity legitimately. Yep, boldface, folks, because now they can’t take it away. Okay, they can if we don’t pay the bill, but other than that, our electricity is here to stay! And now I can see at night to finish my chores. We can read the bedtime story without my cell phone light. We’re gonna bring our washing machine to Puerto. I’ve never been so excited in my life at the prospect of washing clothes and diapers. But oh! We’re going to save so much money! It’s going to be so much more convenient! Quote me on this, guys, in a couple of years- I’m dying to do laundry! There is so much to enjoy.

My most important plan is still just to get up every morning and press the button on my coffeemaker. To lie down another five minutes while it magically prepares my morning motivation. To decide that every single day that I have this, it’s going to be a good day. At least in the morning.

I’m a bit over a year into my perfect-for-now job, and I still love it (especially with vacation just a day away). This year our English program at my university changed our focus and our curriculum. We went from an almost-totally grammar-focused program to a focus on reading comprehension, mostly of scientific articles. That is what most of our students use English for, so it was exciting to try to craft something more relevant for them than reading paragraphs about Sonya’s Two Houses or having writing prompts about your last big vacation trip to Europe (ugh! Totally irrelevant to most students’ realities). Additionally, the curriculum change was thrilling because I’m a big nerd and I love love love to work on curricula.

So a ways into the new program we gave the students anonymous evaluations to get some feedback- mostly about the program, but also about the teachers while we were at it. Here are some highlights from my evaluations. Mostly they were written in Spanish and I’ve translated them, except where noted.

Some of my favorite off-the-wall ones:

“You all have done a better job, congratulations”

I guess this is “a better job” compared to the previous curriculum. It cracked me up because it sounded so patronizing, like, “finally, these teachers got it together to do something decent.” Bless.

“Raise the passing grade from 6 to 8.”

Grades here use a 0-10 system, with 10 being like an A plus. Previously the passing grade for English classes was a 7, but we lowered it to 6 for this year to see how the new program went over. Indeed, the lower passing grade was totally unnecessary for most of my students who put in a bit of effort. Unfortunately, most of the students in one particular major would have failed had it not been for the lower bar. I think this is due to a combination of factors- mostly the pressures put on them in their major combined with the belief that English isn’t important. Obviously, this is not a comment from that group. Regardless, I don’t think we’ll be raising it to an 8.

“The teacher July (sic) is an excellent teacher because all her classes are fun and interesting and she explains to us very well she is understanding and I appreciate her a lot.”

My thoughts: That’s a terrible run-on sentence! Add some periods and commas! But thank you for the compliments. Or is this secretly a poke at my English teaching? No, probably not. Okay, well, thanks, even if you just called me July.

Some of the nicest comments about me and my teaching:

“She’s very respectful and patient. She’s a professor who’s very attentive and responsible in terms of our learning and work. A wonderful and dynamic professor. Very good, thanks.”

A thank you and all! This is above and beyond a compliment!

“I like the class and Miss Julia’s form of teaching a lot, plus the class is very lively, interactive, and fun.” (“Miss” in English, the rest in Spanish)

“I just want to congratulate the teacher because she puts a lot of effort into the class every day to make it dynamic and not so boring.”

Again with the congratulations! I think it just works better in Spanish- felicitar. Whatever the case, I’m glad it’s “not so boring.” Too bad it couldn’t make it all the way to interesting, but alas, you can’t have it all.

“(Does your professor respond to questions respectfully?) Yes, it’s the most important thing, the professor always clears up our doubts. (Does your professor explain things clearly?) Of course. She always does whatever is necessary so that we we’re not left with any doubts. (Other comments) I hope the professor keeps it up because she’s very good at teaching others.”

Awwww, shucks.

The best ones in English (super kudos to all who wrote answers in English! Bravo! Way to go!):

“(Does your professor respond to questions respectfully?) She always have answer for the question.  (Does your professor explain things clearly?) We can understand in class. (Other comments) In this class I am learn so much.”

Okay, so this student still hasn’t totally mastered present progressive change in his/her final year of English. She/he has forgotten that pesky 3^rd person singular present tense change- have to has. There are much worse things. They can express themselves, and that is the most important part. Good thing we changed to a reading comprehension focus, too.

“She is very polite. I like how teach my English teacher she’s great.”

Yep, it is really hard to get sentence structure right when subjects and verbs just don’t have a definite order in Spanish. But wow! This is a level 1 student! And they used the word polite in English! That wasn’t even one of their official vocab words! That is an extra compliment in and of itself.

The not-so-nice comments about me:

“Although I think the program is very important and in some ways I like how the professor explains, what I don’t like is that she’s so strict, that she wants to follow all the rules.”

Me, follow all the rules? For real? Where did this come from? Perhaps this was somebody who was mad because I try to kinda-sorta enforce the attendance policy. Let me just say, I personally am against taking attendance in college. I think it’s insulting and unnecessary. By college, you’re a grown up, and you get to decide if you go to class or not. Miss enough classes and you’re more likely to fail, but I think it should be up to each student. But in general down here they don’t like to give much freedom to college students. They don’t even have a hang out spot on campus and they get moved along for sitting around on the ground in big groups.

Unfortunately, the attendance policy is not my decision; the university insists that all professors take attendance, and my department decides how many unexcused absences get you in trouble (absences without a doctor’s note or other officially sanctioned reason). If you miss more than 15% the class (around 12 absences per semester), we discount your midterm grade from your final class grade AND you have to pay a steep fine. I think it’s a crappy system, but the English department allows for way more unexcused absences than everyone else. And regardless, I didn’t make up the rule, and I’m not all that strict about it. I personally excuse absences all the time if people come up with a good enough excuse, even though technically only Student Services can excuse them. Because I know I’m not particularly strict, it was a bit amusing to get this as a complaint. It is right up there with my other negative comments (keep reading)- where I’m thinking, “Were you really in my class?”

“(Does your professor respond to questions respectfully?) Yes, but sometimes she says it all in English. (Does your professor explain things clearly?) Yes, but sometimes it’s boring.”

Okay, this one is pretty good. I kinda like the brutal honesty there. And then I wonder, does the “she says it all in English” mean you find that disrespectful? Or is it just a misplaced comment? Is it not clear because I’m saying it in English? Apparently it is clear, because their next comment says I’m clear but boring. Who knows….

The really funny part about the next two is that they’re coming from first semester, level one students. One says “Explain more in Spanish” and the other says “I don’t understand when she speaks English”. If these comments were coming from my level 3 students, with whom I rarely speak Spanish, I’d understand. But in my first level classes I barely speak any English! Even when I do speak English, I usually repeat it in Spanish. The times when I exclusively speak English it usually involves lots of hand gestures, examples, repetition, etc. I’d been berating myself for not using more English in class, worrying that I’m not giving them enough opportunity to practice and understand English, and here some of them are, complaining that I need to speak more Spanish! Everyone’s a critic, folks.

Other random work fun / Best attempts to invent a cognate:

As you may or may not know, a cognate is a word that sounds/looks the same or very similar in both languages and means the same thing (not to be confused with words that look the same but mean something totally different). Spanish and English are full of fabulous cognates (like similar / similar, or dentist / dentista – I could go on for days.) Sometimes when you don’t know a word in the other language you can try to adapt the word- the way us gringos often try to just add an –o  to a word in English to make it Spanish. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

My students often do the same thing- use the rules that they have to try to guess a word they don’t yet know in English, making it a cognate. This is a good skill, and works wonders with words like evaluation- evaluación.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with all –tion to –ción words. The word for grade is absolutely not a cognate, and though I’ve told them over and over again, so many students keep wanting to make it a cognate. The word for grade in Spanish is calificacción. There is no such word as calification. No existe esa palabra. No such word. Repeat, repeat, repeat- grade.

So, because I’m a mean old English teacher, I scared the crap out of two of my students at the end of this semester who came into my office asking for their “calification.” “No!” I scolded. “You’ve failed now! Reprobados!” They stood looking at me. “Really?” One of them asked, wide eyed. “No,” I relented, too quickly to enjoy the torture. I wrote and pronounced for them again the word “grade” (with appropriate amounts of finger-wagging and smiling) and gave them their actual (passing) grades. “Teacher, you scared me,” one of them said. “That’ll help you remember the word grade forever, then,” I told him. “You can tell your future children about your mean college English teacher someday, and how you learned the word grade.” Will it stick for that long? Maybe, maybe not. But regardless, I do love my job.

Here’s an idea to put some US excess to good use: All the anti-vaccine parents can send their kid’s share of vaccines to somebody who needs it in a foreign country! We could have TV campaigns, like those “for just a dollar a day, you can sponsor this little girl to go to school.” Except this could even be free, or close to it! “For just the use of your health insurance, plus shipping and handling, you could protect children like these from potentially deadly diseases” (cameras pan in on various-hued children from various countries).

Maybe I’m just slightly bitter about how hard it is to acquire this basic protection for my kids. Here we are in Mexico, scrambling and crossing our fingers to get vaccines for our kids in a timely enough manner for the vaccines to protect our kids, while a bunch of folks in the US are fighting to not use theirs. This post is totally not about hating on people for not getting vaccines, although honestly I don’t really understand it. I mean, why are people not vaccinating? Even if they believe the shabby excuse for science that claims vaccine can cause autism, isn’t autism preferable to possible preventable death? Don’t want to give your kid “unnatural” ingredients? Well I hope you’re not eating anything, either, because even food grown in your garden still likely has some dodgy substances from the soil, unless you live really far from all civilization. I mean, sure, it sounds gross that the polio vaccine has traces of baby cow blood serum*, but I’d rather have a shot of that than polio. But whatever. Don’t vaccinate your kid. It’s not my purpose to convince anybody today. Just pass along your vaccines instead.

Granted, this is Mexico, not, say, some country currently at war, or someplace where there’s no refrigeration for vaccines, etc. It shouldn’t be difficult here at all. Theoretically, all public health centers have them. So any hospital, Centro de Salud (health center), public insurance company (like my horrible insurance, IMSS, or the teachers’ company, ISSSTE), or other public health institution has them and gives them for free. All kids get a cartilla (a small booklet) where their vaccine records are documented. Most towns have one place where vaccines are available, or if it is too small a town you might have to travel a little bit. Additionally, a few private doctors carry them, but they are very expensive.

the cartilla

All in all, access to the places that provide vaccines isn’t bad, yet getting the vaccines is still easier said than done. The nurses who provide the vaccines have some different (outdated?) information than what exists in the U.S., for one, so they won’t give you a vaccine if they think they shouldn’t. For example, one time they wouldn’t give us I-don’t-remember-what combination of vaccines because they said they shouldn’t go together, so they gave Lucia one of them and told us to come back for the other in a couple weeks (at which point they were out of it, of course).

I spent the better part of this week trying to get Khalil his four-month vaccines, so far to no avail. I wanted to take him to the health center, and I had read that their strike was now over. However, when I asked around I found out that they’re still not providing most services, although their doors are open. So instead I went to ISSSTE, one of the insurance companies, on my lunch break. When the health center was first on strike back in May and it was time for Khalil’s two month vaccines, a doctor had told me that technically any public institution had to provide vaccines, even if the kid isn’t with the insurance company. So I went to ISSTE then and had no problems. This day, though, I had bad luck, since there was a professional development talk happening about some mosquito-born illness, and so they weren’t giving vaccines. Some nice employee told me to go back the next morning at 8 AM.

The whole family went back the next morning and stood outside the door of the preventative medicine room. Conan went and asked if they were giving vaccines or what, since we’d been standing there since 5 after 8 and 20 minutes later there was still no sign of life from the vaccine-giving nurses. The employee assured Conan that they’d surely be opening any minute now. Sure enough, about 8:30 a nurse walked out of the room and proceeded to ignore us, even though we’d been knocking on the door. Conan stopped her to ask if we could go in now. “What did you need?” she asked. “Vaccines for the baby,” I told her. “How old is he?” she asked. I told her, and she said, “No, come back in a week. We don’t have vaccines right now.” I assumed that they just didn’t have those particular vaccines, so I told her we were still missing the tuberculosis and the 2nd hepatitis B vaccine as well. “No,” she said, “we don’t have any right now. Try back next Thursday or Friday.”

So what was the point in asking how old Khalil is, if they didn’t have any vaccines of any type anyway? And why didn’t anyone tell us before that they didn’t have any vaccines? Neither the employee the afternoon before nor the one we asked that morning happened to mention that we were wasting our time because they’re out of all vaccines. Did they just not know? And why didn’t they know, if that was the case? I should know by now there’s no rationalizing the situation about health care around here, and yet I continue to wonder about these things.

We are leaving for Kentucky next Saturday, and I’d really, really like to have him up-to-date before we’re in international airports and the like. If they do have the vaccines on Friday, then we’re all good, but sometimes they tell you a date and it turns out they don’t get the shipment after all. I don’t really understand why there’s so often a shortage on vaccines down here, but it’s just another fact of life. So, against my better judgment, I decided to chance my luck at IMSS.

If you read my blog regularly you know that IMSS, my health insurance company, is pretty much my arch nemesis. It is a building full of incompetent, rude, and uncaring bureaucrats disguised as health professionals (maybe not everyone in the building is like this, but it’s certainly the majority). I haven’t signed up either of my children or my spouse to receive their services, because I care too much about my family to send them there. IMSS in the state of Chiapas is also the party responsible for the deaths of 2 infants and the illness of several others when some nasty bacteria somehow found its way into a batch of vaccines recently. (Note- this wasn’t because of the vaccine itself, it was negligence on someone’s part, and yet nobody around here started saying that we should stop giving our kids vaccines.) Still, I reasoned that the chances of something bad happening were slim and it was a worthwhile risk to get him protected from whooping cough and the likes.

There were 2 people in line for preventative medicine services when I arrived, plus someone inside. When the person in the office was finished, one of the nurses came out, and I stopped her to ask if they had vaccines, before I waited even longer in vain. “Is the baby insured here?” she asked me rudely, even though they are supposed to give vaccines to children regardless. I explained that I hadn’t signed him up yet (nor will I ever, I didn’t say) but that I am insured there. “You’re supposed to take him to the Centro de Salud if they don’t have insurance here,” she grumbled, and I told her that they aren’t giving vaccines right now. “Let me see the cartilla” she said, and I handed it over to her. She glanced at it and finally said that they only had 2 out of the 4 that we needed. I decided it was probably worth the wait to go ahead and get the half available, so I stayed.

When it was finally my turn, I went into the room and handed the other nurse Khalil’s cartilla. She looked at it and immediately said, “No. This is for the 18th of July.” She pointed at the dates that were written in pencil on his vaccine sheet. (They always write a tentative date in pencil for whatever dose you’ve got coming up.) Of course I knew that that was the date they’d written in, that being exactly two months from his first dose, but it was a one-week difference, and I thought that they would listen to reason. I should have known better. “No,” the nurse told me, still pointing like a teacher with a difficult student. “He got this dose on the 18th of May, so the 18th of July is two months later.” “Right,” I agreed, “but it doesn’t have to be exactly two months.” At least that had been my experience with Lucia in the U.S., what her pediatrician there had told me, what other agencies say**. This nurse, however, disagreed. So what was the point in the other nurse checking the cartilla, making me wait for nothing? Perhaps insurance companies make more money for longer wait times, for fewer services provided. It remains one of the great mysteries.

So we’re left to hope that vaccines will be in by Friday and that they’ll be able to give them to us (even though it will be one day before the 18th! gasp!!). Meanwhile, we’re now accepting donations from all non-vaccinating parents! Send your vaccines on down and sponsor poor Third World children like these.

Send these children vaccines from the First World! Or at least lesson the absurdity of acquiring vaccines here, please.

*I read this in The Vaccine Book, by Dr. Robert W. Sears. I bought this book when Lucia was born to be informed about vaccines. I am totally about people making informed decisions. Further, in the U.S., people have the ability to get their vaccines on an alternate schedule, or to get certain brands instead of others. That’s fine and reasonable, since the U.S. is all about choices and such, and I used to feel like that too. Even here I use what little bit of choice I have about vaccines to delay the Heptatitis B vaccine until Khalil was 2 months old, based on what I know about risks and benefits. I get wanting to be informed and wanting to protect your kids. But I don’t get not vaccinating at all. I just don’t get it, sorry.
**According to the CDC, most of these vaccines can be separated by as little as 4 weeks, not a minimum of two months. FYI, Oaxaca.