Tag Archives: oaxaca

Fighting with Bureaucracy, Oaxaca City Style

9 Nov

It´s a bit confusing to have a daughter with dual citizenship, and it´s about to get more complicated, with a new kiddo born here soon. Lucia was born in Kentucky and moved down here at 7 weeks of age. We barely managed to get her US passport, her birth certificate, and her Mexican birth certificate from the consulate while we packed up and sold all our stuff and learned how to be new parents at the same time. It was a whirlwind, but we made it.

Lucia and I both entered Mexico on a 6 month tourist visa, although we knew we´d need to sort out that situation for both of us sooner or later. We´ve been out of Mexico enough times so far that it hadn´t been a problem, until this last trip when her tourist visa was expired by one day. They wouldn´t let us get on the plane in Mexico City until we sorted it out with immigration there, which is a totally different epic story. Luckily I had her Mexican birth certificate and other relevant documentation, and we did make it to the plane on time. But they warned me then that we had to sort out her status before her next tourist visa expired.

Apparently, the way to sort it out is by obtaining her Mexican passport. So even though technically she is already a Mexican citizen by virtue of her Papi´s citizenship, we still needed another document. I put it off and put it off, because Mexican passports for children under 3 years old only last one year, so it´s a lot of hassle and money for something very temporary. On top of it only lasting a year, the three of us all have to be present in Oaxaca City to get her passport. So what would only cost about one day´s salary is really a multi-day expensive trip, including me having to take off of work unpaid for 2 days. And it has to get done before her latest tourist visa expires in a couple weeks, or we would be fined.

The good news was that we worked it out to get a ride with a good friend of Conan´s who had some business to take care of in Oaxaca City this Thursday and Friday, and we have a fabulous family friend who lives there who was willing to put us up for free and keep us company to boot. I got the official permission to miss work on those days, prepped my classes accordingly, got us packed during my break on Wednesday, and was feeling pretty optimistic about the whole situation when I walked out of work right at 7pm, where I was going to get picked up so we´d arrive in Oaxaca City around 2 or 3 AM.

There had already been some obstacles that I hoped we had overcome, but that I was still nervous about. First off, to provide identification for a two year old, you have to get a special note from their doctor, with the doctor´s signature on top of the photo and some other special details. Nevermind that my child already has a US passport, it has to be the doctor´s note to prove it’s her (bureaucrat logic). Since we don´t have a doctor we like to take her to regularly in Puerto yet, our only option was to either bribe a doctor, or go to the doctor that knows her in Juquila (a 3 hour venture from home). We went to Juquila for Day of the Dead last weekend, so we thought we´d get it then. But her doctor said he wouldn´t have time to do it till Monday afternoon. Paulina said she’d send it to us in one of the vans that go from Juquila to Puerto, but I was terrified it wouldn´t be how we needed it and we’d be scrambling at the last minute to bribe someone in Puerto. But we got it on Tuesday and it appeared to have all the requirements listed on the internet, so I was hopeful.

My other big fear was over our appointment. When I went to make it online, I had to put in a CURP (Clave Unica de Registro de la Población, sort of like a Social Security Number in the US). We haven’t gotten Lucia’s CURP yet, so I asked the online help line if I could put in my CURP to make the appointment.

“No,” Marta or somebody told me, “it must be the CURP of the person the appointment is for.”

Breathing deeply, I argued my case. “But they told me when I called for information that we didn’t need her CURP to get a passport.”

She wrote back, “Correct. You don´t need it for the passport. You need it to make the appointment, which you must have in order to get the passport.”

“So I can’t actually get her passport without her CURP then.” I gave up on Marta and her online unhelpfulness and tried to call the 800 number to make appointments. The nice guy on the phone let me make the appointment with my CURP. But I was still crossing my fingers they wouldn’t turn us away at the door for using my CURP instead of Lucia’s. After all, we are talking about bureaucrats, who I often believe are not in their human form while on the job.

But there we were, ready to go, múltiple copies of everything filed away, pretzels and oatmeal cookies for the road, and the first glitch happened. I walked out of work and Carlos’s car was nowhere to be found. Conan’s phone was busy. Not a good sign.

“Carlos is going to Oaxaca next week, not tonight.” Conan announced when he called me a few minutes later. I still don’t know if Carlos changed his dates or Conan misunderstood or what exactly caused this glitch, but it didn’t matter because the result was the same- we didn’t actually have a ride to Oaxaca. I utilized all of my I-have-a-toddler-and-it’s-also-not-my-first-day-in-an-unpredictable-country skills to not have a panic attack. I did send my mom a message that was more curse words than real words, however, and then I continued to breathe.

We went and got tickets for tbe 9.30 PM van trip to Oaxaca City. It was just too risky to take our car on those winding mountain roads with zero preparation and zero extra time before our appointment the next morning if anything went wrong. The worst part about the van situation was that we now weren’t taking Lucia’s car seat. Partly because we didn’t have the money to buy her own seat and partly to not lug around a car seat in the city. I briefly entertained the super nervous Mommy guilt of “so if something happens to Lucia I have to tell the family it was because we didn’t spring for her own seat on the trip”…. and then I continued breathing and let it go.

We got to our friend Argelia’s house around 5.30 in the morning with no accidents and no major glitches, thank goodness. Except that I hadn’t slept at all, had only dozed for about 3 hours in that half-awake, making-sure-my-sleeping-kid-doesn’t-fall-out-of-the-seat way that parents do. But Arge’s warm reception and good conversation, combined with coffee I made stronger with Nescafe and a warm shower, did wonders for me, and we were ready to go to our 9AM appointment by 8.

We arrived early and waited in the first line, for the preliminary inspection of our documents. “This letter from the doctor isn’t right,” the woman told us, and I almost stopped breathing. “Where did you get this? You didn’t get the format from here, did you?” She asked, showing us a generic example format for the letter.

“No,” I explained, “We got the requirements from the website. And I called and talked to the Subdelegada who told me that all the requirements were the way it is detailed online. That example format is not online.” Did they really expect people to travel from all over the state just to pick up an example form, travel back to their town and show it to their doctor and then make the journey all over again? You just can’t be sure about these people. I mentioned that we’d come from Puerto Escondido, that I’d taken off work for two days to be there, just in case there was any bit of sympathy in her little bureaucratic heart. “I’ll go check on it,” she told us, only a little reluctantly.

“Okay, you can use it,” she told us when she came back to her post. She gave us another form to fill out and sent us to go fill it out on a bench. She did not give us a pen (but I always have about 10 in my purse, so no glitches there).

After filling out the form we went and stood in line at a different counter. I realized the appointment thing was only another excuse for them to turn people away, and did not signify anything in terms of when our paperwork would be seen. But it was our turn pretty quickly with Mr. Grumpy Older Guy, and the process continued. We started signing and fingerprinting and all that other good stuff. It seemed that things were going smoothly until we got to the backside of the form, almost at the end.

“I need the father’s birth certificate,” Mr. Grumpy announced.

“What?” I hoped that I was hallucinating that. Surely he’d said something else, because there was no indication or mention anywhere about bringing Conan’s birth certificate. Not in the online requirements. Not in the two phone calls I’d made to ask specifics about our situation. Not in the online help center chats. I most certainly did not have Conan’s birth certificate with me.

“You have to prove the little girl’s right to Mexican citizenship.” he explained. I guess the Mexican birth certificate was not enough.

“I have his Mexican passport!” I announced hopefully, smiling a tense, clownish version of a smile.

“Let’s see it.” I handed it over, along with the copy I’d made (yay for being prepared!). Mr. Grumpy pulled out his white out and started blanking out the numbers of Conan’s other ID on the form. He let it dry and tried to write in the passport numbers in its place. It looked messy. He frowned harder. “No, it’s no good,” he said, and I held my breath again. “You’re going to have to fill out the form again.”

Once I realized that we just had to redo the form and not this whole trip I proceeded to breathe and went to go rewrite the form. I finished that and we got back in Mr. Grumpy’s line, beginning the fingerprinting and signature thing anew. Finally we successfully completed that round and Mr. Grumpy smiled at us and sent us to the next step- the photographing area.

We’d already gotten Lucia’s photos made but in that room we did digital fingerprinting and signatures. Then we got sent to the next counter and turned it all in to a different lady and another inspection. “Come back at 1PM to pick up the passport,” she said, and my heart did a little dance of joy.

We had breakfast and strolled around Oaxaca’s pretty downtown with Argelia to pass the time. We returned to the office shortly before one and approached the final counter. The lady handed Conan the passport, telling him to make sure it was correct, and then sign that he’d received it. Then I looked at it and was about to sign when she said, “Oh, wait, let me go check on this problem.” I breathed deeply. The passport was already printed and ready to go- what could be the problem now?

“Can I see your identification again?” she asked wheen she came back. I handed over both my passport and my permanente resident card. “Ah, yes.” she said, almost to herself. “Here’s the problem.” She pointed severely at my signature on the the form we’d filled out twice that day. “Look at this.” I looked. It looked like my signature. I was sure I had been the one to sign it. I nodded. “Now look at this.” She pointed at my signature on Lucia’s Mexican birth certificate that I had signed over two years before. Also definitely me that signed there. I nodded again, without a clue what her point was, but understanding that I was in trouble for something. Sloppy handwriting? I waited for the punchline.

“They look nothing alike. Can’t you tell?” I think I just looked at her, unsure what I was supposed to do. It’s true that I have a sloppy signature that I rattle off quickly, the letters not forming their true cursive form, and that is never, ever exactly the same. It always has enough resemblances, though, that I’ve never been questioned before. But Ms. Patient Teacher was not pleased with me.

“Okay,” I told her, like I’d learned my lesson. “Sorry. You see how it is a bit different on both of these IDs, too.” All of them were my signature, though, was my point.

“Well, to prevent the theft of children these signatures have to match,” she told me. “You’re going to have to sign here,” she pointed to the place beside my unacceptable signature on the form, “exactly like you signed here.” She pointed to my signature on Lucia’s birth certificate. “If you can’t sign it the same then we’ll have to do all of this all over again.” I’m pretty sure all the color drained from my face.

“But here,” she said cheerily, “I’ll make you a copy of this form with your correct signature and you can practice it.” And I practiced. And practiced. And every single signature looked different, like always. Argelia tried to help me trace over the copy, but the light wasn’t good enough to trace effectively.

I practiced some more. I shed a few furious, frustrated, sleep-deprived, indignant tears. “This is so ridiculous!” I raged quietly to Conan. “I have multiple forms of ID. They watched me sign the form. They have my fingerprints. My child is here calling me Mommy. And I’m not going to get her passport because I can’t appropriately forge my own signature!”

Some of my 80,000 attempts to write my own signature "correctly"

Some of my 80,000 attempts to write my own signature “correctly”

Finally I managed one that I believed looked more or less like the target signature. I went to ask Ms. Patient Teacher if it would pass. She went to get approval from her boss. I got the ok. I got a no on whether I could just cut and paste the approved signature. I had to reproduce it on the correct form. I tried to continue breathing and not cry. I practiced it some more, trying to copy exactly what I had done, the slowest form of my signature ever. At last I announced that I was ready to try it on the real thing. If it didn’t work, I supposed we’d come back the next day and try again. I was out of energy.

I signed next to my inappropriate signature, slowly and steadily. And then I had to sign exactly the same again to say that I’d received the passport. I got a bad start the second time and had to lift the pen and take some deep breaths before I could continue. I hadn’t been prepared for the second one. But I signed it, and Ms. Patient Teacher went to go see if it was okay or not. I held my breath.

She came back and handed me the passport. “Here you go. Bye.” And that was that. I was actually in possession of Lucia’s Mexican passport. A miracle had happened. It was over, and we accomplished the feat we’d set out to accomplish, despite all the unexpected demands and absurd obstacles. It was another win for humanity, another triumph over mindless, cruel bureaucracy. Granted, they got a point or two in for my near panic and those couple of tears shed, but we walked out of the office in just one day with our desired document in hand. And now I have several months to keep practicing my signature before we have to go back and do it again. Bring it on, bureaucracy, I am ready for you now.

TA-DA! Mission accomplished! Dual passports for our first little dual citizen!

TA-DA! Mission accomplished! Dual passports for our first little dual citizen!

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Let the Rains Begin! (And Wash Away this Perfectionist Streak)

1 Jun

As the wind picked up and lightning flashed across the sky, Conan tried to convince me to wait with him and get a ride with a friend. “You can leave your bike here at Nery’s.” he suggested. “Or do you just like to suffer?” he pouted, the same way I do when I think he’s being foolish and stubborn.

Admittedly, I was feeling stubborn, and absolutely thrilled at the prospect of rain. There’s something about going six months out of the year without a drop of rain that makes even the promise of rain feel beautiful and magical again. In Juquila, I had dreaded the start of rainy season, since it meant the promise of six months of dreariness. In Juquila during rainy season it rains every single day, often for the whole afternoon and most of the night, occasionally for days on end. In Juquila, it meant feeling even more trapped inside the house. It meant wasting all the nice morning’s dry hours rushing to do chores and errands before the rain (since washing dishes was an outside chore, and you had to try to hang your clothes out in the sun for a couple hours so maybe they’d dry in less than three days, for example.). In Juquila rainy season is six months of misery only to be followed by wind storm season and then very cold season. But here in Puerto, where it doesn’t rain every day, and it mostly rains at night, and where the rain cools things down but doesn’t make it cold, I was feeling positive and excited about the seasonal change.

I was determined to ride home, too, because we’d just bought the bike that afternoon before I went to work. My old bike, that we’d bought used, had started breaking down every couple of days- one thing after another- and it was getting ridiculous to keep putting money into it. Having a bike is really important to me, because it’s one of my favorite forms of exercise, and just about everywhere here is biking distance. Plus it usually ends up being faster than public transport, and it’s free! So the need for the bike was strong. Normally, I wouldn’t rush into a big purchase like a brand new not used bike on the spur of the moment, but the transportation strike that afternoon pushed me into a quick decision.

Conan and Lucia and I had walked to the spot where colectivos (collective taxis) pass by, only to be told by a man that there were no colectivos coming. I thought he meant they were all on their lunch hour, which does happen and means a long wait time sometimes. “We’ll go walk out to where the buses pass, then, so at least we have more options,” I told him. “No, there are no buses, either. No taxis, either. There’s a paro (strike/protest),” he informed us.

We found out later that all the transportation folks (taxis, colectivos and buses) had banned together to prevent a new taxi company from doing business. Apparently it was some group who had money and thus good connections and was already getting their paperwork. So all the drivers who have worked for 15, 20 years and had to work hard to get their papers were furious.* At least this is my limited understanding of the situation.

Whatever the case, all of us without cars or functioning bicycles were walking. When we got to the main road, on the outskirts of our neighborhood, we could see that the whole road was blocked off by a bunch of buses and taxis and colectivos. I was pleased it was farther down the road than our house, away from town. We ended up able to get a ride with one of Conan’s cousins and thus avoided walking another 40 minutes or so to the market. We rushed and bought the second-cheapest bike that was small enough for me, a fancy clean white mountain bike that I’m still anxious to decorate (Send me some cool bumper stickers, please!).

After buying the bike, I’d gone directly to teach an English class just a measly 3 blocks ride away, so I was looking forward to using it to ride home. And the darkening sky was like a childhood friend double-dog-daring me to go. “I’ll get home before the rain. And before you get home, too!” I told Conan smugly. “I’m going right now before the rain gets here! You take my bag, just in case.” I kissed him and Lucia and took off. It got darker and even windier as I got closer to home. The lightning alternated between long rays touching down somewhere over yonder in the mountains and those gorgeous yellow, orange and pink giant horizontal flashes that seem to light up the whole sky. I pedaled faster, even while going downhill. Since I’ve only lived here for dry season so far, I’d never been in the rain here in Puerto, and had no idea what to expect from this kind of storm. It also reminded me of my days working at Lynn’s Paradise Cafe, my great friend Meg and I riding our bikes home together. Many times we chanced it with impending storms, racing home as fast as our legs would carry us, glancing at the sky, the adrenaline surging through us. I wished she were on this ride with me.

When I got to the entrance to my neighborhood, I thought, “Now I’ve almost made it.” Plus I knew that if the rain got crazy in the next couple minutes, there were two different places where I could stop and wait. But home would be better, so I kept up the pace, zooming past another guy on a bike. Unfortunately, it was dark and I’d forgotten about the speed bumps. I cursed in English going over the first one. The guy on the bike caught up to me just in time to hear my curse in Spanish flying/bumping over the second speed bump. I imagined, briefly, what it would be like riding my bike in the puddles of mud that my street would turn into once it started to rain.
But by the time I got to where the pavement ends I was more sure than ever that I would beat the rain. I flew over the big dirt speed bump that the arrogant neighborhood delegate had made in front of his house, cursing myself for not remembering. Almost there!

I almost slid in the sand that’s just around the curve going to my street, but righted myself in time. I saw my clothes hanging from the line and congratulated myself on getting home in time to keep my clothes dry, too, even though I’d forgotten about them. All labored breathing and sweat and electrifying heartbeats of adrenaline and triumph, I guzzled two cups of water. I sat down to slow myself down, to watch the storm roll in from the cozy nest that is my home, and to wait for Conan and Lucia to arrive.

Our friend brought Conan and Lucia, and the gorgeous displays of lightning kept up, with thunder sounding closer, but still the rain didn’t come. Eventually I went to bed, reluctantly, like an excited kid on Christmas Eve, telling myself I’d wake up when the rain started. But the land stayed dry.

The next night I did wake up, briefly but joyfully, to the sound of pounding rain. I reveled in the sound, in the smell, in the coolness, from the sweet shelter that is our bed in our lovely little house. A few evenings later, right at Lucia’s bedtime, we got to enjoy the rain together, our little family. We shined a flashlight outside so Lucia could see the drops come down. We stood in the doorway and let drops splash over us. I didn’t complain about delaying Lucia’s bedtime. I marveled at the cleansing sensation of moisture that’s not just humidity or my own sweat. We giggled in the novelty and freshness of it.

Image<Lucia with her Tia Artemia playing in her raincoat on a drizzly afternoon>

 

Like just about everything here, the rain didn’t happen when or how I expected it. Like so many things in Mexico, in life, I’d imagined and prepared for something, only to have bureaucrats or striking workers or inclement weather or other people’s whims or let’s call it destiny ruin my plans. I laughed at myself for having been so sure the rain was coming that night I raced on my bike. For buying a new bike in case the transportation strike kept up (it was over by the next day, although the bike is still important). For still fighting with myself all the time, my intense desire to plan for life and influence the outcomes butting up against my realistic if not heartfelt knowledge that I am not in charge. I am still daily trying to come to terms with the fact that my universe does not exist in a vacuum, that I can plan and prepare and wish for something till the cows come home, and the likelihood of that affecting the result is still about 50/50, on a good day.

I remember trying to give people updates about the house, or about other things we were doing or hoping to do since we moved here, and feeling foolish when they just didn’t get why it was taking so long. Things just happen here differently, or rather things don’t just happen; simple, everyday things are often more of a struggle than they are in the U.S. It took us like 5 days to get an extra key made in Juquila, for example. Just to get a house key! Every time we’d go to get it made, the place would be closed, and the first time we went and they were open we’d forgotten the key.

Or when we wanted to buy a bed for Lucia- for a reasonably priced bed, we had to get to Oaxaca City, 5 hours away, and figure out who could transport it back to Juquila for us. Not at all like driving down the road to Wal-Mart. Or you think you’re going to the grocery store one day but nope, you get there and it’s blocked by striking teachers again. Or just the other day, Conan was trying to deal with some tax situation for his grandmother who passed away over ten years ago. So he goes to the office, explains the situation. They say they can’t help him without an appointment. He asks if he can make an appointment. “No,” they say, “you have to make it online or over the phone at this 800 number.” He says he’s been trying to do it online and can’t get through. “Oh, yes,” they tell him casually, not an ounce of shame, “there’s a problem with the system, it’s over saturated and thus not working properly.” “Sooooo,” he says, and they’re like, “Just try in the early morning hours or late at night” which is especially tricky since we don’t have internet in our house, like most people around here. “Welcome to Oaxaca,” my mom would say (she’s got a really funny blog post if you want the back story on this inside joke: http://faustastories.net/2012/08/13/welcome-to-oaxaca/ ).

Here, much more so than in the U.S., you have to plan for things to not go as planned. “Julia, I think you’re gonna have to relax and go with the flow a little more if you’re going to live here,” my mom tried to caution me politely a week after we’d moved down. Ha! Let me tell you, I want to be a go-with-the-flow kind of person, I really do. Nobody wants to be that guy who’s devastated and grumpy all day just because their perfect biscuit recipe didn’t work because there’s no temperature control on the stupid oven here. And no, of course it’s not really about the biscuits or the temperature control, but the feeling that you lack any and all control over your life. (This may or may not be an accurate description of me in August 2012, 8 weeks into motherhood, one week into our Mexican exile- er, um, move.) No, no, let’s not be like that; let’s roll with the punches, guys! Listen to Bob Marley. Do some yoga.

So far yoga has not defeated my Type A personality. Bob has failed to convince me not to cry. Since I was itty bitty I have been a perfectionist, anxiously revising my Plans A, B, and C before being able to sleep at night. I was that kid who told her Mommy in preschool that she’d never get in trouble and have to go to time out, and then never did. I was that kid who wanted to do fire drills in her own home after learning about them at school. I was that teenager who was reckless and rebellious, but only because I carefully calculated what things I wanted to rebel against, when and how I would be “reckless”. I was and am a damn good spur-of-the-moment traveller, going where the wind blows me, appreciating all the moments for what they are- but only because my very intentional plan is to not have a plan in those moments.

Slowly but surely, I am recovering from this perfectionism, from this desire to believe I have control over my life. This wondrous job of motherhood has helped a lot; for example, for a while I was too exhausted to even get through Plan A in my head before falling asleep at night. Almost two years into this mothering adventure now, my child has taught me that I can expect any rigid expectations to be peed or pooped on, spat up, and/or vomited on regularly, just to keep me in check. And the lovely state of Oaxaca is doing its part, too. Oaxaca’s lessons for me, much like Lucia’s lessons for me, are not always pleasant, but I think they’ve been good for me, and I’ve grown fond of Oaxaca all the same. I am often forced to blow off my own plans, to make to-do lists in pencil and not pen, to laugh wildly at my expectations of ten minutes ago, to rethink what I thought I knew, even about the rain. Sometimes all this just makes me angry and crazy and frustrated and helpless-feeling. But more and more, I really can relax and laugh it off, change my plans and beloved ideas at the drop of a hat and call it destiny. I can feel not-miserable when the rain doesn’t come when I think it has to, and not be shocked when it appears out of the blue. So let this year’s rains keep coming, and wash away a little more of this perfectionist thing that’s been weighing me down. Please and thank you. 

*Their protest was effective, by the way; the new group did not start driving taxis, at least not yet.

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From the Weeds Up… Building a House with Sand and Rocks and Magic

4 May
the big empty box

the big empty box

Don’t tell Conan, but I was less than thrilled with our house when I returned from my stint in the U.S. It was a big empty box- an extremely budget-busting empty box- and I was terrified that we’d never manage to fix it up and furnish it with the little bit of money we had left. Two of the rooms had dirt floors. There were lots of window slots and doorways but zero doors or windows. No separations between rooms, no water tank, no nothing. Did I mention we were already way over budget, and neither of us had a job? Nobody could tell me how long it would take before it was livable, either.

It took a month just to figure out who could work on the house within our budget and still do a good job. We hit the jackpot when Conan’s adult niece Lili agreed to come along with her partner Uriel, a master constructor (albañil). Uriel worked hard on our house for much less than what he deserved to be paid, and Lili helped with the cooking and watching Lucia to boot (especially putting her down for naps! She is our resident hammock expert). We never could’ve done this without them. On top of that, they were great company. Thank the universe for family!

Uriel stoking the fire so our black beans cook. Our albanil, our sobrino, our friend.

Uriel stoking the fire so our black beans cook. Our albañil, our sobrino, our friend.

Lili and Uriel on our roof. Lucia adores Uriel, who she calls "OO-wa" since she can't pronounce Uriel.

Lili and Uriel on our roof. Lucia adores Uriel, who she calls “OO-wa” since she can’t pronounce Uriel.

Lili, hanging out outside while we wait for beans to cook

Lili and Nery, hanging out outside while we wait for beans to cook

Again thankful for family, we spent the first couple of weeks in Puerto at Conan’s Aunt Artemia’s house, waiting for our house to be livable. We slept in a tent on their patio, folding up the blankets and taking down the tent every morning, only to rush and put it all back up again while Lucia was in the middle of a meltdown because we didn’t get back to the house on the other side of town until it was past her bedtime already again. Plus I was doing all of this tent-arranging and meltdown-calming solo because Conan was working from sunup to sundown at least, trying to make the house livable as soon as possible.

But the allure and romance of having one’s own bathroom is powerful, and “livable” can be redefined at any time. By the time we got our very own toilet, sink, shower head, and even tile floor for the bathroom, I was ready to be in our house, regardless of the rest. I was thrilled at the prospect of sleeping in a tent that I wouldn’t have to take down and put up every day. My good friend Luz, who’s also family by marriage, borrowed a tent from her sister for months on end so that Lili and Uriel had their own tent, too. Lili and Uriel left the crappy room they were renting and moved in to our construction site/future house with us. The night we all first stayed there was Christmas Eve. We ran out of gas for the stove but Lili grilled meat over a fire pit. Our friend Nery came over with beers, too; it was an appropriate and fortuitous start to living in our own place, both positive and representative of the tenacity and flexibility that would continue to be required of us.

our bathroom and bathroom floor, with the hanging shower thing that came laterP04-05-14_08.55[1] P04-05-14_08.56

When we did have gas for the stove, the kitchen consisted of some plywood on top of horses that we used as a table, and a two-burner stove. It was in the tin shed. That was the only part of the house that we could lock up, since our big box still didn’t have a door or window protections. We locked it every night and three different times I was accidentally locked out from my wake-up necessity of coffee. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I was when, months later, we finally got to move the kitchen to inside the house and there was no chance of being separated from my morning life serum.

When we first moved in, there were two rooms with rough concrete floors and two rooms with dirt floors. There was a big hole in the floor where originally Conan had thought he might put a staircase connecting the bottom floor (the “in-law quarters” which will eventually be two more rooms) to the kitchen. The yard was all dirt, hilly and uneven, with big piles of sand and rocks being used for construction. There were tools and raw materials pretty much everywhere. All of this made it nearly impossible for Lucia to play without someone being on top of her at all times- which also made getting anything else accomplished nearly impossible. It was boring and maddening a lot of the time, and it required me to totally (temporarily) redefine success. Every day that we managed to cook our meals and do the dishes and work on the house and go out to buy tortillas and ice for the cooler and run any other necessary errands and prevent Lucia from any major accidents was a hugely successful day.

And progress was made. Suddenly the cousin that was making our window protections came over and installed them! Since we had waited for them, the fact that most of them reminded us of prison bars was easy to overlook. Like with so many other things, I learned to think, ‘we’ll fix it someday.’ Conan and Uriel painted the two nice ones that Conan had gotten a deal on, and we got those two up, too. Just in time for us to visit Juquila for New Year’s, the cousin who made our doors (without charging us any labor cost) came over and installed those. The house started to look like it was owned by someone and wasn’t just being squatted by bilingual hippies.

our jailhouse window bars

our jailhouse window bars

Big magic happened on my birthday. Conan borrowed Arturo’s truck and brought down mattresses that fit in our tents! He brought down a bunch of Lucia’s toys, a couple more chairs (we had 2 or 3 before and put more plywood on horses to make a bench), more dishes, more clothes and shoes, a dresser, the changing table for Lucia (oh what a luxury to change her somewhere besides the floor), and several other random yet important odds and ends (like the hanging thing for the shower so our soap and shampoo aren’t on the floor). He brought down a big gas tank so we wouldn’t run out of gas every two weeks. And Paulina (my mother-in-law) gave me the aloe plant I had wanted and needed so sorely in the heat (and sunburn) of Puerto. It might not sound exciting, but it was like camping for a month or so and suddenly having civilization brought to you. Lucia’s utter joy at throwing herself backward on the bed and landing on something soft was a birthday present all alone, never mind all the other benefits from the things Conan brought down from Juquila.

Slowly but surely things kept on improving. We all (except Lucia) stayed up till midnight putting down the first floor. The guys had laid the concrete during the day, with the help of an extra hired hand, dumping five gallon buckets of sand and gravel into a big machine to mix with the cement to make the concrete. Then they carried buckets of concrete from outside to the appropriate spot on the floor. Then Conan and Uriel smoothed the concrete out, which is a lot of slow and tedious work. They used a 2by4 and this thing that looks like an iron, and by sundown they were not even close to finished. Since you might recall that we don’t have electricity, and timing is of the essence in this whole concrete business, there we found ourselves, Lili and I, shining lamps on Uriel’s and Conan’s work for hours on end. Our rechargeable lamps both went dead and we shined our cellphones on the floor until they finally finished. The next day they spent the day, still hunched over, drawing lines on the floor to make it prettier and less slippery. I had never seen the perseverance needed to make something so seemingly simple as a floor. We wrote Lucia’s name in it, too, and it sunk in a little more that when you build from the weeds up, it’s really all yours.

the floor! smooth concrete with pretty lines on it (not a great picture, mind you)

the floor! smooth concrete with pretty lines on it (not a great picture, mind you)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=646012868789097&l=0d4540635d

<the link has a beautiful picture of Uriel and Lili working on the floor in the dark.>

The other floor, months later, was an even later late-night project. Because our entrance opens to that floor, Conan and Uriel and Nery (bless his heart for coming to help us after he got off work) did it at night so we wouldn’t need to walk on it while it was wet. But by then our good friend Epig (who you may recall from my post about his amazing burgers https://exiletomexico.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/hamburguesas-epic/) had lent us his small generator, so they worked by the light of Thomas Edison’s amazing invention. I went to bed so I could be useful the next day but Lili told me they were up till 4 in the morning finishing it. I made the coffee for them the next morning at 8 so they could start the back-breaking job of hunching over and drawing lines on it.

Once the second floor was in we moved the kitchen to inside the house. It was exciting, but still frustrating because we had to schlepp the dishes from the house to the lavadero (concrete washing tub/board) out in the yard and back up to the house. About a month later I finally got a kitchen sink! Not even my mother-in-law has an inside sink and a fancy faucet like mine! Beyond the convenience of not running dishes back and forth, beyond the convenience of a completely indoors kitchen (not super common around here), it is a bigger convenience because we don’t have to put on Lucia’s shoes and sunblock etc. so we can go outside to wash dishes. I had no idea I would someday appreciate the ability to wash dishes, but here I am.

the now finished kitchen sink!!!!

the now finished kitchen sink!!!!

And more and more happened as the weeks passed. There were lots of boring things that had to happen, like adding a layer of concrete to the walls to make sure they don’t leak in the rainy season, smoothing out the windows so we can put in screens (we have half of the screens in now; the other half is still in the works). Things that before sounded boring became exciting, like putting up curtains. Uriel made us curtain rods and Conan’s Aunt Artemia took me out thriftstore shopping. Some of our curtains are repurposed sheets, but they do the job just fine. And thanks to Nery, we have a big, beautiful bed with mosquito netting to tuck us in at night. Lucia has her own bed, too, and some nights she even sleeps in it. Paulina paid to do the second bathroom, and Uriel put a moon and stars on the ceiling for Lucia. We’ve got mint, oregano, epazote, watermelon, tomato, cantaloupe and chiles. We’ve got more furniture. Our magnets are on the busted refrigerator we use as a giant cooler. A piece my Nonna embroidered hangs on my wall, reminding us to have a good day, everyday. Everyday, the house becomes more ours.

a key holder my Nonna gave my dad and mom long ago

a key holder my Nonna gave my dad and mom long ago

our "fridge" and magnets from my niece kayla and my mom

our “fridge” and magnets from my niece kayla and my mom

a gift from my Aunt Julia, made by my Nonna

a gift from my Aunt Julia, made by my Nonna

our bed, a wedding gift from Nery (Conan's b.f.f.)

our bed, a wedding gift from Nery (Conan’s b.f.f.)

Lucia's bed

Lucia’s bed

the moon and stars in Lucia's bathroom

the moon and stars in Lucia’s bathroom

P04-05-14_08.57[1]

the new bathroom

the new bathroom

 

There are still plenty of other things that we want to do in the future. The porch is still at half mast. The “in-law quarters” downstairs is going to remain an open box for the foreseeable future. Eventually we’ll replace the bathroom curtain with a real door. We can’t do it all now, but what we have now is enough. Now, I am grateful that Conan had the foresight to build us a big budget-busting box, to change our original plans for something bigger and better, for something we can grown into over time. Like the rest of life, our house is a constant work-in-progress, a labor of love.

This time last year, when we first concocted this crazy scheme to build a house, when we were about to lose our minds from living in Juquila, where I am sitting now was a big patch of overgrown weeds and trash and stray-dog poop and uneven dirt. To make this house possible, I went and worked a restaurant job in Kentucky and my parents and stepparents rearranged their lives to take us in and to watch Lucia while I worked. To make this house possible, Conan lived in the tin shack he built, day in and day out, even when it rained for two days and our land flooded, even when there was no running water, even when it was 100 degrees (most of the time), even when he was all by himself making sure the materials weren’t stolen. He had to orchestrate everything: find the albanil, the plumber, the electrician (because someday we will have electricity), buy all of the materials, oversee the work, and a million other details. It’s been anything but easy, but it’s been possible thanks to help from our families.

And all of our sacrifices are part of what makes this house our home. It is what will make this house a legacy for Lucia and any future brothers or sisters she may have. It is what will make great stories for her when she’s in the mood to complain. It is the way to learn that you can’t take kitchen sinks and flush toilets and concrete floors for granted. Most people around here who have their own house have similar stories, only many are even slower than ours. It took Paulina some 20 years to get her house into the shape it’s in now, and she still has her kitchen on the list for the future. Some people are not even able to make slow progress on their houses. Although of course, some people have bigger and better houses than we do, too. But this one is all ours. We dreamt it when you needed a machete just to walk the parameters of the land, when it seemed totally implausible. And in all the moments when it was a struggle just to wake up and put water on for coffee, it was a struggle for our very own house, for the first time ever. Even when I felt disappointed that the house we dreamt of was just a giant empty box, it was our giant empty box.

So we’ll keep on developing our house and our family, day by day, rethinking our expectations, redefining success. We’ll keep learning to appreciate what we have when we have it. We’ll try not to pine too hard for what we don’t have. And we’ll give you the best Kentucky/Mexican hospitality there is whenever you come to visit.

May your home be as marvelously, royally yours as ours is, from the weeds up.

 

our dirt floors (Lili and Lucia pictured)

our dirt floor before laying the concrete (Lili and Lucia pictured)

under construction... our house and the in-law quarters

under construction… our house and the in-law quarters below

Conan's house- the tin shack he lived in for months/ our kitchen for a while

Conan’s house- the tin shack he lived in for months/ our kitchen for a while

our land, getting the weeds out

our land, getting the weeds out

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A Visit From the Dead, Multi-Cultural Style

3 Dec

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Halloween is by far my favorite holiday. Partly for the costumes and the candy, for the creepiness and the revelry, for the possibility of being scared, for low-budget horror films and late night parties.  But I also love it for the idea that it is the night when the veil is thinnest between the worlds of the living and the dead. I love the idea of celebrating our dead loved ones, of believing that our dead do indeed come to visit us. Needless to say, I was a bit conflicted about missing Halloween, even though it meant I would finally get to experience Mexican Day(s) of the Dead.

When I was in college, I did a presentation once (in Spanish) on the Day of the Dead. It seemed even more fascinating and meaningful to me, in some ways, than Halloween.  I remember being a little confused, though, about what exactly went on, since all of my sources said something slightly different.

When I was in Chile, I was totally disappointed by the lack of celebration. I vowed that I would be in Mexico one day for Dia de los Muertos, since I knew people really celebrated there. Now, realizing that almost-forgotten goal, I see that not only do people celebrate differently depending on the country, but that here, even regionally people celebrate very differently. Thus I can only tell you about how people celebrate here in Juquila, and about the new traditions of our little mixed-culture family.

I’d read about people going and celebrating in the cemetery, and was hoping that would be the case here. It wasn’t. There is some visiting the cemetery involved, though. The day before the spirits come, you visit their grave to decorate, light candles, say prayers. It seems like a moment to invite them. .  If your dead are buried elsewhere and you can’t get to them, there’s another place in the cemetery for you to have your space with your dead. And the day after the visit, you do the same thing, but then it’s that gentle shove telling them ‘thanks for the visit; it’s time to go home.’

Here, October 31st is the day of angelitos (little angels), a day for the children and babies who have passed away. This is especially meaningful for me this year. I became a mother shortly after the (separate) deaths of two children whose parents are friends of mine. The deaths of those children (one a newborn and one a ten year old) were really painful for me, and so I can’t even imagine what a nightmare it was and is for their parents.

But somehow it is really comforting for me to imagine that their spirits are able to come and visit for a day. It’s comforting to leave them tiny little dishes of chicken soup with rice, tiny little cups of hot chocolate, little servings of arroz con leche (a sweet dish of rice cooked in milk). You leave candy and fruit and nuts and miniature servings of bread for them, too. Here’s a picture of our altar for the angelitos:

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The idea of inviting their spirits, enticing them with treats, makes a lot of sense to me. The trail of flower petals that goes from just outside the door  and leads to the altar, to help them find their way, fills my heart with an immense sensation of love and a strange kind of joy. Because at the end of the day, death doesn’t make sense to me. The death of children, particularly, feels so horrendous and unjust and cruel. In my mind, in my heart, leaving them these sweet little offerings is a way to, if not make sense of it, at least pay some respect to their life and their death. It is a way to honor them and remember them that I feel like we don’t know how to do in the U.S. It seems to me that we shun death, we don’t want to talk about it. When a family member dies, you are allowed some days of utter sadness, and then you’re supposed to go on with life. Forget about it. This celebration and ritual, on the other hand, seems like a way to not forget the dead but to do something, and not just drown yourself in the sadness of it. It is a way to try to make peace with death, to mix those realms between the living and the dead, to feel like we are not alone, and to maybe give us less fear of death, with the thought that our loved ones won’t forget us, and that at least we can come and visit them, if only for a day.

The day after the angelitos come to visit, you take away the offerings for them in order to put up offerings for your grown-up loved ones who’ve passed. You’ve got till 3pm to change out your offerings- apparently the grown-ups don’t show up till then, although the angelitos arrive at noon the day before. For the adults, mole with chicken is the traditional meal to set out for them. (Mole, pronounced mol-eh is a thick sauce made from hot peppers and tons of other spices- it’s very elaborate and delicious.)You also set out other things they would like- sweet bread, nuts, fruit, etc. You can even set out some tequila or a cigarette or whatever else they might have liked in life. Here’s a picture of the mole.

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On our altar, we put up a large photo of Conan’s maternal grandmother, whom he was extremely close to. Next to her, so they could meet, I put up my favorite photo of my Nonna, my mama’s mama, whom I was very close to. In the photo, she’s young, my age or younger maybe, on top of a mountain in Italy, close to the town she was from. Her face is triumphant- as it should be when you’ve climbed a mountain. She’s wearing this cute outfit with polka dots, a sleeveless shirt and what I’d call short shorts, and she’s looking totally self-assured and content. As you should be when you climb mountains all the time, literally and figuratively.

Besides the photo, I broke all rules and traditions and put up my plate of pasta al buro- pasta with butter, Italian style, just like my Nonna used to make, just like my mom makes, just like I learned to make. As I was lovingly preparing it, I was remembering going to my Nonna’s house, and her having all kinds of different shapes of pasta in her cupboard. She would let me pick out which type we’d eat that day- shells or wheels or tubes or various other kinds.  I remember thinking that the pasta tasted differently depending on what shape it was in (and I still believe this). It was the kind of thing I could tell my Nonna and she would never laugh or say it was silly. She would probably ask me why I thought that, and listen attentively to my answer.

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Making the pasta for her, setting it on the altar, lighting the candle for her (and another for my paternal grandmother), was the first time in a long time I’d let myself really think about her and what a gift she was in my life. It was one of only a couple times since she’s passed (about a year and a half ago) that I’ve let myself just talk to her. It doesn’t matter to me if there’s really an afterlife, if she can really hear me, if her spirit really comes to visit or not; it felt good to commune with her spirit, to just believe, the way you could when you were a kid, to let go for a minute of the hurt and the loss of her death and to feel her legacy as the joy that it is. For that, I am grateful.

So even though I missed seeing the kids trick or treating, even though I didn’t dress up, even though I missed some of my other Halloween traditions, this is definitely a worthy holiday that we will continue to celebrate in this family. And we’ll keep on doing it with bowls of pasta next to the mole, and however else works for us, because we like to break the rules in this family, and we can mix up and remake our own traditions, happily ever after.

Here’s a picture of Lucia and me at a friend’s house, drinking hot chocolate and eating special dead bread (okay, that’s a literal translation of pan de muertos- a more appropriate translation is something like, Day of the Dead bread)

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The bread on our altar here below is from the coast- different regions make different breads, of course. Also pictured are some local foods- chayote (like a form of squash), corn on the cob, and hijos de cuateco (Don’t ask me to translate that. It’s a food that grows wild around here.)

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Fame without Fortune

17 Nov

Before I even arrived in Mexico, Conan’s mom, Paulina, told us about the other gringas living in the region. There were two. I imagined that Paulina had investigated the situation, since her son and granddaughter and I would be moving soon. But when I got down here and continued to hear about these other two famous women, when I realized that everyone knew about the other gringas, I also realized that it wasn’t that Paulina was particularly interested in other women from the U.S. moving here with their partners- it was that people from the U.S. moving to the towns down here is rare. On top of that, towns are small, and gossip is a way of life.

Now that we live here, I am one of the subjects of that gossip. I spent my childhood being a little odd, and my teen years being vaguely shocking, in the context of a small, close-knit city. I thought that I was used to being the subject of gossip. I was not prepared for the extent of it here. I was not prepared to be this famous. But I’m amused by people’s shameless, matter-of-fact-ness about it, the way they’ll tell you more or lessto your face that you’re practically another species (not usually to your face- because if they told you directly then it wouldn’t be like gossip anymore).

Here are a few examples of our fame and glory here in Juquila:

-When we go to events, or sometimes even just to the plaza, everyone turns their head, cranes their neck, and occasionally lets their jaw drop a bit. This makes poor Conan, who’s already naturally shy and doesn’t like to be in the limelight, even more reluctant to go to events.

-Paulina took Lucia with her down the street to the credit union the other day. “How come you’re out with that baby? Is that couple that’s renting a room from you having you take care of their baby?” someone asked her. They either didn’t recognize or didn’t remember Conan as Paulina’s son, which is understandable since Conan has not been here for 10 years. Still, Paulina was amused that they mistook her son and daughter-and-law for renters in her house.

-People told Paulina, “We finally figured out that that gringa is your daughter-in-law, because we saw her in your store the other day. Before that we kept seeing her in town and wondering why she wasn’t leaving.”

– Conan talks about people copying off of each other shamelessly, and how if it were easier to do, they’d be bringing their own gringas home from the states now that he has.  I thought he was joking until Paulina told me that the lady down the street scolded her son, asking him how come Conan came back from the U.S. with a gringa wife and her son didn’t.

-A woman that Paulina doesn’t know came into the store the other day. She said she was looking for a woman who she thought was living there, a woman with a baby, a woman who’s not from around there, a woman who dresses funny, she says. She came because she had seen Lucia and me in town and was dying to hold Lucia.(Lucia cried in her arms.)

-A young woman came into the store the other day when Paulina and I were there together. Paulina was helping her while I was standing there with Lucia. Then the woman starts to talk to Paulina about me. “She’s not from here, is she?” She asks, although it’s really a statement rather than a question. “And look at her haircut- why does she cut her hair like that?” She asks Paulina. “I think it’s because she likes it like that,” Paulina replies, and she and I are giving each other looks because it’s so ridiculous. “She’s even got two little braids on the side.” The woman just keeps on talking about me. I start to feel like I’m on display at the zoo. “OH! And she talks!” she says at one point when I say something to Paulina. Maybe she meant to say “oh, she speaks Spanish,” which many people say to Conan or Paulina while I’m standing there. But what she said was just, “oh, she speaks,” like I’m an animal doing a trick. I thought about growling or howling or making some other animal noises, but decided against adding more fuel to the fire in that moment.

-Many people ask Paulina things like, “What does she eat? Does she eat the same stuff as we do? Does she cook?” And coincidentally, my #1 friend in Juquila has a burger joint, so we decided to have a little fun with that. So now Paulina tells them no, it’s a hard life for me; every day I have to wait till Epig opens his burger place (around 6pm) before I have my first meal, because I only eat the burgers and hot dogs that Epig makes. We based this rumor off of the rumor we heard about one of the other famous gringas (who’s now gone back to the U.S.) who supposedly refused to eat the food in her town, who was making her husband take her to Puerto Escondido (a tourist town about 3 hours away) almost daily for her food.

-On the way home from Puerto after a couple months here, I’m squeezed into the front of the truck with Lucia and other women and children. “Has your baby gotten sick since you’ve been here?” one woman asks. I realize it is obvious that I’m not from here- so it’s reasonable for her to not bother to ask if I’m from here and to move on to another question. But then another woman asks, “So, how do you like living here? Are you getting used to it?” And then I realized- they don’t just know I’m not from here, they also know that I live here. Okay, this is a small town. We’d been here for two months by then. I guess that’s plenty of time for word to get to everyone. But then Conan told me later that those weren’t even women from Juquila; they’re teachers living in other nearby towns. Word has spread that far!

So now I am one of the famous- now there are three of us gringa legends that everyone in the south of Oaxaca knows about. If only we could find a way to profit from our fame, then we’d be in business. We thought about a circus-style display (a la bearded lady) that we’d charge money for, but it’s hard to charge for it when people see us on the street and in the store every day. So let me know if you come up with a better plan.

circus freaks of juquila!

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A Little Dose of Positivity

8 Oct

ImageThis blog could use some positivity, as could I. To take some time to focus on the good things in my new environment. Because some days you might believe- and I might, too- that it’s all difficult and crappy. And it’s just not true. (And yes that rainbow is in our backyard.)

So I made a little list of things that make me feel like sunshine on a cloudy day. Number one on that list is my family here- my daughter, my partner, my awesome mother-in-law. But this is more of a cultural list, stuff that I like specifically about this place, not about the people around me.

Granted, the things that I love are mostly food-related. But I am, after all, that girl that prefers the kitchen above all other places in the house. “The kitchen is the heart of a home” said my friend Luis de Leon, and food is like glue that further binds people into loving friendships and family relationships. So I hope you enjoy my little rainbow list, and I’ll cook something for you if you come to visit!

Please not that my list is not in order of importance.

-Epazote… And you thought cilantro was exciting. Epazote is another fragrant and delicious herb that for some reason I could rarely find in Louisville. I especially recommend it for chilaquiles and for black beans. And while we’re on the subject, yerba santa (especially in black bean tamales) is pretty exquisite as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_auritum -go here for more yerba santa info. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphania_ambrosioides -go here for more epazote info.

-Chepiles… Looks like spinach, tastes like artichokes. Not like vinegar-soaked canned artichoke hearts- like artichoke leaves. If you’ve never had a whole artichoke, you need to immediately go buy one. Boil for 45-60 minutes. Melt some butter and squeeze the juice of a lemon- a real lemon. Add salt to the lemon juice. Take an artichoke leaf, dip the edge in either butter or lemon juice, then scrape off the meaty part, now dripping in butter, with your teeth. Repeat until you get to the heart, which is a seriously orgasmic example of a vegetable. Then you’ll have an idea what chepiles taste like. Here’s a chepiles tamal:

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-Tropical fruit…. including mango, pineapple, coconut, different kinds of banana, and much more are all close by, accessible, and fairly cheap (definitely cheap compared to Kentucky).

-Organic produce is cheaper than commercial pesticide-covered, genetically-modified shit…. Although it’s not labeled or anything, (and there’s no supermarket, either, but this will NOT be a complainy post), the ladies who sit on the ground in the plaza to sell produce are selling the stuff that they grow in their town, which is chemical-free, delicious, local, and cheap.

-The view of the river and the mountains from my window is gorgeous. Look! The picture doesn’t do it justice, but you get the idea.

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-Almost everything is local business…. People put whatever business they feel like in the front part of their house. This is how many families make a living. So while in the cities you might have a supermarket or other big corporations, most businesses there and all businesses in towns are the businesses of the people who live there. I both love and hate the chaos and randomness of it, trying to figure out where to go to buy what we need. You might have to ask around and get sent to several different places before you find what you’re looking for- like a mosquito net we got to put around Lucia’s bed. You might have to go to a place 3 different times before you catch them open, like when we wanted to get a key made. You also might have 10 different places in the plaza that sell practically the same thing, which is just a little ridiculous. But at least it’s local. And in some ways, it’s more convenient- like you can count on there being all kinds of necessities (basic food products like tomato, hot peppers, rice, beans, eggs, etc.) right around the corner- most of the time.

-Loudspeaker announcements… okay I don’t actually love this but it does amuse the hell out of me. The local government has a loudspeaker that they put on top of a car and drive around making important announcements. Unfortunately, to my untrained ear (and Conan’s too), it mostly sounds like the parents on Charlie Brown. I hear something like “wha wha brr wha arrr importante…. Wha wha brr ig colonia 3 de mayo…. Wha wha pa arr 20 de septiembre ” The other day I caught  only the words “papanicolau” (pap smear) and “mamografia” (mammogram). But I have no idea when, where, or for whom. Oh, well.

-The products people sell via drive-by/walk-by…. First of all, there’s a bunch of fantastic street food- tamales, chiles rellenos, breads, sweets, etc.- that passes by our house every day. People walk by selling whatever it is that they’ve made (including fresh tortillas twice a day), which is unbelievably convenient when we need a snack or don’t have time to cook. And then there are the things that get sold via truck- the gas we use for the stove and the hot water heater, the big bottles of drinking water, pizza, mattresses, and more. We woke up our first morning in Mexico to a car driving by announcing “Atole! Atole!” (which is an oatmeal-based drink), and realized we were definitely in Mexico after all. Selling heavy stuff via truck is great because we (and many other folks) don’t have a car to go pick stuff up and bring it back. The downside is you have to be home and paying attention to get those things. The gas truck at least makes a weird moo-like sound, then plays some music, and announces “gas de Oaxaca”.  I refuse to buy pizza because the announcement/song is too irritating. But many things aren’t announced- you just have to watch for them, which is how we missed the water truck that has the water that tastes good for like 3 days in a row.

-Cheap(er) access to medical and dental care. What’s not to love about not stressing out about whether you can afford to go to the doctor or not?

-There’s not a lot of processed food (also a downside occasionally!).

-Breastfeeding wherever, whenever, with no dirty looks, rude comments, or even the bat of an eye…yep. I know, all you breastfeeding moms in the U.S. are jealous now.

-Street-life exists…. The town feels alive. There are always people walking to get places (and horses and cars, too). Big events happen outside, usually in the plaza. Houses are open. The environment is more public, open, not private, shut out.  

-Handmade, fresh tortillas every day…. Yes, I mentioned this in the products people sell via walk-by section. But it’s worth mentioning again. It’s pretty great.

-No lawnmowers- only machetes… First of all, people don’t have stupid lawns like they do in the U.S.  (and not a lot of grass that’s not eaten by cows and such anyway). But when there is excess grass you cut it with a machete. That’s right. No lawnmowers. No leaf-blowers (the bane of my existence/the epitome of US waste and laziness, in my humble opinion). None of that ridiculous noise and poor use of petroleum. And you can even hire someone to cut your grass. We had some insanely overgrown mess all around the back of the house and a guy cut it down for like 15 bucks (US).  I know, you wish you had a machete.

-No tornados…. That’s right, I can finally enjoy a storm in peace. No sirens. No National Weather Service beep beeps giving me panic attacks. It’s just a simple storm.

-Patriotism is reasonable and for a limited time only… Mexican independence is celebrated in September, and the whole month you’ll find flags everywhere, and other signs of patriotism. But then, it’s over. October 1 rolls around and all that blatant national pride disappears from view. Sure, people still love their country. But they’re not all up in your face about it, and they don’t go around insisting to everyone and their mom that they’re country is better than everyone else’s. It’s patriotism I can respect. Fancy that. 

….I’m sure there are other aspects of life here that I appreciate and enjoy that haven’t occurred to me in time for this post, so I’ll keep you updated, and try to keep busting out these little rays of sunshine from time to time. Since we’re almost out of the rainy season, and I’ve been here over two months now, I’m sure sharing the positivity will get easier. Stay tuned! 

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Nevermind the Pharmacists

8 Oct

Part One on Health and Safety: Doctors, Medicines, and Vaccines (oh, my!)
People in the U.S. have strong opinions and culture around health and safety. I hesitate to post this, because even while I feel critical about my new adopted country, I also feel protective of it. I know that my critique could be used as more fodder for the kind of people who are already xenophobic, people who are hateful and/or fearful about Mexico, Mexicans, and/or other immigrants to the U.S. Of course, all I want is to share some anecdotes about our adjustment to this country, and probably those xenophobes are not reading my blog anyway. Nonetheless, other well intentioned folks, potentially some people who I love and who care about me, are liable to be just as appalled, just as worried and upset and condemning about this country- which, after all, is the country where my partner was raised, and the country where we are raising our daughter for now. It’s a country where my heart lives now, and one that I’m not leaving anytime soon.
It is hard to share some of the negative or difficult things about my life here. People sometimes feel bad for me, feel pity, feel dismay, want to save me from it somehow, or just can’t fathom it. But I want to share, so that someday, when I go visit my city again, someday, when potentially we move back, someday, when you and I chat on the phone, the bridge between our experiences won’t feel so vast. So I hope that people can read this, and all the other negative, critical, difficult, or just wildly different things that I post, and keep in mind that this is just where I am. Every place has serious flaws, including and especially the U.S. I am not sharing this so that people will worry, or be shocked, or feel sorry for me. Rather, I want to give you an idea of my landscape, so here goes.
Doctors
My first experience with a doctor here was fantastic, since I didn’t have to leave the bed. Conan called his cousin who’s a doctor, explained my symptoms, and the cousin prescribed an antibiotic for me. Brilliant.
However, the same informality makes me nervous in terms of my baby. When we took Lucia for her first check-up, I diligently took all the paperwork from the hospital and the doctor’s office in Louisville. But the doctor didn’t even start a file for her- not a single note was taken, except by me. He also didn’t do all the same routine stuff like they do in the U.S., although maybe not all of that’s necessary? This doctor is a general practitioner, not a pediatrician, so maybe that’s the difference? I’m not sure that check-ups are the norm, so maybe that’s it? I did find out recently that there is one pediatrician (and one gynecologist!) in this town, so we’re discussing the possibility of going to see him/her for Lucia’s four month check-up.
It’s not like we have an appointment for her check-up. That’s because there are no appointments here. You just go to the doctor when you need to see a doctor. You wait if they’re not available. They have longer working hours, although they also might not be there at all, randomly. This is because most people work out of an office attached to their home. It’s nice for everyone concerned, as far as I can tell. The doctor doesn’t have to be twiddling his/her thumbs in the office if there are no patients- they can be in their house doing whatever they need or want to do there, and just slip in when a patient comes. The patient has more access to the doctor since the doctor’s “office hours” are longer, since the doctor doesn’t have to be there the whole time. The patient decides what time and day to go in. And wait times don’t seem to be longer than in the U.S., where you wait despite having an appointment.
Medicine
Antibiotics and other medications don’t come with 3 pages of warnings and information, either. They come with as little information as possible, it seems. The one bit of information mine had on it said do not use while pregnant or lactating. Even though I heard Conan tell the doctor on the phone that I was breastfeeding. Even though Conan says the doctor says that he’s gonna prescribe me a not-so-strong antibiotic since I’m breastfeeding. Even though Conan says the pharmacy person looked in some textbook to make sure it was okay. So why does my package say it’s not okay?
I’m 3 days into it at this point, and almost decide to panic. I’m also in Oaxaca City, not Juquila, so I can’t just go ask the doctor. I decide to skip my dose for the night and go ask a pharmacist in the morning. So when we pass by a pharmacy the next day, I say, “Hold on. I’m just gonna go ask about the medicine real quick.” There’s a guy that looks like a teenager working behind the counter- I avoid him. Then there’s a woman who looks like she’s at least a little more in charge, and not a teenager (no offense teens, but I’m looking for medical advice).
I approach the woman and explain the situation. “Well,” she says in a school-teacher voice, “that’s right. Antibiotics are bad for babies. It damages them.” I just look at her for a minute. “Really? All antibiotics? So pregnant women and breastfeeding women can’t take any antibiotics?” I ask, catching myself before I raise my voice. “Correct. It’s dangerous.” She affirms. I want to channel my Nonna and ask her where the hell she learned that. I want to tell her that I know that’s not true, that there are different classes of antibiotics and they affect fetuses and babies in varying degrees. I want to tell her it would be insane and more dangerous if pregnant and breastfeeding women couldn’t take any antibiotics ever. I want to scream at her that she’s probably doing more damage to women telling them they can’t take antibiotics. Instead I stare at her again for a minute, controlling myself, and give her my best sarcastic “thank you,” and storm out of the pharmacy.
“How can she be a pharmacist?” I ask Conan irately. “She’s not a pharmacist, Julia. She’s just some woman who works in a pharmacy.” He explains. “Then where is the pharmacist?” There isn’t a pharmacist, he tells me. So imagine, it’s like there’s just the Walgreens clerk there doling out your medicine. Not someone who’s studied medicines. Someone who’s maybe graduated from high school. This is the norm. Fabulous.
Antibiotics also don’t come in the quantity that you need, for some reason. They’re prepackaged, so you might have to buy a couple of packages and then have some leftovers. I didn’t realize this until Conan got an antibiotic. He was prescribed to take it for 7 days but there were only enough pills for 5 days. Then when he went back to get some more they were out of it, so he went back to the doctor and got prescribed a different antibiotic to take for another 5 days. Not particularly efficient, to say the least, but surely there’s some reason for it? I guess so the non-pharmacists can’t mess it up? Any other ideas, anyone?
Vaccines
Before we arrived in Mexico, we researched vaccines fairly extensively. Mexico and the U.S. have pretty much the same vaccines, and more or less the same schedule, which made things a little easier. We had decided, however, to delay the Hepatitis B vaccine (routinely given at birth), and had delayed the rotavirus vaccine, and were discussing skipping it altogether. Then we arrived in Mexico, and were told by a doctor that you can’t opt out of or delay any of them. They’re obligatory- and supposedly more necessary than in the U.S., according to some.
Vaccines are also free, which is great, though it means the demand outweighs supply regularly. They are only given at hospitals and health centers, not at doctor’s offices. When we went to the hospital to get the 2 vaccines Lucia hadn’t had yet, they were out. The rotavirus vaccine can only be given within a certain time frame, and time was almost up. Since it’s slightly unpredictable when a new batch of vaccines would get to Juquila, we needed to get it elsewhere. While I wasn’t that worried about her not getting the rotavirus vaccine, I didn’t want them to make her get it outside of the time frame that’s been studied as the same time frame for the vaccine.
Luckily, Conan’s mom knows somebody- a key factor in any country, as we all know. So she called her nurse friend in the next town over and got the okay for us to go to the community health center there. I, of course, have to pee while we’re there. The bathroom looks relatively clean, but I go to wash my hands and there’s no soap.
Now, this is a situation that happens often, and I could do a whole post on the lack of public restrooms and lack of toilet paper and lack of this and that, thanks to my incredibly small bladder helping to over-inform me about these things. But we’re in a community health center! There’s a sign over the sink that explains how to wash your hands effectively and tells you about the importance of hand washing. And there’s no freaking soap. And while I’d already learned to carry hand sanitizer with me everywhere, the idea of all those sick people and no soap is enough to make me ill on the spot. (I will say that the nurse in the health center washed her hands with soap in the sink right in the exam room before giving Lucia the vaccine, for the record. Thank you, hygiene gods.)
To be continued…..

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